The minotaur's body rose again. With no head, the helmet rolled over and settled on top of the neck. Then the blood vessels connected from the neck to the helmet, and a plausible head formed.
Between the helmet, the newly formed eyes had no focus, and were pure white. A dull white that had no clear feeling at all.
-You will all become my vessels.
From behind the High Pontiff, that voice from earlier was heard again. The bastard couldn't hold back and projected his will one after another. In other words, he kept talking.
-So you should have followed my offer, right?
As he did, he even showed the trick of whispering so that only Enkrid could hear. Enkrid felt something disgusting before he even heard anything about an offer or whatever.
"A demon."
So he muttered.
"A demon."
Rem agreed. After that, Shinar expressed fury.
"Things that aren't even worth less than the weeds that grow in the Demon-lands?"
This fairy would flare up in anger any time she saw a demon. If you knew her past, it was rage you could fully accept.
"All of them are connected to me. Therefore, if you cannot kill me, you must fight forever."
The High Pontiff shouted and spun the iron plate above his head, then lashed it down at the ground.
Kwagwagwang!
The iron plate he swung dug into the ground, smashed it, and crushed it.
***
"Something was hidden, I thought."
Baerlich muttered while looking down at the nemesis's sword that had pierced his stomach.
He had offered up his belly, intending to catch the sword with his abs, but in the meantime that bastard Cypress closed in tight, let go of the sword that had stabbed into his belly, and then smashed down with his bare hand on top of the breastplate. With that, his heart was split into three.
It was truly slight—if you had to put it into words, it was a mild and minute difference.
"If I were just a little faster, I would have won."
Baerlich said, foaming blood at the mouth. Frog blood flowed down the corner of his lips and drew a line of blood across the breastplate.
"No. You wouldn't have."
Cypress denied it immediately.
"You hid your skill. I got tricked again."
"Ah, I didn't hide it. I just placed a few more oaths."
"...You crazy bastard. If you throw around oaths like that, you'll become a cripple."
Oaths and vows affect Will, but they aren't omnipotent. You have to live with piles of things you must keep for your entire life, and if you can live with a sane mind even while doing that, that would be lucky.
A knight who piled up oaths stupidly and layered vows becomes a monster that loses reason, and if it's worse than that, a fool.
If the path went off by even a little, even if you lived, you weren't really living—and you wouldn't even be able to make up your mind to die, and you'd meet an ugly end.
"You won't die cleanly. Cy."
Baerlich said. The Frog still had strength left, but he gave up. As he died, he looked back on his longing and desires.
'Killing was the goal, but.'
In truth, he had enjoyed it the whole time they fought together. The Frog was satisfied. That was why he didn't use his remaining strength to thrash.
Cypress silently looked at the Frog.
Cy was a nickname you'd only hear used for someone who lived in the same era.
"A bastard who decided he'd die cleanly while living as a swordsman is crazy. Behr."
Cypress also called the opponent by a nickname. At one time, the two of them had trained together and been friends. They wandered the continent, killed monsters, killed dog bastards, and kept company. Should you say it was fun?
It had been play for the two of them. That long play was ending now. As Baerlich's vision blurred, he felt a heat trying to stitch his heart back together.
"Get my corpse far away. Or hack it up and cut it into pieces. Otherwise I'll come back to life. Then I'll be a berserker with no reason. Just thinking about it makes me want to puke. Bleh."
Cypress had already perceived the change in the battlefield. And besides, this place was the South, the worst even among the Demon-lands borderlands.
"Ingis."
Even with one arm and one leg broken, for a knight it was enough to move.
And with injuries at that level, he was talent you'd want to have pull back and plan for later.
"It's the enemy commander. Take him and I'll bury him, so grab him and get out."
"Are you telling me to leave the battlefield?"
"Yeah. If Aurelia can't get married, I'll take responsibility."
"Master."
Ingis's expression hardened.
"It's an order."
Cypress said with a smile. Ingis bit down on his molars, swallowed his words, and lifted the dying Frog's body in his arms.
"Hey. Don't die."
Baerlich said. If he couldn't kill him with his own hands, it had no meaning. So he couldn't die here. The Frog's desire was individualism.
"Sure."
It was the same tone as always. As much as Ingis withdrew, Cypress dragged his limping leg and advanced forward.
There was work left to do, so the guardian of the Southern Front had no time to rest.
***
Shrrk!
The High Pontiff raised his right arm above his head and spun it wide. In time with that movement, the iron plate that had been drooping by his feet responded.
Whooong.
Wind rose, enough to blow away an ordinary boulder, and then the iron plate stabbed down as if splitting space.
The iron plate the High Pontiff swung was faster than any sword swing. Even that bastard called the fastest knight earlier wouldn't be faster than this. To the advantage a whip has, the weight of the iron plate was added.
It had a structure that became lighter from the handle to the tip, but it was a weapon made from a black-gold and steel alloy.
The ground struck by the tip burst and shattered, flicking stone fragments everywhere.
Bang!
A loud sound rang through the ground.
The High Pontiff swung the iron plate he gripped in those thick fingers again and again.
Ppuhbubububung! Ppuhbubububung!
The sound of air bursting out along the iron plate he swung was clamorous.
Wheeek.
Seeing that, Rem whistled and said.
"If you want to dodge that, it'll be a headache."
He didn't say he couldn't dodge it even if you beat him to death. That was Rem. As he spoke, he spun two slings at the same time.
Wiiiiiing!
Even if the sound was less than the iron plate, that power had never disappointed Rem until now. Those bullets flew at the High Pontiff.
Bullets that held a flame demon. It meant that even if you blocked them, they would still explode.
When Rem threw the slings at the High Pontiff, one Faceless knight who had died and come back to life cut into the bullet's trajectory.
Puhng, kwaaaang!
Rem had expected it to be blocked. So there was nothing to be surprised about. And besides, he had expected they would block it.
If that wasn't the case, why would they gather in front of the High Pontiff like chicks waiting for feed?
"All right, let's see. Do you still come back to life even like that."
So those words naturally came out.
Enkrid had cut off all four limbs of the minotaur whose helmet was its head, and then split the helmet into three.
From far away, Lien muttered, "It's the same over and over," and created a grotesque sight where he didn't just snap the neck bone, but tore it out.
The one burning fiercely collapsed as it was.
"All right. For now, one again."
Rem muttered and gripped the sling again. In the meantime, Ragna also had to turn back. He had seen the bastard he killed get up fine.
"Damn it, I lost, didn't I?"
The other bastards lost reason and didn't even let out a groan, but this bastard alone moved his mouth.
There were various reasons for it. The High Pontiff made a contract with a demon, and through that he put them under his "control." Still, among them, there were always ones that stood out.
In the case of a Frog called Baerlich, or someone like Caelo, he made them each form a separate contract, so even if they came back to life, they didn't lose reason.
"Dying and coming back to life. Even among those who've had an experience like that, I'd be rare."
Caelo said. Enkrid heard what Caelo was yapping about from back there, but he didn't react. Nobody knew it, but on this side, the experience of dying and coming back was well past even thousands of times.
"So you're not a corpse, you're something like a ghoul now, right?"
Ragna faced Caelo again.
"...You bastard should be a little shocked, shouldn't you? In the middle of all this, the way you talk is really something."
Their conversation ended there. Ragna cut Caelo again. This time he didn't even need to get stabbed in the stomach.
It was an opponent he'd beaten once, and a technique he'd seen once. If you confirmed it, perceived it, and grasped it, it was easy to break it. Of course, that was because he was a genius among geniuses.
"Damn it."
Even as his body split vertically, Caelo moved his mouth and died. Once again, southern knights died in droves.
The High Pontiff raised the hand on the other side from the one swinging the iron plate.
"Carry it out."
Those words spread with the revived Faceless Order of Knights as a shield wall. The moment he finished speaking, white thread came out from between Caelo's corpse and stitched the body. At the same time, a faint heat flowed out from his body.
"My name is Caelo, an immortal knight. How about it? What's my new nickname?"
That bastard revived.
"I think a knight who only dies suits you better."
Ragna answered, raising his sword. Was it a crisis? Not yet, not at all.
Like Rem, Ragna didn't use Will recklessly. It was the result of clashing with and sparring with Enkrid's Uske day after day.
Ragna cut Caelo again. Lien killed the same opponent again.
Shinar, too, killed a fairy reviving on one side and shouted once.
"You're a demon. I will definitely kill you."
She expressed clear anger, to the point where you wondered how many existences could pull out that level of emotion from a fairy.
Her leaf-shaped sword cut and hacked at the black fairy's neck. Even if it split into dozens of pieces, would it revive?
It revived. From back there, the High Pontiff's single line—"Carry it out"—was enough. Still, just because they revived didn't mean skill appeared where there was none.
No, it was right to see it as worse than before.
With reason lost, it threw poisoned daggers and swung swords, but it didn't make use of the advantages its body had. Since it revived even if it died, it could fight by throwing its body in—but it fought while keeping the habits it had in life. And besides, it didn't even use its head, so you could say it was a little easier for the ones facing it, but.
"If we fight like that forever, we lose on this side."
That was Luagarne's words. It was a sight enough to make everyone watching aghast.
Even in that moment, Crang only showed a calm gaze.
There was no reason to be surprised. Even less reason to be flustered.
Crang and the others were spectators armed with trust and belief. Right now, believing was the best he could do.
Bang!
As if he wanted to vent, the High Pontiff swung the iron plate and struck the ground. The one burned by the flame demon raised its body.
The revived knight wearing plate armor fought while burning as it was. In other words, it became a more threatening enemy.
"Guess burning won't work."
Rem said. If burning didn't work and splitting didn't work, what did you do? The hunter's nature led him to a clear path.
'Don't you just kill that bastard called the High Pontiff?'
He calculated the trajectory and speed of the iron plate's movement, looked for a gap, and stepped forward. He swung his axe and took the neck. He thought of it as a chance to watch whether that bastard called the High Pontiff also came back to life.
At that moment, the ground shook and rose with a rumble, blocking the front. Rem, who had been about to dash out, smashed the wall with his fist.
Bang!
Just like that, the wall broke and scattered broken stones in all directions. The charging Rem used the rebound force from swinging his fist to fling his body to the side.
Boom!
Into the spot where he had been, one of the Faceless Order of Knights thrust a spear.
"Well, would you look at that?"
As Rem muttered, Enkrid, too—while the ground rose and wrapped around him on all sides—smashed his way out, cut the minotaur's head that rushed him again, and by now had killed the mage who had become outright a single streak of lightning.
The High Pontiff stopped swinging the iron plate and spoke so everyone could hear.
"I am the one who dominates."
The words coming from his mouth were arrogance at its peak.
-You'll all die and become a part of me.
The demon, too, shouted excitedly.
Enkrid drove Dawn out and leaped left, splitting lightning one more time. Why did it feel like he kept repeating the same thing?
To state only the conclusion, stamina and strength were being drained.
The High Pontiff with a demon on his back did not permit them to approach close to him. At the same time, Enkrid split his thoughts into two and thought.
'The reason he lashed the ground with the iron plate.'
Exactly the ground the High Pontiff swept over with the iron plate rose and attacked. And from the walls blocking all directions, he could feel something similar to the force flowing out of the High Pontiff's body, too.
It was what instinct and gut-sense told him. The High Pontiff's iron plate makes what it lashes into his.
"You're really doing every kind of thing."
Rem muttered, too. He had roughly grasped it as well. The ground that the High Pontiff's weapon touched wasn't an ally. It was on the enemy's side.
It would become a wall and a pit and activate like a trap, just as the High Pontiff wanted. Should you call it dominating the terrain?
"I speak, for I am merciful and broad-minded."
-Follow my will.
The High Pontiff said. Whatever he did to his voice, the demon's voice overlapped and could be heard.
"Ride the flow."
-Stop thinking.
"Stand under me. Thus be saved in your life."
-There is nothing you can change.
The High Pontiff's Faceless Order of Knights was a living fortress wall, and a shield clad in plate armor.
Everyone killed their opponent more than ten times, and killed them again. So a moment was coming where an ordinary person would have to talk about giving up. And yet not a single one of them wavered even a little. Especially the knight with black hair and blue eyes standing at the center.
"After death, there is nothing. Then what is the reason you fight?"
The High Pontiff asked. Without asking, you could tell who that question was aimed at.
The High Pontiff's gaze was on Enkrid. A man who walked while cutting down monsters and lightning that revived even after dying. He had come six steps closer to the High Pontiff than before.
To the High Pontiff, it was a deeply impressive sight. That was why he threw out the question.
'What is the reason for longing?'
The High Pontiff's question forced a short thought on Enkrid. The ruler of the South put coercion and suppression even into his words.