Chapter 226

Chapter 226
## Chapter 226

Immortal King vs Hero Party (1)

Tainted combatants, their flesh laced with deep blue, corrupted veins, rushed them from every angle.

“Kyaaaack!”

“Gah! Ugh!”

The grim sight of these mutated forms caused everyone to grow tense.

Though these fiends had forfeited their minds to a semi-undead state, their physical might far surpassed its previous limits.

“…We cannot tarry. It is time to unleash our full strength.”

The moment Heinrich, holding the vanguard position, finished speaking, “Blessing: Holy Sword” came alive, and the elegant sacred blade in his grip erupted into a blinding radiance.

Simultaneously, a surge of unparalleled energy flooded his frame, pushing every single capability to its absolute zenith.

Whoosh—

In terms of raw level alone, he had not yet achieved true transcendence… yet this sacred force, forcibly driving him to the apex of human potential,

Greatly magnified his remaining talents, including “Grand Blessing: Knight of Light” and “Blessing: Fortitude”.

His aura, which previously pulsed with a gentle flicker, now flared into a violent blaze, extending outward to wash over his allies.

“Oh… what is this feeling?”

“Forward! Stay behind the Hero!”

“May our fallen kin find eternal peace!”

Without even casting a widespread sacred incantation, his sheer presence was now radiating a massive, area-wide reinforcement.

It was not merely a psychological anchor that banished terror and ignited their spirits, but a functional combat asset that heightened their physical traits.

This aspect defined exactly why the world worshiped the hero.

The chosen champion of the divine.

The saving light and guide for all mankind.

The raiding party cleaved through the swarming fiends, charting a path behind Heinrich as they ventured deeper into the metropolis swallowed by shadow.

“Misty, can you truly sustain this?”

“…I refuse to sit idly by while the rest put their lives on the line. Have no fear, I will hold my own.”

Misty, breathing heavily as she forced her incantations to hold, replied to the worried inquiry of the Saintess.

Her vitality was draining and fatigue weighed heavily on her, yet she retained the power to bolster the crests of the combatants.

Liesta let out a soft sigh, watching her push past her limits.

Even so, she knew better than to hold her back.

The best course of action was to channel her focus into her own duties.

“Great Deity, grant your children the vitality to stand when exhaustion takes them, and the resolve to oppose wickedness.”

The Saintess’s devotion triggered her sacred arts, wrapping the entire vanguard in a protective glow.

Reinforced by these compounding enhancements, the group pressed onward.

Their objective was the colossal structure situated at the heart of the settlement, which bled a dense, malicious energy from the abyss.

That structure was the estate of Baltheon, the very place where the Immortal King kept himself concealed.

—

Carving a path to their destination proved well within the hero party’s capabilities when they held nothing back.

They were fighting against a massive vanguard of fiends and resurrected corpses pulled from the Immortal Fortress, all while the wicked miasma choking the streets provided the monsters with constant reinforcement…

Yet they remained completely outmatched by the hero party.

Even so, the group maintained a measured pace, conserving their energy with deliberate caution.

To any onlooker, their progress was nothing short of awe-inspiring.

“Horia, Equistin.”

The High Elf, Lydia Granwood, spoke the words in a quiet murmur, and her projectile, laced with the combined elements of gale and flame, turned the frontline path into a raging inferno.

“Thunder Buster!”

Isea’s incantation reached its climax, and a javelin crafted from raw electricity tore through the gloom, slamming violently into the earth.

“Haa—!”

Geos delivered a piercing thrust with his polearm, shattering the skulls of the charging foes,

“Hahaha!”

While the fiends that crossed paths with Harley were hurled backward like scattered pins.

As the hero party forged a clear passage, the Southern Warriors trailed closely behind, holding off flanking reinforcements and ensuring the route remained viable.

They were absorbing the brunt of the chaos to ensure the primary strike team could reach the epicenter with as few casualties as possible.

“Keep pushing! The objective is right ahead!”

“Kyaaaack!”

“Bar the way! This domain belongs to us, and we shall secure it with our corpses!”

The weapons of the vanguard bit deep into the fiends, whose hides had hardened past the density of ordinary beasts.

Yet these adversaries, burning through the absolute last remnants of their vitality, refused to fall easily, causing the allied casualty count to climb.

“Gah! Ugh!”

“Ah— Sleep well, brother. My time will come shortly.”

[Kyaaaack—!]

Furthermore, the animated corpses, similarly empowered by the abyssal energy, showed no signs of slowing down.

The Southern Warriors were quite literally painting the path forward with their own lifeblood.

‘…He has abandoned all restraints, Hans. Treating living breathing people as nothing more than disposable shields… How much deeper will you sink?’

Marching onward, Heinrich clenched his jaw, his chest tightening at the sight of the warriors falling around him.

High Chieftain Baltheon had deliberately forced a state of frenzy into his own people, transforming them into mindless ‘Berserkers’.

Much like Harley’s state when he initially took in that frenzy, their physical attributes had undoubtedly surged to monstrous levels.

The critical difference lay in the fact that they had forfeited all personal agency, becoming entirely bound to Baltheon’s will.

There might have been a chance to save them… but the ‘demise’ of Hans had shattered any prospect of restoration.

They had not transitioned entirely into the undead state due to the volatile frenzy already warping their flesh, but for all practical purposes, their lives were over.

‘The miasma saturating the atmosphere presents a severe threat as well. It remains diluted for now, allowing the troops under Liesta’s blessing to withstand it, but prolonged exposure will spell disaster.’

Hans served as the core origin point for both this abyssal miasma and the endless legions of the dead.

If they could break him… or simply sever his focus… the tide would turn.

Sprinting to his location with maximum speed was the solitary method to halt the bleeding of their forces.

‘We strike directly…!’

Yet…

As is the nature of such conflicts, reality refused to align with their designs.

Right before the main entrance of the central structure…

Which was now entirely walled off by a dark, ominous vapor that choked out the doorway…

“Haha! You managed to crawl all the way here, then.”

A fiend, standing just a bit shorter than Harley and bearing a frame marred by purple and black corruption, stepped forward to obstruct their advance.

He did not stand alone; several high-tier fiends flanked him, each radiating a pressure far more intense than any opponent they had faced thus far.

“Baltheon…”

Misty, her features drained of color from the extreme strain of her spellcasting, whispered the name.

“Hehehe, Misty. I assumed you were scurrying away like a rodent, yet you return to present yourself to me.”

“…Is this the grand design you envisioned? Offering up your own existence and the lives of your people to the Immortal King? All that talk of restoring Calcos to its peak… nothing but a deceitful lie.”

That promise had been the foundation of Baltheon’s rhetoric.

To bind the southern factions together, launch an invasion into the northern territories, leave their desolate home behind, and seize the prosperous lands.

He had been cast out precisely because he tyrannized the clans who sought neutrality, pushing his aggressive, warmongering agenda to an extreme…

“Ah, this turn of events was an unpredicted hiccup. My initial strategy was to seize the southern territories of the Empire while the mainland descended into anarchy, using that leverage to force a treaty.”

He offered a casual shrug, entirely dismissive of her words, before turning his gaze toward the corrupted fiends and the unrelenting tide of animated dead spilling from the threshold behind his position.

“Even so, this outcome serves my purposes just as well.”

A deformed, unnatural grin tugged at his lips.

“Just the southern territories? Far from it. Hand in hand with the Immortal King and this unstoppable legion, the entire realm is within our grasp! We shall pull down the Azerion Empire and raise the Calcos Empire from its ashes!”

A wild frenzy flickered within his bloodshot eyes.

Driven by warped convictions and an insatiable thirst for power, he had discarded every shred of his former self.

“…You have lost your mind. Binding yourself to the Immortal King, an entity hellbent on turning existence into a barren graveyard, guarantees nothing but total annihilation.”

“Incorrect. His nature is entirely distinct from the monarchs who preceded him. Even that Saintess understands this. It is the sole reason he put forward that absurd gamble!”

He had consciously chosen to align his fate with the Immortal King, fully aware of the stakes.

It was the ambition he had nurtured across decades, the burning craving he carried ever since aligning with the Oath of Heaven’s Defiance and unlocking the gateway to the abyss.

“Khehehe— Once we wipe those wretched imperial dogs from the face of the earth… I, Baltheon, shall take my place as the founding monarch of the Calcos Empire…!”

Yet, mid-way through his self-indulgent declaration…

“You chatter far too much.”

“What?!”

…his speech was cut short,

And in that identical fraction of a second—,

Kaboom—!

“Gah!”

…his body was propelled forward like a kinetic round, shattering through structural barriers and concrete walls before vanishing deep into the cityscape.

Rumble— Boom! Crash—!

A succession of ear-splitting concussive booms marked his trajectory.

The entire gathering, including the attendant fiends who had lined up beside him, stood paralyzed, staring blankly at the vacant space where their leader had been holding court just a second prior.

Harley occupied that exact position now, a fist still extended forward, his features twisted into a look of absolute boredom.

“Oh, come off it! I couldn’t care less about an empire or whatever nonsense you’re spouting, just give me a real bout!”

His lips curled into a predatory grin as he scanned his surroundings with growing fervor.

Baltheon, a combatant of transcendent stature, already promised an entertaining engagement, but the presence of three mastery-level grand champions alongside a dozen elite fiend combatants made it even better.

What an absolute bounty!

“Hehehe… This promises to be quite entertaining.”

Harley’s expression grew wild and bloodthirsty.

He had been starved for a genuine challenge ever since crossing the threshold into transcendence.

His time had been spent assisting the hero party in trampling Hans’s low-tier lackeys or occasionally trading blows with White Giants.

What was the true purpose behind Harley’s presence in this theater of war?

He craved the crucible of a brutal, high-stakes conflict against an adversary capable of pushing him back.

Viewed through that lens, the targets gathered before him showed immense potential…

However, a single piece of business required his attention before he could indulge.

“Listen up, leave these stragglers to my care and move inward. You people have a schedule to keep, don’t you?”

Crack— Creak!

Whoosh—

Slight mechanical grinding sounds vibrated through Harley’s skeletal frame as he loosened up his joints, a plume of vapor venting from his straining, overheated skin.

Planting himself squarely before the entryway that Baltheon had previously obstructed, he cast a sideways glance toward the hero party.

The gesture made his intentions perfectly clear: leave this threshold to him and pursue the main objective.

‘These opponents belong to me! I claim them! So get moving!’

Faced with this display, even Heinrich could only stare back with an expression of sheer bewilderment.

“Y-you insolent wretch—! How dare you lay a hand on me—!”

Baltheon’s enraged shout reverberated from the wreckage in the distance,

Accompanied by a shockwave of raw destructive force that caused the entire sector to tremble.

“Seriously, just move! And you, girl, take your companions and clear out of the immediate area. I won’t be looking out for anyone once things get loud.”

Misty, however, had already detected the shifting tide of danger and was actively pulling her combatants back to a safe distance.

Letting out a tired sigh, Heinrich gestured for the hero party to enter the structure…

“I will tear you apart—!”

Kaboom—!

Simultaneously, Harley’s fist collided squarely with Baltheon’s strike, the High Chieftain having already crossed the intervening distance in a flash.

“Ha! Now that is what I am talking about! The rest of you as well! Stop standing there and throw down! Khahaha—!”

His expression was filled with pure, unadulterated joy.

—

Creak— Creak—

“Good grief, what am I supposed to do with a guy like Harley? He presents a completely different flavor of headache compared to Hans.”

Hugo muttered to himself as he plowed through his routine physical training inside his private workout space.

While affairs in Auterica had devolved into utter madness, a mere forty-eight hours had elapsed since his primary physical vessel had slipped into a comatose state back on Earth.

Naturally, the domestic front remained entirely tranquil, leaving him with little to occupy his time beyond monitoring his primary body’s vital signs and keeping up with his daily physical maintenance.

‘Harris is an absolute angel by comparison. He simply rests without bothering to show up for the collective consciousness syncs. I am completely in the dark regarding what Harley might pull next.’

What value did a shared mental network possess when one of its nodes acted entirely on impulse, giving zero advanced warning?

Harley existed as the literal translation of ‘a sound mind residing within a robust physical shell.’

‘Still, the overall trajectory of events over there looks increasingly grim. I wonder when he will finally open his eyes? If we could just experience a single day devoid of a major crisis… ’

As Hugo released a tense, anxious breath,

Inside a nearby sleeping chamber—the most heavily fortified and monitored room in the entire residence, bristling with various defensive countermeasures—

Twitch—

A solitary digit on the hand of the individual resting entirely motionless upon the mattress—shivered minutely.

Like a subtle prelude to an impending storm.