The pyramid’s jet-black surface split open, and monsters that had lurked inside for millennia poured out like water bursting from a dam, all from thousands of years past.
A beast with the head of a crocodile, the torso of a lion, and the hindquarters of a hippopotamus let out a shrill, inhuman roar. Ammut, once a divine beast that judged the dead, had been corrupted by the power of the other dinsion. Its divinity was stripped away until it was nothing but a monster.
Standing over nine ters tall, weighing tons, its armored hide looked tougher than a battering ram. And Ammut was not alone.
Sacred baboons that once devoured spirits, the black bull Mnevis and the white bull Apis, avatars of the gods, now trailed behind with eyes glowing a blood-red hue. Each one stronger than an A-rank monster, each one wielding the primal might of ancient divinity, was now twisted into monstrosity.
“Khahahaha! More rotten at to tear apart!” Urakan bellowed with laughter as he tore the head from a crocodile giant.
His kin, the Tigris, joined the party.
“This is just what we needed!”
“At last, foes worth ripping to pieces!”
“Never a dull mont, following the chieftain around!”
Even against an onslaught of monsters of levels unseen outside the Titan Mountains, the Tigiris tribe did not falter. The most warlike race of the savannah, fad for their ferocity, their warriors raised their fangs and roared with earth-shaking fury.
The warriors of Tigiris roared as Urakan added his own power, unleashing the sa sonic assault he had once shown Leon in their duel.
“Tiger King Style: Tiger’s Roar, Wind Born.”
A shockwave on a massive scale slamd into the charging beasts. Even the Ammuts staggered, unable to shrug off the force.
“Kill them!”
“Smash their heads! They won’t regenerate with their skull bashed in!”
“Tearing out the heart works as well!”
As the charge of the monsters faltered, the Tigiris warriors sprang onto their backs and skulls, driving their weapons down with brutal instinct. They hadn’t planned it, but their instincts knew how to break an enemy’s montum. Born fighters to the core, only the Tigiris could fight like this.
Of course, the others weren’t just watching. The Fenrir, led by Hati and Skoll, surged to the front, with the rest of the beastkin and Bedouin warriors crashing forward in their wake.
“Vermin...!” Nephren-Ka spat.
The tide of battle was not as grim as Leon had feared. However, even after striking true, Nephren-Ka’s presence remained overwhelming. Not even Three Stars in Heaven’s Jar nor Divine Judgnt had been enough to bring him down.
They lacked strength. Or perhaps not strength, but sothing greater.
“What are you doing, my slaves?! Why have you not yet cast these insolent worms into the underworld!”
At Nephren-Ka’s command, the jackal-headed priests began to chant in a tongue that was unknown, yet clear that it was blasphemous and profane.
Once, in life, they had prayed for blessings upon the living and guided the souls of the dead. Now, entombed with their Pharaoh and dragged into the abyss, their very essence had been corrupted.
As El-Cid had warned, the pyramid was also a gate for the dead to return. The ultimate vessel for a necromancer’s art.
“កគងឆងឆ, ខកធដ...”
The words—unintelligible to human ears—summoned shadows from the realm of the dead. Twisted shades that could not hold a shape, Spectres, and Wights, corpses denied their rest, wandering in envy and hatred of the living. Having been dragged back to the mortal world after millennia, they burned with malice.
“How dare you defile the Goddess’s sight with your wicked sorcery!”
Elahan vaulted hundreds of ters in a single bound, crashing her Holy Iron Breaker into the horde of dead. Like a teor strike, dozens of undead were pulverized and hurled away. Bursting through upturned ground, she swung again and again.
Each blow struck with the power of a high-tier spell. Those hit directly by her hamr dissolved into dust, while those grazed were annihilated in the shockwaves.
One woman was a match for a thousand. The jackal-headed priests, shaken by her might, gathered the spirits together to strike back.
“Don’t you dare forget about us! We’re not here just to watch on!” shouted Antonio, leader of the six Holy Iron Inquisitors, as he raised a three-ter cross-shaped spear. “O Goddess who does not forgive evil! Grant this spear Your blessing, and the power to drive back the wicked!”
“Grant us devotion that cannot be broken by injustice!”
“Grant us radiance to banish evil!”
“Grant us holy fla to burn the corrupted!”
Six voices joined into one prayer, channeling their faith. The cross-spear flared with brilliant white light, incandescent with the gathered might of the Holy Iron Inquisitors.
These were the knights who had devoted their lives to destroying evil and saving mankind. The weight of their accumulated deeds was already several tis greater than that of anyone else on their martial level, and naturally, the scale of their Holy Law was imnse.
Then, Antonio released the sin-smashing Holy Law, the Lance of Judgnt.
“ងឆខក?!”
The jackal-priests realized too late what was coming. The thrown spear had already broken the sound barrier. It pierced straight into their ranks like lightning, then exploded, scattering brilliant holy force.
“ខកដដដដដដ!”
With a bone-chilling wail, the priests and their minions were torn apart. They were resilient to physical force but vulnerable to Holy Power. Both exolaw and the undead had the sa weakness. Against Holy Law, they were catastrophically outmatched.
So far, they’re holding on, Leon thought as he cut down an Ammut and shifted his gaze.
His eyes, tempered by Rodrick’s Vision, moved faster and saw wider than any ordinary human. In a few seconds, he grasped the flow of battle and swung his Holy Sword again. Dozens of mummies had rushed him in that split second.
Light burst from the Holy Sword, burning them away, but before he could take a few more steps, fresh hands clutched at his ankles. Sheer numbers would not be overco by brute force.
The longer this drags on, the worse it gets for us. Even if only Nephren-Ka remains, he can keep replenishing his forces, while we have nowhere left to fall back to.
And that was the truth. Monsters spilled endlessly from the pyramid. Even the Tigiris tribe, which seed to dominate the vanguard, was slowly but surely giving ground. Their allies hadn’t yet realized it, carried forward by their stamina, but in an hour the disparity would be unmistakable.
We have to strike Nephren-Ka directly.
El-Cid chid in, his voice light as if Leon had just stated the obvious.
—Well, duh. If he falls, the pyramid disappears, and every undead he summoned vanishes with it. The problem isn’t knowing the target. It’s breaking through this flood and delivering a blow strong enough to drive him out.
If even Three Stars in Heaven’s Jar doesn’t work, then what choice do I have?
—If you don’t have one, make one. Or will you let everyone who ca here, trusting you, be annihilated because there was ‘no way’?
Of course, not...
Gritting his teeth, Leon steeled himself and swung again. Each reflexive strike carved down more foes, but his mind spun only on how to bring Nephren-Ka down.
If you don’t have it, create it. El-Cid had said it so casually, yet the words burned in him.
If I drove the Holy Sword straight into him, it would be fatal. But he’s never going to allow that.
Even incomplete, Nephren-Ka had driven Leon to death’s door in just three days. He was not a bold, straightforward warrior, but a cunning scher.
The only reason he hadn’t fled at the sight of the raid team was out of Pharaoh’s pride and arrogance, convinced of his invincibility. If he ever felt truly threatened, he might vanish in an instant. Considering that, it was unlikely he would ever allow himself to be struck head-on by the Holy Sword.
Our attack power isn’t enough.
His clenched molars scread as he ground them together. The problem was simple: there was no obvious solution. Resolve alone would not conjure new strength out of nothing.
Or... would it?
There was one way, but the thought made Leon give a hollow laugh. Anyone who heard it would think the sa. Attempting to break through the Master’s boundary here, in this desperate battle? It was madness.
However, there was no choice. Neither Varg nor Al Razzaz could do his job in his stead. To destroy a fallen servant of another world like Nephren-Ka at the root, only the Holy Sword—and its wielder—would suffice.
“Elahan!”
The mont Leon raised his voice, Elahan, wreaking havoc like a one-woman army, reacted instantly. She swung her Holy Iron Breaker wide to clear space, then vaulted upward, using only the strength of her legs. She couldn’t fly like Leon, but her leap was enough.
Landing beside him, she looked back and said, “My Hero! Did you call ?”
With no one else listening, she had reverted to “Hero.” Leon didn’t bother to correct her, only nodded.
“Yes. Cover , just for a mont.”
“Understood!”
She didn’t even ask why. Turning straight ahead, she gripped her hamr.
Leon closed his eyes, trusting her completely. If he could, he would have sat down on the spot, but there was no ti.
His consciousness sank inward. The focus empowered by the Stigma of the Purifier, the mind already sharpened beyond mortal limits, drew him deeper.
El-Cid said it—I already have all the qualifications of a Master.
He had honed his body through extre training. His spirit overflowed until it manifested as mind-body. Through El-Cid’s tutelage and the Grand Chariot, he had cultivated technique. Through countless battles, he had amassed karma.
And yet, one step was still missing. To beco a Master without first defeating Nephren-Ka...
I need an enlightennt.
He had to accumulate his own deeds. He needed an insight profound enough to fill the lack, to pierce the Master’s wall here and now.
Leon thought of the things other Masters had shown him, and the things he himself could not yet do.
Al Razzaz and Varg were both Wind Aura Masters. Neither of them moved their Aura at all, and yet they bent the wind to their will.
They wielded limited Aura Blade unlike Leon, but even so, there were lessons to be learned from those who had already reached such heights.
The realm of Aura attributes, the domain of the Origin. The power to bend the laws of nature to one’s will, as though they were part of one’s own body. Then, how should one wield the power of the “sun”?
Unlike the wind, the sun was not nearby, and its scale was overwhelmingly vast. Anyone who had studied astronomy knew this. A celestial body tens or even hundreds of tis greater than the world itself, the cradle of countless divinities—that was the sun.
I must not try to rule it.
Even his mind-body made that clear. Unlike El-Cid, Leon had only two wings. To identify himself with the sun, to believe he could place it beneath his feet was impossible, but at the sa ti, Leon realized sothing.
Icarus Wing. The very essence of the mind-body he had awakened, wings that dared challenge the sun, was to transcend that impossibility.
That’s it...
Aura Attributes were real, but what Masters held within themselves was not the reality itself, but the image of it. To Al Razzaz, the wind was the great storm of the desert. To Varg, the wind was the swirling vortex of Sirius.
And to Leon, what was the sun?
There’s only one answer.
When he first awakened his mind-body, he had seen a fragnt of a soul, shining like a brilliant star.
It’s El-Cid.
The one who had brought him this far, the teacher who showed him a new world and opened the path. And in his inner world, he had seen Rodrick, radiant like the sun itself.
His teacher was a being so powerful, so noble, so overflowing with confidence and strength that he could not be mistaken for a re human. A fla of spirit so bright that it would not have been strange had he been born a god.
To soar toward that radiance—that was Leon’s true nature.
And Rodrick, El-Cid, still existed within his heart. Even if he said nothing more, even if he gave no further guidance, Leon’s path had already been carved deep into his soul.
The power he had to grasp as a Master was nothing but—
To chase the sun!
To reproduce the majesty of Holy King Rodrick, which he had seen and felt ti and again. Leon opened his eyes wide, gazing into his own origin. And at that mont, light poured forth, incinerating the undead in its path.
It was not Aura. It was light overflowing naturally from his body—the afterglow of the “sun,” streaming from his very eyes.
“This is...”
Even Leon himself was startled, lowering his gaze. Elahan, who turned to look, gaped in shock, and it was only natural.
Golden radiance was surging from Leon. Like the sun high in the sky, it cast its gaze over the earth. Not just from his eyes, but from his entire body spilled light that burned away all evil.
At the heart of that radiance was his heart, the organ that poured forth life itself, the wheel second only to the brain in sustaining human existence.
—Crude, maybe, but not bad for a first attempt.
El-Cid appraised his student’s transformation. Leon had embodied the “sun” within himself as an image, and gained impossible output as a result.
—Don’t just gape—get started, my disciple.
Far off, Nephren-Ka flailed his staff in fury. He had recognized the arrival of his nesis: the detested sun. Its incarnation had descended to earth.
Leon felt it too. Though he had embodied it only for a mont, the essence was the sa. The ancient divinity long since gone whispered through him: Do not forgive Nephren-Ka, cursed by inversion.
“Elahan,” he called to his Saintess.
“Eh? Ah—yes!”
“Co. I need your strength.”
“Yes, Hero Leon!”
Smiling like a flower at his call, Elahan followed behind as Leon soared upward. Sohow, the distance between them and Nephren-Ka was already only a few kiloters.
A distance they could cross in the blink of an eye.
The roar of the Black Pharaoh, twisted with hatred and fear, echoed.
“Youuuuuuuu...!”
Leon spread his two wings, brushing it aside with calm indifference.
“We’re going.”
It was ti to bring this endless night to an end.
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