On one side stood Wolnir — his body seemingly fused with the Abyss itself, twisted into something inhuman in his long pursuit of godhood.
On the other stood the Light Eagle, a man driven upward by ambition, willing to use whatever means necessary to claim a nation of his own.
Under Wolnir's command, the death miasma surged like a raging sea. It coiled upward like a colossal serpent wrapping itself around his body, then split off several snake-like heads that shot forward to intercept Eliphis's spell.
The pseudo-Legendary Orb of Life released an overwhelming volume of life energy. Brilliant light erupted in an instant — even the surrounding black mist recoiled from it — and the two forces met head-on like a blazing sun colliding with a wall of living darkness.
The air rippled violently between them.
As the two forces annihilated each other, the Orb of Life and the black serpents dissolved simultaneously into fleeting flames and dissipating miasma. The black fog blanketing the battlefield churned in every direction, and the shockwaves spread outward with no particular consideration for anyone standing nearby.
There was only one way to describe the scene.
Light pollution.
The Orb of Life had been specifically developed to counter undead creatures and, in theory, held a special elemental advantage against them across the board.
Overlord Wolnir, however, was a different matter.
The Grave Warden sorceries he wielded didn't fall under this world's definition of death-element magic. Those spells originated from the Abyss — and although that pitch-black power resembled death closely enough to be mistaken for it, it was actually far closer to concepts like the soul and humanity in its fundamental nature.
As a result, the Orb of Life held no elemental advantage over the black serpents whatsoever.
Both sides were simply competing in raw destructive power.
That said, the Light Eagle Corps had made one correct tactical decision: they had finished preparing the spell before triggering Wolnir by collecting the light fragments. That initiative gave them the first move before the black serpents could build to full strength.
The bracelet artifact on Eliphis's wrist flared once more.
Every mercenary let out a battle cry in unison.
The Orb of Life swelled dramatically — and broke through the black serpent blockade.
Faced with such an attack, would Wolnir raise the arm bearing his bracelet to intercept it?
No.
He spread both arms wide and welcomed the sphere of light.
"That's… that's just domineering," one mercenary said, unable to stop himself.
To everyone present, Wolnir's refusal to retreat and his act of opening his arms to the incoming attack radiated something that could only be described as a kingly aura — as though the attack itself were beneath his concern.
Even Eliphis found himself admiring it, briefly.
The bearing of a king.
That was exactly what he wanted for himself.
But — there was another possible explanation.
If Wolnir blocked with his bracelet arm, the artifact might be damaged. Better to absorb the strike with his body instead.
And that choice happened to align perfectly with his image.
With a mighty roar, Wolnir let the radiance explode against him.
Everyone on the battlefield instinctively squeezed their eyes shut against the blinding flash — no less intense than a full-powered Solar Flare.
"Did… did we get him?"
The assault captain looked up with genuine hope.
The smoke dispersed.
Wolnir's towering figure stood exactly where it had been.
He straightened his crooked crown, then drove his hand into the ground.
Towering columns of black flame erupted and rushed toward the mercenaries.
"It was ineffective?!"
"Look more carefully."
Eliphis pointed toward Wolnir's skull.
"The attack landed."
One side of Wolnir's skull bore visible burn marks — faint beneath the surrounding darkness, but present.
"But that still doesn't…"
The assault captain inhaled sharply.
"How can that much power have done so little?"
The Orb of Life had affected Wolnir.
It had simply only affected him.
The result fell far short of what the mercenaries had planned for. According to their battle strategy, the Orb of Life was supposed to heavily wound the Overlord — and it was supposed to carry a special advantage against undead.
This strike had already surpassed what Elsa had managed. It had left visible damage where she had shattered her own weapon without producing so much as a scratch. But looking at the still-vigorous Wolnir moving through his counterattack with complete composure, Eliphis's expression darkened.
Only for a moment.
Then it was replaced with something closer to satisfaction.
"As expected of the guardian of that treasure."
"His strength is worthy of it."
He drew his rapier.
Towering curtains of light erupted before him — a layered defensive spell that hadn't been seen before, each layer capable of holding for several seconds, countless layers stacked upon one another. The incoming black flames crashed into them and held.
Taking the breathing room, Eliphis gathered everyone and released a second Orb of Life.
This one left scorch marks across Wolnir's ribs.
However, the bracelet artifact had gone dark after the second use. Its glow was gone. It could no longer be activated.
Without its amplification, any further Orb of Life would fall well short of its previous peak.
"Commander!"
Sali looked toward Eliphis.
The latter nodded once.
Their opening phase had underperformed. The Orb of Life hadn't achieved what they'd built it to do.
Under Sali's direction, the mercenaries pulled back in unison and reformed into a new configuration based on the intelligence they had gathered beforehand.
Against an enemy of Wolnir's scale — who carried the Abyss and lethal miasma at close range while bombarding from a distance with sorcery — melee combat was suicide unless one possessed the strength of Sword Saint Gapar or had thoroughly internalized the enemy's attack patterns. Their new formation emphasized ranged engagement. Only the assault captain and his three teammates were assigned to intercept the Carthus Warriors Wolnir summoned and hold the melee line when retreat wasn't possible.
Believing Wolnir's movements to be somewhat sluggish, Eliphis's strategy was straightforward:
Stay mobile. Bombard him continuously with holy-element attacks.
"Move!"
The moment the light barriers gave out, the black flames surged hungrily toward the mercenaries.
Eliphis and the mages displayed an almost unnatural level of coordination — summoning numerous high-ranking Water Elementals simultaneously to neutralize the flames while generating powerful winds that widened the gap between the group and Wolnir in the same motion.
The timing was exact.
The very next second, Wolnir dragged the Abyss forward. The ground where they had just been standing was swallowed by darkness.
Countless skeleton warriors and Carthus warriors poured from the black mist in their wake.
Standing alone at the front, the assault captain raised his hammer and shield.
His body expanded — grew — until he stood nearly three meters tall, resembling something close to a small mountain of pure muscle. He retained a humanoid shape, technically, but something about the effect suggested a tyrannosaurus lurking just beneath the surface of a human exterior.
Everyone around him simply assumed it was a bloodline ability or a particularly aggressive spell and moved on.
Even Sali, standing closest, noticed nothing that struck him as unusual.
Farther back, layers of magic circles had appeared around the archer captain's longbow. Every arrow that passed through one of them absorbed a different elemental property and grew in size as it traveled. By the time each reached Wolnir, it was nearly as large as one of his finger bones.
The fierce volley was swallowed by black flames.
There were simply too many arrows, however.
A portion inevitably found their target.
As for how much they accomplished — it was difficult to say with certainty. The archer chose to trust Eliphis's plan and kept firing without pause.
The lancer captain, whose specialty seemed poorly matched for this kind of fight, took a different approach: he summoned spirit horses of extraordinary speed — mobility that rivaled a Flash spell — and the herd carried the mercenaries across the battlefield, effectively converting the entire force into an extremely mobile cavalry unit.
Each captain was a genuinely exceptional individual.
As for Eliphis himself —
He summoned two gigantic white eagles constructed entirely from living light, each one comparable in scale to Wolnir himself.
They charged the Overlord without hesitation.
Every strike managed to shave fragments from his skeleton.
Remarkable.
At first glance, the battle appeared to be progressing well. They had a counter prepared for each of Wolnir's attack patterns. Their own strikes continued chipping away, however marginally. If this pace held, perhaps attrition would eventually accomplish what raw power couldn't.
Eliphis was patient.
He didn't mind if this took all day.
But Sali's intelligence carried a warning he hadn't forgotten.
The Overlord was not patient.
Because at some point —
He would summon the sword.
"Hahaha!"
The assault captain had become so absorbed in the fight that he wandered directly into Wolnir's danger zone.
The Overlord brought a massive palm down toward him immediately.
"That idiot—"
Sali couldn't stop the words.
Then his eyes went wide.
Wolnir's descending palm had slowed.
It was trembling.
The assault captain had actually stopped it with his bare hands.
"Don't underestimate my strength!"
He roared, the exertion so intense that flames burst visibly from his nostrils. With burning fighting spirit and what could only be called an extremely questionable plan:
"I'm going to flip you over!"
Squish.
Wolnir applied slightly more force.
His palm descended the rest of the way.
The assault captain's body produced a sound effect that belonged more in a cartoon than a battlefield.
He stopped moving entirely.
He had been flattened.
"…"
Silence fell across the entire fight.
"As expected — he was still an idiot."
Sali had fully assumed the role of the group's straight man by this point. He had actually gotten fired up on the man's behalf moments ago.
The captain's death felt like an omen.
An omen of what was coming.
Or rather — the moment the Light Eagle Corps lost any meaningful offensive capability and could only chip away with weakened attacks, their defeat had already become a matter of time.
If only pseudo-Legendary Orbs of Life could be thrown around like ordinary spells. Perhaps then victory might have been within reach.
Eliphis's white eagles threaded through the black flames with practiced precision.
Then —
Huge masses of dark projectiles burst directly from the Abyss, splash-like in the way they spread across space. One of the white eagles couldn't clear them in time.
It was destroyed instantly.
Wolnir had merged with the Abyss — his methods of attack were naturally far more varied now than anything the original game had accounted for.
Just as Eliphis prepared to summon a replacement —
Wolnir's Holy Sword erupted from the ground.
No dramatic entrance this time. No gathering of divine light, no resonant chant. It appeared as casually as a man picking up a tool from a shelf.
And in the next instant —
It sliced the remaining white eagle cleanly in two.
Boom.
The dying eagle detonated violently. Holy flames clung to the Overlord's bones and burned — but only for a handful of seconds before they went out.
Eliphis's eyes sharpened slightly.
Here it is.
This was the sword Sali had described.
The weapon that had brought Elsa to her knees.
The longer a fight with Wolnir dragged on, the greater the certainty that the Holy Sword would appear. It was the most dangerous element in the entire encounter.
Outside of maintaining maximum distance, Eliphis could think of only one viable response.
But the space to maneuver was gone.
Wolnir kept advancing. Behind him, the battlefield had already been entirely consumed by Abyss and miasma. There was nowhere left to retreat to. Within moments, everyone would be within the Holy Sword's effective range.
Facing the closing walls of that reality —
Eliphis reached into his coat and produced a precious orb.
Even within the considerable wealth of the Light Eagle Corps, it ranked among their most prized possessions — supposedly containing an ancient spell whose name was plain and direct to the point of being almost anticlimactic:
Anti-Slash.
Simply carrying the orb granted its bearer protection from ancient magic, reducing damage taken from slashing attacks. If its sealed power were fully released, legend suggested it could achieve a Slash Nullification effect entirely.
The ancient spell had three activations.
The cost was that afterward — though neither the orb nor the magic would vanish — they would enter an extremely prolonged cooldown.
Eliphis had never actually used it before. Everything beyond this point was speculation. He didn't know how ancient magic would interact with an ancient Wolnir who had merged with the Abyss.
But this felt like the right moment to find out.
The orb burst into light.
A glowing ring expanded outward from it, washing over every mercenary present.
And at that exact moment —
Wolnir swung the Holy Sword horizontally.
One mercenary took the direct hit.
"AAAAH!"
The impact launched him off his feet.
The glowing ring dimmed —
But held.
It hadn't shattered.
Before he hit the ground and died, one of the spirit horses caught him mid-air.
He had survived a direct slash from the Holy Sword.
The ancient magic worked.
Unfortunately, it couldn't nullify the force of the impact itself.
That said — it was enough.
Sometimes surviving for a single extra moment was all it took to change the shape of a battle entirely.
"Hold formation! Nobody breaks ranks!"
The stalemate appeared capable of continuing.
Then —
Wolnir tilted his head.
He reversed his grip.
And used the hilt.
The rescued mercenary was smashed into a bloody pulp with the pommel.
"…"
Right.
Anti-Slash only worked against slashing attacks.
"So the ancient magic really only covers… slashes," Sali said, his voice carrying the flat quality of someone who had run out of emotional responses.
The effect was undeniably extraordinary in its own narrow domain. But extraordinary coverage came at the cost of extraordinary specificity.
Even with the ancient spell expended —
Their situation had barely improved.
Once Wolnir's Abyss finished consuming the remaining battlefield, surrender would become the only honest assessment of their options.
Every mercenary attacked with everything they had left.
Their blows landing on Overlord Wolnir felt like striking a training dummy. They were technically dealing damage — the numbers existed — but the complete absence of any visible reaction from the Overlord was doing something quiet and corrosive to the group's morale.
Eliphis's frown deepened.
He searched for an answer, running every option he could construct against the reality in front of him.
If adventurers were here — what would they do?
He couldn't picture it.
They were all human. Could adventurers genuinely perform better against the Overlord than this?
Then Wolnir made a move that pushed everyone further toward the edge.
He drove the Holy Sword into the ground.
A terrifying surge of power radiated outward from the blade — slow, deliberate, unmistakable.
The precursor to a release.
The Holy Sword's Weapon Art.
Wrath of the Gods.
A battlefield-clearing attack.
The signal that the match was over.
Eliphis retreated at maximum speed.
He had already reached the edge of the arena.
There was nowhere left to go.
A faint crimson light crossed his eyes for a fraction of a second.
"Protect the commander!"
Every mercenary arrived at the same conclusion simultaneously.
The mages poured every last reserve into constructing defensive barriers — layer after layer, stacked as deep as they could manage. When that was done, they stepped in front of Eliphis.
And used their own bodies as the final shield.
On the surface, Eliphis wore a pained expression, voice urging them not to —
But his eyes never left the Holy Sword.
His mind was still running.
Just a little more time. If I can hold the thought for a little longer — there has to be a counter.
Wrath of the Gods erupted.
Pure divine light transformed into a shockwave that swallowed the entire battlefield in the span of a single breath.
The first barrier lasted less than ten seconds.
Then the second.
Then the third.
One by one they gave out — until the first mercenary screamed.
Useless.
Not one of them can stop a single attack on their own.
Eliphis's grip on his staff tightened until his knuckles whitened.
He was preparing for one final gamble.
He had been born with an abnormally vast mana reserve — deeper than any ordinary mage could claim. If he released every last drop simultaneously and detonated it outright —
Could he push Wrath of the Gods back?
An attack of this scale — even Wolnir couldn't unleash it repeatedly. Could he?