Free Web NovelThe colossal magic ark plowed through the ice with a grinding roar, like a giant beast reawakened in the straits.
Rotisha sat in her chair, silently watching the rows of golden-armored knights lined up across the deck. She said nothing.
The captain and his first mate stood at her sides, left and right, stiff and silent, like wax figures about to melt under the sun.
At last, someone broke the stillness.
“Hero, rest assured. At your command, we won’t have a single complaint. After all, our chance at survival now is something you Heroes bought with your own lives.” The old captain wiped sweat from his brow and patted his chest with solemn fervor.
In truth, he didn’t care about the lives of those two passengers. But since the Hero valued them so much, he would not oppose her. Everyone on this ship knew clearly enough who held the true power.
The worth of a single Hero outweighed the entire crew.
Rotisha gave no answer. She only said, “Continue southwest. Keep the speed between setting two and three. Not too fast.”
The Starbell Lily had nine speed levels: one the slowest, nine the fastest.
With that, she closed her eyes in exhaustion and leaned against the chair back.
Since childhood, her greatest skill had been slaying monsters and protecting the defenseless.
But somewhere along the way, that changed.
Now her greatest skill was cutting down all things unjust—beasts or humans alike.
In recent years, the humans she had killed outnumbered the monsters.
So many that her heart quaked in fear at the thought.
The muzzle once aimed only at monsters was now often pointed at her own kind.
That was something she had never imagined when first becoming a Hero.
Back then... Rotisha’s eyes half-opened, gazing at the dark sky, dazed.
She was just seventeen when she took the Hero’s title.
Her mentor had draped the sash with the Hero’s crest around her neck. The icy crystal sigil of the [Reversal Hero] burned against her skin.
From the stands, mocking laughter had sounded. A young noble deliberately let his sword clatter to the ground. She had hunched her shoulders until her mentor’s staff struck the floor with a thundering crack.
“Rotisha,” the old man’s dry hand pressed against her trembling back. “The true weight lies not in the crest itself, but in how much fear you choose to bear when you take on the name.”
A Hero must be fearless. That was what her mentor had said.
“So it’s been ten years since that day I became a Hero...”
Ten years were enough to change someone. Enough to destroy them.
Those who had once stood on the front lines, facing monsters and danger, were gone—replaced by others. Even her mentor had fallen one unknown night.
If not for her authority leaning toward support, leaving her most often on the second line, perhaps she too would have been just another name on the stone of the fallen.
How laughable—those who lived longest were always the short ones standing in the tall man’s shadow.
“All right, pass my orders to the control room. If you’ve nothing else to do, you may leave. No need to stand guard here,” Rotisha said calmly, eyes shutting once more.
“Y-yes, at once...” The captain didn’t understand why she would limit their speed. Why not go full throttle and rush to the rescue? But he held his tongue, relayed the order to the first mate, then quietly returned to his place.
Time passed.
“High-energy magic reaction detected ahead!” The thin first mate’s voice rang from the communicator in the control room. “Two forces clashing, causing an explosion! There’s a battle up ahead!”
Officers and technicians tensed. They knew what it meant—their objective was right before them.
If they could crush the monsters, the Starbell Lily would finally be free of this cursed water and reach the true battlefield. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
These monsters had delayed them far too long.
“Secondary cannons preparing to fire, target locked ahead!” one operator reported, excitement lighting his face. He already imagined victory.
“The magical surge is interfering with our signals. We can’t reach the captain! We’ll have to use wired communication only! First mate, the line is yours!”
“Received! Resonance scans continuing. Heavy monster concentrations under the ice ahead. To avoid friendly fire, request authorization for toxin bombs!”
“Hero has already dispatched knights to clear the perimeter! Bad news—monsters escaping southeast! Ready the secondary cannons to intercept!”
Reports flew thick and fast, but the first mate couldn’t wait. He turned and rushed to the deck, eager to deliver good news in person.
That silver-glowing giant stag... such overwhelming power. Monsters that could withstand almost anything were as fragile as infants in her grasp. With such an ally, surely victory was assured.
...
Aislin’s body brimmed with Oriana’s divine power. She felt weightless, as though she were back in her homeland forest, perched atop the highest tree, stretching her arms toward the sun, swaying like a feather in the wind.
Crunch!
She stamped down. A lizard-like beast shattered beneath her hoof, shrieking on the blood-red ice.
This wasn’t her first time wielding this power, but still she couldn’t fully control it. A wandering thought, and her strength would surge out clumsily.
Ha. Aislin almost laughed. To be distracted at a time like this.
She halted, staring toward the ark pushing through the broken ice.
“Well, you came faster than I thought,” she murmured, eyes on the ghostly blue ark. “I’d have liked to play one more elven song for that human brat...”
As her words faded, the energies circling her body sped like a galaxy in motion. Monsters floundered in the thick tide, trapped as silver waves rolled over them, the air ringing with their grinding teeth.
Aislin stood unshaken, slaughtering them with divine power.
One. Two. Four. Eight...
She was a trap designed for monsters, drawing them endlessly into the abyss of death.
If she held this state long enough, the whole swarm would be reduced to ash.
Aislin wanted to see it—whether the hidden beast weaving illusions here would mourn or rage at the loss of so many slaves.
“My god...” the captain gasped at the rail. May the heavens forgive his earlier disdain.
He had thought she’d be torn apart by the horde. Yet here she was, grinding the tide down to nothing.
At first she fought crudely, brute force and raw size smashing monsters flat. But gradually, her movements grew refined, her power flowing seamlessly, gentle as silk.
At last, she fused elven magic with silver radiance, forming a vortex of destruction across the ice. The frozen surface shattered into countless blades, whirling in the maelstrom to tear monsters apart.
The holy call of the silver deer rang across the waters, a hymn of slaughter.
“Hero, shall we assist her?” the captain asked nervously. To him, this was the perfect moment to strike from both sides and annihilate the horde.
Rotisha gave no reply. This was annihilation already.
Unless the monster behind it all revealed itself, the swarm had no fate but death.
“...Wait a little longer.”
Wait? The captain opened his mouth to ask, but shut it. He turned back, silent, to the radiant stag blazing like a tiger among sheep.
Wait a little longer, Rotisha told herself. If Aislin killed them all, it would end ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) here. No more enemies, no more... hm? freewebnovel.cσ๓
No—wrong!
Whipping around, she saw it. Beneath Aislin’s ice, a shadow. Silent, vast, like a gaping maw of the abyss, suddenly yawning beneath her feet.
“Aislin! Look out!” Rotisha leapt up, shouting.
But the roar of wind drowned her voice. Aislin strode forward unflinching, even raising her voice in an elven song the others could not understand.
That melody—Rotisha swore she had heard it before. But there was no time to recall.
Before the stunned captain’s eyes, Rotisha pushed her authority to the limit, weaving it into her spear, and hurled it like lightning toward the center of the battlefield.
Her authority: [Reversal]. To turn back objects, life, events, even concepts—the scope and time tied to her own level. Her mentor had warned her: it was no simple rewinding, but the forbidden weaving of causality itself. Like every Hero’s power, it could be overdrawn, but at great risk.
Aislin halted suddenly, tossing aside the shredded monster corpse in her grasp. She lifted her gaze skyward.
Through the dark air streaked the long spear, glowing ghostly blue, like a falling star.
The monsters around her fled in panic, as though they had glimpsed something worse than death.
Rotisha saw the ice beneath Aislin bulge and crack, something massive straining to burst through.
Rumble!
Aislin reached out, catching the spear blazing with blue light.
And then the black shadow erupted, splitting the ice wide, swallowing Aislin and the scattering monsters in one vast gulp.
On the ship, knights and sailors froze, their cries of triumph vanishing into silence. From the height of battle fervor, the deck fell into dead stillness.
