The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 71

Snake Temple 3

Again, the Count steps forward, using his body to shield the Naga.

The moment the arrow explodes, another arrow flies to the exact same spot. It’s an arrow that follows almost on the tail of the first, aiming for the moment the Count’s magic detonates the first.

‘Good try! But!’

The Count’s magic coalesces, and the second arrow explodes as well.

“Haha! Ah!?”

The Count bursts into laughter, but a third arrow flies to the same spot again. The arrow, arriving before the magic barrier is fully formed, hits the Count directly in the mouth.

“Yes!”

Azadin cheers, but the Count rolls backward and gets up.

“Hahaha. Amazing. Truly impressive, Messenger Clan. Amazing skill!”

The Count’s mouth is torn, but soon a snake’s tongue appears from inside his mouth.

-Crack!

His body begins to break apart.

“It hurts! It hurts! A human would have died!”

“……”

The Count begins to transform into a Naga with pure white scales. On the other hand, Azadin is in trouble.

‘Damn it. I should have targeted another Naga.’

When the Count stepped forward, he wanted to see if he could block all three shots, so he fired them. In the end, the quiver is empty, and the Count is transforming, having avoided a fatal wound. He is a monster much larger than other Nagas, with four arms.

His upper body alone is the size of an ogre, and he has a wound left by Azadin in his mouth. But what would be a fatal wound to a human is just a deep scratch to him.

“To wound me. You can be proud, Messenger!”

The Count says this and picks up the sword he had placed against the wall.

He picks up a huge two-handed greatsword, which seems to be near the limit of what a human can wield, with one hand, and in the other hand, he holds a bronze torch stand, which he thrusts at Azadin like a spear.

There is a huge statue, so it is a height that ordinary people cannot attack, but the Count’s attack, transformed into a giant Naga, reaches. Azadin does a somersault to avoid the Count’s attack and shows off his skill by releasing the bowstring in mid-air and tucking the bow into his waist.

“Oh, amazing!”

The Count is excited by Azadin’s skill.

‘This is bad. I’m out of arrows, what should I do?’

The top of the statue is no longer safe.

He is out of arrows, and every time the Nagas chant, the mummy soldiers are slowly rising, so fighting here any longer is meaningless and dangerous.

It’s time to retreat. If he goes back the way he came, those who are not trained or simple mummy soldiers will not be able to climb the wall, so he can use the terrain to shake them off.

But then…

‘The refugees will die.’

If he opens the door to this underground passage and goes out, there is a refugee camp outside. The refugees who have been pushed into Salasmar due to the drought will be killed, and their blood will become their nourishment.

Judging by the fact that the blood that fell from the blood bath is soaking the bodies of the mummy soldiers and strengthening them, a large amount of blood will be needed to activate the mummy soldiers.

“I have no choice!”

Azadin jumps off the statue and lands on the ground.

“Haha. Amazing! Are you going to fight instead of running away?”

The Count is impressed by Azadin’s courage in giving up the safe high ground and jumping down.

“Let’s see your skills!”

The Count swings his sword to attack, and Azadin moves to avoid it.

-‘Flower, Bird, Wind, Moon, Twilight, Kazas, Haze!’ [A Messenger Clan technique involving illusions and movement]

A typical illusion of the Messenger Clan. But Azadin uses martial arts to scatter multiple shadows and move, avoiding the Count’s sword.

-‘Flower, Bird, Wind, Moon, Dusk, Kazas, Haze!’

And he approaches in an instant. But the Count raises the torch stand and blocks Azadin’s attack.

-Clang!

The sword Azadin swung cuts through the bronze torch stand, and sparks fly. Azadin uses that momentum to slash the Count’s torso, but he instead swings his Naga tail and hits Azadin. Blood splatters, and Azadin’s body is thrown into the air.

“Huh!”

The Count is impressed. He clearly hit him with his tail, but he feels nothing. Azadin flew his body to minimize the impact.

-Thud!

Azadin does a backflip in the air, gets his bearings, and lands. But…

-Drip…

Azadin’s nose is also bleeding. From the Count’s point of view, he barely felt anything in his tail, but from Azadin’s point of view, it was like colliding with a charging bison. No matter how much he reduced the impact, there is no way there would be no damage.

“Hmm.”

Azadin wipes the blood from his nose with his hand and examines his sword.

The blade was dull.

He cut the bronze torch stand and slashed the Count’s torso, but even though the scales were torn and blood was drawn, it was just a scratch for the Count. It is a size and depth that would be fatal to a human, but it is not significant against that giant.

‘The sword was quite useful. But I should have brought a few more, no, I can’t bring that many weapons when infiltrating.’

Azadin usually has the Kerim mountain goat carry a lot of weapons, but the number is limited when infiltrating. The problem is, what is the point of hoarding weapons if Azadin dies like this?

*********

While Azadin is fighting the Count, the Naga sorcerers succeed in raising about eight mummy soldiers.

-Krrrr!

“Help the Count!”

The mummy soldiers, awakened by the Naga sorcerers, rush at Azadin.

The soldiers rush at Azadin, wielding barbaric-looking iron plate-like swords, and a black mist-like aura of curse emanates from their bodies. The mummy soldiers begin to move, spreading a curse of weakening.

“Kuh!”

Azadin slides across the ground, avoids the attack of the charging mummy soldier, and cuts through its torso with his sword. But it only feels like cutting a sandbag, and the mummy soldier turns around despite having its side cut off.

The blood absorbed from the cut area was filling it. The reason they created the blood bath was to use it for the mummy soldiers like this.

‘Damn it! The sword…’

Azadin was distracted by the sword in his hand and saw another mummy soldier charging at him. There is no time to dodge. In a hurry, he kicks the approaching mummy soldier.

Contact with the guy who is emitting a curse from his body causes black magic to penetrate Azadin’s body.

-Bang!

The mummy soldier’s neck bone was almost pulled out with terrifying power. But there is also damage to Azadin.

“Ugh!”

Fortunately, Azadin has very strong magic resistance, so he is not greatly affected, but even for him, engaging in hand-to-hand combat with mummy soldiers is foolish.

“Hmm!”

The Count had no choice but to take a step back to avoid touching the mummy soldiers he had worked so hard to create. Now that he has become a giant Naga, if he interferes in the fight between the mummy soldiers and Azadin, it is obvious that the mummy soldiers will be crushed under his body.

In the meantime, the Nagas continue to awaken mummy soldiers.

‘I need to subdue the casters…’

Azadin avoids the charging mummy soldiers and approaches the Nagas. But the Nagas transform into snakes, dodging between the mummy soldiers and continuing to cast spells to awaken the soldiers.

‘It’s dangerous to fight here any longer. But it’s also hard to escape…’

Azadin looked up at the wall he had come from. It would be faster for the giant Count to hit Azadin on the wall with a torch stand or greatsword than for him to climb the wall.

As the mummy soldiers slowly surround Azadin, the Count begins to gloat. He must think that he has completely subdued Azadin.

“Hehe. Do you feel like talking now, Messenger? How about it? Serving me? Is there still no change in your mind?”

“Hmm. You want me to serve you? Killing people with these mummies? In return, what? Do you feed me delicious food? Sleep with Naga women? That doesn’t sound like a very attractive offer, does it?”

“Then why didn’t you run away and fight here?”

“To prevent civilian casualties.”

“Civilians? Are you talking about the refugees? Those trash? Why? Do they have such value?”

“I don’t want my world to be filled with only the undead.”

“Even though it’s not yours?”

“You guys only feel like it’s yours when you conquer and hold it in your hands. What a vulgar and narrow worldview.”

“You guys?”

The Count realized that Azadin was overlapping him with someone else he knew.

“I call this my world even without conquering it.”

“That’s ridiculous. That’s just a loser’s self-consolation for not conquering anything. Hmm?”

The Count saw Azadin holding his bow again and stringing it, even though he was out of arrows.

“What are you going to do?”

“I recovered a little stamina while you were talking to me. I’m going to do this!”

At that moment, Azadin hooked the sword he was holding on the bowstring and shot it backward without looking.

-Thud!

The sword pierced the chest of the Naga sorcerer who was off guard.

“Kyaaak!”

“Oh, sister!”

The Naga screamed, and the other Naga sorcerer was shocked. Even though it was a dull sword, the sword that flew with terrifying force pierced the Naga’s chest and inflicted a fatal wound.

What was even more surprising was Azadin’s bow, which shot a much heavier sword than an arrow at a terrifying speed, and Azadin’s bizarre archery skills, which fired an irregular sword with such accuracy.

“This bastard dares!”

The Count was furious. He was so greedy for Azadin that he caused serious injury to his lover, the Naga woman. Just as the enraged Count was about to jump at Azadin, it was then.

“Here!”

An arrow flew from above and split the Count’s head. A blonde girl was hanging upside down on a rope, descending from the blood bath into the underground passage, and shooting arrows upside down.

“Are you alive, Azadin?”

“Yes! I told you not to come here…”

“Are you thankful that I came?”

“I am thankful! Damn it!”

Azadin felt grateful for Midiam’s support. He told her to wait outside, but she followed him as she pleased. But thanks to her, he had a clue for a counterattack.

“You insolent!”

Midiam’s arrows fly towards the Count, but her bow cannot penetrate the Count’s thick scales.

“Midiam! Arrow feedback!”

“Yes!”

Midiam listened to Azadin and changed her target, shooting arrows at Azadin.

“Are you crazy?”

The enraged Count was also momentarily stunned and watched the scene. But Azadin snatched the arrow Midiam fired in mid-air, hooked it on his bow, and shot it backward.

The arrow, which flew with much faster and stronger power than when Midiam shot it, covered the Naga sorcerer.

“Kyaaak!”

“Rapid fire!”

“Can you really receive them?!”

Midiam asked back and fired a volley at Azadin. Azadin kicked the first arrow up with his foot, snatched the second one, shot it back at the Naga, and grabbed the arrow he had kicked up and shot it again.

The arrow that broke the head of the charging mummy soldier hit another Naga sorcerer. Azadin is focusing on the Naga sorcerers who are raising the mummy soldiers.