The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 437

The undead cavalry were Wight Elves, Lord Sok’s trusted subordinates.

They hadn’t discovered Azadin’s group in ambush, but they were patrolling the area, searching for something nearby.

“There’s an artificial spirit in the sky, so there must be a caster nearby. Be careful,” one of the Wight Elves warned their subordinates.

The undead hounds that followed them understood their words and responded with howls, a truly grotesque sight.

They were clearly there to find Azadin’s artificial spirit, Ara’el’s voice.

“What should we do?” Ismail asked, seeking Azadin’s intentions. It was as if he was asking if Lord Sok’s army could be trusted.

“Lord Sok is undead and twisted, but he has the will to join the Rescue Knights. It’s unlikely he’s allied with the Wisdom Order. Since we’ll be wandering around here without information, I’ll contact them now,” Azadin told his subordinates and revealed himself from his hiding spot.

“Halt! Stop there!” As Azadin stood up, the undead hounds immediately showed hostility and lunged at him.

However, Azadin grabbed Grimslaw’s club and flipped the attacking undead hound. The undead hound, which had leaped at him, spun in the air and crashed to the ground, blocking the path of the other undead hounds.

“Ugh!? King Azadin? Why are you here?” one of the Wight Elves exclaimed.

“Everyone, stop!” he ordered, and the undead riders restrained their hounds.

“You were a little late to stop them, weren’t you?” Indim and other Herald Clan members appeared, aiming their arrows at the undead.

This time, the Wight Elves tensed up.

Azadin signaled Indim to lower his bow and spoke. “I heard that Fireglyph had fallen, so I came. Can you tell me what’s going on?”

“So, the King himself came? Hmm.” The one who took off his helmet and revealed his face among the Wight Elves was Dahlia. She was Chadra O’Gher, who had joined Azadin’s forces, and the sister of Wild Druid Sedrin. She was usually a beautiful woman with a captivating smile, but now she looked exhausted and bewildered, as if she had been suffering on the battlefield for quite some time.

It was believed that the undead did not die or feel fatigue, but her face was clearly showing signs of exhaustion. She must have gone through a lot.

“Can you explain the circumstances of Fireglyph’s fall?” Azadin asked.

“Of course, I must, King Azadin. Our master ordered us to respect you,” she replied. She wasn’t loyal to Azadin, but she would respect him because her master had ordered her to. She was drawing a clear line.

Azadin shrugged. “We don’t have time, so let’s get to the point. Did the Pimbul Horde allow the Wisdom Order to capture Fireglyph?”

“No, we tried our best to help. But it seems those who attacked us are the Nether’s minions,” she said, calling the Wisdom Order the Nether’s minions.

“The Pimbul Horde helped, but you still lost?” Azadin questioned. The Pimbul Horde was considered a legion of death that roamed this place, Chitai, and southern Asander, shrouded in darkness and cold.

But the Pimbul Horde was pushed back by the Rescue Knights and the Wisdom Order?

“I understand. Let’s move our location for now. The artificial spirit you use can be tracked by the enemy,” Azadin said.

“Understood,” Dahlia replied.

Azadin signaled his subordinates to follow them.

*********

Lord Sok’s subordinates led Azadin to their defense outpost. It was a guard post overlooking the road, a small outpost that Azadin had built when he controlled the Chadra Plateau to protect people from attacks by goblins, Bree, and other bandits.

Here, the undead had driven stakes into the ground and dragged corpses from the surroundings, laying them on the floor. The floor was surrounded by ropes with talismans, and they were preparing to stack the corpses and cast a spell on them all at once to turn them into undead.

The sight of the corpses piled up like mountains was similar to the Southeastern Rock Fortress that the Wisdom Order had captured.

But surprisingly, those who were piling up the corpses were living survivors.

“Huh? Y-Your Majesty!?” The survivors were residents of the Chadra Plateau, and they all recognized Azadin.

“Are you all alright?” Azadin asked.

“Ah, yes. Well, L-Lord, S-So…” The people were afraid of Lord Sok and couldn’t say his name properly.

Azadin looked around and asked the people, “Did Lord Sok give you refuge in exchange for helping him with his work?”

“Yes, that’s right,” one of them replied.

“But turning my family’s corpses into, uh, undead is a bit…” another said.

“Your Majesty! Please stop them,” the people pleaded with Azadin to prevent their families from becoming undead.

At this sudden plea, the expressions of the Wights, Lord Sok’s subordinates, changed drastically. They usually maintained their beautiful appearance from when they were alive, but when anger flared, their skin became dry and withered, their teeth sharpened, their jaws protruded, and their eyes glowed with a ghostly light. They had an instinct to tear humans apart.

Those undead had been ordered by Lord Sok not to kill civilians but to take them in, and now these civilians were telling Azadin that Lord Sok and the Pimbul Horde were desecrating their family’s corpses.

‘Ah, this is a bit awkward for me too,’ Azadin thought. He examined the undead ritual that Lord Sok’s subordinates were performing.

Azadin himself used necromancy, but it was only because it was better to use the corpses of humans than to make humans do things that they shouldn’t do. And even then, he only created simple, low-level undead that did not touch the human soul.

What they were creating here was a spell that violated the human soul, binding it to the area so that it would continue to rise again even if its body was destroyed. Even by Azadin’s principles, this was unacceptable, but if he said something unpleasant here, it would seem very tactless.

Even so, a principle is a principle. Even if there was a risk of damaging his relationship with Lord Sok, Azadin had to uphold his principles here.

“Wait a minute. This is a binding spell that binds human souls to the earth,” Azadin stated.

“Ah, yes, you are indeed a great mage. You recognized it at once,” one of the Wight Elves replied.

“Why are you doing this?” Azadin asked.

“Otherwise, we’ll only produce cheap zombies. No matter how many cheap zombies there are, they’re useless. The consciousness and soul of the living must be captured for them to follow strategic and tactical maneuvers,” the Wight Elf explained.

“But that prevents people from being freed from death,” Azadin countered.

“The soul must be whole for it to be the individual’s personality, the individual itself. Sometimes, people overvalue the soul, but surely King Azadin, a renowned mage, knows that,” the Wight Elf said.

“The soul can endure pain. I don’t want to increase unnecessary suffering in this world, so stop this ritual,” Azadin insisted.

“Haa…” Lord Sok’s subordinates, the Wight Elves, were annoyed.

“You seem to misunderstand, but we are not your vassals,” one of them said.

“You’re the ones who are misunderstanding. The people you’re trying to turn into undead are my people. Is it Lord Sok’s will to invade my people? Can I assume that’s Lord Sok’s intention?” Azadin asked.

“………” The Wight Elves glared at Azadin with their hideous undead faces. Then, they withdrew their terrifying faces and returned to their elven appearance, smiling.

“Well, alright. We’ll stop the ritual,” one of them said, stopping the ritual as if they had no choice.

“But if we do this, we won’t have any reinforcements,” another Wight Elf said.

“It doesn’t matter. I came to assassinate Lord Triodana,” Azadin stated.

“Did Your Majesty say that himself?” one of the Wight Elves asked.

“Yes. So, where do you think Triodana is? Do you know?” Azadin inquired.

“We don’t know that either…” one of them replied.

“Then, explain what has happened so far,” Azadin demanded that the Wight Elves explain what had happened.

*********

When Fireglyph was attacked, Prince Kalintz closed the gates and prepared the cannons. The Chadra Plateau, where Fireglyph was located, could supply its own sulfur and mercury, making it easy to produce gunpowder, so there was no shortage of ammunition. With the dwarven cannons that had been replenished when Azadin’s army occupied Banreung, they were confident that they could hold out for a year just by relying on Fireglyph’s strong walls and firing cannons.

No matter how powerful Triodana and the Wisdom Order were, they would not be able to easily capture the impregnable Fireglyph. Prince Kalintz was planning to defend himself and wait for reinforcements.

However, the moment he saw the army that had arrived before them, his expectations were shattered. Living angels with their eyes gouged out and their faces sewn together with wire were dragged in, screaming in agony as undead, hanging from poles. It was a terrible siege weapon. When the angels hanging from the poles were raised to the height of the people, the pain that spread when the angels screamed seemed to shatter the souls of mortals.

As the wailing, decaying angels sang, people were so terrified that they jumped off the walls and committed suicide. Prince Kalintz immediately ordered counter-fire with the cannons, but the gunners refused to fire. Some gunners chose to commit suicide by putting hand cannons to their jaws and pulling the trigger.

And the fallen Celestials, who could fly freely in the sky, flew up, crossed the walls, and cut off Fireglyph and the road behind it. It was a measure to prevent other forces on the Chadra Plateau from rescuing Fireglyph or delivering supplies.

Moreover, that wasn’t the end of it. While attacking Fireglyph, they began to send troops, those who could fly, over Fireglyph to the Southeastern Rock Fortress. It was to capture the Southeastern Rock Fortress and cut off the backbone of Azadin’s army’s supply line.

In that situation, Prince Kalintz encouraged his subordinates while firing the cannons himself. Also, his guards, the Northern Aragasa, played a big role. Like their long-time brothers, the Herald Clan, they carried out their duties without fear of the curses or taboos that the Hybrids feared. They shot arrows at the wailing, decaying angels that would make ordinary people commit suicide just by hearing them…

They bravely fought against the fallen Celestials who had cut off the rear, somehow opening a path for the battle. Prince Kalintz and his Northern Aragasa unit’s performance was truly heroic.

And finally, reinforcements arrived. The Pimbul Horde’s reinforcements and the Sisters of Mercy from the Chadra Monastery arrived behind Fireglyph. And… Lord Triodana also began to move.