Novel The Max Level Hero has Returned! - Chapter 201

Chapter 201

The soldiers had taken a breather after the war entered a lull period for a while. After all, the Undead had retreated. Now, they couldn’t take their eyes away from the horrendous battle scene.

The soldiers’ comrades, who had pledged to return to their kingdoms alive until a little while ago, coughed up blood and screamed for their lives. However, they ended up becoming Undead and their necks were ripped apart.

If it was simple close combat, without the Pallan Empire’s defense positions and modern weapons, the soldiers at the headquarters could also be limping and raging against the living.

In the end, the surviving soldiers among the countless casualties felt extreme hatred for the monster-like being who made this mess and resentment toward Saintess candidate Alice. They had heard the story of how she had pushed Davey away after a simple conflict.

At first, the soldiers were skeptical. They didn’t think a war could drastically be swayed by a single person. However, they heard a rumor that Prince Davey had just appeared out of nowhere as the west gates were about to be taken and had burned every Undead down by himself. To be honest, it was an absurd story; as such, most of them thought that it had been exaggerated or something. However, their opinions were changed completely as a great being–a huge bone dragon that shot out an extremely cold, icy breath–began attacking the fortress.

* * *

This monster could not be taken down by one person. Its bones were so tough that it could barely be cut by a Swordmaster’s sword energy, and it had an icy breath that froze everyone upon contact.

Everyone acknowledged that it would be too difficult to face the Wyrm Wyvern alone, so no one did anything stupid.

Although there was no conversation between them, the vixen Grand Duchess Kathryn Carabella of the Lyndis Empire, Illyna de Pallan, the leader of the White Birds and princess of the Pallan Empire, and Duke Alla, the captain of the Contas Empire’s Slaughtering Army, began to attack together. The three powers of the empires had joined forces.

They took action not because of their position, but because they wanted to step up and minimize the amount of damage as much as possible.

Instead of killing the Wyrm Wyvern, they grabbed its attention and directed its attacks outside of the fortress. As a result, there was no huge damage except for the Wyrm Wyvern’s unexpected breath when it had first appeared.

Of course, part of the headquarters’ gates was destroyed as the monster flew around, but there weren’t huge numbers of casualties except for the few hundred people during the first attack.

The soldiers hoped that one of them would distract the Wyrm Wyvern and then take its life. They couldn’t see another cold breath flying toward them, so they felt a sense of relief.

Grand Duchess Kathryn, who kept kiting and distracting the Wyrm Wyvern as her flame-like hair and tail flashed, was a surprisingly powerful person; she was swift and strong with overwhelmingly powerful attacks. She made people wonder how a living being could be this strong.

She could have been afraid of the Wyrm Wyvern’s sudden appearance, but she kept up with her intense attacks. Following her, Illyna and Duke Alla attacked and supported her actions.

Watching the trio, the oblivious ones probably thought that the trio could potentially win against the Frost Wyrm Wyvern. However, that was an ignorant thought.

With a huge roar, the Wyrm Wyvern took advantage of a very small window of opportunity and swatted away Grand Duchess Kathryn with its tail.

Kathryn, who could not react to the sudden attack, was exposed to additional attacks, and looked like she was definitely going to be struck.

The moment everyone’s eyes grew wide and jaws dropped, Al, one of the soldiers who protected the headquarters, felt something pull him back. A dissatisfied voice said to him, “Move.”

Davey then mumbled, “Gnoass, I give you my request.”

A huge arm made of soil suddenly shot up from the ground. It grabbed the Wyrm Wyvern by the tail, wings, and entire body to crush it into the ground. And…

“Oh my god…”

“What is that…?”

It was so natural, as if something had popped out from beneath the ground. A huge soil giant, which was larger than the Wyrm Wyvern, had appeared.

[Rest well, little being who has been denied providence.]

The soil giant planted his fist in the monster as he spoke with a loud, mighty voice.

The Wyrm Wyvern shot a breath at the soil giant reflexively…but the soil giant’s fist, which was hot and red, created a huge amount of vapor as it touched the icy breath. The Wyrm Wyvern’s head was crushed.

However, the creature was able to withstand even a Swordmaster’s attacks; it struggled desperately as it didn’t die instantly. However, the giant hand that was constricting it tugged it even closer to the ground.

Boom!!!!

Thud!!

Heavy punches fell down onto the ground one after another. The soil giant shattered the Wyrm Wyvern by repeatedly hitting it with fists that leaked red lava. The hot liquid engulfed the Wyrm Wyvern, which gradually lost strength and went limp.

“Prepare for battle. We are going right now.”

Al, the soldier who stared blankly at the soil giant, widened his eyes when he heard Davey speaking from beside him.

Davey was still a young boy, but his eyes made him look quite intimidating. But what was most surprising about him was that he had just summoned a soil giant.

Although Al couldn’t be sure, he had seen it for himself and he had a feeling that it was true.

“Oh!”

Then, Al, who was staring blankly at the boy’s back, realized that he had seen the boy’s face somewhere; his eyes widened when he remembered who the boy was.

The boy was the Saint who had saved Al, who had been dying from a mutated version of the cold. He was the prince with a bad personality who had treated Al with consideration even though he spoke very coldly. It was Davey O’Rowane, who was better known as a Saint after receiving the stigmata.

And now, Davey had just begun working on the battlefield as Saintess candidate Alice had stopped him from participating earlier. Furthermore, he was the person who had solely stopped the west gates from being broken through. Al had thought that the story was just exaggerated, but it hadn’t been at all.

The monster barely had a scratch even when three powerful individuals, including Grand Duchess Kathryn, who was one of the strongest fighters in the continent, all attacked it at once. Yet, it vanished as bone fragments in just a few minutes once Davey had attacked it.

On top of that, the boy who had made it all happen was acting very calmly. He appeared to be used to this kind of thing.

“What did I just see…?”

It seemed like Al was not the only one who thought that way.

* * *

“There are very few of them now. I didn’t think they would become this weak compared to the beginning.”

“They dug their own grave.”

As Davey walked into the commander’s tent nonchalantly, he could feel a lot of eyes on him.

“Did everyone enjoy their lunch? I’m going to be having dinner in hell.”

Davey made a joke, but no one responded.

“Can I…ask you a question?” A man asked a question and slowly raised his hand in the intense silence.

“Yes, tell me.”

“That soil giant who crushed the huge Undead dragon a little while ago… Did you summon it, Prince Davey?”

“It’s the Earth Spirit King. Amazing, right?” Davey replied playfully.

Everyone looked completely shocked.

“A spirit… How…”

“Didn’t he use holy power from receiving the stigmata?”

Prince Sullivan tried to silence the murmurs by clearing his throat uncomfortably, but he was unsuccessful. Perhaps it was because Davey had just calmly dropped a mindblowing piece of information.

Everyone was basically saying how ridiculous and terrifying the revelation was. Moreover, they wondered if Davey was really human. Whatever it was, they all looked like they had a hard time believing Davey even after seeing it with their own eyes.

“Then…the spirit was…”

“Let’s leave it there. I saw on the way here that more than half the soldiers were blown apart…” Davey’s voice trailed off.

Sullivan dodged Davey’s glance and said softly, “I am ashamed to say so, but yes. The enemy was much stronger than we expected.”

“So you’re not complacent?

“That is!” Sullivan flinched at Davey’s question.

“I told you from the beginning, didn’t I? I told you that it was going to be chaos if you underestimated your enemy. But you chose to ignore everything that I said and did whatever you wanted.”

“B–But there was nothing we could do about that; the people who have gathered here aren’t just any ordinary people, right? Please try to understand with a generous heart.” The alliance tried very hard to appease Davey with a kind smile.

However, Davey had to get one thing straight. He said calmly, “Just have some faith if you can’t get a grasp of the situation.”

“Prince Davey!”

“I will give you some information that you should know about.”

“…”

Some of the men were about to shout in protest, but Davey ignored them. He went on, “Then, I will start with a short briefing because we do not have much time.”

“Briefing?”

“To explain the situation.” Davey then jerked his chin toward the map on the wall. He said, “The guy is a necromancer who is at least at the 8th Circle. Did you know that?”

Everyone began to murmur again.

“Probably not. And it’s not like the 8th Circle is common, either.”

“Of course. The best mage in the continent is at the 7th Circle. Who could have thought they were at the 8th?”

“The enemy is not considerate of our situation, Sir Yulis,” Davey said.

Yulis smiled bitterly.

“But why are you mentioning that now…? The reason you are saying that is…”

“I am just saying that you should keep it in mind. Let’s move on. This is related to what we have to do now.” Davey then pointed to the eight fortresses that had already been taken over. He asked, “Necromancer Lich overdid himself to take these eight fortresses. Do you know why?”

“He is playing a game of war…”

“You’re wrong. If he wanted to keep playing this game of war, he would not have pushed through this foolishly. He would have carefully tested the waters and given us false hope.”

The man who cautiously opened his mouth lowered his head.

“For some unknown reason, he has lost his composure. As a result, he went out of his way to capture all eight fortresses.”

“Why…do you think he did that?”

“The life vessels. It is the source of life and power to Liches. You know something about them, don’t you, Prince Sullivan?”

Davey smiled at Prince Sullivan, who avoided his gaze but nodded. Sullivan said with a sigh, “

Sigh

… Yes. There are great magic stones at each fortress that serve as protection. I never imagined that they would be their life vessels…”

“People often imagine the life vessels to be a heart made up of muscles, so your misunderstanding is not surprising.”

“Then why are you telling us this?” Illyna asked Davey in a formal manner, since this was a public meeting.

“What this means is that we are going to have to kill him seven more times if we want to end this endless slaughter.”

“Kill him…seven times?”

Davey nodded at those who stared at him in confusion. He said firmly, “Yes, exactly seven times. We do not have much time.”

“Why seven times? If what you previously said is true, it should have eight life vessels.”

“Yes, seven times,” Davey said calmly and flicked one of the fortress models. “Because one just died in my hands.”

“Hup?!” Everyone stared at Davey in shock.

“How is the preparation for going into battle coming along?”

“We have enough supplies, but…the soldiers’ morale is unbelievably low. It’s gotten a little better now that you are here, but…”

“Please gather all of them. We will go into battle as soon as their morale is boosted.”

‘Telling people white lies is one of my specialties.’

Was logic necessary in raising an army’s morale in a war? No, the only thing needed was empathy and mob mentality.

Walking out of the tent, Davey mumbled into the air, “Jack, go gather some reliable people whom I can use as wingmen.”

Laying out the groundwork was essential.

* * *

Why did captains give speeches to their soldiers before going off to war? Morale was the one thing that affected soldiers the most and affected them the quickest.

Davey had been using the aspect of morale to his advantage. The effects of the buff magic cast by holy magic were amplified by the strength of the recipients’ determination and faith. This was also why Davey had gathered his soldiers to give them speeches.

For this war, countless soldiers were involved and the combined force was incomparably larger than what Davey had seen before. For the buff magic to continuously be running for at least everyone in the frontlines, Davey had no choice but to increase the efficiency as much as he could.

Standing on the headquarters’ wall, Davey took a step forward as he looked down at the fifty thousand soldiers who were lined up outside. He said calmly, “At first, the army had a hundred thousand. We kept losing people, and now, only forty to fifty thousand of you can still fight. I understand you have gone through a lot. Are you afraid?”

His voice definitely reached everyone.

“I am going to be honest. That guy is a catastrophic monster at the 8th Circle. There is a high chance that he has a few more of the flying dragons that attacked the fortress a little while ago.”

“…”

If it was going to lower their morale whether Davey liked it or not, he was going to try and use it to his advantage. Instead of anger and futility, he was going to instill morale and unity.

Hearing their silence, Davey added, “A little while ago, the Lich, the enemy we have to slaughter, has infiltrated this city by using the Wyrm Wyvern as bait.”

Surprised voices started to ring out. All fifty thousand men began to murmur, their voices becoming as loud as a market.

“Everyone shut up.”

The crowd went completely silent when Davey harshly criticized them. He said, “I am not the leader or Chief of Staff of the alliance, so I am in no position to lecture you or anything.”

“…”

“However, I will make one thing clear. Saintess candidate Alice who was leading you and fighting against the enemy had noticed and attacked the person who infiltrated the fortress, but she lost.” Davey continued as the soldiers remained quiet, “And she has been kidnapped by him.”

The Saintess candidate had fought with her life to protect the army but lost, and was now kidnapped by the enemy. It was quite a familiar scenario. It was true that public opinion about Alice was negative, but it was something that Davey could use in a way.

Was public opinion about Alice going to become better if she returned alive? No way. Once the war came to an end, the Saintess candidate named Alice would already be dead. It wasn’t going to be difficult to promote a dead person to the highest rank and give them a crown.

“Are you going to just take it lying down? When we have a way to win?”

‘I will use you to boost morale.’

“Pack your bags if you are afraid; I won’t stop you. But stay here if you want to win. Who is the person standing in front of you?”

“You are the Saint!”

“The Saint!”

Some people shouted.

‘Mm, yeah.’

Right away, Davey thought that it was a good idea that he had planted a few wingmen in the crowd.

Once the first person started to scream, everyone else quickly joined in. Davey then stopped the crowd from shouting any more and said, “Yes, you will experience a different war than what you have seen before. You are welcome to stay if you want to come back alive.”

It was going to be impossible for everyone to come back alive, but it was better for them to die while fighting.

Then, Davey pulled out Longinus, the divine sword that was in the shape of a cross. He held it up high like he was waiting for something. Then, a bright light flowed out of the weapon and began embracing the soldiers who stood at the frontlines.