Hero's Coffin Chapter 47

Chapter 47

Whoosh—

Woong— Wooong— Woooooong—

The path into the Encroachment Zone was quite noisy. The wind trapped in the crevices of the winding valley echoed as if someone was crying, making his skin crawl. Even the moonlight couldn't illuminate every corner of the canyon.

Though it was generally difficult to distinguish colors in the deep night, the black and white of the Encroachment Zone was clearly alien. An unpleasant sense of dissonance swirled eerily through the space.

"Ha, haha. It's a bit scary because it's dark..."

Noi shrank back. Since there would be only them in this space anyway, everyone except him had removed their hoods, so Noi's pointed ears could be seen trembling. His attempt to appear calm was almost pitiful.

He rummaged in his bosom and took something out. As it happened, he had something quite useful for the current situation.

Click—

When he pressed the magic stone on the stick firmly, a soft light came from the end. Though it wasn't bright enough to fully illuminate their surroundings, just pushing back the darkness a little was enough to brighten Noi's expression. Noi exclaimed in surprise, "Wow, you had something like this?" and Kalterik was also intrigued, but then...

Suddenly, Kalterik turned to look at him with a very uneasy face.

"Wait a minute. Isn't that the thing from the sky island? I think I saw it there."

"...A souvenir."

"What did you say?!"

It was the first time he had shown this object to his companions since then. He had put it in his robe on the sky island and brought it along. With the battle against the demon that night, and various things happening in the night, and then focusing only on coming down from the island the next day, he had forgotten the fact that he had put the stick away.

You guys came down with even a holy relic bearing the grand title of 'small sun', so why can't I bring this one thing? Seeing Kalterik's shock, he ignored him, which made the guy shout, "Wah!"

But immediately after, a louder noise erupted, clang~! Harenir had destroyed the first core of the Encroachment Zone.

"I understand you two have become friendly, but let's focus on the mission for now."

"What? Commander, that's really a misunderstanding...!"

Regardless of Kalterik's indignant explanation, Harenir gestured to him. It was a look asking where the other two locations were, so he answered perceptively. The blue eyes were as calm as ever, but somehow they felt cold, so he lowered the flashlight slightly. Had he gained +1 hatred for stealing from a sacred place?

"One is between the narrow canyons in the 10 o'clock direction, and the other is in the gravel field in the 4 o'clock direction..."

The companions moved quickly following his words. Throughout the movement, Kalterik seemed to want to clear up Harenir's misunderstanding, but that was pushed to a lower priority when they arrived at the next core.

[Kihit, kihihit...]

[Uninvited guests have come.]

As if they had been waiting, a group of Dium was standing there. Over twenty one-horned ones, and even a two-horned Dium leading them.

Though they had expected to encounter Dium again in this Encroachment Zone, they hadn't anticipated facing the two-horned one, who had been the boss of the previous phase, right from the start. He anxiously looked around at his companions. Harenir had handled it well last time, but could the other knights really...

"Ha! You're disgustingly alive!"

"...I had guessed, but..."

Fortunately, Kalterik and Mela calmly drew their swords. Their auras were solemn, as if they had thoroughly prepared. It seemed that even the two-horned one was within a manageable range if they were well-prepared. Above all, there were no zombies here, that is, no missing persons whose return someone was hoping for, so the knights could swing their swords more easily.

Bang, boom!

Swish!

Kalterik pressured heavily with his greatsword, Mela thrust sharply with her rapier, and Harenir cleanly targeted the openings created. It was a much more systematic appearance than before. Had the vice-commanders been confused by the Dium's survival back then? Only Harenir had guessed at that time.

The two-horned Dium, instantly losing its subordinates and driven to a disadvantage, stretched out its hand.

[You, you...! How on earth did you get here...!]

"Time is precious."

Swish! Harenir didn't even bother to converse with it and cut it down with his sword. While he had asked the Dium various questions before, now he intuited that clues would be at the center of the Encroachment Zone and didn't waste time elsewhere.

Looking down at the head of the two-horned Dium that had fallen to the ground with a thud, Harenir spoke calmly.

"Let's move on to the next."

Though he seemed as composed as usual, the companions followed tensely, sensing a subtly sharpened atmosphere. As the commander was taking the situation seriously, everyone was on high alert, and even he had to increase his pace inadvertently.

Slash!

They destroyed the third core in an instant. This time too, a group of Dium blocked their way, but they were no match for the advance of the highly motivated holy knights.

However, even after destroying all the cores he had identified with the undead, the contaminated energy of the Encroachment Zone didn't decrease significantly. In the southern Encroachment Zone, the air had cleared dramatically when all the cores were eliminated, but now there was only an unsettling feeling as if telling them it wasn't over yet.

Harenir quietly looked up at the sky and exhaled slowly. His face, on which the moonlight fell obliquely, was infinitely calm.

"It seems purification won't work now."

"Then..."

"Let's go to the center of the Encroachment Zone."

Though it had been planned from the beginning, he felt ominous as he sensed the raid's difficulty increasing in real-time. He moved his steps, trying to stamp down his anxiety. As they went deeper into the Encroachment Zone, the night wind grew cooler, and he tightened the cape wrapped around his shoulders. His breath spread in a hazy mist.

When they finally arrived at the center where pitch-black fog was thickly spread, Noi exclaimed,

"There are letters engraved on the rock..."

It was a fact realized only after touching the wall. Just as he was getting tired of walking and leaned against the side, he felt something strangely concave, and when he shone the flashlight on it, he discovered letters densely filling the entire rock.

Unfamiliar letters were engraved on the entire canyon so large that one had to tilt their head back to see it all. It wasn't the imperial language. Noi spoke in astonishment, seeming to know what it was.

"It's the language used by the Dium."

"...The Dium use a separate language?"

"Yes. They say that in the early stages of the Great Catastrophe, they couldn't communicate with the Dium at all. Then about half a year later, they started using the imperial language..."

Noi nodded, seeming to gain more confidence as he felt along the wall.

"I've seen this before. After eliminating the Dium 20 years ago, most of the records about them were discarded, so it was difficult to find the language they used. So I only accidentally discovered a page or two, but I remember it clearly because I found it interesting that they used a different language from the old demon race."

It was unexpected that records about the Dium had been discarded. Was it because proper research couldn't be conducted during the time when the continent was being devastated, or did they want to erase even the records because they were such terrifying beings? Perhaps it was also because of the strong belief that they had been 'perfectly' dealt with.

Noi tilted his head as if finding that part strange too, but right now, there was something more important in front of them. The letters densely filling the canyon, and the fact that the terrain here had changed.

In other words, it meant that the Dium were not just barely surviving in hiding here, but were up to something.

"I hear some kind of sound from inside."

Mela, who had gone deeper into the canyon first, returned and reported in a stiff voice. Harenir immediately moved, and as he followed, he felt his whole body resonating with a thump, thump. Had his heartbeat quickened due to anxiety? No, this was...

It was the sound the Dium were making.

[Aah, we must reclaim our era. The day when the living beings of this land bow their heads to us, and our glory stains the earth like blood...]

In the wide open space at the center of the canyon, there was a huge 'altar' carved from stone. In front of the altar, which was crude but of a scale that could not be ignored, there were well over a hundred Dium. They were kneeling, repeatedly bowing their upper bodies as if offering prayers, and some individuals were beating stones like drums.

They looked as if they were performing some kind of ritual.

Moreover, standing in front of the group was a Dium with three horns. The horns protruding from the center of its forehead and on both sides were very sharp, and its body, clad in pitch-black uniform, was also extraordinary. It looked ten times larger than a human.

Noi gasped in astonishment, saying "Tri-horned...", but Harenir remained quiet. He seemed to have anticipated even this, but when the tri-horned Dium finally knelt before the altar and chanted something.

[All of this is for Dedium...]

Harenir's face stiffened sharply.