Volcas (ヴォルカス) was the leader of the Elcanti army's main force, the disciplinary unit. A mighty wolf person who once obeyed Eugard Vollachia after he and the pack of demi-humans he led were forced into servitude, he was the culprit behind the murder of Iris, directly instigating the emperor to decree the execution of all wolf people and mole people. He was slain by Eugard after Iris's murder, awaiting a reunion with her in death.
Resurrected as a zombie during the Great Disaster, Volcas had such great strength that, rather than being forced to partake in the destruction of the Vollachia Empire, he resisted Sphinx's compulsory force, allowing him to act according to his own desires instead.
Contents
Appearance
Volcas was a wolf person with a muscular build covered with dark black fur whose body could be said to be a lethal weapon. He had golden-colored eyes, black bangs that drooped over one of his eyes, fangs as sharp as blades that protruded from his mouth, and beastly claws at the ends of his trunk-like arms. For a wolf person, Volcas was taller than average.
Personality
Volcas deeply detested the Iron and Blood Code of Vollachia that allowed for the weak to be abandoned. As a wolf person who lived and was sustained by his pack, for most of his life, his community took precedence over everything else. He valued it more than anything and would not hesitate to permit them to maraud villages in order to gather resources that guaranteed their survival or seek vengeance for members of his pack who were killed. Despite despising Vollachia's mantra, when placed in a situation where he exacted retribution for his fallen brethren and aimed to ward off the ensuing counterattack with violence, he believed he had no other choice but to kill or be killed, and to prove his pack's strength to protect them, which would ironically cause him to adhere to the Iron and Blood Code. He had a strong sense of determination for matters relating to his pack and to achieve his own desires when he could, and confidence in his own strength and capabilities. He also spoke rudely to those he knew and frequently bantered with or hurled insults to them.
After being saved by Iris, Volcas started to care for her, beginning to treat her similarly to members of his pack, and eventually, he fell in love with her. While not entirely loyal to Eugard, he was willing to serve the King Of Thorns as long as it was what Iris wanted. By the time she was gradually whittling down her lifespan to stay at Eugard's side, Volcas's love for her had grown so large that he decided to prioritize his selfish feelings for her over the welfare of his pack. In order to end her suffering at the hands of poison, he chose to murder her, and to ensure that Eugard had the will to continue his reign in accordance with what he thought would be her wish, Volcas deliberately condemned his pack and their kin to persecution by asserting that they would avenge him, surmising that the King of Thorns would likely slaughter them in an act of vengeance, which subjected them to the Empire's retaliation for a period of nearly 300 years.
History
Iris and the King of Thorns
With his immense strength, Volcas became the leader of a “pack” of demi-humans. Several members of their pack would attempt to maraud a village within the Elcanti Domain, and the domain's forces, which had been directed by Eugard Elcanti to guard its villages, slew the bandits and burned their bodies. About three weeks later, Volcas and his pack participated in a retaliatory attack to avenge their fallen comrades. He tore apart and murdered most of the villagers, with only a number of women and children surviving the onslaught. They were captured and placed in cages within a cave the pack used as a base. Though most of the village women were sobbing and feared for their lives, one of them, Iris, stood up to Volcas, undeterred by his rage even upon learning he had murdered her parents. Believing that his pack's only chance at survival was to eradicate their enemy, he rejected the girl's attempt to reason with him. Suddenly, he detected the scent of anger mixed in with the wind, emanating from a lone man who was approaching their base, and expressed confusion over what the man could accomplish by himself.
With sword in hand, the man, Eugard Elcanti, arrived by himself to prevent unnecessarily sacrificing the soldiers in his army. With his Curse of Thorns unilaterally binding everyone in the vicinity, besides Iris, most members of the pack were quickly defeated without a fight. Volcas used his claws and attempted to tear open his chest to remove the thorns that had imparted themselves onto it, to no avail. Ignoring his injuries, Volcas clashed with Eugard, attempting to kill him in one blow with his sheer physical ability and relentless assaults spanning just over than ten seconds, but was repelled with the sword techniques of the King of Thorns and stopped fighting, having exerted his efforts. Volcas believed Eugard's lack of a counterattack was an insult to him, but the man corrected that belief, saying that the wolf person was strong and that he could not risk something bad happening in order to save the hostages. Eugard then freed Iris and prepared to execute Volcas and his pack. However, rather than wishing for their execution, Iris chose to forgive Volcas and the pack, imploring Eugard to spare their lives, shocking both of the men. Despite the murder of her friends and family, Iris wished to forgive them anyways to prevent them from perpetuating a cycle of battle and death. Listening to Iris's request, and verifying that she would not regret this result, Eugard decided to spare the pack and asked Volcas for his name. As a consequence of their defeat, the members of the pack were bound by Collars of Submission and conscripted into a disciplinary unit obligated to serve the Elcanti Domain.
Volcas often left the disciplinary unit's training sessions to disturb Iris while she was being taught by Lynek, chiming in by bantering with the village girl. After Whitaker Goldario joined their faction, the man gauged Volcas as having the power to the ascend to the Nine Divine Generals under Eugard's reign. As he began moving with the disciplinary unit when it came time to act in the Imperial Selection Ceremony, he spoke with Eugard over a Conversation Mirror, being given the instruction to have the soldiers refrain from marauding as they had done before to limit bloodshed. In return, Volcas told Eugard he did not need to be on the front lines and to stay by Iris's side. He said he would not act for their sake, requesting that he receive proper treatment in exchange for fulfilling his duties, to which Eugard replied by evaluating he was more than worthy of receiving the treatment of a General.
When it was discovered that Iris lost her ability to stay in close proximity to Eugard upon being cured of her Battle Craze Syndrome, Volcas aimed his claws over Whitaker's neck in rage, pinning him responsible for her having succumbed to the Curse of Thorns, and he was only stopped from taking the man's life by Terriola. Attributing the herbs used to cure her as having produced this situation, Volcas was countered by Whitaker by mentioning Iris's preexisting illness. Volcas then left to see Iris, leaving the siblings to continue preparing for Eugard's coronation alone. Some time later, he entered the Musik Castle where Iris had been briefly staying at and spoke with her. Believing he was indebted to her due to her decision to spare him and that he could not repay her with his life, Volcas declared to Iris that she could treat and use him however she wished. Shedding tears in response, he licked her tears in accordance with tradition for an adult from his pack to lick the tears of the young to comfort them. Just afterwards, Lynek appeared to inform Iris that Whitaker Goldario had launched a rebellion in tandem with the Nine Divine Generals against Eugard, intending to murder him by setting fire to the Imperial Residence in the Imperial Capital.
To return to Eugard's side and encourage him to take arms against Whitaker, who planned to install himself on the throne once the King of Thorns was killed, Iris requested Lynek to use the herbs he had been gifted to create a medicine that would simulate the effects of Battle Craze Syndrome, which he reluctantly accepted after Volcas demanded an explanation from her. With Iris's encouragement, Eugard swiftly extinguished the lives of the Nine Divine Generals and Whitaker, putting a stop to the revolt, and his coronation proceeded as planned, being crowned as emperor by his beloved. Having been within the range of the Curse of Thorns for an extended period of time, Iris began to cough up blood when she returned to her quarters. Lynek warned her that she was pushing herself too hard, feeling guilty for creating a poison that was whittling down her life. Volcas, who was with the two, told Iris he was siding with her above all else, rather than with the Vollachia Empire, and that Eugard had no issue with his loyalties, giving her a cup of water after saying this. Though tolerating her selfishness despite the risk to her life, Volcas expressed genuine concern for her mind and body. Lynek rejected her proposal to teach her how to brew it herself, as she would not have been able to make it even if she had learned how to, yet he also had the responsibility of complying with her selfish request in order to remain with Eugard, placing him in a predicament where he would have had to continue bestowing her with poison out of obligation. Volcas delivered her a gentle insult, and Iris proceeded to rest in order to conserve her energy in order to interact with her beloved Eugard.
Iris's poisoning of herself troubled Volcas, who did not wish to see her suffer. In his mind, he was left with only two decisions to end her suffering. The first would be to take away her reason from using the poison, and the second was to physically stop her from using it outright. The first option, kill Eugard, would send Vollachia in disarray, something that neither he nor anyone else wished to see come to fruition. Thus, to prevent Iris from having to suffer the effects of the poison, Volcas made the decision to brandish his claws and tore into her back, removed her heart, and clutched it within his hand, performing this in the garden of the Crystal Palace to allow Eugard to witness it.
With Iris's collapsed body lying by Volcas's feet in a pool of blood, being held in his arms, Eugard discovered the scene. His Curse of Thorns activated and bound themselves to Volcas, producing an immense, agonizing pain within him, as well as Iris's heart, which became entwined with thorns. Eugard only pronounced a single word, why, upon observing Volcas's actions. He then opened his mouth and ate Iris's heart, swallowing it whole, making Eugard repeat his question. Volcas claimed it was a wolf person's nature, and that he had been waiting for this moment from the beginning. The emperor proceeded to shout Volcas's name, unsheathing the Yang Sword Vollachia from the air, incinerating his enemy's arm at the elbow instantly with the flames quickly spreading to his whole body. Although Volcas had always valued and prioritized his pack, in his last moments, he instead chose to prioritize his star, Iris, whom he had fell in love with. With his last breaths, he told Eugard to not think this was the end, and that his brethren would turn their fangs against him, to which he replied, suppressing the urge to yell and unleash his rage, by saying he would repel and eradicate anyone with ill intentions who came his way. Swinging the Yang Sword once more, Volcas pronounced once more that, in the end, Eugard was just a normal man, given his reaction to Iris's death. Though Volcas felt guilty for bringing his pack into his selfish whims, he did not regret it, and told Eugard to take his time, believing that he would have the woman he loved all to himself in death.
As a result of Iris's murder at the hands of Volcas, when Eugard publicly announced her death, he also began the decree that ordered the extermination of wolf people, the race the murderer of his beloved had belonged to, as well as the mole people, the race that Lynek, who had been perceived as a collaborator in her death, belonged to. While Volcas's plan of giving Eugard a reason to live by eradicating the two races had succeeded, his single miscalculation had been that the King of Thorns loved Iris far more than he could have imagined. Rather than performing the policy out of a desire for vengeance, which had been Volcas's goal, after learning of the existence of the Soul Marriage Curse from Terriola, he chose to bind the lives of the slaughtered wolf people and mole people as a means of preventing Iris's soul from being forfeit to Od Lagna, perpetually forcing her to reincarnate anew into vessel after vessel, with this eventually starting sometime after Eugard's reign. In the meantime, the soul of Volcas waited in vain in the Corridor until he could achieve a reunion with the one he sought.
Undead Busters
Resurrected in an undead form during the Great Disaster, Volcas's great strength allowed him to resist the compulsory force Sphinx used to place most zombies under her command. As such, he refrained from taking part in any battles during the disaster. Following Arakiya's assimilation with Muspel, limiting the lingering undead to have only one more life, he persisted afterwards unlike those who were killed or had ceased to desire anything and faded away, desiring to reunite with Iris, whose name he spoke.
He encountered an undead weaponkin by the name of Breznon and quickly disarmed and dispatched the man with his claws and fangs. This sight was witnessed by Cecilus Segmunt, who introduced himself to Volcas and in turn asked for his name. Recognizing Volcas from the tale of Iris and the King of Thorns and as a warrior whose name was spoken throughout Vollachia's history, the two Generals clashed in battle, which ended in the Blue Lightning's victory. However, as they were near Chaosflame and Yorna, rather than seeking to have Spica eat Volcas's name, Cecilus tried reasoning with Arakiya to let the wolf person stick around for the time being. While Cecilus and Arakiya were quarreling, Spica patted Volcas's head, causing him to reminisce back to when Iris had done so to him.
Abilities
Enhanced Physiology: Among the wolf people, Volcas was particularly powerful, possessing a muscular body and large arms he could move at such swift speeds that his relentless assault of an opponent could be compared to the speed of a tornado and his movements seemed as quick the blink of an eye.
- Powerful Jaw: As a wolf human, Volcas had sharp fangs rather than teeth. That, combined with his jaw strength, allowed him to easily crush the iron legs of a powerful weaponkin like Breznon.
- Powerful Claws: Volcas had sharp, blade-like claws capable of tearing through iron and piercing into someone's body or reducing them to a clump of blood in a single blow. With them, he was easily able to rip a person's heart out of their body or sever the legs of his enemies with ease.
- Enhanced Sense of Smell: As a wolf person, Volcas had a strong, keen sense of smell, allowing him to detect the amount of people in a given area by their scent. From his many experiences in combat, he was also able to distinguish the smell of anger emanating from those who were preparing to do battle.
Great Power: Volcas possessed strength far beyond that of even an ordinary wolf person. In terms of pure might, Volcas was the strongest person in Vollachia during his time, and he was only outclassed by Eugard Vollachia, whose prowess and technique with the sword was able to counter him even without the Curse of Thorns. Likewise, his strength was enough to allow him to resist the influence of Sphinx's compulsory force so that he could act on his own.
Navigation
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This mirror exists for archival purposes. The original page can be found on Re:Zero Wiki. Edit and contribute there!