First of All, I’m Drinking - Chapter 105

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 105

“All forces, prepare for battle!”

With Genta’s shout, the beastman knights organized their formation.

Knights lined up like waves of iron under the pale moonlight.

The surface of their armor bore countless traces of polishing, and their hands gripping sword hilts showed no trembling.

While their individual martial prowess was slightly lacking compared to Argent’s Imperial Guards.

Their momentum was in no way inferior.

Meanwhile, hundreds of human shadows revealed themselves along the hill following the manor entrance.

“They’re coming.”

They were priests and holy knights of Lucifer.

Most seemed to be ordinary priests, but strong auras could be felt here and there.

Bishops and cardinals must have all come.

“It seems they came prepared for war?”

Kise frowned.

“It appears they’ve invested enough force to break through head-on even if it’s a trap.”

Diago also added a comment.

“Killing all the demons must have really bothered them.”

Merry drew her sword from its sheath.

In the priests’ eyes, anger could be read along with a hint of fear.

The direction of their fear was not toward us.

They showed no signs of panic even when seeing the beastman knights radiating fierce momentum.

Then what were they afraid of?

‘I’ll find out as we fight.’

Genta raised his sword toward the sky.

“Shields! Advance!”

As the command fell, the shield wall in the front row advanced in one breath.

The earth trembled as their footsteps synchronized.

Hissssss-

Dark red smoke rose from the opposite hill.

“Grati, Yulius, Adin, Sepher.”

As one of the priests chanted an incantation, demonic power flowed from between the black robes, corrupting the air.

Each syllable of the spell scattered on the wind like a curse.

Rummmmmble-!

The earth cracked, and dark red lightning whirled from the priests’ hands.

“Charge!”

Waaaaaaaah-!

Lucifer’s holy knights began charging all at once.

The first collision was like thunder.

As the holy knights’ sword strikes poured down like a storm, the beastmen raised their shields.

Clang-!

The impact struck the shield wall.

Dark red lightning struck down upon it.

Rotten air flowed like mold, irritating the beastmen’s lungs.

“Urgh!”

“We can’t hold any longer!”

“Please relieve us!”

The moment the shields wavered, knights from the second row filled the gaps.

Then spears thrust forward.

Sharp steel tore through the demonic lightning and pierced the holy knights’ chests.

“—–.”

The priests’ lips moved faster.

Black tentacles sprouted from the ground, grabbing the beastmen’s legs.

At that moment, Genta’s sword flashed like lightning.

Slash-!

With one hand he spun his sword to sever the tentacles, and with the other he sent a signal.

Beastmen charged in from left and right.

Slashing and thrusting continued without pause, and whenever black demonic power scattered, iron trajectories covered over it.

The battlefield maintained order even within chaos.

When someone fell, a beastman from behind stepped forward to fill the empty space.

That movement was like one giant organism connected organically.

“So this is the Elite Beastmen Knights….”

“There was a reason for their renowned reputation even in the Western Alliance.”

Merry and Diago couldn’t help but admire the beastmen’s tactics.

Meanwhile, the priests weren’t just standing idle either.

They employed various tactics to pressure the beastmen.

Especially the technique of corrupting the air to block breathing was key.

The beastmen protected their respiratory systems with aura, but there were limits to holding their breath.

“Urghhhh!”

A beastman who inhaled the rotten air rolled back his eyes and collapsed, foaming at the mouth.

“Do you see the Pope?”

At my question, Merry concentrated her consciousness and surveyed the battlefield.

“Not yet visible. But it seems he did come along.”

“Why do you think that?”

“That rotten air… isn’t that Lucifer’s divine power?”

That wasn’t it.

That Lucifer’s divine power isn’t a technique that pressures enemies so extensively.

“It’s not divine power. There’s probably a cardinal with exceptional skills among them.”

The rotten air was certainly threatening.

If only that could be resolved, the beastman knights alone seemed capable of stopping the Lucifer Sect.

“Is now the time for us to step in?”

Kise chanted an incantation while casting magic.

“Flare.”

Whoooooosh-!

Bright red flames spread to the priests’ robes.

“Kyaaaaah-!”

In the storm of flames created by the 7th Circle mage, the priests screamed and burned.

“Then, I’ll also….”

“Diago and Merry, don’t step in yet.”

I stopped Diago who was about to extend his spear forward.

“Did you forget? How we caused chaos at the Order of the Sword’s consecration ceremony.”

The combination of three people consisting of a swordsman, spearman, and mage was already on the Empire’s investigation network.

If we revealed our power here, it would quickly be identified that the mysterious swordsman who transformed into Jerbahn de Riod at the consecration ceremony was me.

“You two will step in only when the battlefield tilts beyond recovery.”

Only when facing a crisis of total annihilation without the help of asymmetric forces.

Just serving as reserve forces for such situations was sufficient.

“I’ll kill that cardinal.”

I activated my insight.

Among the cardinals casting black magic, who was the one contaminating the air?

If I could just identify that one, the battle situation would improve considerably.

‘Found him.’

A Cardinal in black robes hiding his expression while being protected by the Knights.

The demonic power emanating from his fingertips was corrupting the atmosphere.

Kwarrrrrrk-!

Black aura flowed along the sword.

Pitch-black darkness that seemed to devour even the shadows.

I gripped my sword and charged forward in a straight line, thrusting it ahead.

“Stop him!”

The Knights of Lucifer surrounded me.

In the battlefield where attention was focused on the beastman knights.

My sudden movement became an unexpected variable for the Demon Cult bastards.

“That’s exactly right, Prince Asel.”

Genta smiled contentedly as he watched me cut down the Knights.

Though we hadn’t coordinated beforehand.

Thousands of years of combat experience allowed me to efficiently cut only enemy throats without hindering my allies’ advance.

“What the hell is that guy!”

“Concentrate more forces!”

“What are we going to do if we can’t stop one person and get broken through!”

The high-ranking priests scolded the Knights.

“We’ll try our best to stop him… Kraak!”

“The enemy is too strong!”

“We absolutely cannot stop him… Uaak!”

The Knights couldn’t even properly block a single strike from me.

It wasn’t that they were weak.

I had become stronger.

Awakening the demonic attribute aura in the Void Snowfield was definitely a major turning point no matter how I thought about it.

Dadadadada-!

My target was the Cardinal who was deploying the air pollution magic.

He must have realized I was targeting him, as his expression under the robe turned deathly pale.

He pointed his staff and screamed at the top of his lungs.

“Block hiiim! Block him, you vermin!”

Swoosh-!

The black blade cut down another Knight.

The remaining distance was only 10 meters.

Huuuuung-!

A spiral black storm formed at the tip of my sword.

The storm devoured space as it grew in size.

Everything around, including earth and wind, was sucked into the eye of the storm.

‘Pluton-style demonic energy application.’

Wind Extreme Annihilation Flow.

The technique I used when subduing Ordo Pereira, the Pope of Zagan, before.

He had succeeded in breaking it based on Zagan’s authority, but.

“Uaaaaaaak!”

As a Cardinal with no authority, he had no means to block it.

He and the high-ranking priests around him were sucked into the Wind Extreme Annihilation Flow’s storm.

Death screams echoed like roars.

“…”

“…”

The beastman knights watching the battle were shocked.

“He eliminated the Cardinal… so easily?”

“They said he was a noble from the kingdom…”

“At that level, isn’t he stronger than our captain?”

The polluted air returned to normal.

The beastmen released the aura wrapped around their respiratory organs.

I had eliminated the first objective for now.

But there was still a big mountain remaining.

‘If they mobilized this scale of force, the Pope must have come along too.’

Lucifer’s representative, Adora.

She was somewhere on this battlefield.

She was Lucifer’s representative with authority specialized in combat.

The moment she intervened, there was a possibility that the battle situation we had worked hard to gain advantage in could be reversed again.

Tap-

I retreated from the enemy lines and reorganized my breathing.

This was strange.

Originally it wasn’t to this extent, but why had I suddenly become this strong?

Was it the effect of the spirit pill?

‘Ah.’

While observing my interior, I discovered the reason I had no choice but to be strong.

6-star.

After taking the spirit pill, my aura that had been just a drop short at the end of 5-star had somehow reached 6-star.

I must have awakened during combat without realizing it.

‘6-star at 17 years old…’

Even when I was 5-star, the only peers who could match me were Meirei and Ragnor.

Even those two were geniuses worthy of being recorded in history books.

Having reached 6-star meant I had clearly advanced beyond them.

Only one step remained until 7-star, the Sword Master rank.

“Charge! Don’t stop, chaaarge!”

With the biggest obstacle of polluted air eliminated, the beastmen joyfully swung their weapons like fish in water.

The Knights clashing spears and swords were helplessly pushed back by the beastmen’s brute strength.

The priests’ black magic occasionally succeeded in penetrating aura barriers and inflicting fatal wounds.

But the injured beastmen would fall back to the rear ranks while fresh beastmen joined the front lines.

Impregnable.

One sect of the Demon Cult was crumbling before the might of the Elite Beastmen Knights.

Of course, it wouldn’t end like this.

“Sir Genta.”

I approached Genta who was commanding the battlefield.

“Please tell the knights not to let their guard down. Most of the Lucifer Sect’s military power is concentrated in their Pope, Adora.”

This was a point that the kind Deilos had especially emphasized.

He said that even if Pope Adora faced the entire Lucifer Sect alone, no one could be certain who would win.

‘With that bastard’s authority, it’s understandable.’

Genta immediately nodded and shouted loudly.

“Everyone, don’t let your guard down! The battle isn’t over until we defeat the Pope!”

Pope.

When those two syllables were pronounced, the priests were instinctively consumed by fear.

I was the only one on the scene who confirmed the change.

One of the beastmen at the front who heard Genta’s words smiled.

“The captain really is quite cautious.”

Another beastman whispered just loud enough to be heard.

“We can relax a bit now, right?”

“We’ve already won this battle. No matter how strong the Pope is, compared to our Elite Beastmen Knights…”

That was the moment.

Bang-!

Without any warning, the beastman knight’s head exploded.

The other beastman beside him suffered the same fate.

Bang-!

The disaster didn’t end with just two.

Babababang-!

The beastman knights at the front had their heads burst in unison with thunderous roars as fountains of blood shot up.

“…!!”

The beastmen were struck with horror.

Genta looked at the corpses of knights collapsing helplessly with everything above their necks gone, and raged.

‘It’s him.’

Without any flow of energy.

The technique of exploding heads while skipping any prior warning was impossible, as far as I knew, unless it was Lucifer’s power.

Click-clack, click-clack.

The sound of dress shoe heels, unfitting for the old mansion, hammered into everyone’s ears.

An appearance estimated to be in the late twenties.

Black straight hair reaching down to the waist and loose priest robes.

“So it’s you. The vermin who interfered with my plan.”

A voice as sweet as rolling jade beads.

But the meaning it carried was chilling.

“I’ll kill you in the most painful way possible.”

It was Adora, Lucifer’s agent.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————