The Max Level Hero Has Returned!-Novel

73. The Difference Between the Card Everyone Has Up Their Sleeves.

Alice had to acknowledge the fact that she had underestimated Davey’s capabilities. No, she was actually a little flustered because of how unexpected his actions had turned out to be.

Grell Orfan, the giant whom Davey had confronted, had used a dummy to direct Davey’s attention somewhere else for a second before sneaking in here alone.

When Davey had noticed that bastard, Saintess candidate Alice was already gone and Grell Orfan was very close to disappearing.

“Who do you think you are to come crawling in here?”

With a breeze, the end of Blue Ribbon was bursting with blue energy. Davey used it to aim at Grell’s spine and pierced through it.

“You’re too late, morta…” Grell’s voice sounded like metal pieces grinding together.

It was definitely normal for Davey to not be able to do anything to stop Grell if the transportation magic was almost activated. However…

“Keugh?!”

Blue Ribbon yanked Grell out of the other dimension and cut his spine in half. Even his robe and all were split into two. It was like Blue Ribbon didn’t care about him at all.

“Keugh?! H… How?!” Grell’s gaze trembled in confusion. He flailed around on the ground like he was in pain.

Normally, the Undead could not feel pain, so having their spine severed wouldn’t cause them to feel much pain. However, Grell was screaming in genuine pain. This was because Davey had used Blue RIbbon to slash him.

Half of a Lich’s body was composed of devil mana, and Grell was a demon-type. On top of that, Blue Ribbon had destroyed his external heart, which was his origin of life, with that single attack. The connection to his life vessel had been destroyed.

It was impossible to directly break the life vessel, but it was possible to destroy the link.

“Kheagh!!”

Davey returned Blue Ribbon to the sheath and stepped back a moderate distance. He watched as Grell’s severed body moved on its own and tried to attach the different parts together. However, the body was in a state where recovery was impossible; most of his life had been sucked out of him.

“Damn it.” Grell’s red eyes flashed as he glared at Davey. After murmuring a curse word under his breath, he muttered, “That sword is no regular sword, is it? My connection to my life vessel was just severed.”

“Then, you should die right away. Why are you still alive?” Davey asked disappointedly, but he already knew the reason why.

“Kehehe…”

“Did you have some ginseng or something? The amount of mana you have has increased quite a bit.”

Grell replied to Davey’s question with a burst of crazy laughter. He declared, “Kehehehe… You will definitely regret not killing me back then. Be afraid, mortal! For the immortal will soon come.”

“Now that is something I will see for myself.”

There was no such thing as immortality in this world; even the will of Goddess Freyja, which was known as the divine will, was exchanged every few million years.

Since their last encounter, Davey could feel that Grell’s mana had increased by at least thirty percent. It might seem like a small amount, but… Considering that he was a Lich at the 8th Circle level, it was definitely not a small amount; he was just unlucky. It didn’t change the fact that he was close to a continental catastrophe.

“I took over eight mountain fortresses, and reclaimed all the sealed life vessels that had my power. I was struck because of your deception, but don’t think it will be the same the next time we meet.”

[Blue Ribbon is not strange!] Blue Ribbon pouted and complained, but her voice could not be heard by others right now.

“I know more necromancy and curse magic spells than you think, so struggle, mortal. I will show you the real power that an immortal truly has,” Grell boasted confidently.

Davey stared at Grell nonchalantly before saying, “Okay, okay. Have your expectations up since I will show you something different next time.”

Even the most exceptional Lich had a limit to the number of life vessels they had. If Davey were to sever Grell’s connection with his life vessel every time he had a fatal wound, this bastard would eventually die even if he was close to an immortal being.

High-ranking vampires always came back to life by keeping the core of immortality within their bodies. On the other hand, beings such as Liches put their origin of life in a container and stored it outside their bodies; these were the life force vessels. Normally, Liches made their hearts their life vessels, but there was no reason for it to have to be a heart.

“Anyway, I didn’t think she would end up corrupted so easily,” Davey mumbled quietly, no longer paying attention to Grell.

“She will be the most important medium for my master’s resurrection.”

“You’re going to use a Saintess candidate as a medium?”

“Darkness only gets darker as light becomes brighter. A Saintess who corrupted herself is a rare specimen. I saw the emptiness, anger, and defeat in her heart.”

Grell joked around nonchalantly like the anger he had before had disappeared completely. Most of his body had crumbled into dust, but there wasn’t a hint of urgency in his voice.

Alice was going to be able to resurrect the darkest being because she was the brightest… The situation was quite amusing. It was basically a law that shadows were bound to get larger the brighter a light grew.

“I will give you a present. I imagine it will be difficult for mortals like you to endure such hardships.”

“I refuse.”

Even though Davey firmly refused, Grell still went on to snap his fingers with his remaining hand. Then, a large amount of power began to vibrate, and the bones maintaining Grell’s body disintegrated into powder. He would probably try to resurrect himself by scraping together things that would support a new body near his other origin of life.

The only signs of Grell’s presence was the dust that flew around. It wasn’t like Davey didn’t know where Grell was. It also wasn’t like anything would happen to him if Davey slashed him right now; Grell had beat him this time. Davey began to feel a little irritated.

“This shitty bastard… You want to see who has the better card, huh?”

If Grell’s hidden card was coming from his master, Davey planned to utilize whatever skills he had to crush him again and again.

Although, Davey was going to kill Grell instead of letting him go.

* * *

Davey actually had very little interest in Saintess candidate Alice’s change. It also wasn’t important how she felt about him or what kind of trials she had experienced to try becoming a true Saintess. What was important to him was that Alice had slowly become corrupted from not being able to endure God’s trials, and the fact that she had betrayed them as Lich Grell Orfan had convinced her to.

—If something serious happens because of her…

“Don’t think about it too much; nothing is going to change whether we worry about it or not. If Alice is still human, I will at least take care of her as a human being according to the rules…”

And if Alice had become something outside the boundaries of a human, or had gone through changes similar to that, Davey would have no choice but to take care of her as a monster.

Without hesitation, Davey retrieved his sword and quickly made his way to the place where he could hear huge explosions.

“Ahh!! My arm!! My arm is frozen!!”

“Damn it! Tie a thick rope around the ballista! Pull him down!”

Desperate shouts and painful moans; cries of help pierced Davey’s ears from his surroundings. The headquarters had become utter chaos, with soldiers struggling with deep wounds and the cold. There were also stiff soldiers who looked like they had died on the spot.

Then, a shadow large enough to cover the skylight began moving and roaring.

“Its volume is no joke.”

—It has no vocal cords, but it still roars so well.

It was a huge Undead dragon about thirty meters tall. Although it only had bones and barely any muscles, it was a flying dragon that was much larger than the size of Wyverns, which were called the ‘Prince of the Sky’. And unlike Wyverns, which didn’t have arms, this dragon had arms like the ones from fairy tales and it also had claws on the ends of its feet. It looked like it could crush everything.

The Undead dragon had no skin or muscles at all, but its features were so clear that Davey could tell what kind of monster it was. He muttered, “Wyrm Wyvern…”

A Wyrm Wyvern was the largest predator of the Wyvern family, and it grew about four to ten times larger than a normal one.

If Wyverns were called the ’Prince of the Sky’, this one was an extremely rare being known as the ‘King of the Sky’. In fact, it was so rare that it was called a subspecies of dragons, and it was so strong that it could shoot breaths whenever it wanted. Simply put, it was just part of the Wyvern family, since it was too powerful to be classified as a Wyvern.

It was a relief that there was less additional damage as its breath was ice-type and not the regular fire-type.

—It has been a long time since I have seen it as an Undead. It is so extremely rare that I have only seen it once in my lifetime.

The Undead dragon was extremely strong. It was known to have no enemies as no one could go up against it, even though its physical strength was incomparable to that of Wyverns. Its bones could not match up to dragon bones, but it was still tougher than most metals.

However, it seemed like the people around Davey mistook the Wyrm Wyvern, the extremely rare organism, as a dragon instead. This was unsurprising, because something that big with the image of a dragon reminded people of those from fairy tales.

“D–Dragon…”

“I can’t believe it… One ice breath and hundreds of people…”

The people instantly became ice statues, completely frozen in their running position.

Dragons were at least one hundred meters in size…but there was no way for these people to know that.

Davey quickly walked into the commanders’ tent, where people were all drawn to the Wyrm Wyvern’s appearance. In the tent was Prince Sullivan, who was staring at it with complex thoughts in his mind.

“How was the situation?”

“Ah… Prince Davey, you came.”

“It seems quite funny to me.”

“A… A dragon has appeared! An Undead dragon! I knew that it was another damn level, but what is…” Prince Sullivan let out his anger without hiding his frustration. “I have never seen a monster like that before. It is a few times larger than Wyverns, and one breath froze hundreds of people. Right now, Grand Duchess Kathryn, Duke Alla, and my sister Illyna are keeping it out of the fortress by occupying its attention, but… I don’t think they are going to last very long either.”

It was true that Wyverns and Wyrm Wyverns were very different, including their levels of power; it wasn’t called a type of demi-dragon for no reason.

“A dragon… Does that look like a dragon to you?”

“Tough bones that can withstand sword energy and this nasty breath…and an overwhelming presence and size… What is it if not a dragon?!”

Davey kept quiet. There was no reason for him to correct Sullivan.

That was when Grand Duchess Kathryn shot away from the headquarters’ gate and stomped on the Wyrm Wyvern’s back. Her attack had incredible power.

However, none of their attacks landed. After all, they had never fought against anything that flew and was so big in size.

“Prince Davey. Can you treat the ones who turned into ice statues?”

Sullivan had asked whether Davey could treat the soldiers, not kill the dragon. Thinking back, he realized that Sullivan always acted like he wanted to rescue as many people as possible.

“I can, but there will be more casualties if the monster shoots another breath. Let’s take care of it first.”

“But it is difficult to strike it if it does not come down to the ground. It is dodging dangerous attacks and attempts to catch it by flying up high.”

The Wyrm Wyvern had a strange pattern. It was also very strong, like a raid boss.

That was when Kathryn, who was attacking the Wyrm Wyvern with everything she had while on its back, lost her balance and fell.

“No!!” Prince Sullivan shouted.

The angry demi-dragon that was infuriated by Kathryn opened its jaw and bared its teeth at her. It wanted to finish her off.

“Prince Sullivan,” Davey called out.

“Yes?”

“Please prepare to advance. I think we are going to have to leave this place and raid that bastard’s location…”

“What does…?”

“And let’s take it down to the ground first.”

Prince Sullivan’s eyes grew wide.

Davey left the tent through the opening on the side and quickly shot up into the sky. He charged through the fearful soldiers who were shooting useless arrows at the Wyrm Wyvern.

At the same time, a boat horn began ringing through the surroundings.

[Gnoass, I give you my request.]

[I accept the contractor’s request.]

“We are going to advance. I will stand in front and destroy everything that stands in our way, so let’s just bury that bony chicken first.”

Everyone was in shock after seeing the Wyrm Wyvern that looked like a dragon, so Davey was going to summon his soil giant.