Swordsman's Regression: Reawakened as a Necromancer-Chapter 99: Battle in the Muck (3)

Mercius knew what this was. So did Percival, laying on the rock, eyes closed, sleeping sound like a baby.

This was a Death Throe. It happens when a Boss is extremely low in HP, and near the verge of death. The greatest power it has is unleashed, and even more, the creature doubles in all attributes.

Mercius narrowed his eyes. He had killed thousands of Demonspawns and slaughtered Dungeon Bosses, even in their Death Throes.

Nothing was new to him.

Mercius pushed himself up from the splintered wood. He held his Paragon Shield with his hand and threw it behind him.

The shield sped towards where Percival lay, and suddenly paused, frozen in the air.

Suddenly it exploded into yellow light, forming the wall of gold that protected Percival. ⸢Aegis of Light⸥ rose at once, a sanctified barrier encircling its master, standing firm against the beasts Mercius knew would descend upon him.

The Knight took a step forward. The mud beneath his greaves hissed, the acidic geysers erupting like the beating heart of the swamp.

Still, he was calm.

"Your end is not a necessity, lizard," Mercius whispered in the looming darkness. "Despite being a formidable opponent, I simply can not allow for any other outcome but your death."

The Dragon’s eyes narrowed.

Mercius continued to stride. He channeled the core of his mana, and activated a certain Skill.

⸢Sanctified Echoes⸥

⸢Description: An S-Grade offensive skill that refracts the user’s soul-essence through the lens of holy light. It creates seven autonomous clones that possess 80% of the user’s current attributes and move with perfect, synchronized intent.⸥

⸢S-Grade Knight Skill⸥

A sound came. Like a choir screaming in unison.

With it, seven bursts of golden light erupted from Mercius’s back.

They exploded outward, solidifying into perfect, translucent-golden replicas of the Brackenbutcher, each wielding a shimmering copy of the Paragon Blade.

Some went for the Crocs, others for the Draconians and Wyverns.

The first two attacked the Crocs in mid-air, their blades carving horizontal lines of holy fire that sent reptilian heads spinning into the muck.

The water turned a thick, frothing red as the clones trampled over the carcasses.

From the shadows of the petrified mangroves, the Draconian Stalkers hissed, leaping with their jagged obsidian daggers.

Three clones pivoted in a blur of gold. One caught a Stalker’s throat in mid-leap, driving its blade through the roof of its mouth and out the skull, while the other two executed a cross-slash that turned a pack of four Stalkers into a heap of twitching, cauterized limbs.

Above, the Swamp Wyverns dived, their wings beating the poisoned air into a frenzy. The remaining clones didn’t wait for them to land.

They leaped twenty feet into the air, their spectral forms defying gravity as they grappled the Wyverns.

They dragged the beasts down into the mud, pinning their necks and decapitating them with brutal, overhead chops.

Through this symphony of slaughter, the original Mercius continued his advance.

He didn’t look at the carnage his Echoes were wreaking.

He didn’t flinch as a Wyvern’s wing-shimmer sprayed acidic ichor across his path.

He simply walked, the Paragon Blade held low, trailing a line of white fire through the black water.

The Swamp God Dragon watched him, its seven remaining eyes showing its rage, its frustration, and its disbelief.

"YOU STILL COME? YOU ARE NOTHING! A GHOST OF A GHOST!"

Mercius ignored him. He walked still.

To test Mercius’s resolve, it let out a roar.

The sound triggered a seismic shift in the lake, but Mercius was an anchor of gold in a world of rot.

Every geyser that tried to obstruct him was smothered by the sheer pressure of his aura. Every vine of razor-edged fungus that lashed at his legs was incinerated before it could touch his armor.

The Dragon’s glow reached a terminal point. The Apotheosis of the Swamp was complete. It towered over him, its wounds sealed by thick, pulsating moss, its breath a rolling fog of pure extinction.

Mercius halted five paces from the beast’s snout. He looked up, his hollow eyes burning with the cold light of a thousand ended wars. He raised his sword, the tip pointing directly at the Dragon’s throat.

"My Master has commanded it," Mercius said, the golden light of his Echoes reflecting in the dark water around him. "So die."

"NO!!!!" The Dragon yelled in fury. "YOU DIE! DIEEEE!"

It opened its jaws again and unleashed a world-ending green fire, a blast that could vaporize a mountain.

Mercius broke into a sprint, a final, glorious charge.

As the flame poured out, he leaped.

It was almost beautiful. A soldier in the sky, jumping into a flame of death, a sword in hand—his own judgement, and his master’s command.

The Encounter Zone seemed to freeze, desperate to witness the spectacle.

The green lake, the muck, the leaves, the dead Crocs and Draconians, all watched as the emerald fire enveloped Mercius Seagrave.

His spectral flesh burned. His armor glowed white-hot. The force of it would have atomized any being of the mortal realm.

But within the heart of the cleansing fire, Mercius Seagrave activated his ultimate skill, the culmination of his class, his legend, and his unbreakable will.

The skill he had used to drag a Demon Knight to hell with him.

⸢LAST STAND: FINAL OATH⸥.

Time actually freezed this time.

The burning green fire halted. The Dragon’s triumphant roar caught in its throat.

Within the conflagration, Mercius was not being destroyed. He was being forged.

All the damage he had taken, all the power of the Dragon’s apocalyptic strike, was absorbed, contained, and focused into the point of his Paragon Blade.

The blade became a star. A tiny, compressed point of absolute destruction, containing the Dragon’s own apotheosis, Mercius’s fading spirit, and the final, fulfilled oath to his Master.

The Dragon’s immense eyes widened in true, cosmic terror. It tried to recoil, to flee into the depths of its world.

It was too late.

With this great flux of energy granting him their power, Mercius thrust his blade forward.

There was no sound. There was only light.

A white spear of annihilating brilliance lanced from the tip of his sword.

It pierced the concentrated green fire, pierced the Dragon’s defensive aura, pierced the scales over its heart, and kept going, burning a hole of perfect nothingness straight through the colossal body.

The Swamp God Dragon froze.

The incandescent green fire winked out. The light in its seven remaining eyes guttered and died.

A look of profound, uncomprehending shock was etched onto its ancient features.

The titanic body began to list sideways.

Mercius held strong to the scales of its head as with a slow, graceful, final inevitability, the Gate World Boss crashed into the rotten lake.

The impact sent a wave the size of a tsunami crashing against the far walls of the Oubliette.

The waters churned, bubbled, and then grew still.

Silence.

The ⸢Apotheosis of the Swamp⸥ faded. The geysers stopped. The tendrils fell limp. The smaller beasts were dead.

The only thing that remained was Mercius Seagrave, the Blade of Brackenbridge.

...And his sleeping Master.