Chapter 227

Chapter 227
## Chapter 227

Immortal King vs Hero Party (2)

The atmosphere within the structure shifted completely from the external environment, giving the impression that they had crossed a threshold into an entirely different realm.

As anticipated, the edifice situated at the heart of Beorsen had ceased to exist as a conventional location.

‘…This feels wretched.’

Heinrich scowled, scanning his surroundings.

The immense arena, which no longer resembled the interior of any building, was submerged in obscurity, with a foul, suffocating, and adhesive malice fastening itself to them.

It resembled a chasm of the underworld, attempting to pull them down into its bottomless dark.

And positioned directly in the center of that arena…

…He loomed.

[It has been some time, Hero Heinrich Saint Landguard.]

The individual who had engineered the prevailing devastation, not merely within this municipality, but across the breadth of the lands…

…And the figure who served as Heinrich’s polar opposite, yet remained inextricably linked to him.

“Immortal King, Hannibal Strauss.”

The champions had at last come face-to-face with the Immortal King.

—

‘Immortal King.’

Fracture—

Geos Calkin, a warrior among the champion group, tightened his grip upon his lance.

‘At long last.’

The singular instant he had anticipated for so long.

Had twelve months truly passed since that catastrophe? No, perhaps not even a full year had gone by.

It seemed an eternity ago… the memory eluded his precise recollection.

‘My decision to enlist in this campaign was correct.’

He would never have obtained this chance to confront the Immortal King under any other circumstances.

He would not have even presumed to challenge him face-to-face.

Naturally, he had slain an immense number of dark sorcerers, the lackeys of the Immortal King, while resisting his advances.

His blade always sought out the dark spellcasters first, and he felt no remorse when interrogating those who survived the onslaught.

Heinrich, aware of his past, had permitted his conduct without issuing a single reprimand.

It was an act for which he felt profound appreciation, given the unyielding morality of the Saint.

[Kihihihik— This proves to be… amusing…]

“Immortal King! You…!”

Geos remained deaf to the words exchanged between the Immortal King and the champion.

Remnants of his past drifted through his mind, as sharp and clear as if they occurred yesterday.

-“Uhuhu— Tell me, Geos, are you prepared to become a father?”

His spouse, Anna, tenderly caressing her swelling midsection.

They possessed nothing in the world save for each other, and then their bond brought forth a child.

-“Oh look! She is incredibly precious. To whom does this tiny cherub belong?”

He recalled the infant, stirring within her bassinet, her eyelids barely parted.

-“Waaaah—!”

-“Geos! Do not cause her to weep! You must show greater care! Do not worry, Nia. Mother is here.”

He recalled those moments, when his hands were so awkward around the infant.

-“Papa, papa! Witness this, witness this! Hahaha—!”

He recalled his daughter, older now, sprinting toward him with a radiant grin.

-“Then I shall escort our daughter on an outing and accompany you afterward. You may depart ahead to labor by yourself, My Lord, agreed~?”

-“Agreed~? Hehe! Do not shed tears while awaiting us, Papa, promised? Do you vow?”

-“My love, do you truly believe I will weep out of solitude? I shall merely remain sequestered in a corner somewhere, tilling the soil.”

-“Ah! That sounds exactly like you! Hehehe!”

…He still held fast to that final exchange.

Geos lifted a hand, softly brushing the scar marking his sternum.

He had torn and lacerated his own chest until his fingers dripped scarlet and his flesh parted, desperately attempting to suppress his weeping upon learning the tidings.

To uphold his daughter’s final pledge.

Naturally, even a master of the martial arts could not govern his sentiments flawlessly.

Yet he had shed no tears since that fateful hour. Surely that carried some significance?

‘She understood my nature perfectly.’

And her jest about him remaining sequestered in a corner, tilling the soil, had been accurate.

He had emerged now, but he had remained hidden within his estate, squandering his days for a considerable duration.

He offered a grim smile and refocused his grip upon his lance, lowering his center of gravity like an apex predator preparing to strike.

His vision remained locked upon the architect of his misfortune, charting his every twitch, poised to lunge.

‘Forgive me… but my patience has reached its limit.’

A savage blaze surged through his arteries.

Stoked by sorrow and hopelessness— an inferno fueled by vengeance and fury.

‘If you refuse to advance toward me… then I shall advance toward you.’

His mouth contorted into a harsh smirk, the internal heat so fierce his lips felt on the verge of crumbling to cinder.

And then, precisely as he had anticipated,

The clash between the champions and the Immortal King commenced.

—

Whoosh, whoosh—!

Rent! Rent!

Heinrich bounded toward the Immortal King, unceasingly hacking through the dark serpents that snapped at his form.

“Blessing: Holy Blade”, amplified by the sacred sword, stood as the natural antithesis to the darkness, yet the creatures persisted in rising, as though their numbers were infinite.

‘Ugh, this proves far more challenging than I anticipated.’

Graciously, he possessed some room to maneuver due to the defensive coverage Geos provided from the rear.

He ground his teeth together, magnifying his sacred energies through “Blessing: Capacity Increase”.

His verbal sparring with the Immortal King carried little weight.

It amounted to nothing more than standard rhetoric between a champion and a Fiend Lord.

The matter of true consequence was the internal communion that ought to have been occurring.

He had assumed Hans would grudgingly lower his psychological ramparts given the circumstances…

‘Yet he refuses to yield.’

There remained no hint of mental contact.

I am remaining right here. I shall act according to my desires, so retreat yourself if it displeases you.

It stood as a one-sided ultimatum.

‘Hans… ’

Kaboom—! Boom! Crash—!

In that exact instant, the projectiles unleashed by Lydia from the rear battered the Immortal King’s defensive wall.

The shafts, fashioned from the seasoned limbs of the World Tree that Howard utilized as sustenance, were saturated with elemental power and Liesta’s sacred energy, descending like an artillery strike.

[Tsk, they prove troublesome.]

As he growled,

The darkness contorted and surged forward to swallow the champions…

“Sovereign Deity, shield us from wickedness!”

Yet Liesta’s invocation and her sacred brilliance repelled the encroaching shadow, insulating her allies.

They continued to labor under the immense weight of his presence, but as the Saintess, she would not be shattered so casually.

Crackle—! Crackle—! Crackle—!

Beside her, arcs of energy discharged from the space surrounding Isea.

“Ugh, he retains the capacity to disrupt me even amidst this chaos? What manner of anomaly is he?!”

She clenched her jaw, droplets of perspiration sliding down her visage.

The magical essence she had accumulated was fracturing before it could assume a stable configuration.

He was employing spell inversion, a methodology high-ranking sorcerers reserved solely for adversaries vastly inferior to themselves… directing it at her, an Archmage.

And he executed this repeatedly, all while engaging the rest of her party.

[Incompetent.]

The assault did not cease there.

Whoosh— Boom!

A jet of obsidian damnation, an advanced manifestation of dark sorcery, collided with the aegis Liesta was sustaining.

“Ugh!”

The percussion forced a gasp from her lips, fracturing her focus.

He disrupted her incantations while effortlessly projecting advanced sorcery of his own.

The scenario defied reason.

‘Yet for what purpose? What is his objective?’

Even so, Isea locked her jaw and reassembled her concentration.

Should she surrender, he would gain even greater liberty to deploy his magical arsenal.

Regrettably, despite the unified endeavors of the group…

Heinrich, sustaining the vanguard, was progressively absorbing injuries.

[Hehehe! What ails you, Hero? If your desire is to preserve your allies, you must overcome me!]

The sacred edge, empowered by the holy weapon, functioned as a perfect countermeasure against the Immortal King.

It could cleave through his protections effortlessly after parrying his offenses, yet he remained an active combatant.

‘…This is aggravating. Matters might stand differently if Harley were present… ’

He had succeeded in shattering the defenses on several occasions, only to be repulsed by the subsequent retaliations.

Yet he could not relent until he delivered a decisive strike, and the exhaustion he accumulated in the endeavor was mounting.

‘The issue remains manageable for now owing to my status as a holy warrior, but sustaining this many strikes laced with darkness is perilous.’

He lacked assurance that his allies could endure until that moment arrived.

He had managed to narrow the distance solely due to Lydia’s covering salvos, Liesta’s sacred enhancements, and Geos parrying the strikes intended for him.

‘Furthermore, Isea’s exertions in suppressing Hans’s sorcerous volleys have proven beneficial.’

Had Harley accompanied them, they might have truly managed to land an impactful blow.

Then again, Hans might have mobilized some of the commanders who remained within the Immortal Fortress.

Heinrich gripped his sacred weapon with renewed fervor, discarding his misgivings.

This represented their window of opportunity, while Hans confronted him isolated from his forces.

Whether it stemmed from familiarity with battle or mere hubris…

‘This is no moment for restraint.’

If he could inflict a substantial wound at this juncture, they might secure a reprieve until his primary consciousness returned to awareness.

Heinrich activated “Blessing: Leap”, a technique he had sequestered for a critical turning point, and brought his blade down.

With the entirety of his strength, aiming to fracture that unyielding crown.

—

Geos dispassionately evaluated his capabilities and limitations as the conflict thundered around him.

The Refraction Spear, an art acquired from Chehai, represented the zenith of spiritual energy control, enabling him to strike any mark by bypassing physical distance, yet it possessed restrictions.

‘My thrust cannot penetrate beyond the Immortal King’s sorcerous barrier.’

In truth, this applied not merely to the Immortal King, but to any safeguard exceeding a particular threshold, meaning the outcome was expected.

He had not yet ascended to the tier of a transcendent being.

‘And even should I target the exact instance the aegis fractures… the result would be negligible.’

Geos, who had been systematically probing his adversary, managed to detect the enigma encompassing the Immortal King’s core, utilizing the spatial perception he cultivated through the implementation of the Refraction Spear.

‘A staggering degree of spatial warping encompasses his heart. It remains futile to merely alter the trajectory of my weapon tip and attempt a thrust. Not unless I possess the capacity to manipulate space itself and strike through the distortion.’

And such a feat remained beyond his current capabilities.

‘…Utilizing conventional approaches.’

Understandably, the esoteric discipline he had perfected was far from ordinary.

The reality that he could manipulate space solely through spiritual energy, without achieving transcendence, was remarkable.

And that discipline, which functioned essentially as a ‘superpower derived from spiritual energy’ engineered by Chehai,

Had been refined further by Geos, mutating into something akin to a ‘spiritual secret methodology’.

“Whew—”

He brushed aside a surge of dark energy rushing toward his position and inhaled deeply, monitoring the battlefield.

Crackle—! Crackle! Crackle—!

Discharges of energy flashed from Isea’s position.

She was endeavoring to manifest several incantations concurrently, marshaling her colossal reserves of magical power.

It was a hazardous gamble that risked a magical backlash, yet through her defiance, the frequency of the Immortal King’s sorcery had dropped noticeably.

Lydia and Liesta continued to reinforce Heinrich as well.

The archer appeared to possess an inexhaustible quiver, as her projectiles sliced through the atmosphere, skewering the dark serpents.

Meanwhile, Liesta’s sacred energy, radiating from her form until she resembled a being composed entirely of luminesce, dissolved the surrounding gloom and fortified her comrades.

Geos redirected his attention to the vanguard.

Heinrich, straining to close the distance, and the Immortal King, dispassionately neutralizing his maneuvers.

The outlook appeared bleak.

The champion, and potentially the Saintess as well, might perish here.

And such an outcome would herald true ruin.

‘Therefore… there is no alternative.’

A faint smirk manifested on Geos’s features.

As though he anticipated the coming action.

‘Immortal King.’

And Geos Calkin, a master practitioner of the martial arts and a peer of the Lesque Kingdom…

‘I may lack the power to end your existence, but… ’

…contorted, compressed, and uprooted the spiritual energy dormant within his core.

“Ugh— Cough—!”

And he discharged a solitary line of crimson energy, the distillation of his existence, his martial rank, and his destiny.

‘This shall… prove exceedingly painful.’

In the immediate wake of the champion’s sacred weapon sundering the defensive wall,

Geos launched his weapon, and the point of the lance— tore straight through space.