As though their eyes were being guided there, the soldiers of both sides, and the soldiers beside them noticed it. In this way, everyone on the Kattse Plains, who had gathered to wage war, ended up staring silently at the sphere floating in the sky.
The sphere — which resembled nothing so much as a hole in the heavens— was like an opened spiderweb; once one caught sight of it, one could not pull away.
The black sphere slowly grew larger.
Be it fighting or fleeing, no human could engage in any meaningful thought or activity. All they could do was stare dumbly.
And soon — the ripened fruit fell.
Like the laws of the universe, the falling sphere broke apart when it touched the earth.
It burst like a water balloon striking the ground, or perhaps like an overripe fruit doing the same.
It was full of something that spread out from the point of impact. It was something like asphalt. It absorbed the light, like a wave of hungry darkness, and it was sticky and fluid and it swallowed the corpses of the dead Kingdom soldiers.
Informed by some unknown instinct, nobody thought it would end there.
Perhaps it had only begun.
This was the beginning of their despair.
Suddenly, a vast tree grew from the black tar that covered the earth.
No, that was nothing as pleasant as a tree.
At first, there was only a single trunk, but then it multiplied. Two, three, five, ten… they waved in a wind that was not there. What was growing there… were tentacles.
“MEEEEEEHHHH!!”
Suddenly, they heard the adorable bleating of a goat. And it wasn’t just one goat. The sound of a herd of goats seemed to have come from nowhere.
As though drawn by the sound, the asphalt writhed up, and it gave birth to something.
It was something that was far too strange, too unnatural.
It was ten meters in height. If you added the length of the tentacles, that figure became unclear.
At a glance, it resembled some sort of turnip. In place of leaves, it had numberless black tentacles, and its body was a slab of meat covered in raised lumps. Below that were five legs, like those of a goat’s, tipped with black hooves.
Fissures appeared on its body — that thick slab of meat covered in lumps— peeling and splitting with the sound of something shattering. These cracks were not limited to just one area. And then…
“MEEEEEEHHHH!!”
The adorable bleating of goats rang forth from those openings. They were savage maws that drooled without end.
There were five of them.
They revealed their spine-chilling forms to everyone on the Kattse Plains.
The Dark Young of the Black Goat.
Born of the super-tier spell “Ia Shub-Niggurath — Sacrifice to the Black Harvest”, they were monsters summoned from the deaths of men. Although they did not possess any powerful special abilities, they were outstandingly resilient.
And their level was over 90.
This was a portent of a storm of carnage.
Besides the adorable bleating, so sickeningly sweet and cute that it made people want to vomit, there were no other sounds. That was because nobody could speak, unwilling to believe or accept that the events unfolding in front of their eyes were truly happening. Over 300'000 —or if you counted only the living, 235'000— people were gathered here, and none of them could say anything.
Under these circumstances, Ainz laughed heartily.
“Marvelous. This is a new record. In all of history, I might be the only one who ever managed to call forth five at once. Remarkable. I must give my thanks to everyone who died here today.”
Under normal circumstances, every summoning of the Dark Young would only produce one entity, which was itself a cause for celebration. Being able to bring out two was a rarity.
And now, there were five.
Just like a player who was celebrating over beating his own high score, Ainz was overjoyed by the fact that he had set this new record. So what if tens of thousands had died for it?
“Although… it would be better if there were more… is five the upper limit? If I’ve already reached the spell cap, then this would be quite a feat.”
“Congratulations! As expected of Ainz-sama!”
Ainz smiled under his mask as Mare praised him.
“Thank you, Mare.”
After that, Nimble turned as if by reflex, his face somewhere between tears and laughter as he praised Ainz as well.
“Con-congratulations.”
“You’re welcome.”
Ainz replied in good humor.
Nimble’s appearance of being honestly moved fueled the itch in Ainz’s heart.
Then, he remembered his days as a YGGDRASIL player, of the same swell of emotion he had when he had first seen the casting of ‘Ia Shub-Niggurath!”
As a flashy, super-tier spell, it seems to have stolen the hearts of everyone. Well, that was only to be expected of one of the most popular spells in YGGDRASIL. When I said I was going to cast it, Albedo and Demiurge couldn’t stop lavishing praise on me.
A gachigachi sound rose from the ranks of the Imperial army.
It was the sound of armor clattering against itself.
The soldiers’ bodies were trembling in fear, but nobody could laugh at them.
There was nobody who wasn’t covered in goosebumps after hearing the laughter of the Sorcerer King who had cast that bone-chilling spell.
Every man in the Imperial knights made the same wish.
They wished that the wrath of Ainz Ooal Gown would not fall upon them.
In that sense, it was more like a prayer.
While the soldiers fervently implored their gods for aid, Ainz began the next phase. He felt that he had already done enough, but then again, it did not hurt to make sure.
This time round, the objective was to proclaim the might of Ainz Ooal Gown, a practitioner of super-tier magic, to the gathered nations.
That objective had been achieved. However, letting these minions fade away would be a waste.
That’s right, it would be far too wasteful.
Ainz snorted.
If he had a tongue, he would be licking his lips in anticipation.
This was a joy he could not feel in YGGDRASIL, the joy of being able to simultaneously direct five Dark Young.
“—Ah, let’s give it a try. Overrun them, my darling lambs.”
As they received the command of their summoner Ainz, the Young began to move with ponderous slowness.
With a baffling, five-legged gait, they launched into nimble motion. Rather than being graceful, however, it was more of a frantic tangle of movement and energy, and from a certain point of view, it might even be seen as laughable.
As long as they did not come for you.