The Archmage’s Swordsmanship Is Too Strong - Chapter 27

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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27
Episode 27. The Red Warrior
***
“Huh—gasp—!”
Through the Gate’s torn fissure came a metallic screech and ragged breathing that spilled into the open air.
Three men tumbled out in disarray.
Their steel cuirasses, once silver, were gouged deep as if clawed by sharp nails, and between the furrows, dark blood wept and pooled.
The face of the man in front was no longer human. As if marinated in the venom of terror itself, his skin convulsed pale and sickly.
“Damn it! Didn’t the scout team file a proper report?! Who the hell said this was E-rank!”
“The Shaman… we didn’t know it would appear twenty minutes in—”
“You idiot!”
The man who seemed to be the leader seized his blood-soaked comrade by the collar.
Rather than relief at having survived, the horrific scene he’d just witnessed at his back seemed to be gnawing away at his reason.
His fingers trembled as he gripped the collar with brutal force, as though he might tear it clean away.
“Get the Management Division on the phone! Report it uncleared! If you don’t, those bastards are going to spill out into the city!”
A curse split the air. One glance was enough to understand the situation.
They’d come in with the casual confidence of a stroll, trusting only in the E-rank designation.
Then an unforeseen variable appeared—the Goblin Shaman—and their formation crumbled.
A Shaman mixed in with mere grunt goblins changed everything.
It was no longer a rabble of unorganized monsters, but a proper military force with clear command structure.
The Shaman paralyzes enemies’ nervous systems with Curse Magic and grants its kin a Berserk Buff to numb their pain.
It even revives corpses as zombies to use as shields, performing the role of a necromancer.
The difficulty multiplies exponentially. But fleeing without anticipating it wasn’t an excuse.
For a Gate infested with goblins, accounting for the sudden appearance of higher-tier specimens like Shamans or Hobgoblins and devising retreat routes and contingency plans was part of the basic Hunter training curriculum.
This wasn’t misfortune—it was incompetence born of negligence.
I stepped into their path as they scrambled to grab weapons and flee. The heel of my shoe struck the pavement with a sharp sound.
“Are you from the affiliated guild?”
At my voice, the clear leader flinched and jerked his head up.
“Wh-who are you?”
The man’s bloodshot eyes swept across my entire body.
When he caught sight of the words embroidered on my chest—”Official Duty”—a contemptible relief flashed across his face.
“Shit, you scared me. Get out of the way! Our guild is withdrawing!”
“Withdrawing?”
“It’s not E-rank anymore! Go in there and you’re all dead!”
The man spat and moved to shove me aside roughly. I caught sight of the guild insignia on his shoulder—a crude emblem with a shield motif.
The Buckler guild.
Memories from before the Return surfaced. These men hadn’t changed a bit.
For all their grandiose name of “Shield,” the moment danger showed itself, they were the first to turn their backs on employers and civilians alike.
With nothing but that pitiful survival instinct, they’d parasitically clung to the feet of the major guilds and persisted.
Even in the past of ten years ago, their nature was rotten.
I couldn’t fault the instinct to flee for fear of death. Fear is humanity’s most primal defense mechanism.
But if you’re going to run, you should at least have sealed the hell you opened behind you.
“Because you broke into that Gate and left the barrier so carelessly, goblins leaked into the residential area. Police officers were wounded, and civilians at a nearby restaurant nearly died.”
“So what? They didn’t actually die, did they! We nearly died—who cares about that!”
“And what about the people left behind? Who takes responsibility for the open Gate?”
“You must be insane.”
The leader flared with anger and gripped the hilt at his waist. Sharp killing intent pierced the air.
Whoosh—
I loosened the seal on the Aura I’d kept compressed near my heart, just barely. Unfiltered murderous intent poured down over their heads without restraint.
The sensation was as though the oxygen in the air had vanished in an instant—a dense, suffocating pressure of tremendous density.
Though I dealt no physical blow, a terror that crushed their amygdalae directly gripped their entire bodies.
Like organisms bearing the water pressure of thousands of meters below the ocean, all three Hunters’ breathing stopped at once.
Their facial muscles contorted grotesquely and began to convulse.
“Gasp— cough—!”
The leader’s fingers, which had gripped the hilt, went slack. His knees buckled against the concrete.
He froze like a mouse before a predator, his pupils quivering as he looked up at me.
I gazed down at his fallen form with cool detachment and spoke.
“Get out. Gambling with people’s lives is filthier than goblins.”
I turned away from the men crouched on the ground and walked toward the Gate entrance.
Behind me came the sound of pathetic sighs and stifled curses, but they were already beyond my notice.
My gaze had already fixed beyond the Gate, on the rippling crimson curtain. Hunters without a sense of responsibility, an incompetent management system.
Even after my return, the fundamental rot that had poisoned this world remained unchanged.
“Airi.”
[Yes, Successor.]
“Actually, this is perfect. I have ideal practice dummies gathered right here for a real combat test.”
At my murmur, the silver butterfly perched on my shoulder traced an elegant arc through the air.
Wisps of mana dust falling from the butterfly’s wings painted a blue interface across my vision.
[I have been waiting for that command.]
***
[Forcibly transferring Gate conquest authority.]
[Authority transfer: Buckler Guild → G City Hall Ability Management Division]
Circumventing the security system from ten years past was child’s play to me. I locked down the authority transfer carefully, prepared for what would come after.
Rip—!
The instant I tore through the crimson curtain and stepped inside, hot, humid air and the sharp stench of blood assaulted my nostrils.
The ground was slicked with muck and filth, while some unidentified liquid dripped steadily from the ceiling. An abnormal space where vast cavern and plain bled into one another.
“They’ve made quite the mess.”
Before my eyes could even adjust to the darkness, the sight that unfurled before me was overwhelming.
At least a hundred goblins swarmed the cavern entrance, layer upon layer.
Rusted kitchen blades, crude stone axes, and even clubs that looked carved from human bone.
Individual combat strength meant nothing. But in their eyes burned a vicious malice.
Goblins possessed superior night vision compared to humans, and they excelled at exploiting numerical superiority to probe for blind spots.
“Keeee-eek!!”
“Grrr-ack!!”
Dozens of pairs of murky yellow eyes fixed upon me as they caught the scent of the intruder. The battlefield’s taut tension swelled like a balloon about to burst.
Thud, thud, thud.
From the depths of the cavern, a wave of mana-infused vibration rolled through the earth. The goblin swarm parted left and right, clearing a path in rhythm with that bone-chilling pulse.
At the end of that path, perched upon a crude throne built from stacked animal bones, crouched a hideous presence.
‘Goblin Shaman.’
Light gleamed from the creature’s red-rimmed eyes. Deep violet mana shimmered like heat haze from the skeletal fingers clutching a bone staff.
“······ Human······.”
The creature rested its chin on its hand and gazed down at me, twisting its lips into a predatory smile that reeked of scorn.
The ability to speak language was proof it possessed sufficient intelligence to dominate this colony. The shaman thrust the staff skyward with a savage howl.
“Kurrrrru-ugh!!”
Corpses of goblins strewn across the ground rose with grotesque grinding of joints.
The eyes of the reanimated dead burned blood-red, and the living ones, too, responded to the shaman’s Berserk Buff incantation, their muscles swelling to unnatural proportions.
Waves of scorching steam rose from the bloated, vein-bulging bodies of the goblins.
The shaman was at ease. It awaited the sight of hundreds of underlings tearing apart the lone human who had wandered in on foot—a picture of pure arrogance.
Watching that twisted superiority, I let out a low, bitter chuckle.
“Goblins, of all things.”
I placed my hand on the pommel of the Dragon-Head Sword at my waist. A cool sensation traveled through my palm.
I released the circuit of mana I had been suppressing for Sync.
Boom—!
The air inside the Gate twisted, and a tremor as if gravity itself had inverted surged up from beneath my feet. Gravel around me defied gravity and rose into the air.
As a suffocating torrent of high-density mana engulfed the entire plain, the goblins who had been shrieking in frenzy fell silent as one.
The shaman’s red eyes convulsed with terror from atop its throne. Now it understood.
That the creature standing before it was not mere prey.
“Not a single one of you leaves this place alive.”
The shaman’s terror was short-lived; bound by its dominion, the creatures overcame their instinct and formed ranks.
Goblin Warriors at the front raised dented pot-lid shields, while behind them, archers with crude wooden bows drew aim.
——Whoooooo!
The earsplitting wail of a beast horn pierced through the cavern.
“Kwaaaaa!!”
The Goblin Warriors’ eyes blazed blood-red. They trembled violently as they released their limit, then exploded forward from the ground.
——Clank! Clank!
Behind them came goblin war carts, their wheels creaking as they advanced.
Upon them rode Hobgoblins, twice the size of common goblins, wielding massive axes and radiating bloodlust.
The fact that they had mobilized even the labor castes suggested this was an all-out struggle for the fate of the Gate itself.
“Mounting quite the celebration, then.”
······Or else hiding something precious. Given the scale of the settlement and the organized formations of the creatures, this was no ordinary goblin nest. But it hardly matters.
I can examine the ruins once I’ve incinerated every last one of these vermin.
“KEEEEEEEEE!!!”
Hundreds of buffed monsters surged toward me in unison, their bodies jamming together in a grotesque mass. The sight of them charging as one made my skin crawl.
Even before the Regression, I’d cut down tens of thousands of beasts, but goblins alone stirred a uniquely visceral revulsion in me.
It wasn’t merely their hideous appearance. It was their nature. These creatures didn’t hunt to survive.
They slaughtered for the sheer ‘pleasure’ of dominating the weak.
The elderly who couldn’t flee, defenseless children—they sought out only the weakest links, savoring their screams like some bestial ritual.
That revolting essence bled into the Buckler Guild members I’d watched abandon their comrades moments ago, the parallel so sickening it made my skin prickle.
“Maggots. Every last one of you.”
A cold curse slipped between my teeth. At that moment, a Goblin Warrior at the vanguard leaped high, driving a rusted spear point toward the bridge of my nose. The air shrieked as it split.
I didn’t dodge.
I didn’t draw my blade.
I gave only one final command.
“Airi. Sync.”
A deep, resonant hum—
The space behind me warped with a noise sharp as shattering glass.
A sickening sensation spread through my spine as vast torrents of Mana were violently siphoned from my Mana Core, as though pulled into a vacuum. And then—
“Squeal?”
Splash—
The goblin’s body froze in mid-air, the spear’s thrust halted. Its eyes dropped downward.
As if to confirm the massive cavity that had been punched through its abdomen.
What protruded from behind it was not my blade. It was a brutishly enormous Ring Saber, its surface crusted with rust the color of dried blood yet retaining a knife-sharp aura.
The massive saber tore through the creature’s midsection, grinding like a saw as it cleaved the goblin’s body in two.
“KEEEEE!”
The upper and lower halves separated, spraying green blood into the air. Beyond the cascade of gore, a colossal frame materialized with inexorable presence, bearing overwhelming mass.
——Grrrrr.
A deep, metallic grinding filled the battlefield as bone ground against bone. A decrepit Crown Helm Armor gleamed with an eerie red light from within the darkness.
The enormous warrior stood behind me, its armor-laden shoulders rolling, a giant reaching twice my own height.
From the hollow sockets of the helm poured an unsettling crimson radiance that flickered like flame.
“So we meet again.”
The culprit of the Donggureung tragedy, the elite named monster I’d brought down in a desperate life-or-death struggle days before.
The Skeleton Warrior.
That creature now stood as my shadow, a gilded specter. Mercy had no place in the grip of a giant skull-warrior.
The massive saber it held carved a semicircle through the void once more.
Crack!
Crunch!
Five goblins that had charged forward were torn to ribbons in a single sweep, their bodies fragmented like shredded paper.
Limbs scattered in all directions while chunks of flesh that hadn’t even had time to scream rolled across the ground.
Overwhelming force and terror inverted the entire atmosphere of the battlefield in an instant.
“Ke… keek…!”
The goblins instinctively backpedaled at the sight of their comrade’s mangled remains. Even the Shaman’s Berserk incantation proved useless against the absolute terror of death.
At the center of that dread, the skeleton warrior stood dangling the skull of the goblin it had just slain from its fingertip.
An avatar of destruction crawling up from hell itself. The crimson bone-warrior advanced with thunderous footfalls toward my side.
“…Why did you bring that with you?”
Screech—
The skeleton warrior stared impassively at the skull in its grip, then flicked it aside like garbage onto the ground below. Its head then turned toward me.
A bone-grinding screech echoed from within the helm, and a clear voice flowed from the creature’s jaws.
“Successor, Sync is complete. Mana output is currently stable.”
“Right…”
Witnessing this left my brow furrowed in overwhelming dissonance.
What emerged from the skull-jaws of that blood-drenched Crown Helm, scarred armor, and eyes blazing with savage hunger was nothing less than the kind, rational voice of a woman in her twenties.
“…It’s profoundly grotesque, I’ll grant you that.”
This was the true power of the relic Lunaris.
The Successor could flawlessly replicate the form, physical force, and unique Skills of any monster they’d personally killed—an almost broken ability.
The consciousness inside the shell was controlled by Airi, a tactical support program.
Formidable, but the cost was equally cruel.
‘The Mana leak rate is beyond imagination.’
A synced summon burns through my Mana in real time as its power source. The higher the monster’s Rank and body mass, the exponentially greater the consumption becomes.
Simply maintaining this elite-grade Skeleton Warrior right now was causing my veins to feel as though Mana were pouring out in violent spurts.
An ordinary Hunter would have suffered cardiac arrest from Mana depletion immediately after summoning.
But as one bearing the caliber of an Archmage, this abysmal drain fell within my tolerances.
A mage’s thirst for knowledge reared its head. How much output could this perfectly replicated Summon achieve, running on my Mana as fuel?
It was the ideal experimental stage to measure the practical limits of Mana efficiency and strike range.
Of course, constraints existed. When I checked the Sync list, the tens of thousands of beasts I’d hunted before my Regression didn’t appear.
Only those I’d killed with my own hands after returning could be commanded—that was the rule.
‘The optimal sustainable duration is roughly three minutes.’
Beyond that, I risked Mana Backflow. But I felt no urgency.
Three minutes was more than enough time to sweep away these wretched trash.
I looked up at the towering Skeleton Warrior and spoke in a low voice.
“Airi. I’m designating this Summon’s identification code as ‘Red Warrior.’ Remember it.”
[Call Name ‘Red Warrior’ registered successfully.]
[Successor, please issue your battle command.]
The grotesque skull grinned and tightened its grip on the greatsword’s hilt. The blade scraped the ground, sending sparks cascading across the stone.
I extended a finger toward the hundreds of Goblins blocking my path and the Goblin Shaman trembling, staff shaking in terror.
“Crush them all.”

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