He felt a pang of genuine regret. Fuegoleon Vermillion was a true leader, a man of profound integrity who inspired greatness in everyone around him. And he was flying directly into the carefully laid, inescapable trap that Patolli had set for him. But Lencar couldn't interfere. Not yet. To move now would be to expose his entire hand before the true pieces were on the board.
Lencar shifted his sensory focus back to the streets below.
The arrival of the Captains and the senior Magic Knights drastically altered the landscape of the battle.
Lencar watched as seasoned veterans from the Silver Eagles and the Crimson Lion Kings descended upon the shambling hordes. They didn't fight with the desperate, frantic energy of the junior knights. They fought with surgical, devastating precision.
A senior knight unleashed a barrage of razor-sharp wind blades, cleanly decapitating three zombies in a single strike. Another summoned a massive earthen hammer, crushing a cluster of the undead into the pavement.
But as Lencar observed through his sensory web, he noticed the sudden, alarming shift in the knights' mana fluctuations. Surprise. Confusion. And then, creeping dread.
The zombies they had just cut down weren't stopping.
The decapitated bodies continued to crawl forward, their hands clawing blindly at the boots of the knights. The corpses that had been severed in half by wind blades dragged their torsos through the mud, their necrotic mana stitching their ruined flesh together in a grotesque, horrifying display of unnatural resilience. Rades's magic was fueled by raw hatred, and it refused to let the dead rest.
"They're still moving!" a panicked knight yelled, his voice carrying through the chaotic air currents to Lencar's ears. "I cut it in half, and it's still coming!"
"Don't just cut them!" a commanding, veteran voice roared back. "Their mana tethers are keeping the flesh animated! You have to obliterate them completely! Destroy the bodies until there's nothing left to move!"
The realization spread quickly through the ranks. The Magic Knights adapted with terrifying efficiency.
They abandoned their precise, slashing attacks. The streets lit up with massive, high-yield area-of-effect spells. Mages summoned roaring pillars of fire that turned the undead into piles of fine, gray ash. They created crushing localized gravity wells that pulverized the corpses into unrecognizable paste. They used explosive lightning magic to completely vaporize the necrotic tissue.
The battle rapidly took a turn for the better. The overwhelming numbers of the zombie horde meant nothing when faced with the absolute, destructive annihilation brought by the senior Magic Knights. The streets began to run thick with mud, ash, and the remnants of Rades's vanguard.
While the elite forces of the Clover Kingdom were busy cleansing the main avenues, Lencar shifted his sensory web toward a more isolated, chaotic disturbance near the edge of the central district.
The mana signature there was bizarre. Or rather, it was defined by an absolute, gaping absence of mana, surrounded by the sickly, pulsing purple aura of high-tier necromancy.
Lencar focused his mind, tuning into the vibrations.
In a ruined, burning courtyard, separated from the main Magic Knight forces, a magicless boy was currently fighting his own brutal, solitary war against one of the architect of the invasion.
Asta stood in the center of the debris, his chest heaving, his muscles straining against the immense weight of the rusted Demon-Slayer Sword resting on his shoulder. He was covered in mud, soot, and shallow cuts, but his green eyes burned with an unyielding, ferocious defiance.
Standing atop a pile of shattered masonry a few yards away was Rades Spirito. The necromancer looked unhinged, his stitched face twisted into a mask of arrogant mockery. Floating around him were several of his most heavily modified, elite soul corpses.
"You're a persistent little bug, aren't you?" Rades sneered, waving his grimoire. "No magic, no noble blood, just a loud mouth and a rusty piece of scrap metal. Do you really think you can stop me? I am the one who brings despair to this wretched kingdom!"
Asta didn't monologue. He didn't waste his breath trying to argue with the madman.
"I'm going to smash that stupid grin right off your face!" Asta roared, kicking off the cracked pavement with explosive, terrifying physical speed.
Asta closed the distance in a fraction of a second, raising the massive Demon-Slayer Sword high above his head. He brought it down in a devastating, vertical cleave.
Rades casually flicked his wrist. "Jimmy. Squash him."
From the shadows behind Rades, a monstrous, towering soul corpse lunged forward. Jimmy was easily twice the size of a normal man, his rotting flesh reinforced with heavy, bolted iron plating.
Asta had to instantly abort his attack on Rades, twisting his body mid-air to intercept the incoming behemoth.
CLANG!
The rusted flat of the Demon-Slayer Sword collided with Jimmy's heavily armored forearm. The sheer kinetic impact sent a shockwave through the courtyard, cracking the stone beneath Asta's boots.
Lencar watched the exchange closely through his sensory magic. He noted the heavy, laborious nature of Asta's movements.
In a different timeline, a different version of this battle, Asta would have long found his second weapon—the lighter, more agile Demon-Dweller Sword—allowing him to dual-wield, parry magic, and move with a much more fluid, relentless momentum.
But not here. He only had the massive, cumbersome bulk of the Demon-Slayer. It was a broadsword meant for two hands, a blunt instrument of absolute negation. It made Asta's fighting style incredibly gritty, heavily reliant on raw physical endurance and brute-force parrying.
Jimmy roared a guttural, wet sound, throwing a devastating left hook aimed at Asta's ribs.
Asta couldn't dodge in time due to the weight of his weapon. He gritted his teeth, planting his feet and bringing the broad side of the black sword up to block.
The impact threw Asta backward, his boots skidding across the dirt. He dug his heels in, halting his momentum just before he crashed into a ruined wall. He was breathing heavily, the physical toll of wielding the massive sword against enhanced, tireless undead monstrosities beginning to show.
"What's wrong, magicless boy?" Rades cackled, launching three rapid-fire bolts of highly condensed, corrosive necrotic mana from his grimoire. "Getting tired already? You can't even get past my pets!"
Asta didn't back down. With a furious yell, he swung the Demon-Slayer Sword in a wide, horizontal arc.
SHREEEONG!
The anti-magic blade sliced through the three necrotic bolts effortlessly, the dark purple magic sizzling out of existence upon contact with the rusted iron.
"I told you... I'm not giving up!" Asta shouted, his voice hoarse but unbroken.
He realized that fighting Jimmy head-on with only the heavy sword was a losing battle of attrition. He needed to be smarter. He needed to use the environment.
Asta charged forward again, but this time, he didn't aim for the hulking corpse. He ran directly toward the ruined stone wall to his left. He leaped into the air, planting his boots firmly against the vertical masonry, and used his immense leg strength to launch himself off the wall like a human cannonball, changing his trajectory entirely.
He flew over Jimmy's head, completely bypassing the giant zombie's guard.
Rades's eyes went wide. "Intercept him!"
Two lesser, incredibly fast soul corpses leaped into the air, their claws extended to tear Asta out of the sky.
Asta tightened his grip on the hilt of his massive sword with both hands. He spun his body violently in mid-air, utilizing his own momentum to swing the heavy blade in a full, 360-degree rotation.
The anti-magic sword cleaved through the two airborne zombies, instantly shattering the necrotic tethers binding their souls to their rotting flesh. They dissolved into ash before they even hit the ground.