Chapter 1189: Military Parade (3)

“Grrrrr!!!”

“Queeeeek!!!”

Eyeless ghouls tore at each other’s flesh across the military base.

A grotesque feast of bodily fluids and fragments of flesh splattered across the base’s sturdy alloy walls.

Monsters crawled, stripped of intellect and reason, emitting bizarre shrieks.

Soldiers who had served here under command had not even died properly, having become ghouls.

RUMBLE!!!

Lennok trampled the ghouls, who were surging like a wave of flesh, steadily filling the bridge, and propelled his bike forward.

Ghouls rushed from all sides, clawing and biting at the bike, but the metal-armored vehicle remained unscratched.

[Eughhh…]

Only Davi’s terrified voice, inhabiting the bike and controlling its autonomous driving algorithm, reached Lennok’s ears.

Vroooom!!!

Accelerating rapidly, he moved to a vantage point overlooking the entire military base.

From atop the bridge leading to the base’s upper levels, Lennok gazed down with a grim expression.

“The entire military base is already compromised. Most of it has already been ghoul-ified.”

“This isn’t Conqueror Baitan’s doing.”

Euphoria said, her gaze calmly sweeping over the base.

“The massacre he committed was merely death as a result. It wasn’t a method that toyed with the concept of death. But what happened here is…”

“A forbidden art that raises corpses as undead. That’s the trace of necromancy.”

Necromancy is a forbidden art that can only operate and exert power over dead corpses.

However, precisely because of such stringent limitations, it is also a spellcraft with tremendous potential under specific conditions.

For a powerful necromancer, massacring a small city alone and raising it entirely as undead would not be impossible.

The problem was that such a disaster had occurred within Deadrise’s military base.

What had happened to the Legion that all its soldiers here had turned into ghouls? And why was Deadrise standing by and watching this situation unfold?

A serious matter that, depending on the circumstances, could even affect the schedule of the planned military parade.

Screech!

Lennok, having made his decision, immediately stopped the bike and channeled his mana.

“I’ll have to go down into the military base and search the communication logs. An investigation is needed to find out what happened.”

“I understand the situation.”

Euphoria said, stepping out of the sidecar.

From atop the bridge overlooking the base, the Long-lived Being, hands clasped together, nodded.

“I’ll lend you my spellcraft. Let’s finish this as quickly as possible.”

“What do you intend to do?”

“Actually, my Life Spellcraft doesn’t have a very good affinity with necromantic spellcraft.”

Euphoria replied calmly.

“Given the nature of my spellcraft, which deals with living beings, I can’t directly neutralize necromancy, which governs the dead. I wouldn’t be much help on the battlefield.”

“…”

Come to think of it, Euphoria Aosel’s Power Ranking noted her immense lethal capacity, but it didn’t mention her spellcraft having strong offensive power.

She could artificially enhance lethal capacity for specific living beings, but perhaps her raw destructive power against inanimate objects wasn’t exceptional.

“I wouldn’t call it a substitute, but at least I can help prevent those ghouls from easily roaming the military base.”

FWOOSH!!!

As Euphoria clasped her hands and channeled mana, vibrant green magical energy bloomed around her.

A softly rotating green wave, centered on the Long-lived Being, rapidly expanded like an explosion, widening its reach to a radius of several hundred meters.

Euphoria closed her eyes and whispered softly.

“Creation Harmonization Technique, Outer Method.”

Primitive Magic: Creation Harmonization Technique

Eightfold - Outer Method

[Myriad Blooms of Green Fortune]

KWOOOOMP!!!!

From all directions of the base spread out below the bridge where Lennok stood, bushes and trees erupted.

A natural barrier, interwoven with lush green, enveloped the base, transforming into a colossal semi-circular dome.

A miraculous feat: forcibly accelerating the growth of mountains and vegetation to cover the entire military base, blocking any escape for the ghouls.

“Gaaargh…!”

“Kaaak! Kaaak!!”

Ghouls convulsed and bit at the walls of the natural barrier encircling the base, but the vegetation immediately regenerated, trapping them.

Many ghouls were trapped or crushed as they became wedged between the rapidly growing flora, convulsing.

Lennok, observing the scene, turned with a slightly surprised expression to look at the tree barriers that had erupted all around him.

‘The mana consumption isn’t high, but the spellcraft’s scope and range are unreal. Is this a characteristic of Life Spellcraft?’

The mana Euphoria had just used through her incantation was, by Lennok’s standards, equivalent to a couple of Level 7 spells.

Yet, the natural barrier she had erected covered an entire radius of several hundred meters, encircling the military base.

It went beyond merely discussing the efficiency of mana and incantation; the very scope of Life Spellcraft’s application was fundamentally absurd.

‘Life and organic matter, even if not directly targeted by the spellcraft, are assimilated and move together. This method causes Life Spellcraft’s scale and power to skyrocket beyond what’s usually assumed…’

Was it simply Euphoria’s unique ability, or a characteristic of the Primitive Magic she wielded?

Either way, it was clear that she was a monster capable of freely manipulating organic matter on such an immense scale.

And if Euphoria had limited the battlefield and set the stage like this, Lennok’s task was clear.

Click!

Lennok, one foot on the bridge, pulled a thick cigar from his pocket and lit it.

As he exhaled thick smoke, he quickly estimated the number of ghouls swarming below.

“Hundreds just in visible range… factoring in the ghouls inside and outside the base, it’d be several times that.”

The estimated casualties in this base alone were over several thousand. Even a low estimate for fully ghoul-ified individuals would be more than half.

But Lennok, knowing this, didn’t hesitate to channel his mana.

Ghouls are inherently byproducts created when an ability user proficient in necromantic spellcraft dies.

Thus, while some ghouls retain memories or intellect from their former lives, ghouls created by a necromancer from others’ corpses are merely mindless monsters.

The soldiers at the base were already dead; only their bodies were being exploited as tools of necromancy.

Incinerating them cleanly here would, in fact, be a service to them.

Whoosh!

As he took a step off the bridge, Lennok’s body plummeted towards the base below.

Sensing the smell of living humans, the ghouls uniformly raised their heads, drooling and extending their arms.

“Aaaaargh!!”

“Queeeek!! Eeagh!!”

Thump-thump-thump!!!

The ghouls trampled and climbed over each other’s bodies, forming a mountain on the spot.

In the fleeting moment Lennok, falling from the bridge, intersected with the ghouls piling on top of each other in mid-air.

A brilliant azure plasma orb materialized in the center of the base, bathing everything in blue light.

[Incendiary Orb]

[Eightfold Conversion - Fusion]

[Self-Rotation: Azure]

KRA-BOOM!!!!!

“Kieeeek!!”

“Kwe-ge-ge-gek!! Ge-ge-gek…!!”

The manifestation of a noble, rotating azure plasma orb above Lennok’s head.

Within the torrent of heat, too fast to block, the ghouls’ bodies simply evaporated.

The corpses, screaming desperately, incinerated before they could even feel pain.

One of the new powers acquired under the identity of Cheonbeon: the pinnacle of fire-heat attribute Property Transformation, Fusion.

The ultimate Property Transformation, acquired after learning the Conjunction Spellcraft stolen from the First Gate, burned the ghouls without mercy.

Lennok, having annihilated the struggling mountain of ghouls, unfurled wings of flame before even touching the ground.

[Firebrand: Conjoined Wings]

[Quadruple Stacked Ignition: Acceleration]

FWOOOOSH!!!

Four streams of flame explosively burst from Lennok’s back, propelling his body upward like boosters.

The fiercely jetting flames precisely adjusted his flight path, fluttering as wings of fire.

As Lennok’s descending form sharply turned vertically, he flew low, almost skimming the ground.

CRASH-BOOM!!!

“That’s…”

Lennok’s form, wreathed in flames, incinerating ghouls merely by rapidly traversing the base’s perimeter.

While Euphoria watched him with a surprised expression from the bridge, Lennok immediately changed direction.

KRA-AANG!!

Merely clenching his fist and bringing it forward, a shockwave of flame erupted, rupturing the alloy walls of the base.

As if on cue, he rapidly focused mana towards the masses of ghouls that tumbled out.

[Inferno Breath]

The breath of flame erupted from Lennok’s mouth, piercing through the base’s buildings and incinerating all the clustered ghouls.

KWOOSH-KWOOSH-KWOOSH-KWOOSH!!!!

“Grrr-grrr-grrr…!!!”

“Eh-ge-ge-ge-gek!!!”

Flames surged and overflowed through the base’s windows, vents, corridors, and doors.

The breath of flame enveloped the streets and buildings, incinerating the corpses.

CRASH!!!

He smashed through a bulkhead barely maintaining its form and leaped over a staggering ghoul within.

Even as he did so, he left behind monsters trying to grab his ankles and bite his flesh, entering the building.

He adjusted his output to prevent the building’s structure from collapsing, moving deeper inside.

“…Found it.”

The central server containing the military base’s communication logs.

Thanks to its fire-resistant design, built to withstand the server’s heat, it remained intact amidst his controlled fiery breath.

Lennok grabbed a visibly undamaged server, connected a cable, channeled mana, and called Davi.

“Davi. Can you do it?”

[The external appearance is fine, but a significant amount of information is already corrupted.]

Davi replied immediately.

[The data was erased by overwriting, so the recoverable information is too fragmented.]

“Not the internal server storage, but what about the Legion’s communication network?”

Lennok said, stepping on a ghoul’s arm, incinerating it with a drop of flame.

“Given the Legion’s nature, communication logs would have been encrypted. It’s possible that encryption conversion patterns remain in the network logs.”

[Ah! I found it. As Master said, if I reverse-engineer the encryption pattern and infer what information was encrypted, fragment by fragment—]

Davi, visibly pleased, rapidly processed the reverse-engineering and began to slowly recite the keywords left in the network.

[Necromancy… attack… massacre… Sacrifice Ritual… Legion Commander, betrayal… mole?]

“…”

Flicker!

Lennok’s gesture, piercing and burning the shoulder of an attacking ghoul, paused slightly.

A Legion Commander’s betrayal. Does this mean the current situation is due to a mole among the Legion Commanders?

“It doesn’t specify if the Legion was attacked, or the exact circumstances, does it?”

Lennok asked, looking at the ghouls melting all around him.

“What about the specific casualties within the military base?”

[It’s not that no one evacuated, but most of the stationed troops seem to have already died.]

Davi’s reply was momentarily slightly delayed.

[Most of the deceased turned into ghouls, so they were inevitably pushed into the underground…]

“…Pushed into the underground?”

KWOOOOMP!!!!!

At that moment, the ground Lennok stood on cracked, and dozens of hands burst forth from below.

Ghouls, with flesh barely clinging to their rapidly decaying hands, reached out, craving life.

Ghouls, crushed between the ground yet not losing their ability to move, erupted from beneath his feet with monstrous screams.

“KRA-AARGH!!”

KWOOMP-KWOOMP-KWOOMP!!!

Simultaneously, the entire base surrounding Lennok shook as if struck by an earthquake, and the ground began to crack.

Dozens of times more ghouls than visible crawled out from between the collapsing ground, beginning to fill the surface.

“I knew the visible ghouls weren’t all of them… but this is unexpected.”

Lennok turned, his expression grim.

“Were the ghouls roaming above the base the last survivors to transform, after most of them had been pushed underground?”

Even now, the entire base was swarming with ghouls crawling up from between the underground bedrock…

Facing this many ghouls wouldn’t be a mere skirmish, but a battle on a scale comparable to war.

What necromancer could have committed such an act against the Legion and hidden all traces?

Flick, flick…!!

Lennok, attempting to snap his fingers and ignite a spark, frowned as he felt his mana momentarily falter.

‘Until I know what’s happening with the military parade, I need to conserve mana here. But…’

Since increasing his maximum mana capacity in the Restricted Zone, his struggles with mana depletion had decreased, but he still couldn’t use mana as freely as water.

The reason Lennok, as Cheonbeon, could recklessly unleash mana and use large-scale offensive magic without burden was entirely due to the Crimson Star System.

The Crimson Star System, which used flames as its core to achieve explosive mana amplification, was a transcendent power source, but the Crimson Star System itself couldn’t be activated at any given moment.

Now, when he had to conserve the Crimson Star System’s activation, he needed to calculate his mana consumption.

If he put his mind to it, he could incinerate all the ghouls here, but how much time would it take to do the same while conserving mana?

And if he abandoned the military base, the ghouls would descend the mountain and roam the entire Eastern Continent, so here, with Euphoria’s help—

“All units, fire.”

At that moment, an infinitely cold male voice faintly echoed in Lennok’s ears.

The moment Lennok immediately channeled his mana upon hearing that chilling declaration cut through the ghouls’ screams.

From beyond the sky, a barrage broke through the natural barrier and poured down upon the military base.

FWOOSH-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!!!!

Over the cloudy sky, a rain of fiery thunderbolts poured down, painting the ground crimson.

Mana shells imbued with bombardment spellcraft and ultra-long-range intercept missiles. Various military-grade weapons, aimed from an impossibly far distance, fired upon the base.

The ghouls that had crawled up through the collapsed ground were instantly incinerated, erased without a trace.

KWOOM-CRASH-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!!!!

“Kwe-ge-ge-ge-gek…!!!”

“Gaaak…!!! Guh-guh-guhk…!!!”

The bombing, dyeing the entire sky red, rained down fiercely without a moment’s pause.

Even the ghouls’ howls and screams were instantly swallowed and extinguished by the incessant barrage.

Even as the entire military base turned into an inferno, a bombardment several times larger tore through Euphoria’s barrier and rained down.

A brute, overwhelmingly powerful explosion, as if a colossal gunpowder magazine had been scraped clean and dumped onto the base, then ignited.

The moment Lennok, who had been outside the center of the bombardment, watched the base disappear with the flames.

KRA-AANG!!!!

The barrier woven from tree roots shattered, revealing the forms of colossal self-propelled artillery.

A tank legion equipped with elongated barrels. Launchers bearing dozens of missile magazines.

Mages overlaying magic circles onto the barrels, and Enchanters imbuing spellcraft into the projectiles.

KWOOMP-KWOOMP-KWOOMP!!!

The grand armored division broke through the flames of their own bombardment, traversing the central area of the military base.

Soldiers in black uniforms and countless armored vehicles surrounded Lennok, encircling the entire base.

KWOOOOM…!!!

Dozens of sleek, oiled black barrels turned towards him.

Engines, still hot, vibrated fiercely, shaking the ground.

In the distance, something massive moved regularly and ceaselessly, like a beating heart.

The Legion, having appeared, simultaneously swept away the ghouls swarming within the military base and surrounded Lennok.

Click-Clack!!

From the leading tank, a cold-faced officer descended and raised his hand.

The officer glanced at Lennok, said something to his subordinate soldiers, and then immediately began to approach him.

Lennok, standing in the center of the encircling Legion, tilted his head, observing the approaching officer’s uniform.

“…Deadrise.”

Operating a tank division of this scale, and unleashing a bombardment of this magnitude on a military base. As far as Lennok knew, there was only one entity capable of such a feat.

The coordinates of the Legion Command he had visited before the military parade. A Legion that still maintained its full power even after the entire military base had been ghoul-ified.

Deadrise had directly intervened, incinerating all the ghouls trapped within the military base.

Lennok, extinguishing the cigar he’d been holding with his foot, asked in a chilling voice.

“I don’t understand what this situation is at all.”

“…”

The officer did not reply.

He merely gazed at Lennok’s face for a long time with an expression so cold that not a drop of blood would seem to flow if he were pricked.

Lennok slowly snapped his fingers, watching him.

“You’ll have to give me a clear answer as to why this happened before the military parade. Where was the Legion, and what were they doing?”

“…”

What did it mean that the Legion’s main forces remained intact even after Legion Command was attacked?

What did it mean that they intervened at this point, sweeping away the ghouls on Lennok’s behalf, and then surrounded him?

In the worst-case scenario, it wouldn’t be strange for him to immediately become hostile with the Legion right here.

WHOOSH-WHOOSH-WHOOSH!!!

In the heart of the explosion’s epicenter, where storms of heat raged, the air was infinitely cold and tense.

However, the answer from the officer before him was not at all what Lennok had expected.

“Deadrise, 5th Legion, Staff Brigadier General Riyad Enel.”

The officer, who had been staring at Lennok without a change in expression, knelt on the spot and bowed his head.

“I offer my first greetings to the 5th Legion’s new Legion Commander.”

“…What?”