Chapter 298 - Appetizer (4)
Arthus and his apostles called him Lydkan of Flames. They had given him that nickname because he was very proficient with using fire and also extremely resistant to it. Fire was essentially a toy for him.
“I’ll give you credit for not using Teleportation just as Sir Arthus has instructed. You’re more obedient than I thought,” said Lydkan.
“What did you just say...?!”
“Why get all worked up? Or maybe you’re just weak, not obedient. Well, that would make sense. Since you’re so weak-minded, you can’t even give up on those humans because of that useless sympathy of yours.”
“Shut up!”
Clank!
McDowell was the first to respond to Lydkan’s mockery.
Along with Allen and Valhald, McDowell’s hatred for Arthus was at its peak, fueled by the scar on his back. Moreover, McDowell had more of a temper than the rest of them.
In a fit of rage, McDowell drew his sword, dismounted from his saddle, and flew into the air.
‘Oh no!’
Being easily provoked always led to unforeseen circumstances. However, it was the job of a competent leader to take those unforeseen circumstances into account and create a plan. And Henry was most competent.
Seeing McDowell soar in the sky, Henry immediately clasped his hands together and cast a spell.
Then, huge, sharp stone tendrils, reminiscent of tentacles, sprouted from underneath Jade’s feet and stretched out like whips toward Lydkan.
“Everyone out!” Henry shouted at the Seven Sages who were still inside the carriage.
They all rushed out. The most uptodate novels are published on n0velbj)n((.))co/m
The Seven Sages quickly assessed the situation, realized what they needed to do, and cast spells on their own without waiting for more instructions from Henry.
“You’re obedient, weak, and... stupid.”
Lydkan didn’t make an effort to dodge the stone tendrils that stretched out toward him. He looked like he was embracing them.
Henry didn’t feel that the tendrils hit anything. Lydkan had let the tendrils pass through his body, just like Arthus had done with Henry’s sword back in the imperial palace.
Henry assumed that this had to do with Lydkan’s divine power, which made him even more angry.
‘This guy too!’
Unless this was an illusion, there was no way one could make their body intangible and just ignore any physical force like that.
Lydkan’s power was quite literally the ultimate defense that anyone could ever wish for.
After becoming intangible and letting the stone tendrils pass through him, Lydkan materialized just his right hand to intercept McDowell’s sword as it fell from the sky.
Lydkan stretched out his hand with a nonchalant expression.
Slice!
“...!”
McDowell’s sword cut clean through Lydkan’s right wrist.
‘It’s just as the Commander said!’
McDowell smiled in satisfaction as he looked at Lydkan’s severed wrist.
‘What the—!’
McDowell was delighted by Lydkan’s shocked expression. Realizing that his attacks were working, he immediately twisted his waist and spun in the air again, charging at the enemy once more.
“Die!” McDowell shouted from the bottom of his heart.
He spun like a peg-top in the air and used all the momentum to drive his blade straight into Lydkan’s neck.
Gush!
McDowell felt the impact of his blade cutting through flesh. Blood splattered everywhere.
Thanks to Henry’s divine rings, which he had received from Herabola, McDowell was significantly stronger compared to when he first fought an apostle.
“Son of a bitch!”
The spinning blade didn’t pierce through Lydkan’s neck completely because when his wrist was severed, Lydkan realized that something was wrong and immediately fully withdrew his physical form. However, he had been taken off guard and had turned his body intangible a second too late.
As a result, McDowell had made a deep cut in the right side of his neck, blood spurting everywhere.
Henry used the wind to grab McDowell, who was falling to the ground powerlessly. It looked like a giant hand grabbed McDowell.
Lydkan had turned intangible and planned to swallow McDowell whole, along with his arrogance.
But the moment he opened his mouth, the other knights thrust their blades at his face.
Swoosh!
Swoosh!
“You think your little tricks will work on me?!”
One, two, three, four.
A total of four blades stretched out toward Lydkan, but none of them made contact because he was still intangible. Being humiliated once by a mere mortal with a ring of divine power had been enough for Lydkan.
However, the fifth blade drew blood.
Ronan felt his sword cutting through flesh.
“It worked!”
After Ronan landed an attack on Lydkan, everything else happened in an instant.
After allowing the first four blades to pass through him, Lydkan had tried to devour McDowell without a care in the world. However, he felt indescribable pain as Ronan plunged the fifth blade deep into him.
“Ghhaaa!”
Lydkan squirmed and closed his mouth, or rather, he tried to. Just as he was about to close his monstrous mouth, a heavy morning star, not a blade, flew right into his upper lift, making a grotesque sound upon impact.
Crunch!
The sound of crushing bones filled the air.
Balak’s Black Punisher had shattered Lydkan’s skull.
Thud!
Lydkan fell backward, his face utterly disfigured. He didn’t have time to recover. His lips were barely clinging onto his crushed face as he struggled to articulate words.
“J-just how...?”
“I guess this means that you only have divine power worth four rings at most,” remarked Balak.
“What... did you just say...?”
“Die.”
Gush!
In his last moments, Lydkan still didn’t understand why he had lost, why that fifth blade had managed to penetrate his flesh.
Nevertheless, Balak felt no obligation to provide him with an explanation. In accordance with his character and attitude toward criminals, he swung his Black Punisher again, completely crushing Lydkan’s head.
His body convulsed for a few seconds and then went still.
“Good.”
Balak had made sure to give Lydkan the miserable death he deserved.
However, the first four knights whose attacks had been futile, including McDowell, who had almost been devoured, were still furious, so they trampled over Lydkan’s corpse, venting their anger.
‘Commander was right,’ Balak thought to himself as he retracted his weapon.
When Henry had distributed the rings at the Union meeting, he had said that the more divine objects they had, the stronger their divine power would be as a whole.
‘It worked!’
Henry smiled with satisfaction as he looked at the bloody mess that had once been Lydkan.
As he had expected, the power of the numerous divine objects had allowed them to easily defeat one of the nine apostles, Lydkan of Flames.
“Let’s get back on the road.”
However, there was no time to celebrate their victory.
Quickly after they put an end to the apostle, Henry ordered everyone to get back on the road, but no one in the Union was upset with his prompt order.
On the contrary, they hummed in their saddles, smiling from the fact that they had killed the apostle with far more ease than they had anticipated.
“Giddy-up!”
They were off to a good start.