Overlord of Blood and Iron

“M-Milord!”

Looking at Rothschild who had his back impaled, the face of his personal guards paled.

The death of their Lord.

It was the thought of this that made fear and despair creep up on the guards.

“Dorian.”

With a determined expression, Kang Chul-In called Dorian.

“Kill them all. Don’t let anyone out of here alive.”

“Yeah.”

And what followed Dorian’s agreement was a slaughter.

Showing movement that made one think of a killing-machine, Kang Chul-In with the help of Dorian killed all of the soldiers that Alex Rothschild had brought with him.

‘Drink it.’

With a complicated gaze, Kang Chul-In looked at the ground.

‘This is my apology to you.’

He prayed for the dead soldiers and civilians that had once been part of his territory--- the proud and powerful people of Valhalla.

As Kang Chul-In had commanded, not a single one of the 500 soldiers could leave alive. Of course, that included Rothschild’s powerful personal guards.

Though they tried to approach Rothschild who was slowly bleeding out, stabbed by Kaiforce…

“Agh!!”

It was nothing more than a last ditch effort against Kang Chul-In that went all-out.

If this was still in the past, they would have been able to ‘somewhat’ stop him.

But not anymore.

Even looking at all of the adventurers and Lords that had come over through the portal, there was not a single person that could withstand the strength of Kang Chul-In.

“Get out of my way.”

Chopping the heads off of all the personal guards that stood in his way, Kang Chul-In walked towards Rothschild without any hesitation.

Human heads started falling onto the ground, almost like dominoes.

One, two, three, four… The ones that had stood up to protect Rothschild were all butchered mercilessly.

After a bit, Kang Chul-In was finally able to get to where Rothschild was.

“Kuk… Cough!”

Thankfully, Rothschild wasn't dead just yet.

“Huk...Huk…”

At the sight of Rothschild gasping for breath, reminding him of a cockroach struggling to live, Kang Chul-In smirked.

“You’re going to kill him?”

Dorian asked from behind.

“Of course I am.”

Kang Chul-In answered.

“Kuhuk!”

Kang Chul-In stretched out his arms and began to choke Rothschild.

There weren’t any words. There was no interrogation. Kang Chul-In just picked up scraps of metal that had fallen down during the fight, and then proceeded to slowly cut through Alex Rothschild’s neck, almost like he was slicing a cake.

“Kuk… Cough! Ugh…”

And as blood started to gurgle and splurt out of Rothschild’s neck…

Roll…

Rothschild’s head started to roll on the ground, away from his body.

“Wow… that’s violent…”

Dorian shook his head, quite startled by Kang Chul-In’s viciousness.

“Is that so?”

But Kang Chul-In didn’t agree with what Dorian said.

“Look. This bastard... he’s still not dead.”

“Huh?! What are you talking about? Look, he’s dead. He’s not even a zombie or anything. What, do rich people not die when their heads are chopped off? Ha! That’s not even a funny joke.”

Though Dorian crinkled his face in disbelief…

‘Something is off.’

Kang Chul-In didn’t believe that Rothschild died.

Though he had killed his old archenemy, he didn’t feel any emotion or ‘achievement’ in his heart. Though it was just his intuition, Kang Chul-In felt that Rothschild hadn’t died from that.

Though he was Kang Chul-In’s enemy...

...There was no way that Alex Rothschild would die such a vain death.

‘Hmm… Maybe?!’

Kang Chul-In thought of what had happened between him and Alex Rothschild in the past.

Rothschild had lost to Kang Chul-In more than just a few times, and had to face the humiliation of having his territory being completely destroyed by Kang Chul-In 4 times. There were also times when Kang Chul-In had thrown Alex Rothschild into deadly places with no chance of survival.

Though it was true that Kang Chul-In hadn’t ‘killed’ Rothschild with his own hands, it’d be normal for Rothschild to have died at least 2 or 3 times.

But he had somehow survived and rebuilt his territory time and time again, no matter how much damage was dealt to him. This was the reason why Kang Chul-In had kept on calling Rothschild an ‘undying cockroach’.

There had to be a secret. 

In the ‘past’, and in the ‘present’. There had to be a reason that Rothschild hadn’t died.

“Dorian.”

Kang Chul-In called Dorian.

“Yeah?”

“Look at the rankings.”

A Lord’s death would immediately change the Lord rankings, so to check for a Lord’s death, there was nothing more accurate than looking at this.

“He’s not there.”

Dorian tilted his head.

“He’s dead. Rothschild is no longer in 5th place and I’m in 8th place too.”

“Keep scrolling down. Look through the entire list and you’ll find his name.”

“Huh?”

Dorian questioned.

“Maybe around…”

Kang Chul-In tried his best to recall the past.

“100th place.”

“100th Place? Ha, no way. He’s dead, so he’s definitely off this list. I doubt that it’s just his ranking that…”

And suddenly, Dorian’s face turned frosty.

“...He’s there.”

Dorian’s face was the epitome of shock. 

“105th place. He’s alive. That Rothschild.”

It finally proved Kang Chul-In’s suspicions.

-----

At the same time.

Within the hidden chambers deep inside the Cyamodus territory.

A man that seemed to be sleeping was sitting down on what looked like a throne.

No, he was sleeping.

“.....!”

And then that man… suddenly woke up.

“Cough!”

And he started coughing up blood.

“Kuk… Cough… Cough….!”

Fresh red blood started to come out from that man’s mouth. Looking at how severe it was, it seemed that the man could die from excessive bleeding.

“Huk… Huk… Dammit… Huk…”

Alex Rothschild started gritting his teeth in frustration.

His condition wasn’t looking good right now. He had pitch black dark circles hanging over his eyes, and his lips were black from all the blood.

“Huk… Huk… You… One day, I’ll definitely kill you.”

Though Rothschild was weakened, the madness in his eyes seemed stronger than ever.

“How dare he... humiliate me like this…”

After muttering this, Rothschild touched the part of his neck that was sliced through by Kang Chul-In. 

It was a terrible, terrifying experience.

Who could have experience getting their head chopped off alive? What he had experienced just now was a nightmare… a nightmare that he never wanted to experience again.

“Hu…”

Inhaling deeply, Rothschild opened his Status Page.

[As penalty for the destruction of your clone, your stats will decrease by 70%. (0 clones left)]

[Lord Points will decrease by 300P, due to the sickness of the Lord.]

[Your ranking has fallen from 5th → 105th place.]

They were terrible losses.

Though it was thankful that Rothschild himself hadn’t died, but 10 mole assassins, 20 wraiths, and 500 soldiers had all died, not to mention his personal guards. Rothschild had just lost 20% of his territory’s entire strength with that fight.

This is significant, but… Rothschild had lost something even more important than that.

His secret, that he had tried to protect from the world forever, had been revealed.

His death, or rather his clone’s death, needed to be a hidden card left until the very end. But now that his secret had been discovered, he couldn’t stay hidden here forever.

-------

‘Cockroach-like bastard.’

Finally realizing the unknown ‘specialty’ and secret of Rothschild, Kang Chul-In grit his teeth.

‘You were able to survive because you were probably hidden away somewhere, controlling your ‘puppets’, weren’t you? Even though I had destroyed you countless times.’

“How is he still alive? Is he unkillable or something?”

Still unable to figure out how Rothschild was still alive, Dorian muttered, very confused.

“No, that’s not true.”

Kang Chul-In shook his head.

“Then how is this possible?”

“There’s no way that he would go down 100 places in the Lord rankings just by losing 500 men or so. I’m guessing that it’s a penalty on his real body that was placed due to the destruction of his ‘puppet’. For this kind of ridiculously powerful and useful ability, there has to be risks.”

Kang Chul-In could perfectly tell how Rothschild had survived now.

“Aha! So Rothschild’s real body is somewhere else, and we just killed his ‘puppet’?”

“Exactly.”

“Sigh… This Rothschild, he’s a cockroach, isn’t he? He won’t die no matter how much times you kill him.”

“Pft. I like how you described him.”

Kang Chul-In smirked.

“Yeah, but anyway…”

Dorian suddenly pointed at a hill.

“What do we do with that woman?”

Kim Sung-hee was still standing there, watching dazedly.

“... That mosquito, she’s still here?”

Kang Chul-In muttered, as if he were startled.