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I went down the tunnel with Marcus, Sereraji, and a mechanic.
One was stationed at the entrance to buy at least some time in case of an emergency.
The tunnel was wide enough for three people to walk side by side, and as they went down, more and more crystals began to appear.
The pale blue light was originally bright enough to distinguish the shapes of objects, but now it was starting to dazzle the eyes.
From one day on, I started hearing a buzzing sound in my ears.
Sereraji frowned, wondering if she was the only one who could hear it, and Marcus also gritted his teeth.
“Valentine. Are you okay?”
“Huh? It’s okay, except for the fact that I’m a little nervous.”
“He’s a monster.”
Sereraji muttered as he raised his staff and struck the crystal rising from the wall.
The ground shook, and the crystals in the area resonated simultaneously.
Woohoo!
The sight of the crystals rising from the ceiling, floor, and walls all vibrating together was mysterious and terrifying.
Squeak!
There was a noise like a mental wave, and Marcus swore.
“Your Majesty, Sereraji! What are you doing!”
Sereraji let out a soft sigh.
“You really don’t know?”
“After I explain, move! After I explain!”
“The crystal itself is emitting psychic waves little by little. The miners who worked here would have been the first to be eroded. It would have accumulated little by little and eventually, one day, it would have suddenly changed.”
"ah."
I nodded, quickening my pace.
“I had thought that this expensive reagent mine wouldn’t close overnight just because the nearby village disappeared, but there was a decisive blow that forced them to give up. It must have been very strong, as it was slowly and deeply eroded.”
“And given the stability of this crystal erosion… … there’s a good chance those miners are still moving.”
As soon as he finished speaking, a strange echo began to ring.
Bang, bang, bang, bang.
It sounded like someone was hitting something with a pickaxe.
Just then, the downhill passage ended and a huge cavity came into view.
Marcus opened his notebook and pointed to the map he had copied at the entrance.
“If you go down the opposite path from here, you’ll come to the very bottom. There seems to be something in the cave, so it would be best to check carefully before you go.”
Sieeeeing!
The sound of Soo-jeong crying could be heard from afar.
I poked my head out across the passage to check the situation.
"world."
It was a sight that made people want to curse.
* * *
“Hey, Christian! Take it easy.”
“What are you talking about, Jang? It’s a long way to pay for my son’s tuition. He recently got into Devosion Academy.”
“I don’t know how that guy gave birth to such a smart son.”
“Haha. Our son is a good boy. Can’t we make him a miner too?”
The crystal eroders we've been fighting for the past few days haven't been all that threatening, aside from the psychic waves.
His actions were not very fast, he did not use magical powers, and he seemed to have little intelligence.
However, all the eroders in this mine were reproducing their actions and tones from when they were alive.
“The water is all gone.”
“When will the rescue team come?”
Two men, their eyes, nose, and mouths emitting distorted blue light, dragged a trolley containing crystals down an underground passage.
Between the twisted ribs, between the muscled forearms, the light of the flesh-eating crystals shone brightly.
Sereraji smiled bitterly.
“Valen. They don’t even know they’re dead.”
Marcus said, his eyes sparkling.
“Archduke Valen. But there is one thing that is different from when you were alive.”
I nodded my head in disappointment.
“Yeah. They weren’t going up, they were going down. Into the end.”
I just tore off one of the crystals that had been sticking out of the surrounding wall.
“The old ones are mostly one in strength, body, and soul. This growing means that it is slowly eroding this world, and gathering this means that it is recovering.”
Marcus laughed bitterly.
“It looks like the old guy was injured enough when he fell. Are you starting to make sense of it?”
Now it wasn't enough to stop Ensis from having this.
I took a deep breath and drew my sword.
“I’m going to push the heat directly into you like I did when I killed the alien in the capital. Can you cover me?”
* * *
Valencian immediately kicked the ground and ran out.
The Dragonblood Royal Family of Soletaras were born fighters, and he and Jaylilith were so deeply ingrained in the royal family's characteristics that they were said to be the reincarnation of the first emperor.
“Those who can neither live nor die dare to block my path!”
Imperial Swordsmanship Level 1, Ichigo.
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The swollen mana assisted the muscle fibers, and Valencian's black blade entered the eroder's crown and exited through its shins.
Wah, wah!
He cut down a miner with one blow and ran down the opposite passageway.
They were followed by Sereraji, Marcus, and the Mechanical Knight.
Whoosh!
As if to prove the saying that they are one and whole, hundreds of miners moving through the tunnels and passages all looked at the net at the same time.
The sight of hundreds of eyes rotating simultaneously in a hollow room filled with blue light was more intimidating than terrifying.
However, the opponent was a magic engineer who was called the most dangerous lord in the West.
Woohoo!
A purple aura unique to the art of destruction rippled through Marcus's Estok.
bang!
The flash of lightning shot out in a straight line like a heat ray, completely impaling the three miners who had just rushed in and collapsing.
“To whom do you lowly beings dare to reveal yourselves now? I am your master!”
Sereraji infused mana into the pearl earrings she had received as a gift from Cariosa and took flight, presenting a rare sight of her flying backwards and spewing lightning.
“Valentine! Let’s go!”
Valencianus ran down to the ditch without hesitation.
The road was very clean, and the only thing stopping him were miners pulling empty carts up the road.
“Hand it over!”
Valencian ran up to the miner and kicked him in the face, while simultaneously climbing onto the wheelbarrow.
He cleverly positioned the center so that the support floated in the air, and the wheels rolled madly down the hill.
“Hahahaha!”
He blasted away the miner holding a pickaxe in the middle with a fire spear, and showed the miner swinging a whip with crystal crystals how sharp the blacksmith's blade was.
Kwajijijik!
The moment the cart broke apart, he jumped down lightly and stepped into another cavity.
There, in the high ceiling, sat the largest crystal I had ever seen.
"world."
It was entirely circular, had sharp crystal spines like those of a sea urchin, and was a dangerously beautiful turquoise color reminiscent of tropical seas.
It was large enough to completely fill a room, and was made of an unknown black metal that rolled around the outside of a blue crystal, with a giant eye-like pattern at the center of the crystal.
Wooooow-!
The lens vibrated and auditory hallucinations began.
'Don't be afraid, come here.'
Valencian felt an instinctive sense of crisis.
'I will give you whatever you wish for.'
It was an eerieness that had not been felt even when the 1km foreign object smashed the capital like a piece of candy, or when its psychic waves eroded 23,000 people.
'Just accept me.'
His mental strength was not that of a fifteen-year-old boy prince, but of a scoundrel prince who had been through many hardships for decades, and now that he had been praised as a warrior, he could chew up any mental wave that came his way.
'It's done.'
But the temptation he felt now was more deadly than any mental wave he had experienced before his regression.
Valencian approached the crystal with a possessed step.
Jaylilith's bright laughter echoed in my ears.
Tsk tsk tsk!
A crack appeared on the surface of the lens, and a tiny blue crystal rose up.
It was also beautiful, but not as beautiful as the giant crystal.
The crystal presented itself like a mysterious beauty handing over a drink.
'Just, just accept me.'
Valencian's yellow eyes went unfocused, and he dropped the blacksmith he was holding.
With a clank, the northern longsword rolled across the floor, and he reached out with his gloved hand.
The hand became translucent through the Yongchan ritual and the spirit essence transplant, and even had dark red scales here and there.
If it weren't for the spirit essence transplant, the scales would have already spread to his shoulders.
"okay."
Valencian placed his hand on the lens.
Not a tiny blue crystal, but a giant eye-like crystalline body.
Wooooow-!
The lens vibrated violently as if in panic, and Valencian's hands burned like a furnace.
Cheeeeek!
Steam and smoke rose from the beautiful turquoise crystal, and a cruel smile appeared on the lips of the Grand Duke of Mannani.
“You’re really scary. I was completely fooled. No matter how much I mustered my will, I couldn’t break you. It felt like I was pointing a sword at my only remaining family member.”
Eeeeeing!
“Then what should we do? We should burn it, purify it, and then swallow it. I don’t know if it will work, but you are very stable, and since you are the main body, there is no need to keep eating it.”
With a self-deprecating laugh, the Grand Duke of Mannan flashed his vertically torn yellow pupils.
“Either we die together or I live alone.”
From his temples sprouted horns as curved as a mountain goat's.
The crystal quartz erupted in a psychic jolt, and Valencianus murmured.
“Just accept me.”
* * *
Tentia slashed her sword down like thunder.
“Tread on my corpse, or become a corpse on my sword!”
Tsukaaaaak!
With each step she took, the crystals embedded throughout her mechanical armor resonated, amplifying her power.
Woohoo!
Red mana blades surged forward like waves made of blood.
“… … .”
But Ensis leisurely raised his sword like a prophet who parted the sea.
wickedness-!
It was a neat and clean blow, not flashy or grandiose compared to Tentia.
But the cool blue line surged through the red waves, denting the solid plate of the machine armor, snapping steel fibers and chains, and completely altering the trajectory of a greatsword as large as Ensus's body.
Cheeeeek!
The mechanical armor screamed, and Tentia staggered violently as well.
“Ugh!”
Blood flowed from between the slits in her helmet.
Mana flows within the body, and the Mana Blade is a technique and realm that diverts that flow outward.
In other words, the shock of the Mana Blade being forcibly broken was so severe that it caused all of the organs and blood vessels to burst.
Phew!
But Tentia regained her balance and blew her fist to regain some distance.
The fact that her body wasn't torn in half while facing the Auror Blade was a testament to her skill and the quality of her armor.
“You still haven’t given up.”
wickedness!
Ensis's sword cut through the left gauntlet.
The solid iron plates and spikes cut through like cheese.
It was a sword strike that could have cut off Tentia's arm if he had wanted to.
Of course, he had no intention of killing off this reckless knight who had really provoked him.
What was even more unpleasant was the fact that this article seemed to know even his feelings.
“I am iron that becomes harder the more you beat it, and I am water that does not break!”
Tentia wrapped the Mana Blade around the split greatsword once again.
The red waves rose again.
Philios looked at the sight, and suddenly felt goosebumps run down his body.
‘… … Have I ever once clung to His Majesty the Father until the end?’
Even though he clearly defeated Tentia, Philios found himself looking pitiful in front of her.
There, in Doroisen, the land of swords and knights, was the epitome of the virtues so praised.
Tentia was extremely focused on Ensis.
'The world and people can be evaluated from various perspectives, and they are entitled to be evaluated. However, we must ultimately choose one perspective. Can we not move forward if we only observe?'
The boring words from the swordsmanship textbook suddenly came to mind.
What matters is that you chose one of countless options.
No matter how many reasons there were to run away, you chose to fight.
At that moment, Tentia stepped into a new world.
"flaw."
Imperial Swordsmanship 8th level, Salga Yagyen
It was similar to the 5th stage of Asa, but was a few stages higher.
Stage 5: So much information was pouring into Tentia that it was hard to believe what she had seen and heard before, to the point where she felt suffocated.
It felt like I could understand anything in this world now.
Saaaaak-!
Sword King Ensis slashed down with his blazing blue sword, and Tentia dodged by bending her knees deeply.
It was as if he had known a beat before he could avoid it.
A strange look crossed Ensis's face, and Tentia immediately ran out and raised her extra-large sword.
A technique where you insert the sword from the shoulder and swing it sharply to strike the neck.
It was one of the signature techniques of the Imperial Knights.
The red sword drew a huge semicircle.
Chaaaaah-!
Red mana blades rose like a tidal wave.
at the same time.
'Raise it up and cut it off.'
The swordsmanship of the Doroisen swordsmen unfolded in Tentia's hands.
It was a mysterious skill that allowed one to cut directly through armor.
Mana Blast!
'Now!'
Waves that slammed upward from below and waves that pressed down from above swept over Ensis.
Tsukaaaaak!
A magnificent explosion occurred, and Ensis and Tentia intersected.
“Hoo, hoo.”
Tentia turned around, breathing heavily, and Ensis swept the deep ridges on his helmet with his gauntlet.
As the king of a powerful nation, his armor was protected by more magical circuits than those of the imperial knights of the empire.
“You only made me shed a drop of blood.”
He took off his helmet himself.
There was a blood line drawn on the neck.
No matter how many new realms he pioneered, the wall of the Sword Master was high.
“Are you satisfied now?”
A suggestion to gradually become more comfortable.
Tentia, like a knight, kicked away the offer and took up his sword.
“I am iron that becomes harder the more you beat it, and water that does not break. … … If it bleeds, it could kill you.”
Ensis sneered faintly.
“Do you trust your master that much? By now, his crystals have eroded away and he has become a monster.”
Tentia shrugged her shoulders as if she had heard the babbling of the city thugs.
“If a knight does not trust his lord, who will trust whom?”
"hmm."
“He does not enjoy lies. He will surely tear to pieces the old thing that sleeps down there, and I will stand here until He returns.”
Ensis laughed bitterly.
“I wish you were my knight.”
The blue aura blade burned several times.
Tentia felt a chill down her spine and raised her head proudly in the face of her impending death.
Wedge!
At that moment, a spear of fire flew through the wind.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Flames burst out and Ensis staggered back.
He frowned at the chilling sensation he felt from the flames.
“Who dares to use his dirty tongue on a knight?”
And from behind the flames, a voice several times colder was heard.