The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 360

The Mad Rush of the Emissary 5

The Nether’s emissary, the yetis, kin of the Wendigo, surged up the snowy ridge. Banlung responded with cannon fire, while Ashajit’s kin, their bodies a mass of tentacles and veins, charged towards the yetis.

The Wendigo’s kin and Ashajit’s kin collided.

The earth trembled from the monstrous clash, and the roars were gut-wrenching.

Azadin observed this, then abruptly turned his gaze towards the Guiding Knights’ camp.

As he suspected, that place was also in chaos.

The Wendigo’s kin, the yetis, had appeared and were rampaging. Or rather, the Wendigo’s kin were emerging from there and charging towards the heart of the mountain.

“Damn it. That bastard Triodana!” Azadin groaned, realizing the general situation.

*********

The Celestial, taking the form of an angel, was meant to be an icon of invincibility.

In this harsh Fimbulwinter [a great winter preceding the end of the world in Norse mythology], the Age of Jupiter, they were supposed to be humanity’s hope.

However, even Celestials die when struck by cannons.

The power of the fortress cannons defending Banlung’s capital, the heart of the mountain, had even inflicted casualties on the Celestial Fire Knights.

The invincible reputation of the Celestial Fire, once considered an unstoppable heavenly army, began to crumble.

This was not a good sign for the Northern Empire and its people.

Because there was Count Azadin, the Count of the Borderlands of Wind and Cloud, a rival of the Celestial Fire Knights.

‘A member of the Messenger Clan, a soulless blasphemer, a terrible god-slayer. An emperor follower who opposes the order of the Yegas gods [likely referring to a pantheon of gods].’

Azadin had to endure all sorts of insults simply for being from the Messenger Clan.

However, even from such a disadvantaged position, Azadin never faltered, conquering the Chadra Plateau and earning the position of Protector of Sandokar, Count of Naisandokar.

No matter how lowly born or soulless a blasphemer he was, Azadin’s accomplishments, the stories he embodied, were heroic tales that captivated storytellers and bards.

And so, Azadin had become a figure who, on his own, attracted as much attention as the entire Celestial Fire.

In terms of favor, the Celestial Fire received much more positive attention, but in terms of the number of people paying attention, they were equal.

One single person was drawing as much attention as the entire knight order.

In this situation, if the Celestial Fire Knights were to suffer an irreversible failure, all the people’s support would shift to Azadin.

*********

“I have to admit it. Count Azadin is a hero of our time.”

Triodana frankly acknowledged Azadin’s significance.

“That’s why we can’t get bogged down here. The damage we’re taking now is something we can recover from, but if we continue to be this sluggish, and if Count Azadin succeeds in an Errantry Quest [a quest undertaken by a knight-errant] while we’re just floundering in front of this fortress….”

Just imagining the possibility made him tremble.

The thought of what would happen next made him unable to bear his fear of Azadin.

“So, are you suggesting we assassinate Count Azadin or something?”

Karna, Triodana’s brother and the leader of the Celestial Fire, was skeptical.

“No. It’s realistically impossible to assassinate a member of the Messenger Clan. Instead of doing something stupid like assassinating an assassin, we’ll use this.”

Triodana pulled out a dagger made of bone.

“A Nether relic. It’s definitely because of the Age of Jupiter….”

Even from a distance, one could feel its powerful energy.

“What are you planning to do with it?”

“I’ll use this to create Nether’s kin. And then throw those kin as cannon fodder. Banlung doesn’t have an unlimited supply of gunpowder and cannonballs, after all.”

The biggest problem in attacking Banlung was that the well-fortified dwarven fortress had fortress cannons mounted on it.

Against cannons firing from the fortress, individual martial prowess was meaningless.

Of course, the gunpowder consumed by the cannons was expensive, so if they continued to launch wave attacks, the gunpowder would eventually run out….

In the past, during the Madoc War, Banlung had repelled the Arangian Guards with the power of its fortress.

But what if they could throw something other than humans as cannon fodder?

“You’re saying we should summon the Nether’s kin with our own hands? That sounds even more foolish. Besides, isn’t that dagger the one that summoned icebergs in Saint Mallory and the nearby sea? Is it okay to use a relic of an entity hostile to humanity?”

Karna was worried if Triodana was serious. But Triodana just shrugged.

“It’s something that the Wisdom Order has approved. If we use a sufficient ritual, we can control this Nether emissary’s kin. I even received the Wisdom Order’s magic formula.”

Triodana opened a book. It was a ritual book containing methods to create powerful charms to control even the power of the Nether’s emissary.

“The Wisdom Order approved it? Is it perhaps Father’s will?”

The Wisdom Order of the Guiding Knights had effectively become a private organization of the Northern Emperor Cohen Lionheart.

In other words, the approval of the Wisdom Order was as good as the permission, or rather, the order of the Northern Emperor Cohen Lionheart.

“I’ll conduct the ritual. Karna. You just need to help me.”

“In this Age of Jupiter, when the Netherstrom [a storm of dark energy] is weakened, I hope that the ritual is maintained well. I’m uneasy.”

Karna reluctantly agreed to Triodana manipulating the Nether relic.

If the Wisdom Order had any sense, they wouldn’t have approved something they couldn’t control.

That was the thought behind it.

However, in the Age of Jupiter, the power of the Nether was becoming even stronger, and the Wendigo’s dagger was exerting a power that was incomparable to when it was first acquired.

The Wendigo’s dagger, which Triodana believed he could control with his magical knowledge and skill, began to go berserk in an instant.

Even against Triodana’s will, it turned nearby dead, animal corpses, and even the living but weakened wounded into Wendigo’s kin.

Triodana, shocked, tried to control the Wendigo’s dagger, but it was no use.

“Ugh!”

“What is this!?”

Screams erupted from the infirmary where the wounded were being cared for.

Everyone was horrified at the sight of the wounded groaning and then transforming into large, hairy ape-like creatures.

“Sir Karna!”

Izmilla and Aramis, who were tending to the wounded, blocked the attacks of the Wendigo’s kin who were threatening the people and sought out Karna, the leader of the Celestial Fire.

Karna, who had performed the ritual using the Wendigo’s dagger with Triodana, was flustered by the voices calling out to him from all directions.

“W-we need command!”

It was only natural that the base was in chaos, as Wendigo’s kin had appeared in the infirmary.

Triodana, holding the Wendigo’s dagger, concentrated and shouted.

“Karna! Don’t let them attack those yetis! I can control them!”

“No, that’s why I told you not to do it!”

“You didn’t tell me not to do it! You just didn’t want to!”

“I couldn’t openly refuse because it was Father’s will!”

Karna, annoyed, went outside and ordered the Celestial Fire Knights to clear a path for the Wendigo’s kin.

The Wendigo’s kin began to charge towards Banlung.

“…….”

“Sir Karna! This is!”

Izmilla wasn’t a fool. No, no one here was a fool.

Everyone here knew what it meant for the Nether’s emissary, its kin, to charge towards the Kingdom of Banlung.

“It’s an unfortunate accident.”

That was all Karna could say to those who were looking at him with suspicion.

“You call this an unfortunate accident?”

“Yes, it’s an accident that happened when we accidentally touched a Nether relic. Sir Triodana is controlling it.”

As Karna was making a lame excuse, another scream erupted from the infirmary.

Some of the wounded had turned into Nether’s kin again.

That wasn’t all.

“Ah!”

“No!”

-Crack!

Even in the place where the fallen soldiers were hastily wrapped in hemp and stacked on the cold ice storage, some of the corpses began to rise again.

The human corpses twisted and began to transform into the Nether’s emissary’s kin, Wendigo’s yetis.

“P-please stop! Sir Triodana! The wounded in the infirmary and even ordinary people are getting caught up in this!”

The Celestial Fire Knights weren’t just made up of Celestials.

There were the sword-wielding attendants, the spearmen who maintained the front lines with the attendants, the longbowmen and crossbowmen.

There were all sorts of people following the Celestial Fire Knights, such as the battlefield laborers who did engineering work and the battlefield merchants who bought and sold supplies to them and made a profit.

The Wendigo’s dagger, the Nether’s relic, was projecting its twisted power onto them. The living were fine, but the wounded, those with weakened resistance, began to transform.

“Are you planning to turn our people into the emissary’s kin? Is it more helpful to our forces to become the emissary’s kin than to exist as humans?”

Izmilla rushed into the command tent, which was emitting the Nether’s power, and slashed the awning with her sword.

Inside, Triodana was spreading his Celestial wings and holding the Wendigo’s dagger, controlling the magic.

“I-if I let go now, I won’t be able to control those kin! Even if I let go, there’s no guarantee that this power that turns humans into Nether’s kin will stop!”

Triodana was worried that he would lose control over the kin the moment he let go of the Wendigo’s dagger.

The power emanating from the Wendigo’s dagger was far greater than he had imagined, making Triodana’s body drenched in cold sweat.

Even with all his might, he could only barely control the kin, and he couldn’t stop the dagger from continuously creating kin using corpses, patients, and lumps of flesh.

“Put down that dagger right now! Or else!”

Izmilla raised her ceramite longsword [a fictional material].

But her ceramite longsword was blocked by another ceramite longsword.

Karna, who had been watching, had blocked Izmilla.

“What are you doing? Izmilla!”

“Sir Karna?! Innocent wounded are becoming worse than dead! They’re not just innocent wounded! They’re our comrades!”

Even if they were just innocent wounded, they should be protected at the risk of their lives, but these were the comrades of the Celestial Fire Knights. They were attendants, spearmen, archers, gunners, engineers, cooks, and support merchants.

But Karna turned a blind eye.

“There’s no guarantee that the situation will improve if we drop the sword from Sir Triodana’s hand now! Sir Triodana is definitely controlling that power right now, so we should rather help him control it!”

Even as he said that, the cannon fire was shaking the heavens and the earth.

As the Wendigo’s kin rushed towards Banlung, the Banlung side was also firing their fortress cannons non-stop to stop their advance.

They were throwing cannon fodder at those who were defending with fortress cannons, forcing them to waste gunpowder.

A tactic that was only possible by utterly disregarding human lives was now actually unfolding.

“Sir Karna….”

Izmilla groaned, realizing that Karna had decided to condone this situation, blinded by victory.

“There was a proposal in the strategy meeting to use necromancy to send undead to make Banlung waste their gunpowder.”

Sir Aramis, who had arrived at the command tent a step later than Izmilla, muttered.

“The conclusion was that we couldn’t break through the cultist mutants guarding Banlung with the necromancy we’ve learned so poorly.”

“On the other hand, these Nether’s kin are as strong as those cultist mutants, so they’re definitely effective. The enemies are also flustered and firing their cannons.”

Aramis said that expressionlessly.

“That’s right.”

“Then, even if this really was an accident, the world will suspect us. How are you going to deal with that?”

Aramis asked that.

Aramis was not a reincarnator. He was a Celestial who was purely created as a blank slate child. Despite being a blank slate paladin who was hastily taught and filled with knowledge by the clergy, he pointed that out.

If you couldn’t deceive Aramis, you couldn’t deceive a toddler.

“……….”

Karna couldn’t find an answer.