Karnak, Monarch of Death

The only female among the Four Martial Kings, Lapicel Crotium:

She was renowned as the youngest person to ever earn the title of Martial King, and she stood as humanity’s great hero who fought against the terror of the Monarch of Death, even as the rest of the world succumbed to despair.

Karnak and Varos scoffed incredulously at Serati.

“How can you not know her?”

“She’s one of the Four Martial Kings!”

But Serati still looked baffled. “But there’s no one named Lapicel among the Four Martial Kings?”

The surname Crotium was familiar to her. Beltia Crotium, a female swordsman from Cyphras, was one of the current Four Martial Kings—the only female—and a towering figure of strength. However, Beltia was a mature woman in her forties, not a young girl like the one before them.

“Oh, right...”

Karnak and Varos finally realized their mistake. They had been momentarily confused, but Serati wouldn’t know Lapicel at all.

“In this era, Lapicel isn’t a Martial King yet.”

“More than that, most of the future Four Martial Kings haven’t even ascended to their titles yet.”

Leven Strauss was still acting as the successor to his father, Martial King Gallard Strauss. Malican Thun was secluded in the eastern mountains, focusing on his training and had not yet reached the rank of Martial King.

“And Dreltein Thelix, that old man, is likely active as the only Martial King of this time.”

Of course, in this era, Dreltein would not be the wise and experienced swordsman in his sixties that Karnak and Varos remembered. Instead, he would be in his prime, a vigorous warrior in his thirties. As for Lapicel Crotium...

“She wouldn’t even have become Beltia’s apprentice yet at this point in time.”

It would take another twenty years after becoming Beltia’s disciple and adopting the name Crotium before Lapicel would finally claim the title of Martial King. Serati glanced at the gray-haired girl standing against the King’s Order.

“So, that girl is a future Martial King?”

“Yes.”

“Then why?”

The girl moved with elegance and poise, calmly rendering each member of the King’s Order unconscious. Even with a sword in hand, she didn’t cut anyone. Instead, she channeled her aura into blunt strikes, using the blade like a club to knock them out. It was completely different from how she had attacked Karnak and Varos earlier.

“What did you do to this future Martial King to make her hate you so much? Why is she acting like you’re her mortal enemy?”

Karnak suddenly looked sheepish, averting his gaze. “Well, you see...”

With a sigh, Varos answered for him. ”It’s because we are her mortal enemies.”

***

It happened during Karnak’s reign of terror as the Monarch of Death, when he was at the height of his infamy. Most of humanity had already knelt before his undead army. Even the three Archmages and most of the Four Martial Kings had fallen powerless before the vast reach of his dominion and his accursed lieutenants.

Yet Lapicel refused to yield. No matter the trials, no matter how many defeats she suffered, she rose again and continued to fight against the darkness.

She was, in every sense, the beacon of hope for humanity. From Karnak’s perspective, she was a painful thorn in his side. Her constant disruptions to Necropia Empire forced Karnak to deal with her personally.

“What did you do to her?” Serati asked cautiously.

“Well, at first, I took her master, Beltia from her seclusion as hostage,” Karnak explained to her.

But the plan didn’t work. Lapicel wept blood for her beloved mentor, but she didn’t falter. She sacrificed her mentor’s life and instead continued to resist Karnak with even greater ferocity. In every sense, she fought for justice and for humankind.

“That didn’t work, so I turned Beltia into an undead and sent her after Lapicel.”

Serati’s jaw dropped.

“You... what?”

He had turned her mentor—essentially her parent—into undead and had them fight?

“I mean, I had her captive, so I had to make use of her. Sure, Beltia wasn’t in her prime anymore, but she was still useful...”

“Asshole.”

“Pardon?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

After hearing his story, Serati could understand why Lapicel might harbor such intense hatred.

But then Varos interjected. “That’s not even the worst part.”

“That wasn’t the end of it?” Serati asked weakly.

After slaying her undead master, Lapicel burned with even greater fury. She continued to defy Karnak. Yet even she could not stand against the might of Karnak after he had ascended to Astra Shunaph, his ultimate form.

In the end, faced with the endless legions of undead, even Lapicel’s blade was shattered. Karnak’s punishment for Lapicel after capturing her was nothing short of horrifying. He stripped her bones to create skeleton soldiers, tore away her flesh to craft flesh golems, and sealed her soul inside living armor.

—You insolent woman who dared defy me, I will condemn you to an eternity of agony, unable to live or die, in a hell beyond reckoning!

“...So you said,” Varos muttered.

Serati slowly turned her gaze towards Karnak. Her expression a mix of shock and disgust, more hostile than if she had been confronted by a cockroach.

“Wow, even demons would cry at that...”

“I mean, I’ve made plenty of demons cry, you know. Remember Maz-nun? He was wailing like a child when he—”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Right, sorry.”

Karnak hung his head, looking uncharacteristically sheepish. It seemed even he had some inkling of just how monstrous his actions had been. Not that this warranted any sympathy.

With a deep sigh, Serati muttered, “I understand now why she screamed and ran at the sight of you.”

If she had suffered the same fate in a past life, she’d probably do the same. It also explained why the girl had been so unrelentingly hostile toward Varos and her. After all, one was the Monarch of Death’s right-hand man, and the other was his servant.

But then Serati tilted her head, something nagging at her thoughts.

Wait. Past life?

As she spoke, a realization dawned.

“You’re saying that girl is a future Martial King?”

Not a girl who will become a Martial King. Rather, he had addressed her as the actual future Martial King herself. That was the only explanation for her immediate and unrestrained fury upon seeing Karnak.

“That’s right.” Karnak’s expression darkened. “She’s the Lapicel of the future. Like us, her soul has traversed time and space to come here.”

The moment Karnak identified her, he knew. No matter how extraordinary Lapicel would eventually become, the current her was still just a twelve or thirteen-year-old child, not even having met her master Beltia yet. There was no way she could possess this level of power in the present timeline. The real mystery was on their end.

“But how did she follow us back to this era?”

***

Meanwhile, the King’s Order’s First and Seventh Squads continued to block the girl’s advance. The Seventh Squad placed their faith in Karnak and threw themselves into the fight.

Ugh, we’re going to die at this rate.

When is Captain Karnak coming back?

The First Squad, however, fought with a mix of doubt and frustration.

Is he really coming up with a plan?

Or did he just run away?

Despite their suspicions, none of them retreated. By now, they had realized something important. They could allow themselves to get knocked unconscious by the girl. Those who had fallen weren’t writhing in pain or covered in injuries. There weren’t even any bruises.

She was fighting with such an absurd commitment to safety that even the most reckless assaults from her were carefully measured.

I’m not sure why, but this is manageable!

If that’s the case, we can rest assured and attack!

Of course, this shouldn’t have been entirely reassuring. No visible injuries didn’t mean they were unharmed. For all they knew, their spines might be fractured, leaving them paralyzed for life. But no one wanted to think about that. The Seventh Squad, full of conviction, charged again and again.

“Just keep her occupied!”

“It’s fine for us to get knocked out!”

“If we buy enough time, Captain Karnak will come up with something!”

This deep trust and camaraderie were rewarded by Karnak with the following response.

“Since they’re keeping her busy, let’s put some more distance between us.”

Watching from a safe spot, Karnak and Varos crept further away.

Serati, aghast, called them out. “Are you seriously using your comrades as bait?”

“They’ll be fine. She’s not going to kill them.”

Varos nodded in agreement. “Nor will they be maimed. Lapicel isn’t the type to cross that line.”

No matter how dire the circumstances, Lapicel never committed wrongful acts. Even if it put her own life at risk, she refused to harm the innocent. Although she had been their enemy, both Karnak and Varos acknowledged her as a true hero, which made Serati stare at them in disbelief.

So, they had this incredible hero mutilated, humanity stripped away, and her soul tortured.

A deep sense of regret about her current allegiances washed over her.

“Now that I think about it, that’s strange. Why is she burning with hatred toward me too?”

Karnak? Sure, he’d done plenty to deserve her wrath. Varos? Same deal, no question there. But Serati? She’d done absolutely nothing to Lapicel to warrant such animosity.

Karnak shot her an unimpressed look. “Maybe because you’re a cowardly human who sold your soul to a vile necromancer just to cling to life?”

With Serati now sulking behind them, Karnak and his group continued deeper into the canyon, eventually finding a secluded boulder to hide behind.

“Veil of Chaos, descend upon me and deceive the eyes of my enemies.”

A sixth circle concealment spell spread around them. This advanced invisibility magic not only cloaked them visually but also masked their presence and scent. Only after setting the spell did Karnak let out a sigh of relief.

“We’ll figure out how she got here later...”

That wasn’t the core issue right now. Right now, the problem was survival.

“How are we supposed to defeat her?”

Varos, watching Lapicel’s battle from afar, responded with a weary voice. “Her combat instincts are still as sharp as ever. She was like this back then too.”

“Yeah, ugh. Fighting her was always the worst.”

Serati, puzzled by their grim expressions, asked, “Just how strong was she, exactly?”

Karnak and Varos answered simultaneously.

“She was the strongest of the Four Martial Kings.”

“She was a martial king, so strong. But she was the weakest of the Four Martial Kings.”

Serati blinked. “Why are your answers completely different?”

***

Unlike the other Martial Kings, who were born into prestigious families and received systematic training from a young age, Lapicel’s childhood was ordinary. In fact, calling it ordinary would be an understatement.

She was born into a poor family and grew up struggling to survive. She lost her parents to bandits and became an orphan. Until Beltia took her in, she barely managed to scrape by, let alone train in martial arts.

But that only made her talent more remarkable. Even under such dire circumstances, she possessed such overwhelming potential that Beltia, one of the Martial Kings at the time, took her as a disciple without hesitation.

“Her talent was unparalleled,” Varos admitted.

But raw talent alone wasn’t enough to surpass the other Martial Kings. In the first place, all of the Martial Kings were geniuses. Becoming one required innate genius, abundant resources, relentless effort, and a bit of luck. Thus, among the Four Martial Kings, Lapicel was considered the weakest.

“But her adaptability was unmatched.”

She thrived against enemies no one else had ever faced. She had a knack for finding a way out, no matter how bizarre or insurmountable the situation seemed. In other words, from Varos’s perspective as a martial artist, she was somewhat manageable. For necromancer Karnak, however, she was a nightmare.

“She was the most troublesome for me,” Karnak grumbled, glancing nervously beyond the boulder. “Thankfully, she’s not at her peak right now.”

Serati, startled, asked, “That’s not her peak?”

“Of course not. You really think someone could earn the title of Martial King with just that?”

Varos chimed in, “Look around. The sky’s still blue and the ground isn’t splitting apart. Clearly, she’s limited by her young, untrained body.”

Serati stared blankly at him. In other words, the sky changed color and the ground split open when she fought at her peak? How powerful were the Martial Kings, and what kind of monster was Varos to have defeated all of them?

“And what’s the difference between you and that girl, Sir Varos?” Serati asked him.

“What do you mean?”

She understood that both were monsters who had fallen from their peak. However, it seemed like they had fallen to different degrees. Varos couldn’t even awaken his aura, while that child was throwing around purple-tier aura like candy.

”You said you were on equal footing before, but now, the difference is so massive that—”

“Ah, it’s a different situation. Her and Varos,” Karnak replied before trailing off, his expression shifting.

“Wait a minute!” His eyes lit up as if struck by inspiration. “That’s it! There’s a way!”