Kuro no Maou 426 – Part 2

King’s Flash

The rest would be decided by Fiona and I. Hitting the target seemed difficult enough, and I actually wanted to wait until the gun was fully charged, so I figured I’d wait until the last moment. Not until the Taurus’ drill arm was roaring, and was about to reach the wall.

Ten more seconds until that happened. My charge and Fiona’s spell needed to hit it at the last possible moment.

The Taurus had already raised its drill arm. It was just about to hit the castle walls with it. The adventurers’ loud screams of despair could be heard everywhere– At this very moment, that was the time where I had to shoot.

I was about to shout out “Fire!”, but then…

A bright red light ran through.

“–What!?”

It was a deep crimson, almost poisonous light, but it was vividly bright. A ‘flash’, a gigantic, long straight line that could have very well split even the 50-meters tall castle walls in half.

It wasn’t the Taurus who had released such a bright light. On the contrary, it was its target. The deep crimson light had been fired from the castle walls– no, to be more precise, it had been fired by a person.

Before I could even think about who it was, I was about to see the huge red ‘Flash’ splitting the Fulltune Taurus in half.

First, the refreshing sound of a clean-cut echoed through the air. It was certainly the sound of the bright red light slicing through the Taurus’ thick armor plating.

Before I realized, the red line was shining vertically from the top of the Taurus’ head all the way down to the bottom of one of its feet, and at the very next moment, the Taurus’ gigantic body was torn in two, with its booster still bursting vigorously. The huge, red-hot cross-section was exposed during the moment when the two halves of the debris plunged into the snow.

As both halves of its body sank onto the ground, they stirred up a great amount of snow and were enveloped in a deep-red fiery explosion. Above all else, such a display of red and white colors that rose up was telling the Spada army that the Taurus had been completely destroyed.

Having seen that much really took me aback, and I found myself turning to the castle walls, looking for the source of that bright red light.

It had been a wonderful attack of incredible power, enough to cut a Taurus in two in a single strike. The identity of the one responsible for that attack was obvious. There was no need for speculation.

“That has to be him, Spada’s strongest man…”

Before my eyes was a red kingly figure that emanated both an imposing sense of majesty and incredible magical power, shaking his deep crimson greatsword as if they were swiping the blood of its victim off the blade.

“… I had no choice.”

The one to quietly mutter those words as they extended their right arm was none other than Leonhart Tristan Spada, 52nd King of Spada.

He was standing imposingly right in the middle of the fortified walls of Galahad Fortress. His full plate armor was golden with a base of deep crimson, and instead of a helmet, he was wearing a magical artifact that looked like a crown, which seemed fit for a king. His cloak, colored the same tone of red as his armor was swaying on the snowy wind like the mane of a wild lion.

The gold glint in his eyes shot through the steel giants that dared attack his castle.

“Begone.”

The golden bracelet on the gauntlet covering the king’s extended right hand was activated, looking as if it had broken itself, and at that moment, a spiral of red magic circles expanded from it.

That magical red light had the single secret effect of ‘Storage’. And the spiral of red magic circles that emanated from the broken magic item that was that golden bracelet was nothing more than Dimension Magic.

However, this is not just the average magic item that any adventurer may randomly have in their inventory, but a specially commissioned item that was requested to serve as a safe to store the king’s treasures. The treasure vault of a king that does not allow for any interference or intrusion.

The doors to that vault have been now opened by that bracelet, which only answers to the king and no one else.

“– ‘King’s Blade: Crimson Spada’!”

A great sword appeared in a single swipe. Far from being heavily decorated as it would be expected of a king’s sword, it was fairly rustic in design. It looked like the traditional double-edged gladius used by Spada soldiers, only larger.

Its deep crimson blade is quite broad, and it looks as if it could cut down even a dragon. And at the same time, the glittering blade gave off the feeling of being unusually sharp. It had the robustness of a great sword, and at the same time, the sharpness of a short sword, and that was enough to consider it a famous sword, a weapon worthy of having a name of its own.

But it wasn’t just a sword. The magical power inside the huge red sword was so tremendous that it would trump most regular wands. The sword would look as if its burning magical power gushed out of its scabbard ‘Dimension’ whenever it was unsheathed, almost making it look as if the blade itself was on fire.

In other words, the king’s greatsword should be referred to as an ‘artifact’.

A legendary sword that had been inherited from the First King of Spada, each successive king would train using it with the purpose of making it even stronger, always being ‘Spada’s strongest sword’ across every generation.

That is the ‘King’s Blade: Crimson Spada’ that Leonhart was holding in his right hand.

“Gwooooohh…”

Leonhart held the incredibly heavy greatsword straight in front of him without letting its tip shake even a little. The only thing that moved in his rock-solid stance was his mouth as he breathed.

That breathing was not just your average ‘breathe in, breathe out’, no, there was a peculiar sound to it. It was a basic breathing technique learned by anyone who studies martial arts called ‘Neriki’. Through the action of breathing, the body shapes its inner magical power. In other words, it was a stance to prepare the activation of a martial arts skill.

Just as magic is cast through spells, incantations and magic circles, martial arts also use magic as their energy source to activate their effects. Of course, just as with low-level spells and short spells, there are techniques in martial arts more advanced than Neriki. An experienced martial artist would eventually incorporate Neriki as their default way of breathing without even realizing it.

However, Leonhart was consciously breathing using Neriki, in a calm and clear fashion, as if he was a teacher showing the technique to new martial arts students.

A top-class swordsman only needs to take a single breath to gather enough magic for a single advanced skill. And still, if Leonhart, who is definitely one of the most powerful swordsmen in Spada and in this Pandora continent, were to take a single breath… just how much magical power that would he be able to muster?

It would be enough to create the illusion of being engulfed in flames, just his artifact ‘King’s Blade: Crimson Spada’. Naturally, even those soldiers that after a long military service had volunteered to be behind their king could not hide their cold sweats after such imposing unusual signs.

Before his eyes, an ancient golem was roughly a hundred meters away from the castle walls. Its boosters, which had the power to make such a steel giant fly at high speeds, was making a tremendous noise, even more so than the noise made by an ordinary golem when it walks.

However, when King Leonhart slowly raised his blade, there was nothing but silence, almost as it time itself had stopped. It was the calm before the storm, in less than three seconds.

The king’s accumulated power was about to be released.

“Steel giant, receive one of my sword’s many mysteries… ‘Dragonscale Rending Crimson’.”

“Ah… I don’t think we can take much more of this…”

Dorothy muttered such words with a tired voice after seeing the Fulltune Taurus being sliced in half by a red flash of light.

“I can’t believe they were able to destroy that ancient golem in one shot… but they surely can’t use such an attack over and over again. Dorothy, continue our attack! We still have some golems left!”

Both Count Bergunt and the General had seen the Fulltune Taurus’ performance and had seen them opening the large hole in the castle walls, and were as excited as young boys watching a game on TV.

“Excuse me, Ai, but please go ahead.”

“Coming right up!”

Dorothy had quickly picked up the fact that the adventurer girl Ai was very good at conveying their situation to the generals in an easy-to-understand manner and therefore worked wonders as a person of contact. Rather than explaining the situation logically and with the correct terminology, fools can only be convinced with rough, crude explanations, and Ai excelled at that.