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Chapter 192
Before entering the rift exploration, Farrell followed Melissa to come meet me.
“Brother, we’re heading out now.”
“Alright, stay safe. If it gets too dangerous, fall back. It’s not like something bad will happen just because you can’t clear it immediately. You’ve got the face of someone who’d die a meaningless death, so be extra careful.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He chuckled while checking his staff.
Perhaps because he understood that it wasn’t just a baseless curse, he didn’t show any signs of irritation.
Though my words were a bit harsh, he grasped the true intent behind them quickly.
“Melissa.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t forget. It was me and Luna who kept knocking you down before.”
In other words, unless she was up against outliers like us, she wouldn’t have been overwhelmed like that.
“Got it.”
“This is a test, in a way. If you can’t handle this, I’ll forbid you from any outside activity until you at least become a Sword Master—for your own safety.”
Even if she’s the one giving orders, this was a decision made not between a head and a subordinate, but between an older brother and his younger sister.
After all, her life is what matters most to me.
Trusting someone and leaving them neglected are not the same.
Having experienced death hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of times, I know it’s a kind of pain that can never be accepted lightly.
“You know why I’m saying all this… don’t you?”
“I do. Don’t worry—I’ll come back from this proudly. Just take care of things out here.”
Melissa took a deep breath and returned to her position.
After checking her equipment, she entered the rift along with Farrell, Rinne Lobel, Ospa Decon, and Gale Travan—four in total.
If anything goes wrong, the Death Knight hidden in the shadows will intervene.
And if that’s not enough, I’ll resonate my position with the Death Knight and go in myself.
After all, this rift isn’t a sealed one.
Watching the expedition enter the rift, I hid my presence, leaving only a few knights to guard the entrance.
The others, unaware of the coming situation, showed no signs of tension.
On the Bata side, there were only a few servants and some knights dispatched from the royal court—hardly any real fighting power.
With just them around, the enemy would likely lower their guard too.
“I’ll scout the area for a bit. Please keep a close watch.”
“Understood, my lord.”
Luna, thinking along the same lines, completely erased her presence as well.
I hadn’t informed Hwa Ryeong of Bata’s conclusions yet, but that didn’t really matter.
We only needed to distinguish friend from foe on our end.
About 30 minutes after Melissa and the others began their exploration, I spotted a large number of Coral's expert-level knights approaching—among them was Sword Master Bachen.
Their formation split into two directions.
One group was to activate the rift’s penalty and eliminate those who try to flee, injured.
The other group was meant to ambush Bata’s side after detecting abnormal activity within the rift.
Since Luna was over there, I’d handle this side.
Even though my body entering the dungeon wouldn’t be an issue, to prevent any interference with those already inside, I needed to block these guys from entering the rift entirely.
There were about 30 of them.
[One Sword Master, many Expert-level opponents, and overall very capable combat power.]
“They’re really going all out.”
Most of their forces had likely been sent to the main camp.
Among those heading this way were Gordon Roswell and Karim Selvon—both had been utterly crushed by Melissa before.
However, Hwa Ryeong and Cheon Ryeong weren’t among them.
They must’ve gone in the other direction.
If war was inevitable, then taking out a chunk of their strength in advance wasn’t a bad idea.
Suppressing my presence completely, I took a short breath and activated the necromantic mana within me.
It wasn’t burdensome at first, but as I began absorbing the memories of each sanctuary, the strain on my body had grown intense.
The recent delays in memory recovery were probably due to this as well.
My body was undergoing some sort of rapid change, a phenomenon that could be called “adaptation,” evolving in real-time.
But now, the speed was too fast.
It hasn’t even been a full year since I woke up.
Considering that, this rapid evolution wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
The shadow beneath my feet rippled.
“Baril, start warming up your breath.”
—Grumble...
My most recently created undead, the Shadow Dragon Baril, began to stir within the shadows, its immense presence rising.
It’s better to flip the table just as they start feeling confident that their plan is working.
While keeping my presence hidden, I cast spells to distort the surrounding light and apply perception-blocking magic.
One person is enough to activate the penalty, but the fact that so many came must mean they’re covering all possible contingencies.
They believe Luna and I joined the expedition.
Which, of course, is what we wanted them to believe.
Eventually, even the knights guarding the rift started to sense something was wrong and quietly drew their swords—but before they could act, the enemy forces already had their bows aimed from all directions.
“Coral!!”
The knights’ faces were filled with shock.
If it were just archers, the expert-level knights could handle them.
But with numerous expert-level knights wielding aura-blazing swords escorting the archers, a reckless charge would be suicide.
Some of the archers themselves were even at the expert level.
They wouldn’t be easy to suppress.
Leading them were two talented youths dispatched from Coral—Gordon Roswell and Karim Selvon.
They weren’t yet at the intermediate level, but based on their achievements, they could reach it at any moment.
“Looks like they’ve all gone in. Stupid and pathetic lot.”
“What are you doing here?”
One of the knights asked coldly, and Gordon tilted his head.
At his signal, an arrow flew toward one of Bata’s knights.
Clang!
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As expected from a royal knight—they easily deflected an arrow that wasn’t even infused with aura.
“Why am I here? Isn’t it obvious? We need what’s inside the rift. There’s too much to lose to just walk away, so I’m sure you’ll understand.”
“Do you really think you can avoid a formal protest from Bata after this?”
“What does it matter? Once this is over, Coral is going to launch a full-scale assault anyway.”
At those words, all color drained from the knights’ faces.
You can’t negotiate with someone already fully committed to war.
From a power standpoint, we’re already overwhelmingly outmatched.
Moreover, we couldn't expect much support from the camp with the tents, either.
And right now, Bata officially has only one Sword Master—Duke Berli—making it difficult to deploy him recklessly.
For now, it seems the enemy has no visible Sword Master.
But it’s hard to believe that Sword Master Bachen has truly left.
It's more likely he's moving separately.
In other words, this situation has been favorable to them from the very beginning.
“I advise you to surrender. Don’t resist pointlessly. Drop your weapons and flee. If you do that, we won’t bother chasing you.”
At this point, international perception or whatever—it didn’t matter.
They had made up their minds to push through no matter what.
Well, unlike the world of my past life, this kind of thing happens fairly often here.
I was careless.
Even though the Lazarus continent boasts relatively strong inter-state trust and surprisingly high regard for human rights, situations like this can still happen.
“I refuse. We are knights sworn to the royal family. We would rather die than sell out our country’s future to Coral, you brat.”
Despite those words, the knights’ hardened expressions didn’t ease.
They called him a brat and young, but his skill was no less than the knights who had been guarding the entrance.
Hearing that, Gordon Roswell smirked.
“Fine. Then we have no choice. Everyone, load your weapons!!”
At his command, the archers simultaneously pulled their bowstrings taut.
And as soon as Gordon’s hand dropped, a volley of arrows shot toward them.
Not just ordinary arrows, but ones imbued with aura.
If they were just regular arrows, maybe it wouldn’t matter... but with those, even Expert-level warriors would struggle to block them.
“D-Damn it!!”
“Block them!!”
Those who hurriedly raised their shields rushed to the front to defend, but they were utterly outnumbered and overwhelmed.
If nothing was done, the knights’ fate was obvious.
Of course, wasn’t that exactly why I was standing here—to block this situation from happening in the first place?
I took a moment to steady my breath and lightly flicked my body.
Then, the presence that had vanished suddenly reappeared, and the perception-blocking magic was released.
Levitating calmly, my gaze locked precisely on the ground between the knights of Bata and Coral.
As I reached a certain height in the air, I flipped like an acrobat and dove headfirst.
Tak!!!
The moment I landed, their arrows came flying toward me.
To be precise, the arrows had been aimed at Bata’s knights—but now they were flying toward me.
They carried tremendous speed, yet to me, they felt incredibly slow.
If I missed even one of those, there would be casualties.
And that would completely miss the point.
Aura swirled rapidly from my hands, emitting a deafening roar like something spinning at ultra-high speed.
It grew in power, enough to destroy anything it touched.
[–Radiance]
Paaang!!!
But when the massive energy gathered in my palm touched the ground, the sound wasn’t one of destruction, but more like a ripple—like a drop of water falling on a calm surface.
Crack!!!
Still, that doesn’t mean the aftermath of the move was weak.
Dozens of arrows were instantly dragged down, sucked into the massive force clinging to the earth.
And that wasn’t all.
The surrounding space distorted, causing a gravitational anomaly.
It wasn’t just a matter of intensified gravity.
It was more like an imitation—an effect reproduced through aura manipulation and transformation.
Since I hadn’t yet reached the level of Stellar Awakening, this was the limit of what I could do for now.
Still, it was more than enough for the moment.
“What the—?!”
“When did he—!”
The archers were visibly shocked to see all their arrows crushed and vanished, and to see me suddenly appear as if I’d teleported.
Among them, Gordon, standing in the center, widened his eyes and shouted,
“Y-You!!”
“Nice to see you again. But this time, it’s not just a sparring match. So I don’t have any reason to let you go.”
As I smiled, anger welled up in his eyes.
“You—you were supposed to be inside the Rift!”
“That Rift could be handled by Melissa and the other four. And you think I’d just walk in there with no backup plan, knowing you were plotting this in the background?”
I had known about their plans from the beginning.
Hearing me say that, Gordon couldn’t hide his fury.
Then, Karim Selvon, who had been silently watching, smoothly drew a dagger and stepped forward.
He made no effort to conceal his chilling killing intent.
“I already owe you siblings a bit of a debt.”
“Melissa’s busy, so bring your business to me instead.”
“I told you before—you’re already as good as dead.”
“Karim!! Wait—!”
Gordon tried to stop him, but Karim tapped his feet lightly—and disappeared in an instant.
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