Dragon Maken War

Chapter 65 - Those who Follow the Prophecy (4)

Azell deployed his magic.  His three Rings of Life, which had gone through Dual Banding, vibrated, and an enormous amount of magic was emitted.

Woooooooo!

‘I'll hit him with everything I got from the beginning!’

He put on a strong front, but Azell's instinct was warning him of danger. The Undead in front of his eyes was dangerous. A bizarre armor covered its entire body, and the sword was a powerful magical artifact.  Moreover, the soul controlling these items were quite formidable.

<You will have to just watch this.>

At that moment, another Undead's voice rang out from the dark.  There were two more of them.

<This is a test given by the Guardian Shadow's Keeper of Prophecy.>

“Is this… Are you giving me an order?”

Kairen bared his teeth as he laughed.

The two Undead within the darkness looked to be a Magician, and an Undead Swordsman wearing similar armor to Zeta.  The Undead Swordsman's face was covered with a dark mask.  The helm had two horn that looked like the horns of the Dragon Demon race, and it looked fierce.

<Don't think of it as an order.  It would be great if you thought of it as a request from a fellow member from the same organization.>

“What if I don't agree to it?”

<Then we will have no choice, but to block you.>

“Doesn't that sound more fun?  I don't care if we are in the organization called Guardian's Shadow.  I'm not tolerant enough to be ordered around by Undead bastards.”

Hoooooooo!

Kairen unsheathed his dual swords, and he deployed his Dragon Demon magic. The air around him responded to his intent, and the sound was loud and resonant.  The Undead magician, who saw this, spoke.

<Jeez.  You did say it would turn out like this.  How did you know?>

<Well, when I was alive, these kinds of things happened quite often.  This is the temperament of a  swordsman.>

The Undead Swordsman spoke with laughter in his voice. It sounded as if wind was escaping through the holes in his Skull.  It seemed the Undead tried to laugh like he used to when he was alive.

The Undead Swordsman spoke.

<I heard he is a living legend of this era.  Shall I see how talented he is?  I was always curious as to the skills of kids these days.>

“Kids these days?  Are you old enough to speak so insolently in front of me?”

<Of course.>

“Then you are old enough to be senile.  Why don't you leave behind your disgusting obsession and return to your grave!”

Kairen ran in like a ray of light, and he clashed with the Undead Swordsman.

Kwahhhhhhng!

Light exploded and the earth shook.

Kairen was taken aback.

‘What's the identity of this bastard?’

His first strike was a surprise attack where he put his full power into the strike. If it was a human, any defense would have been meaningless.  It would have evaporated in an instant.

However, his opponent didn't move an inch, and it blocked his attack. It stood atop the shaking earth, and it let out an overwhelming amount of magic.  Kairen had exterminated a lot of Undead before, but the amount of magic emitted by this one was on a different level.

‘It is almost on par with me in terms of magic.’

Amongst the Dragon Demon race in Rulain Kingdom, Kairen was the strongest.  Surprisingly, the Undead Swordsman in front of his eyes was emitting Dragon Demon Magic that was on par with Kairen.

The Undead Swordsman spoke.

<Don't interfere, Theta.>

<You are making this more difficult than it has to be, Delta.>

<I need to amuse myself sometimes like this.  Since you are a pacifist, just watch us.>

<You are incorrigible.  If it looks like you are losing, I'll help you.>

<How can I lose to a pup?>

<How many years do you really think separates you from him? Moreover, you have retired from life.  I don't think you'll be much better than this lively soldier.>

<Why do all magicians have twisted personalities? They all speak so abominably. Anyways, you should quietly watch us.>

The sound of wind flowing out came from inside the Undead Swordsman's mask. The Undead Swordsman named Delta probably had the habit of snorting.  It sounded like it.

<It's my turn, pup.>

“I haven't heard someone call me that in such a long time that it doesn't seem like you are alluding to me, old man bones.”

<Then allow me to develop your character, legendary pup!>

Delta stomped on the ground as he dashed forward. Then the sword covered in darkness clashed with Kairen's dual swords.

6

Currently, the sounds of explosion rang out in the surrounding, and the air was getting much hotter.  Azell and Zeta glared at each other as they circled around each other.  However, it wasn't as if they were standing around doing nothing.  At that moment, a fierce battle was occurring in a domain that couldn't be seen by the eyes.

‘This bastard is only an Undead, but he is quite extraordinary.’

Azell felt a sense of confusion.

At that moment, they were controlling their mental waves, and they were engaged in a high speed battle.

They emphasized certain parts of their body to attract the gaze of each other, and both of them tried to hide their attack stance. However, their sense of distance became messed up as they kept following the movement of each other's stances.  Both of them shifted their balance, and they kept changing the rhythm of their breathing.  They were trying to mess up each other's timing.

This wasn't being done only by what one could see and hear.  They used magical energy to directly limit the opponent's senses.  Zeta was already dead, so he didn't have the senses that would be present in a living being.  This was why Zeta used a very sophisticated technique to face Azell.  His skills were not inferior to high level Spirit Order practitioners.

‘It's probably tough for a dead bastard to do this.’

A Magician loses a lot of capability when one becomes an Undead. However, a Spirit Order Practitioner had more to lose as an Undead.

At first, one would think an Undead would have no problem as a Spirit Order practitioner, since the technique dealt with the mind.  However, Spirit Order practitioners controlled their mind with the Rings of Life as their anchor. This could only happen with a living body.  

When one became an Undead, one lost all the standard techniques one cultivated previously. Everything had to be relearned as one had to match the standards of an Undead.  How could such a thing be easy?

Che-ehng!

At some point, Azell and Zeta determined each other's timing was off, so they charged.  However, the two only reaffirmed that they were both wrong.

<It seems our suspicion has some merit. You know about the secret arts that had been made to forget by Them.>

“So the Dragon Demon worshippers were really  behind the Spirit Order Practioners of this era being so deficient in handling their mind?”

<This era?>

Zeta reacted in a sensitive manner.  Azell knew he made a mistake, but he didn't let that show outwardly.

“What do you mean by the prophesied being? Why does an Undead want to fight me without giving any explanation?  I can't see  you as a someone good.”

<I don't care if you see us as good or bad.  We just…….>

Zeta charged as if he was skipping across space. As a living human, it was hard to predict its movements.  The Undead didn't breathe, and one couldn't read the Undead's muscle, since it wasn't there. There were much less clues one could use to predict its movement compared to a human.

Kwah-chahng!

Sparks flew.

It appeared behind Azell, not in the front.  It used an illusion to appear as it was jumping from the front, but it had curved the trajectory of the Instantaneous Movement to slide around to the back.

<…you are surprising. How are you able to predict an Undead's Spirit Order moves?>

Zeta rubbed at the chest region of his armor. Azell's sword had left a scratch on its surface.  Azell had seen through Zeta's movement, and he had counter-attacked.

Azell snorted.

“This isn't something special. You made your Qi too obvious in the early stages.  Anyways, that armor is very sturdy.”

Azell had struck with the intention of slicing through the entire armor.  However, the armor was so hard that he could only scratch it.

‘It seems it'll be quite difficult for me to harm him.’

His opponent was on a whole different level as the Undead Dragon Demon King worshiper named Jackal, who he had faced before.  The armor itself was a powerful magical artifact.

Azell felt unease wash over him.  Cold sweat was running down Azell's back.

<All right.  Shall I bring out a little bit more of what I'm hiding?  I'm warning you.  I won't be as slow as before.>

Zeta ran forward.  It wasn't Instantaneous movement, but the attack was so fast that it looked as if Zeta had jumped across space.

Cheng!

Light and darkness intersected. Azell's eyes had narrowed from surprise, yet the exchange continued before he could blink his eyes.

Che che che che cheng!

The arc of light and the arc of darkness clashed with each other in a dizzying manner.  Azell's expression crumpled.

‘Shit! Why is this bastard so fast?’

Zeta's speed kept increasing. Azell was keeping up with his speed, so Zeta kept increasing his speed as if it was telling Azell to keep up with it. The speed increased more and more as if there was no limit.

Pee-peet!

The shoulder region of Azell's leather armor was sliced.

Peet!

Blood flew from Azell's arm.

‘Fuck!’

It was too fast for Azell to keep up.  He purposefully opened up a weak point, so he could try to counter attack.  However, it was useless since Zeta was too fast.

His eyes followed its movement.  Azell had accelerated his senses to the extreme, and he was able to process all the information he was taking in.

However, his body couldn't keep up.  He used the least amount of movement to block, and he used Zeta's previous movements to predict the next moves.  He was defending against  it, yet there was a limit to what he could do.

Zeta was so overwhelmingly fast and strong that he couldn't cover up his deficiencies with his techniques!

Kah-kahk!

His balance was broken.  Azell had been stepping to the side in a circle to resist the onslaught, but he had just taken a step backwards.  Then he kept being pushed back as the dam had been broken.

<No matter how much skills you have, you are a ultimately a human.  I wonder how long you can keep up with me now that you aren't regulating your breathing.>

The Undead didn't need to breathe.  While they still had magical energy, the Undead could attack endlessly without rest.  It didn't breathe, so it didn't have the weakness of slowing down from muscle fatigue.

Also, a high level Undead like Zeta had the cursed power of being able to steal energy from whatever its power of darkness touched.  Azell was consuming his magical energy to defend against this.

He couldn't use his mind to create an opening. Zeta was way behind in terms of techniques dealing with the Mind, but Zeta was good enough.  The difference in magical energy was used to overwhelm Azell.  Moreover, the physical fight was so intense that he didn't have the time to use any advanced mental attacks.

Pah pah pah pah pah!

As if Zeta was far from done, he kept increasing his speed.

Zeta's strength was several times more stronger than Azell.  Zeta's speed was several times faster than Azell.  Moreover, Zeta's magical reservoir was so vast that it couldn't' be compared to Azell's magical energy.

There was too big of a difference between Zeta's full strength and Azell's full strength.  The fact that Azell hadn't been crushed in an instant was the evidence showing Azell was much superior in terms of techniques.

Suddenly, Azell's Clone appeared.  Zeta didn't pay any attention to it.  Since he already homed in on Azell's true body, any act of trying to distract him was a waste of magical energy.

However, Zeta had been too arrogant.

Too-hahk!

‘What?!’

Azell suddenly appeared from his side, and Zeta was hit with a single strike.  Zeta, who had been charging like a hurricane, was sent flying sideways.

Then…….

Ggwah-roo-roong! Gwah-gwahng!

Azell used this opportunity to to strike Zeta as he generated thunder with his sword.

“Huhk, huhk, huh-uhk……!”

Azell mindlessly took in his breaths.  Since he had moved without regulating his breathing, he had almost reached his limit.  His heart was pounding uncontrollably, and he felt dizzy in his head.