Chapter 41: The Battle of the Plains
The next day.
The map Raymond had sketched was etched into Leon's mind after only two glances. The route was set.
The wind howled in his ears. Leon had Lilia tucked under his left arm and Reinhard under his right, his legs churning so fast they left nothing but a blurred trail of afterimages on the ground. He had become an arrow loosed from a bow, a silver streak screaming across the landscape toward Iron Fortress.
Trees and hills were whipped into streaks of color, discarded behind them in the blink of an eye. Reinhard's face was distorted by the sheer force of the airflow; he kept his head down and his mouth clamped shut, his cheeks flapping uncontrollably as he fought to keep the air from lunging down his throat.
Lilia fared much better. Her heavy, customized helmet shielded her from the brunt of the atmospheric impact. She remained motionless, watching the world retreat at a breakneck pace with silent intensity.
Leon let out a casual yawn. To him, this speed was nothing more than a post-meal stroll.
As the trio breached the Kazir Plains, the terrain suddenly opened up into a vast, flat expanse. Without warning—
FWOOSH!
A pillar of searing white-blue fire erupted from the grassy earth, shooting straight for Leon's head. Without breaking his stride, Leon shifted half a meter to the left. The inferno brushed past the hem of his cloak, soaring into the heavens. Behind him, the air where he had just stood ignited with a series of sonic booms, the resulting heatwave rippling outward across the grass.
Leon came to a stop. He set Lilia and Reinhard down; their legs buckled the moment they touched the dirt, nearly sending them to their knees.
"Divine Protection of the Holy Shield," Leon murmured. A faint, golden glimmer enveloped the two of them before fading into their skin.
In front of him, seven figures slowly emerged from the shimmering heat of the plains. Six skeletons of varying, terrifying forms, and one man with skin as pale as marble and bared fangs.
The pressure they radiated was heavy enough to crush a lesser man's spirit.
Tier 4.
Seven of them.
Leon realized he had walked straight into a trap, but his pulse didn't quicken. He looked past the other undead, his gaze locking onto the one-armed skeleton in the center. The creature held a massive blade of jagged bone, and its empty sockets burned with the cold, flickering light of pure arrogance.
Leon drew his Holy Sword, pointing the unadorned blade toward the center.
"Where is your King?"
Skele-Pride, the Skeleton Berserker, raised his empty left hand. A second bone blade manifested out of the very air, knitting itself into a solid weapon.
"A weak human has no need for such knowledge."
The moment the words fell, Pride moved.
He vanished. A split second later, a screeching roar of grinding metal exploded in the center of the plains. Leon's Holy Sword collided with Pride's twin blades, sending a spray of white-hot sparks dancing into the air.
Steel met bone. Strike met parry.
The two blades clashed dozens of times in a single second. Every impact caused the ground beneath them to cave in slightly, spiderwebbing cracks radiating outward from the epicenter of their duel.
Leon spotted a microscopic opening and lunged. The Holy Sword slipped through Pride's guard and pierced through his sternum. Leon twisted his wrist, and the power dormant within the blade detonated.
BOOM!
Pride's entire frame disintegrated instantly, reduced to a cloud of bone shards scattered by the wind.
A one-shot kill.
However, the battle had only just begun.
A fireball the size of a cottage roared toward Leon's face—the masterpiece of Skele-Lust, the Archmage. Leon swung his sword in a backhand arc, slicing the fireball clean in half. The flames split, forming a corridor of roaring inferno through which Skele-Wrath, the Skeleton Knight, charged.
Wrath's lance glowed with a blood-red light as he aimed it directly for Leon's heart. Leon's form blurred. He reappeared behind Wrath, his Holy Sword weaving a silver net of light. Dozens of slashes rained down upon the Knight's back in a staccato of metallic clangs.
Just as Leon prepared to dismantle Wrath completely, a shadow rose from beneath his feet. Skele-Sloth, the Skeleton Assassin, emerged soundlessly, his bone daggers tracing a lethal arc toward the back of Leon's neck.
Without looking, Leon reached back with his left hand, precisely catching Sloth by the wrist. In one fluid motion, he spun and slammed the small skeleton into the dirt. The earth let out a dull thud as a shallow crater formed.
Before he could follow through, a web of purple lightning crackled in the sky above. Lust's second spell, [Dragon's Lightning], was ready. A dragon woven from pure electricity roared downward, sealing off every avenue of escape.
Leon was forced to leap backward, giving up his offensive momentum. In that heartbeat of suspension, where his old strength was spent and new strength had yet to gather, Skele-Greed, the Vampire, seized the moment.
He moved like a ghost, closing the distance in a blur and sweeping a vicious kick toward Leon's temple. Leon raised his forearm to block.
THWACK!
The massive force sent Leon skidding back two paces upon landing, a slight numbness tingling in his arm.
"The Mage," Leon identified his primary target.
The moment his feet touched the ground, he kicked off, turning himself into a living projectile. Ignoring the attacks coming from every other direction, he charged straight for the Skeleton Archmage.
Suddenly, a massive shield tore out of the ground, blocking his path. Skele-Gluttony, the Skeleton Giant, used his gargantuan frame to form an insurmountable wall of bone. Leon's sword struck the shield with a heavy, muffled clunk.
Simultaneously, three arrows wreathed in ghostly green light whistled from an impossible angle, cutting off his retreat. Skele-Envy, the Skeleton Archer, had been waiting for this perfect opening. The arrows weren't meant to kill, but to force Leon's positioning.
Sure enough, to avoid the poisoned tips, Leon had to shift to the side—directly into the path of a reorganized Wrath, who was already beginning a second charge.
Lances. Claws. Magic. Arrows.
The seven Tier 4 undead functioned as a single, high-precision killing machine. If one was shattered, another filled the gap. One primary attacker, six supporters. Offense, defense, suppression, long-range fire, and stealth—their coordination was seamless.
The Sloth he had slammed into the ground had already merged back into the shadows. The shards of Pride were already clicking back together at a terrifying speed.
They could not die. They did not tire.
In the distance, Lilia and Reinhard were pressed into the dirt by the sheer atmospheric pressure of the combat. Leon's protection kept the stray energy from shredding them, but they were helpless observers. Their eyes couldn't even track the rhythm of the fight. They saw only a streak of silver light weaving through seven clusters of death.
Leon's brow furrowed for the first time. He was genuinely shocked.
He parried Wrath's lance once more, ducked beneath Greed's claws, and slashed upward to cleave a lunging Sloth in two yet again. He leaped back to create distance, looking at the seven undead who had reassembled, perfectly intact.
"If that's how it's going to be..." Leon whispered. "Then I'll end this with one move."
He raised the Holy Sword high above his head, the tip pointing toward the zenith.
"[Starfall's End]."
This time, Leon held nothing back. Full power.
The sky went dark—not because of clouds, but because every scrap of light was being sucked into the tip of his blade. A single point of golden radiance was born at the edge of the firmament. It expanded, transforming into a second sun. Planet-like rings of concentrated battle-aura swirled around the descending pillar of light.
The world fell into a vacuum of silence.
The Seven Generals froze, their Soul Fires pulsing wildly as they looked up in unison.
The light fell.
There was no deafening explosion, only an absolute, silent white. The radiance swallowed the Generals, the plains beneath their feet, and everything to the horizon.
Lilia and Reinhard felt as though they were drowning in an ocean of light. Their consciousness was washed clean by the sheer, absolute magnitude of the power.
When the light faded...
The Kazir Plains were gone.
In their place was a gargantuan, concave sinkhole. The surface of the crater was as smooth as a mirror, vitrified into glass by the residual heat. A mushroom cloud of dust and steam rose slowly from the center.
Leon exhaled, slowly lowering his Holy Sword.
But he didn't sheathe it. He stared intensely at the center of the crater.
Inside the darkness of his own mind, Pride felt a stifling void.
It was uncomfortable. It reminded him of the time before he met the Master. Back then, there was only eternal chaos—no time, no space, no self.
Then, a light had appeared. He had felt the Master's excitement. He had reached out and grasped that light.
And so, he was born.
I want... to touch that light again...
Just as his consciousness was being suppressed by the Hero's purification, unable to reassemble, he felt it.
A gaze fell upon his awareness.
The Master's gaze.
Pride roared with everything he had, screaming his defiance against the golden light that clung to his broken bones like a parasite. He would not fail the Master's expectations!
He surged upward!
In the center of the glass-like crater, a speck of black matter appeared out of nowhere. The Master's power poured into it. The black mass began to writhe and multiply.
One bone pierced through the vitrified floor. Then a second. A third. A massive bone hand tore open the ground, and a brand-new body stood up from the pit.
He was a head taller than before. His bones were no longer white, but pitch-black like obsidian, carved with glowing dark-purple runes. At his left shoulder, where it had once been empty, a vortex of pure shadow energy swirled slowly.
He lifted his head. Burning in his eye sockets were no longer flickering flames, but two stable, glowing violet stars.
Tier 5: Skeleton King.
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Hollowborn
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you