Chapter 193
Chapter 193
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 193
Chapter Title: We'll Burn Everything
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Everything came rushing in.
I remembered. The things I had forgotten, the things I had been seeking answers for.
I must have been staring into space, trying to process the flood of memories.
Once I snapped out of it, I pulled out my phone and sent a message.
It was to Eric Airhart and Yekaterina.
[Where's Falcon?]
Airhart replied first.
Another memory tumbled in at his evasive answer.
[Probably spending time at an old estate on the continent?]
Ah, right. I even know where that is.
I was invited there before the war broke out.
I shot up from my seat.
“Hilde?”
“What are you doing?”
People called out to me, but I had no time to reply.
I walked over to the massive window in the conference room. Sixth floor. A short sprint after jumping down would take me to the underground parking lot.
I flung the window open.
“You!”
“Hildebert!”
I set my foot on the windowsill.
“Come down!”
I jumped.
Grabbing ledges along the way to slow my fall, I landed safely on the ground. There were hardly any people around, but those few screamed at the sight of me suddenly appearing.
I couldn't afford to care.
I bolted toward the parking lot.
Rage coiled around my body.
Grief and remorse. Resentment on the verge of erupting.
***
[He seems to have remembered.]
A message came from Spitfire.
Colton stared at it before slipping his phone into his inner pocket. He had figured the time was about right.
It wouldn't take long to arrive.
The man at the pinnacle of power spoke flatly.
“Strengthen the perimeter.”
“Yes, sir!”
It wouldn't stop them, of course.
Jaeyeon, standing beside him, giggled.
Today's Jaeyeon was obedient.
She brushed her hair back with fingers painted bright red manicure.
“He'll be here soon. You invited him once, didn't you?”
That's right.
He was probably barreling straight here, shoving everything aside. The distance wasn't far.
Any moment now.
Soon...
BOOM!
An enormous crash echoed from the entrance to the sprawling estate.
Alarms blared, and security personnel scrambled. Jaeyeon laughed. Colton didn't spare a glance toward the noise.
Gripping his cane, he stepped out onto the grounds.
If the arrivals had simply been insignificant.
If humanity could have easily dismissed their power. If Titans had been that pathetic, war never would have broken out. They would have lived as persecuted immigrants. Wanderers without land, never rising to the mainstream, facing baseless discrimination but not immediate threats to life.
Yet they were far too threatening, despite their numbers.
The mere skirmish at their arrival had instilled terror in humanity.
If humanity hadn't known they didn't age, they would have wiped them out before the Titans could master Earth's technology.
History might have been far simpler if that white-haired man hadn't approached with his astonishing proposal.
‘Let us study your ageless bodies, and in return, guarantee our safety.’
It had been Hildebert's offer.
Humanity had eagerly accepted. They couldn't refuse.
That brought a temporary peace.
A peace that had felt eternal back then. And it might have lasted forever.
Except the paranoid always exist.
By the time they unlocked the secret to eternal youth, calls to eliminate the Titans rose among the power holders who knew of their existence.
‘They're too much of a threat.’
Each one's individual power.
And what they knew.
‘We must remove them before they learn more about us.’
Titans weren't fools who couldn't read the winds.
Bang!
“Drive them into the corner! Into the corner!”
Bang! Bang! Rat-tat-tat-tat!
That's where opinions diverged.
A clash between the two Titan leaders.
Hildebert argued to blend in among humans.
Kyle argued to crush them and claim the elders' seats for themselves.
Kyle had a point. Once war erupted, they proved more formidable than humanity anticipated. Victory wasn't impossible.
In this era of personal media, hiding forever wasn't viable either.
Hildebert might have sided with Kyle if there hadn't been a snag.
If not for them.
More precisely, if not for the human power holders who thought like him.
「If we're handing it over, we'll burn it all.」
Colton and his ilk thought that way.
Their resolve was no bluff. Better to bow to invaders' feet. Better their grip close around what they held.
Sweet air, sprouting buds from the earth—everything.
KABOOM!
“All personnel to positions!”
‘You don't have the power to devour humanity.’
The supreme power holder back then.
The iron-willed woman Colton had tried to break stared at Hilde and said.
‘But we have the power to destroy Earth.’
Thus, even if humanity perished with it.
‘A few button presses, and it's over.’
Kyle and Ray, who had terrified humanity, didn't believe her—the 10th stage, Ray.
Kneel to the enemy, and lives could be spared, so why choose mutual destruction? He dismissed the hardliners' words as bluster. Threats meant to intimidate.
Kyle, having knelt to an enemy before, likely believed it even less. Before coming to Earth, Kyle had knelt before an emperor to save his tribe.
He kissed the emperor's red ring.
He wanted mutual destruction more than anyone, but couldn't lead his people to death.
‘They'll change their minds when defeat looms.’
What Kyle endlessly told Hilde.
‘In the end, their own lives, their extra days, will weigh on them. They'll scheme to rise from our feet. Humanity will never choose mutual destruction. Never.’
‘And relying on human mercy to hide?’
Ray didn't trust humanity's mercy.
More accurately, he didn't trust a life dependent on a power holder's mercy.
‘You know how precarious our position becomes if they change their minds.’
The count's family had nearly vanished under a false conspiracy charge.
That incident must have shocked him deeply. Even with their high status, one word from the emperor had nearly beheaded the entire house.
Only Hilde truly believed the hardliner elders.
He knew Colton best of the three.
“What a time it was.”
Jaeyeon covered her mouth as she laughed.
“Thrilling and romantic! Mornings, you'd wake wondering who Hilde had killed the night before!”
Exactly.
Hilde had read the resolve in the hardliner elders' stance: if defeat loomed, nuke everything.
He grasped their sincerity and began killing them off one by one.
Beautiful work. Everyone thought he only swung that greatsword flashily. Yet top power holders fell under his hand, vanishing without a trace.
Even while quietly eliminating elders, Hilde remained utterly at ease.
The man who emerged from the lab after a peaceful night, smiling to greet guests.
The one leaning back on the guest sofa, flashing a grin.
Before war broke, Hildebert Talib was the Titan who killed the most humans.
That title now belonged to the 10th stage.
“Remember the truck?”
Jaeyeon asked cheerfully.
“That massive black thing! Felt like a movie!”
“Good attack.”
Colton replied, feeling the weight of his cane.
But in the end, Hilde lost to humanity.
Earth was their home ground. The hardliners' zeal never wavered. No matter how many Hilde killed, some always knew the switch's location, ready to press it.
And hardliner or not, humanity never revealed the bomb sites to Titans.
Still, he fought long.
In that precarious state, Hilde held off Kyle and Ray's preemptive strikes for ages. All while steadily removing hardliners.
But things escalated fast when one elder took an innocent Titan's life.
‘Let me make a proposal.’
In a situation where war could erupt any second.
The day war loomed, Colton approached Hilde and extended a hand.
‘Don't we both want something?’
He remembered Hilde slowly lifting his head.
Golden eyes burning with killing intent. Sharp, but devoid of light.
Hilde shook hands with Colton, who promised to shelter every Titan who chose hiding to the end. In exchange for blocking Kyle and Ray.
Even Titans hostile to humanity requested protection if they turned.
He never abandoned his comrades to the last.
KABOOM!
“Exiled Titans will forever believe that switch was a bluff.”
That's why they'll hate Hilde eternally.
The one who turned his back at the final moment. Who did everything to prevent their victory over humanity.
The leader who lured a third of their kin to kneel at humanity's feet.
In any case, Hildebert chose the path to save as many kin as possible. He couldn't pick total ruin.
That's why he went to face his old friend.
If he hadn't turned away, nothing would remain here now.
Not humanity, not Titans, not the meticulously tended green lawns.
Thud!
A heavy sound came from close by.
Colton Wiseman slowly turned.
The estate grounds were wrecked, bloodstains everywhere. The elegant building, moments ago pristine, lay in ruins. Stone walls toppled, manicured walkways torn up.
Corpses strewn across the walkways.
The culprit lay bound on the ground.
Pierced by spears and bullets, pinned down. Four guards pressed hard on Hilde's back.
Beneath their shoes, the blood-soaked man glared at Colton.
With pure hatred.
“Colton.”
His voice was thick with boiling blood.
“I hate you.”
Colton approached him.
He stopped before him, then slowly knelt on one knee. His men flinched, but he ignored them.
White hair, refined features. Fierce golden eyes on his old foe.
Even back amnesiac, he hadn't changed much.
His innate kindness and cold realism.
The eyes filled with hatred and faith, fixed on him.
Colton gripped his bloodied friend's chin and lifted it.
“I revere you.”
The one who made the most precise judgment.
Who never averted his eyes from reality, even with the worst option looming. Who sought ways amid the downward spiral—to save even one more kin, to secure the future.
“My old friend.”
The one who cleared the obstacles blocking his path.
Who blocked Ray and Kyle, protecting humanity, Earth, Titans—everything Colton held.
“My ace in the hole for victory.”
Hilde had prevented ruin.
The one who saved the world became his kin's betrayer.