Hard Carried by My Sword-Chapter 161

“This way.”

Al Razzaz led Leon toward the outskirts of Amarh, to a place where few ever walked. Warriors lined the path so tightly that not even a rat could have slipped through. As the sounds of laughter and conversation faded, a heavy silence settled in.

At last, after some distance, the two arrived with only a handful of escorts at the place where the “monster” was being held.

Ominous. That was Leon’s first impression as he stepped inside. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

“Grrrrrr...”

A beastlike growl, filled with hunger and hatred, came from the shaded corner. No reason, no intellect—only malice. And even if reason had remained, it would have meant little. The power of an undead ran on two things: the commands of its master and a blind, absolute hatred for the living.

“What is this...”

Leon caught his breath as he saw it clearly for the first time. It was a monster he had never seen before.

Its body was bound head to toe in bandages, rotted together with pus. The patches of flesh that showed were shriveled and twisted like a corpse desiccated in the desert sun.

Yet its eyes glowed an eerie green, sharp enough to rattle the heart of anyone who looked too long. And around its body writhed shadows, a miasma leaking from between the bandages that threatened any living thing that drew close.

“It’s been tied up for four days, and it still moves.”

With a sneer, Al Razzaz stabbed the bound creature with his blade. It made no cry, not even a groan. It had no sense of pain.

El-Cid muttered in annoyance.

—A mummy. Hmm. That thing is recovering faster than expected. He’s already making minions and scattering them about? These things are immortal. Mummifying a corpse was a funerary custom, but the Black Pharaoh twists it, turning the dead into puppets bound to his will.

Immortal? You mean they can’t be killed?

—Not impossible. Just troublesome. Without Holy Law or an Aura Weapon with the sun attribute, you’ll have a hard time.

At that moment, Al Razzaz asked, “Well? What do you make of these profane, hideous things?”

“They... truly are abhorrent,” Leon answered honestly.

Undead born of exolaw were different from those raised by black magic. They provoked a primal revulsion, a visceral rejection of existence itself.

—It’s worse for you because you wield the Holy Sword. The very Stigmata you bear were forged to sense and cut down such things.

Ah, the Stigma of the Observer!

Leon narrowed his eyes at the mummy. The darkness around it peeled away, and within he saw the soul, writhing in torment.

A power that mocked the dead, who deserved rest, was an unforgivable atrocity.

“As I said, stabbing, crushing, even burning—it won’t die,” Al Razzaz said in a flat tone. “We’ve tried spells, burial, and even drowning. Burning slowed it for a moment, but it always recovered.”

That was the true terror of exolaw. No matter the attempt, most methods failed. Holy Law was the only method that always worked.

But the Bedouins don’t worship any gods. The Holy Church doesn’t have any churches here, either. No wonder they couldn’t deal with it.

The Holy Church never forced its faith onto anyone. They only stretched their hands toward those willing to accept it, leaving others be. Naturally, they could not help the Great Desert, which rejected them altogether.

“In the end, we had to cut it apart, drive stakes through the trunk, and pin it down. Bound like that, it can’t cause harm,” Al Razzaz said.

“That was smart,” Leon replied, understanding that that was the best they could do in this situation.

Al Razzaz gave a bitter laugh. “Still, it can be destroyed with an Aura Blade. To think we must waste Aura Blades on these things—creatures not even worthy of a B-rank monster.”

Amarh still stood only because of him. Other villages with thousands of warriors had fallen to the mummies’ undying hordes. Al Razzaz was the only one who could erase them, preventing disaster here. What was impressive was that he even managed to capture a few for research purposes.

So, this thing created undead monsters that can only be destroyed by Holy Law or Aura Blades, and uses them as its army...

Every soul that the mummies consumed fed Nephren-Ka, restoring him piece by piece. The corpses themselves rise as more mummies. It was terribly efficient and unbelievably vile.

Unlike other monsters that raged by instinct, this was malice with calculation. Nephren-Ka used its cunning intelligence to spread death deliberately and methodically, as wide as it could.

Realizing that, Leon’s eyes hardened. In that moment, his resolve against the Black Pharaoh was set in stone.

Such a thing must not exist... El-Cid?

—Hm?

How do I free these mummies?

Understanding Leon’s intention, El-Cid answered, —There’s only one way. Exolaw and its spawn are nothing before the Holy Sword. Channel your Aura into a strike, and it will scatter at once.

That was all Leon needed. He drew the sword.

With a hum, his golden Aura flared across the blade, and he brought it down on the mummy.

The binding bandages unraveled like mist. A shriveled human body slumped free, its green glow fading back to ordinary eyes. The Holy Sword had stripped away the exolaw’s corruption.

The nameless man gave a faint smile, stammering, “T-thank you...”

And then, at last, the body that had been enslaved even in death crumbled into dust and fell away.

Behind Leon, Al Razzaz spoke.

“How did you...?”

“My sword carries Holy Power. And these undead are weak to the sun. The darkness around their bodies must be to shield them from sunlight.”

“Hah. So, you already knew what they were?”

“This is the first time I’ve seen them with my own eyes. They’re only spoken of in ancient records,” Leon answered his doubts, then asked in return. “We won’t learn anything more by keeping them bound. May I grant them rest?”

“Please.”

Al Razzaz spoke with a grim face. He had known the truth—that these monsters were Bedouin people, turned into undead. He had simply chosen to ignore it, swinging his blade for the sake of the living. However, if he’d known there were still souls suffering inside those bodies, he would have destroyed them long ago.

Leon swung his sword several times, and soon, the heavy, ominous air was gone from the clearing.

Forgive me for being late.

He had done his best, but if he had come sooner, perhaps these people wouldn’t have died. Looking down at the piles of dust at his feet, Leon bowed his head once.

Behind the hero lay happy endings, but before him always stood tragedy. The burden on his back grew heavier yet again.

—Hm?

It was El-Cid who first sensed the wrongness, then a beat later, Al Razzaz’s expression froze. Only after that did Leon react.

A chill. His pores tightened, every hair on his body stood on end, and a cold sweat trickled down his nape.

What... is this?

It was an indescribable sensation. As if a giant’s hand had seized him, as if he had fallen into a swamp he could never climb out of.

No force had touched them, and yet the sheer presence alone made even Al Razzaz grasp his hilt. Somewhere far, far away, an unseen gaze bore down upon them.

It was the eyes of the Black Pharaoh, Nephren-Ka.

“G-ghh.”

Leon clenched his teeth. It was a being that could only inspire fear.

And yet he did not shrink. He raised his head high and met that gaze head-on, like an ant staring back at the sky.

Then, with a roar, he swung his Holy Sword.

“Be...gone!”

The swordlight slashed through the empty sky. Maybe it was his imagination, but... something was severed. And then, Nephren-Ka’s gaze vanished.

El-Cid’s voice brimmed with approval.

—Oh? Not bad! To cut through the ‘eye’ of a higher dimension? Whether you meant it or not, well done. That bastard must be furious now.

A feeble insect had struck him. The wound itself was small, but the insult was immeasurable. A Pharaoh, once hailed as a god incarnate, had been mocked by a mere mortal.

Thanks to Al Razzaz’s quick mobilization of his people, Nephren-Ka had already been slowed down. For such a state to suffer humiliation, it was enough to snap his restraint, and El-Cid knew it instantly.

—Hah! Now his lid’s blown! Forget the nomads, my disciple, he’ll come straight for you first!

What?!

The earth trembled to prove him right. Not an earthquake, but the presence of something vast and overwhelming. The kind of Aura only the strongest could perceive.

The Black Pharaoh himself was on the way, rising to avenge the insult.

“It seems you’ve provoked him,” Al Razzaz said, troubled.

He didn’t know how fast Nephren-Ka could move, but if he came here, Amarh would be doomed. As a leader, Al Razzaz should order Leon out immediately. However, he also knew what Leon had done with his information and his efforts for the nomads. He couldn’t simply cast aside their benefactor.

As if reading his thoughts, Leon spoke.

“Chief Al Razzaz. I will draw him away. In that time, evacuate Amarh. And as I said before, please secure the alliance with the Holy Church, the Guild, and the beastkin.”

“Can you survive until we’ve finished our preparation...?”

“Of course.”

Leon smiled with confidence. Behind him, a pair of golden wings of flame burst forth: the Icarus Wing—the very wings that challenged the sun.

With that speed, he could even go against the drake in the Titan Mountains in aerial combat. He didn’t know exactly how fast Nephren-Ka was, but considering his rather slow expansion so far, it seemed manageable.

A crisis is also an opportunity. If he’s chasing me, he won’t be free to hunt. I can lure him to a place that favors us. Being pursued isn’t always a disadvantage.

—Still, don’t get careless. Even incomplete, he’s a transcendent being. He can even fool the goddess’ eyes.

It was for that reason that the Black Pharaoh hadn’t shown up on the Holy Sword’s quest map. Against a being that could twist space or causality, speed didn’t guarantee the upper hand.

Leon steadied his body and mind once more, then took off, zooming over the desert sky. Beyond the western horizon, where the sun was falling, a darkness writhed—not night’s shadow, but something far blacker.

“There he is.”

Leon needed no words from El-Cid. His instincts told him. That darkness was Nephren-Ka, the Black Pharaoh, the very shape of malice itself.

The distance was more than fifty kilometers. At subsonic flight, Leon could leave even a drake behind with ease, but he didn’t dare slow down. He accelerated at once.

Leon shot off in the opposite direction of Nephren-Ka, and behind him, darkness spread across the sky like spilled ink. A godling enraged, pouring out his fury.

It had begun. Above Amarh, light and darkness clashed in pursuit.