Chapter 443 - Golden Anvil (3)
In this world, there exist many kinds of strength.
A swordsman wielding a crude iron blade that looks as if it could snap at any moment, might slice through steel in a single strike.
A Mage who appears frail on the outside, may, through magic power and calculation, embody the mysteries of the elements and shatter a massive boulder whole.
And not only that.
There are also those who, before your very eyes, display phenomena so unbelievable they seem impossible, and those beings often called national-level forces are of a different class altogether.
Blindingly sharp sword strikes unleashed at speeds the naked eye cannot follow.
Exalted magic that alters climate itself, turning the battlefield into terrain favorable to allies.
Holy miracles, that not only heal wounds, but restore even lost body parts.
Who, indeed, could endure such power?
Ordinary people you might meet on the street would not even dare think of resisting.
Trained soldiers would be slaughtered mercilessly, and even if a number of formidable warriors were to gather, at best they would leave behind only a few wounds.
But even possessing such force, creating one's own domain at will and ruling the entire continent unopposed, is difficult.
No, it is impossible.
Just as the many devour the individual, and the mighty individual suppresses the many, so too does the advanced collective thoroughly hunt down the mighty individual.
The prime example of this is the army.
Of course, an army composed only of conscripted peasants, regardless of its size, would be slaughtered one-sidedly and collapse in terror...
But in the present era, the modern age.
In this time considered to have the most advanced magic in history, armies have narrowed the gap with overwhelming national budgets, even to the point of surpassing it.
Strategic magic items that require many Mages working together to activate.
Artificial artifacts sold by the magic tower.
Siege weapons devoted to destruction, and airship fleets that dominate the skies—things that never existed in the distant past, now born and developed, exert a massive influence on military strength.
And when systematic organization is added to this, what then?
Needless to say, if a so-called warrior who could fight a thousand men were to challenge a nation head-on with only his own strength, he would be utterly destroyed.
This is not mere supposition, history says so.
Of course, armies so powerful have very clear weaknesses as well.
First, the higher the grade of a strategic magic item, the greater the number of Mages required to operate it.
Moreover, those Mages cannot move while activating the magic item, and if they leave their positions, the process must be recalibrated, repeated with complex steps.
From the standpoint of mobility, the worst.
They must also inevitably accept the risk that an entire division of precious Mage troops might be annihilated in one blow.
Second, money.
Even without war, maintaining tens of thousands of troops consumes an enormous amount of food and mana stones.
The cost is dizzying.
Third, diplomacy.
Mobilizing a large army incites tension in neighboring nations.
There are always pretexts for war, peace can be shattered at any moment.
Then fourth...
And then fifth...
And so on.
For reasons large and small, armies are rarely fully mobilized, but if a nation decides to act, there is no way for a few to stand against them.
However.
On this vast continent, there exist individuals with unreasonable power, for whom such common sense simply does not apply.
The world calls them, Transcendents.
Piiing───!
Hundreds of crossbows fired at once.
No retreat.
Countless bolts, propelled by powerful tension, flew nearly in straight lines.
Verden, who had no thought of evading from the start, lightly gestured with his hand.
Dozens of small fireballs spread outward in all directions, exploding in sequence, erasing the massed volley of the White-eyed Legion.
The cold immediately vanished.
At Verden's feet, a wave of superheated flame surged.
As if waiting for that, siege weapons activated, and a hazy ripple enveloped them, blocking only external magic.
Kwoooooom!
The air shook violently.
The dwarves' protective shield trembled and even sustained damage, but that was all.
Verden, encountering for the first time this method of strategic magic item—or rather strategic magical equipment—showed curiosity.
"To completely block a 6th-tier focused spell like
Dwarves are a race incapable of wielding magic power, prayers, or divine force themselves, but their innate craftsmanship creates much, their strength concentrated into weaponry.
Even if three hundred years old, their technology could not be ignored. Though aged by time, its force was no less than the armies of human nations.
Creak, creak, creeeak.
As the first clash ended, the siege weapons began to move.
Ordinarily they would run on mana stones, but here in the barren land of the Black Volcano, where the ley lines are depleted, neither natural ores nor mana stones exist.
That problem was solved by the Soul Tree using its remaining nutrients as fuel.
───Kwooooooooooom!
Curved projectiles struck the ground, unleashing shockwaves and thunderous roars. Even the black rock, once so unyielding, shattered into fragments.
Designed originally for wars between dwarf clans, their power was such that even dwarven ramparts could be damaged.
A human body of flesh and blood would leave no trace if merely grazed.
Boom! Boom! Kwooooooom!
Explosions repeated.
Even parts of corpses could provide some nutrients, and the Soul Tree took without hesitation.
Bombardment without pause.
The weapons of the White-eyed Legion turned the darkness into complete devastation.
Then, through the acrid smoke, a shadow appeared.
"Interesting, but..."
Tap, tap.
Verden emerged, dusted off the upper part of his robe, and stretched out his arm.
"There's nothing more to see."
Flame, its calculations omitted by the Mystic Eye, spread in a cone, engulfing the front.
The heat exceeded the endurance of the barrier, destroying it at once.
Kwagwagwagwagwagwagwa!
Inferno manifested underground.
The White-eyed within the range were erased without even a scream, the three siege engines also vanished in an instant.
The charging aberrant species, and several massive roots set like background decoration, shared the same fate.
Ssshhh...
The exalted authority of the 7th tier incinerated all it touched, leaving only a path filled with ash and heat.
Verden ignored the counterattack of the remnants rushing from both flanks, and advanced forward.
He passed through the entrance.
In the distance, he saw it—the main body of the Soul Tree, using the clan's fortress as its base.
"I recall the Soul Tree I saw in the principality was gray..."
This one was dark crimson, like its roots.
And its branches bore few corpses, its bark cracked heavily, having long failed to absorb proper nutrients.
"At this rate, it'll just die outright."
As he pondered how to subdue it, the surviving White-eyed rapidly deployed the remaining weapons, encircling Verden in a ring.
The enraged Soul Tree mobilized all eleven of its massive roots.
If the Black Volcano's Soul Tree, in this state, had gone outside, what would have happened?
Even starving, it could have erased several human cities physically.
By conducting a siege with the White-eyed Legion, slaughtering citizens for nutrients, it could have repeatedly resurrected fallen White-eyed.
And this, despite the Soul Tree being an aberrant species that dealt with the mental realm.
A special entity.
Depending on circumstances, even a small nation might stand at the brink of annihilation by a monster such as the Soul Tree.
Of course, here it was nothing more than prey.
Aaaaaaaaah...!
A chilling cry resonated, then all at once the weapons activated, projectiles flew, and every massive root came crashing down.
An overwhelming mass descended.
Verden, who had simultaneously opened his Second Circuit, focused his mind in an instant.
Time slowed, felt through extrasensory perception.
He controlled the turbulent mana flow of
A soundless surge of dark crimson currents.
In an instant, the ruin spread like a storm, permeating everything in the vicinity, collapsing the components that made up their very structure.
Annihilation.
The White-eyed and the eleven roots were destroyed down to each and every tissue, obliterated.
To the Soul Tree, it was as if its limbs had been severed at once. Perhaps due to the excruciating pain, a hideous wail burst forth from it.
[Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak!]
The shriek of the dead.
A final desperate act, dragging all who heard it into despair-filled nightmares.
Back in the principality, Verden had once been caught in this at the start, but shortly broke free on his own, and now, he had no need to even endure such a process.
This level of mental attack had no effect on him, and beyond that...
The opening of [Ainber].
Verden's robe did not permit it.
The petty nightmare shattered like glass, returning to nothing. [Ainber] did not stop there, it struck back at the foe.
Crack, countless fissures appeared across the massive trunk.
Now.
Verden, not missing the chance, further raised the output of his mana.
A violent, powerful shockwave rent the space, striking the Soul Tree.
Craaaack.
As its center of gravity lost balance, the crown of the giant tree, unable to withstand its own weight, toppled.
The starving Soul Tree, driven into a corner, desperately wrung out its remaining nutrients to move its branches, but it was meaningless.
At most, it only managed to summon a single White-eyed, a fake dwarf without even a lower body.
Aaaaaaah...
It crawled forward.
Verden stepped on the head of the White-eyed and crushed it flat.
Silence fell.
[Soul Tree half destroyed. Neutralization complete.]
Alpha declared the hunt finished.
"It's over, come inside."
At Verden's voice, several presences responded.
They were the companions, who had watched the entire subjugation process from a safe distance.
"Hiccup."
Geradin's throat convulsed.
***
That a Soul Tree could be slain single-handedly... naturally, Geradin did not believe it.
Not only because he was a dwarf who had been cut off from the outside world for over two hundred and fifty years, but also because until coming to the Black Volcano, he had only ever lived within the Red Volcano Clan, so the concept of Transcendents was utterly foreign to him.
Even so, he had followed.
His younger brother, Gharun, was no dwarf to speak idle nonsense.
'...And if something were to go wrong, I would have to take Gharun and flee at once.'
Geradin was the village chieftain.
His selfishness had long been directed not toward himself, but toward the other dwarves.
But now—
"T-to think it was real..."
Not only had Verden annihilated the thousands-strong White-eyed Legion operating the Black Volcano Clan's weapons, he had also split that colossal Soul Tree nearly in half.
'Now I understand.'
Why his younger brother had come all the way to the Black Volcano to forge weapons for humans.
If it were something that such a monster could wield, surely it would etch its name into history. For a dwarf, a blacksmith by nature, there could be no refusing such an opportunity.
At that moment, Verden raised his gaze.
"At the top of the fortress at the end, within the Soul Tree's core, there is one dwarf. His presence is faint, but he is not yet dead."
"Then, could it be, the Golden Anvil...?"
"Most likely."
With no reason to delay, Verden lifted the entire black rock beneath his feet.
Mounted on the floating platform, the party sped over the ruins of the fortress's residential district.
They ascended higher.
Beyond collapsed walls, dust-filled corridors of the citadel and stairways with no original shape left, swept past their vision.
Soon they reached the top floor of the fortress, landing in one of the few clean spaces.
Inside the Soul Tree, utterly powerless without nutrients, there was indeed, as Verden had just said, a dwarf.
Verden asked calmly,
"Are you the Golden Anvil, Ugumar?"
The dwarf slowly lifted his head.
"A being beyond species has come."
***
A being beyond species.
It meant nothing special.
Merely a phrase referring to a Transcendent.
More important was Ugumar's body.
Both eyes hollow and empty...
Tiny tendrils of the Soul Tree pierced his entire body, and where his lower half should have been, the Golden Anvil lay tilted in its place.
His shriveled left arm appeared completely useless, and in his still-intact right hand he clutched a radiant golden hammer.
By no measure did he look like a living body.
"This is insane..."
Gharun grimaced.
Geradin flinched at the sight, more gruesome than he had imagined, and Linus groaned, turning away.
Ugumar, entirely unfazed by their reactions, spoke slowly.
"I thought it would not be a dwarf... never did I expect a human Transcendent to come."
"Even in that state, you are aware of what is happening outside. Is it through the Soul Tree?"
"That is so. As you see, we are one body."
Ugumar let out a hollow laugh.
"But stranger Transcendent, what brings you here?"
"I came to use the facilities of the Black Volcano. I heard they were behind the fortress."
"That is correct. Though now buried beneath the roots of the Soul Tree, and much decayed, with the hands of a skilled craftsman, some function could still..."
"Wait!"
Gharun shouted.
"No, damn it. Am I the crazy one? How can you converse so calmly like this? Hey, Asher, does seeing that dwarf, no different from a ghoul, not stir anything in you?"
"Not really."
Verden shrugged.
Though his appearance was poor, compared to Gluttony, who sought human evolution through consumption, this was nothing.
It was the difference of experience.
"Typical of a Transcendent, not normal at all... but not me. Never in my life have I seen a dwarf so utterly ruined. I've lost my appetite, even my will to speak to him... So, isn't there a way to save him?"
Gharun spoke bluntly, but what he asked was whether the Golden Anvil could be saved.
Because Verden was a Transcendent, he thought a way must exist.
"M-me too, I ask the same."
Geradin added.
But Verden shook his head.
"That is impossible."
This place was the center of the great tree... the very chamber where the Soul Tree's core should have been. Yet there was no core, only Ugumar.
'The existences have overlapped.'
In other words, Ugumar and the core had fused, become one.
They could not be separated.
It was no different from splitting a human heart in two and expecting both to beat.
Gharun pressed again.
"There is truly no way?"
"None. And even if there were... is there really any need to save him?"
"What?"
Verden narrowed his eyes.
The Transcendent's insight pierced directly through the Golden Anvil.
"So it was you. The cause of the anomaly at the Black Volcano."
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