The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 496

‘You resemble me a lot.’

During his training days, Zekt had said that to Jibek.

It suddenly came to mind.

As Zekt had said, Jibek and Zekt were very similar.

Both Jibek and Zekt were gloomy and unable to truly feel happiness.

That’s why Jibek could understand why Zekt, despite being promised the throne, had betrayed humanity.

He must have wanted to leave a large, indelible scar on this hateful world.

A throne was not something that could bring him joy. The fact that he was not able to inherit the throne and was abandoned by his family was merely a tool to explain the great despair, gloom, and discouragement he felt.

He must have known from birth that this world was made of injustice and cruelty.

‘I should have stopped him.’

Jibek lamented as he watched Zekt’s rage tearing through the world.

In the darkness where even his fingertips were hard to see, a strong wind was howling, breaking even the trees.

The world had changed like this because of the sins committed by his teacher.

Of course, he was not in a position to stop it.

With his abilities, he could not stop Zekt, and persuading him was even more impossible.

Azadin’s acceptance of Zekt was also a reasonable choice at the time.

Although he seemed to have been on a winning streak as the Emperor who unified the world, Azadin was always walking a dangerous tightrope.

He was bearing the weight of the entire world alone in a precarious situation where even one missing piece could cause him to fall.

That’s why he had no choice but to accept alliances with suspicious individuals.

As a result, the inevitable catastrophe had finally arrived, but like all melancholic people, Jibek blamed himself.

Could he have stopped it?

Even though he knew it was impossible, his heart ached, and he couldn’t stop blaming himself.

“Oh, everyone…”

A voice awakened Jibek, who was silently blaming himself and pushing through the blizzard.

It was Scott McGreene, the orc mage who had now become a lich.

He was sitting in the front seat of the ten-person sled, using magic to block the blizzard in front of him, and looked back.

“We’re getting close to Lord Sok’s fortress… but how do you plan to get the Empress back from Lord Sok?”

Lord Sok, who had come to the trading city of Caspa, had criticized the Emperor for clouding the knights’ minds by abusing miracles, and then kidnapped the Empress.

He had made the outrageous claim that he would turn her into an undead and persuade the Emperor to turn all of humanity into undead.

The Empress’s guards and the Emperor’s vassals all protested, but Lord Sok overpowered the guards who attacked him, kidnapped Empress Midiam, and headed south of Caspa, towards Sandokar.

Jibek, Ismail, and Cedrin had pressured Scott McGreene, who had come with Sok, to track Lord Sok, and formed a suicide squad to pursue Lord Sok to rescue the Empress.

“Lord Sok was being very lenient. He could have killed us all originally.”

Scott’s words scratched at the pride of the warriors.

But they knew that there was not a single lie in that statement if the opponent was Lord Sok of the Pimbul Horde.

Lord Sok had kidnapped the Empress in front of everyone, as if to show off.

“Why on earth is he doing this crazy thing?! Scott, answer me.”

Ismail asked about the principle behind Lord Sok’s actions, and Scott answered him.

“From the perspective of orcs who have to endure the curse of the flesh, becoming undead is a truly ideal situation. Lord Sok is, so to speak, spreading the gospel. ‘This is good, try it once. It’s really good,’ like that.”

“That’s a foolish idea. Once you become undead, you can never be the same human you were in life. The endless hunger and changing body even ravage the mind. My kin were not originally such villains!”

The wild druid Cedrin was furious at Scott’s remarks.

Her kin had become wights of Lord Sok, and their personalities were clearly different from when they were alive.

And yet, he was saying that it was an ideal change from the orcs’ point of view?

“At least the people involved are happy. When I went to learn as Lord Sok’s disciple, I met them, and they were all living happily without any complaints.”

“Is that something you can say now?”

From Cedrin’s point of view, she was furious at this clueless orc for talking nonsense about her kin, but it was Scott’s magic that was currently protecting them from the cold.

There was no need to deliberately offend Scott.

“So, does Lord Sok have any weaknesses? If he’s a lich, he must be keeping his life somewhere else.”

Jibek asked Scott about Sok’s weakness.

“There’s no way I’d tell anyone that…”

“Actually, there’s no need to defeat Lord Sok. If we improvise, we might be able to rescue her…”

Ismail said that to boost everyone’s morale.

But then, suddenly, lightning flashed in the sky.

The darkness that had been impossible to see through was torn apart in an instant, and the horrific sight of Sandokar appeared before their eyes.

“Huh?!”

“Good heavens.”

Even for the veterans of Azadin’s army who had experienced all sorts of hardships, it was a truly shocking sight.

A huge fortress, unlike anything before, had been built between Naisandokar and the vast primeval forest of Sandokar.

Black, transparent ice, as if made of obsidian, had grown to form the fortress.

Inside the ice, black mana of necromancy was flickering like black flames, and pure black mana was growing even at this moment.

Not only that, but black mana was erupting from the fortress’s spires like a volcanic eruption, spreading throughout Hybriss.

The Pimbul Horde, a necromantic legion created to fight against Pimbulbert.

It was a terrifying sight befitting its name.

In the sky above the fortress, undead wyverns and wraiths were circling, and below them, ghouls, zombies, and wights were stationed, while corpses were walking and gathering on their own.

Due to the black mana that Sok was emitting all over the world, corpses were turning into undead and walking on their own.

Sok’s Pimbul Horde was gathering undead in that way, and then weaving the corpses together to create a giant artificial human.

A giant of death made by weaving together black ice containing the energy of necromancy and corpses.

With a body length of over a hundred yards, they were creating a giant the size of a mountain, even larger than the original walls of Sandokar.

“Wh-what is that?!”

“A giant of death, a Necro Titan. The pinnacle of necromancy.”

“Necro Titan?”

“Lord Sok is using that giant to fight the Nether’s forces. Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a human with better skills than me, except for Emperor Azadin, but Lord Sok is really amazing.”

“……”

Everyone was bewildered by Scott’s endlessly high self-evaluation.

This guy, was he daring to compare himself to the Emperor, Azadin, who had almost achieved the unification of the world?

But what was even more frightening was that a guy with such a high self-evaluation had placed Sok above himself.

‘If you don’t put him above yourself after seeing this, you’re crazy. He’s emitting black mana everywhere like the light of the King’s Hwa [a powerful magical energy], and he’s creating a bunch of mountain-sized giants.’

They had come with the sole purpose of rescuing the Empress, but everyone was speechless after seeing Lord Sok creating the Necro Titan.

If the Emperor was a living god of white mana, then Sok could be called a living god of black mana.

“Our goal is not to kill Lord Sok, but to rescue the Empress. Let’s not forget that.”

Ismail encouraged the demoralized people and got off the sled.

Everyone nodded at Ismail’s words and got off the sled.

*********

On the day the light of the King’s Hwa suddenly went out, countless people in Hybriss died without knowing why.

Grimslaw’s mercy was activated, and shelters were created all over the world, but many people who could not enter the shelters froze to death…

Even after escaping to the shelters, people continued to die from freezing and weakening.

Also, some people committed suicide out of despair, and others fought and killed each other over the few food and supplies in the shelters.

Lord Sok scraped together the corpses of those who had died in that way and made them into mindless undead.

And after gathering them at a base, he combined the undead with black ice containing the power of death to create the Necro Titan.

Lord Sok was using a tremendous amount of mana to create it.

“Thanks to that, there’s almost no security. It seems like they’re not even guarding against me.”

At various points on the way to Lord Sok’s castle, wraith knights, ghosts, and high-ranking undead were stationed, but they bowed to Scott and opened the way.

“This might be a lot easier than we thought. It seems like Lord Sok is also fighting his enemies with all his might right now. Considering that His Majesty’s condition was terrible when he was holding up the light of the King’s Hwa alone, Lord Sok must also be making considerable sacrifices.”

Ismail spoke in a deliberately bright tone. He was trying his best to boost people’s morale.

“But more than that, we need to find the Empress. Should we send out a scout?”

The elf druid Cedrin asked, but Scott shook his head.

“Even if Lord Sok is currently standing by, if we send out a scout magic, we’ll be discovered immediately. Even if Lord Sok is standing by, his subordinates are there. Using a scout inside here is forbidden.”

“I see. Then, if he’s going to turn the Empress into an undead, where would he perform the ritual?”

“There’s no need to prepare a ritual to turn someone into a normal zombie or a low-level undead, but if Lord Sok is going to turn the Empress into an undead, he’ll put a lot of effort into it, making her look as beautiful as she was in life. He’ll probably turn her into a wight or a vampire, right? To do that…”

When Scott mentioned a vampire, Nicelda, who had come along, flinched.

“A vampire? You’re saying he’s going to turn the Empress into a vampire?”

“Probably.”

“That’s absurd. If she can’t bear an heir, the Empress will…”

Ismail was furious at Lord Sok’s outrageous actions.

“So, where can you make a vampire?”

“I think I know. I smell blood.”

Nicelda pointed to the southern spire among the spires.

But then, an undead wyvern suddenly swooped down from above, attacking with its thick claws.

-Kooong!

The undead wyvern landed heavily on the ground.

On top of the wyvern was an elf wight woman.

It was Dahlia, the older sister of the druid Cedrin.

“Oh, Cedrin. You’re really persistent. There aren’t many of our kin left now.”

“Dahlia!”

“Scott, you’re a truly ungrateful orc. How much grace did our master bestow upon you, and yet you betray him like this.”

“I’m here for the Emperor because I’m not ungrateful. Dahlia. We just need to rescue the Empress, so won’t you get out of the way? You can’t fight us alone, can you?”

“Me alone? There’s no way.”

At that moment, the wyvern riders and wraiths circling in the sky all began to watch this place.

“I was sad that our kin were dwindling, but this is good. Cedrin. Our master will turn you into a wight.”

“No thanks!”

Cedrin refused her sister Dahlia’s offer and began to chant a spell.