“You cretins dared disturb my resting place,” the child said coldly. “I’d thought I’d been reincarnated, only to find myself in this worthless shell. Strange monsters now run amok in my mausoleum as if they own the place. And now they’ve slain the girl who saved my life. Yes, that’s right, I admit it. This courageous girl managed to earn some of my interest…”
Leonis ignored the Voids, continuing to mutter to himself.
“And this robe is too large to move in comfortably, and honestly, my feet hurt…”
He’d had to run across the stone floor with bare feet, cutting and scraping them all the while.
That last one was mostly just his griping, but still…
“—Now, then. I suppose I should grant you fools a fitting punishment.” Leonis crossed his arms, pondering.
The Undead King was a tolerant sort and willing to take extenuating circumstances into account. What was he to do? These creatures seemingly lacked intelligence, after all. They lacked the capacity to understand what they were doing and who they were dealing with.
They never suspected that this seemingly frail boy was one they should have never, ever sought as an enemy.
“Well, I suppose that in the end…” The Undead King turned a quick glance at Riselia’s bloodied body before passing judgment.
“You fools deserve nothing but certain death.”
Leonis stomped his feet atop his shadow beneath him. The shadow writhed eerily, and from within it rose a single staff. A blue magic crystal was embedded in the tip of the rod.
“It’s been around a thousand years, my faithful companion.”
At Leonis’s slightest touch, the staff loosed a tremendously ominous aura.
The symbol of death of the Dark Lords’ Armies—the Staff of Sealed Sins. It was the demon eye staff Leonis had stolen during a battle against a divine dragon.
“Hmm. It’s a bit too long for this body, isn’t it?”
Holding the staff with one hand, Leonis examined it closely, when…
Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
The wyvern-class Void swooped down with its talons again.
“—My word. How uncouth.”
Leonis charged the staff with mana and fired off a spell.
Crack…
The Void’s massive form was assailed by a powerful pressure and crushed from above. Its four limbs bent and contorted in unnatural directions, and its head was pushed down against the ground so hard, it left an impression.
The magic was an eighth-order gravity-type spell, the Grand Pressure Wave, Vira Zuo. The Void’s appendages twitched desperately from within the increased gravity, but the creature was unable to stand.
“I will grind you into the soil, you inferior existence.”
With a tap of the tip of the staff to the ground…
The Void disintegrated, its cry of death distorted by the gravity well.
Rooooooooooaaar!
A horned, beast-like Void charged Leonis.
“So you are incapable of knowing fear. How amusing.”
Leonis stuck out his staff.
“Rua Meires.”
The staff’s eye shone, and a gleaming hexagonal barrier sprouted in front of Leonis. The beast-like Void’s charge was easily brought to a halt by the magical construct.
“What? Is this the best you can do?” Leonis gave a thin smile.
The tip of the Void’s horns made contact with the barrier, releasing powerful bolts of electricity in an attempt to break through the Undead King’s defense. The attack failed to penetrate the magical shield, though.
“Well then, allow me to take the next step.”
Leonis swung his staff downwards. The hexagonal barrier began spinning rapidly, easily shredding the animallike Void.
The remaining Void was reminiscent of a serpent and seemed to possess a bit more intelligence than the other two. It burrowed into the walls of the ruin, trying to flee to a lower level.
“Do you really think I’d let you escape?”
Leonis kicked against the ground and levitated into the air. He swung his staff toward the Void burrowing its way down.
“I will burn you to cinders!”
He cast an eighth-order fire-type spell, the Grand Annihilation Fireball, Al Gu Belzelga.
Kaboooooooooooooooooooom!
Crimson flames scorched the Void to ash in a matter of seconds.
“…Well, that was simple enough,” Leonis muttered as he landed gently on the ground. However, his expression quickly turned to shock.
“I-impossible!”
There was something there that should not have been. It seemed the charred skeletal remains of the snakelike Void remained.
“How could its bones endure after taking a hit from an Al Gu Belzelga spell?!”
Those were intense flames summoned directly from the Realm of Muspelheim, capable of melting even the scales of a red dragon.
Looking down at his hands, Leonis sighed in disappointment. Back when he was still known as a hero, magic had actually been a weakness of his. It seemed this form simply didn’t have the same magical abilities he’d had in his prime.
…A third of that, at best, from the look of things.
Leonis approached Riselia and took her hands in his. Her skin was growing colder, but she still drew faint breath. The human body is a frail thing, though. She’d surely die at this rate. Her pale face was gruesome to the point of beauty.
“I am a Dark Lord. The lives of humans mean nothing to me.” Leonis made sure to whisper the words, even though she likely couldn’t hear him.
“But I do respect your noble soul. You risked your life to protect me. Trying to defend a Dark Lord is impudent to the point of blasphemy, but I will acknowledge your spirit.” Leonis wrapped his arms around her bloodstained body.
“Kh… You’re heavy, aren’t you…?”
She was actually quite dainty for a girl her age, but for Leonis’s newly reborn ten-year-old frame, it was quite the weight.
“My apologies, but while I’ve devoted myself to sorcery, holy magic is the one thing I cannot use.”
That was the price those who dabbled in the Realm of Death’s magic had to pay. The Undead King Leonis could not use even the most basic or rudimentary healing spells, to say nothing of restoring someone who had lost so much of their life force.
As such…
Leonis elected to save her using the only other method he knew.