Vol 3. Chapter 114: Thirty Years Ago
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
Accompanied by a violent eruption of blue-violet light that shot into the sky and a terrifying, ghostly roar, a horrifying wave of Shadow of Silence Power exploded outward, sweeping across the entire surrounding plain in an instant!
Across the plain, even battle-hardened warriors were instantly blasted away by the shockwave. They flew backward in miserable states, vomiting blood before losing consciousness on the spot.
Those who were slightly weaker had their very souls crushed beneath the overwhelming pressure of this vast, heaven-like might and died instantly.
Then,
under the anxious and despairing gazes of countless people, the enormous humanoid figure standing in the center of the plain slowly raised the pale greatsword in his hands high above his head.
He stood eight meters tall, his entire body encased in sinister purple armor and surrounded by billowing purple mist.
In an instant, the tremendous Shadow of Silence Power permeating heaven and earth began endlessly converging upon the pale sword. A terrifying aura spread in every direction, and the violent fluctuations of energy gradually began distorting space itself.
At the sight of this,
the Snow Night Empire's commander participating in the encirclement, reinforcements from other nations, and countless outstanding adventurers in the distance all revealed expressions of utter terror.
These experienced warriors immediately guessed the intentions of that Demon King-class monster.
“Quick!! Stop him!! Attack!!”
Following the allied commander's furious roar, the remaining allied forces temporarily dragged themselves out of the mire of panic and unleashed their strongest attacks with everything they had!
Countless spells, Combat Arts, and sword lights poured forward like a violent storm, carrying the fury of the allied forces as they overwhelmingly surged toward the terrifying Demon King-class existence ahead.
However,
their attacks were still too slow.
Under the terrified gazes of countless powerhouses, the crimson eyes beneath the Sword Demon's helmet suddenly revealed a trace of mockery.
Then, facing the countless powerful attacks head-on, the Sword Demon slowly raised the pale greatsword, now filled with tremendous power, high above his head.
Both hands tightly gripped the hilt.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!”
The next instant,
accompanied by a hoarse and terrifying roar, a hideous grin gradually split open across the Sword Demon's helmet.
The pale sword in his hands suddenly swung forward!
“BOOOOOOM!!!!”
Thunder erupted as heaven and earth seemed to collapse!
In an instant, the overwhelming Shadow of Silence Power compressed within the pale sword burst forward like floodwaters breaking through a dam. Combined with the sword energy surrounding the enormous blade, it abruptly transformed into a streak of violet light capable of annihilating everything!
With a deafening howl, it tore straight ahead!
In a single collision, it instantly obliterated the human allied forces' offensive and continued charging forward with unstoppable momentum!
Faced with such an overwhelmingly powerful attack, the numerous experts desperately mobilized all their remaining strength to defend themselves, but they were still inevitably swallowed by the sword light and brutally crushed into pieces.
In the blink of an eye, wherever the sword light passed, not even a blade of grass remained.
Amid the ghostly howling of the raging sword energy, the human allied forces were completely crushed. Nearly all fifty thousand elite troops were annihilated.
And even then, the attack unleashed by the Sword Demon had yet to be completely exhausted. The residual power of the sword energy forcibly tore the plain apart and even split a distant mountain peak in two.
That very mountain, split apart by this attack, would later become the Albero Grand Canyon north of present-day Skyvault...
--
After the Sword Demon's overwhelming assault, the plain had fallen into deathly silence.
Even those who hadn't died from the previous attack had almost no strength left to resist. They could only lie on the ground, barely clinging to life and trembling as they waited for death to descend upon them...
They no longer had the strength to fight again.
Among these people
was Grand General Luokefei.
Barely supporting himself with an ice blade, Luokefei shakily rose from the ground. Powerlessly raising his head, he looked toward the terrifying Demon King-class existence ahead.
An overwhelming sense of helplessness and despair uncontrollably surged into Luokefei's heart, making it almost impossible for the general to breathe...
‘Why... did it turn out like this...’
Staring at the figure ahead, Luokefei's heart was filled with unwillingness.
Including himself, three Eighth-Tier powerhouses had participated in this operation to surround and eliminate the Sword Demon. On top of that, they had been supported by a massive number of elite troops.
But...
But why were they still incapable of defeating this monster?
Why had they been crushed so effortlessly...
I cultivated for decades, all so that I could protect this country...
But,
why...
Even after becoming an Eighth-Tier powerhouse, why am I still unable to fight these monsters...
Pain, disappointment, unwillingness, sorrow, anger, and countless other negative emotions continuously surged through the general's heart, gradually causing him to lose control of himself.
Facing the Sword Demon slowly walking toward him, seemingly intending to finish him off, Luokefei even began thinking about running away.
‘There's... no... no way to win...’
Under the influence of these emotions, Luokefei completely lost his will to fight. The battle blade in his hand fell directly to the ground.
The next instant,
he abruptly turned around, mobilized what little battle aura remained within his body, and desperately fled south.
He looked utterly miserable, without even a trace of the imposing dignity he'd possessed at the beginning as the Grand General commanding an army.
However,
before he had taken more than a few steps, Luokefei's pupils suddenly contracted.
A suffocating sense of oppression suddenly descended upon the Grand General, causing his expression to change drastically.
‘C-Crap!!’
Realizing something was wrong, Luokefei instantly turned deathly pale with fear and hurriedly twisted his head around to look behind him.
At this moment,
the Sword Demon, whose entire body radiated a violent and savage aura, had already transformed into a streak of violet light and abruptly appeared directly behind Luokefei.
While emitting one horrifying roar after another, the Sword Demon suddenly raised the pale greatsword in his hands.
Obviously, once this strike fell, Luokefei's life would come to an end.
However, even knowing this, Luokefei was powerless to resist.
The strength within his body had almost completely dried up, leaving him utterly incapable of blocking the attack of this Demon King-class existence.
Moreover, even if he still had strength remaining, with his abilities, there was no way he could withstand the Sword Demon's overwhelming assault...
At this moment, perhaps the only road awaiting Luokefei was death.
‘It's over... There's... there's no saving me...’
However,
just as Luokefei sank completely into despair and closed his eyes, preparing to welcome death,
the Sword Demon's movements inexplicably stopped?
?!!
Huh?!
After waiting for a moment without feeling the enemy's killing blow descend,
Luokefei couldn't help opening his eyes in confusion.
Then, under the Grand General's incredulous gaze, this terrifying existence who had slaughtered countless living beings like a god of death actually began trembling for some inexplicable reason.
Luokefei could even vaguely see several drops of cold sweat trickling down his forehead.
And the next moment, not only did the Sword Demon stop his attack, but he suddenly leaped into the air. His entire body instantly transformed into a blue-violet meteor, and without even looking back, he abruptly shot northward.
In an instant, he vanished beyond the horizon.
All that remained was Luokefei, who had narrowly escaped death, sitting limply on the ground with a completely dumbfounded expression as he stared helplessly in the direction where the Sword Demon had disappeared.
“Huh?? W-What just happened?”
...
...
And just like that, the greatest crisis since the founding of the Snow Night Empire, the Albero Incident, temporarily came to an end.
Although the incident was over, the Empire's terrible performance during the crisis—the fact that an army of one hundred thousand had been unable to defeat a single Demon King-class existence—had caused the Emperor of the Snow Night Empire at the time to completely lose face.
To preserve the Empire's dignity,
the Emperor chose to conceal the truth.
Although only a single Abyss Demon, the Sword Demon, had attacked, the Snow Night Empire's officials publicly announced, for the sake of appearances, that the Sword Demon had led tens of thousands of Abyss Demons in an invasion.
At the same time, the Empire's catastrophic defeat was distorted into a costly victory.
General Luokefei was even turned into the foremost hero who had repelled the Sword Demon and protected the Snow Night Empire.
The Emperor at the time even went through the motions of personally bestowing upon Luokefei the honorary title of ‘Grand General Who Protects the Nation.’
After that,
Luokefei's status rose steadily, while the support he enjoyed among the people of the Empire remained extraordinarily high.
However, faced with all these honors, Luokefei only felt deeply ashamed.
After all, he hadn't actually repelled the Sword Demon.
He hadn't even possessed the qualifications to truly fight him.
Nor was he some hero who had protected the nation.
He was merely a pathetic man who had tried to run away.
But for the sake of the Empire's stability, he still did everything in his power to play the role of the general who protected the nation.
The Albero Incident became the inner demon Luokefei had hidden deep within his heart for all these years, and he regarded it as the greatest humiliation of his entire life.
He swore that he would never allow something like this to happen again.
At the same time, in order to become worthy of that title, Luokefei had spent every moment of the past thirty years desperately cultivating.
All so that he could become truly powerful.
So that he could become someone worthy of that title.
So that the next time the Abyss Demons invaded, he could protect his country with his own strength instead of surviving because of an Abyss Demon's mercy.
Luokefei certainly didn't believe that the next Abyss Demon to invade would suddenly retreat for no apparent reason like the Sword Demon had.
After thirty years of arduous cultivation,
Luokefei finally touched the threshold of Peak Eighth Tier.
His strength had advanced by leaps and bounds, and he was no longer the weak general who had once trembled helplessly before the Sword Demon.
However,
today, Luokefei discovered in despair
that even after all these years of effort,
he still couldn't protect anything...