The Imperial Supreme Commander Has Returned - Chapter 48

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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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The Empire’s Supreme Commander Has Returned Episode 48

Where do demons come from?
No one knew for certain.
They simply appeared one day and wrought massacre.
Until eventually they amassed monsters into legions.

Yet speculation was possible.
According to the mages’ research, they came from another dimension.
Uninvited guests that tore through the thinning walls between worlds and crossed over.

Screee.

A seventh-rank demon: the Silence Enforcer.
Though it was a demon, even the Silence Enforcer did not know.
Where it had come from.
When it opened its eyes, it simply found itself here.
In a corner of the damp, dark Underground Sewer.

The Silence Enforcer knew only two things.
One: this place was its perfect nest.
Two: it had to eat much and grow in silence.

……

At first, the Silence Enforcer was truly tiny.
Smaller than the palm of a human hand.
Its pupils were so enormous the cavern ceiling lay beyond its sight.

The first thing it ate was a many-legged insect.
It picked up creatures crawling across the floor and swallowed them whole.
Then came lizards, then rats.

Hunting was not difficult.
Everything in the Underground Sewer was weak.
The moment it drew near, they would collapse to the ground and tremble.

A certain strange thing it ate one day was no different.
Enormous, bipedal, with an unpalatable hide—a worthy prey.

When it devoured that, it understood something.
That it had grown large enough to touch the cavern ceiling—and

Human meat.

That it had become vastly more intelligent.
Beyond merely growing in body, it could now think.
A world apart from when it had eaten reptiles and rodents.

Nor was hunting humans particularly difficult.
Creep close, then snatch—and it was done.
They could do nothing, becoming its next meal.
So it had thought that was simply what they were for.

It hurts……

The Silence Enforcer had returned to its home cavern.
Eight single eyes gazing down at its legs glistened with moisture.
It had seen the strange human wielding that peculiar blade several times before.
But this was the first time since birth that he had suffered such a wound.

Squelch.

The Silence Enforcer opened its maw.
Black thread drawn from the spinning gland sealed the laceration shut.
Still, for all its pretense, it was a spider.
The silk wasn’t used for hunting, but it could still be spun.

Fortunately, the wound didn’t seem deep enough to cause lasting damage.
In a few hours at this rate, the leg would be magnificent once more.

—Human—!

When the pain faded, rage bloomed to fill its place.
The Silence Enforcer’s cry shook the cavern.
It too was an emotion the creature had never felt before in all its existence.

Of course, if Delram had heard it, he would have found the outcry absurd.
What—had I simply pricked it?
It was outraged over being struck while trying to devour him?

“Funny bastard,” Delram said.
—…!?
“What, you think you’re the only one who can hide?”

Whistle.

What followed the feint was a lightning-fast blade stroke.
Delram dropped from the cavern’s ceiling, bringing his curved sword down in a vicious arc.
Straight toward the Silence Enforcer’s head.

Crack.

* * *

‘That landed clean.’

Delram smiled faintly, feeling the blade’s bite through the curved sword’s grip.
In that same moment, he was certain.
This demon—strong, but not invulnerable.

He’d faced seventh-rank demons countless times.
Many varieties existed, but the ones he despised most were the crustaceans.
Their shells were so thick that without exploiting weaknesses, combat became grueling.
And they had inflicted heavy losses in the early campaigns—
before the mages developed proper countermeasures.

But this one’s carapace had softened.
The proof lay in the maxillipeds cleanly severed in a single stroke.
Short leg-like appendages near the mouth—they fired corrosive spray in prolonged attacks, which had been genuinely troublesome.
So he’d cut them away from the start.

What was surprising, as mentioned, was the clean feedback through the blade.
Truth be told, he’d expected to sever only one.
But it was weaker than anticipated—both fell cleanly.

‘By its size, it should be mature. So why is the carapace so thin? Has crossing dimensions too early left it weakened?’

He pondered it briefly, but there was no need to think further right now.
You’ll figure it out as you go.

—Eeeeeek!
Screeeech!

The Silence Enforcer blazed with light as its vital point was severed.
Its massive body thrashed through the cavern, spraying filth in a torrential spray.
Alongside the agony came a thick wave of emotion—panic, undisguised and raw.

He wasn’t in the habit of reading demons’ thoughts.
But this one’s mind was transparent as glass.

[How did it find my nest?]
[I never dropped my invisibility, not once!]
[No one was following me!]

“That Owl really took a liking to you.”
—Hoot!

Delram sheathed his curved sword and offered the explanation with casual kindness.
He’d sent the Owl after the fleeing demon.
The Owl could track the demon’s position through the currents of wind, even invisible—and that spirit possessed a body that could phase through matter itself.
Hunting it down was child’s play.

Delram had simply followed the Owl.
He’d traced the ribbon of Spirit Energy it trailed behind it, fine as thread.

Shhhhink—

Delram drew his third weapon.
A thin sword.
One point two meters long, its blade was narrow and needle-sharp.
Even at a glance, its purpose was unmistakable—it lived for the thrust.

Of course, a spear was the ideal piercing weapon.
But the Underground Sewer was far too cramped for one.
The pillars jutting from the stone walls didn’t help.
If the spear caught during an attack, it would be a catastrophe.

Soft rustling……

An odd sound reached his ears.
It was delicate—like the finest fur of a silver fox’s tail, stirring in wind—but it emanated from Hell itself.
The demon’s fur, engineered for sound absorption.
That sound was the creature’s sudden movement, betraying its position.

—Kyaaaaaah!

Delram drew his aura up in an instant, pushing off the ground with the ball of his foot.
Light as the movement was, his body pivoted sharply.
The wind-touched motion flowed at breathtaking speed.

But the evasion wasn’t complete.
The silent, colorless assassin was terrifyingly subtle.
It hung right before his eyes, yet remained nearly invisible.
Continuous invisibility powered by Magical Energy was overwhelmingly broken.

Because of that, Delram’s reaction came a beat too late.
More precisely: his mind perceived it, but his body couldn’t follow.
Blending Spirit Energy into his aura was still new to him.
His control was still clumsy, and part of the demon’s body grazed past him.

Rattle-rattle-rattle!
“Damn, this thing’s a nightmare to fight.”

Delram glanced down at his armor and let out a rueful laugh.
Though it had only brushed against soft fur, his armor hung in tatters.
The porcupine—the demon bristling with those fine, long quills like it was clutching a hedgehog—had embedded countless spines deep into his plate.
An effect of its Magical Energy.

Patter-patter-patter!

But he’d faced worse before.
It wasn’t as if he were wounded—no reason to panic.

Delram sprinted forward according to plan.
Toward the demon’s lair entrance.

Of course, he wasn’t running away.
The opposite, in fact.

“You’re not getting out of here now, you bastard.”

Delram knew the structure of this cavern well.
It was identical to the place where Tas had lived.
Which meant there was only one entrance and exit.
The iron door that had been there was long since torn away by the demon’s brute strength.

—Human… foolish.

The demon laughed at the sight, a high-pitched squeaking from all eight eyes.
Drool dripped from its snout.
Judging by its relief, it seemed the creature had been worried that this appetizing human might flee after all.

“What, a demon calling me foolish?”
—Squeak-squeak-squeak….
“You’re the fool, you bastard. If the enemy isn’t running when they should be, something’s gone wrong. That’s just logic.”
—Mouth… long.
“You little shit? Owl!”

Delram, petty after losing the argument with the demon, called out to his companion.
At the same moment, the owl hovering above the ceiling dove.
It wasn’t attacking the demon.
It was diving toward Delram, toward his outstretched hand.

The owl was naturally incorporeal.
Normally, when they passed through each other, it should have simply passed through Delram.
But this time was different.
Instead of passing through, it seeped into his hand.

Whoooooosh!

In the next instant, a tempest erupted from Delram’s body.
Like when he’d eaten that mysterious fruit at the Altar long ago.
The whirlwind then had been tremendous, but this was not quite on that scale.
Yet the gale was no trivial thing.

Screeeech—

The stones and sewage on the ground were swept away in one violent rush.
At the center of those concentric circles hung Delram, suspended barely above the emptiness.

-Kee-kee-kee?

The demon recoiled at the sudden transformation.
It wasn’t the ferocious gale itself that startled it—that was terrifying enough.
Rather, it was the gale itself that was vanishing.

More precisely: being absorbed.
Into a human body.

The demon lunged too late—the moment had already passed.
Delram gathered every last wisp of wind and lifted his eyelids open.
Between them, a deep green luminescence flashed.
Delram examined himself and marveled at what he felt.

“This is no joke.”

He had spent months now in the Owl’s company.
The routine was simple enough.
He kept the spirit summoned at all times, talking endlessly or practicing spirit magic.

Yet it had been enough.
As their bond deepened, a truth had crystallized: one day, he simply knew.
He could become one with this creature.

[Spirit Unity]

But he’d never actually used it until now.
He knew it would exact a terrible toll—that much was clear.

‘I won’t be able to summon him for about a week.’

The Owl was Delram’s only constant companion.
If he couldn’t see him for a week, who would he spend time with?
He’d known he ought to try it eventually, but kept putting it off—plenty of time, he’d thought. Never imagining he’d trigger it in actual combat like this.

So what exactly had Spirit Unity granted him?
Surprisingly little, it seemed.
No overwhelming power had awakened, no arcane mysteries infused his flesh.

Only the wind.
The wind was more visible now, more audible, more tangible.

[A new pathway of winds born from the unity’s tempest]
[Each mote of dust drifting within it]
[The air’s flux and flow, trembling each time the demon moved]

All of it throbbed through his senses with startling clarity, as though graspable in his very hands.
He might have called it a third sense opening.

It sounded grander than it was, but the truth was simple.
He could move faster now, more instantaneously.
In short: his senses had sharpened and his reflexes had quickened.

‘About thirty percent faster than my baseline, I’d say?’

To some, such an increment might seem negligible.
But Delram had been called the Weapon Master—a knight of his era.
Where ten units of resources would yield ten for anyone else, in Delram’s hands, yearning as he did for his former prowess, they became a hundred or more.
Like right now.

“Human, perish!”

The demon charged forward on eight legs.
Delram rushed to meet it, gripping the Thin Sword.
But there was no comparison between their closing speeds.
Delram held overwhelming superiority.

Like a rubber ball, one might say?
After bouncing off the ground twice, Delram was already at the demon’s front.

“Shreek!?”

The demon faltered at that elastic movement.
It reflexively stopped short, then tilted its head back.
At once, webbing erupted from the spinnerets along its abdomen.

Sshwoooosh!

The web shot outward in a radial pattern.
The net-like strands filled the space before Delram completely.
There was nowhere left to dodge.

With such vast coverage, surely its power was diminished?
It was not.
The web mesh was saturated with foul Magical Energy.

It was a mass of curses incarnate.
The moment it adhered, flesh would rot and crumble beneath waves of hex and blight.

“Pitiful.”

But Delram scoffed at it.
Already become wind itself, he did not even attempt to evade.
Instead, he lunged forward and raised the Thin Sword high above his head.

Yet something was strange about the sword’s form.
The blade, burning with blue radiance, was no longer pointed.
Instead, it had become blunt, like a club.
The Aura coating the edge, combined with a torrent of wind, had transformed it so.

An overlapping of Aura and Spirit Energy!
As a result, Delram appeared as though he wielded a veritable tempest in his hands.

And to that was added the broadsword technique Rubian had taught him.
The secret sword form of the Bistache Family—

Bistache Style, Mountain Quake Strike.
The earth trembles!

Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack!!

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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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