Chapter 30: [Duchy of Inferna] [21] Bloody Festival [ 6]
The assassin leader now understood that he could not defeat Aron alone.
Just then, the deepest shadows clinging to the courtyard’s architecture seemed to ripple and stir.
The solid, lifeless darkness flowed like liquid ink, birthing new figures from its depths.
A dozen members of the Order of the Obsidian Dawn emerged with a silent, deadly fluidity, forming a perfect circle around Aron.
Each wore the same expressionless mask, moving with the same fanatical devotion.
A mage at the rear of the circle conjured a sharp spear of ice, promising a freezing death, and hurled it at Aron.
The spear tore through the air, leaving a trail of white vapor, but it never reached its target.
Aron’s intense, almost visible aura of heat neutralized the magical ice before it could even get within meters of him.
The spear began to melt with a shrill hiss, and by the time it reached Aron’s feet, all that remained were a few drops of water on the ground and a lingering mist in the air.
Taking advantage of this distraction, two assassins leapt forward like phantoms.
Their blades flashed, aimed for Aron’s heart and throat.
Yet Aron’s reaction held not the urgency of a warrior, but the indifference of one swatting away a bothersome fly.
He swung his massive blade, Inferna, in a single, almost lazy, elegant horizontal arc.
This single motion was far more than a defense.
The flaming tip of the sword carved a fiery rift in the air, creating an irresistible wave of power in the path of the two assassins.
Their armor and bodies, upon contact with this divine fire, turned to ash without offering the slightest resistance.
The leader, still standing, attacked from behind, enraged by the instantaneous annihilation of his men.
His poison-coated daggers reached for Aron’s back, aiming for a fatal strike.
Aron did not even deign to turn.
Raising his sword slightly, he met both of the leader’s daggers at a single point.
The impact was like a hammer striking an anvil; a deafening clang echoed through the courtyard.
The leader’s strength and speed were rendered meaningless against Aron’s immovable defense.
The counterforce was so powerful that the leader’s blades were ripped from his grasp, and he felt the bones within his arms crack.
That was the moment that everyone in the circle around Aron fell into a collective despair.
The fanatical fire in their eyes gave way to an icy dread.
The same, crushing truth struck their minds like lightning:
"The power of a demigod... is this it? They sent us against such a monster?"
Their years of training, the oaths they had sworn, the lives they had dedicated... it was all a joke in the face of this one man.
They couldn’t even scratch him.
This was not a mission; it was a slaughter, and they were the sacrificial lambs.
Still, they did not retreat.
Perhaps it was the unconditional obedience drilled into their minds, or perhaps the desperation of having nowhere to run.
All hope of victory had vanished, replaced by a blind desire for death.
At the cost of their lives, they continued to fight, throwing themselves into this fiery storm, now devoid of strategy or stealth, fueled only by pure rage.
A moment of deadly silence fell upon the battlefield.
The surviving assassins, along with their leader, exchanged glances that needed no words.
There was no longer anger or fear in their eyes; only a cold, unshakable resolve, ready to pay the final and most terrible price for their cause.
They understood that conventional methods were exhausted, that to bring down this demigod, only one path remained—a forbidden and irreversible gamble.
This was a desperate final assault where everything was on the line.
But their goal was not to defeat Aron with brute force, but to achieve a single, absolute objective: to wound him with that sinister black dagger.
Suddenly, four assassins stepped forward.
As if performing a cold-blooded ritual, they simultaneously pressed their own daggers to their throats and, without hesitation, drew deep gashes.
This was not suicide, but a sacrifice.
Their gushing blood defied gravity, hovering in the air instead of spilling to the ground. The dark red droplets merged, forming viscous, living cords that snaked towards Aron.
This cursed blood magic coiled around Aron like a cocoon, pinning him in place with a force stronger than iron chains.
For a moment, the demigod’s immense power was paralyzed by this profane sorcery.
This sacrifice could only hold Aron for a few seconds, but for the assassin leader, it was a lifetime.
As time itself seemed to slow, a charcoal-black dagger appeared in the leader’s hand, seeming to be forged from the void itself, swallowing even the light around it.
And to deliver the final blow, he lunged forward like a torrent of shadow with superhuman speed.
The instant Aron instinctively tried to wrench himself free from the blood magic’s grasp, it was too late.
From the corner of his eye, he saw that absolute darkness in the assassin’s hand—that baleful dagger coming straight for his heart.
Time froze.
He had no chance to block it with his sword. No time to dodge.
In a split second, a thousand possibilities flashed through his mind, all leading to one conclusion.
Instead of dying, he would sacrifice a part of himself.
At the last possible moment, with an unimaginable act of will, he met the oncoming dagger with his left arm.
The tip of the blade pierced his blessed armor as if it were paper, sinking deep into his flesh and bone.
The physical pain was excruciating, but what followed was a thousand times worse.
The moment the dagger entered his flesh, a cold, soul-draining weakness spread through his entire body, decaying his very life essence.
Black, diseased veins, like a poisonous vine, began to spread rapidly from the wound, up his arm and toward his shoulder.
This was no simple poison. It was an ancient curse that withered life force at its very root, capable of rotting even a divine being.
Aron did not hesitate for an instant.
A pained growl escaped through his gritted teeth; he knew he could not let the curse reach his heart.
With his one good hand, he snatched his greatsword, Inferna, from where it had fallen beside him and, with a terrifying, unshakeable resolve, brought the flaming blade down upon his own afflicted left arm, just below the shoulder.
The sickening, wet sound of flesh, muscle, and bone being severed at once momentarily drowned out all other noise of the battle.
His severed arm, with the black dagger still embedded in it, fell to the stone floor like a lifeless piece of meat.
Aron was now one-armed.
But despite his horrific sacrifice, a portion of the black dagger’s sinister power had already seeped into his bloodstream.
His vision swam, the strength in his legs vanished, and they could no longer support him.
He crashed heavily to his knees, unable to fight anymore.
The assassin leader was like a vulture waiting for its prey to draw its final breath.
A morbid grin of triumph spread across his face beneath his mask as he advanced on Aron’s collapsed form, ravaged by blood loss and the curse’s poison.
This demigod, feared throughout the empire for years, the subject of legends, was finally at his feet.
His heart hammered against his ribs as he savored the moment, ready to deliver the final blow and end the life of this invincible man.
He raised his poisoned blade, its tip trembling in anticipation as he aimed for Aron’s exposed neck.
Just then, the sky split open with a silent scream.
A bolt of pure, blinding lightning, like a spear torn from the heavens, slammed into the center of the courtyard, striking the ground between Aron and the assassin leader.
The blast was so violent that the leader was thrown backward, and the stone floor shattered, spraying shrapnel for meters.
As the sharp smell of ozone and the crackle of static electricity filled the air, a figure stood where the lightning had struck, crackling with small arcs of electricity.
Her brown hair billowed in an unseen wind, and her piercing blue eyes blazed with pure fury.
Clad in a dark blue robe embroidered with runes, Evelyn, the Archmage of the Duchy, stood as if in the very heart of a storm.
With a single gesture, she formed a translucent, sizzling mana shield around Aron.
Then, tilting her head slightly, she spoke to her exhausted comrade in a mocking tone:
"You look like you could use some help, you old barrel of fire."
Aron was too weak to reply.
The world was fading to black before his eyes, the last vestiges of life in his body being consumed by the cursed poison.
Just as he felt a flicker of relief at Evelyn’s arrival, the sound came from the castle.
A deep, gut-wrenching boom rose from the castle’s depths, shaking the entire structure to its foundations.
In response, a hairline crack appeared in the massive mana shield that covered the festival grounds like a dome.
The crack, screeching like tearing reality, spread across the entire dome in seconds.
Finally, like a colossal glass bell shattering, the shield disintegrated into thousands of glittering fragments.
As the magical shards rained down like a silent snowfall upon the chaos, everyone’s gaze turned upward.
That was when the second object plummeted.
A dark shape, streaking through the sky like a meteor, crashed into the center of the battlefield, a few meters from Evelyn.
When the dust cloud from the impact settled, a figure stood there.
He had short, golden-blond hair and eyes that shone with the indifference of a god.
He looked at Evelyn with the disdain one might have for a bothersome insect.
Then, with an almost casual motion, he snapped his fingers.
There was no sound. No flash of light.
But the mana shield in front of Evelyn simply vanished with a silent scream.
An invisible, irresistible wave of force slammed into the Archmage.
Evelyn was tossed through the air like a leaf in a hurricane, her body thrown dozens of meters and embedded into the distant castle wall, like a pebble pressed into mud.
The blond-haired man paid no mind to the devastation he had caused, instead turning his gaze toward the castle corridors from which the explosion had come.
A cold, expectant smirk appeared on his face.
"I suppose," he murmured to himself, "it’s time to meet the newcomer."