[MLV] 42. Face-to-Face (Patreon)

A man who forgot his name advanced.

As always, the battlefield he knew was full of blood. The black dungeon’s devils were much more ferocious today. Too many of his honorable brothers fell left and right, their names most likely forever forgotten by history and of this world even if they fought for it.

Even so, I won’t let their sacrifice go to vain.

He tightened his hold on his two-edged halberd.

His mind, connected to thousands of his underlings that he ‘controlled,’ drifted. He began seeing what his underlings were seeing, the battles they saw now in front of him as well. Many of them still tried to advance on the devils’ hard points throughout the battlefield, slaughtering distortions left and right, but they were encountering significant difficulties.

His most powerful units, Vaelrin soldiers who mastered magecraft, were now faltering. Earlier, they, who formed the vanguard, managed to crack dozens of strongholds held by the devils, allowing them to punch deeper in the black dungeon’s territory. This meant that they were closer to their goal of destroying the black dungeon of this zone once and for all. But now, their offensive was losing steam.

Something had to be done.

And he, alongside his personal guard, advanced for this purpose.

At last, after miles of marching, he met the group of devils who proved to be his greatest headache.

I see…

He held his left hand up. Immediately, his personal guards stopped. They were the finest soldiers he had at his disposal. Each of them was a heavily armored, heavily armed veteran of the zone. Even the elite units of the regular imperial army might tremble in the might of these soldiers.

He began to appraise the devils before him.

Two of them stood out from the rest, both humanoid-type. They were clearly the strongest of the group. One was much stronger individually, having already slain dozens of his troops, but the other had strings of miasma connected to hundreds of other distortions. It was clearly some sort of hive mind or command unit, directing the weaker distortions. Taking it out would be a higher priority.

Aside from those two, there were no other noteworthy distortions. If he took them out, the rest would fall easily. Some were already on the verge of falling, saved only by the grace of their commanders.

The hive controller opened its mouth and let out a terrible scream as it charged at him, but for a moment it sounded human. Familiar, even.

“No more!” it shouted. “Stop fighting us, please!”There was a pain in his head as he thought the voice was burrowing through his skull, and for a moment, he stopped, frozen in agony. Then, it faded, allowing him to prepare himself as the hive controller closed in, summoning dozens of hive distortions using some kind of a ball.

Seems like it can summon reinforcements, he realized. No matter. It will all end the same.

Silently, he sent out a command to his men. To himself, he only kept a few. He had grown strong in his years fighting the distortions. He could take on the hive controller alone. The rest would circle around to catch the weaker distortions unaware and keep the other powerful distortion occupied. And once these distortions were taken care of, he could advance further. Only when the last of the devils were finally gone would he finally be able to go home and see…

What…? What were their names again?

It had been so long. His memory wasn’t what it used to be. But he knew one thing: the black dungeon had to fall, or this nightmare would never end.

It was never possible in the first place.

Lucille watched in horror as two more of her elite spirits disintegrated to stop another attack from the Nameless. She fired spell after spell at him, trying to at least use them as a distraction, but of course, it did nothing. She was not even strong enough to damage his skin.

Why isn’t he waking up?

Why isn’t he turning back this time?

She desperately commanded her spirits to attack again, hoping to buy more time, but unfortunately, she didn’t have much of them. Most of her spirits were locked in battle with the rest of the Nameless’s forces. The ones she was able to muster to come with her were barely enough. In the past, he never stayed in battle this long. He would always turn and leave shortly after seeing Lucille. But not this time.

Two more elite spirits died in an instant from a casual swing of the corrupted Vaelrin’s halberd.

It was never going to work.

She had been preparing for years, building up her skills and her army. She was perhaps the most powerful of all her siblings and had mastered an ancient lost art to amplify her military power further. The plan was to charge in, capture the Nameless, and remove him from the exclusion zone while they tried to reverse the corruption. But she now realized that her plan had never been anything more than a foolish dream. How could she have ever thought she could capture this?

She couldn’t even rationalize her failures, despite having many excuses available. The outbreak had occurred before she was ready. She didn’t have as many elite spirits as she planned to. She had not researched enough to figure out how to make a stronger variety. She was fighting a defensive battle instead of being able to take initiative.

But in the end, none of that would have mattered. It was all meaningless in the face of insurmountable power. 

What level must he be? She wondered despairingly. 600? 700?

The fact that she had survived those previous encounters… Even after his mind was gone, her savior was still keeping her alive. There was no other reason it would ever have turned around.

I tried to save him, but it was too little, too late. Instead, I’ve just thrown away the life he worked so hard to protect.

One after another, her spirits died futile deaths. Her mana reserves dwindled as she threw her entire arsenal at him, hoping something would land, but the Nameless never stopped. He was an inexorable juggernaut, and all she could do was stall.

I can’t let the others die.

“Alice!” she shouted. “Retreat! Take everyone and run!”

If it was Alice, she might be able to flee. Lucille had seen enough of the woman’s magic to know that she likely surpassed all but the grand magi themselves. Where such a person had come from was a mystery, but Lucille was grateful she was here now. It was only through Alice that any of them might be able to survive.

And only if I can hold him off for long enough.

She redoubled her efforts, ignoring the building pressure in her head as she went beyond her limits. Controlling this many spirits at once was taxing, and doing so with the precision she needed was even more so. But what did it matter if she overdid it at this point? No one could survive against a foe like this. If she was going to die, she was going to do so after having given it her all.

As the Nameless continued to advance, she thought back to her own life and everything that had led up to this. Everything from when the man who would later become the Nameless saved her life until now. She had so many regrets.

Why did it take so long for her to go look for him? Why did she just assume he would be fine? If she had called for him sooner—if she had tried to properly reward him instead of cluelessly walking away—if she had just remembered to ask for his name, maybe things would have been different.

Now, he was gone, turned into a powerful monster. In fact, maybe he was truly dead all this time. She was next. All her preparations had been for naught.

Every second, more of her spirits died. Sometimes only one, and other times a dozen went down to a single attack. But every dead spirit was a living soldier who survived, or at least that’s what she told herself.

Alice, please.

She could not afford to take her eyes off her foe. If her focus wavered for a second, and she lost control, the consequences would be disastrous. All she could do was pray and trust that Alice would be able to evacuate at least a few of them. 

Her head throbbed, and her small force dwindled, but she managed to keep the Nameless at bay. His advance never stopped, but she redirected him, luring him to the side or temporarily blinding him as she slowly advanced back. As her spirit army fell below a mere dozen in number, she knew the end was near, but she also felt increased clarity. With fewer to command, she could command them better.

She felt like she was going through a breakthrough, entering a flow state as she wove her spirits in with her own spells. Despite having fewer numbers, she was holding him off just as well, if not better than before.

Still, it’s too little, too late.

Soon, her last goliath model artificial spirit was split in half as she repositioned herself one last time. Firing off her most powerful spell at his vulnerable side, Lucille watched in horror as it was effortlessly blocked by the Nameless’s halberd.

This is it, she thought, as the Nameless raised his halberd to kill her.

Then, a shadow flew overhead, and for the first time in the entire battle, the Nameless was forced to take a step back. Lucille’s eyes widened in surprise, then in horror as she saw what had happened.

“Remarque! No!”

Her ever-faithful familiar had crashed into the Nameless with all its weight, sending them both skidding back. But his weight was all he had going for him. He clamped his jaws down on the arm of the distortion, but his teeth couldn’t even break the skin. Lucille watched helplessly as the Nameless swung his arm, and her familiar went flying, carving a deep groove in the ground when he crashed hundreds of feet away.

“Remarque!” she choked.

Through their bond, she could feel his pain. He was still alive but badly injured. He would not be able to fight anymore, but she still felt his determination as he struggled to get back up.

“Alice!” Lucille shouted, looking around frantically.

Alice was the only one who could help. She was the only one who could save Remarque. Where—?

A mental jolt made her freeze, and she looked back at the Nameless in horror as it pulled its halberd out of the ground, marching toward her.

“Ah.”

That was the only thing she could think to say. Her emotions were too complex to even fully understand, let alone put into words. All she knew was that it was over.

She stood listlessly as the Nameless advanced, each step measured and full of power.

A monument to her sins and to the sins of her nation—that was how Lucille saw the Nameless when she first gazed on his corrupted form. All this time, she imagined herself as the only person in Alsatia who would be able to reverse all of this, save her hero, and save his kind from the conditions that created the Nameless.

She thought that she’d be able to stop her nation’s crimes and darkness from the top. 

Yet…

I’m a failure.

She always believed that she was different. That she was unlike other Alsatians, who turned a blind eye to the nightmares of their own making. In the end, however, it seemed that even when she opened her eyes and tried her best to stop all of this, it was all meaningless.

Defeated, she dropped her wand.

Do it then, she smiled bitterly. I’m sorry you risked your life saving someone so worthless.

As the Nameless’s halberd rose to finally kill her, Lucille closed her eyes, accepting her fate. She could already see what would happen after this. Once dead, he would step over her corpse, march onward with his forces against the rest of Alsatia, and maybe even destroy it in its entirety. Maybe Alice would be able to get out of here safe and sound. Maybe she would even save Remarque, Lorraine, and the Vaelrin soldiers who came with them. But, with the Nameless still undefeated and only the inept imperial army standing against him, her nation was going to burn. 

It would be tragic, yes, but strangely, she didn’t feel bad about it.

A nation unable to produce even a single person who would have stopped the process of creating a monster like him didn’t deserve to survive, just like her.

Bracing for the inevitable, Lucille found herself embraced not by the sharp blade of her hero’s weapon, but instead, she was picked up by someone else. Her eyes widened as she watched the Nameless’s halberd bounce harmlessly from a hastily created magic barrier.

Strands of silver hair appeared in front of her vision as dozens of strings made out of hardened blood shot out of thin air to force back dozens of shadowy arms coming from the Nameless’s deformed right shoulder, arms that tried to desperately chase Lucille and her savior.

Shocked, Lucille turned to look at the person carrying her, and it didn’t take her too long to realize who it was.

“Alice?!”

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A/N

Hope this fight was fun. Have a good weekend y'all!