novelraw Chapter 213 : Chapter 213
Chapter 213 : Chapter 213
Chapter 213: Subjugation Battle (13)
Sword Masters could be broadly divided into three types.
The Red Sword, swinging the sword hot and explosively like flames.
The Blue Sword, characterized by ice-cold and precise swordsmanship.
And the Yellow Sword, which could be summarized by unpredictable movements like lightning and fast speed, were the protagonists.
Naturally, distinguishing them was an exceedingly easy task. One could tell just by checking the color of the aura, and besides that, each color’s owner had their own characteristics.
For example, the owner of the Red Sword had flame-like energy flickering from their body. It shared warm and cozy heat with allies like a bonfire, but bestowed hot and fierce heat like lava overflowing from an active volcano upon enemies—a mysterious energy maintained throughout the battle.
What about the owner of the Blue Sword?
They scattered blue aura like frost, adding acceleration to their own movements and slowing the opponent’s—a tricky method.
The one who utilized this best was precisely the Village’s General Manager. He scattered cold air along every path he moved, every trajectory he swung his sword, dominating the entire battlefield. It felt like deploying his own ‘domain,’ so to speak.
Then.
What form did Harang’s Purple Sword take to astonish the masses?
Surprisingly, it possessed all the traits and advantages of both Red and Blue Swords.
The purple aura enveloping the body added vitality throughout the battle, and the purple mist scattered around bestowed frost-like troublesome effects upon enemies.
‘Moreover... since it holds the ferocity of the Red Sword and the composure of the Blue Sword simultaneously, no matter how monstrous the one-armed old man’s skills are, there’s no way he can beat Harang.’
That was the information about the Purple Sword that Hagio realized while glancing at Harang during the battle.
But.
One more was added to it.
Surprisingly, Harang’s evolution wasn’t over with this.
Crackle, crackle……
Tzzzzzzzz-!
Yellow sparks rising around his body.
At first weak, but as time passed, they shone intensely enough to flash throughout the cavern. It made the subjugation team members unconsciously turn their heads, and caused the Red Magician’s creatures to shudder and tremble in hegemonic momentum flowing through the battlefield.
Confirming that sight, Duke Muel unwittingly muttered to himself.
“No way? No way!”
Harang, that crazy young man, was trying to seize the power of the Yellow Sword as well!
Though the latter words were omitted, the scene Harang was showing was clear enough for everyone in the place to understand his intent. That was undoubtedly the awakening process of the Yellow Sword, which no one could doubt.
However, shortly after.
As the yellow sparks began to melt into Harang’s purple energy, people could no longer call him the owner of the ‘Yellow Sword.’
Black.
Energy darker than the cavern before the magic lights were lit, pitch-black like obsidian, began to flow through Harang’s entire body.
Fwooooosh-!
Swaaaaa……
Crackle, crackle-!
Thus, Harang finally completed his full awakening.
He, who had his eyes gently closed, opened them wide, and everyone who saw it wore startled expressions.
The whites were invisible.
Black eyes shining mysteriously like embedded obsidian.
That alone was astonishing, but there was an even more shocking fact....
Precisely, the energy manifested on his sword had also changed to pitch-black.
At that moment, everyone in the place realized.
Red Sword.
Blue Sword.
Yellow Sword, Harang had not just taken each of these three powers separately....
He had completely fused them into one single power.
“…….”
Of course, whether people were astonished or not, Harang didn’t care.
His interest now was solely the Red Magician, Pellegrino, who had turned his peers into this state.
Harang began scanning various parts of the cavern looking for something, and the subjugation team members hurriedly bowed their heads in fear of meeting his eyes.
The thought that he was part of the subjugation team had long vanished. Even those with Master-level power shuddered as if a great being transcending the human species, a fearsome existence, was looking down on them.
It was then.
The Red Magician, Greg Pellegrino, who had been watching Harang’s transformation process with trembling eyes.
He burst out a hot shout.
“Haaaaaaaap!”
Wiiiiiiing-
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-!
Along with that, the black magic circle of inverted pentagrams drawn on the cavern floor vibrated and emitted light. Creatures and subjugation team members’ corpses exploded, causing fountains of blood, and the sacrifices mixed with flesh, blood, and souls further strengthened the dark energy.
Whooooosh-!
The Red Magician inhaled it deeply enough to swell his chest.
He too began to show another evolution.
Crack-crack-crack-!
His already massive skeleton began to grow even larger.
Snap, snap……
Splaaaash-!
Fwooooosh-!
Bat-shaped wings protruded from his back, and the lava and flames flowing from his body added even more firepower. The horns, symbol of demons, still hadn’t grown, but at this point, the presence the Red Magician emitted was intense enough to say he had transcended more than half the limits of the human species.
‘This is....’
‘We can’t. This fight has already left our hands.’
‘What is this nonsense... No matter how much he’s the Red Magician, is such an absurd transformation really possible?’
Duke Muel and the subjugation team’s powerhouses swallowed dryly, and those who couldn’t even do that staggered back several steps.
Even Acanthus members, blinded by revenge, were to that extent, so ordinary paladins found it hard to even glance at the Red Magician’s toes.
However, as if feeling no thrill from such subjugation team members, the Red Magician began walking forward step by step. Right toward where Harang was.
Harang was the same.
He too walked forward at a pace neither slow nor fast, and the two absolute powerhouses soon narrowed the distance close enough to target each other’s bodies if they wished, staring at one another.
“…….”
“…….”
Words were unnecessary.
The battle began immediately.
Booooong-!
The Red Magician swung his fist with a rough whooshing sound.
It seemed a bit slow, but that was a feint. As if Blink magic was cast only on the arm, the attack leaped space in an instant, and Rough Schroeder screamed.
However, before that scream even emerged, Harang was already prepared. He lightly leaned his upper body back and returned, then kwa-boom, stomped the ground hard enough to shatter it and drove his sword into the opponent’s solar plexus.
Kwaaaaaang-!
“Ugh……!”
The Red Magician barely blocked it with magic. The spiderweb-shaped magic circle created near the solar plexus dispersed most of the impact, and the powerful magnetic field deployed afterward scattered the unresolved physical force as electrical energy.
However, that wasn’t the end. Harang, with an expressionless face, retrieved his sword and thrust it toward the same spot at an unbelievable speed. The triple strike fusing the explosiveness of the Red Sword, the speed of the Yellow Sword, and the precision of the Blue Sword finally pierced the magic circle’s defense and struck the Red Magician’s body.
Baaang!
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-boom-!
With the sound of something piercing, the Red Magician allowed the sword into his flesh and was pushed far back, leaving deep footprints on the ground.
Instead of blood, orange lava flowed from his mouth.
Greg Pellegrino, quickly wiping it with his arm, raised both hands to cast magic.
Shwoosh-!
However, Harang’s movements were half a beat faster.
Harang, who reached the Red Magician’s front at a speed even Masters couldn’t perceive, strongly uppercut the opponent’s chin. The startled Red Magician cast Blink continuously to create distance from Harang and killed his presence with concealment magic. It wasn’t just blocking vision; it was top-tier magic that fundamentally blocked all that could be called presence, including mana, life force, and more—so precise and covert that no one could tell where he was hidden.
However, that was a story that only applied to ordinary people.
The moment Harang, with eyes gently closed, opened them wide again, the black aura surrounding his body swiftly whipped through the cavern, tearing the Red Magician’s concealment magic to shreds.
“……!”
Thus, Greg Pellegrino was forced to reveal himself to the world again.
The fortunate part for him was that, while Harang was breaking the concealment magic, his attack magic was also on the verge of completion.
Fwooooosh-!
The flames starting from his left hand gradually intensified.
From orange to blue, then to purple, and finally gathering a feeling like pitch-black darkness. It looked completely the same as Harang’s energy on the surface, but with indescribable revulsion and ugliness added.
However, the oppressive feeling was tremendous.
The Red Magician, with a faint smile, pointed his hand toward the sky, and the energy in his left hand soon became a black sun, prepared to distort, burn, and warp everything. Even if dropped to the ground in this state, most of the subjugation team would clearly become ghosts wandering this world.
Of course, the Red Magician had no intention whatsoever of wasting his magic on such worthless trash.
Woooooooong-!
Finally concentrating his mental power, he compressed the 3-meter black sun to the size of a single finger and shouted in a chillingly cold voice.
“Go!”
The Red Magician cast the magic in a stern voice as if announcing the apocalypse.
At the same time, Harang’s body also began shooting forward at a speed no one in the subjugation team could perceive.
──────────────!
“Ugh!”
“Kwaaaaaaaaak!”
The aftermath surged.
It wasn’t just physical force exerted. Darkness swallowed light, heat engulfed cold, twisting and tearing the laws of reality. Despite the high-ranking priests and others quickly building a defensive formation, numerous subjugation team members lost their lives on the spot.
Even Acanthus’s powerhouses had more than half kneeling while bleeding, and only the strongest like Konjinyu, the Mercenary King, and the Masters barely avoided injuries, breathing roughly while confirming the clash result of the two absolute powerhouses.
“……Ha, haha.”
“Heuk, heuk…….”
And.
The conclusion came.
It was Harang’s victory.
While the Red Magician had lost most of his power and returned to human form with his transformation broken, Harang stood before him in his intact form. He looked exhausted and staggered with each step, but black aura still rose steadily from his sword.
‘No, even if Harang faints here, it’s fine. It’s our victory!’
Gael thought.
It was a correct thought. Since they could sufficiently handle the powerless Red Magician and the injured one-armed old man.
“Oh! The subjugation leader and the demon inquisitors are coming too!”
“We won, we won!”
Moreover, the subjugation team’s leader, the vice-commander of the Holy Kingdom’s White Knight Order, Durand Berhaigen, joined as well. The first-class demon inquisitors following him, including Juberroa Schmitz, were also non-negligible forces, so the subjugation operation was essentially over.
But.
Then, something no one could have imagined happened.
Stab-!
“……?”
The subjugation leader, Durand Berhaigen’s Blue Sword, deeply pierced Harang’s back.