An enormous explosion erupted from the thick inner walls of the keep. A shockwave ripped through the dark night sky, and a thick plume of smoke billowed upward. The sight was clearly visible to Sir Kairon and the Strauss knights stationed atop the southern wall.

"W-what was that?!"

"An attack!"

Kairon narrowed his eyes grimly. Though he couldn’t yet see the details, the situation was clear enough.

Could it be the assassins young master Emil mentioned?

If so, as a knight, it was his duty to rush to Emil’s aid. Strauss Fortress was vast, even broader than an ordinary town. But in the end, it was still a fortress. With the abilities of a silver knight, it would take no more than a few minutes to reach the inner keep. That is, if the subjugation army had not launched a nighttime assault. It felt as though it had been prearranged.

"Waaaaah!"

"Charge!"

"Charge, attack!"

A massive army was swarming in from every direction of the fortress. It was the same tiresome siege battle they had endured time and again. The only difference now was that it was the dead of night, the hour when the undead could fully exert their strength.

The knights gazed down from the walls and muttered to themselves.

"Is this a pincer attack?"

"Looks like that explosion was the signal."

Kairon hesitated. He could not abandon the wall in the current situation. Emil Strauss had ordered him to defend it at all costs. The mental domination imposed upon him tugged at Kairon’s will with blind force.

"My mission is to guard the wall."

Frankly speaking, he felt no particular grief over the thought of Emil Strauss’s head being cut off.

For him, the utmost priority was the safety of his liege, Martial King Gellard.

Kairon drew his sword. With a roaring hum, a brilliant silver aura coiled around the blade.

"Obedience to my orders comes first.” His thunderous shout echoed along the ramparts. "All units, prepare for battle! Prepare yourselves for enemy attack!"

***

A young man wreathed in purple aura leaped through the shattered hole in the stone wall.

He landed in the courtyard of the inner keep, cutting through a cloud of dust. Above his head, a chilling sound rang out.

A purple chain sliced through the air, its blade at the end targeting the young man.

Seeing the surging aura weapon, Future Leven smiled faintly. "An aura chain? Imperial technique, I see."

In an instant, radiant sword light flared around him. With a thunderous crash, the chain blade was knocked aside repeatedly. He had swung his aura sword to form a kind of aura shield.

Clicking his tongue, Varos withdrew his chain blade. "Tch, as expected, this won’t work."

Beyond the retreating purple chain, three streaks of blue light sprang forward. Serati struck down from the front with her aura blade, while Leven lunged at an opening on the left. Lapicel launched a deft flurry of attacks from the right. Still, it wasn’t enough.

"Hmph!"

Future Leven’s purple aura blade flicked slightly, and then it painted dazzling arcs of light in every direction. Serati and Leven gritted their teeth and withdrew their offensive.

“Ugh!"

"Damn it!"

It wasn’t just a difference in their aura levels. Future Leven’s swordsmanship itself was on an entirely different plane. With elegant technique, he deflected their attacks from all three angles and even managed to counterattack.

He slipped precisely into the gaps in their movements, forcing them to retreat. Still, none of them seemed particularly shaken.

—He really is just like Sir Varos.

—It feels exactly like fighting Sir Varos.

Future Leven let out a sigh of admiration when he saw how composed Serati and Leven were. "Well, aren’t you something."

This wasn’t their first time displaying their skills. They had already revealed their aura mastery in the midst of the siege battles. In other words, Future Leven had already received reports about the extent of their capabilities.

"Even so, seeing it with my own eyes, it’s hard to believe.” Clicking his tongue, he marveled at the purple light suffusing Varos’s aura blade. "To think someone could reach purple-tier at that age... I never imagined another genius to rival Emil."

And the others were no less impressive. Even back when Future Leven had trained under his father Gellard, he had barely managed to maintain a red-tier aura at around this age. Yet here was his counterpart from this era, wielding blue aura effortlessly.

Unable to contain his curiosity, he asked, "How did you reach such heights?"

Leven answered with a blank expression, "Effort and luck."

Luck accounted for more than a fair share, but there was no need to go into detail.

Future Leven’s gaze shifted to the ash-gray-haired girl. "And that child over there..."

Varos and Leven were impressive enough, but what he truly couldn’t fathom was the level of that small girl. She was already at blue-tier at that age?

"I can hardly believe it. Not even the Martial King of Cyphras would have reached that level at her age."

Lapicel stiffened at Future Leven’s assessment. She wrapped the searing blue flames tightly around her blade, her eyes brimming with determination. "I don’t know who this Martial King of Cyphras is, but that’s them, and I’m me!"

Leven and Serati exchanged peculiar looks.

—No, that is you.

—You’re talking about yourself, you know.

Regardless, Future Leven was genuinely astonished. They were all far stronger than he had imagined. Though Karnak had yet to display his full power, it was safer to assume he possessed strength well beyond what was publicly known.

As for Serati and Alius, Future Leven did not pay them much mind. Reaching blue-tier at their age certainly marked them as geniuses, but they still fell within the bounds of what could be called natural talent. Alius’s divine power, too, was about what one would expect from a high inquisitor.

"Indeed... with strength like this, it’s no wonder you were bold enough to barge in, even knowing it was a trap."

Still, there was no real problem. His astonishment stemmed only from the incomprehensible phenomenon before his eyes, not from any sense of danger.

"You’ve come here regardless, and with that, my objective is complete.”

Future Leven switched his longsword to his left hand, then raised his right. A thick darkness surged up and coiled around his hand. It was undeniably necromantic power.

Alius flinched, his eyes narrowing. "You have truly fallen, Sir Emil! To wield the power of darkness as a knight of honor!"

"To serve the true god is no fall from grace," he retorted with a sneer, pressing his palm to the earth. "Awaken, pillars of the four seasons."

***

The entire Strauss fortress trembled. With deafening roars, the ground cracked open, and massive pillars of shadow thrust skyward.

Four colossal pillars, grotesquely twisted with flesh and sinew, rose tall around the inner keep. Karnak’s party couldn’t see them directly from their position in the courtyard, they didn’t need to. They felt it. The oppressive force pressed down on them mercilessly, and they could feel its dreadful weight. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Everyone in Karnak’s party staggered. It felt as though all the strength had drained from their bodies.

Karnak muttered under his breath, "This is..."

Aura, divine power, mana, the energies that allowed them to surpass human limits were being suppressed under the weight of darkness.

Karnak spoke in admiration. “It’s the Nether Soul Domain, the Clinging Forest of Madness."

Future Leven was astonished. "Impressive. You actually recognize it. Few know of this technique, even among the church’s necromancers.”

In truth, no one in this era should have been able to recognize it. It was a spell devised by the great God of Death himself, Tesranach. But perhaps because Future Leven himself was no specialist necromancer, he didn’t think that far.

Karnak’s expression hardened. This spell was a twisted version of the large-scale sealing domain used by the church to capture Maloka, only now reimagined through necromancy. It was his original spell, and yet it was being used against him by this bastard.

Moments like this really make me wonder if Tesranach is just another version of me from a different world.

The crushing darkness bore down on them further. They all mustered their energy to their limit. Aura, mana, and divine power were being used to resist the suffocating gloom. But it wasn’t enough.

Their strength drained so rapidly, it felt like they couldn’t even lift their feet. There was no way they could gather the power to destroy those pillars of shadow in this state. Within the barrier, the only one who could maintain their power was the spellcaster himself. In other words, this domain could only be destroyed from the outside.

With the confidence of a victor, Future Leven spoke at ease. "You seem to have realized as much."

Judging by how the subjugation army had launched their attack from the outside the moment Karnak’s group infiltrated, they must have assigned someone to destroy the pillars. He did find it curious that they knew the weakness of a domain they couldn’t possibly understand, but...

"Well, I suppose it is a flaw common to most necromantic domains,” said Future Leven.

Alius raised his staff with difficulty, pointing it at Future Leven as he asked through gritted teeth, "Is that why you remained here alone?"

"Anyone else would only be a burden."

Within this barrier, all but Emil Strauss would have their energy suppressed. Even his subordinate, Sir Kairon, the knights of the Strauss family, and even the necromancers of the Cult of the Black God were no exception.

That was why he had assigned them all to the outer walls. As long as those pillars of darkness stood unscathed, the caster inside the domain remained invincible.

And so, all forces besides Emil were concentrated at the walls. No matter what the subjugation army attempted, they would never breach that defense line.

"Judging from your actions so far, you seem rather good at running away," Future Leven sneered arrogantly. "So I made sure to try a little harder.”

With a haughty expression, he went on, "Why not surrender now? Surely you’ve realized by now that you have no chance of victory."

"You say the defense line is impenetrable...” Even under the crushing pressure, Karnak let out a low chuckle. "But why are you so sure of that? You’ve already told me the answer yourself."

“What?" Future Leven frowned, momentarily at a loss.

For a brief instant, he couldn’t understand what Karnak meant. The answer? What answer?

***

Night was when the undead’s power reached its peak. That was why, until now, the subjugation army had always launched their siege battles only in the daylight.

And yet now they choose to attack in the dead of night? Foolish.

The Strauss fortress had held firm even under the bright sun.

It’s never going to fall in the middle of the night when the undead grow even stronger.

Kairon smiled mockingly while continuing to unleash aura strike from atop the wall. Wave after wave of soldiers trying to scale the wall were relentlessly knocked back down. In the distance, a massive structure was slowly approaching.

Kairon mumbled indifferently, "A catapult?"

There was nothing strange about it. Catapults were weapons designed to break down fortress walls, and the enemy was currently assaulting their stronghold.

Soon after, the catapult fired. A pale, greyish mass traced a long arc through the air, flying toward Strauss fortress. But the trajectory seemed... off. The stone fired from the catapult veered far above the wall, landing instead near the keep.

It was a wild miss, completely off the mark. Even so, there was nothing particularly odd about it. After all, humans were creatures prone to error. So they had simply made a mistake. What was strange about that?

But when the second catapult fired, Kairon’s expression hardened. He had been watching the incoming projectile closely.

“What?" As an aura master who had reached the realm of silver knight, Kairon’s vision remained sharp, even in the thick of night.

That’s not a rock.

A bundle of bones draped in tattered robes was flying through the air toward the keep.