Chapter 72
Users and NPCs, whether guild members or soldiers under Rio’s command, I couldn’t tell, began to rush towards me, cutting down the undead that blocked their path.
I looked at Rio and said,
“Do you think you can stop me with this ragtag bunch?”
“H-how dare you be so arrogant! I, I don’t know how you got that power, b-but don’t you know there’s no defense against overwhelming numbers?!”
Rio stuttered, his voice trembling in response to my words.
I lightly raised Levateinn towards the sky and said,
“No defense against overwhelming numbers, you say? There were those who dared to say the same thing to me six years ago. Do you perhaps remember what I told those people?”
Rio’s whole body trembled subtly as our eyes met.
Looking at him, I uttered the activation words for the skill.
“Steel Rain.”
Fwoosh!
As soon as I finished speaking, the streak of aura light blazing from Levateinn shot up towards the dark clouds gathered in the sky.
Rumble!
A rain of Aura Swords began to pour down from the crimson-stained dark clouds.
Sword Rain!
Giant swords made of aura began to pierce the ground like blades.
“Agh!”
“Aaagh!”
The screams of the enemies rushing towards me faintly echoed in my ears.
Boom! Crash!
My vision was filled with the spectacle of aura-made giant swords piercing the ground and exploding.
Truly a Steel Rain!
The torrential downpour of swords, like carpet b*mbing, was cleanly erasing the enemies approaching me, like an eraser wiping away pencil lines drawn on paper.
Despair filled Rio’s eyes as he witnessed the scene.
I glanced at the remaining buff duration displayed at the edge of my vision.
Remaining buff duration: 17 minutes.
It took me three minutes just to get here!
I clicked my tongue, thinking that my senses must have dulled after using my prime character for the first time in a while, and then said to Rio,
“Everyone who dared to say that to me ended up dead.”
“W-what, what are you?! Drakan! What the h*ll are you?!”
I swung Levateinn towards the screaming Rio.
Clang!
The moment Rio instinctively raised his spear to block my attack.
[Mistilteinn’s durability has drastically decreased.]
[Mistilteinn’s durability has reached 0.]
[Mistilteinn has been destroyed.]
The message I had been aiming for finally appeared before my eyes.
[First to destroy a Legendary grade weapon during combat.]
[Achieved the achievement ‘Weapon Destroyer’.]
[All stats increased by 100.]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
Achievement messages are a bonus!
“Ah, Aaaaaah, Aaaaaaaaagh!”
Rio’s screams echoed through the surroundings.
Mistilteinn!
The Legendary grade twig was now engulfed in blue flames, turning into a handful of ashes.
“Surrender if you don’t want to d*e. I’m merciful, so I’ll spare you if you surrender now.”
Whoosh!
The blade of Levateinn, formed from the flames of Mistilteinn, touched Rio’s neck.
“You’re not still delusional enough to think you have a chance, are you?”
I pointed to the rear with the fingers of my other hand, the one not holding the sword.
“Look over there.”
At my words, Rio’s gaze shifted towards the rear, and his face immediately hardened.
▄ ▄ ▄
The main force of the Northern Expedition!
The main force, consisting of about 100,000 users and NPCs, was now in a state of chaos.
“Ugh! Someone stop those d*mn corpses!”
“Help me! I’m burning to death!”
East and West!
Undead detachments had stormed in from both the left and right flanks.
“Turn all the living into our brethren.”
The Arch Lich!
As he waved his skeletal staff, floating in the air and radiating black magic power, the sky turned upside down, the earth shook, and undead crawled up from the ground.
Under the command of the Arch Lich, the undead moved in unison.
Zombies staggering and scratching and tearing at enemies with their poison-laced claws, skeletons wielding weapons and striking, ghouls leaping and devouring flesh, corpse golems attacking with their massive bodies, Death Knights slaughtering with swords imbued with dark aura, and Liches firing magic spells from the rear!
In the midst of this utter chaos, the Northern Expeditionary Force struggled desperately.
Druids struck the undead with nature magic, and users fought back against the undead. At that moment……
“Blizzard.”
Blizzard, the strongest ice magic and the Arch Lich’s ultimate skill, swept across the battlefield.
A blizzard mixed with magic-infused ice shards!
Countless soldiers perished without even a scream in the deadly blizzard that swept across the battlefield.
But the attack didn’t end there.
[Krrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!]
A tremendous roar resonated from the sky!
Soon, a dragon, with only its bones remaining, revealed itself, violently scattering the dark clouds.
The Bone Dragon!
The second strongest undead leading the undead army had appeared from the sky.
Behind the Bone Dragon’s massive body, Bone Wyverns followed.
The assault of the undead air force!
The Bone Dragon, which had swooped down towards the ground in an instant, began to gather immense magic power in its mouth.
“Breath! Breath Attack!”
“Dodge!”
From Wyverns to Drakes to Dragons!
The Breath, the ultimate weapon possessed by all dragon-type monsters, was charged and ready to fire.
Seeing this, the Northern Expeditionary Force quickly scattered, but it was already too late.
A jet of black breath erupted from the Bone Dragon’s gaping maw and struck the ground directly.
Kaboom!
The earth shook with a roar, and smoke filled the sky.
The expeditionary force was gripped with fear as they witnessed the people around them dying without a scream from a single breath attack.
But they didn’t realize that the first verse hadn’t even ended yet.
“K*ll all the living!”
The Black Knight Commander!
The leader of all Death Knights and the strongest Death Knight in Ard World, with his glowing blue eyes, jumped off the back of the Bone Dragon.
Starting with the Black Knight Commander, elite Death Knights, who had been riding on the backs of Bone Wyverns, descended to the ground like special forces and began to cut down the expeditionary force.
This chaos was unfolding on the other side as well.
“Great Inferno.”
A h*ll of fire that didn’t belong in the snowy north!
At its center was Ignis.
As the Flame King Ignis waved his hand, waves of fire surged forward, engulfing the enemies. The other party members beside him – Queen Honey, Shin Ha-yeon, and Ma Boo-jang – also unleashed their own skills, attacking the enemies.
And behind the waves of fire that Ignis had created, undead were endlessly pouring in.
The morale of the Northern Expeditionary Force, attacked from both sides, was steadily plummeting.
The Northern Expeditionary Force was crumbling miserably!
Watching the scene, Rio went berserk.
“Surrender? I can’t accept this! This, this isn’t right! It’s not right!”
Rio couldn’t accept this reality.
How much effort had he put into preparing for this expedition?
Rio had believed that the success of this expedition would not only earn him the trust of Vice Chairman Shin, but also elevate him to a position above Over-Ranker.
But all of that had crumbled in an instant.
So, it was only natural that he couldn’t accept reality at once.
Drakan thrust Levateinn straight into Rio’s abdomen.
“Gah, Ugh!”
Rio’s eyes widened as he looked at the flaming sword Levateinn embedded in his lower abdomen.
Thanks to the Ard Saga system, which blocked a certain level of pain, he didn’t feel any pain, but the sight of the sword embedded in his abdomen was truly shocking.
“If you can’t accept it, then you can d*e like this. I offered you mercy, but you refused it.”
The moment Drakan’s cold voice reached Rio’s ears, he realized the cold reality.
‘I lost.’
He had been defeated, and the Northern Expedition had failed!
And in Ard Saga Second, where a single death led to the permanent death of a character, if his character, which was his greatest asset as an Over-Ranker, died and disappeared like this, the chances of him, Rio, falling apart in reality were high!
Only when he felt his health points decreasing in real-time did Rio realize.
With his head cooled down, Rio properly grasped the current situation.
Mistilteinn!
The blessed twig, known as the only weapon that could completely k*ll the Undead King, the immortal ruler of the corrupted undead, had been broken and disappeared after clashing with Levateinn. He was currently on the verge of death, and the Northern Expeditionary Force was in disarray under the enemy’s onslaught.
Rio’s gaze turned towards Drakan.
Steel Monarch Drakan!
Former Top Ranker!
Rio, who had first entered Ard Saga through Second, didn’t believe in Drakan’s fame.
Of course, Rio knew that he had unified the continent and held the hegemony of the world before Eugene.
But so what?!
In the end, he was a loser who had been defeated by Eugene, just one of many has-beens with only past glory remaining.
That’s what Rio had thought.
Of course, Drakan was a rising blue chip in the Ard World, and now he had moved beyond being a promising player and become a star user in his own right. However, the gap between him and Rio, who was an Over-Ranker, was still enormous, which is why he had thought that way even more.
But the Drakan he faced directly was different.
It wasn’t just his skills and stats that had been temporarily strengthened by some unknown buff.
This was a more fundamental issue, a matter of physical prowess.
What is commonly referred to as “physicals.”
The moment Rio exchanged blows with Drakan, he realized that Drakan’s physical abilities had already reached a level far beyond his own, an Over-Ranker.
‘Is the position of a Top Ranker a realm that only monsters like this can aim for?’
Rio thought, trembling.
Top Ranker!
His ambition to one day occupy that position felt shameful.
Rio sighed.
Anyway, no matter how he tried to justify it, he had lost.
He could continue to struggle, but that would only increase the number of casualties and further narrow his own position. Moreover, and most importantly, if he died like this, only a miserable ending awaited him.
It would be better to return alive, even if it meant just saving his character.
Since he had lost, a quick surrender was his only way out.
Thinking this, Rio quietly said in a bitter voice,
“Surrender! I surrender! I surrender!”
Hearing those words, Drakan pulled Levateinn out of Rio’s abdomen and coldly replied,
“I accept your surrender.”
Drakan!
He had no intention of killing Rio from the beginning if he surrendered.
Even if they were enemies, he needed to cultivate an image of sparing those who surrendered. He needed to dilute the reputation of the cruel Steel Monarch of the past and continue to expand his support base through that.
Someone who knew how to draw the line, even when delivering satisfying victories, unlike in the past!
That was the image Drakan aimed for, and to complete that image, he needed to spare Rio’s life.
Of course, if Rio refused to surrender and continued to resist, he would have killed him without hesitation.
After accepting Rio’s surrender, Drakan ordered the surrounding undead to restrain him.
It was the moment when the War against Death, ambitiously pursued by the Simseong Milky Way Guild, came to a devastating end.
