Hard Carried by My Sword-Chapter 171

It’s over... Leon thought.

With the Holy Sword buried in his enemy’s heart, Leon barely kept himself upright on his knees and let out a long sigh. Though he stood at the center of the blazing inferno, not a single strand of his hair was singed.

The Aura Blade Leon had manifested, Solaris the Sun Sword, recognized its wielder, burning only those he marked as enemies, such as Ammut, Babi, Mnevis, Apis, who each surrendered their rotting bodies and souls to the holy fire. Their rampage stilled, and they found rest as if it had all been a lie.

They had been bound to Nephren-Ka in death, but that didn’t change the fact that they were still sacred beasts. When the false pharaoh became fuel for the sun, they sensed the presence of Ra himself. Seizing that chance, they cut free from his dominion and severed their false lives.

With the main force of the undead legions gone, the balance of the battlefield collapsed in an instant.

In the burning sun that flared brighter under the weight of his own curse, Nephren-Ka screamed in agony.

“This... this cannot be! My power is fading! My kingdom, my authority...!

In life, he had sacrificed countless subjects to feed his greed. In death, he clung to an evil god’s carcass to escape judgment and avoid falling into Duat. His last wails were nothing but poetic justice.

Flesh melted, bone turned to ash. The flame reached even into the realm of spirit, latching onto the soul polluted by the magic of the other dimension.

“Aah...! O, sun! You again! Again, you steal the glory that should have been mine!”

As his mind unraveled, visions flooded Nephren-Ka. He saw again the day his live sacrifices to an exogod were exposed, the throne lost, and his flight to a faraway land. He had refused to accept his fall, performed the rites again, and crowned himself king of death.

He needed no vassals. He needed no people. What he needed was only his own greatness and glory, with the rest condemned to absolute slavery. The sole purpose of those slaves was to uphold him, Nephren-Ka, as their god.

“And you would deny me even that, O sun!?”

This arrogant, base, vile, and petty man had driven a kingdom that had prospered for millennia into ruin, yet he deflected all blame, turning his hatred on the sun itself.

The Black Pharaoh, Nephren-Ka, had not been erased from history by accident. An heir of Ra who had become that debased, his very existence was too shameful to record.

“Then so be it! To the very end of this cursed life, I will defile your light!”

Boundless malice surged. Within the fireball that devoured him, Nephren-Ka raised a skeletal hand, reaching toward the source of light—toward Leon’s brow.

“So pathetic, even at the end...!”

It was nothing more than a final tantrum. The sun manifested within Leon had already torn his soul to shreds. The drain of power was so immense that he could no longer even remain in the world of the living.

And yet his malice reached beyond its limits. One bony finger, sharpened like a stake, thrust forward slowly inch by inch, aiming to pierce Leon’s skull.

Dammit!

Despite the crawling speed of the attack, Leon couldn’t move. When he drove Solaris into Nephren-Ka’s heart, he had poured in everything—body and spirit both exhausted.

He had no strength left to even tilt his head back. The finger that could skewer his skull like paper drew closer.

He had no choice but to turn to someone.

“I’m counting on you,” he mumbled, signaling that it was time to flip the last card he had held. “Karen.”

“You kept me waiting for far too long, Mr. Hero!”

A bright voice rang out from Leon’s shadow. She had been hidden there all along.

Karen had reached the threshold of becoming an Aura Master, but her attribute was the worst possible match against undead like Nephren-Ka. Critical strikes and poison were useless, Aura Weapons only a stopgap. Her Aura Blade focused on stealth and speed, not raw power. She had little chance to shine in this fight.

That was why she had chosen this role: to be the hidden dagger in his embrace. A position from which she could strike in Leon’s stead.

“Pitch-Black Dance, Puppet Style, First Form: Borrowed Blade.”

Leon, too weak to even lift a finger, was pulled by Karen’s shadow. His body moved again.

The Holy Sword buried in Nephren-Ka’s chest twisted, and the blade lodged diagonally was driven straight upward. From heart to jaw to crown, Leon carved upward with all his might.

The finger that had been reaching for his brow flailed in empty air, then dropped lifelessly. After his skull split clean in two, Nephren-Ka’s eyes finally flickered into clarity.

Inside the charred skull, the dying glow blinked rapidly as the fallen king muttered, “Curse... curse you... damned sun...”

“Shut up,” Leon cut him off. Even in death, spewing nothing but hatred and blame, he earned only Leon’s contempt. “Rot in the bottom of hell, trash.”

Karen’s shadow moved him again, and together they hacked the faltering body apart in every direction. The pharaoh was torn to shreds and burned away, reduced to ash without even a final scream.

So ended the delusion that had lingered for thousands of years. Only after Nephren-Ka’s annihilation did Solaris shrink and sink slowly back into Leon’s heart.

Then, as if right on cue, the pyramid Nephren-Ka had summoned, which had been spewing forth foul power and monsters, split with dozens of fractures. Each was too wide to patch, too deep to repair.

Perhaps because its master had been erased, the pyramid, warped though it was, had fulfilled its duty as a tomb—and with Nephren-Ka, it too reached its end.

Just as it appeared, the earth split, dragging the pyramid down into the depths below. The collapse marked the end of the undead.

The bandages unraveled from the mummies, their trapped corpses crumpling to the ground one by one. The beetle swarms shriveled white, bellies flipping skyward as they died.

The undead were violations of the world’s order. Without a necromancer paying the price or bearing the backlash, their existence was false from the very beginning. With Nephren-Ka destroyed, this end had been inevitable.

“D-did we win...?” someone asked aloud, and the question set off murmurs throughout the strike force.

“Seems like it.”

“None of them are getting back up, right?”

“Nope. We checked. There’s no sound of fighting anymore, either.”

Seeing the commotion, Leon raised the Holy Sword. Leaders of every faction, including Varg and Al Razzaz, turned to him. The declaration of victory would have to come from him.

“Hear me!” he shouted, mustering what strength he had left, loud enough for all to hear. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Hundreds of eyes locked onto him, but Leon didn’t shrink back under their gaze and continued, “The enemy’s head, Nephren-Ka, has fallen! This is our victory!”

Whether by chance or fate, at the very moment he declared victory to the hundreds of warriors, the sun rose behind him.

From the eastern horizon, the sky brightened. Standing with dawn at his back, Leon looked every bit the hero. People forgot to speak, staring at him, recalling half-remembered childhood tales.

And only then did they truly realize they had won.

“WOAAAAAAAH!”

Because it had been such a brutal battle, the roar of triumph was all the more fierce. They had survived a war against tens of thousands of undead. Some had died, others were grievously wounded, but in this moment, there was only the exultation of victory.

Beastkin and Bedouin embraced without reserve. Adventurers who had only cared for their pay and glory to come from this battle collapsed into the arms of bloodied Holy Iron Inquisitors, already promising to share a drink together.

A blood oath, as its name suggested, was something that was sealed in blood. In this battle, they had won something that might have taken anyone else years of alliance to achieve.

Even Beast King Varg and Al Razzaz clasped hands with bitter smiles. They both knew instinctively: until this generation retired, they would never again fight each other.

Then, a majestic voice jolted them to attention.

“Excellent.”

The raid force scattered, forming ranks around the speaker. Even in formation, not one of them felt safe.

“What?!”

“He’s still alive?!”

The voice came from none other than Anubis, the reaper of the dead, whom Nephren-Ka had summoned. His lower body was already reduced to ash, but his half-shredded torso and wolf’s head still moved, gazing at them.

“Do not fear, warriors. You have my respect for your struggle, and my deepest thanks for opening my way back to Duat.”

“You’ve been freed from Nephren-Ka’s chains?” Leon asked.

Anubis’s eyes turned to Leon. The gaze was no longer filled with malice, but with a gentleness, as well as wisdom so deep it could not be fathomed.

“It is as you say, apostle. I erred, and it brought harm upon you. Yet you granted me grace. As guide of the dead, I, Anubis, must return a fitting gift.”

He drove his crescent spear into the sand, intoning an indescribable chant as he pressed his palms together. Leon considered stopping him, but felt no hint of malice and held back. He was utterly different from when Nephren-Ka had control over him.

Minutes later, the spear sank into the ground with a hiss and vanished. Blinking, Anubis explained what he had just done.

“I have restored some of the lost vitality of this land and drawn underground waters closer to the surface. For the next hundred years, every time you dig in damp places, an oasis will spring forth.”

“What?! Is that true?!” Al Razzaz, skeptical, asked.

Anubis only nodded, saying nothing more. As if his expression saying that whether the humans believed him or not, he had done his part.

“Apostle who bears the sun, I grant you my blessing. With the sigils already etched upon your body and my protection, the dead will not dare approach you.”

Leon had no reason to refuse, so he answered, “I’ll accept, gratefully.”

“In Osiris’s name, I pray for your fortune.”

Leaving behind a single blessing, Anubis’s body crumbled into ash. Unlike Nephren-Ka, his soul returned to its rightful place in Duat.

With Anubis gone, the warriors finally let go of their tension, slumping to the ground. In the end, everything had worked out.

The Great Desert had been devastated by Nephren-Ka, but now they had the seeds of rebirth. More oases meant more food and a way to reunite the scattered tribes. In the long run, it could flourish even more than before the invasion.

Looks like the beastkin and Bedouin are getting along too.

Varg, Al Razzaz, and countless others were speaking freely across factions and races. It wasn’t what anyone expected, but perhaps good things were simply good.

Leon thought so and finally spoke. He was at his limit.

“Karen.”

At his call, Karen’s head popped out.

“What is it?”

“I think I’m about to pass out. Can you move my body until we get back to town?”

“What? Wait, hold on!”

“I’ll leave it to you, then...”

Darkness closed over his vision. Leon finally collapsed, unconscious at last. However, a faint smile lingered on his lips.

Evil was vanquished. The desert and the plains knew peace once more. As a Hero, he had done his part.

—Well done, my disciple.

And that was enough.

woo: CEO of passing out