Chapter 146. An Invitation to Darkness (1)
Only a bizarre atmosphere filled the banquet hall after the party had ended.
“What choice did I have, running towards a predetermined ruin.”
Blanc swung his sword down at the void beings rushing toward him.
The sharp blade of light extending from Blanc’s sword cut down the approaching creatures that were flicking their tongues, but they relentlessly made malicious gestures toward Blanc.
From the blood-stained floor, from the walls splattered with entrails.
“Damn it!”
Even from the ceiling shrouded in darkness.
Adolf, not ignoring the instinctive sense of unease, quickly rolled on the floor.
A dark hand reaching from the ceiling grazed his brilliant blond hair by a hair’s breadth.
Fragnts of entrails and dark red blood splattered onto Adolf’s face as he rolled on the sticky floor to avoid the sinister energy, but he paid it no mind, swinging his sword to cut through the darkness.
“So I decided to do this. To just flip the whole board.”
“Barzio-!”
BANG-! BANG-!
Barzio was swinging his giant sword at the wall.
-I’m almost there!
The cracks in the wall, starting from the tip of Barzio’s sword, were growing larger.
“After hearing their words, I beca certain. That the world of the Goddesses is collapsing, and a new order for this world is approaching!”
A madness never before seen began to flow from Count Lacie’s void eyes.
“Things that were not permitted in the world of the Goddesses! Things I wanted but could not have! They said they would let have them, so what reason would I have not to do this!”
Count Lacie, now that he had admitted everything, was unabashedly spewing out his desires.
Ignoring the mad shouts coming from behind him, Blanc tore off one of the glorious items from his chest and thrust it into the griffin rider’s hand.
“Go. They should still be walking along the road.”
The griffin rider looked at Blanc’s unwavering eyes, even in the darkness, and replied.
“May the blessings of the Goddesses and the World Tree be with you, my lord.”
-I’ve broken through!
“Hurry!”
The griffin rider saw the back of the young lord who blocked his path and charged toward the dark beings.
A knight throwing his entire body at the void beings with their pitch-black mouths agape.
Soon, a White Thunderbolt erupted, and the horrific screams of the wicked things began to echo.
Under the single streak of light shining in the darkness, Blanc and his knights stood firm, blocking the wave of malice with their bodies.
With that light at his back, the griffin rider crossed the Cadmus mansion.
A griffin, having received his signal, erged from the clouds and began to descend to the ground.
There was one griffin cutting through the sky, riding the night where even the moon was hidden by clouds.
“…”
The griffin rider, riding the divine beast, tightly clenched what was in his hand.
Below them, ominous things were climbing the walls of Norington.
***
Nicholas adjusted his glasses and wrote on a small slip of paper.
BANG-! BANG-! BANG-!
SCREEEEEECH--!
The screams of the bizarre creatures from beyond the stone wall were ceaseless, and the people listening were going mad with the approaching anxiety and fear, but the cool-headed advisor of Norington remained unshaken and carried on with his duty.
“Done.”
Nicholas, having written on the slips, carefully brought them to a candle and lit them.
The slips burned with a strangely blue light.
Due to the limitations of the slips, he could only write a few words, but that would be enough.
They would burn the other connected slips far away, leaving behind the words Nicholas had written.
“My lady…”
While Nicholas was burning the slips, Ciella once again bit her thumb and drew blood.
Seeing Ciella, Emilia finally burst into tears.
A dark night, people’s screams, dark red drops of blood.
It was a night just like that ti.
“It will be different from that ti, Emilia.”
Ciella said as she hugged her most cherished handmaiden.
“Sir Hansen, please gather the knights.”
“Understood, Lady Ciella.”
While Hansen gathered the knights, Ciella took out a book from the bookshelf and opened it.
“What we must pay attention to is not what is seen, but what is unseen, so in the unseen darkness, there shall be a path we must truly walk.”
Ciella, using the small amount of magic she possessed as a descendant of Neudorf, read the activation words, then drew a line across the passage with her bleeding finger.
At that, a red magic circle began to be drawn from the book Ciella was holding.
“Get ready.”
When Ciella returned the book bearing the glowing magic circle to the bookshelf, the sound of massive gears turning echoed from deep within the room.
“Wha, what is that?”
One of the distinguished guests could not bear the sound and asked, but Ciella just stared at the bookshelf.
Rumble-
As the vibrations echoing from deep within began to et and find their places, the bookshelf that filled one wall soon opened, revealing a dark passage.
It was a dark passage whose depth could not be fathod.
“...My husband, who was a pitiful child, told he escaped from the malice of Gartaria through a tiny little hole.”
Emilia, hearing Ciella’s words, seed to see the scene of that day overlapping with the passage before her, and tears began to well up in her large eyes.
“I did not wish for this to happen, but I had no choice but to prepare.”
Everyone here was looking at one person.
Ciella had been embroiled in nurous stigmas and notorieties due to the misfortunes that had befallen her, but now, at this mont, she was shining more brightly than anyone, revealing her true nature that had been hidden until now.
“If you go through here, you will reach a safe house outside Norington’s walls. I don’t know what the situation outside is like, but…”
BANG-! BANG-! BANG-!
SCREEEEEECH-!
Ciella looked at the stone wall from which rock dust was falling and said.
“It will at least be better than here.”
Ciella quietly nodded at Hansen and stepped back.
“The passage is narrow, everyone.”
Hansen said as he picked up a torch that had been prepared in the passage.
So people were reluctant to enter the dark passage, but it could not be helped.
“Let’s go.”
Whatever they did, it would be better than staying still in the face of a promised doom.
The frightened lambs began to take steps into the unseen darkness.
In front of them was a woman with reddish-brown hair who had prepared for the future through the pain of the past.
***
The blind knight quietly spoke.
“The bulkhead has been lowered.”
Simon had caught the vibration of the bulkhead descending with his sharp senses and reported it to Blanc.
Hearing Simon’s words, Blanc quietly flicked the blood off Aselheit’s sword.
“...You did well, my wife.”
Blanc let out a long sigh that started from the bottom of his lungs and lowered his head.
Through that sigh, Blanc was exhaling his anxiety for Ciella.
“Protecting sothing is such a difficult task.”
A single word from Blanc, naturally laden with weight because he carried so much.
The knights who heard him nodded.
For Ciella and Norington, and for the Spirit Tree in the Gorge Where Even Tears Dried Up.
Blanc and his knights were curled up, blocking the hole directed at them with their entire bodies.
“I have done all that I can.”
And now that he had done his best for them, the black wolf of Cadmus burned with his blue eyes, seeking not what he had to do, but what he wanted to do.
From the first mont he saw them, he had wanted to unleash his fury upon those things flicking their void tongues in front of him.
“You bastards have crawled back in here once again.”
The black wolf’s growl echoed throughout the blood-soaked banquet hall.
The void beings had once again crawled into Norington, trampled his domain, and stabbed and cut his people, turning them red.
“Didn’t the Count himself invite us?”
Count Lacie raised both hands and retorted playfully.
“...That’s right. I did invite you. I did.”
Blanc looked at Count Lacie, his cold fury blazing.
“...”
Even Count Lacie, stained by the Void, flinched for a mont at that chilling aura.
Moreover, Count Lacie felt a strange sense of unease from Blanc, who was looking at him with a cold smile.
Blanc replied to Count Lacie’s words with a smile.
“It seems my hospitality for my guests was lacking.”
The sense of unease Count Lacie felt.
It was because Blanc was closing his left eye this ti, not his right eye which he had always closed, to connect to his ntal World.
Soon, the screams of a man in terror began to echo within Blanc’s soul.
“...What?”
However, that scream was not heard by Blanc alone.
That sound began to echo from the night sky Blanc was holding as well.
“I truly hope the banquet I have prepared pleases you this ti, my lord.”
After finishing his words, black Ghost Fire instantly blazed in Blanc’s eyes.
“Before that bastard pulls any tricks-!”
Count Lacie, noticing that Blanc was up to sothing, ordered the void knights to advance.
However, they could not easily move forward due to the sheer presence of the knights blocking Blanc’s path.
Although there were only four of them, including Blanc, the presence of the Cadmus Knights was more than enough to overwhelm the dozens of void beings.
The skills, experience, and enemies they had faced thus far allowed for it.
Blanc, grabbing the night sky he was wearing with his left hand, said.
“You may have entered Norington as you pleased, but you will need my permission to leave.”
As Tiday’s cries echoed in Ulrich’s night sky, the stars the great archmage had embroidered began to emit an ominous color.
Blanc threw the night sky he was holding high into the air.
For a mont, everyone here looked at the black cloak that had soared to the ceiling of the banquet hall.
Kuaaaaaah--!
Along with Tiday’s scream, darkness erupted from the cloak Blanc had thrown.
The pitch-black darkness spread out in an instant, leaving no ti to react, blocking the entrance they had co through, dyeing the solid marble walls black, and making the floor they stood on sticky.
“Of course, if I were Aleid, I would have promised him this and that.”
In the darkness created by the night sky, Blanc’s cold words struck Count Lacie’s ears.
“What couldn’t you promise a man who’s going to die anyway?”
“Kill them imdiately-!”
At Count Lacie’s command, the void knights drew their swords and tried to approach Blanc, but.
“...!”
“From the floor!”
Black hands rising from the sticky floor were snatching their ankles.
“As the Lord of Norington, I welco you, uninvited guests.”
Blanc sheathed Aselheit’s sword and picked up a sword that was rolling nearby.
Coincidentally, it was a one-handed sword of a type he had often used in his previous life as Blanc Scar.
“I hope you enjoy yourselves to the fullest here.”
The wolf’s growl awakened the ominous red stars embroidered on the night sky.
The terrifying picture drawn by the great mage of the Illusion School and the scarred rcenary who had seen hell was quickly colored in the banquet hall.
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