Chapter 30 – Heroic Deck

[Summon the Holy Sword? There are many swords in Vaunte deem as Holy Swords. The Wind Sword, ‘Nordrasis’. The ‘Sword of the Endless Sky’ could be considered another one, and even an Amber Sword simply named ‘Ultimate’… Not that I owned any of these back then.]

[Is this a type of magic? I know the priest has a low level Light Magic Spell called ‘Spell of Holy Swords’, but that’s just a series of attacking chants. It has nothing to do with summoning, and the magic vocabulary in the game is exceedingly strict and cannot be changed randomly.]

[Leaving this question aside, the players in the game have no extreme side effects from using magic, like splitting headaches. At most one will feel exhausted, so…]

As he finished contemplating, he put his mind to it and accepted the command, ‘Summon the Holy Sword’. There were no downsides to this transaction, and he also treated this as a last ditch effort.

Brendel slowed down slightly from his thinking and the Demonic Tree launched an attack with its snake-like vine whips, but he quickly lowered his body and swung his sword up. An arc of silver flash cut off the two vine whips that gave off a rotting smell, and they turned into ashes in the air.

He quickly pushed himself off with one hand from the ground, and accelerated to the Demonic Tree’s area. When he wanted to continue with his next course of action, the words in his retinas changed.

“The Path of Warriors, unlocked.”

“Heroic Deck, Chapter 2, Holy Sword of the Knight.”

“Due to the Character’s first time in unlocking the ‘Cards of Fate’, it shall be entered into the system.”

The ghostly words appeared and quickly disappeared.

“Holy Sword, symbol of the Knight’s Dedication and the Sword of Purity.”

“Effect: Pay 6 Earth Element Points (EP) from the Element Pool, and summon the Holy Sword into play. All conditions have been met, Character, please display your card. Point your thumb to the center of the Sigil of Fate, and establish your Mana Link with your index finger and thumb to light up the Holy Sword.”

Brendel immediately that found he was distracted by the amount of words that popped up and almost could not see the Demonic Tree. His hands stopped moving for a moment, and the attacks from the Demonic Tree’s vine made him fall back. He grumbled in his mind, but also knew the chance for him to succeed in his attack was slim even if the words did not distract him.

He sighed involuntarily. He quickly glanced at Freya, who was struggling as hard as possible to climb towards the boulder. She was not far away from her goal, but the bouncing ponytail made Brendel pause for a while.

His concentration changed to the other side without any further issues, and he discovered that the young Demonic Trees at below were a few steps behind. It seemed that she would be fine. Romaine who was somewhere below him, however, was in a terrible state. She was panting heavily and unable to climb any higher.

The Demonic Tree and Brendel had crossed blows, and neither gained any advantages. The Demonic Tree realized that the human before him was not powerful, but it was afraid of the Elven Sword. Brendel knew what it was thinking as well.

He gripped his sword again, but the words in his retinas showed a final message:

‘Display the card?’

Brendel looked blankly ahead, but his gamer mind quickly worked and he thought of the card in his belongings. And as if to answer his thoughts, he instantly found it.

[So this sigil is called the ‘Holy Sigil of Fate’, but I don’t recall hearing about it before.] He was a little puzzled, but his thumb had already been placed on it.

“Heroic Deck, Chapter 2, Holy Sword of the Knight, successfully targeted.”

A blinding pillar of light shot out from the card.

The ripples from the magic struck into every living creature’s minds like a sharp knife. Not only did the mature Demonic Tree bellowed, even Freya and Romaine were rooted to they were and they looked at Brendel.

They saw him holding the card up high in his hand, which kept firing pulses of light until it disappeared.

“Brendel, t-the card in your hand disappeared!” Romaine shouted anxiously. Her eyes were astonishingly good as she was a good fifty meters away.

But he did not hear anything what she said, as he could only look blankly at the words in his retinas:

“Holy Sword, symbol of the Knight’s Dedication and the Sword of Purity.”

“When this card is in play, pay 1 Earth EP to attack your enemies, or pay 1 Earth EP to dismiss your sickness, curses or darkness-related status.”

“The Character is required to pay 2 Earth EP and 2 Spiritual Points (SP) to maintain the ‘Holy Sword’ every ten minutes.”

“The effect of the Holy Sword affects 1000 meters.”

[Hah?]

[What kind of evil witchcraft is this?]

Brendel had never heard of a magical artifact requiring the player to keep providing power to it. SP does not really need to be explained as it is related to Willpower, but only a few professions had ‘Element Pool’, like elementalist, magic swordsman, sun knight. They were the only professions where their magic required using elemental powers.

[There was never a magical artifact in the game that required a player’s Elemental Pool. Doesn’t that mean I won’t be able to use this artifact if I don’t have an Elemental Pool? No, I charged it with the soul gem earlier.]

[Then, the most important thing is the maintenance. To keep using this card means I have to prepare enough Soul Gems. Yet Soul Gems are rare and not every monster drops it.]

All these questions flashed through his mind, but he did not question the power of this artifact, and as expected of a 40 OZ item, the effect was beyond doubt.

A sword made from pure light appeared behind his back. It was several meters tall, with a broad blade and shining armguard with a pair of wings stemming from it. If one looked from afar, Brendel appeared like had had grown a pair of white wings.

The merchant girl looked blankly at him, her eyes recording everything down, then glittered with idolization and excitement. Brendel was incredibly cool!

Freya had also stopped moving as she saw what happened, but she quickly remembered she had own mission. She gritted her teeth and continued to climb upwards. The wounds on her hands opened again, and the pain made her furrow her eyebrows.

Brendel checked his status. When the Holy Sword appeared, his negative stats were completely removed. When the debilitating and paralyzing poison dissolved like snow as he felt the holy light nourishing him within his body.

40 OZ, Grade 2 rank, a ‘Deacon’ ranked priest. Anyone who saw Brendel would believe that he was one if they did not look at his clothes. (TL: Okay, I just made that rank up. What’s the hierarchy rank for one that is below a priest?)

[This is just strange. This card was summoned with the Earth Element but it’s able to emulate the Holy Element effects. Just who exactly made this card?]

Under his increasing aura of power, the Demonic Tree moved about restlessly. It found it hard to suppress its fear with the intimidating figure of Brendel’s.

It screeched loudly and finally attacked. The vines around its body suddenly increased in size, and all of them aimed towards Brendel.

“Brendel, watch out!” Romained warned from below.

He frowned.

[Because I don’t have an Element Pool, I don’t know how much Earth EP I can take. If I take the conversion of the soul gem at face value, then I should have 20 earth EP. Summoning used up 6, so I should have 14 Earth EP left. This is still ample.]

He raised his right hand and waved across, paying 1 Earth EP to use the ‘Attack’ function of the Holy Sword. A golden sword made from light shot out from his fingers.

All the vines that crossed its path with the sword turned into ashes.

[This is the Spell of the Holy Sword.]

He immediately recognize it. It was a low level Priest’s spell, but the attacking power was just as frightening if the OZ was raised accordingly. The Demonic Tree groaned painfully and tried to retreat. Brendel’s attack had destroyed a third of its vine. The Demonic Tree relied on the Golden Demonic Tree’s mana for nourishment, and the vines required many years to grow.

Brendel obviously did not give the enemy the chance to run, and continued to unleash attacks on it. Three golden swords pierced through the Demonic Tree’s body while one golden sword slashed it. The Demonic Tree exploded with a huge bang from the center of the body and turned into ashes.

Right at this moment, Freya also activated the Ring of the Wind Empress. Even though her aim was slightly off, the wind bullet still managed to knock the huge boulder down, and along with a series of large crashing noises, the boulder the size of a small hill went crashing down, turning the ground rocks and Demonic Trees into dust.

Dozens of Demonic Trees perished in an instant, and the Golden Demonic Tree felt the loss. It gave a terrifying wail, it’s scream traveling throughout the Zevail mountain pathway.

Brendel heard of this scream hundreds of times and was used to it. He even found it nostalgic, but Freya and Romaine jumped up with shock and looked at each other.

“W-what was that Brendel?” Freya asked from the mountain peak.

“Don’t worry, we won’t meet that thing.” Brendel sighed with relief when the fight was over. Once this patrol group was settled, the remaining task was much easier. He estimated the remaining time to maintain the Holy Sword to be approximately thirty minutes, but it was not enough time for them to walk out from this valley. If he dismissed the Holy Sword, he would be able to summon it one more time.

He decisively kept the card once he considered the possibility. Romaine finally finished climbing breathlessly and asked: “Brendel, what was, that?”

“It’s the power of this card. I didn’t realize it was a magic artifact earlier.” He looked at the stars within Romaine’s eyes and answered ambiguously.

“Magic artifact?” Freya was surprised to hear this answer. The ring that he had gave her was one, the Half Plate of the Wind Empress was another one, but why would a normal person know so much about magic? In her eyes, magic was so mystical that it could only appear in stories of legends.

She stared at the youth below her, trying to see through his real identity. He said he was a militia from Bruglas, but she felt more and more that it was nothing more than a dismissive lie.

Right at this moment, an astonishing scene that was more impressive than before was happening, but she could not see it. Brendel raised his head to find that golden lights from the surrounding mountain were flying towards him.

Killing monsters that outleveled him was a wonderful feeling.

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