Chapter 173 — King of Stone
The gorge was hushed, as though holding its breath.
Fog settled into every crevice, swallowing the paths that linked rock to rock in a pale haze. Each time the wind passed, faint echoes stirred. Sound spread in all directions before folding back on itself, making it impossible to tell who was where.
Through it all, Royce ran.
The veteran mercenaries of the Mountain Rabbits rode on horseback behind him. They made no effort to muffle their footsteps. Their armor was already caked in dirt and blood, and only their eyes remained alive.
"At this rate we'll be caught from behind!"
"To draw the enemy, you have to keep the right gap! Not too fast, not too slow!"
The enemy was pressing in close, but Royce's voice stayed short and firm.
He lowered his torso and swept his gaze along the cliffs to the rear. The fog obscured his vision, but this was a path he had studied dozens of times already.
The rough, irregular breathing of beasts. And they were closer than expected. Black shadows crawled up both sides of the gorge like spiders.
"……They're climbing over the cliff face."
Royce ground his teeth.
They were nothing like the Corrupted. They held a human shape, but their waists were hunched and their arms unnaturally long. They drove fingernails like blades into the rock and found their way by scent.
One of Legion Commander Verhas's weapons — things called Stone-Cursed.
The air of the gorge grew heavy all at once.
‘They're moving too fast. We're losing distance from the enemy's main force.’
The gorge was made up of dozens of branching paths, and if he wasn't careful, the enemy's main body might slip away through a different route.
"Captain!"
At that, Royce wheeled his horse around and charged straight back. He had to draw their attention.
The Neural Accelerator pushed to its limit, his blade flashing as it carved through the nape of a Stone-Cursed. But only stone dust scattered like blood — not one of the hundreds paused. They were tenacious, heavy, and possessed of a fixation to match.
Fweeee—!
The Mountain Rabbits followed their captain's lead and blew three sharp blasts in quick succession. A short engagement in a narrow passage. Fatigue piled up fast, and the number of wounded grew even faster.
Even so, they held until the end.
With flames smoldering at the tips of their blades, they stood against the enemy's endless surge — until the fog broke and the main force came into view.
"Now! Fall back!"
Just as the clash of metal reached its peak, Royce spotted the dark mass and immediately ordered the retreat. In that brief window, dozens of mercenaries were seized by the ankle.
"Aitman!"
"Pull back right now!! Get outside the gorge!"
He could not save everyone. Royce turned away from those left behind. Had he hesitated even once, they all would have died.
Then, fire arrows streaked into the sky. Their light pierced the fog and spread outward, and Basim, standing atop the gorge, watched it all unfold.
"……Time to feed them some rocks. Everyone, get ready."
Amid the layers of stacked stone, a taut silence rose. Moments later, hundreds of Mountain Rabbits streamed past below. The Stone-Cursed gave chase behind them, and then thousands of the Corrupted poured through in a column.
The moment had come.
Fwp.
One sweeping gesture of the hand, and hundreds of boulders went rolling down.
Boom—!!
The whistles and battle cries of the dwarves were buried beneath an ominous tremor. Through the gaps of the gorge, the heaviest rain in the world came crashing down.
Basim looked down upon it all from the cliff's edge and murmured.
"Mountains are honest. They hide not a single crack. But we…… are the ones who go searching for those cracks."
The moment his words ended, from somewhere far below, a low thud came rolling back. And that rumble — it sounded as if the mountain were crushing its own foot beneath itself.
***
Dust swallowed the sky.
The moment after the cliff collapsed, the gorge sank into perfect silence. The sound of a boulder that had fallen late slowly tumbling carried through the air, and even that faded quickly.
Knights, soldiers, and mercenaries alike — none were spared from groaning.
Boulder piles had no eyes. Those caught at the edge of the collapse were soaked in blood, leaning on their comrades for support.
"These bastards…… Serves them right."
In exchange, the passage through the cliff was completely sealed. The Mountain Rabbits gathered themselves and turned to drive the Corrupted back. Some among the enemy detonated their own bodies and rushed forward in desperation, but the shape of the battle already seemed decided.
Then Royce dismounted. The mound of rock had settled hard — it looked as though nothing could break through it. And yet he knew.
This was not the end.
He drew his focus inward and listened to the warning of his instincts. Royce suddenly pressed the flat of his palm to the ground.
The earth…… Was trembling, faintly.
The moment he pressed his lips together, the mountain gave a low cry.
Guuuu—
It was a single reverberation, and yet it shook the blood-stained gorge to its core. Great boulders cracked, and sand and earth rippled imperceptibly from the force of the vibration.
Basim caught that tremor quickly as well. A familiar sensation crept through his fingertips.
"……The mountain is weeping."
Dwarf Nuri Sarui made a puzzled face.
"What do you mean……"
"It's not a simple trembling. It's off-beat."
Basim closed his eyes. From down below, from somewhere far deeper, something was approaching. Solid veins of ore vibrated and cried out, and the breath of something caged crept slowly into the grain of the earth.
"Could it be a Tunnel Worm?"
Rather than answer, he took up his axe and headed for the base of the cliff.
It was nothing of the sort.
***
It began with a small crack. Along one side of the gorge sealed off by boulders, fine dirt and dust came trickling down — and then a red light seeped through from within.
In that instant, crack—
An enormous pressure burst free, and the heap of stone flew into the air. Monsters that had been lurking nearby were crushed alive beneath the rocks. And yet the Corrupted — strangely — showed what looked like relief. They stopped their growling and the agitation they had been displaying, and let out a howl.
At the end of that gaze, it stood.
Arms thick as boulders, a torso even more massive, fingers sheathed in black metal to the last. Similar in size to a human, and yet all the stranger for knowing what it was.
"……A dwarf?"
"Fall back!"
Royce shouted urgently.
Then the boulder pile burst open entirely. A hole had been punched through a passage that should have been impossible to breach. Only then did the Mountain Rabbits recognize an enemy before them, and they raised their guard.
With every step it took, the ground sank deep. Armor interlocking black metal and stone encased its entire body, and grim veins of gold ore ran across its surface like blood vessels.
The moment Royce drew his sword and stepped forward, Basim came sprinting from behind, shouting as he nearly tumbled down the slope — his appearance in complete disarray.
"Be careful! That one is a Mountain-Breaker!"
Without having caught his breath, he stood alongside Royce. In both eyes swirled disbelief, hatred, and sharp wariness.
Royce asked quietly.
"Do you know who he is?"
Basim swallowed then answered. A figure from well over a hundred years past — but no dwarf could fail to recognize him.
"……Uam Bandipa."
He was a king who had vanished from the heart of the Dwarf Kingdom, a ruler who had once governed an entire mountain range, and a traitor to a people swallowed by darkness.
That very monster raised its head.
From every opening in its helm, white-hot molten metal spilled over and boiled. Its voice alone, however, was ice-cold.
[You foolish kin — do you still live a life bound to the veins of the earth?]
Just then the mountain wind blew through, and the gorge trembled in answer to that fragile current. It was shuddering at the sight of the returned king of the dwarves, writhing in fear.
***
When Bandipa took one step, the gorge groaned darkly. The rocks underfoot trembled as if in resonance, and sand stirred in every crevice. That voice, like flowing metal, echoed along the cliff walls.
[The earth has lost its master — your kind can no longer hear the breath of the land.]
The dwarves who had arrived late sealed their lips and stopped in their tracks. The unmistakable shock of coming face to face with a legend showed plainly on their faces.
Then Royce stepped forward.
"When did we ever fight with words."
He raised his sword high. The Accelerator poured out mana, and for a fleeting moment both eyes flushed red. In an instant, Royce's body shot forward as though it had vanished.
The blade carved through the air, and a thunderclap erupted.
But the moment Bandipa brought the hammer down, the very grain of the world twisted. An invisible shockwave spread to both sides, and the gorge walls split apart.
The flames gathered at the tip of Royce's sword shattered into fragments. Within that tremendous pressure, he drew his mana up again and rebuilt the form of Falling Fire. From a single exchange, blood was already seeping from the corner of his mouth, and both legs swayed.
Basim stared at the sight with wide eyes.
"It aimed for the 'grain'. Not just the weapon — it split the very mana apart……"
Royce spat blood and rose again. From the excessive surge in output, his vision was narrowing, and the heat spreading from the back of his neck sent his body temperature climbing sharply.
Even so, he grinned.
"Good. An opponent like this is exactly what I need. There's no reason to lose your nerve just because it can break mountains."
At that ominous smile, Bandipa let out a cold sneer.
[A human fighting in place of dwarves. How utterly pitiable.]
At those words, Basim's gaze trembled the faintest amount. Dwarves do not stand against their own king. Even for the gravest transgression, only one who holds the rightful standing may exact that price.
Sure enough, stares laced with bewilderment landed on the back of his neck. The other dwarves also hesitated to step forward.
Boom!!
In that moment, sword and hammer clashed once more.
Royce's strike tore through the air and drew a red arc of light, and Bandipa's hammer received the trajectory head-on. The impact warped the ground and blasted a torrent of dust and earth into the air.
Royce slashed upward in rapid succession. Three arcs flashed one after another, and with each strike a vivid flame lit the heart of the cliff. Bandipa deflected every blow by twisting the weapon to receive them. The hammer was no small or light thing, yet he parried with ease — and even retaliated with the butt of the handle.
Then he swung the hammer head down in a rotation, and along the grain, the sword light shattered in an instant.
What followed was a massive explosion at the point of impact. Stone and shards of metal flew like shrapnel, and where their mana met, the shockwave radiated in all directions.
Royce bore it through gritted teeth. He caught his feet in a crack in the ground and barely stopped his body from being driven back. His Falling Fire shattered and regenerated, shattered and regenerated, over and over.
At the end of that split-second exchange, they broke apart and faced each other from a distance.
Mountain and flame, metal and blood — a fierce battle where all four collided. Yet the gap between the two sides was plainly decided.
Urk.
Royce spat blood for the second time. This time the volume was far greater. Bandipa, lips threaded with veins of gold ore, asked briefly.
[Decent enough, for a human. What is your name?]
Suddenly, the gazes of Basim and Bandipa met. He understood that this monster was not asking out of genuine curiosity — there was a different intention behind the question.
Countless kin stood arrayed around them, and yet it was a human's name being asked.
It was to humiliate the dwarves.
Then the one who had been asked lifted his head. His jaw was soaked in blood by now, and yet a strange smile spread across his lips.
"……Royce of the Mountain Rabbits."
He said it briefly and without flinching. The same as always — but to someone, it felt like a rebuke asking whether they were watching.
Basim watched the scene in silence.
‘We have already proven our names ourselves.’
In a way, it was laughable.
To be bound by dwarf customs at this late hour. Yet the reason for his hesitation was that he had lost something to place before his name.
[I am Bandipa, firstborn son of the great former king, Uam.]
At that moment, the lost king — Uam Bandipa — opened his mouth. He spoke his name in the dwarf fashion and then stared straight at Basim's face.
[And yet you remain silent to the last. Are you afraid of me?]
Basim stepped forward without a word and took a position where he could shield Royce. Through the tips of his fingers gripping the axe handle, he felt the pulse of the earth directly. It was not because of mana flow, nor because of any technique unique to dwarves.
He kept his brow furrowed low, waiting for his opponent to announce himself. Dwarves took the name of their most distinguished ancestor as their surname. But Basim had never once spoken his aloud with his own mouth.
The air turned cold. His breath was trapped among the stone dust and circled in place.
[Fear not.]
The one and only truth.
It was —
[My descendant.]
"……"
His name was Basim.
The man exiled from Viale, a Mountain Rabbit, and the heir of a shunned royal line.
Bandipa Basim.