Chapter 55
A week had passed since Hilly, the Netherworld Hero, discovered Ophir’s tomb.
As a spirit who needed neither food nor sleep, she devoted that entire week solely to Ophir’s resurrection ritual.
[I only need to return part of his soul, and I’ve installed enough safety devices in his body···.]
When she found Ophir, who had become a mummy over the past hundred years, countless possibilities came to mind.
Should she erase his memories completely, revive him as an evolving monster, and raise him from the beginning?
Should she rummage through his brain and take only the information?
Should she simply enter that corpse herself?
But she rejected every one of those options.
The strength of the Thirteen Heaven-Defying Stars did not rely solely on their natural bodies or mana.
Expertise, strategy, wisdom, and experience.
Together, all these qualities created monsters like them.
In that sense, there would be no point in reviving him if she chose one of the options above.
Ophir revived that way would be nothing more than a pile of corpses bearing the name Ophir.
‘Of course, even that looks strong enough.’
The residual mana left in Ophir’s corpse alone made her skin sting.
(She was in a spectral state; it was only a metaphor.)
Naturally, even if she revived him as a mindless Death Knight, he could probably tear Tier Six superhumans in half.
But the pride of a Twilight School hero would not permit her to produce such a crude result from such superior material.
[I should only allow him this much reason.]
However, fully reviving that arrogant Ophir would also be an act of suicide.
Toward the end of the Empire, Ophir was famous for his depraved character, even among the Thirteen Heaven-Defying Stars.
Whenever war broke out, he always took the disadvantaged side because he found it fun to fight for the weaker side.
However, if a commander on the disadvantaged side ordered him around without knowing his place, he would simply annihilate both sides and head for another battlefield.
If arrogance ever took human form, it would be Ophir; he was a lunatic incarnate.
[As for his abilities··· for now, I should only allow him this much.]
That was why Hilly devoted herself to perfecting Ophir’s method of resurrection and means of control.
First, the form of the living dead she had used in a city of the Sneria Domain would not do.
This time, she intended to revive him in the form of a Boogeyman instead.
With this method, she could revive him while preserving the martial prowess and reason he had possessed in life.
[I’m Tier Four right now, so I think I can control him up to Tier Six.]
Finally, she attached control formulas to Ophir’s corpse.
The tier she could control would gradually rise as her own tier increased.
Of course, restoring the Empire would be out of the question with only Tier Six, but she was not impatient.
If Ophir first reduced those at higher tiers than hers to a near-death state, she could deliver the finishing blow and take their tier.
As her tier rose, the tier of Ophir she could unlock would gradually rise as well.
‘Then Tier Eight shouldn’t take long.’
Once she reached Tier Eight and then Tier Nine beyond that, none of the other Heaven-Defying Stars would dare oppose her.
It would be little different from having two Tier Nine beings traveling together in one body.
‘Hehe··· Four hundred years should be enough.’
She would rise from Tier Four to Tier Nine in only four hundred years.
If she told anyone that, they would look at her as though she were insane.
But a Boogeyman made from Ophir’s corpse could easily make that possible.
While she was indulging in such fantasies, the preparations were complete. Only waiting remained.
At last, when two in the morning arrived, Hilly began chanting the spell.
[Monstrums alte sopitus, finem quietis tuae fac et exsurge: mihi fidem aeternam praesta.]
Monster.
Mightiest undead, the culmination of all the knowledge I have accumulated over hundreds of years.
Open your eyes and swear eternal loyalty to me.
As she chanted the spell, the smile never left Hilly’s lips.
Forgetting the pain of her melted right half, she let out a manic laugh with what remained of the left side of her face.
[Return here and plunge the world into terror once more!]
Her voice rang loudly through the cave.
Make them tremble, tremble, tremble···.
And the only thing that returned was her echo.
[···]
She pressed her lips tightly shut.
What? What went wrong?
The spell and materials are correct.
Yet Ophir’s mummy was perfectly still.
‘Did I target the wrong soul?’
Could she have set the coordinates to a soul other than Ophir’s in the Netherworld, causing the resurrection to fail?
A fear that this mummy might not be Ophir briefly passed through her, but she shook her head and dismissed the thought.
There was no explaining an entity that emitted this much mana from a mummy as anything other than Ophir.
Assuming that she had made a mistake, she prepared the spell once more.
That was when it happened.
The materials she had prepared began gathering around the bones.
Blood gathered to form veins, flesh gathered to form tendons, and skin and cloth began covering them.
[Oh!]
‘Yes. Of course I could never fail···’
Boom!
At that moment, a storm made of mana erupted around Ophir’s corpse.
Hilly had no time even to look toward the center of the storm; she could only barely keep her ash-made body from dispersing.
When the storm finally subsided, a human silhouette began to appear at its center.
[Oh, yes! It worked!]
The dust settled, revealing the hem of a garment.
A red robe worn by those called Daoists in the eastern cultures.
Over it lay navy-blue padded armor protecting the shoulders and torso.
The moment she recognized the strange yet familiar style of clothing, she became certain of her success and shouted.
[Welcome back, Ophir!]
His tousled black hair swayed gently in the aftermath of the storm.
His black eyes looked deranged, as though he were searching for war, while his angular eyebrows seemed to declare his hatred for peace.
Even the straight line of his mouth seemed to look down on everyone who faced him.
It was the Ophir Hilly knew.
Ophir, the snake that swallowed the Empire.
The only difference from when he was alive was that his complexion looked paler than before.
That was only natural, since he had been revived as an undead.
In other words, everything else was exactly as Hilly remembered it.
[Hahahahaha!]
As Hilly burst into a delighted maniacal laugh,
Ophir, his skin pale, crossed his arms immediately after reviving and opened his mouth.
“Sss··· haa··· There’s no smell of bloodstained iron around here. Did the world somehow become peaceful while I was dead?”
Hilly understood on her own from Ophir’s words.
Certainly, compared to the Empire during its collapse amid a prolonged civil war, a domain war was merely a diplomatic squabble.
Hilly spread both arms and shouted toward Ophir.
[There’s no need to be disappointed, Ophir. Your body is a masterpiece I crafted with the utmost care. As my tier rises, you too will approach your prime. Cooperate with me. I’ll provide a battlefield that will satisfy you.]
As she spoke, she secretly looked forward to his response.
If Ophir cooperated with her, there would be no need to activate the control devices she had prepared in his body.
If that happened, she could deploy him on the battlefield in his prime without any problems.
Unfortunately for her, Ophir was uncooperative.
“How much time has passed?”
[?]
“The world has grown arrogant. You dare order this body around?”
Ophir uncrossed his arms and raised his mana.
At that moment, Ophir’s body stiffened.
Seeing this, Hilly’s mouth curved into a smile.
[Sorry, but your body is basically set so that it can’t harm me. Rather than making things unpleasant for both of us for no reason, cooperate with me. You might find taking orders surprisingly agreeable. I’ll prepare the battlefield you love so much.]
She did not hide her excitement as she spoke.
The reality that this monster’s leash was in her hands was so delightful that there was no way she could hide it even if she tried.
[I’ll avoid giving you orders you’ll hate as much as possible. You can do as you please with me···]
“Every one of you from the Twilight School is an idiot.”
[···What?]
Ophir casually looked down at his body, which had stiffened from the neck down, and met her eyes.
“Your school is always laying out pathetic traps and assuming victory. When I wiped you out back then, every last one of you explained exactly what sort of magic it was.”
[Wait. Could it be···]
“What? From the looks of things, you didn’t summon me knowing who I was? If this is karma, it’s quite amusing. Fine. Since this is fate, I’ll tell you.”
Ophir gave her a sardonic smile.
“I destroyed your school myself.”
Hilly’s mind went blank.
Toward the end of the Empire, the Fifteen Hero Schools mobilized every hero in their sects to stop the Thirteen Heaven-Defying Stars.
However, the moment Hilly heard that the Thirteen Heaven-Defying Stars were coming, she stole the secret manual and fled from her sect.
She was better than anyone at sensing signs of ruin, so she ran without looking back.
The news she heard later was that every single Hero School had been annihilated.
However, no one knew which of the Thirteen Heaven-Defying Stars had annihilated each school.
‘That was··· Ophir?’
Was this the person who had annihilated her school?
The fingertips of her spectral form began to tremble.
She was not angry that her junior disciples and masters from the past had died.
It was simply that if he had killed all of them, that meant he had a way to kill her even now.
‘No, that can’t be.’
Ophir had been alive back then, whereas now he had been revived by her magic.
The magical restraints were on an entirely different level, and if he harmed her even by some chance, he would be sent back to the Netherworld.
If he had even a shred of reason, he would compromise and remain in this world, even if it meant swallowing some pride···
“A battlefield only has meaning if I go there of my own will. Rather than going out as a mere puppet, I’d rather slit my own throat.”
Damn it.
Ophir was a madman beyond the reach of reason.
She hurriedly began preparing to dismiss the summoning.
The preparations were not yet complete.
At least she knew it was dangerous now; she would sever the connection and···
Slash.
[Huh?]
Her field of vision began spinning.
Only belatedly did she realize that her neck had been severed.
The neck of the specter made of ash had been cut.
She tried to understand this incomprehensible situation, but she could not.
Ophir looked down at her head, which was gradually crumbling like a sandcastle, and sneered.
“Oops. I accidentally cut your head off.”
[That’s impossible··· The restraints should be working properly···]
“You ordered me not to harm you? Know your place, brat. Are you conscious of stepping on an ant when you do it?”
Faced with such an absurd solution, she could not help but let out a hollow laugh.
Yet at the same time, she found it convincing because it was so like Ophir.
‘No, this isn’t the time.’
She examined her crumbling state and desperately pleaded with Ophir.
[If I die, you’ll die again too! Then the war···]
“Even without you, humans who want to revive me are everywhere.”
But Ophir casually ignored her, turned his back, and headed toward the stone coffin where he had been lying.
With a gesture from him, the coffin reassembled itself into the shape of a throne.
Ophir sat on the stone throne and closed his eyes.
“Before enjoying some amusement, taking a short nap wouldn’t be bad.”
As Hilly watched Ophir remain as self-righteous as ever to the very end, her head turned into a handful of ash.
Until the last moment before her consciousness left this world, she could not let go of her obsession.
‘Ah··· to end so pointlessly··· to restore the family···’
And so, the witch who had made a mockery of countless deaths and been hated by every kingdom quietly vanished in a place known to no one.