Following the carnage, I turned my gaze toward the half-demons remaining in the room.
All of them were trembling with fear, shielding their heavily wounded comrades behind their backs.
Hidden behind the flimsy mana barrier they had managed to conjure, they kept their eyes tightly shut, waiting in terror to see what I would do next.
With a single fluid motion, I flicked the blood off my katana onto the floor and seated myself comfortably on the table, entirely amused.
“Leave,” I said, my voice cutting through the air like ice.
One of the demons quickly hoisted his injured ally onto his back and rushed toward the escape portal glowing in the corner of the room.
The others remained on high alert, still anticipating a lethal strike from me.
As the portal’s radiance illuminated the dimly lit room, a sudden grin spread across my face.
“Oh, and one more thing…”
I raised my right hand into the air.
The entire group flinched in sheer terror, as if a bolt of lightning was about to strike them down.
Looking down at their pathetic state, I spoke in a mocking tone.
“Do you happen to have a pen and paper on you?
Or just paper will do.
If there’s no pen, I can always use the fresh blood of the elves on the floor as ink.”
Fearing they might literally soil themselves, the half-demons hurriedly scrambled to leave a crumpled piece of parchment on the table.
Using the blood, I carved my unique signature as Kaan, along with the location of my grand rendezvous with Oberon.
Leaving a trail of corpses behind, I instantly teleported directly to the sacred pillar where I had imprisoned Luna.
When I materialized back at the square, I found the sacred barrier surrounded by dozens of rebel ice elf soldiers.
They were desperately hacking at the sealing wall with their weapons.
As I suddenly materialized right in the center of them with a sharp surge of mana, a man who appeared to be their commander stepped forward from the crowd.
Recognizing the absolute power standing before him, he fell to his knees in reverence.
“O, Exalted One…” he muttered.
As he knelt, the soldiers behind him followed suit, bowing before me one by one.
However, a young and furious elf soldier, who was expending every ounce of his strength trying to freeze the barrier, roared in disgust at his kneeling comrades.
“Why do you grovel before this pathetic human?!
Why do you surrender so easily, you dishonorable cowards?!
It is because of your slave mentality that our tribe and our Queen are in this wretched state!”
As he screamed, his mana veins throbbed wildly from rage, and a freezing mist erupted from his body.
Turning my gaze to Luna inside the barrier, I noticed she couldn’t even bring herself to look at her own kin.
Her eyes were glued to the ground; she had essentially become a living corpse.
I took Oberon’s unconscious son, whom I had been lugging around on my shoulder throughout the journey, and violently threw him inside the barrier next to Luna.
Seeing the boy on the ground, the commander who had been the first to kneel murmured in sheer horror.
“This…
This is Prince Kro…
Oberon’s son!”
I grabbed the unconscious crown prince by his hair, yanking his head up.
“So, his name is Kro,” I muttered with a sinister smirk.
I then climbed atop the sacred stone pillar, channeled my mana into my throat, and amplified my voice so it would echo across the entire forest.
“I have sent my bloody message to Oberon!
He will be arriving shortly!
If you do not wish to perish alongside him, clear out this instant!”
The armored elf, whom I assumed to be the actual commander, levitated using his magic until he was eye-level with me.
Desperation pooling in his eyes, he asked directly.
“Will you not release our Queen…
Luna?”
I crossed my arms over my chest, adopting a haughty posture.
“Time will tell,” I replied coldly.
The commander lowered his head in defeat.
“I understand…
If she perishes during this ordeal, could you at least return her remains to us?
This is the only and final request I ask of you.”
He bowed nobly in mid-air.
His unwavering loyalty piqued my interest.
Stepping out of the sacred barrier’s boundary, I floated over to him.
“If you are making a request of someone, you must offer something of equal value in return,” I said, pacing around him with predatory steps.
The man let out a deep sigh and drew a shimmering ancient stone from his pocket.
“This stone…
is a sacred relic that allows direct communication with the Moon God.
Only those of pure royal blood can utilize it, and it is the last remaining stone of our lineage.
I suppose it is of no use to us anymore,” he said, extending the stone toward me.
Taking the stone to perform a Universal Appraisal, I thought to myself.
‘An interesting piece…
He’ll definitely know what it is.’
Shifting the stone into my inventory, I raised my hand.
“By my word, I shall remember our pact!” I shouted.
Satisfied with my response, the small platoon of elves dispersed into the forest without looking back.
As night fell, the only sound left in the forest was the crackling of the campfire.
Luna remained motionless at the base of the sealed pillar like a corpse, staring blankly down at the dirt.
I walked up to her and said in a frigid tone.
“I’m taking off your shackles.
Behave.”
She didn’t offer a shred of resistance as I unlocked the sacred cuffs with the key; it was as if her soul had already departed her body.
Tossing the shackles back into my inventory, I watched as Luna finally lifted her eyes from the ground to look straight into mine.
Meanwhile, I was rummaging through the depths of my inventory for a specific item: the Soul-Restricting Collar.
This cursed collar reduced all of the wearer’s stats by 90% and heavily stupefied all of their senses.
When I retrieved the sealed collar and threw it in front of her, Luna showed no signs of rebellion.
Completely accepting her fate, she picked up the collar with her own hands and fastened it around her neck.
She then quietly lay down on the dirt, staring up at the stars in the night sky.
As for me, I conjured a practical magical stove using a small ember from my fingertips and cooked myself a quick meal.
Right as I finished, the atmospheric mana density surged several times over within seconds, and the air turned suffocatingly heavy.
This immense pressure of mana was absolute proof that Oberon had received my bloody message.
I slammed the prepared meal down harshly in front of Luna and locked my eyes onto the dark horizon.
“Oberon is coming,” I stated.
A few hours later, a single silhouette emerged from the darkness of the night.
The Elf King, Oberon, was gliding across the horizon with incredibly slow and majestic strides, meticulously analyzing the hidden traps and the flow of mana around the area.
The moment I spotted him, I drew my katana and began walking toward him.
When a distance of exactly one hundred paces remained between us, we both halted.
Oberon bowed his head slightly with a veneer of false politeness.
“The ally of the Western Emperor, the great Elf King, and the friend of the Dragon Prince…
His Excellency, Kaan.”
Faced with his formal greeting, I let out a boisterous laugh.
“You’ve done your homework well, traitor king,” I mocked.
Straightening up, he nodded in acknowledgment.
Suddenly, however, the mask of false courtesy shattered completely, his visage warping into an expression of terrifying gravity.
As his eyes shifted from leaf-green to a pitch black, he pointed toward the sacred barrier behind me.
“Release my child at once, human…
Since you have not harmed him yet, if you let him go now, I shall spare your life in return.
I will content myself with tearing off a single limb.”
I smirked, looking first at the barrier behind me, and then at Luna standing right beside it.
“And what about the glorious Ice Queen next to him?
Does she hold no value in your eyes, Oberon?”
Oberon raised his hand indifferently toward the barrier and laughed arrogantly.
“Pawns will always exist…
Though it is a pity; I am not entirely certain I can find a pawn as powerful and loyal as her in the future.”
Upon hearing his words, I pulled a short, throwable magic sword from my inventory.
Seeing this weak weapon in my hand, Oberon burst into laughter.
“How do you plan to kill someone as grand as me with that toy?”
I burst into an equally maniacal laugh.
“Who said anything about killing you?”
With a sudden twist of my body, I spun around and hurled the sword straight into the sacred barrier!
The blade sliced through the air, hurtling directly toward the head of the unconscious Kro!
Caught entirely off guard, Oberon let out a horrified shriek.
In a desperate reflex to prevent his son’s death, he pumped all of his mana into his legs and lunged forward, breaking the sound barrier.
However, in doing so, he had left his entire torso defense completely exposed!
As he blew past me like a gust of wind, I swung my katana and cleanly severed his right arm from his torso in a single strike!
Yet, Oberon paid absolutely no heed to the blood spraying from his severed arm or the agonizing pain; his entire focus was locked onto the sword flying toward his son.
Normally, the sacred barrier would vaporize anything entering from the outside, but since the sword I threw was registered to the seal within, it was bound to pierce right through Kro.
Just inches away from Kro’s head, Oberon managed to catch the hilt of the sword with his remaining hand.
Panting heavily, he turned around, glanced at his severed right arm, and then locked eyes with me.
“You truly are…
a highly intriguing and dangerous entity, human,” he remarked, closing up his wound within seconds using high-tier healing magic.
Dragging my katana against the stones on the ground, creating a spine-chilling screeching sound, I slowly advanced toward him.
A manic glint danced in my eyes.
“Truly…
What a dramatic, deeply touching piece of theater, wouldn’t you agree, Oberon?”
Oberon was just about to lunge at me with a lethal spell when I triggered the teleportation magic I had placed on the area marker before the battle even began.
In an instant, I materialized inside the barrier, right next to Kro.
Outside the barrier, Oberon roared with a furious, derisive laugh.
“What’s the matter?
Running away from me, you cowardly human?!”
Pursing my lips into a smirk, I gestured toward Kro on the ground.
“Running away?”
With a swift flick of my katana’s tip, I ruthlessly severed one of Kro’s fingers.
As the boy’s agonizing screams echoed through the forest, Oberon completely lost his mind outside.
He began slamming his fists against the sacred barrier, tears streaming down his face.
Watching his desperate supplications filled me with absolute delight.
“As you can see, I am trapped right here with your son, Oberon.
How dramatic…
Now, which part should we cut next?
Ah, I know!
The ear!”
With a single slash, I severed Kro’s right ear and tossed it outside the barrier, right at Oberon’s feet.
Driven by a thirst for vengeance and choked with tears, Oberon pushed his mana veins to their absolute limits.
Unleashing his most destructive ancient spells in rapid succession, he began casting piercing magic designed to collapse my barrier from the outside.
Under the weight of his colossal onslaught, the central sacred stone pillar began to crack.
‘Well, he is the legitimate Elf King, after all…
I already knew a single ancient pillar wouldn’t suffice against his massive wrath,’ I muttered internally.
I pulled three more sacred stone pillars from my inventory, instantly sealing and activating them.
The barrier layers quadrupled.
Right at that moment, having likely sensed the massive mana fluctuations and explosions in the region, Elf Queen Titania and a few of her elite elven guards rushed onto the scene.
The guards immediately encircled Oberon, applying high-tier healing spells to him, while Titania rushed forward in absolute horror.
“My love!
Calm down, what happened here—”
She cut herself off as she spotted her bloodied son, Kro, inside the barrier.
With a single motion, I sliced off Kro’s left ear and hurled it out of the barrier.
“Ah, the mother has arrived!
Here you go, dear mother, this is your share!”
I tossed the ear right in front of her.
Even the four-layered sealing barrier was shaking violently under the combined assault of Oberon and the elves; it didn’t look like it would hold much longer.
Realizing my time was running short, I reversed my grip on my katana and, with a single barbaric strike, completely severed Kro’s head from his shoulders.
I threw the decapitated head out of the barrier, straight into Titania’s lap!
The moment Titania saw the severed, lifeless head of her son landing in her lap, her entire world crumbled.
She wailed in a proud yet pain-stricken voice, “My sonnn!” before collapsing to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably.
Meanwhile, due to the sheer density of mana generated by the massive spells detonating all around, the collared Luna looked incredibly uncomfortable, struggling to breathe.
I pulled one final sacred pillar from my inventory, drove it into the ground, and altered the spell’s formulation this time, shaping it into a small, independent shield designed solely to protect Luna’s body from the surrounding devastation.
At that exact second, the final pillar of the massive sealing barrier outside collapsed with a deafening crash.
Beside herself with rage and craving vengeance for her son, Titania lunged at me, screaming.
“You will pay for this with your life, you filth!”
I nimbly evaded her reckless, rage-fueled punches.
Behind her, the other guards couldn’t cast spells for fear of accidentally hitting her, while simultaneously trying to pacify and restrain the maddened Oberon.
Seizing an opening from one of Titania’s missed swings, I buried a massive punch squarely into the center of her abdomen.
As she doubled over in pain, I grabbed her by her hair and whispered coldly into her ear.
“A wretched mother, incapable of protecting her own offspring…”
Seeing his wife take a blow, Oberon roared, “Titania!” and frantically intervened.
With immense fury, he drew his legendary, shimmering sacred sword from its scabbard.
Raising the blade toward the heavens, he bellowed in the ancient elven tongue.
“O, Exalted One!
Bestow upon me your absolute might, and aid me in purging this unbelieving, accursed creature that defiles this land!”
Immediately following the vow, the sacred sword in Oberon’s hand began to glow with a blinding, divine radiance.
His movements instantly grew incredibly sharp, his speed transcending physical limitations.
Most notably, the color of his eyes began to shift from that dark black into a divine, godly gray.
Sensing the gravity of the situation, I immediately activated my All-Seeing Eye skill and executed a massive backward flip with all my strength to open up some distance.
As I observed the terrifying divine aura closing in on me, only a single thought crossed my mind.
‘Holy shit…
I think we’re genuinely fucked this time.’