Chapter 135: Kin from the Days of Old II

Like a table knife slicing through butter—

That was, of course, impossible.

Amy’s assault was checked at the very first moment. The half-fish, half-human monsters of the deep displayed an intelligence utterly at odds with their grotesque appearance. Faced with the overwhelming, one-sided dominance demonstrated by the Glorybearer, and with one of their own falling lifelessly beside another, they did not lose their formation. Instead, they began operating with an almost ruthless efficiency.

Though they had no visible commander, the creatures provisionally called fishmen scattered beneath the young man’s assault. A great formation broke into smaller ones. Stepping over fallen comrades whose fate was unknown, they surrounded him in groups of several dozen.

Several dozen.

It might not sound like much, but in practice, that number was enough to wrap a single person in layer upon layer of enemies.

No sophisticated tactics were required, nor any particular skill. They needed only to keep pressing forward. Through the accumulation of flesh and the advantage of numbers, they could easily lock down their enemy’s space to move, and then…

Finish him off.

Unfortunately, this was not the first time Amy Ulysses had encountered such a tactic.

Back in the Ildan Mines, the monsters infesting the colossal body of the Dark Mother—creatures capable of sharing experience and wisdom to a certain degree—had already taught him that lesson.

Even now, he could still recall the terror of nearly being crushed to death beneath their weight.

Therefore—

He would not place himself in the same situation again.

So he swung his sword.

Faster than ever before.

So he stepped forward.

More resolutely than ever before.

If the enemy’s goal was to swarm him and create an attack point with an overwhelming numerical advantage, then… all he needed to do was kill them all before the enemies he had to face accumulated beyond a certain number. Once that was done, the so-called encirclement would naturally cease to exist.

And by breaking through without regard for anything else, using his individual strength to pierce through the formation at a single point and dragging the clusters attempting to surround him along with his advance, he perfectly avoided the accumulation of corpses beneath his feet while seizing ever more firmly the initiative in the battle.

Of course, all of this depended on individual combat power.

The reason he had repeatedly found himself on the brink of death in the Ildan Mines was partly his lack of experience in dealing with massed enemies, but also because… at that time, he had not possessed overwhelming personal strength.

Now, however, things were entirely different.

The closer he came to death, the more frequently the Omen of Death was triggered. Although the alienation in his personality and mind, along with the sensation of being replaced, became increasingly pronounced, the corresponding changes in his control and understanding of battle were almost a qualitative leap.

How many times had he died after leaving the Ildan Mines?

Even he could not count them all in a short while. What he did know was that enemies of this level…

Were.

Completely.

Not.

Worth.

His.

Attention.

Then—

Carve a path through them!

The young Glorybearer advanced with sword in hand, a road toward the throne of victory paved in blood and corpses.

It should have been so. It should have been so.

But surrounded layer upon layer, Amy Ulysses had no idea what sort of enemy he was truly facing.

These were not scattered stragglers relying on numbers for victory. They were…

A real army.

Whenever a half-fish, half-human monster fell into a pool of blood, whenever one corner of the battle line collapsed, new fishmen arrived to replace the losses. Under the guidance of a commander whose existence could not even be confirmed, fresh troops continually restored the formation.

The young man did not know what he was fighting. He did not know that every enemy engaging him was merely an insignificant fragment of that vast military force.

His slaughter, his battle, was nothing more than a tiny ripple in the tide of fishmen.

Insignificant.

That was the power of civilization. That was the foundation upon which an army earned the name of an army.

This could not continue.

Joshua, who had yet to intervene in the battle, clearly possessed a far better grasp of the situation than the young man trapped in the encirclement. Though the Glorybearer possessed a physique far beyond that of ordinary men, even the strongest body had its limits. At the very least… Joshua did not believe Amy could win this brutal war of attrition.

So it was his turn.

The timing was less than perfect, but… in every respect, he was better suited than Amy Ulysses to serve as a surprise force in a battle locked in such deadlock.

And so—

Without the slightest hesitation, nor the faintest reliance on luck, he charged alone into the tens of thousands of fishmen packed densely before him, their ranks stretching beyond the limits of sight.

Kill!

As heir to the Oniens family, Joshua’s combat ability placed him among the very best of his generation. Yet only when he crashed headlong into those half-fish, half-human monsters did he truly understand what kind of extraordinary “monster” Amy Ulysses was to be able to charge straight through their formations.

It was difficult to imagine what Amy had endured during his time in the Lower District.

Still… this was hardly the moment to let his thoughts wander.

The silver-haired, crimson-eyed Glorybearer suppressed the amazement rising in his heart and devoted himself completely to the slaughter.

Unlike the ease with which the young man fought, Joshua’s battle was extraordinarily difficult. Surrounded by fishmen, every swing of his greatsword was accompanied by a spray of blood, and every step he took tore open the wounds on his body even further.

But… that was how he was meant to fight.

When in doubt, charge headlong. The more blood spilled, the better.

Only… more was not enough.

His blood was spreading only within the immediate area around him. If he ignited it and caused it to explode, he would inevitably be caught in the blast as well.

Moreover, if he wanted to create chaos, he had to push farther forward. He had to spread his blood over a wider area.

But—

He could not advance any farther.

He had… reached his limit.

Amid the carnage, Joshua gradually became aware of his own weakness, of the approach of Death’s footsteps.

So he had to think of something.

As he searched for a way out, the silver-haired, crimson-eyed Glorybearer’s assault weakened by the moment.

Finally, after an obvious pause in his movements, he changed his strategy. He abandoned his relentless assault and shifted toward a more conservative defense.

The light of his sword remained fierce, but it was no longer fatal to the half-fish, half-human monsters. More often than not, a single strike merely left them grievously wounded instead of killing them. Meanwhile, the wounds on his own body repeatedly split open beneath his violent movements, spilling shocking quantities of bright red blood.

He was pretending to be weak.

More importantly, he was gambling.

He was betting that no matter how weak the fishmen’s sense of kinship might be, they still possessed a certain degree of social nature.

They were grievously wounded, but not dead.

If they had been human, they would not have abandoned their comrades so easily while there was still a chance to save them.

From his earlier observations, the emotional bonds between these half-fish, half-human creatures were far weaker than those among humans. But that alone was not enough to conclude that they possessed no sense of kinship at all.

Thus, while presenting himself as weak and deliberately creating the illusion that he no longer possessed the strength to continue fighting, he changed his method of battle. His attacks gradually became defensive. He wounded the fishmen without killing them, even intentionally using broad, violent movements to tear open his own injuries, allowing the wounded fishmen to become stained with his blood.

Then…

He waited for the battle lines to rotate.

He waited for the fishmen carrying his blood to scatter.

He was somewhat fortunate. Everything happened as expected. These half-fish, half-human monsters did indeed possess a certain degree of social organization. As the battle formation shifted, the fishmen he had wounded gradually moved toward the outer layers, slowly withdrawing from the ranks of combat.

Only…

It was not perfect.

They did not scatter in all directions. Instead, they gathered in a fixed area not far away.

Was that the wounded?

Joshua sensed the blood he had spread beyond himself. In the depths of his perception, it seemed that he possessed another transcendent point of view besides his own.

The owner of that perspective was…

His blood?

His thoughts divided naturally into two.

Then he saw it.

He saw…

A ritual.

It was a sacrifice.

A Black Mass.

The wounded received none of the care they should have been given. Every one of them had been bound as an offering in the very center of a dark-red alchemical array.

Outside the array stood a fishman nearly three meters tall, its body adorned with a large number of bone ornaments. It presided over the ritual, its flat, fishlike mouth opening and closing as it uttered hoarse, piercing sounds from its throat, followed by a familiar yet deeply blasphemous pronunciation.

“Cthulhu—”

It was as though someone were scraping a sheet of metal against his sanity. Joshua’s mind turned to paste, clouded and incoherent.

The voice transmitted through his blood sent his condition plummeting. Almost entirely on instinct, he swept his sword through the fishmen surrounding him. Then, driven by the survival instinct of a living creature, he detonated the blood scattered across the battlefield.

Flames surged into the sky.

The voice that blasphemed against human reason abruptly fell silent.

Joshua did not hesitate. Taking advantage of the sand and dust thrown up by the explosion, as well as the chaos caused by the interruption of the ritual, he fixed his gaze on the direction where he remembered Ulysses to be and unleashed the last of his strength.

Run!

He strode forward, then…

Could not help stopping.

“You ran the wrong way.”

Amy Ulysses’s voice came from directly ahead.

“You could at least pay attention to where you’re going. Retreat while you still can.”

There were simply too many half-fish, half-human monsters. The young Glorybearer had no confidence that he could fight his way through them.

Leaving was the wiser choice.

Unfortunately… before they could escape the fishmen’s field of vision, dense fog suddenly swallowed the road ahead completely. A chaotic, sinister atmosphere beyond description began to spread.

Then…

The hoarse, piercing throat-song sounded once more.

Within the mist, a pair of enormous, bulging crimson eyes gradually emerged. In the faint, drifting wind came the clear clatter of colliding pieces of bone.

It was the master of the ritual from before, a high-ranking figure among the monsters, one who seemed to serve a role akin to that of a priest.

It appeared that…

The visitor meant them no kindness.

Both men understood this instinctively and prepared for battle in unspoken accord.