novelraw Chapter 147 : Chapter 147
Chapter 147 : Chapter 147
147
With a sharp PANG, hand and blade collided.
Even as Aura erupted, the Wolf King’s fist was not pierced.
Cassian, as if he had expected as much, simply retreated and steadied his breathing.
The one who was startled was the Wolf King.
A grin bloomed across his face, laughter spilling out as though he could not contain his delight.
“Ahahahahaha! This is completely ridiculous!”
It was hard to tell whether he meant Cassian’s Aura, or his own physical might.
Before the meaning could be fully grasped, the Wolf King vanished.
This time, he appeared at Cassian’s flank.
Unlike his earlier light movements, a full-powered kick tore through the air, aiming to rip Cassian’s upper body clean off.
WHOOSH!
But Cassian’s body was already plastered flat against the ground.
Using the Spear God’s method of shifting the center of gravity, he simply rolled along the floor.
A storm passed just above his vision.
The wind howled as if it might blow him away entirely.
Only because his center of gravity had been driven so low could he barely endure it.
“Hup!”
In that state, he swung only his arm, assuming a sword stance aimed at the Wolf King hanging in midair.
At that instant, the Wolf King’s eyes widened sharply.
PANG!
Without even swinging the blade, Aura burst forth, snapping the Wolf King’s head back.
It was a scorching blow that looked as though it would drill straight through his brain, but—
“Wow, I really almost died just now.”
The Wolf King’s hand had risen in time to block the attack.
Still, blocking it with his hand seemed to have been the best he could do.
Green vapor poured endlessly from it.
More precisely, it was not coming from his hand itself, but from inside the glove he wore.
A green gleam flared in the Wolf King’s eyes.
Up until now, his attacks had been little more than play.
Now, he was preparing to truly enjoy himself—
“You insane bastard!”
Rozalin’s sword came flying in, her consciousness restored, unleashing a relentless barrage that looked ready to turn the Wolf King into wo/l/f k/i/n/g—or something even more mangled.
A blade thickly wrapped in Aura raced endlessly through the air.
Yet not a single strike touched the Wolf King’s collar.
Because he was already standing, hands clasped behind his back, exactly where he had been at the start.
“Hngh!”
Reading that pattern, Hati brought his mace crashing down with both hands.
A sinister, destructive red energy surged around the iron ball.
If it struck the ground, it would have caused a minor earthquake.
But—
“Hup!”
Still standing upright, the Wolf King lifted one foot and kicked the mace aside.
The mace flew away with the same momentum it had carried downward, and Hati’s body was flung back along with it.
From behind the Wolf King’s massive frame, Pan crouched low and thrust his sword forward.
His expression was unusually stiff.
“Oh.”
The moment the Wolf King instinctively lowered his blade upon seeing Pan’s sword path—
Rip.
A corner of his clothing was lightly cut.
At the same time, Pan was flung away to the side, blood streaming from his nose.
The Wolf King’s smile deepened.
“That just now—did you imitate your teacher’s sword strike after seeing it once?”
Judging by his form, Pan had not properly learned it.
The power was poor, and the target was strange.
That was why the cloth had been cut.
It was unpredictable.
If that strike had been properly honed—
A thrilling chill ran down the Wolf King’s spine.
But this was where it ended.
He kicked off the ground a few times and leapt back, widening the distance.
Around Cassian, his companions stood in disarray.
Every one of them was brimming with killing intent.
“So?”
Amid them, the Wolf King asked the one man who alone felt out of place.
“You get it now, right?”
Cassian studied the Wolf King with calm, sunken eyes.
He did not know the exact theory or structure, but he had heard the explanation.
Geis.
The act of pushing one’s abilities to the extreme by offering up parts of one’s senses, actions, or life itself.
Even in his previous life, he had heard that the Wolf King amplified his power through Geis.
‘But something is different.’
Whether it was the five senses, or one’s attitude toward life and the future.
If something had been sacrificed for power, that loss should have manifested in his movements.
Yet the man before him was utterly free.
There was not the slightest constraint in how he moved his limbs.
‘If I were to place a Geis on myself?’
My sword intent would inevitably be affected.
After all, sword intent was a vow made with one’s entire being—movement, attitude, and fate.
Which meant—
“You are artificially adjusting Geis?”
“Ohhh, you got it in one go. Following my movements earlier was impressive enough. Those eyes really are different.”
“Adjusting Geis? What kind of nonsense is that?”
Rozalin scratched the back of her head, completely lost.
“It is simple. I change the Geis with every attack, every movement.”
“What kind of bullshit is that? Is Geis clothing now? Something you put on and take off?”
“Clothing, huh. That is a good metaphor. Yeah. That is how I use it.”
The Wolf King grinned.
Geis was a binding and taboo one placed upon oneself.
Abandoning sight to sharpen hearing.
Abandoning hearing to increase raw strength, and so on.
“It is a kind of scale, right? Then who is holding the balance point of that scale?”
The explanations varied by myth.
Some said power was offered to the gods.
Others claimed it was given to demons or Great Spirits.
The Wolf King disliked all of them.
“That would be me.”
So-called gods could not grant him power.
Neither could demons nor Great Spirits.
His power could come only from himself.
That was his pride—his will.
With that will, he overcame Geis.
Though he made it sound simple, it had taken him a full year to achieve.
“When I need strength, I give up hearing. When I need hearing, I give up sight. When I need speed, I give up durability. Something like that.”
“You sound like a deranged narcissist.”
“In the end, that is what it is.”
Rozalin was dumbfounded.
She had always known he lived drunk on his own greatness, but she had never imagined he would transcend himself like this.
“Hey, still, it is not like there was no damage.”
The Wolf King waved his right hand.
Green vapor continued to leak from it, as though a dam had burst.
“The shamanism Ulf made for me is completely wrecked. Without it, I would have been cut down twice earlier.”
“What a shame.”
“I agree. If I had known, I would have brought more subordinates.”
At that moment, a wolf’s howl echoed from far away.
A signal.
“I should go.”
“You came today solely to show off that ability?”
“That, and to knock some sense into you.”
The Wolf King laughed again, ho ho.
Or perhaps it was not laughter.
From the moment he appeared, he had been smiling, but his eyes had never smiled once.
“Demons keep appearing. People will die. Especially the young, the weak, the old, the disabled, the uneducated, and the poor. You know that.”
If anything, his eyes burned with anger.
And at the end of that gaze was always Cassian.
“What are you doing? In a whole year, all you did was organize Aura and spread it to the world. You made people fight more. This is the time when everyone should unite and smash the demons, is it not?”
Cassian recalled Rozalin’s description of the Wolf King.
The barbarian ruler of the Great Forest of the Northwest.
The leader of the place Rozalin once belonged to.
A being with the most terrifying ambition in the world.
Someone who believed everything could be solved through strength.
Someone who even thought humanity had fallen because Pan, who possessed power, had not ruled the world and placed it beneath his feet.
That was why, even in this life, he had focused on conquering the Great Forest of the Northwest.
He truly was exactly as described.
Except for one thing.
“Is your belief more important than the lives of all those people?”
He was not a monster.
He was closer to good than anything else.
It was only that the path he pursued for that good was tyrannical.
Perhaps that was why—Cassian did not dislike him.
“No. They are equally important.”
“And yet you are playing house like this?”
“This is the fastest path for me.”
“Skipping work is the fastest path?”
“I am different from all of you.”
He was not a regressor.
He did not know a path he had already walked.
Nor did anyone know the path he was on now.
So the best option was simply to keep walking as he had been.
“A human path is like that. There is no perfectly straight road. If you look back on the path you have walked, sometimes you rest, sometimes you stumble, and sometimes you even step backward.”
Cassian believed he was walking a human path.
“My sister said something similar. She said she regained her sanity by peering into the path of humans.”
If you stared too deeply into demons while fighting them, you would become a demon yourself.
Maintaining one’s humanity was part of what mattered in this war.
“I want to fight demons, not become one.”
“So weakness of heart is a condition of being human? That is laughable.”
“And a strong, unwavering heart is not a necessary condition either.”
“Necessary what? Honestly, educated people really love to sound educated.”
The Wolf King brushed off his hands in annoyance and turned away.
It was time for him to leave.
“Oh, right. My sister told me to pass this along.”
As if it had just occurred to him, he spoke casually.
In truth, it was something she had earnestly asked him to convey before he came.
Normally, he would have withheld it out of spite.
But why?
Perhaps he did not dislike Cassian all that much either.
“She said not to worry about your body. She does not know what she did in your dream, but thanks to that, your lines have recovered up to five.”
“Five?”
“She said what remains are not broken flows, but blocked ones. She told you to think about how to clear them… Anyway, I delivered the message.”
With that, the Wolf King vanished once more, like the wind, just as he had arrived.
All that remained were people wounded in body and spirit.
“…Damn it.”
Hati muttered as he gathered their things.
The Wolf King had always been like that—appearing and disappearing like a storm.
In some ways, he was even worse than the Spear God.
The only way to think of him was as a natural disaster.
“Let us go.”
The fact that he had restrained himself enough for them to recover at all was something to be grateful for.
The two men dispatched from Crownhardt were in the midst of tending to the fallen.
Thankfully, no one had died.
Unfortunately, no one was uninjured either.
“At this point, you must abandon the plan to head north. We will provide horses, so you should move east directly.”
It was the worst possible situation.
No—it had to be.
“I will help.”
Someone stepped forward beside them.
It was Serris, who had stood apart from the fight, observing.
“I will trust your words about preserving humanity to the very end.”
She drew a small whistle from her robes and blew it.
A sharp sound rang out, lingering in the air.
Soon, from the far edge of the sky, five griffons approached.