Chapter 178: Royal Protection
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: imperfectluck
Elemental life is typically formed by the gathering of basic elements that lack consciousness. While they appear to be the same as other living creatures, there’s actually a big difference, as low-level elementals don’t have any feelings or consciousness. However, top-level elementals are the same as other living beings, as not only do they have emotions and wisdom, they even have humanoid forms and the ability to reproduce.
But due to the differing structures of their bodies, their deaths will simply scatter their basic element. These elementals are typically able to return to the elemental plane and reform themselves, which was why it was so difficult to truly kill them outside of the elemental plane. Still, losing their elemental power that they could use at will also made them unable to use their true strength.
It was both a talent and an attempt to mitigate this weakness that the higher-level elemental lifeforms were always skilled at modifying their surrounding environments. Huge whirlpools deep in the ocean, maelstroms high in the sky, magma hells in the midst of volcanos, and stone labyrinths deep underground were their favorite environments. They had the ability to change these locations into a different artificial world entirely without anyone knowing, so that they could wield a power similar to what they had in the elemental plane.
Currently, this underground labyrinth was far above the level of a simple artificially constructed microcosm. Thanks to its successful connection to the Earth Elemental Plane, this labyrinth was gradually becoming part of the elemental plane itself. Those minor earth elementals that suddenly awakened their own senses of self were the best evidence that this location was gradually turning into the earth elementals’ home turf.
“Never battle with the Undead in the Death Plane, never battle with demons in the Hell Plane, never battle with elementals in the Elemental Plane, they’ll be ten times more difficult to deal with!”
But, I had a different opinion.
“Home territory? Foolish earth clods, this was never your home territory! Right? Roland Sacred Sword.”
With my soft words, the silver Sacred Sword began glimmering even brighter than before. I could detect that it was currently the same as me: feeling rage at all the scum that had come over to our land without being invited.
“You unwelcome guests that just do whatever you want, you really believe this to be your dusty, filthy world? Dust to dust, earth to earth, go back to where you came from!”
The Sacred Sword’s brilliance was at the point where entire the pitch-dark floor was being lit up. With a mighty shout, I viciously stuck the silver longsword into the ground as the silver king answered my summons and his soul began materializing.
The Roland Sacred Sword was a royal sword that’s existed for eons. At first, it was the personal sword of the first King of Mist. It’s already experienced more history than can be recounted, and in this kingdom that’s experienced many disasters and wars, numerous kings throughout the generations have cut down various obstacles as they led their knights to fight for their country’s land.
Royal sword, guardian sword, hereditary sword, were all new names that this sword acquired over the years with the sacrifices of various past Kings of Mist and their loyal knights, despite the fact that it didn’t have any traits apart from being sturdy. This Sacred Sword was gradually bearing more and more responsibilities.
As it evolved from a normal weapon into a guardian Sacred Sword, it accumulated the power of a soul – the ancestral kings’ understanding of what royalty was. Royalty was the guardian, guardian of the people, the country, the home, the family.
The Mist clan that would never surrender forged this unbreakable Sacred Sword of Mist, and now that it’s finally accumulated enough power within my hands, it finally began its next stage of transformation.
In the past, I wondered about what characteristics it would have after evolving into a God Equipment. But truthfully, this didn’t require any consideration at all, as its power was only one from the very start – protecting.
“The royalty are the guardians. We’re born here, and never leave this place, and will be buried here. And even if we transform into decayed bones or nothing but a spirit, we will still protect this land. Isn’t that right? My inflexible, archaic ancestors.”
“You actually need this old fellow to come out, what a useless and unfilial descendant.”
The hazy figure materialized in a silver flash. The summoned king returned to the physical world from being a soul while complaining about how useless his descendant was, but answered the call of his bloodline without hesitation while riding a bull as his steed and holding his war spear at the ready for charging into battle.
Atwood.Saint.Mist, nicknamed the Eagle of Glaso, lived from AD 234 to AD 298, dying in the prime of his life. Almost his entire life was peaceful. He was viewed as mediocre in his early years, and derided as senile when he passed fifty years of age. He was always smiling and never seemed to anger, but when he was sixty-four, the northern barbarians happened to invade. Atwood fought a bloody battle with them for seventeen consecutive days at the Glaso Plains, slaying several hundred enemy leaders.
“If only I was born thirty years earlier. This old warrior wasn’t did yet, but my hair turned white already, and my body was so weak and tired, even though the enemy leaders were still alive with tens of thousands of enemies invading, and my people being affronted by them, if I can’t return home with a coffin filled with enemy heads, I won’t be able to reconcile myself with the idea of dying like this!”
The ancient king Atwood was riding his heavily armored bull, and behind him were several shadowy figures of old soldiers carrying a coffin that had a big “Death” written on it that stood out and drew attention.
In that year, this “senile” king that people looked down upon went to battle exactly in this fashion. He even had a coffin prepared for himself and brought out in front of his relatives that tried to convince him against personally entering battle. In the end, this old eagle that hadn’t shown his mettle in more than ten years filled this coffin with the enemy leaders’ heads, winning the glorious title of the Eagle of Glaso.
He narrowed his eyes and seemed to be waiting for something when he suddenly lifted his dark black spear and chucked it forcefully.
*Boom!*
At that exact moment, the gigantic Earth Elemental God had reached his head down here, with his round gem eyes filled with vicious killing intent. But before he was able to take any actions, a dark black spear silently flew and embedded itself in his jeweled eye.
*Boom!*
This unpredictable attack was completely impossible to defend against. Only after the sharp spear stuck itself in his eye did Emordilorcan discover that he was under attack. Immediately following after, the spear’s sudden explosion turned his gem eye into nothing but broken shards. Only a single attack caused the powerful Emordilorcan to go blind!
“Ahhh! It hurts! Stupid insect that deserves to die! Who, who dares to harm the mighty Emordilorcan!”
“Oh my. Hey big guy, this isn’t a place for bastards like you to be building a nest, take another spear from this old fellow!”
The squinting elderly warrior finally opened his ferocious eyes as his killing intent spilled out everywhere together with his charge.
Giant bulls were a rare species to begin with. Its dragonskin, thick armoring, and weight were all astonishing. It was about four meters tall, and its charge resembled that of a wingless SemiDragon, with a terrifying momentum.
Its horns were already reaching the roof of this floor in the labyrinth, and the ground shook with every step it took. Borrowing his steed’s momentum, its elderly rider didn’t hesitate to rush Emordilorcan as his long dragonspear pierced through the Earth Elemental God’s freshly injured eye once more.
The dark black dragonhorn battlespear pierced deep into Emordilorcan’s head, causing him to panic as he had never experienced such pain before.
“Ahhhh!”
The Earth Elemental God’s shouting of agony reverberated through the entire floor we were battling on. This entire area above us began quaking mightily, also causing all living creatures aboveground to panic at the anger of the earth.
The narrowness of this labyrinth limited his highly agile body, and his ridiculously high defense that he was so proud of wasn’t worth a thing in front of this ancient king. He had never experienced such humiliation in thousands of years.
The older a creature was, the more it valued its own life. After finding out that this location wasn’t the best for him to fight at his full abilities, Emordilorcan escaped in a manner unbefitting that of an Elemental God.
“Phew, what a ferocious old guy.”
Adam whistled in amazement. He never expected that this elderly warrior would be so strong, without even giving him a chance to go out and do battle.
“Hmph, such a glib-tongued junior.”
The Eagle of Glaso disappeared into a shadow once more after completing his role that the Roland Sacred Sword had summoned him for, returning to his slumber.
As for me, I was sweating all over and half-kneeling on the ground. Just summoning this ancient king for that one attack had drained much of my energy.
“Hey hey hey, it couldn’t be that you’re already about to collapse? Just looking at the way that huge rock was glaring at us, he’ll definitely be returning.”
“What garbage, I’m afraid that he won’t come back.”
Adam was surprised for a moment, but his intelligence was quite high when it regarded a battle. He quickly realized what I meant.
“You’re saying he’s going to go around us, and chase after Margaret?”
“That’s what I would do in his place. Is there any point in wasting time with the warriors like us behind the main objective? The obvious thing to do is go straight for the Dimensional Door, and once that place is secured, all he has to do is trap us here and capture us at his leisure. I think that rockhead’s intelligence is much higher than yours.”
There was a rare sign of worry that flashed on Adam’s face upon hearing my words. Master Monks were already reputed to be the perfect counter to Mages, so even Margaret would likely find it difficult to deal with this monster’s explosive ambush.
Earth Elementals were thick-skinned and had astonishing endurance to begin with, and any injured wild animal would go berserk. Emordilorcan was certain to be far more dangerous than earlier.
“Then what should we do? I can detect his presence, but I don’t have Clint’s control. If I break through the walls to chase after him, there’s a ninety-nine percent chance that the walls will collapse on us. Oh, by the way, I noticed that you’re insulting me by saying I’m worse than a rockhead.”
“Tsk, only being perceptive at such a time. Relax, I have a method, just go in the general direction. Glina, I leave breaking through the walls up to you.”
“Isn’t Glina together with Margaret? Are you finally going senile in your old age…”
“It’s Clint, not Glina!”
His insult was only half finished when it was interrupted. There was no mistaking that familiar voice, but when he looked over to see where it was coming from, there was only an immaterial floating silver armor in midair.
“…Even this awkwardness was completely copied. Okay, Glina, hurry up and blast through the walls.”
“It’s not Glina, it’s Clint!”
“I know you’re called Clint, hurry up and begin, Glina.”
“It’s not Glina!”
“Okay, Glina.”
“Glina!”
“Yep, Clint… damn it, I’m losing track of what I’m saying. So you weren’t naturally a ditz, you were naturally black-bellied.”
Adam standing beside me was already stunned in amazement, but Glina was already filled with self-satisfaction as she began blasting through the walls. I also gave Adam an explanation as we rushed on our way.
[God Equipment: Roland Sacred Sword]
[Type: Two-handed longsword, attack power: 100-100, indestructible, usable only by descendants of the Mist.]
[Unique characteristic: Eternal royal protection. The royal ancient spirits have never left this land. While you are in the northlands, as their successor and descendant, you can summon them to battle for your cause.]
[There are two types of summons. The first is to summon a random king from the past to give a single full-strength attack, and the second is to summon a cloned spirit of someone currently living. Both types of summons are limited to Mist royalty members only.]
“In the past two thousand years of history, even the Gods have come and gone so frequently, and the newly born Mist Kingdom is already an ancient country, with countless epic battle campaigns. There were so many powerful kings in the past, that no matter which one you randomly summoned, none of them would be too weak. The only part is that the ten minute cooldown and limited usage of three times a day is really annoying. I hope that the next step of the Sacred Sword’s evolution can upgrade this. As for the second type of summons, if the royalty is abundant and powerful it should be quite the ability, but there are too few options right now, so it’s only an ordinary skill. However, it just happens to be useful right now.”
The Clint in front of us was basically exactly the same, and his speed in setting up explosives was quick, decisive, and precise. Our overall speed was quite fast. According to Adam’s senses, we were almost about to pass in front of Emordilorcan.
We stopped in a spacious cave. This was a wide enough place that it was perfect for battle.
I nodded at Glina and her clone spirit immediately disappeared and returned to the Sacred Sword.
“As for me, I also discovered an incredibly cheat method of summoning.”
I purposefully sounded as mysterious as possible with my raucous laughter. This type of rule-breaking summoning definitely surpassed my expectations for the God Equipment’s main ability.
“Take a good look, and don’t blink… Fight for me, twin stars, awaken, Roland, Karwenz!”