Former General Is Undead Knight

Alante controlled the magic dog, which increased to seven, to attack Lambert.

His aim was the same as before, trying to limit Lambert’s choice of action by attacking him from all sides with a powerful heat ionization spell.

Although Lambert’s speech seemed to grate on Alante’s nerves, he managed to remain calm.

After all, he was unwilling to fight one of the Four Demon Generals.

His other choice was to escape.

Nevertheless, the reason why he stayed was that Alante wanted to use this facility to perform human experiments on Elise. He also was convinced that he could easily escape even in the worst situation.

Despite his moving in accordance to his ego, Alante knew that his safety insurance was perfect.

That was why Alante had no problem with exposing his unguarded self before Lambert.

That was the result of Alante’s judgment. He was convinced that he could defeat Lambert if he went all out.

Although… Alante was slightly disappointed by the fact that he failed to finish off Lambert a while ago.

From his perspective, he had just needed to knead a bit more mana into his previous attack to prevent his demon dog from being easily erased by Lambert.

Either way, seeing that Lambert was hostile toward 『Devil’s Piper』, he knew that he had to face him sooner or later.

That was why he was now taking more risk by increasing the number of plasma beasts to seven.

With this, he sealed Lambert’s overwhelming mobility with sheer numbers, and he just needed to deal the finishing blow with a more powerful heat ionization spell. That was what Alante planned to do.

Because for him, the fight against Lambert until this point was only testing the waters.

Lambert raised his greatsword in anticipation of that.

Seeing that, Alante took a half-step back.

「HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!」

Lambert’s body spun like a tornado.

The head of the plasma beasts split open, but their bodies stayed in place.

「As expected, it isn’t that simple…」

Properly speaking, plasma beasts wouldn’t be destroyed so easily just with the attacks from a greatsword.

Physical attacks would just penetrate it without causing any real damage.

Even if they temporarily lost their form, the beasts would return to normal as long as their cores were safe.

The combination of a greatsword that used Organ, which could scatter mana, and Lambert’s herculean strength was the reason why he could bisect the core.

Moreover, his big swing was aiming for several targets at once, thus lacking the decisive blow to prevent the core from restoring itself.

But it was enough to stop the demon dogs for a moment. 𝐟r𝒆ℯ𝘄𝑒𝒃𝚗𝒐𝘃e𝗹.c𝘰𝐦

Lambert kept swinging his greatsword horizontally, mowing down the cores of the magic beasts one after another.

For a brief moment, the dogs looked as if they had been slashed in half, then they crumbled down, vanishing like smoke.

Alante, who was surprised by the speed of Lambert’s slashes, leapt back.

Lambert’s movement was much faster than when he first dealt with the magic dogs.

Alante started pondering again as his feet landed on the ground.

‘…There was no need for me to retreat this far. Half of this distance should be enough to give me the time I need to conjure a magic dog again. Am I under the influence of some power of compulsion? Nah, that should be impossible. Sure, Lambert is strong, but I haven’t let my guard do—’

Lambert had already raised his greatsword upward in front of Alante, who retreated quite far.

Lambert’s eyes opened wide—because this situation wasn’t what he expected.

Lambert’s speed had clearly increased during the battle.

「Im-impossible…!」

Alante bent his body forward as soon as his feet touched the ground and retreated as far as possible from Lambert, moving in a zig-zag pattern.

He moved his head to the side, barely dodging the blade that was aiming for his neck.

At that moment, the magic dogs finally caught up with Lambert, pouncing toward him again.

Even while restraining Alante, Lambert circled around to face the magic dogs.

「Dammit… I got a bit too heated… But you must’ve used something back then, right? Some illusion created through swordplay? Or just a sleight of hand with a little sorcery? Too naive, as if the petty trick of a brutish swordsman like you will work on—」

Amongst the magic dogs, two of them were decapitated at the same time, vanishing in a flash.

The magic dogs were no longer a threat for the current Lambert.

「GUH…!」

At this rate, the magic dogs who lost their connection with Alante would vanish in less than one minute.

Lambert pulled out his greatsword.

Alante was stooping forward to dodge Lambert’s greatsword.

Alante retreated immediately, touching the trace of blood on his cheek.

Blood was overflowing from the wound.

‘Does that mean he has already… adapted to my irregular movements? No, that should be impossible… Is it because his sword is clearly getting faster and faster? Or else, have I become slower?’

Alante started to get impatient.

Even though he still had the upper hand until a while ago. 𝘧𝒓e𝑒𝑤e𝙗𝚗o𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝐜𝐨ｍ

He failed to perceive the other party’s greatsword. On the other hand, Lambert seemed to be aware of Alante’s skills.

The reason he was willingly fighting Lambert was to gain more experience in melee combat. After all, he had never been defeated after the era of the Eight Countries Unification War.

But that was also the reason why he felt an unknown terror when facing Lambert, one of the strongest men of that era.

‘…There are too many unknown factors. There’s no time to conjure complicated magic dogs. Half-hearted activation will only be a detriment. But I have no intention of revealing my trump card here. Once it’s exposed, the secret of my immortality will be revealed, and the kingdom will prepare countermeasures against me.’

Alante hoisted his hand in the air and fired bundles of lights from the heat ball.

But Lambert dodged them all.

No matter how fast the fired spells were, the aim could be predicted by looking at Alante’s movement.

As long as he understood the timing, dodging the spells was a piece of cake for Lambert.

Two magic dogs that mixed into the barrage were bisected one after another by Lambert’s greatsword, vanishing like smoke.

The magic dogs, once a group of seven, were now only two-strong.

‘…Retreat. I’m at a disadvantage.’

Alante glared angrily at Lambert, who slayed one of his last two magic dogs.

‘I hope that brat hasn’t escaped too far. I’ll catch her again eventually. And I have no reason to continue this stupid fight.’

The last magic dog was no match for Lambert, being bisected in two in no time.

Meanwhile, Alante didn’t do anything to interrupt Lambert.

‘Not that I’m interested in this match to begin with. No matter what he says, it’s just fool’s nonsense. I, 『Spinner of the Truth』, the arch-sorcerer who abandoned his husk, am an eternal existence after all. I’m different from the losers before me…’

The tip of Lambert’s greatsword was already pointed at Alante.

「I guess that’s all you got as a fake demonic beast user. Seriously, you must’ve wasted the last two hundred years doing nothing but lazing around. I guess you’re ready to go back to the providence of nature.」

Hearing that, Alante just sneered at Lambert.

「Lambert, you’ve been dancing in my palm all along. Your ridiculous humour bored the spectators to death. Compared to me, an arch-sorcerer who gained eternal life, a poor skeleton knight like you who yearns for a little bit of affection is just a bad actor. You can’t ever fight me in the truest sense…」

「I have no idea what you’re talking about.」

「Ahh, well that’s natural, I guess. What can you understand with that rotten mana and that incomplete body anyway? Let’s end this stupid fight.」

Alante was moving his arms with theatrical gestures.

Contrary to his exaggerated gestures, his face was emotionless to the point that no one could see through his emotion.

「HEAT BALL, GATHER IN MY HAND!」

The moment Alante chanted that aria, 13 magic circles deployed around Alante, and the same number of heat balls appeared.