298 - Regressor of the Fallen Family

Chapter 298: "Ugh?!" A profound discomfort, unlike anything he had ever experienced in both his past and present life, overwhelmed Logan's entire body. He barely had time to be startled by the gray aura that swiftly penetrated his body, trying to take control. But the instant Logan summoned his force to resist it, that unsettling feeling melted away like snow on a sunny spring day. “Huh?” The aura vanished so effortlessly that his prior tension seemed embarrassing. Even amidst his bafflement, Logan instinctively turned his gaze towards the source of this invasive aura. In the midst of the enemy ranks. A figure draped in a black robe was clearly under the stringent guard of elite knights. As soon as his gaze met the figure beneath the robe, Logan sensed a twisted smile forming on its lips. ‘I don’t know what just happened, but...’ His target became clear. Hiiing! “I'll finish you!” The shining silver light burst from both his steed and body. Logan, now drawing the battlefield’s attention, began cutting through the enemy lines alone. “Stop him!” “He’s alone!” “Kill him!” Cries erupted from various parts of the battlefield as they watched the silver rider charging at them. A massive army without significant countermeasures had only one way to catch an aura user: a human wave came crashing towards Logan. For an aura user without prepared wizards, it would usually be an exhausting task, cutting through endless streams of soldiers. However. “Get out of the way!” With a resounding shout, a brilliant streak of silver light soared skyward. The beam, nearly seventy meters high, transformed into the sword of a giant and swung horizontally. Rrrip. With an illusion akin to the space itself tearing apart, the troops before Logan — knights and soldiers alike — collapsed in a single, sweeping motion. That sector of the battlefield was utterly devastated. While those split in two couldn't scream, the enemies watching from behind shrieked in horror. “Aaagh!” “A, a demon!” “A monster!” ‘Now!’ Logan gritted his teeth and charged through the panicking enemy lines. Wooooom. His heart's force core vibrated intensely, as it desperately tried to replenish the energy that had vanished by more than a third in an instant. Though it wasn't an aura but rather a force-driven earth shatter, it was a strenuous attack, given his currently restricted strength. In terms of mere efficiency in enemy elimination, it was an incredibly inefficient move, nothing more than wanton energy expenditure. Yet waging a solo fight against tens of thousands was untenable. A demonstration was essential to lower the enemy’s morale and boost his own troops’ spirits. And Logan's tactic worked brilliantly. “Block it! I said block it!” “How… how can we…?” “How do you handle… such a monster?” Despite the command shouts from their leaders, the panicked enemy troops couldn't halt Logan's charge, and the Liberty forces who witnessed it erupted in cheers. “The Silver Reaper!” “Gale Slayer!” “The Silver Reaper fights with us!” Apparently, only a few battlefield-ploying wizards were around, for as Logan wielded his sword here and there, no mass chaos like before ensued. Soon, the Liberty forces regrouped and began to follow in Logan's path. “Weren’t you supposed to deal with that monster!? What are you doing now?” The commander of the allied forces, Carton from the Romero Kingdom, shouted at the black-robed magician standing before him. His demeanor had completely changed from when he cheered at the falling enemy lines earlier in the battle. But as the magician in the black robe turned around with shimmering blue eyes, Carton’s urgent, shouting demeanor turned deathly pale at once. Once again surveying the battlefield, the black-robed figure's chilling voice creeped out. “Useless...” The surrounding guards shrank back instinctively, yet the magician, Gerohin, whose gaze fixed on the approaching Logan, showed a hint of uncertainty. ‘The Soul Breaker hit at the perfect timing. Why?’ It didn’t make sense. The Soul Breaker was a spell designed not for mental 'manipulation' like its lesser form, the Mind Breaker, but for 'destruction.' It was even crafted specifically to handle superhumans from the outset. ‘And yet he shook it off so easily?’ If a mage’s painstakingly amplified spell was repelled with such ease, then there’d be no reason for mages to be deemed peers to aura users as superhumans. Moreover, their magic techniques were scarcely known in the current world, so it couldn’t have been anticipated or countered beforehand. And even if there had been some anticipation, his overcoming it seemed too straightforward. Visions of that legendary ‘nemesis’ often mentioned in the tales of the tower came to mind. Yet that seemed impossible. ‘Powerful, but the color of his force is different.’ Had he wielded a golden force instead of silver, a measure other than a mental spell like Soul Breaker might have been considered. A torrent of thoughts swirled chaotically in his mind, but Gerohin refocused and drew on his magic. He had reported the extension of a contract with the second prince. Thus, unlike in the Duchy of Tahiti, excuses for failure wouldn’t fly. At this time when the tower, after long silence in shadow, aimed to reemerge into the world. The tower unanimously decided to use this request as an opportunity to choose a new base among the Eastern Small Kingdoms Alliance. Regardless of him being one of the tower’s elders, consecutive failures wouldn’t be forgiven. — ‘The Age of Departed Gods’. Signs of that prophecy were confirmed. Recalling the words of the tower's leader and his mentor, Gerohin clenched his teeth. Encountering him again reminded him of the big fish missed back in the Duchy of Tahiti. "I’ll kill you!" Mental magic wasn’t his sole forte. As his ominous voice roared like a predatory beast's growl, gray magic wildly moved under its master’s intent. ‘Magic!’ Logan saw the movement of gray magic clearly. But this attack was notably different from prior methods targeting the mind alone. Swish-swish. Suddenly, gray thorny vines burst forth from the ground. The thorny vines entangled the charging steed wholly, effectively halting its momentum despite the aura barrier that typically deflected ordinary spears and swords. Crack. Neigh! The horse, bloodied and struggling, forced its way through the entanglement. As soon as Logan penetrated the gray barriers that had risen to obscure his vision, a massive black serpent lunged, maw agape, blotting out his view once more. “Tsk!” Boom! When the black serpent's head obliterated the space where Logan had just been, he was already vaulting off his saddle, soaring through the air towards the mage. "Hyah!" The gap between Logan and the magician closed rapidly. Now, his heightened senses captured the pale face beneath the black robe with startling clarity. However, that short distance quickly became crowded with knights. Their eyes were unnaturally bloodshot, and deep red veins protruded from their faces. “Kyahhh!” “Graaaah!” With cries that blurred the line between battle cries and screams, the knights swung their weapons. A mere foot soldier, wielding a sword imbued with a force potent enough to shatter rocks. Intermediate knights striking with weaponized, albeit imperfectly formed, force. ‘Insanity…!’ It was evidently a magic that sacrificed their own troops. Reports from Viktor labeling such acts as demonic resurfaced in Logan’s mind. Simultaneously, a pang of regret hit him. ‘If only I had the Wind God's Boots.’ With his original equipment, he could've ignored these attacks, leaping effortlessly through the air. But now, he lacked that ability. Logan maximized his Phantom Shadow technique to slip between the knights and close the distance. Fortunately, while the crazed knights were ferocious in their aggression, their attacks were imprecise. “Grrk.” “Urghh.” This allowed Logan to cut down only the necessary number of knights, losing only moments as he advanced upon the magician. Yet those brief moments were sufficient for his enemy. “Begone!!” With a piercing shout brimming with fury and hostility, a devastating shockwave, as if to obliterate space itself, struck where Logan stood. Boom! Rumble. Gerohin's surroundings were instantaneously laid to waste, with thick dust clouds billowing upwards. “How dare you….” His complexion even paler from casting consecutive grand spells, Gerohin smiled in triumph. But in that moment, he sensed a chilling killing intent emanating from behind. However. Slice. “Guh…” Before he could even turn around, a sensation as though he had been pierced through coursed through him. Thud. His body split in two, collapsed. The lone remaining blue eye captured the faint image of the target retracting a ‘golden’ aura. Panting heavily, Logan gazed down at the magician's corpse with apprehension. ‘That was close.’ In the final moment, he had unleashed his restrained aura, calling upon its properties briefly. Had he not, he would have been the one felled. – No matter the circumstance, at least safeguard my own life. Coming to this place, initially with the aim of assisting in someone else's war, he hadn’t expected to face mortal danger. ‘Just what are these people?’ A bizarre magician using unheard-of spells. Not even rumors of such had reached him in his previous life. Yet Logan had no time to ponder the enemy’s identity. “The enemy magician has fallen!!” Regaining his breath, Logan released a brilliant ‘silver’ aura into the sky and shouted loudly. This act subsequently decided the fate of the second confrontation. * * * “Hurrah!” “We won!” “We've won!” After the engagement on the plains concluded, the battlefield resounded with chants of victory from the Liberty forces. Effectively, Liberty had single-handedly decimated the main forces of three of the four nations targeted for subjugation. The victory was such that it raised considerations of Liberty not merely leading the alliance, but becoming conquerors. Nevertheless, the jubilant cheers mostly hailed the superhuman who had turned the battle’s tide, the Gale Slayer. “Hail Liberty!” “Hail the Silver Reaper!” “Hail Gale Slayer!” Listening to the soldiers' cheers, Caryl Jamode grinned widely and bowed deeply to Logan. “Sir Gael. Resolving the remaining three countries is merely a matter of time now. We owe it all to you.” The initial cold, dismissive attitude had vanished, replaced by fervent flattery and sycophancy. But Logan, rather than being embarrassed, accepted it with genuine appreciation. 'How could I not admire such a remarkable knight, even if I'm a noble myself?' Beyond personal admiration, another calculation ran through Caryl’s mind. If, through this war, Liberty became the dominant power within the alliance, then Gael before him would ascend to a rank surpassing even Grand Duke Gunter, so seeking favor early couldn’t hurt. He believed his intentions were well hidden, but no one observing him was fooled. Meanwhile, the person at the center of the flattery was examining a small, unassuming ring with furrowed brows. "Earl." "Yes, sir!" "The magician I took down—have you heard anything about him?" "Uh… I, I'll…" “What about this peculiar emblem?” When Logan infused the ring with force, an image of a coiled black serpent within a blue circle appeared in midair. For Logan, it was the second time he'd seen this emblem. But it could no longer be dismissed as he had once. “I’m sorry, sir. I will investigate it as quickly as possible.” As expected. Logan sighed softly, shaking his head. "If they’ve deployed magicians of this caliber to the Small Kingdoms Alliance front, they must be a formidable group. Just how much latent power does the Empire harbor within?" Unaware that those using the black serpent emblem were adversaries of the Empire, Logan could only sink deeper into worry. This demeanor left Liberty's commanders standing awkwardly, unable to outwardly celebrate their great victory. In the midst of this atmosphere, news that captured everyone's attention arrived. “The war between the Kingdom of Carloon and Teronan…”