The Knight King Who Returned with Gods : Chapter 61
Translators: Nyx and Ririi Rain
Episode 61: Holy Grail Knight Geobrick (2)
A being chosen by the Gods.
The power given to knights who have been elevated into
saints by the Goddess of Light and Justice, who oversees all knights and
teaches justice.
Holy Grail Knights are agents of the gods. As saints,
they weave the holy power offered by the faithful into their own power.
Divine Punishment.
A collective holy law that involves the power of a single
Knight. Each Holy Grail Knight's power varies depending on their deity, but the
Holy Grail Knights of Life and Fertility has the power to crush the planet.
“Ugh… what on earth is happening… this doesn’t make
sense.”
Lee Yong-wan could not believe the reality before his
eyes.
Due to Geobrick's Divine Punishment, <Earth
Crushing>, part of the area where the tribal alliance and the hunters were
located had been crushed to the ground.
Eight hundred meters in all directions, near the wooden
fence where the main army was gathered. Was this what it would feel like if a
huge sinkhole were created?
The good news is that that area is not the area the
hunters were defending. Most of them are where the warriors of the tribal
alliance were located.
But he had just wiped out over three thousand of them.
“Fuck, what? What is that… H, how can that be a person…?”
Backed by the Pantheon, the Holy Grail Knights are a
one-man army in their own right. They are monsters, not unlike archmages.
The hunters fell into panic in the face of a catastrophe
they had never experienced before.
Overwhelming power. What could they do against such a
monster?
"Is that a human......."
"We can't beat that ......."
The Holy Grail Knight spoke from above the Pegasus. His
gruff voice echoed around the entire area.
"Goddess, protect us in the lands we tread."
“Be a solid ground for my brethen to step on.”
"Give misguided souls a chance for redemption."
It was a humane and seemingly noble prayer. But no one
saw it as 'merciful'.
For there was a sneer that threatened to burst at any
moment, tugging at the corners of his twisted mouth.
"Die, you disgusting heretics."
-Ooooooooooooo……!!
-Follow the Majestic Geobrick!!!
The warhorses galloped. The knights charged towards the
defense lines that had been completely destroyed.
""Des──""
""──troy!!!""
There was a gate. A wooden gate, smeared with oil, with
boulders placed behind it, and shrouded in spells.
The first hitter was, of course, Geobrick. His hammer glowed
as he rode over the ground on his Pegasus, sending his hammer flying through
the air.
He hurled it as hard as he can, and it smashed right into
the gate.
With a deafening crash, it blasted through the woodwork.
The knights rushed through the opening.
"S, stop them!"
The leading tanks and tribal warriors with shields
blocked their way.
Considering their opponent's cavalry strength, they
loaded up on spears and built a barricade to hold them off. But in the moment
of clash──
The spears broke on impact with the armors, and the
shields ricocheted off the shieldmen under the weight of their mass.
-N, no way!
-We should have had the upper hand, not to mention the
effectiveness of the imprint!
Cavalry is weak against spearmen. In front of a dense mass
of shields and spears, even the best cavalry would fall apart.
That was common knowledge. But not with these knights.
Their armor was by no means light. Their heavy armor
cannot be pierced by cheap infantry spears, and the warhorses of the Lionheart
Kingdom were not intimidated even against hedgehogs-like phalanxes.
And then there were the knights, handpicked and chosen.
The ones who were honored to be Knights of the Kingdom and commanded by the War
Knight.
In front of knights who had practically been riding
horses their whole lives since childhood, a clumsy phalanx was no better than a
piece of paper!
"Kraaaaaaaaaaah!!!"
The formation was broken. A mere 200 knights were
sweeping across the battlefield against tens of thousands of enemy forces, something
none of the hunters had ever seen before.
"Shit! Don't push, I'm falling!"
"H, help me!"
They were pushed and get trampled. The united tribe
warriors, whose flanks had been torn open by Geobrick's Divine Punishment, fell
into the sinkhole under the force of the knights' charge.
Lee Yong-wan did not stand idly by.
He tore up his treasured scroll and concentrated his
power.
However, most of his heavy hitters came from ranged
weapons. The Knights of the Kingdom, who were protected by the Holy Law <Shots Nullification>,
shrugged it off and continued swinging their spears.
"Block the main dealers, hit them from the
side!"
The veteran hunters didn't need Lee Yong-wan's
instructions and had already proceeded to stab at the Knights' vulnerable spots.
It was a great move, but there were only 50 Class A
Hunters here. They cleverly pounded the Knights' flanks while the warriors of
the tribal alliance handily served as meat shields.
"Not bad!"
Knight of the Kingdom, Gaston, blocked the axe being swung
at him with his shield.
It was heavy. Their strength was no less than his own.
"I can't believe a mere mercenary is this strong. It
must be because of the imprint of the heretics."
"A leisurely assessment on the battlefield, Sir
Gaston!"
Sir Laurent commented, deflecting a javelin flying toward
him from the side. He seemed humiliated that his charge had been halted by the
momentum of the hunters.
"No, I merely marvel at how lowly creatures can
become so strong through the power of evil. Indeed, it's understandable that
one would be deceived by such power."
“This is blasphemy, Sir Gaston. Be aware that your words
and actions may be profane.”
"Hahahaha! Sir Laurent is still so serious. Don’t
you remember 30 years ago, when we slaughtered orcs in the Black Desert?”
"Well, not quite. They are beasts that we always
kill."
"I suppose we should fight them the way we fight
orcs now, huh?"
Viscount Gaston Valshvar, Knight of the Kingdom. <Orc
Slayer>.
"I will... do it!"
Baron Laurent Dominique, Knight of the Kingdom. <Iron
Barrier>.
The flanking knights dismounted. Their heavy armor
rattles as they land, and it was as if a small earthquake had occurred.
The knights don't back down in the face of an enemy many
times their size.
"Light and Justice──"
"Life and Fertility──"
"War and Flame──"
They raised their weapons and shields, chanting the faith
they serve.
""Glory be to the Pantheon.""
A horseman was undoubtedly at his most deadly when he was
on horseback.
Their sheer speed, combined with their mass, was enough
to shatter armor.
But knights were not just riders on horses. If being good
on horseback was the only thing that made a knight a knight, then a commoner
could easily fill that role.
'Wh,
what?'
Class A Hunter Park Chan-soo, who was attacking five
isolated knights with a hundred mid-level fighters, was puzzled.
They had been surrounded, engulfed by a wave of numbers.
Their horses were blocked from breaking through, and they even had to dismount.
The long, heavy lances were put down and the knights wield swords and shields
to act as infantry.
But even the strongest armor and the sturdiest shields
cannot hold up in the face of such numerical superiority.
Any elite force of a small number is bound to crumble and
be swallowed up.
But there was something they had overlooked.
They were Knights of the Kingdom.
Knights Templar.
Though they may not have walked the honorable path of
questing for the gods as attendant knights, they had traveled across the continent
to prove themselves.
In other words, they had been surviving on swords for
decades. By the time they reach the age of knighthood, they'd been wielding
swords for a hundred years.
They were hardened survivors.
They had slaughtered dirty green beasts, ugly cultists,
and fended off invasions of foreign hordes.
They had hunted countless beasts with stronger physiques
than their own.
"O War! Protect me with your holy flame!"
Raging flames surge from the blade. Fire should not be
wielded in the midst of allies, but the flames devoured dozens of tribal
combatants.
“Y, you crazy guy! Are you trying to get your allies down
too?!”
A hunter shouted, stunned by what seemed like
self-destruction. But then he realized that none of the knights had been burned
by the flames.
"Do you think this God-given fire will harm my
comrades of the same faith, you foolish cultist?!"
Encouraged by the overwhelming performance of the Knights
of the Kingdom, the rest of the horsemen and the Kingdom army push forward. The
gate was forced open by Geobrick and the knights, allowing the kingdom soldiers
to get inside.
And when the battle became close ranged, it became a
one-sided slaughter.
-D, damn it! The knights are too strong!
-Someone do something about that!
-I can't believe the soldiers are this good! The
coordination is on another level!
"......."
Lee Yong-wan gritted his teeth as he watched.
Strong.
The Kingdom's army was unimaginably strong.
They slaughter the tribal warriors like machines, not just
in terms of strength and special powers, but also in terms of experience.
'It's not enough to just evenly balance the power.'
There was a huge gap between them and their sides. Hwang
Gum-cheol walked up to him and asked a question,
"What can we do? The Kingdom's soldiers have already
arrived. Are we going to be completely destroyed in a head-on confrontation?”
"I know."
"The only chance we have is now."
"What? That's bullshit!"
Hwang Yeon-ha shouted from the side, and Gum-cheol
shrugged.
“We haven’t deployed our main force yet. From the
beginning, we planned to use the tribal warriors as meat shields and steadily
take down the Field Boss.”
"We did."
"But we can't even handle the Knights, let alone the
Field Boss. We can't do this alone."
They have to give up the gate. They have to give up their
strategy and ask the other Top 10 guilds for help.
"If we rely on the other Top 10 guilds... it won't
be impossible to clear the gate, but there will be a dungeon break before that,
right?"
"Actually... I think there's a smoother way to end
it than you think."
"What do you mean?"
Hwang Gum-cheol's men had retreated one after another,
wounded from fighting the Knights, and as luck would have it, the names of the
deities they served had reached his ears.
"Arianna, Goddess of light and justice, and Pethos,
God of War and Flame. Haven't you heard of them before?"
“Well, I’m not interested in religion. There’s no way I
would know the religion inside a gate in the first place——”
"Lionheart King. Haven't you watched the Pantheon
YouTube?"
"!!!"
Lee Yong-wan's pupils dilated at those words.
"No way?"
"That King, he seems to be from the same Kingdom as
the one in this gate. Darn it, I was kind of crude on my first meeting."
Then the story would be different. They know about the
Kingdom of Lionheart and about King Lionheart, Leon.
What if the King is from the same place as these knights?
"......It's worth the retreat."
"Well, we're about to be defeated anyway. There is no
way to deal with those guys with only 7 times the number.”
It all made sense. If they retreat, this tribal alliance
will surely collapse, but Lee Yong-wan has no intention of throwing his life
away for NPCs.
"Champion... are you leaving?"
Even if there was an NPC who had mingled with him.
"Miss Hildir."
"If you leave... what are we to do? Do you really
intend to abandon us?"
"I'll bring reinforcements soon, but for now, you'll
have to retreat."
Lee Yong-wan did not persuade Hildir further than those
words. There was nothing more pointless than arguing with NPCs.
"Tell the guild members that we're retreating! Hurry
up and leave the gate!"
“In the end, we couldn’t defeat those monsters this time
either.”
"Miss Hildir?"
Lee Yong-wan felt a chill ran up his spine.
The lovely beauty who, until this morning, had whispered
her love in his bed, now smiled a grotesquely eerie smile.
"Sickening, the way this never ends."
Her gaze was still on the leader of the slaughter of her combatants.
The green knight, along with the knights and soldiers following him.
“What are you saying now──”
As Lee Yong-wan approached, Hildir waved her hand to stop
him.
"Forget it. I have no choice but to take a shortcut
this time. Though he won't like it."
A snap of her fingers. That was it.
-Huh?
-What?
It started with a dead body.
The skin that bore the 'imprint' swelled, the muscles
expanded, and the skeleton snapped and twisted.
When it finally took on the form of a beast rather than a
man, the Knights' eyes glared.
"They're using witchcraft!"
"Beastification!"
Barbarians who worship beast gods. By carving the imprint
of a beast on their bodies, they receive false blessings and ultimately have
the power to become beasts.
-Goooooooooo!!!
Boars, bears, wolves, eagles. There were a thousand of
them, having had their human bodies distorted and twisted into beastly forms.
The tribesmen cheered at the horrific sight.
"The Great Beast God has graced us!" they
exclaim.
"We, too, shall soon receive his blessings!"
It was not just the warriors of the tribal alliance who
transformed into beasts. Regardless of gender or age, anyone who has the
imprint of a beast was transformed. Even the hunters.
“K-kuk…! What the hell did you do…!”
Lee Yong-wan resisted by scratching the black eagle
engraving on his neck with his fingernails. He instinctively realized that this
was degenerating him.
Hildir twisted the corners of her mouth as if mocking
that pointless struggle.
"Oh, my love. It's no use trying to resist. The
imprint may not last long, but it's only a matter of time."
Lee Yong-wan was not alone. Hayuri, Hwang Gum-cheol,
Hwang Yeon-ha... and all the other hunters in the allied raiding party were
imprinted, and were unable to stop themselves from gradually losing their
senses.
When he finally reached the point of losing control,
Hildir smirked and clapped her hands.
"Now, kill that damned Grail Knight and his knights.
Or I'll have to start all over again. I don't know how I've traveled so many worlds
and never killed him even once."
At Hildir's command, the S-class hunters charged toward
Geobrick. Geobrick was in the midst of slashing tribal combatants and demonic
beasts.
"Peel off the imprinted 'skin'! That's their
weakness!"
Even in the midst of the commotion, Geobrick split the
skull of a rushing foe. The skull shattered and the flesh splattered. Geobrick
believed that he had died, but that was not the case.
-Grrrrrgh!
The imprint on the nape of his neck deformed his flesh,
and he swelled into a large bear. Geobrick's eyes widened at the sight.
"The holy law should have destroyed his soul."
Geobrick's one-handed hammer is not just any hammer; it's
a holy relic that contains his entire life's holy power, and it constantly absorbs
his holy power to enforce the Holy Law of Destruction.
Like the Holy Sword and Holy Lance, Geobrick's hammer
obliterates the souls of those it kills.
Even the mark of the beast god on a barbarian combatant's
body should vanish upon contact.
However, this man's beastification occurred in parallel
with his execution. Proof that something went wrong with his holy power.
-Uh-uh-uh...!
He kicked the giant bear in the shin as it charged at
him. The collapsed creature then was killed by a hammer blow that smashed
through the imprint.
"Huu...!"
He hastened to gather the Knights and soldiers. If even
he, the Holy Grail Knight, doesn't perform properly, this battlefield will be a
constant battle of attrition.
Although his heart aches, he must send out a dispatch to
the Kingdom to seek help from the other Holy Grail Knights.
"Everyone retreat──"
It was then. A shadow lunged at Geobrick. A two-handed
hammer the size of a man slammed into him.
Geobrick quickly blocked it with his shield.
"Gh...!"
Heavy. He recognized the hammer's wielder: as the
mercenary commander, a man of considerable strength. He wore a black imprint,
and he glared at him. He wasn't the only one.
"Kh...!"
A gauntlet user warrior rushed forward and delivered a
heavy body blow. An impact force far exceeding the previous one was transmitted
through the armor. Almost simultaneously── a blade was thrust at him from
behind.
-Kkaang!
He hurriedly lowered his head and barely managed to block
the dagger's blow with his armor. It was Hayuri with the engraving of a white
wolf.
-Papa pak!
A hail of arrows rained fiercely. Even though 90% of the
damage was blocked by Holy Law, the rapid fire was too much to be ignored.
Lee Yong-wan, an S-class Hunter from the Phoenix Guild.
He can detect even the slightest crack in Geobrick's armor, and he released his
arrows at a very high speed.
The four S-class hunters surrounded Geobrick, each of
them more powerful than before.
"You... you must be bearing the imprint of the
heresy."
Foolish children. What kind of ignoramuses would believe
in a cult that worships beasts?
They should all be killed, skinned, and incinerated for
their lunacy.
"If you were merely deluded by riches, a simple slaying
would have been enough. But if you have the imprint of a beast-god, I have no
intention of sparing your souls!"
Outraged, Geobrick was determined to extinguish these
foolish souls. Though he doubted he could use the Holy Law properly now.
-Bam!
A huge two-handed hammer was swung. The most menacing
attack of all... If blocked with the shield, the fierce pugilist will pounce on
the gap. The archer's cover is a bonus.
And he can't just worry about the three in front of him.
If he let himself be vulnerable, Hayuri would grab his back in an instant and
plunge his dagger in.
-Kaaaah!
Hwang Gum-cheol who was bearing the Iron Bear imprint,
attacked Geobrick with great force.
His trademark golden hammer radiated with the power of
the great beast, ready to deliver the ultimate blow.
"Don't look down on me, you insolent cretins!"
It was then. Geobrick threw down his shield and swung his
hammer with all his might. Hwang Gum-cheol clashed with his hammer, and the
next moment, the golden two-handed hammer shattered.
"Know your place, lowly thing!"
The following instant, the swinging one-handed hammer
smashed into Hwang Gum-cheol's chest. Hwang Gum-cheol went flying across the
ground.
"Huu...!"
To counter the Hwang Gum-cheol's deadly blow, he had to
allow Hayuri, Hwang Yeon-ha, and Lee Yong-wan to strike. However, the Holy
Grail Knight, Geobrick, was still standing, recovering himself.
He glanced at his surroundings. The situation was not
favorable.
Even from the crater where the earlier Divine Punishment,
<Earth Crushing>, should have crushed them, corpses now rose as beasts
crept out.
If all the barbarians in the area can be turned into
beasts, the single group of knights will not be able to handle them.
'I
will send the survivors to the Royal Capital, even if it means burning this
body!'
With that, Geobrick steeled his resolve, and dozens of
beasts charged at him.
"To the Lionheart...! Glory!!"
A golden knight fell from the sky. The Pegasus rider
stabbed through a gigantic iron bear and a wild boar with his holy lance in one
fell swoop.
There was a rider of a pegasus besides himself on this
battlefield? Georbrick naturally looked at him.
"W, who are you?"
The man in gold answered his question,
“I am the Lionheart King. The guardian of the Holy Grail
and the representative of the Pantheon. I am Leon Dragonia Lionheart.”
***
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