WeTried Translations
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur
Chapter 426
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Domain of Dead Knights (1)
The Abyss does not permit death.
Hundreds upon hundreds of millions wander the Land of the Abyss forever, unable to die, but among them are a few who have maintained a comparatively intact form.
The Knights of Death.
That is what they are called.
They hid their bodies beneath armor. Helmets pulled down deep, not an inch of bare skin showing. Because that skin had rotted and festered past all recognition, merging with the Abyss itself, becoming black viscous slime.
Splurch.
The flesh had melted away. With every movement, liquefied meat seeped through the gaps in their armor. The path they walked was stained black by the blood and flesh they shed.
Thud.
Treading through the filth that dripped from their own bodies, the Knights of Death marched on. They marched without end. The only thing left in them was a single obsessive thought: they had to keep moving forward.
Dead, yet unable to die.
Dead, yet unable to let go.
Dead, yet unable to forget.
Even having merged with the Abyss, they still desired to advance. They were different from other wraiths. They had not gone fully mad, and they had not set everything down.
Because in life, they had been heroes.
They had possessed iron wills. They had carried noble convictions. Unable to release those convictions even in death, they could not break completely.
"Rise."
Someone had dressed them in armor. Their hideous forms were concealed beneath iron plate, and those who could no longer be called knights were made into knights once more.
That was the origin of the Knights of Death.
They had no sense of self, yet their footsteps never stopped. They marched ceaselessly, pursuing someone. And so they arrived here, at Mordred's sanctuary.
"Domain of Dead Knights."
Merlin pointed toward the distant fortress and spoke.
"That's the name of Mordred's sanctuary."
"Did the name change after he became the Witch's apostle?"
"No, it was already called that before."
Merlin let out a short breath.
"Mordred used to lead expeditions in Arthur's place. He would receive Arthur's orders and march with his knights to foreign lands, to distant places."
Naturally, casualties arose along the way. Knights burned by witches, devoured by demons, torn apart by beasts, many of them, Merlin said.
"Mordred never abandoned the knights who fell. He recovered their bodies, and when no body could be found, he sought out their weapons... or at least their armor. He would gut beasts and leap into the mouths of demons to do it."
Bodies. Keepsakes. The things the dead had left behind.
"Mordred buried all of it in his sanctuary. Every last piece, without exception."
And that was how what now stood before Najin and Merlin came to exist.
Looking out across it.
Rows of graves stretched around a great, ancient castle at their center. Objects that had belonged to the dead sat before each grave as markers. The place resembled the Carnival King's stage in appearance, but was fundamentally different in nature. Unlike the Carnival King, who had weaponized the lives of the dead, Mordred's sanctuary was something closer to a place of mourning.
Whether or not they were the graves' rightful owners was unclear.
The Knights of Death gathered before the graves regardless. They packed the area around the castle, filling it completely. It was a landscape that suited the name: Domain of Dead Knights.
"......"
Najin moved his gaze along the rows of graves until it came to rest on the ancient castle standing at the heart of the sanctuary.
Mordred was in there.
Waiting for him to reach the top floor.
"It's a siege."
Najin said it briefly. Knights defending the domain, and a firmly shut gate. With eleven stars, this was a Transcendent's sanctuary, that castle would be fearsomely solid.
So, a siege.
Break through the knights guarding the gate. Push back the forces garrisoned inside and climb to the top. Then take down the lord of the castle.
"Bedivere."
"Yes, Najin."
Najin and Bedivere stood at the edge of the cliff. A long conversation wasn't necessary. What had to be done was clear.
Spin, grip.
Najin seized the Lance of the Crossed Star. Bedivere rested the White Spear across one shoulder at an angle. A single shared breath, and then both of them kicked off the cliff and started running at nearly the same instant.
Domain of Dead Knights, the assault.
War begins.
2.
Najin kicked off the cliff and ran. He accelerated down the near-vertical face as though it were flat ground, and the landscape blurred past at speed.
What filled his vision was the great castle.
And between himself and that castle, the Boundary Line of the Abyss. Mordred was waiting on the other side of that barrier.
"......"
Najin had a rough sense of what this battle would bring.
He would enter the barrier.
Back into the Abyss, again. He would clash with Mordred, the Witch of the Abyss's apostle. Whatever shape this fight took, the binding seal holding the Witch would shake further and more cracks would open up.
From here on, the Abyss would expand at a faster rate.
The chaos spreading across the Outland and the Continent would only grow.
A fire once lit could not be contained, and there was no going back now. It would not stop until either the Witch or Najin was dead.
Once he set foot past that barrier.
The moment he engaged Mordred in battle, Najin would have to run without rest toward the conclusion. In terms of a story, this was the final chapter.
Is he ready?
Najin asked himself.
Is he ready?
He had steeled himself long ago, or so he wanted to say. But actually facing the moment, he felt the trembling too. Only three stars had been released, and he had already seen what was beginning to happen to the Continent.
He felt the weight of what he carried.
So he asked himself again. Was he ready? Was he ready to keep running no matter what came next, without stopping?
"......"
Najin looked ahead in silence. He gave no answer to the question he had put to himself. He simply turned it over in his mind and took another step. The answer was not here, not now. It was one step ahead.
Thud.
He breathed out with that step.
Clear it first.
What would happen next, worries about the future, the Constellations standing watch over this battlefield, the Empire's forces sent in to minimize the fallout, all of it.
He erased the cluttered thoughts from his head.
The moment he had resolved to fight, all of that was nothing more than noise.
Look ahead.
There was a castle. A gate he had to break, and an opponent waiting for him. What he needed to see right now was not the future but what was directly in front of him. Fill his mind with thoughts of how to smash through what lay ahead.
Thud!
His stride found its weight. Picking up speed, Najin reset his grip on the lance shaft.
What he was about to do was a siege.
A siege was supposed to be a grinding, drawn-out affair, but Najin had no intention of anything of the sort.
If something blocks the path.
Knight, gate, anything else. Whatever stood in his way, Najin had only one answer.
Breakthrough.
The Breakthrough star shone. The Lance of the Crossed Star shone like a star itself. Najin charged with a storm coiling around the spear tip, a single streak of light hurtling toward the fortress wall.
Lance Charge.
The Knights of Death moved to block his path, but Najin did not slow. He did not go around, and he did not evade. And at that same moment, one other figure moved with him.
Shhhhhhhhk!
A shadow fell from high in the sky. Unlike Najin, who had sprinted straight down the cliff face, this one had leaped high off the edge. His shadow came from above, and a star shone up there.
White Spear, Bedivere.
Dropping toward the castle, Bedivere swung his spear shaft. The moment the shaft struck the wall and the moment Najin crashed into the gate happened nearly at the same time.
Horn Charge, and descent from above.
Boom!
The blow driving downward from above shook the fortress wall, and the storm launched like a single bolt of light slammed into it. Through the billowing dust and the thunderous crash, Najin slid inside the fortress wall.
"......"
Looking around, the forces garrisoned in the castle were leveling spears, swords, and drawn bows at him. Knights were surging in from outside the gate as well.
The vast fortress was packed with them.
Faced with all those knights, what Najin chose was to ignore every last one and sprint deeper into the castle.
It was the worst possible choice.
He would have to deal with enemies not just ahead, but on all sides, even at his back. It was a blunder that cut him off completely. Proof of it: dozens of arrows and spears and sword energies were already crashing in toward his back.
...... The worst possible choice.
Shhhk.
If Najin had been alone.
Boom!
Bedivere landed with a crash and swept the attacks aimed at Najin away with his spear shaft. Sword energy broke apart. Arrows snapped. Bedivere spun the shaft once to clear the dust and breathed out slowly.
The one-armed knight's eyes went hard.
As though he would not let a single thing through, as though he refused to let anything hinder his king's path, Bedivere drove the spear shaft into the ground.
"Go."
I'll hold the rear.
You fight your fight.
3.
At the top floor of the castle.
Mordred felt them enter his sanctuary. An old comrade, and the new king that comrade served. Sensing their presence, Mordred looked down at his own body.
Not armor. His own flesh.
The veins pulsing beneath his skin were a dark crimson. Where his heart should have been, a Crimson Blight Star was lodged in its place. The body eaten through by the Blight Star was pathetic and wretched.
"......"
He looked around in silence. Weapons and suits of armor were lined throughout the top floor of the castle. They had belonged to knights who had fought alongside him, and to dear friends he would never see again.
Those were Mordred's armor.
Armor to conceal this wretched, hideous body. After gazing at his own flesh, Mordred turned his eyes to the Knights of Death filling the castle.
There are many.
More than usual. He knew what that meant.
...... There were two kinds of Knights of Death.
The first were Knights of Death created by the Witch of the Abyss to humiliate fallen knights. Mordred had been given the role of standard-bearer to lead those knights by the Witch, so the ones she had made answered his command.
But here in this place.
There were also Knights of Death who did not follow Mordred's orders. Those were the second kind, Knights of Death raised not by the Witch but by a single human being.
"Rise."
Wraiths raised up by one person. Seeing them filter into his domain, Mordred smiled.
"Wasting your effort as usual, Atanga."
Why were knights that should be moving with Atanga here instead? The reason was simple enough. He must have sent them here.
Atanga.
Yes?
A conversation from long ago, a very long ago, surfaced in Mordred's memory.
You often tell the people of this land to 'rise' and raise them back to their feet. But you never say a word to me. Do you think I'm not worth raising?
Mordred and Atanga shared their imprisonment in the Abyss. Atanga, who had never shied from conversation even with the traitor of the Round Table, often received questions like that from Mordred.
Ha.
Atanga laughed at that. Then, as though it were a strange question to ask, he would say:
I simply reach out to those who have sunk to the ground. I merely lend a hand so that those who are lost for a moment can stand again.
He pointed at Mordred.
But you are already standing.
You have never, not even once.
Sunk to the ground, or lost your way.
"......"
Turning that conversation over in his mind, Mordred slowly rose from where he sat. He would come soon. He would push through the countless knights and arrive here no matter what.
He was coming, holding the shining Star Sword.
Waiting for the one who would arrive before long, Mordred looked up at the sky. By nature, stars cannot be seen from the Land of the Abyss. But here, close to the Boundary Line of the Abyss, they could be glimpsed faintly through the barrier beyond.
Mordred looked at the stars.
Thirteen shining stars.
King Arthur's stars, seen for the first time in ages, were breathtakingly beautiful. Enough to hold his gaze for a moment, at least. But only a moment. Mordred lowered his head soon after.
He reached up and gripped the Blight Star lodged in his heart.
Come.
Come, heir to the great king.
The traitor of the Round Table waits for you here.
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