The Emperor Has Returned

Chapter 65 – The God of Death (1)

The knights of the Order of Huginn seemed to be perplexed upon running into Kamil unexpectedly. However, they soon drew their swords in response to Kamil’s obvious hostility toward them.

Meanwhile, Sina quickly grabbed Kamil who was growling and ready to charge at the Order of Huginn.

“Kamil, please wait. Now is not the time for us to be fighting,” Sina said.

“Sina. Are you seriously saying that after you’ve seen everything that has happened?! This situation clearly has something to do with those bastards. Their capabilities to summon the undead, and the god of death also has to do with…”

“Then there would be no reason for them to be running away like this. Didn’t you hear what the refugees told us? They said the Order of Huginn helped them. Most of all, I hope you didn’t forget that it was the Order of the White Crow that tried to kill the people of Hiveden before any of this happened.”

Kamil couldn’t stop looking at the knights from the Order of Huginn with a suspicious look even after hearing Sina’s words. Then, Kamil noticed a few of the Templars that were limping as they were escorted by the knights from the Order of Huginn. They were severely injured, but Kamil was certain they were Templars from the Order of the White Crow. The Templars smiled pleasantly upon seeing Kamil.

“Deputy Kamil! It’s good to see that you are safe.”

“What… happened to everyone? Did the Order of Huginn help you?”

“It’s a bit complicated, but yes they did. Being surrounded by zombies and skeletons, we were grateful to even run into our enemies.”

Kamil had no choice but to begrudgingly lower her sword, and the Order of Huginn also put their guards down slowly. When the hostility disappeared from both sides, one of the knights from the Order of Huginn approached Sina.

“It’s very unfortunate that we met in such a situation, but I think both sides can agree that now is not the time for us to be fighting each other. If you don’t mind me asking, your name is…”

“Sina. My name is Sina Solvane.”

Kamil scoffed and refused to respond. Instead, Sina opened her mouth again.

“This is Kamil Kastorea, the Deputy of the Order of the White Crow. And you were…?”

The knight from the Order of Huginn appeared surprised to hear that Kamil was the Deputy of the Order of the White Crow, but at the same time seemed relieved for some reason.

“My name is Opert. To be precise, I am more of an assistant of the Order of Huginn rather than a knight. Over here, is the Deputy of the Order of Huginn, Anna…no, Anya. She is temporarily in charge of the knight order at the moment, but she’s not in a good condition right now.”

In the direction where Opert had pointed was a woman blankly staring at the ground with dead eyes. Kamil’s eyes narrowed again, as Anya’s name was well known within the Order of the White Crow.

“It wouldn’t be so strange for us to draw our swords and fight at any moment, but let’s put our differences aside for now since this is an emergency and both of our captains aren’t here. I don’t think our interests are too much different from each other. Wouldn’t it make more sense to think of the ways to overcome and deal with this situation first?”

“...Fair enough,” Kamil said.

Although Kamil agreed with what Opert had said, she couldn’t fully believe him. She highly doubted that the Order of Huginn had nothing to do with the undead spread throughout the entire city.

Opert seemed to have noticed her suspicions and tried to reassure her.

“Yes, I agree that your suspicions are fair and valid. And I’m not gonna say that you are completely wrong. However, I want to let you know that this situation was neither expected nor intentional by any means.”

“Then I suppose we can’t expect you to provide us with a solution.”

Kamil looked at Opert with contempt.

At the same time, Opert smiled bitterly and shook his head at Kamil’s gaze.

“Our knight order is trying our best to figure out a way to take care of this situation. In fact, the strongest of our members are fighting to solve the problem right now. They will kill Nigrato, the god of death before he fully reaches his complete form.”

Opert turned his head to look at the swollen darkness.

Sina’s gaze also headed to the spot where the flame had soared from earlier. However, nothing could be seen from there anymore—only darkness remained.

***

Nigrato tightly held Juan with his huge hands as he squeezed Juan’s body. However, he got confused as there was no blood or flesh leaking out of his hand like he had anticipated. When he looked at his hands, he noticed Juan holding his fingers and forcibly prying them open them with red eyes.

Juan faintly smiled as his eyes met Nigrato’s.

“Nigrato.”

At that moment, fire soared from within Nigrato’s palms. Nigrato raised his hands just as they burnt into white ashes in an instant, and took a step back.

Shortly after, skeletons appeared from the darkness with a rattling sound. The skeletons that appeared clung to the spot where Nigrato’s hands used to be, and became his new hands.

『Don’t you dare imitate His Majesty’s power! You are nothing but a filthy heretic!』

Nigrato shouted as if he was genuinely angry.

Meanwhile, Juan didn’t even feel the need to respond to him. Nigrato was the one who played around with the personas of many of the sacrifices made to him, including Ethan and Ras. He seemed complicated, but his essence was rather simple.

Nigrato was a god. With just that fact alone, Juan calmed down and his gaze became cold. All the emotions and doubts that he had prior to facing Nigato quickly subsided, leaving only one thing behind—a raging murderous intent.

Nothing more or less, only the burning murderous intent was left inside Juan. Juan burned Talter’s blood and charged wildly at Nigrato.

Nigrato swung his newly formed arm at Juan, but due to his big size, his movement was slow.

Juan stabbed Talter’s short sword into Nigrato’s arm joint, and twisted his sword to crush Nigaro’s bones. A pile of skeletons fell to the ground and shattered like pottery. However, new skeletons soared to his injury before his amputated arm even touched the ground. Dozens of new skeletons clung to the spot where Nigrato’s arm used to be, and created a much larger and deformed body.

『How dare you put your sword near His Majesty's spear!』

Juan attacked and cut Nigrato’s body several more times, but he was unable to cause any serious damage. Rather, a large cluster of skeletons that was at least several times bigger than before had appeared. It had hundreds of skulls and thousands of ribs with limbs waving like the overflowing sea which connected to its shoulders. Such an appearance resembled a huge building. The hundreds of skulls simultaneously opened their mouths and shouted at the same time.

『Such profanity! Regardless of you being only a young child, you won’t be forgiven for committing such sinful profanity!』

“I think I’m gonna go insane If I continue to take your bullshit seriously.”

Juan scoffed when the world’s most profane and disturbing being scolded him. He already had a headache from fighting against the one who didn’t die even after being cut.

The waving arms of the skeletons on the ground constantly tried to grab Juan’s body, and Juan couldn’t hold out unless he endlessly lit his blood on fire.

Juan went over what he could do. Grunbalde’s gray cloak was of no use inside the deep darkness, while Talter’s blood was almost running out. Besides, physical strikes didn’t work on Nigrato. Juan was lucky that at least lighting his blood on fire worked against Nigrato.

‘But how much blood would I need in order to burn all these…’

Juan tried to estimate the number of undead that Nigaro could summon and the amount of mana they had—it was certain that Juan’s blood would dry up first before he could burn them all. As the flames which Juan had been using to attack Nigrato consumed the mana in his blood, it was only natural that Juan couldn’t hold out for a long time.

『In the name of His Majesty, I shall judge your sins with iron and blood!』

At that moment, Juan detected an unexpected change in Nigrato.

Nigrato plunged his right shoulder into the ground and began to pull something out. The ground vibrated and the buildings collapsed due to the pulling. Eventually, Nigrato pulled out a huge weapon tens of meters wide which was made up of white bones. The weapon seemed to be a sword, yet Juan refused to call it a sword—rather it was a siege weapon.

『With this holy sword that was granted to me by His Majesty’s representative, His Holiness The Pope, I will cut off your neck. I will give you a chance to repent in front of this glory! Give up your head!』

“Did you become even more stupid after you became the god of death, or did you go insane?”

The moment Nigrato swung his sword, Juan opened his eyes wide and dodged with all his might. Nigrato’s sword narrowly grazed past Juan’s neck. Juan couldn’t deny what he thought—Nigrato was moving exactly like Ethan with his huge size and monstrous weapon.

『For His Majesty!』

Although Nigrato wasn’t as fast as Ethan, he was much bigger and had no limits on how his joints could bend. This made his movements much more flexible; Juan had no choice but to focus on defense.

Juan did his best to dodge Nigrato’s attacks, but he couldn’t last long. Eventually, Nigrato’s sword caught Juan.

“Keuk…!”

A heavy shock hit Juan’s body. Nigrato’s sword wasn’t very sharp as it was made up of bones, but the force behind it had the potential to shatter one into pieces.

Juan used his flames to reduce the shock as much as possible before his body collided with Nigrato’s sword. Nevertheless, Juan’s body bounced off helplessly and rolled around on the ground.

The hands on the ground didn’t miss this chance and tried to grab Juan’s body.

“Piss off!”

The hands around Juan spontaneously burned and disappeared. Juan felt his body getting weaker as he was still suffering from the internal injuries caused by using The Emperor’s Voice on such a large scale, and he had gotten injured by fighting against the dead on his way to Nigrato; he had lost too much mana.

Above all, Juan had burned too much of his blood. The rate at which his wounds recovered was also significantly slower than before.

『Someone as trivial as you isn’t allowed to use those flames. How unpleasant.』

Nigrato raised his empty left hand, which was wobbling with hundreds of bones, and from where darkness was flowing out. Soon, something began to flow out of the mud-like lump made of unholy energy; it was flesh clumped with maggots and blood.

All kinds of body fragments which were half melted began to cover the top of Nigrato’s bones. It was a terrible sight that would make most ordinary people freeze upon seeing it. The revolting pieces of flesh covered Nigrato’s bones, creating a glove-like form.

Nigrato narrowed the distance, almost as if he was ready to attack Juan with his huge hand. Nigrato’s hands couldn’t easily approach Juan due to his flames, but neither could he burn the hands to ashes instantly—the hands only got roasted.

‘Perhaps he can resist the flames.’

Some of the things attached to Nigrato’s hands had the form of a human, but they were already pale and their eyes had no focus, almost as if they were nothing but a corpse.

Nigrato’s hand swept over Juan in an instant. The heavy piece of flesh seemed so soft, but Juan couldn’t burn through all of it.

There were not too many choices Juan could choose from, and it was time for him to think of ways to escape from this place. However, Juan couldn’t leave Ras behind.

Juan squeezed out the last drop of Talter’s blood he had in his body. In a flash, Nigrato’s hand approached Juan. When Nigrato’s hand was about to crush Juan’s body, Juan disappeared and left only a faint afterimage of fog.

Before Juan could even reposition himself from where he had escaped to by using Blink, Nigrato smashed his sword toward his new position.

Juan tried using Blink again. It seemed like Nigrato was swinging his sword without a plan, but his movements were accurate and sharp. The nasty scent of rotting corpses blocked Juan’s breath, and cold sweat ran down his back.

‘Just one more time.’

Nigrato’s eyes chased after Juan and swung his sword once again.

Dodging Nigrato’s attack, Juan realized that he was finally at a close distance from his target. Juan used Blink for the last time. For a moment, his vision suddenly turned white.

Crunch!

Juan flinched at the sharp pain from something piercing his abdomen; Nigrato had sprouted sharp thorn-like bones from his entire body to pierce Juan as he sensed something unusual. With the acceleration from Blink, Juan was even pierced in his abdomen, thigh and his left shoulder.

“But…” Juan smiled. “It’s too late for you.”

Nigrato flinched.

Before Nigrato knew it, Juan had grasped Ethan’s fiery sword pierced through his chest, and refused to let go.

Juan had wondered why Nigrato didn’t pull the sword out of his chest when it must be disturbing to leave it in. Although it was only a vague possibility, Juan guessed that Nigrato had no choice but to leave it there because it couldn’t be touched—it was a splinter stuck in his body that couldn’t be touched.

It was at that moment that Juan heard a voice.

『Juan. No, Your Majesty.』