Volume 5, Chapter 52 – The Finale

“Waaaaaaah!”

Not far from the battlefield, a very energetic voice echoed through the sky.

—Clinging tightly to the wyvern’s neck with both hands, Mary screamed like a child on a roller coaster. Camilla was supposed to be riding with her, but due to her fear of heights, she had stubbornly refused.

As for why they were doing something so out of place on a tense battlefield, there were only two reasons. The official reason given to Camilla and Mary was, of course, to experience the feeling of riding a wyvern. In reality, it was because she didn’t want Camilla and Mary to engage in combat against people.

Of course, it wasn’t that combat against people was bad. Humans were often more dangerous than monsters, and training in interpersonal combat was very important. But the premise was that it depended on who the opponent was. Although Camilla had been raised as an assassin from a young age and was accustomed to killing, and Mary, having been a slave, had often seen the deaths of slaves and the poor, now that Yisi had become their guardian, she would naturally not let them experience such cruel things again.

Both Camilla’s and Mary’s strength had already far surpassed that of normal people. If they were let down to fight the rebel army, it would surely be a one-sided slaughter until their stamina and magic ran out. Perhaps the two of them wouldn’t think there was anything wrong with it, but in her eyes, it was better for their hands not to be stained with blood if they could help it, especially little Mary’s.

Withdrawing her gaze from Mary, who was clinging to the wyvern with her eyes shut tight, Yisi looked at Camilla beside her.

“Are you sure you don’t want to give it a try, Camilla? It might cure your fear of heights, you know?”

“N-No, thank you, Onee-sama… Compared to the wyvern, how do you know that Her Majesty will definitely win? To be honest, I don’t think the royal family can win this rebellion. Originally, they could rely on the city walls to make up for their numerical disadvantage, but now that a gap has been breached, the Royal Capital will fall completely in two days at most.”

“Well…” Yisi’s gaze shifted to the side, then she winked playfully at Camilla. “That’s a secret.”

It wouldn’t be a surprise if she said it beforehand.

“Yisi, over there.”

Emerging from under Yisi’s clothes in her slime form, Tiffany gradually transformed into her human appearance and pointed to the airspace where Mary was flying not far away—a squadron of ten wyvern riders was surrounding Mary from both the left and right. Although Yisi couldn’t see their expressions because they were wearing helmets, from their subtle movements, they were probably astonished and bewildered.

It was quite a difficult feat to mount a wyvern, not to mention that Mary was not controlling its direction at all, but was just letting it fly her around. Plus, this wyvern had the insignia of the Norta Empire on it. In the eyes of these formally trained Norta Empire wyvern riders, Mary’s existence was so strange that it left them at a loss for words.

It was time to bring Mary back.

Letting out a whistle, the wyvern carrying Mary, like a dog hearing its master’s call, immediately turned and flew toward Yisi. This was a new skill Yisi had recently discovered. Originally, she had intended to learn from Edith how to use her pureblood lineage to intimidate monsters, but she had found that her own intimidating power over monsters far surpassed that of an ordinary pureblood. This further verified Edith’s suspicion that Yisi might be something more than just a pureblood.

“Mary, Tiffany, stop them.”

Raising the staff she had already prepared, Camilla aimed it straight at the ten wyvern riders. They were clearly planning to bypass the main battlefield and launch a sneak attack.

“Here I go~!”

Although she said that, Mary was a little unsteady on her feet, having just gotten off the wyvern.

There’s no way she can fight like this…

Covering her face, Yisi placed her hand on Camilla’s shoulder.

“…Let me handle this.”

◇

On the other side, Andrea and Augustin had already moved their fight from the sky to the top of the city wall.

Andrea’s staff, which flowed with a black liquid, swallowed the jet-black orb fired by Augustin. She frowned.

“So you’ve been hiding your strength all this time, Augustin.”

“It was necessary.”

Wiping away the sweat that was trickling down his face, Augustin distanced himself from Andrea. Even though his level was ten higher than hers, and he had Sandra assisting him, the battle was exceptionally difficult because Andrea had the endless support of the Alvier Tower’s magic.

“You can’t win against me, Augustin. Stand—”

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Before she could finish, Andrea suddenly turned and swung her staff behind her. With a sharp screech of metal, her arm sank heavily.

“That’s why I said this precognitive ability is so troublesome… The Alexia Towers are just broken.”

Withdrawing her short dagger, Sandra once again used teleportation magic to distance herself from Andrea.

“Your Majesty, please allow us to assist you!”

Shouting loudly, several Blood Clan soldiers who had rushed over from the top of the wall stood in front of Andrea.

“You go and assist Boris! Don’t come over here!”

She was only using the Alvier Tower as a mana battery, not actually using it to fight Augustin—otherwise, the entire city wall would be blown to bits. And it was precisely because he knew this that Augustin had deliberately lured her from the sky onto the city wall. When they were really fighting, she was on the defensive and had no time to support these few soldiers.

“All who stand in my way must die!”

The crazed aura surrounding Augustin made the several soldiers freeze. And in that instant of hesitation, Augustin bent down and disappeared from Andrea’s sight with a speed far greater than before.

An unprecedented panic rose in her heart.

This is bad.

“Get out of the way!”

It was too late to warn them.

“Ugh!”

“Gah!”

Their armor was as fragile as paper, offering no protection at all. Augustin, with a blue blade of light attached to his staff, easily cut through the soldiers’ bodies.

The five soldiers instantly fell to the ground. As if savoring the thrill of the slaughter, Augustin crushed a soldier’s head in front of Andrea and licked the blood that flowed down his staff.

“So this is the power of the gods… how intoxicating…”

Something was different from before.

As anger rushed to her head, Andrea clearly recognized this. As if he had ingested a forbidden drug, or as if he had offered his soul to a demon, the aura emanating from Augustin was completely different from before. If the previous Augustin was a mad dog, then the current one was a monster that had crawled out of the abyss.

As if in response to Andrea’s suspicion, Augustin looked up, revealing the gray eyeballs hidden under his blue hair—there were no pupils. His slender body gradually swelled, and in a very short time, he had transformed into a burly existence like a beastman warrior.

“Augustin, what have you done?”

“I don’t remember giving you anything like that!”

Not only Andrea, but even Sandra was shocked.

However, Augustin just looked at his own hands, a satisfied smile on his hideous face. “Wonderful! This is the power of the gods! Those people didn’t deceive me. Alvier, oh no, Andrea, I’ll drive that inferior product occupying your body out right now. Just wait for me.”

“Stop, Augustin, you’ve violated our agreem—urgh.”

Grabbing Sandra’s throat, Augustin narrowed his eyes. He lifted her up with just one hand. Even as Sandra thrashed her limbs, he showed no sign of letting go.

“I don’t need anyone else interfering between me and Andrea.”

“This power… is not something you can control…”

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Before Sandra could finish, Augustin threw her from the city wall like a sandbag.

“Now it’s your turn, Andrea.”

An invisible black aura rushed toward Andrea. She subconsciously took a half-step back, but the courage bestowed by the Alvier Tower soon made her stand tall again.

“To kill my loyal subordinates in front of me, Augustin, even you I cannot tolerate. The Augustin Riel I knew is dead.”

It was less for Augustin’s ears and more a subconscious suggestion to herself. Andrea began to chant a spell.

“Pierce the heavens—”

“Have you forgotten that I was your magic tutor!”

As Andrea was chanting, Augustin pushed off with his feet, lowered his body, and closed the distance like an arrow loosed from a bow. Then, with a momentum that seemed to want to slice open her abdomen, he swung his staff upward.

With a [Magic Blade] attached to his weapon, Augustin’s staff was sharper than a longsword. And because the distance between them was extremely close, and the top of the wall was narrow with no room to dodge, melee combat had a far greater advantage than magic. It was precisely because he knew this that Augustin had completely abandoned the use of magic.

Subconsciously, Andrea blocked with her jet-black staff, but the difference in their strength was too great. Her staff was directly knocked away.

A slash across her abdomen.

The expected gush of blood did not appear. Andrea merely lost her balance and staggered back several steps.

—The protection of the Alvier Tower.

Just as the attack was about to hit her, the tower had formed a magic shield on her body.

However, the shield only prevented a superficial wound. The impact from the blow still made Andrea let out a muffled grunt. The pain, as if all her internal organs had been displaced, made her features twist together.

“Ugh…”

“Let me end your pain, Alvier!”

With a crazed grin, Augustin leaped up, his staff aimed straight at Andrea’s head. Realizing she couldn’t possibly withstand him in terms of strength, Andrea began to retreat, but this movement further aggravated her previous pain, and her body uncontrollably slowed for a beat.

A fatal weakness.

The staff was less than a meter from the top of her head. Andrea could even hear the footsteps of death approaching. Even with the protection of the Alvier Tower, she couldn’t possibly escape this blow unscathed. The best outcome would be severe brain trauma.

Her eyes closed subconsciously.

However.

The expected, consciousness-stealing, excruciating pain was long in coming. Andrea opened her eyes.

The swollen Augustin was frozen in front of her, still maintaining the posture of raising his staff high. At the position of his heart, the tip of a crimson spear was emitting a dazzling stream of light.

Schlick.

The sound of the spear being pulled from flesh. Immediately after, with Augustin’s powerless collapse, Edith, her black formal dress soaked in blood, appeared before Andrea’s eyes. Edith flicked her Gungnir, the tip of the spear pointing diagonally at the ground as she surveyed the surrounding battlefield.

“Before accepting your fate, how about you try asking those around you for help, Your Majesty?”

A cold and beautiful, cruel and stunning figure. If her heart didn’t already belong to someone, she might have started to worship such a person.

Snapping out of the crisis, Andrea felt her heart beating at an incredible speed. Her body went weak uncontrollably, and she could only support herself with her staff to keep from collapsing on the ground. The burden on her body was much greater than she had imagined. In the future, not only magic lessons, but physical training could not be neglected.

Andrea gasped for breath.

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“Th… thank you.”

“A… Alvier… I…”

“Not dead yet?” Frowning, Edith turned and stood between Andrea and Augustin. The latter, even with a spear through his heart, was still struggling to get up from the ground.

What was different from before was that his gentle face was now covered in something like black blood vessels. If one looked closely, one could see that they were not blood vessels, but pulsating patterns, as if they were alive.

“A Fallen?”

“Impossible… Augustin would never be a Fallen. Everyone who serves in the Royal Castle undergoes a strict screening process, and he was no exception.”

“But only a Fallen can explain the current Augustin—no, he no longer belongs to the category of normal living beings. Your Majesty, may I borrow your power?”

“Power?”

“Blood.”

Mucosal contact between a pureblood and a royal would instantly turn the pureblood into a royal’s thrall. Therefore, Andrea had to voluntarily let her blood, and then Edith had to drink the blood that had already left her body to avoid the effect.

“Ah, I’ll leave it to you.”

Forcing down her fear, Andrea cut her skin, and Edith drank without a second thought. The taste is slightly inferior to Yisi’s, but not bad. If she weren’t the Queen, she would be a good choice for a pet.

“Alvier… Alvier!”

His pronunciation had already deviated from the normal Hyurent language. Compared to a member of the Blood Clan, Augustin was more like a wild beast.

His eyes red, he pounced at Edith and Andrea.

“A fool who relies on the power of drugs.”

“Get out of the way!”

Facing Edith’s thrust toward his throat, Augustin simply parried Gungnir with his arm. What was terrifying was that he had not completely lost his reason. His right hand, which held immense power, gripped Gungnir, preventing Edith from escaping. At the same time, his left foot, with a speed that was almost impossible to follow, kicked fiercely at Edith’s waist.

“Danger!”

Thump.

The expected pain, enough to displace her organs, did not come. Edith tilted her head.

It was Yisi.

“Tch, if you were nearby, you should have come sooner.”

“It’s not like I deliberately chose this moment. Leave Augustin to me. He’s not someone you can handle right now, Pepe.” To convince her, Yisi deliberately added, “I don’t know what method he used, but this guy is already over Level 50.”

“Just remember not to kill him.”

“I’m not you, Pepe.”

Setting aside the fact that Augustin’s strange appearance was worth studying, the person who should deal with him in the first place was Andrea, not her.

“Yisi Fred Alvier! It’s all because of you… because of you! That my plan was not approved by Alvier! You are the one who led my Alvier astray!”

Letting out a beast-like roar, the ferocious aura from Augustin’s body made one instinctively feel fear.

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Ignoring his overhead punch, Yisi narrowed her eyes. “You haven’t completely lost your reason yet. That’s a great help.”

[Blink].

She instantly appeared behind Augustin, then reached out and grabbed the nape of his neck.

[Wings of Hermes].

Using the air as a fulcrum, she lifted the struggling Augustin.

“If I hadn’t arrived in time, that blow would have severely injured you, Pepe.” Yisi glanced at Augustin’s waist. Although she really wanted to return the kick, she might kill him if she didn’t control it well. As if the thing in her hand were just a small animal, Yisi forced Augustin to face the battlefield. “Take a good look at what you’ve done. You have already failed.”

While Andrea and Augustin were fighting, the hundred thousand undead who had pledged their loyalty to Andrea had already surrounded the rebel army from both flanks. Although these undead were physically fragile and their equipment was mostly rotten and rusty, as undead, they could quickly recover even if their bodies were torn to pieces.

Their heads could be cut off, but their bodies could still move. If their arms were lost, they just needed to pick them up and reattach them to return to the battle. In the eyes of the rebel soldiers, the terror of the undead’s inability to die far surpassed their own combat strength. Many of them had already lost the will to fight after their first glance at the undead.

The only things that could purify the undead were holy and light magic, and the Blood Clan did not possess such abilities.

Visibly, the rebel battle line was collapsing at an unstoppable rate. From a distance, it looked like a white sword plunging into the heart of the enemy army.

Less than a minute later, about three kilometers behind the rebel army, another army appeared in their field of vision. Yisi’s pupils shrank for a moment, then her gaze shifted to Edith.

That army was flying the flag of the Pescia family.

“That is…?”

Edith shrugged.

“After I knew the Queen had no intention of attacking the rebels, I had my Father speed up and attack from the rear. Didn’t you see me using a messenger bird to send a message earlier? I thought you had already guessed I was acting in secret.”

Augustin began to tremble, his burly body gradually shrinking.

“…Impossible… Where did these undead soldiers come from! How could the royal family possibly have such an army!”

“You forgot about the Lost Lands. There are the traitors who were cursed by Alvier VI. In order to find peace and reclaim their former glory, they have returned to the battlefield under Andrea’s promise.

At this point, even if you have soldiers stationed in the Vladimir Territory, they have already been defeated by the Pescia family’s army. It is impossible for the rebel army to regain their momentum. Even if you have the Empire’s help, you should know that it’s not a problem for these undead to hold out until winter. Now that Andrea is determined to be the king, as long as the royal family is given the entire winter to recuperate, the rebel army is destined to be crushed.”

The Blood Clan of Hyurent was infinitely close to a theocratic state. From the nationwide festival, the Festival of Original Sin, one could see what kind of status the royal family held in the eyes of ordinary people. Even if the vampires had their own gods, the radiance of the royal family had long since overshadowed them.

“If you are truly thinking of Andrea, then have your men surrender immediately and minimize the casualties as much as possible.”

“Augustin, stop. I am no longer the indecisive Alvier VII of the past. I no longer need to be protected from everything.”

“…”

Silence.

Augustin glanced at Andrea’s sorrowful face, gritted his teeth, and couldn’t say a word. Just as Yisi had said, failure was imminent. He was powerless to turn the tide. But even so, he could not approve of the current Andrea.

An indescribable choice was being made every second.

The undead army had completely surrounded the rebel army, who were dropping their weapons one by one and choosing to surrender.

After an unknown amount of time, Augustin finally let out an unwilling whisper that seemed to be squeezed from between his teeth.

“I… have failed.”