Chapter 430: The Holy Tree Staff

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM......

Before her lay a battlefield of utter chaos and bloodshed.

Elves and monsters clashed in a brutal melee.

Countless lives fell with every passing second, painting the ground crimson with their blood.

Yet at the very heart of the battlefield,

Arudok stood silently beside a boulder.

Behind him loomed a towering crimson pillar of light, and at his feet lay a lifeless corpse.

He paid no heed to the carnage unfolding before him, making no move to intervene. His gaze was fixed solely on the sky above.

BOOM......

Another crimson pillar of light faded away slowly.

Under the combined assault of the three-race allied army, the cage formed by the pillars was already riddled with gaps. Even the dark, oppressive canopy overhead had grown noticeably brighter.

Arudok reached out and grasped the greatsword embedded in the corpse, hefting it aloft with one hand.

SPLASH!

Fresh blood gushed from the wound, pooling around his feet.

Arudok didn’t spare it a second glance, nor did he care that his boots were stained red. He wiped the blood from the blade with a casual swipe.

Then he drove the sword point-first into the rocky ground.

CLINK!

With a sharp metallic clang, the greatsword sank deep into the stone.

Afterward, Arudok sat down on the boulder, his cold, unwavering gaze fixed on the horizon ahead.

He seemed to be waiting for something.

......

“Hm?”

Nadra, who stood guard before a magic circle, lifted his head in confusion.

He was a member of the Great Demon Mercenary Corps. Though his strength ranked him at A-Rank, he paled in both seniority and skill compared to veterans like Molbai, and his power was far inferior to latecomers like Freydia. He was, by all accounts, a run-of-the-mill A-Rank warrior.

But even a mediocre A-Rank was still an A-Rank all the same. With their defensive forces stretched thin, placing him in charge of guarding a position was only logical.

“A child? No—wait a minute. There should be hordes of monsters between here and the front lines. How could an ordinary child make it here unscathed?”

The silver-wand-wielding girl who had appeared out of nowhere put Nadra on high alert.

He tensed his muscles, assuming a defensive stance, and shouted at the girl.

“Halt right there! Stop where you are! Take one more step forward, and I’ll attack!”

The girl seemed to hear his warning, coming to a halt as he’d ordered.

Then she lifted her head.

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Nadra finally got a clear look at her face.

But her unnervingly calm expression sent an inexplicable chill of unease down his spine.

He slipped one hand behind his back, preparing to launch a sneak attack, while his mouth continued to spew words to distract her.

“Who are you? How did you get past—”

SWISH——!

Mid-sentence, the girl, still standing far away, suddenly blurred and vanished from sight entirely.

“What!?”

Nadra’s eyes widened in shock.

“Gone? Where did she go!?”

“Hulim Heyerar——”

A soft, steady voice echoed behind him.

Nadra’s body jolted. He spun around violently, desperate to face his attacker.

But it was already too late.

SWISH——!

A streak of white light pierced his chest first.

As his eyes finally locked onto the girl’s face, inches away from his own, he heard the rest of her words.

“......That is my name.”

THUD!

Nadra’s body crumpled limply to the ground. His vision blurred rapidly, his strength and body heat ebbing away with every passing second.

He could no longer see her full figure—only the pair of feet standing before him.

Then those feet turned, pivoting away from him, and gradually faded into the distance.

Damn it.

She was so fast, so strong. Her movements were impossible to track, her attacks impossible to defend against.

How could someone like her even exist......

With those bitter, unfulfilled thoughts, Nadra closed his eyes forever.

A short distance away,

Hulim stepped up to the edge of the magic circle.

Just as she had done countless times before, she raised her Seven Luminaries.

Two seconds later.

BOOM——!

A brilliant burst of white light engulfed the red cylinder at the circle’s core.

CRACK!

The cylinder shattered into pieces, then vanished into nothingness.

The magic circle sputtered to a halt.

The crimson pillar of light stretching toward the sky faded away slowly.

Hulim lowered her wand, her gaze locking onto the next pillar in the distance.

“Next target.”

WHOOSH~!

A gust of wind swept across the ground. Hulim’s figure disappeared from the spot.

No traces of battle remained—but the body lying in a pool of blood nearby silently told the tale of a completely one-sided fight that had taken place here......

BOOM!

High above the clouds.

Irus was forced back by Darius’s attack once again.

Darius paused his assault, a mocking smirk playing on his lips.

“Is that all you’ve got, my dear Saint?”

“You——”

Irus glared at Darius, her heart burning with anger and frustration.

Only now, in the heat of battle, did she realize how far Darius’s strength exceeded her expectations. Even with the World Tree’s protection, she would have been hard-pressed to hold her own against him. Now, without it, she was at a clear disadvantage.

“You’ve clearly received a great deal of support from the Demon Race to become their most valuable pawn in Himril.”

Darius didn’t bother to deny it. Instead, he retorted coldly,

“It seems the World Tree didn’t grant you much of a power boost after all.”

Irus’s anger flared hotter, but at the same time, a nagging doubt began to creep into her mind.

She glanced sideways at the battlefield below.

The cage formed by the ninety-nine crimson pillars was already full of gaps—a clear sign that the allied army was making swift progress in destroying them.

So why wasn’t Darius the least bit worried?

Not a hint of anxiety could be seen on his face.

Logically, these pillars were the key to his entire plan. Yet he made no move to assist his underlings, nor did he try to finish her off quickly. Instead, he seemed to be deliberately stalling for time.

If this dragged on much longer, the pillars would be destroyed long before they could erase the World Tree’s will.

Was he really that confident in his subordinates? Or did he have some other trick up his sleeve......

BOOM——!

Darius launched an attack without warning.

“How dare you let your mind wander while fighting me?”

Irus reacted instantly, channeling the power of her three Holy Tree Staves to erect a barrier, blocking the attack just in time.

“Hmph.”

Darius let out a cold snort.

“A troublesome toy—but ultimately meaningless.”

“It’s more than enough to deal with you.”

“More than enough?”

Darius let out a low, mocking laugh.

“You’re struggling just to defend yourself, aren’t you? You may possess quite a few powerful trinkets, but when it comes to those staves of yours, you’re nowhere near capable of unleashing their full potential.”

“......”

Irus fell silent, unable to refute his words.

As Darius had pointed out, though she wielded multiple S-Rank artifacts, she could only draw on the full power of one Holy Tree Staff at a time. The other two served merely as supports. Otherwise, she would have overwhelmed Darius with the sheer number of her S-Rank weapons long ago.

“I’ve heard those staves are forged from the shed core fragments of the World Tree as it grew.”

“It must have taken you a great deal of effort to refine such materials, wouldn’t you agree?”

At his words, Irus’s heart skipped a beat, a sense of foreboding washing over her.

“What are you trying to say?”

Darius lifted his obsidian demon spear, his voice dripping with malice as he spoke slowly.

“I’m simply saying this—items like these always have flaws. If subjected to force beyond their limits, those shoddy modifications will shatter, and the item will revert to its raw, unrefined form——”

BOOM——!

The moment the words left his mouth, Darius struck.

But this time, his target was not Irus herself.

It was one of the Holy Tree Staves floating behind her.