CHAPTER 10
Conquerors
What path is there for the man with no equal? The man who, with a single step, crushes all? With a single blow, smites all? And with a single cut, severs all?
There is only one path: the path of conquest. The one truth no man can deny, and the one law that endures after every last civilization has returned to dust.
A jet-black sword roared in the burning town.
“Gaaaaaaaaagh!”
“My legs…My leeegs! Grugh!”
All who stood against it were doomed. None could lay a single scratch on its wielder. The first swing tore them to pieces, then the second obliterated what remained. Lifeless corpses and pieces of gore lined the streets, marking the conqueror’s triumphant return.
The sword was vast, as though carved from the flesh of hell’s plumpest demon. It was so large that all who saw it doubted their eyes.
Its bearer stood over two meders tall. Black steel plate covered him completely save the mouth, chin, and neck. Its weight would crush an ordinary man, but the warrior walked unimpeded as though his armor were no heavier than cotton.
Though his muscles were hidden, the man’s monstrous strength was evident from the way rocks shattered beneath his feet and the earth shook as he walked—and the way dozens fell to a single swing of his jet-black sword.
With each step, the flames quivered.
With each swing, the number of corpses grew.
The conqueror walked unhindered along the path of utter destruction.
“Weak. Far too weak. When did adventurers become as soft as rotten fruit?”
Amid the dancing embers, the man’s crimson cloak billowed like a serpent’s tongue. His deep voice shook those who heard it to their core.
“I barely grazed you. Do you really mean to disappoint me this way, Orario?”
Nobody answered. Instead, a silver spear shot out of the sky like a meteorite, precisely aimed toward the seam in his armor at the rear of the shoulder.
The man didn’t even go for his sword. He turned and raised his gauntlet, brushing the spear aside with a mere flick of his wrist.
Allen was astounded. By his reckoning, he had taken the swordsman by surprise and from behind. Yet his foe had not only seen the attack coming, he had parried it with almost no effort.
“Better,” came the man’s voice. “You are fast, like the wind.”
Allen caught a glimpse of the warrior’s lead-colored eyes through the cracks in his lowered visor. He felt his hair and fur bristle.
“But, like the wind,” the man continued, “you are also weak.”
Suddenly, his hand moved, faster than Allen could follow. His heightened beast senses screamed at him to hold up his spear, and he obeyed, mere instants before an unimaginable force launched him back.
The sheer impact of blocking the blow nearly broke his arm. He slid across the stone, plunging his spear into the ground in order to come to a halt, but only after traveling more than ten whole meders.
Allen felt his blood race. Sweat dripped across his face. “What the hell did you just do?!” he yelled.
He hadn’t seen it coming. No—there had been nothing to see. One minute the man had been standing there, stock-still like a cardboard cutout, and the next, his weapon was thrust in Allen’s face.
“I simply scratched you,” the man answered. “Nothing to be surprised by.”
The mysterious warrior was as solid and unmoving as a cliff wall. Allen took another look, and it was then he realized the man spoke the truth. He had done nothing more than take a swing with the greatsword in his hand.
“An adventurer must be quick to make the unknown known,” he continued. “Before I take your head and devour you.”
“…!!”
Few doubted Allen Fromel to be among the strongest in the land. He never bowed down to others, remaining as aloof as a stray cat. His sharp claws and powerful teeth could fell a tiger, and he could sprint across the plains with a chariot in tow. It was this that earned him the title of Vana Freya, along with the respect and admiration of his peers.
So that was why, when face-to-face with a foe even he did not comprehend, Allen shuddered.
Just then, a third voice entered the fray. A second respondent to reports of an unstoppable one-man army. His blade ran red with the blood of all whom he had felled, but when he saw who he faced, his eyes went wide and time seemed to halt.
“It’s you…” Ottar muttered.
“Ah. Finally, a face I recognize,” said the man. “So this cat must be your apprentice?”
When he heard the man’s voice, he was freed of all doubt. Ottar’s face cracked into a scowl, like an iceberg shattering. Bullets of sweat clustered on his brow.
No one in Orario would believe it, even if they saw the sight with their very own eyes. Warlord was afraid. The city’s strongest boaz was even more shocked than Allen was.
When he spoke at last, it was like the rumbling cry of a wounded beast.
“…Allen, go back to Lady Freya. Protect her.”
“Are you insane?! I’m about to tear this guy a hole he’ll be able to shit out of! Don’t get in my way!”
Allen’s response was so furious it almost concealed how hard he was shaking. But…
“Listen to me!!”
Ottar’s bellowing voice caused Allen to freeze. He had never seen the boaz man so alarmed before. He was like a boulder, never so much as batting an eye, but now those eyes were creased, his teeth bared.
“If you have even the tiniest bit of respect for me as your captain, then go,” he said again. “Do it. If not for me…then for our Lady.”
Ottar had never pleaded with Allen in his life. It was enough to quell the rising flames of hate in his heart. He looked into his captain’s eyes, the eyes of the man he had sworn to defeat, and saw a love for their goddess that far outstripped any other.
And so, after a while…
“…Tch.”
…He turned and ran.
Allen put aside his own feelings, squashed his own pride, all to fulfill Ottar’s request and get to Freya as fast as possible to warn her what had happened.
Ottar watched him disappear toward the center of the city and breathed a sigh of relief before turning back to the black-clad man.
“You haven’t changed,” the invader said. “You’re still a child who has yet to be weaned from his mother’s teat.”
Ottar’s foe slowly advanced. There was an inescapable pressure in his voice. Ottar only falteringly managed to put together his words and speak the conqueror’s name.
“Why are you here, Zald? How can it be you?!”
The explosions were unceasing, sending a hot draft down every street. Fearful voices called it the Devil’s Wind. It cast flames and embers into the air in a phantasmagorical display of cruel indifference.
Immolated adventurers staggered out of the blaze, making it only a few steps before collapsing onto the ground. A boy kneeled over his big brother, shaking the unmoving body and weeping. Off in a pile of rubble, a discarded teddy bear gazed up at the burning buildings with cold, unfeeling eyes.
The air was filled with the sounds of bombs, blades, and screams. It never ended.
“.….…. ”
One woman stood amid it all. Silent and detached, as if cut from the page with scissors.
A hooded robe covered her face, but her eyes were shut, in deep contemplation of the sounds. She didn’t seem at all afraid of the death happening around her. In fact, she didn’t even move. She stood at the center of the whirling eddy of mayhem, like the eye of a storm.
“What are you doing?” came a voice, along with the sound of footsteps on rubble. It was Riveria the high elf, with long jade-green hair and an unbroken posture.
“This detestable noise shall never be repeated,” the woman replied. Given all that was happening, her voice was unnervingly calm. “As my way of paying my respects, I am listening to it,” she said. “For if not now, then when?”
Her words were like a still pool of water the raging fires could never reach.
“As painful as it is to listen, far more painful would it be to ignore them and regret it when they are gone. Is that not what it means to be alive?”
The woman turned around to face her, but Riveria was already furious.
“You have no right to speak of life, witch. Not when those people lie at your feet.”
Her eyes flashed with rage. The woman peered down at the bodies of the adventurers she had slain.
“They are detritus,” she said. “Nothing more.”
Riveria could take her callous disregard no longer. “Very well,” she said. “Then I shall eradicate you. Perhaps your life will atone for your sins!”
The indignant elf brandished her staff and began muttering a spell. Immediately, a glittering magic circle spread out beneath her, along with a wave of magical energy.
“Blow with the power of the third harsh winter, advent of the end—my name is Alf!”
The woman, meanwhile, appeared utterly unconcerned.
“Wynn Fimbulvetr!!”
Three bursts of arctic wind expanded as they rushed toward the woman. In response, all she did was raise one arm and speak a single word.
“Ataraxia.”
That one word annihilated the fatal blizzard winds.
“Wha—?!”
Riveria couldn’t believe her eyes. An overwhelming wall of sound filled the street, pushing everything else away and extinguishing Riveria’s magic, carving it out of reality as though it was never there to begin with.
At the same time, Riveria had the strangest feeling she’d seen it all before.
“She canceled it out—nullified it completely!”
Just then, Gareth dropped from a rooftop onto the figure’s head, having felt the magical disturbance and come running over.
“Roooaaaaaah!”
He swung his greatax, with all the force of gravity behind it, but once again the woman spoke only a single word.
“Gospel.”
There was a dull rumble, one that echoed in the very pit of one’s stomach, and Gareth was flung backward with the force of a dam breaking.
“Graaaaaagh?!”
“Gareth!”
The dwarf flew like a cannonball, straight past Riveria and into a nearby building, demolishing the wall. After being pelted with fallen rubble, Gareth struggled to his feet, using his ax as a crutch. All this while, the woman only stared at them without moving a muscle.
“You people are so noisy,” she said. “Even after eight years, it’s all the same.”
Something about her words, her presence, her power, was all too familiar. Gareth and Riveria felt their apprehension slowly turn to dread.
Now the woman’s hood fell back, as though succumbing to the surges of magical energy she radiated.
“I’ve seen this power before…” growled Gareth.
“Yes—only once,” said Riveria.
Beneath her cowl, the woman’s eyes were still closed. When Gareth and Riveria saw her fair and beautiful face, they recognized her at once.
““Alfia, the Silence!””
The woman listened in silent assent.
“Ever since the Age of Gods began, no one has ever received so great a blessing as you!” said Gareth. “They called you the Monstrously Gifted!”
“A member of Hera Familia…I didn’t think any of you were still alive!”
That legendary name echoed in the burning streets of Orario, like a prayer…or a curse.
The Silent Witch had returned to Orario, in wisps of light and flame.
“Why am I here, you ask?”
Zald reached up and removed his helmet. When Ottar saw his face, he couldn’t speak.
Across both his eyes were enormous scars, as if ravaged by the claws of some mad beast. His hair was dark red, the color of blood and flesh.
He looked exactly as Ottar remembered him. His master, the ex-soldier, who taught him how to wield absurd strength…had returned to Orario.
“Zeus is no more,” he said, “so I have come seeking worthy foes. Is that not reason enough?”
Ottar could almost hear the waves of inner conflict resounding in his mind. All he was able to ask was one thing.
“I thought you retired after we fought the Behemoth—some said you died. Where have you been?!”
Ottar still remembered the last time he had seen Zald on that calamitous sea of black sand. Like a great hero, he felled the King of Beasts, then collapsed, his power exhausted, just as the sun rose.
Ottar couldn’t forget the image of Zald’s greatsword, stuck into the earth as if marking the man’s grave.
“Do I look like some wandering specter to you? Are you hoping I come to devour your nightmares, perhaps?”
Unfortunately, Zald’s return was all too real. As if to drive that point home, he drew his greatsword and pointed it at Ottar.
“Take up your weapon,” he said. “I do not intend to make a quick meal of you. I will take my time, make your blood and bones a part of mine.”
“…I don’t understand.” Ottar scowled.
“What is there to understand?”
“I am not a learned man, I know. But you were once a man of Zeus, who protected the city. I don’t understand how you could defile it in evil’s name.”
Zeus and Hera had reigned over Orario, watching over its prosperity for a thousand years—all until eight years ago, when Loki and Freya took up their shared mantle.
Zald had been this city’s protector. Now he was its invader. Ottar could not even begin to reconcile this paradox.
“What is the meaning of this?!” he roared.
But Zald only narrowed his eyes with disinterest.
“I have drawn my sword,” he said. “Will you do the same, or will you die attempting to comprehend my motive?”
There was a truth to Zald’s words that Ottar couldn’t deny. The man was a warrior through and through. He spoke again, this time in words Ottar recognized. Words the man had told him once before. Zald spat them like a curse.
“You are weak,” he said. “Fragile and soft.”
Hearing that, Ottar’s heart began to race.
“Although you were not part of my familia, I once thought I saw promise in you. I see now I was mistaken.”
“Grh…!”
In Zald’s eyes, Ottar saw what he thought was a flash of despair. It was all he could do just to glare back in defiance. After what felt like an age, Zald lowered his sword.
“But very well. I shall tell you.”
Like a dragon indulging a whim, he chose to answer the boaz man’s question. To explain the source of his abrupt change in behavior.
“It is because I am disappointed. Disappointed in this city. Disappointed in you.”
“Disappointed?! That’s why you attacked Orario?”
In another part of the city, the Silent Witch had just given the exact same reason to Riveria and Gareth.
“That’s right,” she said. “It is disappointment that brings us back to this city. It is disappointment that calls us to war.”
Her ash-gray hair fluttered. She cast off her now-useless robe and tossed it aside. Beneath it, she wore a long black dress.
While it seemed unsuited to battle at first glance, any mage could see that this dress boasted exceedingly strong magical wards. However, these wards were not designed to protect against outside attacks. They were there to prevent the uncontainable magic of the wearer from tearing the clothes to shreds.
“What are you talking about?!” shouted Gareth. “What is it that disappoints you?”
“Everything,” replied Alfia without a moment’s delay. “Orario is just one part of that.”
The elf and dwarf both felt themselves losing their cool.
“Do not insult us,” spat Riveria with disgust. “No matter how lofty you are, one disappointment is hardly enough reason to destroy an entire city!”
“Be silent, elf. This world is brimming with noise. It has to be blocked out.”
Alfia’s refusal to listen was beginning to annoy the pair of adventurers. Her voice carried no remorse or emotion whatsoever. Only a single regret.
Back on the other side of town, the man in black spoke to Ottar, as if finishing her words.
“We allowed Zeus and Hera to grow arrogant, while gorging ourselves on their fantasies,” he said. “We permitted their spires to rise, and so we alone bear the responsibility of bringing them down.”
Now it was the woman again, speaking to Riveria and Gareth.
“The Age of Gods shall soon end,” she said, “and we shall be the ones to end it.”
Then the two conquerors spoke, in unison, across the vast distance.
““So perish, adventurers.””
“““…!!”””
The determination and malice in that one utterance was enough to plunge Ottar, Riveria, and Gareth into an ocean of fear.
“I shall return everything to silence. So vanish.”
Alfia spoke, and her magic quivered. She outstretched her right arm, and her spell howled. The earth shook, as if a giant had struck the bell of heaven, and all was engulfed in a blinding rumble.
“Grh?!”
Ottar heard and felt a loud outburst of magic from the southwest. As he cast his gaze in that direction, Zald calmly replaced his helmet.
“Alfia has begun,” he said. “We should, too. No woman shall lead me.”
“Alfia…So Hera Familia is here, too…!”
Ottar grew agitated at the mention of the woman’s name. Anyone who had spent any time at all in Orario knew the names Hera and Zeus and understood the heights of their power.
“You must be cursed, child of Freya. Cursed to fall to my blade yet again.”
Ottar was one person who knew the might of those two gods on a personal level. For many times had he fought the men who were Zeus’s champions. Many times had he tangled with Hera’s brave warrior women.
Many times had he faced the black-clad man who stood before him now. The devouring storm. And each time he tasted only defeat.
“Rgh…!!”
Ottar clenched his rock-like fists. Memories of his past failures played behind the windows of his rust-colored eyes. He gazed as if upon the apex of a mountain he had never once reached, and his heart trembled.
“Face me,” said Zald. “Hold nothing back. Not unless you wish me to devour you.”
All the man wanted was to sate his voracious appetite for battle. He readied his jet-black sword. Ottar clenched his jaw so hard, his teeth nearly cracked. He took up his own weapon and roared, as if to banish his own fear.
“Roaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!”
In a mad charge, Ottar raised his greatsword above his head and ran toward his foe. It was the charge of the Warlord, a man who destroyed all who stood in his path.
All—except this man.
“Pitiful,” he said.
One slash. That was all it took.
“.….…. ”
All the speed and force—all of his body weight that Ottar put into his attack—all of it was deflected with a single flick of the armored man’s sword.
Unrivaled technique. Unbeatable strength. The might of Zald’s parry not only stopped Ottar in his tracks—it tore his weapon from his grip and sent him reeling.
The last thing he saw, as time ground to a halt, and Zald advanced, sword raised, to finish him off, were the man’s eyes. Through the visor of his helm, they said only one thing.
“You are weak.”
“…Rgh?!”
Before all the emotions swirling in his mind could cause Ottar to ignite with rage, the black slab of metal in his enemy’s hands brought a swift end to the battle.
Just then, the earth howled.
“““Rgh?!”””
An enormous tremor shook the entire city. In the midst of battle, Lyu, Kaguya, and Shakti all stopped fighting. They were lost for words.
“An earthquake?!” cried Lyana as the tremor nearly threw her to the ground.
“No!” shouted Lyra. “That ain’t no quake!”
It was Alize who spoke next. “It was an attack!” she said. “A stupidly powerful one!”
She gazed off, wide-eyed, in the direction of the earth-shaking sound. The conqueror’s blow had carved a void in the smoke-choked skies of Orario.
All across the city, people turned and gazed in shock. Asfi and Falgar, tasked with lending aid to those who needed it. The Berbera, engaged in heavy battle with the Evils suicide bombers. The one-eyed smith, holding an armful of magic swords. An elf casting white lightning. A werewolf leading his familia. A prum girl, only now regaining her senses. Finn and all of Loki Familia, gathered at the center of Orario, and Freya, atop its highest point.
From the top floor of Babel, she waited for the long, drawn-out rumble to finally subside, then muttered a word that no one else could hear.
“…Ottar?”
The goddess gazed down at a spot in the city where all the flames of war had been blown away. Only one black-clad man stood at the center of it all.
“…Grh.”
Ottar let out a dying groan. His vision darkened and blurred. He had been blasted through so many walls he had lost count and broken every bone in his body along the way. As he lay, sprawled out, on the verge of collapse, the giant boaz mustered up what little strength he could command and turned his fading eyes in the direction of his attacker.
Zald wore only a look of deepest disappointment. Ottar the Warlord had been beaten.
“…Ottar?”
Allen froze on his way back to the city center. His keen ears picked up only a devastating silence. He turned and looked across the rooftops, at the distant spot he had only recently left. It had been a battleground for only a short few moments. Now it was about to be a boaz man’s grave.
“…Get up, you asshole. This ain’t no time to be takin’ a nap.”
As he took in the unbelievable sight, he grew more and more agitated, becoming a raging storm of emotion. Clutching his silver spear in his grip, he shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Ottar!! The hell are you doin’?! Get off your ass and fiiight!!”
Acting solely on impulse, Allen defied his captain’s last command and turned back, running as fast as he could to where the boaz man lay.
“Heh-heh-heh. Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Yes…At last, Warlord is dead!!”
Olivas erupted into laughter. From his vantage point, he had watched the whole fight from start to finish.
“The old follower of Zeus is now one of us! Zald has defeated Orario’s strongest warrior! Rejoice, my friends! Let us prepare to drag Orario into the mud!!”
The Evils soldiers with him let out great cheers.
“““Roaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”””
“““Zald!! Zald!! Zald!! Zald!!”””
The crazed zealots looked up at their leader. Some pumped their fists in the air, others raised their weapons or cried out in mad song. Their voices, their violent screams, all overlapped, calling out their conqueror’s name.
To the stunned adventurers, it was a mocking chant of victory. A battle whose outcome sent ripples throughout the city. The defeat of their greatest icon.
Of all those who learned of his defeat, it was the Einherjar who took it the hardest.
“Ottar…lost…? Impossible.”
There was a quiver in Hegni’s voice.
“I refuse to believe it! The only one he can lose to is me! Us!!”
“Hegni, get down!”
“Rgh?!”
Hedin’s frantic warning came too late to stop the mad sisters’ hands.
““You mustn’t look away, Hegni!”” they both said.
“Gaaagh?!”
““See? Now you’re all full of holes!!””
Even the four prum brothers were on the back foot.
“You can’t beat that boar in a fight!!”
“He wouldn’t stay dead if you tore out his heart!!”
“It’s impossible!!”
“Berling! Dvalinn! Grer! Stay calm!!” screamed Alfrik, his armor beaten and battered. “These are all Level Fives!”
The mindless warriors they fought all cried out, as if celebrating Warlord’s defeat. All across the city, people gasped.
“Ottar has fallen? That can’t be!”
“But he’s a first-tier adventurer!”
“…Wh-what are we to do now?”
Adventurers froze in shock and horror. Weapons slipped from their hands as their resolve began to fail. The news was like a wild storm that swept up what little morale they had and dashed it against the rocks.
Lyu and Kaguya were no exception. It was all they could do not to lose themselves to despair amid the quaking ruins of their city.
“Warlord…was beaten…?”
“That’s impossible! And you mean to say it was a member of Zeus Familia who did it?!”
The scales had been tipped. And they weren’t done yet. There was a second large explosion.
““?!””
Lyu and Kaguya turned in the direction of the sound. The source was a magical blast, several districts away.
There, buildings on either side of the street collapsed, as an elf and a dwarf crumpled to the ground.
“Grh…”
Riveria was the first to fall, her barrier exhausted. Then it was Gareth, dropping his shield. Both of them fell forward onto the cracked stones.
“Ridiculous…” said Alfia, unimpressed and aloof.
Then Asfi appeared, first to arrive on the scene.
“Impossible!” she gasped. “Both Nine Hell and Elgarm?!”
She had been powerless to do anything but watch as Orario’s greatest champions fell one after the other. There was no small amount of despair in her voice.
Meanwhile, amid her compatriots’ cheers, a mad smile appeared on Valletta’s lips.
“That’s curtains for the first-tier adventurers! The greatest protectors this city has to offer! I can’t believe it’s over so quickly!!”
She doubled over laughing, then threw her head back and chuckled to the stars.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! What have you got left to fight with now, Finn?! You’re finished!”
The biggest obstacle to taking on Orario had been those pesky first-tier adventurers. Now, with a king and queen who could thwart any opposition, the whole game swung heavily in favor of the Evils.
It was all going as Valletta had foreseen. Everything was as he had planned it.
“Now it’s time for the real show to begin!” she declared.
Elsewhere, a single man walked the flame-licked streets.
“Yes. Witness evil’s rise.”
The dark god flashed a devious smile.
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