The Runesmith

Roland and the others fled to the sides in horror as the wave of malevolent energies surged toward them. The scale was immense, and most of them were already exhausted. Any magical shields would have been useless, but just as the blast was about to strike, a strange flash of white filled the area and was followed by a resonant sound.

The explosion should have swallowed everyone whole. It should have erased the Duke from existence, body and soul. Instead, white light poured from his rapier and split the monstrous ray cleanly in two. What had seemed like an unstoppable tide of annihilation became two rivers of energy that parted around him and curved upward to avoid the castle behind. The force struck the protective barrier instead, causing it to ripple violently.

Everyone froze, staring at the Duke as his aura burst to life. It was still aura energy, yet its coloring was different. For most, it was crimson, but here it shone silvery white. For a moment, all eyes were fixed on the miasma clearing and the Duke standing tall with his weapon raised. Then a massive wail erupted from the transformed witch.

The monster reeled back, her countless eyes wide with disbelief. A circular wound opened across her torso, burning with the Duke’s advanced white aura. It was not a wound caused by a physical strike but by the overwhelming surge of energy and the shockwave that followed. Her flesh boiled away while her wings were torn apart by the torrent.

Yet she did not fall. Her body screamed as it knit itself back together, spawning endless tendrils and vomiting clouds of poisonous vapor. Tentacles lashed at the Duke faster than ballista bolts, but each one crumbled to ash as it collided with his sword aura. Poison spread through the courtyard like a storm, but it evaporated against the white flames that spread around him and created a strange shimmering phenomenon.

‘I have to record this. ’

He forced himself to focus while the malignant blast fizzled out against the shield. Most of his golems had been destroyed, though he could still restore a few. At his command, they rose into the air and kept their distance. Using his senses and enchanted armor, Roland detected something unsettling about the two tier four beings locked in combat. He had dealt with the Headmistress and had crossed paths with the witch in the swamps, but this was his first time witnessing a true battle between entities of such power.

‘There is a distortion around their bodies, as if each one carries its own region of warped reality.”

His display revealed a strange phenomenon, a pair of circular energy zones surrounding the two combatants. They differed in size and density, yet both collided again and again, with the Duke’s steadily overwhelming the one generated by the malformed creature. It was valuable data, but difficult to gather. Before long, another blast of abyssal energy rippled outward in all directions, disrupting his golems’ recording devices and forcing many of the soldiers nearby to groan in pain.

The battle was far from finished, and Roland realized it might be wiser to think first of his own safety and of Arthur’s.

“Lord Arthur, we need to get down from this wall before it collapses.”

“Agreed.”

Arthur was not alone, for his brother Julius, still clutching his shield, stumbled closer. Bernadette helped steady him, but her golden aura had completely vanished. The wall beneath them groaned as cracks spread through the stone. Dust rained down, and the shrieks of the monstrosity drowned out nearly every other sound.

Anzeneus, the mage, staggered forward. His old body had reached its limit, and he had exhausted all his mana. Just as he was about to collapse, a magical force lifted him up and carried him forward.

“Ah, this is embarrassing. You had better keep your promise, and you must never mention this to anyone.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure the Headmistress will be willing to share her knowledge.”

The old man found himself slung over Roland’s shoulder, drawn in by the mage hand spell. With the Duke fighting the monster, the suppressing hold she held over the soldiers weakened, allowing them to move on their own. One by one, they abandoned the crumbling wall.

The courtyard was no longer a battlefield. It had become an apocalypse contained within crumbling stone walls. The air bent and screamed under the pressure of colliding powers. The Duke advanced in flawless rhythm, each thrust of his fencing blade carrying that strange silvery aura. His strikes appeared ordinary to the naked eye, yet every one of them unleashed a shockwave that tore the abyssal cultist’s body apart.

The witch shrieked with all her mouths. Tentacles rained down like spears, each one dripping venom that hissed as it touched the air. None of them reached him. The white flames surrounding his body shielded him from their corrosive effects, and his speed defied belief. His form shifted constantly. Whenever a tentacle seemed certain to pierce him, his body vanished, leaving only an afterimage that burned with white fire.

Roland’s display flickered again, struggling to process what it was witnessing. The distortion around the combatants blurred the sensors, which failed to track the Duke’s rapid movements. To the runic HUD, it seemed as though he were teleporting across the battlefield. His presence dominated the entire field, and his opponent appeared powerless, as if he were merely toying with the witch.

‘Unbelievable. Those tentacles lose part of their strength once they enter the Duke’s field of influence. It is as though the very laws that empower them are being crushed and rewritten. Is this what a battle between tier fours looks like?’

It was quite fascinating to behold this high-speed battle, even though it was one-sided. The abyssal witch survived only through her extraordinary regenerative powers, but even those were failing. With every passing second, her body diminished. The tentacles that composed her form dissolved into dust as the Duke’s aura consumed them.

The abomination’s scream rose higher, splitting the night air and shattering glass. Hundreds of voices shrieked in unison, words layered over one another in maddening tongues, each a call to despair. Yet the Duke moved forward, unshaken. His fencer’s blade traced a straight line, glimmering with silvery-white light. With each thrust, the abomination’s colossal body convulsed, holes opening faster than her regeneration could mend.

“Disappointing…”

The Duke finally spoke before the monster. The witch spat venom and exhaled black mist that should have corroded stone and flesh alike, but it curled and burned away against the Duke’s aura, unable to harm him. Tentacles shot up from the ground beneath him, sharp as spears, yet they pierced only air as he vanished before they could strike.

“Pathetic creature.”

“N-no, the dream must begin, I was chosen by the great lord! I cannot fail!”

By now, the witch’s form had diminished greatly. Once towering at twenty meters, she had shrunk to only five. Each time her body was seared by the flames, her size dwindled further, and it was clear the Duke was about to end it all.

Roland stopped in his tracks. His group had descended from the broken walls and now gathered below. Soldiers and even servants who had awoken stood in awe of the man with the fencing blade. Throughout the battle, his left arm had remained fixed behind his back, and his posture stood tall like an unbreakable pillar.

The Duke moved again. His rapier flickered forward. A single thrust, almost casual, as though he were dueling an apprentice. But in that moment, something impossible unfolded. The silver-white aura coating his weapon did not stop at the blade’s tip. It surged outward, splitting into thousands of spectral lines of light, each one a phantom thrust carrying the will of his strike.

Every line of aura struck the abomination simultaneously. The horror’s flesh rippled as if pierced by a thousand invisible lances. Holes erupted across her twisted frame faster than her regenerative powers could respond. Each thrust carried not only piercing power but also his authority that denied the witch’s existence.

The monstrosity’s many mouths shrieked again, but this time the sound no longer affected the nearby soldiers. Her power was gone, overwhelmed by the sheer force of the Duke’s technique. His rapier stayed steady while the storm of aura around him grew fiercer. The monster staggered back, collapsing beneath the invisible torrent of thrusts. Tentacles were shredded into mist, and hundreds of eyes burst and dissolved into nothingness. Her cries shifted from madness to horror as her life slipped away.

“No… no, I was chosen! The everlasting dream cannot…”

The words never finished. The Duke’s aura pressed harder, and her body collapsed inward. The countless thrusts of energy converged until the grotesque shell could no longer hold together. The abomination imploded in silence, leaving only a fine black powder carried off by the night wind.

When the light cleared, nothing remained. No flesh, no abyssal energy, no trace of the witch. The barrier that had enclosed the courtyard flickered and went out, letting the natural moonlight spill through.

The Duke stood at the center of the ruins with his rapier lowered at his side. His posture had not changed, as though the battle had demanded nothing of him. The white aura surrounding him dimmed and faded into the night.

‘Did someone disable the shield from inside?’

Roland wondered as he watched the barrier dissolve. He had assumed the Duke had left someone within to bring it down. On the far end of the courtyard, a mass of soldiers appeared, ready to charge yet waiting for their commander’s signal. Just as Roland had expected, the entire scheme had been a poorly executed plan. A decoy had acted as the Duke while the real one waited outside.

‘Once the relics were activated, the one ordered to disable the shield must have been caught in the illusion.’

He thought to himself as silence settled over the aftermath of the battle. From the very beginning of this incident, he had known that something was wrong. The Duke who appeared in the hall was an impostor, perhaps not even a true living being. Even when his bracelet was activated, there had always been a sense that something was out of place.

Roland’s thoughts spiraled, but he forced his breathing to remain steady. His body ached, his mana reserves were nearly empty, and yet he could not allow himself to collapse here. The silence that followed the implosion was unbearable. It was not a moment of relief but a suffocating weight pressing down on him and on the survivors. The soldiers who remained standing looked at the Duke with a mixture of reverence and fear. No one dared to speak before the mighty tier four class holder made his move.

“Ingram, take care of the rest, secure the main palace.”

Suddenly, his voice boomed across the entire courtyard. It was not loud, yet every soldier heard it clearly. The Duke did not need to shout. His aura carried authority, and soon, with perfect unison, all of his soldiers answered.

“Yes, your Grace!”

Grand Knight Commander Ingram stepped forward from the ranks. His crimson cloak swept behind him, heavy with dust but still gleaming. The polished plates of his armor caught the pale moonlight that now spilled into the courtyard, and his greatsword rested easily on his shoulder. Although the Duke had already decided the battle by himself, Ingram’s presence was still undeniable. 

“Form ranks. Shields forward. Lances out. More cultists may be near. Restrain everyone!”

His command cut through the silence, and hundreds of soldiers surged into action. Even nobles were restrained without exception. Roland did not resist. He simply raised his hands and yielded. There was no use in running, and there was no reason to fight. The monster wave had ended, yet scattered enemies still lingered. Faint traces of abyssal energy clung to the courtyard, but with soldiers surrounding every corner, he was certain that no one would escape.

“How preposterous! Do you know who I am? Do you even know who these people are?”

“It is fine, Master Anzeneus. My father’s soldiers will not harm us.” 

Julius spoke to the old mage, who had barely recovered from the attack. The mage’s legs trembled, yet his mouth continued to move. The soldiers fanned out at Ingram’s command. Roland studied their movements and formations, observing everything closely and recording what he could. His golems floated above, but the soldiers treated them as enemies and shot them down with arrows. Roland made no effort to stop them.

“Clear the bodies! Watch the shadows and strike anything that moves!”

The man’s voice rang through the night while the soldiers worked to secure the grounds. They moved with the precision of a machine. The gaping holes that the monsters had used to crawl inside were surrounded, and soldiers entered to investigate. Clerics arrived to heal the wounded and save whoever could still be saved. Many lives had already been lost in this strange gathering, and Roland wondered if Alexander Valerian bore some responsibility for the disaster.

Roland, Arthur, and the others were ordered to relocate to the palace. As they walked, Roland’s eyes lingered on the Duke, who stood motionless. His presence alone was commanding, and it seemed unnecessary for him to give any further orders as his men cleared everything on their own.

‘Was this insane plan his idea?’

Once they returned inside the palace, Roland examined the damage. Scratches marked the walls, and a few bodies lay scattered, but the number of deaths was thankfully minimal. Roland had managed to lure the monsters away and direct one of the brothers to evacuate the nobles. Even so, there had not been enough time to save everyone, and some guards had been trampled by the surge of creatures that tried to reach the false Duke, who was being carried to safety.

‘Was it some kind of puppet?’

Tybalt Valerian was present, and so was Theodore with his bodyguard. Along with them stood the guards who had pretended to be the Duke’s protectors. The figure passed off as the Duke resembled a wooden puppet crafted through some spell to appear real. It was lifelike enough to deceive even Roland’s sensors. However, it had seemingly malfunctioned after being exposed to abyssal magic and could not be awakened, even with the aid of its bracelet.

The same bracelet was still on its wrist, and through it, he could analyze the structure. The data would have been useful if he had wanted to produce something similar, but his mind was elsewhere. The five brothers were now gathered in a large hall where the nobles were holding a party. All of them were involved in the incident, and their father had no qualms about putting them in danger.

The atmosphere inside the hall was suffocating. The nobles who remained were pale, quiet, and trembling at what they had witnessed. Everyone was confused about the situation, but was not given time to rest. The five brothers stood apart from the crowd. Their father had not returned to them and had not offered even a single word of encouragement.

“Separate them.”

One of the commanding officers pointed at the brothers, and soldiers surrounded them. The greatest concentration was around Ivan, the one who had been involved with the cultist witch.

“Unhand me at once. Do you know who I am?”

Ivan protested, and so did his mother.

“Let him go. Who do you think we are?”

Nevertheless, he was dragged away by a group of soldiers, and so was she. Arthur and Roland suffered the same fate, and soon all of the nobility were led away into separate chambers. The castle was large and filled with rooms, as well as a dungeon. Fortunately, the place where he and Arthur ended up was rather comfortable and had several chairs for them to sit on.

“When I came here, I did not expect this. At least Mother was not invited.”

Arthur mumbled as he took a seat. His hands trembled, and it was clear that he was struggling to process the situation.

“What do you think?”

“What do I think?”

Roland looked out the window at the large moon and then turned back to Arthur.

“I think your father might be a little insane.”

A pause followed, and Arthur let out a small chuckle. Soon, the two of them smiled at each other. The incident seemed to be drawing to an end, yet he was certain this would not be the last time the cultists appeared. They would need a convincing explanation for their actions during the chaos, since he was sure the Duke would be asking questions soon…