Chapter 38

The Demon Race, and the Demon King.

That existence, sounding like something out of a fairy tale, is merely a name given from the ‘human perspective’.

The term “demon race” (German) does not refer to a specific race, but is merely a collective term for monsters possessing a certain level of intelligence.

It encompasses orcs, goblins, and even monstrous creatures of unknown species.

And beyond the northern lands, beyond the known territories of the demon race, lies the Dark Land—the domain of the Demon King. Little is known about it.

Long ago, when the hero and the imperial forces defeated the being known as the ‘Demon King,’ the people of the continent believed without a doubt that peace had finally come to the world. However, what the imperial leadership realized was that some of the demon race had merely undertaken a great migration to survive the harsh environment of the ‘Dark Land’.

Not for some grand ambition to stain the world with evil, but simply to survive.

For this reason, even after the Demon King’s defeat, large-scale southward migrations of such demons did not cease entirely.

Commonly known as the ‘Barbarian Invasions’.

The large-scale Orc warlords had begun their southward march toward the Duchy of Saxony.

“Could it be that the ‘Great Demon Migration’ is about to begin again?”

“It seems so.”

At Dale’s words, the Duke of Saxony nodded silently.

“This will be a battlefield on a scale beyond comparison to anything we’ve seen before.”

The most fearsome warriors are those who fight merely to survive. In that regard, Dale understood the danger of the demon race more deeply than anyone. Unlike what the Church preached, they held no grand ideology of staining the world with evil.

But thankfully, war never erupts overnight.

“We’ll need allies.”

“I’ve ordered a muster of all northern lords, the Black Mage Tower, and every knight under my command.”

“Is there no other assistance?”

Duke Saxon fell silent at Dale’s words. An unspoken affirmation. After all, shedding blood in battle against the demon race was precisely what the Empire and its rivals desired most.

“This will be no easy fight.”

Therefore, the Duke of Saxony continued.

“It seems the time has come for me to teach you how to wield command magic on the battlefield.”

“Charge!”

The Saxon cavalry, led by Lord Baskerville, raised their voices. The banners fluttering atop their lances waved, and the heavy cavalry began charging toward the pack of wolves.

Monsters, beasts, and humans—in threatening survival, they were no different. Nor was the fact that they were entities that must be eliminated for the peace of the domain.

The lances of the knights, clad in armor, plunged into the wolf pack, and the wolves, resisting in their own way, engaged in a bloody battle.

“As you can see, a lance charge like those Saxon knights isn’t suitable for you.”

From a distant hilltop, watching his men fight, Dale spoke. Knight Charlotte stood guard beside him.

Charlotte’s frame was too small and delicate for the cavalry charge that relied on horsemanship and spear techniques. The very fact that the Saxon family’s greatsword was in her hands bordered on a supernatural ability born from the ‘Power of Aura’.

“…Yeah.”

At Dale’s words, Charlotte’s expression clouded slightly.

“But as long as you harness aura, even with the body of a child, you can fight on equal terms with a full-grown knight.”

Nevertheless, Dale continued.

“You must draw out the maximum potential from the talents given to you.”

“My talent…”

The talent of the sword. A blessing and a curse bestowed upon her as the daughter of the Divine Sword. In a sense, it wasn’t much different from the phrase ‘the talent of aura’.

“I understand.”

Charlotte quietly nodded at Dale’s words. Aura and magic power share the same path in that they are both powers utilizing mana. That a knight’s sword, having reached its pinnacle, carries its own philosophy within it could also be said to be similar to that of a mage.

“Stand on both legs and focus on wielding the Black Sword of House Saxon.”

Relying on the Saxon House’s pride, the jet-black aura blade.

“You’ll gain more than enough real combat experience going forward.”

The battle between the cavalry and the wolf pack was drawing to a close, and watching it unfold, Dale spoke up.

“Let’s find a sword style that suits you, together.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Charlotte replied to Dale’s words.

“I’ll train even harder, for you too.”

Her cheeks flushed shyly like a girl’s.

“I’ll become a knight worthy of standing before the ‘Black Prince’ himself!”

Yet her resolve showed not a hint of hesitation.

That afternoon, in the Black Duke’s underground workshop.

The first lesson on utilizing necromancy on the battlefield finally commenced.

“What do you think is the difference between a Death Knight and a Death Soldier?”

Death Knight, Knight of Death. And the Undead Soldier.

“Isn’t it the difference between a knight and a foot soldier?”

At Dale’s question, the Black Duke nodded.

“Then where does the difference between a knight and a soldier come from?”

“I believe it’s the difference in strength.”

Dale answered.

“That’s half right.”

But the Duke of Saxony shook his head.

“Merely possessing great strength does not make one a knight.”

He reached out toward the corpse laid upon the workshop’s altar. Toward the body of the Night Raven Knight who had sworn to serve House Saxon in life and donate his body in death.

“Is it the Oru Blade?”

“Yes.”

The Black Knight nodded, then snapped his fingers. Dark magic flowed into the knight’s corpse, and a figure clad in black armor and wielding a knight’s sword rose to its feet.

“The higher one’s rank as an ‘Aura Knight’ in life…”

The Knight of Death. Reborn with an immortal body, it now radiates the aura honed during its life as the Night Crow Knight.

Following the sharp edge of the knight’s sword held in hand, it wraps around the jet-black aura blade symbolizing the Saxon family.

“Moreover, the better the synergy between aura and magic power, the more powerful a Death Knight can be raised.”

“……!”

Dale was struck dumb by the Black Duke’s words, as if struck on the head with a hammer.

Why did the Saxon House, the Northern Night Raven Knights’ aura blades take the form of the ‘Black Blade’? Because it possessed the most compatible affinity with the ‘Black Magic Power’ wielded by the commanders of the Black Magic Tower.

Dark magic, dark aura.

In other words, the Knights of the Night Crow temper their blades from the start, prepared to be resurrected as Death Knights.

“Whether alive or dead, you must remember that they are knights who hold pride.”

The Black Knight spoke. Gazing upon the knight of death he had resurrected with his own hands, he turned away from the Saxon black sword emanating from the knight’s blade.

“…Follow me.”

After the silence, the Black Duke began to walk across the workshop. Together with the knight of death he had raised himself.

“I have something to show you.”

With a weight incomparable to anything before.

“Yes, Father.”

The place the two reached across the workshop was where Dale had once obtained the artifact of darkness.

The Black King’s underground workshop. Yet the Black King’s steps did not stop there. He simply moved deeper, toward the subterranean depths that held even greater darkness. Silently.

‘Where is he going?’

Dale followed in silence as well.

“Do you know of the Saxon family’s progenitor, the immortal craftsman Frederick?”

As he took a step, the Duke of Saxony asked again. At those words, Dale momentarily recalled the Book of the Black Goat, which had taken root in his heart. The girl with the horns of a black goat, who even now must be waiting for him alone in the ‘Abyss of Thought’.

“That’s all I know—what I read in the book and what Father told me.”

Dale feigned ignorance and let the words trail off.

“He was a monster of truth.”

A demon blinded by his obsession with the truth beyond the veil of death, who hesitated not even to sacrifice his own daughter as an offering.

“And what I am about to show you now…”

Thud.

At last, the Black Duke’s footsteps ceased.

“It is the ‘darkness of the old age’ he once pursued, and to which our House of Saxon remains indebted to this day.”

He had stopped at the entrance to a vast subterranean cavern. Walls of darkness that seemed to writhe with life. A chamber where a barrier of unimaginable power, beyond what Dale could ever conceive, was active.

“Only those of Saxon blood, the ‘true bloodline,’ may pass through here.”

With those words, Father, the Black Count, stepped into the darkness. Dale followed without hesitation.

Whoosh!

An indescribably powerful barrier of darkness opened the jaws of the Abyss without rejecting the father and son of the Saxon family. An undeniable bond of blood. And at the sight unfolding beyond it, Dale’s breath caught in his throat.

Immortal knights stood there.

Within a colossal tomb reminiscent of a pyramid or imperial mausoleum, much like the Terracotta Army pits of Qin Shi Huang’s tomb…

It was not one. Not two, not three, not ten, not even a hundred.

Roughly thousands.

“What the hell is this…”

Even Dale, facing that scene, couldn’t hide his shock.

An army of death, comprising at least thousands of Death Knights, lay dormant there.

A number exceeding the combined knightly forces of an entire nation, accompanied by immortal warhorses worthy of them.

But soon it became clear. These immortal knights were not asleep. They were merely silent. Awaiting the command that would be given to them.

…Whose command?

As that thought reached him, a chill ran down Dale’s spine.

“Long ago, the Immortal Lord discovered a method to mobilize the dead without a continuous supply of magic power…”

The Duke of Saxony continued dispassionately.

The Saxon lords began raising an army of the dead known as the Death Order, generation after generation.

Death Order. The Order of the Dead Knights.

Only then did Dale understand it all too well.

“I am no exception.”

The reason the House of Saxony had so stubbornly proclaimed isolationism. And the reason the Black Duke emphasized ‘morality’ so strongly in wielding the power of darkness.

“This is our darkness.”

It was hypocrisy so repulsive it made one want to vomit.

“And this darkness is also the shield that protects us.”

From external enemies, from internal enemies.

The knight of death raised by the Black Knight just now stepped into the ranks of the Death Order. Dale knew that knight. It was the knight from the left wing who had fought for him and fallen in battle that very day during the Black and White Rotation.

And so, another knight joined the ‘Death Order’.

He wielded an aura blade, yet operated a ‘perpetual motion’ mechanism that required no continuous supply of magic power.

How? It was a realm even the peerless Dale dared not imagine.

“Are you prepared to embrace this darkness?”

The Duke of Saxony asked calmly. At that very moment, Dale’s heart began to pound violently.

Three mana circles, and beyond them, the ‘jet-black tentacles’ gripping Dale’s heart writhed.

“……”

Ignoring the throbbing pain in his heart, Dale silently nodded.

“I was prepared from the very beginning.”

There was no reason to hesitate. No matter how corrupt and wicked that power might be.