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Ruler Vol 3 Chapter 22

 

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Author: Anit666

Editor: Weasalopes

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【3rd person’s POV】

 

“Jack and Shiggurath, you go and obliterate Bahamut. Chloe, Cornellia and Liera, handle the commandments. Regina is mine.”

Sam gave this command to them.

Liera nodded and immediately got ready to go and kill these Commandments. It was a shame that she had to leave the Demon King to Sam, but that was an arrangement they had reached prior to the start of this war.

Chloe and Cornellia, on the other hand, were reluctant to leave Sam alone. A single glance at the Demon King was enough to tell them that she was stronger than Sam, and that he would face dire consequences if he made a mistake here.

That’s why they wanted to stay behind and help him, but the commandments glaring at them from behind the Demon King told them otherwise.

Their glares clearly conveyed their will to not let anyone disturb their sovereign’s duel.

“How about we start our battle somewhere else?”

Almarick, acting as the proxy for the Commandments, suggested.

Chloe was about to refuse his offer, but Liera stopped her.

“Fine.”

She gestured them to move to a place a bit of a distance away from Sam’s and the Demon King’s battlefield.

She then pat Chloe’s shoulder and tried to pacify her fears.

“Don’t worry, Chloe, he’ll be fine. And if something does happen, then I’ll save him. So, just focus on the upcoming battle.”

Chloe weakly nodded at Liera’s attempt at lifting her mood. After they reached the designated place, Almarick started.

“Good evening everyone. I-”

But before he could finish his sentence, Liera had appeared before him and her sword was already on its way to slice his neck. Almarick barely dodged the sword and did a backflip to create some distance, and then glared at Liera.

“Don’t you have any manners, you primitive creature?”

“Manners? Perhaps, you are not aware of the etiquettes of war? Stop talking and start fighting. I have other things to do after this.”

“Ah, confidence. Are you sure that you are not overdoing it?”

“Hmph, you lot ain’t shit. So stop spouting nonsense and come at me with all that you have got.”

“She’s right, you know.”

Abdiel gently chided Almarick and stepped forward.

“Please forgive him for his rudeness.” He courteously bowed. “As you say, let’s start fighting straight away. We also don’t have time to spend on weaklings.”

“You sure are very confident.”

“I’m merely stating a fact.”

Abdiel gently smiled, but the smile never reached his eyes. In his eyes Liera and the others were truly worthless.

Abdiel, the leader of the former ten Commandments. Even the Commandments had a clearly defined order, and Abdiel was at the top of that order. He was the Demon King’s executioner. During the age of extinction, before going for the final battle against Baalgar, Regina had in fact named him as her successor just in case something happened to her.

But Abdiel was also smart enough to realise that even though Liera was worthless, she could not be taken lightly. Chloe and Cornellia, on the other hand, were easy prey.

So he decided to play it safe. He sent a message through Communication magic to the rest of the Commandments.

｢We’ll divide into teams of three. One of you will fight Liera along with me, while the remaining two will handle the other girls.｣

｢Oh, then I’ll go with that girl called Chloe!｣

Almarick immediately responded.

｢Your obsession with her is unhealthy, but I shall allow it for now. What about the rest?｣

｢Eeeeh, we don’t know. You choose.｣

｢Yeah.｣

The other two replied.

｢Fine. Bartra will be coming with me while Mazal will kill that elf.｣

｢Yes.｣

And so they formed the teams.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. Let’s start.”

Abdiel informed Liera and in the next moment, he was already upon her with his hand heading to stab her. But Liera stopped it with her sword. Sparks flew out as their weapons collided. Everything happened in the blink of an eye, but this was just warmup.

“I guess you really are different from the Commandments of the past Holy Wars.”

“Why, thank you.”

Abdiel jumped back and Bartra fired a simple yet powerful magic spell at Liera, which she responded by using a magic barrier. The spell exploded upon contact and dust ensued. Abdiel used that moment to attack Liera. As the name suggested, a magic barrier couldn’t stop a purely physical attack.

Yet as Abdiel entered the cloud of dust with the intention to stab Liera with his arm, the dust beside him moved slightly. He swiftly shifted his position and dodged the incoming strike from above. Using acrobatic moves, he made some distance from that place, but the sword strike followed him like a snake and slashed at him. The slash imbued with mana managed to cut him slightly.

“Huh.”

Abdiel grunted unpleasantly as his clothes had been soiled with his own blood.

“Her Majesty did warn me to be careful around you, and I can now see why she did that. I’ll be more careful going forward.”

Abdiel concluded as he wiped the dust off his clothes. The wound he had received had already been healed.

“Suggest the same thing to that demon as well. That way it would be more enjoyable.”

Bartra simply shrugged. And so the battle between Liera, a person who was now as strong as the Demon King of the Age of Extinction, and Abdiel and Bartra, two of the strongest first generation Commandments, proceeded to the next stage.

Almarick, on the other hand, leisurely stopped in front of Chloe.

“I can see that you worried about your boyfriend. Rest assured, you don’t need to worry about him: he’ll be dying after all.”

Chloe smirked.

“We’ll see about that.”

“Hooh…” Almarick voiced out his admiration. “You have clearly changed from the last time we met. I guess this would be a bit more interesting.”

“Oh yeah. It would be interesting as I cut you into pieces!”

Chloe shouted and dashed from her position, slashing at Almarick. He dodged it by slightly shifting his upper half. Chloe followed through with more slashes, but they too were dodged easily. During this whole time Almarick hadn’t moved a step from his position.

“Hmm, you are still focused on your boyfriend. Do you really think you have the time to do that?”

Almarick jumped and launched a roundhouse kick at Chloe.

“Of course I do!”

Chloe’s speed increased explosively as she closed the distance between them, the edge of her sword just millimetres away from slicing Almarick’s neck. Yet both of them defended against each other’s attack. Chloe had gotten much stronger during this past month and after what had happened inside that dungeon. There was no way she could lose to the Commandment.

Almarick too, gazed into her eyes and saw that the naïve little Hero was nowhere to be found. Whatever Chloe had gone through, it had been enough to bring her to the depths of despair. And so he renewed his resolve to stop treating her like a kid.

And so their battle continued as well.

However, the person least interested in fighting on this battlefield was probably Mazal.

“Yo, can we just, like, stop fighting? I want to sleep.”

He asked Cornellia as he yawned. She was troubled over how to respond to such a request.

“Then I shall go and help Samuel.”

She quickly arrived at a conclusion. There was no need for her to fight when the enemy also wasn’t interested in doing so. But the moment she tried to move from her position.

“No no no no! We can’t have that. Everyone else would kill me if they came to know that I had let an enemy slip. Haaaahh…. Guess we have no choice but to fight.”

Saying that he started building up mana. Mazal was an excellent magician. In response, Cornellia also started building up her mana, but her process of doing so was undeniably slower.

But neither of them moved from their place or cast a magic spell. Cornellia nervously waited for Mazal to make a move, while Mazal prepared to use one of his secret techniques to sleep with his eyes open.

And so their war of attrition continued.

During this time Bahamut used his roar to order the dragons to attack the soldiers, while Jack also displayed his stupidly powerful might by pushing back Bahamut with just a single punch. Yet the battle of Sam’s party and the Commandments didn’t reach a conclusion.

The battle of Liera versus Abdiel and Bartra was at a stalemate. Liera was considering summoning her Sacred Treasure while Abdiel and Bartra were also thinking of using their Demon Gates.

The battle of Chloe and Almarick was also progressing, but a winner hadn’t been decided yet. But Chloe was definitely being pushed back as part of her attention was focused on Sam’s battle.

On the other hand, Cornellia wasn’t even sure whether what she was doing could even be called a battle. Mazal hadn’t fired a single spell: he was just using his overwhelming mana to hold her back. Whenever she tried to move from her position or fire a magic spell, Mazal would do the same as well. Yet none of their exchanges had wounded the other.

Everyone belonging to Sam’s party had been keeping an eye on his battle, and they could see him being treated like a toy by two Leticias. Chloe got even more desperate as she saw this.

“Get out of my way, bastard!”

“Do it yourself, Hero!”

Almarick responded as he released another flurry of attacks at her, which she ably dodged and parried.

Liera also considered helping Sam, but the enemies in front of her were proving to be too difficult. The same went for Cornellia.

Just then, Sam was stabbed in the heart and his right torso blown away. He fell down powerlessly, never to move again.

“Sam!”

Chloe screamed, but seeing him not respond to his scream, she quickly fell into despair.

Not again not again not again not again not again not again not again not again not again not again not again, she kept repeating to herself as she fell down on her knees. It was if she had completely forgotten about Almarick.

“Sam! You bitch, I will kill you!”

Cornellia, on the other hand, tried to go to him and heal him. But Abdiel stopped her as he traded places with Mazal.

“Get out of my way, you fucking demon!”

But of course, Abdiel wasn’t going to let her go so easily.

Liera parried the strike that Almarick aimed at the fallen Chloe, and clicked her tongue.

Damn it, Sam! Is this how you are going to die?! She cursed in her heart.

Just then, the wind stopped blowing, and with it, Almarick’s attacks stopped as well.

Hmm?

Just then, she became aware of the change happening on the battlefield. A shiver ran down her spine, and her instincts rang really hard to make her aware of the dangers.

And then she felt the air of death that brushed past her cheeks, and for a moment she lost all sense of self and reason. She couldn’t make out what was happening around her, but for that brief moment, all she wanted was to run away from this god forsaken place.

She quickly regained herself as she had felt something similar some time ago, but noticed that her entire body was soaked with sweat. Had she not gone through that, she might have already run away.

And then she noticed that the entire battlefield was silent. It was as if the war happening here was just a part of an elaborate illusion.

That’s when she heard it.

“This is war, Leticia. Now, stand up and fight. Show me your gallant figure and defeat the last boss.”

Sam’s voice, laden with an aura so dominating that it made her want to kneel before him. And the one he was speaking to, the Demon King, was prostrating before him with her state dishevelled.

Chloe, seeing Sam’s revival, was filled with ecstasy and nearly jumped for joy, totally failing to perceive what a monster Sam was. No, perhaps it didn’t even matter to her as long as Sam was alive.

 

“Now, come, kill me. And I shall do the same.”

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