Volume 2 - CH 10.7

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist

Chapter 10: Let’s Challenge the Emperor of Sands , Part 7

「Lo… ga…n…」

Mari reached her hand to the place where Logan was laying until just a second ago.

He was gone, and no ashes were left behind him.

It was so unbelievable that Mari thought it was all just a bad dream.

The body of a demon that exists in the Human world is a temporary one made with magic, the real one was always kept in the Demon World. Even if it got destroyed, all one had to do was to summon it back from the Demon world back into the Human World.

Even though she understood it, Mari’s chest was filled with an unexplainable fear.

「Hmm, it would seem that Upuuat failed in his task.」

Perhaps that was the name of the wolf that stood before Mari and Sofia.

When he saw them, Uzermart scoffed.

「That thing by your side, girl, hand it over to me.」

「Sofia is not a thing to be passed around!」

Mari sheathed her swords and pointed her hand towards Uzermart.

「Open, Temple Gate!」

Even with all he power, Mari was still too immature to stop the Emperor of the Sand’s flames. In that case, all she had to do was to summon someone capable of doing it!

And she knew of one such person.

「Do you wish to summon the Heroic Spirit capable of cancelling every technique in this world?」

When he said that, Mari’s whole body started shaking all over.

「I will tell you this in advance, girl, but my flames cannot be extinguished. If you still insist on summoning help even while knowing that, then be my guest.」

He said that in a tone that was draining all hope from the surroundings as he was slowly approaching her. Nevertheless, she did not stop her spell. If even Zand would be useless against someone like him, then she had no choice but to summon…

From the portal above her, two people emerged. One was a lightly tanned girl wielding a sword, and the other one was an old sorcerer with a stone cube in his hand.

「Yunis?! Lord Aur?!」

「You finally called us, Mari.」

「But I didn’t call for you! I didn’t call for you!」

「Did you really thought that we wouldn’t know that you might want to call Zaitreed if things got rough? We just had a little talk with Mary and arranged that Yunis would be send in case that Zaitreed would be called upon.」

Besides Mari, Mary was the only one capable of using Temple Gate, and Yunis and Zaitreed were blood relatives, so such a thing wouldn’t be impossible. But what surprised her the most was that Aur appeared together with Yunis.

「You’ve done enough already. You can go home and rest. You’ve earned it.」

Aur move his hand and opened a portal leading back into the Dungeon. Mari passed through it with Sofia, preventing any further attempts at capturing her.

「Was that the result you expected? I thought you were omniscient and all that other crap.」

Aur asked Uzermart with a nasty voice as his eyes widened with surprise.

Aur knew why Mari wanted to use Zaitreed, even though his ability was not that amusing as Mary’s or Yunis’s. But it looked like their appearance was something that this tanned fag*ot did not anticipated.

「I have to admit that my glorious ability is not without its shortcomings…」

He answered Aur’s insult without fear.

「But it is enough to turn you and your followers into smoldering ashes!」

「I wouldn’t be so sure about that.」

Aur provoke Uzermart, but his mind was working at its full capacity.

That flame of his could be a serious threat to the Dungeon if it was really able to turn even solid rock into a pile of dust.

「But we won’t have to worry about that if you die here!」

Yunis declared while she took her stance with her sword held high.

This was their best chance. They can’t allow themselves to miss it.

「Come and get me, if you can that is, Eldav!」

「As you command.」

A purple-haired woman appeared from the shadows along with a gigantic undead soldier. As soon as he appeared, he swung his sword at both Aur and Yunis, and they barely managed to dodge it in time.

Yunis had a tight expression and sweat was running down her face. His stance was somewhat similar to Hoderi’s, but unlike all the others, he was not wrapped in cloths. It was because his physique was too different from them.

And it definitely was stronger than Hoderi.

They glanced at each other as if the time itself had stopped.

With her ability, Yunis could kill any person she wanted, but she could only do that with one person at a time.

If she chooses to kill Uzermart, that undead will surely kill her. If she kills that Eldav woman, who manipulates the undead soldier, then Uzermart will kill her. The best course of action would be to kill the soldiers, but in their current situation, none of them dared to attack. Because the one controlling them realized that if they leave his master’s side, Yunis will be able to kill him.

「Aur, is it okay for me to die?」

Yunis asked that out of the blue. Even if she were to die here, she could still kill Uzermart, and if she ends up dying, she can always be brought back to life, so it was a surprisingly good deal.

「If you die I will bring you back to life and kill you myself for such idiocy.」

「Thought as much.」

Yunis could only smile at those words.

Uzermart’s flames were unusual. It was quite possible that they were able to completely destroy the soul of anyone they touched. Because of that, Aur wants to protect Yunis and do not allow her to die. That made her extremely happy.

「You’re quite sweet, my dear Demon Lord.」

「What foolish words. If you’re not willing to make sacrifices in order to achieve victory, then you’re just a coward who’s unworthy of bearing the title of a ruler.」

「That’s just your own selfish delusions.」

Aur says so, stepping in front of Yunis.

「Sure, I realize that by refusing to make sacrifices I made things harder for myself. But even so, I just don’t want to lose anyone who’s precious to me no matter what!」

If he was his older self…. It this situation happened ten years ago, Aur would’ve surely decide to sacrifice Yunis to achieve his goals. He would’ve abandoned Mari who acted on her instincts, and Sofia for being too big of a bother, but most importantly, he would’ve never left the safety of his Dungeon to come to the New Continent.

But now, Yunis loved Aur. And he thought to himself that as long as she does, then nothing else matters.

「I consider myself to be incredibly lucky, but I will tell you one thing.」

Yunis knew what was coming, and prepared herself for it.

「I do not trust people. They will betray you without fail.」

This was his old mantra, his creed in his old life.

「The only person I have an absolute faith in this world is me alone, you fool!」

Yunis had no power of omniscience, but she knew the meaning behind those words very well.

It did not mean that he did not trust others.

It did not mean that he considered others to be worthless.

「Even though others might think about you in the same way?」

「What did you say?」

Uzermart did not answer Aur’s words with ridicule, he just asked that one thing.

And then a strange thing happened.

A bluish wall was erected from the sands of the desert, separating the ground covered with the dead from a clear blue sky.

「I see.」

Aur murmured as he gazed on the wall.

「What do you see? What is it?」

「You’re supposed to omniscient and you don’t know?」

Uzermart asks Aur, who seemed to be having fun.

However, there was no words to describe it in Aur’s language. Nor there was a word for it in the Saharan language. Fortunately, the language of Yamato had one word to describe it.

「This is a tsunami.」

「Tsunami?」

As he was thinking on a way to defeat the emperor’s army, he remembered something that Yutsu told him once.

Her name was short, but it consisted of two characters representing water.

Yu was the hot water, the kind used I a bath. And tsu meant a harbor.

When put together, it could be read as “Water swallowing the harbor”.

The wall of water that was spreading along the horizon was suddenly released, causing it to collapse and swallow the entire land and everything that stood in its path.

Aur just stood there calmly, took out his cube and created a wall that shielded him and Yunis from harm. Before his shelter was completed, he created a hole in the ceiling through which a girl with blue hair jumped into his arms.

「Aur! I, them, mess up, real good!」

「Yes, great work.」

When he stroked her hair, she snuggled her wet body against him and made his clothes wet.

「But tired, it was.」

「Yes, I realized it was inconvenient for you, but you did saved us.」

Although the south side of Sahara was relatively close to the ocean, the distance was still great. Tatsuki could command water, but apparently it was not an easy task even for her. When Aur looked at her, she was sleeping soundly.

「Well done. Well done indeed.」

When the waters calmed down, Aur cancelled his cube, and looked around to see the damage that it inflicted. And boy it did. The only enemies remaining on the battlefield were Uzermart and the woman called Eldav.

「You mongrel, you dared to….!」

Did he countered the water with flames, or did he defended himself through some other means? Either way, he was now drenched from head to toe as he spewed curse after curse at Aur while spitting seawater from his mouth.

「How does it feel to be f*cked by Mother Nature herself?」

Even with omniscience, it was impossible for a single human to grasp every phenomenon present in this world. The human head is simply too small to comprehend the shape of each grain of sand in the entire desert. And there was nothing that could change that.

Omniscience was certainly an amazing ability, but it left too much up to chance. Because all the knowledge in the world couldn’t prepare one for the unexpected.

Tatsuki said she wanted to be of use to Aur, and he said he would call her in case of an emergency. He knew she’d be up to something, but he never expected it to be on such a scale. But even with all that, he had no reason not to be prepared, so he developed his cube in such a way that it would be able to withstand large amounts of water.

「I will share a piece of my knowledge with you, emperor. The plans and measures are often laid to waste by unreasonable idiots.」

Aur said that while glancing in Yunis’ direction.

The biggest threat to any plan were the individuals who would often abandon rational thinking and act out purely on their emotions, just like the Yunis of old.

「And now, I believe it’s time to have others in the spotlight.」

Aur moved his fingers and commanded his cube to form a gate. It shone with a bright light, blinding everyone for a moment.

The sands were swallowing Tatsuki’s water pretty quickly, but there was so much of it that it’s going to take much more time for it to dry completely.

And a space filled with water was ideal for her.

「Allow me to welcome, The Ice Queen!」

「UZERMAAAAAAAAAAAAAART!!!!!!!!!!」

She stormed right out of the gate and began her attack. Even Aur was surprised how violent that scream of hers was just now. And he was even more surprised at how vehement and filled with hatred her assault was.

She rained icy arrows on him, but he melted them with a shield weaved from fire. But they were coming not just out of Zana’s hands. They were forming all around him.

「Ghhh!」

Catching him off guard, Zana froze his feet solid, sealing up his ability to move. With that opening, she created an enormous spear of ice.

In order to protect himself from the attacks coming at him from every direction, he had to surround himself with an omnidirectional barrier. But that way it had to be thin. If he made it any thicker, he would put himself at risk of burning.

And that spear was big enough to break through that thin wall.

「EAT THIS!!!!!!!」

But Zana’s hand stopped right before she threw the spear. Because she saw Eldav standing behind Uzermart.

「We’ll go. We admit defeat, but in exchange, please let us go!」

Meanwhile, she melted the ice around Uzermart’s feet, giving him the freedom of movement back.

「Yunis!」

「On it!」

Yunis jumped forward with her ability and drove her blade right into Uzermart’s neck. But the sword’s blade was stopped at the last moment by the fangs of the silver demon that tried to kidnap Sofia earlier.

Yunis had no idea where it came from. It was impossible for it to remain hidden for this long, even if it was using magic to conceal its presence. And besides, Mari supposedly cut that thing down.

「We shall finish this next time!」

Along with Uzermart’s declaration, a huge stone rose from the ground and went higher and higher, taking the Emperor of the Sands with him.

Aur knew very well what it was.

The materials used were different, but it was definitely a Dungeon.

「Our next battle won’t be so easy for you! I guarantee it!」

And with that, both he and Eldav disappeared in the rocky Dungeon that emerged from the underground.

「Wait!」

Aur shouts to the silver demon next to them.

「Why are you with him?! Answer me, Hoseli!!!」

The demon stops and looks at Aur.

「How did you know?」

She answered him with a cackled, unpleasant voice.

This appearance was unknown to Aur, but he was sure it was her.

The color of the skin changed, but some elements remained familiar, and her aura was the same as before.

「What was it that caused you to change your heart so much?」

She grinded her teeth when she heard that.

「You said that you don’t care.」

Ah, so that is why.

That is why Hoseli betrayed Aur. She had no other choice but to betray him.

「This is the real me. Do you despise that beastly appearance, master?」

To that question, Aur could only respond with silence. And that silence told her everything she needed to know.

Hoseli averted her gaze and walked back into the Dungeon.

They were able to decimate the opponent’s Immortal Sand Army and forced their leader to retreat into hiding. This was undoubtedly what you could call a victory.

With a roaring sound, the dungeon descended below the sands again.

The victory was theirs, but Aur kept staring at it bitterly.