Emperor of Steel

The time of darkness filled with silence.

Pitch darkness filled over the sky of Bless, the capital of the Holy Empire.

Suspicious human-like figures were appearing one after another in the dark sky as if they all belonged to the Devildom.

The last one to make an appearance was a warlock in grey robes with gold leaf patterns.

It was Arsene, who was leading the Undead legion.

“Kuek, is this the capital of the Holy Empire?”

It was a place he had never set foot in his entire life.

The Divine power was trouble for black magic, and even Arsene, the strongest warlock on the continent, found it had to go against the High-priests and the Saint Guards.

“But all that is only till today! I have advanced Undead who won’t be affected by Divine power!”

In addition to the advanced Undead, Arsene had the Dragonian power.

There was no longer any need for him to fear the priests.

‘The reason why Bless was the scariest place was because of the Divine power holders present in it. Each of its temples and sanctuaries are enshrined with relics, and they bring together faith and exert power.’

But what good does the relics do?

Since Bless was a place where humans live, it was natural for humans to lose faith, and the Divine power wouldn’t even fill the streets with loss of faith in people.

As an example of that, the Holy Empire hadn’t been given even an oracle for 300 years.

And as the oracles didn’t come, the cardinals began to elect their Pope through conclave.

But, Veronica III, the current Pope was crowned without even going through the conclave, and civil war broke out due to the injustice and confrontation of some other denominations.

It was the zombie disease that was spread by Archbishop Constantine, which created a loss of faith.

During the spread of disease, Constantine got tricked by Arsene and secretly spread the zombie disease, and referred to himself as the God’s chosen one.

Calling himself the savior of humans and choosing one of the God, he gathered followers.

Although the event failed to shake the Holy Empire as it was supposed to, Arsene was convinced. That the Holy Empire would fall.

Ever since that time, Veronica III had implemented reform policies to stabilize the livelihood and national power of the people, but the faith and belief of the people didn’t increase.

In the past, even the warlocks who were killed right away in the Holy Empire were being taken under the wing of the Holy Empire.

In other words, the Holy Empire was working like any other ordinary nation.

And to put a stop to the history of the fallen Holy Empire, Arsene decided to end it.

“My faithful ones! Destroy the followers of God and cut the breath of Luke and that stubborn Pope!”

Arsene, who ordered them descended towards Bless with Advanced Undead.

The reason he tricked Luke was because of Reina.

It was necessary to deal with her as soon as possible, she was called an Angel because of the Divine power she held and the mysterious power which was able to cure the zombies back to humans.

Most of all Veronica III’s identity was Princess Reina, Luke’s lover.

That fact alone made her into the 1st target for Arsene, and the opportunity was right in front of him.

‘I should have killed that woman long back… well, now isn’t too late either. By killing that Pope bitch, Luke will go crazy! Kuekkk!’

No, just killing didn’t seem to end it.

He planned on making her into an Undead just to see how Luke would react.

Arsene, who descended to Bless, accelerated the Black Circle to unfold magic.

He prepared a gorgeous yet powerful one to announce his emergence in the city and the existence of the Undead.

Wheeing!

The moment the Black Circle was rotating in his head, a bullet of light flew in from the ground.

‘No!’

In a hurry, Arsene canceled the magic and tried to deploy the shield.

But, there was someone who was a lot quicker in movement when compared to him.

Bang-!

A bullet of light exploded on the shield of the Lich and soon turned into an explosion.

The light was so intense that some of the lesser Undead around him melted away.

“Kue, no…!”

Arsene, who managed to escape the crisis in a slight difference, frowned.

Thanks to the Lich who threw himself in front of Arsene, he managed to survive out of it.

However, shield magic had melted because of the light, and the Lich which was hit directly by the light turned into ashes.

If it was a normal attack, not just an Advanced Lich, but even an intermediate Lich would have survived.

Which meant that the bullet had Divine power.

And from what Arsene knew, there was exactly one person on Middle-earth who could use such a skill.

“Luke, you!”

Just as Arsene was screaming in anger, Luke appeared in front of him.

“Welcome to Bless, Arsene.”

At Luke’s sarcastic words, Arsene yelled.

“It was you! Thought you would have gone to Brandon right away!”

“I must look very easy to fool, Arsene. If you were really trying to trick me, you shouldn’t have left that note in Angara.”

If Arsene hadn’t left behind that note to provoke Luke, he wouldn’t have had any idea where the next target was.

However, Arsene left the note and gave Luke a reason to find out his real target.

At Luke’s words, Arsene’s frown only went deeper.

“You are reckless. What if I really attacked Brandon?”

Brandon was the political center for Luke.

No matter how sure his reason was to move to Bless, to abandon the place was like a badly placed bet.

Luke laughed.

“I know you aren’t that kind of a person. Because of your inclination to sadism and harass people as much as possible without punishing the person who troubled you.”

“Kuk, I can’t deny that.”

As Luke pointed out, Arsene would always hinder the lives of those who caused trouble to him and his plans.

Emperor Rudolf was the best example of it.

When it was discovered that the Veritas Magic Tower was secretly studying black magic, Rudolf temporarily cut off his relationship with the tower, even after having a relationship of 500 years.

Arsene, who felt resentful, killed the Emperor’s children by cursing them with black magic.

That led to Rudolf turning half-mad and turned into a ferocious and cruel person.

As the Emperor changed, the Baroque Empire fell and perished without even having a chance to get revived.

“Well, call me damned! I never thought that you would know me this well.”

“I have no choice but to know you. Because you took away the most precious person from me and drove me to the point of death.”

Arsene laughed at Luke’s cold response.

“Are you talking about your parents? That and even almost killing you in the Gigant accident, that was a work of the Baroque Imperial family. It is true that I put a curse on your heart, but it is too much to blame me.”

“I am not referring to the Rakan family. I am talking about Katarina.”

“Katarina?”

As Arsene couldn’t seem to remember, Luke’s eyes turned a lot colder than before.

“You don’t seem to be able to remember. Well, it might not have been worth remembering for you. It was something which happened 520 years ago, the thing which made me die because you tore apart a man and a woman who promised to spend their lives with each other.”

“What the hell are you talking about? 520 years ago?”

In Arsene’s memory, nothing special had happened 520 years back.

Rather, many incidents took place in 500 years.

Devil King Saymon appeared and for some reason he intensively attacked the Veritas Magic tower and the Baroque Duke, so they had to recreate Saymon as the destroyer of life.

And when Saymon died in the hands of the stupid warrior, he secretly stole the body and the black magic books which Saymon had.

Learning the Black magic from the book, Arsene turned into the best warlock of all time.

‘There was a rumor that the Devil King Saymon was originally a disciple of Veritas Magic tow… that can’t be, right?’

Arsene’s mind kept trying to think.

Srrrng!

Luke, brought out his Holy Sword Valiant and spoke.

“Whether you remember it or not, I will let you feel the resentment and anger of those who have been hit by you.”

Woong!

As the Aether Globe converted to Divine power, the Divine power from Luke’s body spread out in all directions.

Not just the Advanced undead, even Arsene retreated in surprise.

It wasn’t because of the Divine power of Luke, but because the Divine power reached the level of Saint. He was shocked at the intense flow of power.

Arsene’s heart went stiff because of Luke, yet he tried to put up a face.

“Uh, do you think that you can stop me and my undead legion by yourself?”

Things were different from the time in Anbury.

Arsene had 300 Undead who were devoted to him.

The lowest Undead were 7th circle Lich and Sword Master Death Knights, and the highest being 8th circle Lich and Sword Sage.

There were 9th circle Lich and Sword Emperor, and they were strong enough to wipe out the Holy Empire, including Luke.

They did erase the Zaragoza of Castia and Angara of Irea in just one night?

“As you said, it is impossible for me alone.”

Gently, Luke raised the sword which was pointed at Arsene.

Pat! Pat!

Maybe Luke’s actions were a signal, and flashes shone in the dark sky.

That allowed Arsene to see everything clearly.

At some point between Luke and Arsene’s conversation, hundreds of wizards surrounded them.

They were the wizards of the Holy Arthenia Empire, led by Marquis Reas, and the War Mages of the Volga Republic wearing royal blue robes, and the fairy wizards, the zen users of the Southern Continent and the warlocks of the Black Tower.

All of them ran over to Bless after Luke contacted them.

It seemed possible to assemble them in less than a day, all thanks to the long-distance teleport.

And in addition to that, on the ground were a large number of Sword Masters along with their Gigant troops.

“You really must have some talent. To collect so many people in such a short time.”

Arsene’s sarcastic words made Luke snort.

“Huh, it is because I hold a strong relationship with people, unlike someone. Anyway, as of today, I will clear up all my nasty grudges!”

Shouting Luke went to Arsene.

And that was the signal, hundreds of War Mages began to attack the Undead at once.

In an instant, a splendid battle was happening in the sky of Bless with flashes and magic attacks.

“Arsene! I am going to grind your bones!”

Johas, who brought the warlocks of Black Tower, flew at Arsene.

Johas went for Arsene because he too had a huge grudge against him, just like Luke.

But unfortunately, he was interrupted by a Lich.

“Get out of my way! You rotting bastard!”

Johas, who was angry, attacked the advanced Lich.

It seemed like the attack power of it could blow up as a whole, but the advanced Lich didn’t seem to fall back.

“Damn it…”

The other day, Johas received data on Undead about Luke.

But he didn’t expect a Lich to be that strong.

“Meister, let us take him!”

The warlocks of Black Tower, who saw Johas struggling, went to help.

Johas wanted to solve that problem along, but he didn’t reject the offer of help.

His opponent was an enemy who had to be defeated at all costs, and he had to protect the citizens of Bless.

Because of that, other wizards took the help of warlocks to defeat the Undead.

Luke and Arsene were the only ones fighting one-on-one.

“Dark Abyss!”

“Do you think such an attack will work?”

Arsene released the Dark Abyss of the 9th circle.

However, Luke simply cut and extinguished it with Valiant and Gold Aura.

“Kuek, damn that Rakan sword!”

Arsene’s expression turned grim.

Luke’s skill was good, but the Holy Sword Valiant was amplifying the Gold aura and the Divine power several times.

Therefore, he lost the smile on his face.

‘Impossible. This is a bit early, but I should just draw out the hidden card!’

Arsene, who made up his mind, gathered Magi around his body.

Another skill of his began to emerge.

‘That…?’

Seeing Arsene’s change, Luke hurried and moved with Valiant.

Cang-!

But, Valiant gave out a cracking sound at the touch with Arsene’s body.

During the time Luke was taken aback, Arsene’s body swelled and got covered with red scales.

Huge horns on his forehead, wings on the back, and sharp claws instead of hands.

He turned into an enormous creature over 30 meters tall.

“D-dragon!”

“Kuakk! Yes. The real power of the Dragonian. Now, this belongs to me entirely!”

Maybe because of Arsene’s transformation, but some of the Undead Death Knights turned into Gigant sized.

And the Death Knights turned out to have increased in their power along with the size, and were able to defend themselves against the wizards and tried to descend towards Bless.

Right then, the battle between the huge Death Knights and the Saint Guards led by Arch Duke Gregory took place on the ground.

Seeing that, Arsene seemed elated.

“You do have the power of the warrior and wield a Holy Sword, but you are still a human being. Show Luke who is the greatest being in the history of the continent.”

“You speak a lot for a man who stole Shaikan’s body.”

Luke, who said that, continued sarcastically.

“And you have half of the Dragon’s power. Do you think I’ll be scared of the power which has already gone extinct?!”

“What was that? Extinct?”

From Arsene’s body which turned into a dragon, a red Dragonic Aura shook.

The aura, with unusual energy, turned into a flame and went for Luke.

“Look here, Luke!”

Rumble!

The wizards, who saw the red flames flying for Luke, went stiff.

Even though the flames formed in the air, the heat from it seemed strong enough to take away people’s breath and burn their flesh.

Could a 9th circle wizard be capable enough to stop such powerful heatwave magic?

No, and could King Luke stop the attack?

At the moment when everyone was overwhelmed and in doubt, Luke fixed his sword and cast a spell.

“Eternal Wind and Frost!”

“Wh-what? Zen…?”

Suddenly, a cold wind gathered in front of Luke and extinguished the mass of flames flying at him.

Luke spoke to Arsene, who seemed to be in shock.

“Human being, huh? Right, feel this very clearly on how a human fights!”

As soon as he said that, Luke raised his sword.

The subspace opened and a silver hero class Gigant appeared.

Luke’s exclusive Gigant the Avenger.

However, Arsene’s eyes weren’t on the Avenger. His eyes were on something which stood out a lot more than his Avenger.

A series of magic circles built across Bless.

The moment Avenger appeared, the sacred sign of El Kassel denomination shone in the center of the magic circles with the brightest light.