Chapter 131. Orb of the Undead (4)
"That wasn't darkness. It was an insect's carapace. Even when I saw my comrade's body vanish, swallowed in blackness in an instant, all I could do was run away."
────Gold-rank adventurer, Chekelin
***
Verden was pulled down by gravity, falling into the darkness.
Not stopping there, he used additional flight magic, accelerating his descent even further.
The cliffs flashing past on either side blurred into streaks.
If he were to crash into the ground at this speed, not even a trace of his body would remain. But Verden was confident.
Delicate control was one of his specialties.
As he plummeted at full speed toward the abyss, a rustling, scratching sound brushed past his ears.
When he cast his gaze downward, the darkness clinging to the wall was writhing.
'So that's it.'
The abnormal species noted in adventurers' records—Blackroach.
They usually cling to cave walls, spending the whole day in slumber, then, when prey wanders in or hunger strikes, they form swarms to hunt.
Each one was the size of a human head, and a single swarm could number in the hundreds.
They possessed keen detection abilities, sensitive to intruders trespassing in their territory.
Even invisibility would not fool them.
Adventurers avoided this species, precisely because it was such a troublesome opponent.
But here, in this bottomless abyss, the Blackroach existed on an entirely different scale.
'By mana detection, at least ten thousand.'
With no natural predators, their numbers were insane.
At that scale, they could annihilate an entire city without effort.
Before long, Verden had reached the very heart of the Blackroach's domain.
The hesitant stirrings vanished—the swarm fully recognized the intruder.
With nauseating wingbeats, they stirred and shifted, making the wall itself appear to move.
Bzzzzzzzz!
The air vibrated with the sound.
In the next instant, the Blackroaches rose in unison, rushing toward Verden.
If he were to be caught in that swarm bare, not even bones would remain in the blink of an eye.
Verden wreathed himself in fire.
The vanguard of Blackroaches charging mindlessly was burned to cinders.
But that was only a fraction.
The swarm did not halt its hunt.
Tak, taktak!
Tak-taktaktaktak!
Again and again, they died, and died once more.
The stench of charred flesh stung his nose.
By the time hundreds had perished,
[Krrrik.]
One Blackroach pierced through a weak spot in the veil, thrusting its head inside.
Insect-black eyes, jaws split into four parts twitching hideously.
Verden frowned.
"…Disgusting."
The sheer revulsion was uncontainable.
Winds whipped into a circular barrier.
The Blackroaches clustered near him were swept away, the swirling gale staining black.
Slammed against the cavern walls, the insects collided hard.
But their carapaces were not so easily shattered.
They immediately surged back toward him.
'Persistent creatures indeed.'
Normally, abnormal species that value territory cease pursuit once their boundary is crossed.
But this swarm showed no sign of relenting.
'No choice but to annihilate them.'
Naturally, Verden had a method prepared. He had studied the adventurers' records beforehand.
Chaos magic, employing the Center of the Three Primary Colors.
Among the spells he had devised during training, one was suited for this moment.
'First, I must gather them into one place.'
Resolving himself, Verden released the whirlwind veil.
Compressed wind exploded outward, tearing a gap in the encirclement.
Channeling
He wove evasive maneuvers, slipping past pursuit.
His movements were precise to the extreme—so fine that not a single Blackroach so much as grazed him.
Even for Verden, the thought of those flesh-eating insects touching him was intolerable.
Whooosh!
Like sprinting through empty air, he dove deeper into the abyss.
A glance back revealed the pit behind him, writhing, choked with Blackroaches.
Now was the moment.
Verden focused his mana into the tip of Oculus.
'What I need is destructive power—chainlike, and vast in range.'
The mark of Defying the Heavens surfaced in his right eye.
The conduction of
The contagion of
Encased by wind, the magic was tightly compressed.
Each was a fourth-tier spell. Deconstruction and reassembly of magic through intense concentration.
Normally, such an operation would take Verden dozens of seconds. But the Mystic Eye did the calculations for him.
The backlash was immense—even Verden struggled to endure it.
Any other mage would have lost control, perished by his own spell.
But Verden had piled up effort and training, making it possible.
Preparation complete, he turned his back and thrust Oculus forward.
A small, indigo sphere vanished into the swarm of Blackroaches.
And then—
────KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWANG!
The compressed flames detonated, unleashing hundreds of branching bolts of lightning that devoured the cavern.
Any Blackroach touched by it exploded instantly, death spreading like a plague.
For the swarm clumped so tightly together, pressed body to body, it was a fatal spell.
In the blink of an eye, tendrils of lightning reached even as far as Verden himself.
He slammed against the cliff wall.
Falling, he shaped the stone.
Not only beneath him—the Mystic Eye extended his mana into distant walls within sight as well.
A triple-cast Terrain Manipulation.
He slashed Oculus upward through the void, pulling the terrain together. A ceiling formed above Verden.
Between himself and the raging plague of magic consuming the Blackroach swarm.
The abyss itself was divided in two.
Rrrumble!
Sounds seeped through the stone.
Blackroaches, writhing in agony, slammed into the walls, explosions of plague chaining through them.
Cracks split the hastily forged ceiling.
But before long, silence fell.
The swarm of Blackroaches had been annihilated by the plague of flame and lightning.
Or, at the very least, reduced to nothingness.
'Either way, they won't be following any further.'
The backlash of the Mystic Eye struck him.
His head, his mana circuits—both screamed under the strain. Such was the difficulty of the spell he had just unleashed.
Shaking off the exhaustion, Verden descended further.
At last, the end drew near.
Landing on the ground, Verden looked around.
'Immense.'
Unlike before, the cavern before him was so vast, even with suggestion active, its full scale could not be grasped.
A silence of darkness.
Fine grains of sand lightly covered the floor.
No ambush, no presence—only the sensation of death lingering, prickling at his senses.
Verden advanced forward.
And finally—
'Found it.'
The Orb of the Undead.
Faintly glowing with violet light, it rested proudly atop a massive dune of sand.
How it had come to be perched there was unknown.
But it didn't matter. The goal of his commission was now within reach.
'My effort was worth it.'
Now, all he had to do was claim the orb, receive his reward, and at the auction house, purchase what he desired.
And then, ascend to the fifth tier.
Bohemirn's tower master.
It would be no different from taking several steps closer to that absolute transcendent of the seventh tier.
Closer to vengeance.
So thought Verden, as he approached the orb.
A foreign presence stirred.
"The Orb of the Undead! At last, we've found it!"
A voice echoed from the distance.
Verden turned his gaze quietly to the side.
Three figures, clad in suspicious black robes.
At their center stood an ugly man, so hideous that one might think this is what a ghoul would look like if it had been given life.
Before him were five Undead, lumps of mangled flesh.
'…Crumblers?'
It didn't appear to be naturally occurring.
Most likely summoned by necromancy of the summoning school.
'A group of black mages, here in the Cave without Light.'
As far as Verden knew, there was only one black mage group that would dare set foot here.
Glory of the Dead.
Verden's course of action was decided.
A beam of flame surged toward Kunel.
***
While Verden had fought fierce battles as he explored the Cave without Light, Kunel's party had enjoyed a journey that was strikingly peaceful.
Thanks to Kunel's unique trait, which allowed him to comprehend the Undead more deeply.
Even with hundreds of passages before them, they never lost their way. When troublesome abnormal species appeared, they simply bypassed them.
With three of them together, they could sleep briefly without fear of death.
Of course, descending for days into the endless depths was oppressive and arduous.
Yet in the end, they arrived at their destination without so much as a scratch, expending hardly any mana.
"Ahhh, I can feel it, the aura of the Orb of the Undead!"
Kunel could not contain his smile.
When the orb had been stolen by a traitor without warning, he had wondered how to face it.
But now, this would surely satisfy the master he respected and trusted.
And ultimately, this was a great step toward the objective of Glory of the Dead.
Kunel could not help but be overjoyed, knowing that he was the one playing the lead role.
As they walked through the darkness, at last they discovered it.
The Orb of the Undead, glowing resplendently atop a mound of sand.
"The Orb of the Undead! At last, we've found it!"
Kunel shrieked in a high-pitched tone, striding forward.
But at the edge of his vision, he noticed a strange silhouette.
A person.
'Huh? Why would a person be here…?'
It was abnormal.
Even Karzan and Daniel, who followed him, were visibly shaken.
The sight was chilling.
For a human to be here, in a place so deep no hand of man should reach—it defied understanding.
This was not the emotion of a black mage, but a natural, human response.
And then it happened.
A beam of flame shot toward them.
"Wha—?!"
Kunel's eyes widened.
He threw his Crumblers in front of him as shields and cast
Kwoooosh!
The Undead melted in the flames, unable to resist even for an instant.
Even the Soul Veil itself was partially damaged.
'He concentrated mana to the very limits of the spell…!?'
The raw power was overwhelming.
Clicking his tongue, Kunel caused a wide wall of skulls to rise from the ground, creating cover and buying time to marshal his mana.
Seeing that, Verden thought,
'His judgment of the situation is quick.'
From the way he reacted to the ambush, he seemed experienced in battle.
But then, what about this?
The ground rippled, then surged like a massive tidal wave, crashing down upon the wall of skulls.
Under the immense weight, cracks spread and the wall collapsed.
Behind it stood the black mages.
But Kunel was no easy opponent either.
He slammed his staff into the ground.
A curse spread as bones rattled and stretched downward.
Beside him, Karzan and Daniel lent their strength, amplifying the curse's power and range.
The ground itself died, stripped of its natural properties.
Verden's mana slipped away, his sand tidal wave falling out of his control, collapsing all around.
Kunel's party was swept up in it.
Not quite the instant death by crushing that Verden had intended.
Verden narrowed his eyes.
'Even when infused with mana, it refuses to move. At this rate, I cannot use Terrain Manipulation further.'
A curse designed specifically to counter it.
Verden raised his estimation of the enemy's level by a notch.
"Cough, cough!"
Kunel rose, shaking sand from his head.
Coughing, he glared at Verden with sharp eyes.
"Who in the world are you? Who dares attack us!"
No intention to answer.
Verden activated his Mystic Eye.
This was a cavern no human eye would ever see. No risk of his abilities being exposed.
And beyond that, he had no intention of letting any of them leave alive.
Three black mages.
The sand at their feet writhed.
"What?!"
Kunel noticed and jumped back, but the other two did not.
Crack!
"Gaaahhh?!"
A spear of earth burst upward, piercing Daniel's back.
With his heart destroyed before he could react, he perished instantly.
Karzan's knee was shattered, sending him collapsing to the ground.
Kunel's eyes trembled.
'Earth Spear? But how could he cast it from so far away…?'
Something was wrong.
Suddenly, mana had been felt where nothing was before.
A phenomenon incomprehensible, unheard of.
'Could this attacker also possess a unique trait?'
Kunel's mind whirled.
He was more shaken than when the orb had been stolen.
In that moment, Verden rushed at the nearest target, Karzan.
Karzan desperately unleashed black magic in a flurry, but it was meaningless resistance.
A massive shard of rock tore away Karzan's arm. In the next instant, Verden was upon him, Oculus swinging.
Concentrated mana turned into a shockwave, pulverizing Karzan's torso before he could even react.
'That leaves only one.'
Kunel, having lost his two subordinates in an instant, roared in fury.
"Why are you attacking us! What have we done! What's your reason!"
"..."
"Say something! Please!"
Kunel was nearly driven mad with frustration.
After struggling down into the Cave without Light, they were suddenly attacked by a man in a greenish robe.
And the man's level was no joke.
If he wasn't careful, Kunel himself might die here, without even knowing why.
But Verden had no interest.
'End it, and return.'
Blue currents crackled across Oculus.
And then,
[Estiria… Kingdom…]
A chilling voice reverberated through the cavern.