The Indomitable Martial King

Chapter 219

A small girl peeked out through the window at the chaotic night outside. Her mother, her face hardened, quickly pulled her back and shut the window tightly.

“Mom, what’s happening?”

“Hurry back to your room!”

The city of Zeppelin had plunged into chaos.

When the pillar of fire first erupted from the royal palace, the citizens were more curious than fearful. But now, the situation had changed.

All over Zeppelin, shrouded in darkness, crowds of people were rushing through the streets. They were the races that had been enslaved and abused. Hundreds of Orcs, Elves, and Dwarves moved in orderly lines, running towards the outskirts of the city.

They didn’t shout or bellow orders, but the sound of their footsteps, their breathing, and the murmured words of hundreds formed a noise that was vast and thunderous.

*Stomp, stomp, stomp.*

*Hum, hum, hum.*

A flood of slaves surged forward, like a tidal wave amidst the chaos.

To the citizens of Zeppelin, the sight of that mass of bodies in the darkness was truly terrifying.

Merchants quickly built barricades in front of their doors, deploying their guards to protect their property and their lives. Ordinary citizens, powerless, locked their doors and huddled under blankets, trembling with fear.

Even an outsider could immediately understand what was happening.

A massive escape!

The enslaved non-human races had risen in rebellion all at once!

“Good, everything is going as planned.”

Repenhardt, cloaked in a robe, smiled with satisfaction. He stood on the roof of a merchant’s mansion, a little ways away from the royal palace. It was one of the tallest buildings in Zeppelin, providing a panoramic view of the city.

As he watched the endless river of torches flowing through the streets, Repenhardt’s heart swelled with emotion.

It was a sight he had never witnessed in his previous life.

Back then, the Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, and Trolls had passively gained their freedom, relying solely on him.

But these were different. They had risen up from the depths by their own hands and feet, running to seize their freedom.

It was a moment that marked a change in history.

“Even the most stubborn minds won’t be able to ignore this change anymore, hahahaha!”

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As Repenhardt proudly gazed down at the city of Zeppelin, a clear voice reached his ears. It was Sillan’s voice, transmitted through a voice communication spell from a distance.

“Hey there, Mr. Repen?”

Repenhardt looked down from the roof. Below, Sillan and Russ were staring up at him with expressions of disbelief. They likely resorted to using the voice spell because they couldn’t shout up to him.

Sillan’s question followed.

“Seriously, why did you stop halfway and climb up there to giggle?”

They were currently crossing through the streets of Zeppelin, as planned, to join the others. But suddenly, Repenhardt had leapt onto the roof of someone else’s house and started striking a pose while gazing at the night sky. It might have made sense to him, but to Sillan, who was following along, it was a completely baffling sight.

Scratching his head, Repenhardt looked down.

“Huh? Oh, it’s just a habit…”

“What kind of life do you have to live to develop a habit of climbing onto roofs and giggling in the middle of the night?”

“…”

As he tried to indulge in a bit of sentimental reflection, he immediately spoiled the mood. Repenhardt frowned as he prepared to climb down from the roof.

Just then, he turned his head and caught sight of the Chatan royal palace in the distance, engulfed in spreading flames.

It seemed that, as expected, the demons were wreaking havoc quite effectively.

‘At this rate, it’s unlikely that situation will calm down before the night is over.’

Feeling satisfied, Repenhardt leapt down from the roof.

As a result, he didn’t see what happened next.

Right after he turned away, the Chatan royal palace was suddenly shrouded in mist, and the flames began to die out rapidly.

* * *

“Getran Fil Rata!”

With a booming voice in the demonic tongue, Sepiatan opened his mouth. A massive pillar of fire spewed forth, leaving a long trail of destruction on the ground. Wherever the pillar passed, the earth was scorched, trees burst into flames, and rocks melted and flowed like liquid.

*Whoosh!*

The Chatan royal palace, heated to a glowing red, was bathed in crimson light. Amidst the swirling ash, black smoke, and intense heat generated by the roaring flames, Sir Klat shouted orders frantically.

“Second battalion, protect the Golden Palace! Fourth battalion, secure the royal family in the inner palace!”

Living up to his reputation as the only knight of Chatan, Sir Klat had already banished one of the demons, a red-skinned Fiend, back to the otherworld. But there were three demons, and he was just one man. While he dealt with the Fiend, the other two demons had scattered across the palace, wreaking havoc in every direction.

“Graaah!”

“Kraaa!”

Every time the demons roared, black magic erupted, smashing buildings and creating rivers of blood. The demons themselves were incredibly destructive, but the greater problem was the smaller demons they summoned. Hundreds of these lesser demons swarmed the palace grounds, rampaging like mad dogs. Technically, these weren’t actual summons but rather avatars created by separating parts of the demons’ bodies or powers, but to those fighting them, the distinction was meaningless.

‘Damn it, if the Zeppelin Knights hadn’t vacated the palace, it wouldn’t have come to this…’

But the Zeppelin Knights had been deployed on some mission, leaving the palace unguarded. Frustrated, Sir Klat shouted at the royal guards struggling against the lesser demons.

“Chatan Knights! Don’t try to take them on alone! Team up with the royal guards in groups of three to fight them!”

Though they were called “lesser” demons, these summoned creatures were larger and stronger than most grown men. Even the Chatan mage-knights, clad in magical armor, found it difficult to handle these monsters alone. Though it was dishonorable for a knight to gang up on a single opponent, there was no other choice in this situation.

“Yes, Captain!”

“Understood!”

At Klat’s command, the Chatan knights immediately teamed up with the royal guards to hold off the advance of the lesser demons. Seeing this, Klat clicked his tongue.

“…Well, I suppose the habit of our knights not caring about honor comes in handy at times like this.”

In other nations, knights might hesitate or feel ashamed if ordered to overwhelm a single foe with superior numbers, as one-on-one duels were seen as the pinnacle of knighthood.

But the Chatan knights, who lived in a manner unbecoming of knights most of the time, accepted the command to fight in groups without hesitation. In fact, some even seemed to express, “Why didn’t you say so earlier?” with their expressions.

It was certainly the right response given the current situation, but it left a bitter taste in the mouth of Sir Klat, who was a knight to his core.

‘Ugh, these knights… But at least we won’t be pushed back any further.’

After assessing the situation around him, Klat turned his focus back to the demon before him, Sepiatan.

“Krrrr…”

As the advance of his summoned demons was blocked, Sepiatan let out a roar of fury, spewing another pillar of fire. Sir Klat swiftly dodged the attack, propelling himself off the ground and into the air.

“Haaap!”

He raised his sword high above his head, channeling his aura into a powerful downward slash.

“Bloody Rain!”

Dozens of crimson blade auras rained down, hammering Sepiatan’s entire body. Though Sepiatan raised his greatsword to defend, the sheer number of attacks was overwhelming, causing small cuts to appear all over his massive frame.

Despite landing his attack, Klat’s expression remained grim.

‘Damn, that demon’s body is just too tough. I need a stronger strike…’

While Bloody Rain was certainly an impressive finishing move, it was better suited for dealing with large groups of enemies rather than a single, powerful opponent like Sepiatan. The attack lacked the necessary destructive power.

The Fiend he had previously defeated was a speed-type demon, making it vulnerable to the wide-ranging strikes of Bloody Rain. However, Sepiatan was a large, power-type demon, and no matter how many times Klat struck, the attack only left superficial wounds instead of delivering a critical blow.

‘But I don’t have a more powerful technique than Bloody Rain…’

Even among aura users, the method of aura manipulation varied greatly depending on the swordsmanship they had mastered. Klat’s swordsmanship favored precise and refined continuous strikes rather than brute force.

While this style could deliver devastating power if all the strikes were focused on a single point, Klat had not yet reached that level of mastery.

“Del Karata Maka!”

Sepiatan roared, his entire body oozing blue demonic blood as he launched another assault. His massive greatsword, engulfed in flames, cleaved through the air. The heat rolled off in waves, scorching everything around them.

Dodging the attacks, Klat unleashed another round of Bloody Rain. The crimson aura arrows continuously battered Sepiatan’s limbs.

Each time, Sepiatan groaned and bled, but his movements and destructive power showed no signs of diminishing.

As he fought Sepiatan, Klat glanced back at the situation behind him, gritting his teeth.

“Even if I manage to hold off this one, the other one’s the real problem.”

While Klat was occupied with Sepiatan, the other demon, Zentael of the Blue Thunder, was wreaking havoc across the palace. Blue lightning flashed through the palace, fires erupted, and screams echoed from every corner.

‘This is driving me insane. I need to deal with that one soon too…’

But until he defeated Sepiatan, Klat couldn’t afford to leave this spot. As he was caught in this dilemma, biting his lip in frustration, something unexpected happened.

Suddenly, a thick white mist began to envelop the entire palace grounds.

“Hmm?”

The mist spread throughout the blazing Chatan royal palace, and the once-raging flames visibly diminished in intensity. With his aura user’s senses, Klat quickly realized that this mist was imbued with powerful magic.

‘Is it Archmage Hajil? No, he was supposed to be away as well…’

Archmage Hajil, a newly initiated 8th-circle mage, was responsible for the magical defenses of the Chatan royal family, commanding numerous disciples. Under normal circumstances, no matter how powerful the three demons were, the Chatan palace wouldn’t have fallen into such chaos. A high-level mage was often better suited to dealing with high-ranking demons from the otherworld than an aura user.

The problem was that, like the Zeppelin Knights, Hajil had also left the palace, taking his top disciples with him on some mysterious mission.

‘Of all times for both the royal palace’s mages and the Zeppelin Knights to be absent, what in the world could have caused this…’

Wondering if Hajil had somehow returned, Sir Klat turned his gaze towards the source of the magic. What he saw stunned him.

‘Wait? That’s not Hajil…’

At the center of the magic, atop the stone tower of the White Sun Palace, wasn’t the familiar, stern-faced old wizard he knew. Instead, it was a surprisingly young woman, so young that she still appeared almost girlish.

“Flow, cover, I am the servant of power, the vessel of authority that suppresses the false, bringing peace through the pouring of this power…”

The young woman, who couldn’t have been more than in her mid-twenties at most, was chanting a spell in a clear, resonant voice. As she did, the magic flowing from her body became mist, which enveloped the burning buildings and suppressed the flames.

“Whoa!”

Klat gasped in awe, his mouth hanging open.

The magic itself was at the level of a late 6th-circle spell, but the scale was enormous. The magical mist was covering almost the entire Chatan royal palace. Not even Archmage Hajil could manage such a wide-range spell.

“How could such a young woman cast a spell of this magnitude? Could she be an archmage?”

However, it seemed there was still more for Klat to be astonished by.