TSN 11

Chapter 11

Old memories came flooding back.

The beginning of the great war that would later be called the ‘Guillotine Holy War.’

Countless numbers of undead soldiers had dyed the entire horizon black.

The allied forces of each race – humans, dragons, dwarves, elves, giants, and so on – fought bravely against them, but they were as precarious as candles before the wind.

Then.

Whoooosh-!

A single streak of white light exploded from the middle of the black whirlwind of war.

One unit of the allied forces began taking sudden action.

The flag symbolizing the Pendragon family – a white dragon sitting on a shield – fluttered as the pure white knight order broke through the sea of undead soldiers.

‘For mocking the Order! For deceiving all the people of the continent! Let the great traitor who falsely claims authority receive our swords……!’

The head of the Pendragon family wielded his white blade and penetrated deep into the legion of the dead, heading toward its heart.

And there.

There was Robespierre, the mighty evil leading the entire continent to destruction.

Eventually.

‘……’

Robespierre extended his finger.

And at the same time.

Rumble-!

Everything that composed this world began to twist and distort.

The sky, the earth, the mountains, the rivers, the wind – all of these began to turn black and rot away.

Flash-.

The brilliant white flash that had been dazzlingly bright was instantly shattered and disappeared.

The knights charging on white horses had to be horrified as they watched their heavy armor and weapons rust and crumble away in the blink of an eye.

The horses died.

The knights collapsed.

The entire formation was collapsing wholesale.

Right then, the head of the Pendragon family raised his famous sword Winterrun high.

‘Take this!’

The secret technique (奧義) of Pendragon swordsmanship containing his everything began rushing toward Robespierre.

However.

Swish…….

Robespierre just casually swept his finger to the side once, as if annoyed.

Crackkkkkkkkk!

With that single simple motion, 90% of the Pendragons were annihilated.

Even the head of the Pendragon family, who had drawn his sword most valiantly, couldn’t withstand the aftermath and was scattered into pieces.

“……Right. That’s how it was. I saw it briefly back then.”

Robespierre twisted his lips crookedly.

“Maybe because it was such pathetic swordsmanship, I can imitate it quickly.”

The cheap dagger Robespierre wielded instantly drove George into a corner against the wall.

Clang-! Clank-!

No matter how rotten his character was, George possessed an originally brilliant mind.

So he could objectively judge the current situation.

‘……I’m going to die! ……I’m going to be murdered!’

George wished this situation was just a dream.

Pendragon swordsmanship.

Robespierre was reproducing its ‘ultimate form.’

……Actually, the Pendragon swordsmanship that George used wasn’t perfect.

Less than half of the Pendragon swordsmanship created by his ancestors had been passed down to modern times.

Because all the direct bloodlines who could truly be called Pendragon had been exterminated by Robespierre’s hand.

Therefore, the existing Pendragon swordsmanship wasn’t from the legitimate line, but something passed down as a side technique from humble families who were distant branches of distant branches.

The Pendragon family had made constant efforts to restore the lost family swordsmanship, but the results were always utterly mediocre.

……But now, some unheard-of underachiever before his eyes was perfectly reproducing the glorious Pendragon of the past.

How on earth was he supposed to accept this fact!

George screamed desperately.

“What the hell is this! How can someone like you use Pendragon swordsmanship……!?”

An unprecedented genius born in the Pendragon family after hundreds of years.

George had believed without doubt that he was the one and only being who would reestablish the incomplete Pendragon swordsmanship.

But a being who already used perfect Pendragon swordsmanship was right before his eyes.

Even after just one exchange, he could immediately feel it…… that was the real original source!

“That can’t be…… that’s impossible! You pathetic loser bastard!”

George bit his teeth hard and squeezed out his last strength to deflect Robespierre’s sword.

Clang-!

George gripped the handle of Winterrun tightly with his mangled hands.

“……No! No! There’s no way a pathetic retard like you could reproduce the Pendragon of the past! Even our dad and grandpa couldn’t do that!”

Tap-!

George stepped forward and displayed the ‘George-style Pendragon swordsmanship’ he had recreated.

“This is the true Pendragon swordsmanship!”

“……”

Robespierre tilted his head watching that sight.

‘Then and now, they’re really thugs.’

It would be bothersome to explain one by one that ‘the ancestral glory you’re desperately crying about was nothing but insect play 666 years ago.’

So Robespierre decided to take an easier path than explaining with words.

‘Usually they realize after getting beaten up.’

Robespierre caught George’s blind sword flying toward his nose with his fingers.

Thud!

The blade stopped gracefully, caught between his index and middle fingers.

George blinked his eyes wide in disbelief.

Then a kick suddenly flew at him.

Crack!

Pain as if his nose was broken and his eyeballs were burning.

George collapsed on the spot.

And Robespierre’s shadow was cast darkly over him.

“They were stupid even 666 years ago…… but their descendants have become even more stupid.”

Along with generational insults.

“……”

Robespierre looked down at George collapsed on the floor.

His original plan had been to kill him and process him into an undead soldier.

‘Fainting from just one hit. Below expectations.’

Making such a weakling into an undead soldier would rather be a waste of mana.

He had no notable talent and no room for future development.

Even the meager growth he had achieved so far was probably just family power.

‘What would someone like this become after death?’

He didn’t even have the qualifications to become a Death Knight, let alone a Skeleton King.

At best, he’d be about a Skeleton Elite soldier.

Then.

“……Ugh, urgh.”

George opened his eyes with difficulty.

Eventually, he shuddered at Robespierre’s cold gaze looking down at him.

“Yes. I lost……”

Just as he was about to open his mouth to say something.

Thud-.

Robespierre’s foot was stuck in his mouth.

“Kugh!?”

George vomited blood and rolled on the floor again.

“St-stop. I lost. I lost……”

George knelt down, admitting defeat.

But Robespierre moved his foot again with an expression as if he felt no particular emotion.

Thud-.

“Keu, keuuurgh!”

This time George bent into a ㄱ shape and held his breath.

Robespierre raised his foot again in front of him.

“St……stop! I, I lost!”

George shouted convulsively, but.

“What did you lose?”

“……?”

“If you lost, should I stop kicking you? Why?”

“……!”

George gaped with a blank expression.

If you admit defeat, the duel ends.

That was the rule of noble duels.

But Robespierre in front of him raised his foot again as if such things didn’t matter at all.

An expression as if he was stepping on an ant to death.

Standing before those indifferent eyes, George felt instinctive fear rising.

‘……I, I might really die.’

When that thought occurred to him, George desperately grabbed Robespierre’s pant leg.

“Wa-wait! Pierre! I understand. I, I’ll confess everything. And? Uh. Right. Withdrawal! I’ll withdraw too. You, you’ve been sending kids away like this all along, right? I’ll do everything you want…… gah!”

But Robespierre didn’t particularly stop his foot.

Thud-! Thud-! Thud-!

Robespierre’s purpose wasn’t actually to get revenge on George or anything like that.

Gurgle…….

He was just observing the black ripples that squirmed more and more in George’s body the more pressure he applied.

Gurrrrrrr…….

What he was actually targeting was this pitch-black energy boiling up from George’s entire body.

Innate malice (先天惡意).

The evil nature that humans possess from birth.

And Robespierre absorbed others’ innate malice to fatten his own mana.

Malice Plunder (惡意强奪).

Sucking in others’ evil energy and converting it to his own mana was one of the few unique magics that had placed Robespierre in the ranks of the strongest dark magicians.

Robespierre had marked George early as prey for this magic.

Anger, greed, lust, envy, sloth, gluttony, pride.

While any human lives with impulses in their heart, villains especially live with intense impulses in their hearts.

George was the same.

Thud- crack!

Robespierre grabbed the blood-covered George’s hair and pulled it back.

George’s eyes, whose fighting spirit had been broken long ago, were no different from those of a beast dragged to a slaughterhouse.

And Robespierre was looking into George’s face with no particular emotion, just the expression of a butcher selecting livestock to slaughter today.

“Right. Now you’re in perfect condition for harvesting.”

Black aura seeped out in puffs from George’s body, sick with terror.

This was something only Robespierre could see.

‘Usually being able to absorb even 10% is quite efficient…… this guy has particularly thick malice.’

Pitch-black aura clumped with dirty desires and petty urges.

Despite being a greenhorn, it had been truly a long time since he’d encountered someone with such dense malice.

If left alone, he would have grown into a cruel and vicious villain who would suck the flesh, bone marrow, and blood of others for his own desires.

“It would be good to let you ripen a bit more before eating…… but I don’t have the leisure to wait patiently for your corruption.”

Robespierre reached out and pressed the top of George’s head, where all blood vessels gathered.

And soon.

Gurrrrrrrrr!

He began sucking in all the evil lurking at the foundation of George’s soul.

“Uuuuuuuuuuaaaaahhhhh!”

George’s mouth opened and strange sounds began leaking out.

His eyeballs spun around in different directions, and sticky foam boiled up roughly from the corners of his mouth.

Robespierre checked inside his mana hole.

A considerable amount of evil had rushed in.

It headed to the mana hole in his dantian and was soon converted into pitch-black mana, swirling around.

At the same time, Robespierre had a somewhat random thought.

The breakfast menu he had eaten in the morning.

The land crab that had been full of meat.

Thinking of that, Robespierre smiled very faintly.

“……This guy has good yield.”