Chapter 134
Chapter 134
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 134
Chapter Title: The False Hero
-----------------------------------------------------------------
A storm of light raged around the body of Mikhail Lancaster, the Apostle of Fire and Light.
The magma flowing in place of blood hardened like igneous rock, and his entire body began to warp.
‘That is…’
The Armor of Ideology was a mental construct, a direct reflection of its user’s convictions. And its form was by no means fixed. After all, Lady Shadow Orelia’s own avatar had changed countless times to arrive at its current state.
“Peace.”
From within the swirling halo of light, Mikhail Lancaster spoke.
“What I desire is, and always has been, one thing: peace. Just as the Hero from Another World once did.”
He uttered those words again, tightening his grip on the Hero's beloved sword, Peacemaker.
“The Hero from Another World brought anything but peace to this world.”
Dale retorted without a hint of hesitation.
“Do you truly believe that?”
“I do.”
“That is merely slander from the Sachsen family, who are nothing but outsiders to the Empire.”
Mikhail scoffed. But it was Dale who felt the urge to burst out laughing.
‘I’m that Hero, you goddamn brat.’
Swallowing the words that rose in his throat, Dale feigned composure.
Within the raging storm of light, Mikhail Lancaster’s ‘avatar’ was twisting into a new shape. The ideology he held as the Apostle of Fire and Light, the Sun Knight… was beginning to shift toward its second form.
“The Hero from Another World laid an undeniable cornerstone of peace upon this continent. He did so through his power.”
Seeing its shape, Dale quietly sucked in a breath.
“As a child, I could never forget the sight of the Hero, active as a champion of the Empire.”
“...!”
“The Hero from Another World was, without a doubt, my idol.”
The second form of Mikhail Lancaster’s avatar, the Armor of Ideology he had built, was not the easily recognizable shape of armor.
“I wanted to be the Hero.”
Hanseong, the Hero from Another World, stood there, his hand gripping the hilt of his beloved sword, Peacemaker.
The Empire’s hound, the monster of peace, had finally revealed itself.
Dale’s past, his former self, was standing right there. He couldn’t even bring himself to laugh at the sight. This was the culmination of the ideology Mikhail Lancaster yearned for.
Looking at the Hero’s form, only a single conviction filled Dale’s heart.
‘He must not be allowed to live.’
He had sacrificed his entire life as the Empire’s hound. That was why he could truly grasp it—just how wrong and twisted the peace imagined by that man, Mikhail Lancaster, and the idol he longed for truly were.
The Hero from Another World tightened his grip on his beloved sword, ‘Peacemaker.’ But he was not the Hero. He was merely a fanatic cloaked in the Hero’s skin.
The Apostle of Fire and Light, the Hero from Another World, kicked off the ground. It was an unimaginable burst of speed—overwhelming velocity and destructive power that was incomparable to the avatar he had shown before.
But it was nothing compared to the real Hero.
*Clang!*
Dale’s demon sword, ‘Hunger,’ met the incoming strike from Peacemaker. At the same moment, the Hero lunged toward Dale’s chest.
‘…’
*Clang!*
But it was not difficult for Dale to parry Mikhail’s, the Hero’s, gambit.
That wasn’t all.
*Thwip!*
The Hero’s follow-up strike, the crystallization of Mikhail Lancaster’s ideology… was being blocked all too easily by Dale’s sword.
‘Why…!’
This was the greatest power Mikhail Lancaster could muster. He had been certain that he could not possibly lose. Yet the Hero avatar he was manifesting was being stopped so effortlessly by Dale’s blade.
By the sword of a mere mage who didn’t even pursue the path of the sword!
It was just like that time. Just like the duel at the Fight Club, where he couldn’t reach him no matter how much he struggled and thrashed.
‘Just why…!’
Mikhail would never be able to understand.
That the conviction he was projecting, the Hero from Another World, was the true form of ‘Dale,’ the man standing right before him.
Furthermore, the power Mikhail Lancaster was wielding was not even the Hero’s full 100%. It was a degraded product, a mere imitation of his form.
He probably couldn’t even imagine it—that the power he possessed when fighting as the ‘Sun Knight’ was his true strength, the very power Dale now feared. And yet, Mikhail Lancaster had cast aside his own self and cloaked himself in the ideology of another, choosing to become a counterfeit who did not even fully comprehend its meaning.
“Is this truly your conviction?”
Dale asked as he parried Mikhail Lancaster’s sword. The jet-black demon sword, ‘Hunger,’ deflected his strike with far too much ease.
‘Why…!’
Why couldn’t he reach him? Mikhail couldn’t understand. After his defeat that day, he had abandoned his sword, which had become filled with emptiness, and made a resolution. He had sought the one and only way to defeat the infamous ‘Black Prince.’
It should have worked. But he still couldn’t reach him.
“Why, why, why…!”
Finally casting aside the mask of ‘nobility’ he wore, Mikhail began to scream.
His life had always been one of a victor. A path of triumph where success was guaranteed from birth. He had thought that simply walking that path was enough.
“Is this all you have?”
Parrying Mikhail’s strike, Dale asked coldly. That was the expression. The same expression he’d had when he overwhelmed Mikhail at the Fight Club that day.
Following the movement of his shadow prosthesis, Dale adjusted his grip on the black sword, ‘Hunger.’ Furthermore, he was parrying every single one of Mikhail’s strikes—swung in imitation of the Hero’s swordsmanship—without so much as a glance. How in the world?
“How utterly pathetic you look.”
Dale scoffed coldly. His words weren’t directed at Mikhail Lancaster. They were a jeer aimed at his own past self standing before him. Not that Mikhail would ever understand the meaning.
No matter how he struggled and thrashed, Mikhail’s blade never touched Dale.
The day would never come when he realized this was the worst possible move he could have made.
That the object of his admiration, the culmination of his ideology, was nothing more than a cheap imitation, a degraded copy of a mere Hero.
“How dare a mere eldest son of Sachsen speak of the Hero’s ideals!”
“The Hero’s ideals, you say?”
“That’s right…!”
“Ideals. That’s a fine-sounding word.”
The moment he heard it, Dale’s mind turned to ice. At the same time, the humiliating days he’d spent in servitude as the ‘Empire’s hound’ flashed before his eyes. Suppressing the hatred that threatened to paralyze his reason, Dale spoke, feigning composure.
“Then allow me to tell you the conclusion those ideals brought about.”
And so, Dale had no reason to hesitate. It was then.
—*I’ve been waiting for this moment.*
A jet-black tentacle, clutching his heart, whispered inside Dale’s mind. What? Dale didn’t even have a chance to ask.
—*Trust me. I would never do anything you hate, brother.*
*Swoosh!*
As if to counter the Hero’s sword, a mass of tentacles suddenly manifested beside Dale. It was a girl with the horns of a black goat. And from the hem of her skirt, innumerable tentacles began to surge forth.
Not toward Mikhail Lancaster, the Hero from Another World, but toward the ‘Black Prince’ beside her.
“...!”
Dale didn’t even have time to feel bewildered.
The tentacles swallowed his head, his arms and legs, and then his entire body. This was not Dale’s will. It was the arbitrary tyranny of his grimoire, *The Book of the Black Goat*.
Wrapped helplessly in Shub’s tentacles, Dale gritted his teeth against the suffocating pain.
But at the same time, one of the tentacles encircling him slithered sweetly toward his ear.
—*I just want you to be able to face your true self a little more.*
Shub whispered.
—*No matter how terrifying or twisted that form may be.*
*Swoosh!*
Simultaneously, the tentacles enveloping Dale burst apart. Jet-black blood, dark as the abyss, splattered everywhere, and from within, Dale was finally revealed.
He was not the ‘Black Prince’ as he usually was, wearing the ducal family’s attire beneath a shadow cloak.
“...!”
The ‘Shadow Lord’ stood there, confronting the Hero from Another World.
Black armor reminiscent of a Night Raven Knight’s encased his body. But it was no mere suit of armor. It moved as smoothly as if it were his own flesh, willingly becoming a part of his body much like his ‘shadow prosthesis.’
Over the black armor, a shadow cloak enveloped his form like a silhouette. And even the bundles of jet-black tentacles writhing upon the cloak were no exception.
The Shadow Lord, the Apostle of Black. A jet-black knight stood there, as if he were the condensation of all the darkness in the world.
The Armor of Ideology, the avatar.
But it was not Dale’s will that had donned it. It was the black tentacle rooted in his heart.
Nevertheless, nothing changed.
Confronting the charging Hero from Another World, the Shadow Lord kicked off the ground. The jet-black demon sword in his hand clashed with its target.
‘Was this all he was?’
Even before deploying his avatar, Mikhail Lancaster had been no match for Dale. How could a degraded copy, a mere imitation of the past, ever hope to defeat the original?
And now, at this point… Mikhail Lancaster, said to be the closest to the Seven Swords of the Continent, was not even a worthy opponent for Dale.
Too slow. Far too slow. Even if he were to abandon his current avatar and return to being the Sun Knight, nothing would change.
Dale, who was supposed to be a mage, was projecting an ‘avatar’—what was called the pinnacle of swordsmanship in his world. How could Mikhail not understand what that meant?
“Holy hell.”
“...!”
Even the two of the Seven Swords, who had been preoccupied with their lovers’ quarrel away from the main duel, were no exception.
For they could not fail to understand the weight of the Armor of Ideology wrapped around Dale’s body.
“Lord Mikhail.”
The Shadow Lord slowly raised his head.
“Will you not surrender at this point?”
His tone suggested any further fighting was meaningless.
“The world is not fair. And in this unfair world, Lord Mikhail, you can never defeat me.”
“...!”
Dale spoke, and Mikhail, the ‘Hero from Another World,’ did not hesitate. He kicked off the ground and charged. It was a pathetic charge compared to the real Hero’s, and before Dale, who was now clad in his avatar, it was literally child’s play.
‘Child’s play.’
Even so, nothing changed.
The Hero from Another World, his past self, was swinging his sword. And faced with him, there was only one choice Dale could make.
*Swoosh!*
The Shadow Lord’s sword swung. It was a fatal blow that not even the Apostle of Fire and Light, the Hero from Another World, could evade.
Mikhail Lancaster dropped to his knees on the ground. This time, it wasn’t a wound he could simply regenerate.
Blood was flowing.
It was not the boiling blood of magma. It was a very familiar blood. Just like the blood Dale’s past self had shed on that winter night, it was an irreversible, fatal hemorrhage.
“Why…”
The Hero from Another World vanished, and Mikhail Lancaster was left kneeling there.
Mikhail Lancaster asked, as if he couldn't understand.
“Why couldn’t I reach you…?”
“You did.”
Dale answered.
“At least, you did when you existed as ‘Mikhail’.”
“But the Hero from Another World is…”
Mikhail struggled to continue.
“He was my idol, overwhelmingly stronger than someone like me… the one who brought true peace to this Empire…”
“Do you truly believe that?”
Dale asked again. Mikhail nodded weakly.
And Dale walked toward Mikhail.
He simply leaned in close to his ear and whispered softly.
“The Hero from Another World was nothing more than a puppet dancing to the Empire’s tune.”
“...!”
“In the first place, he never possessed things like patriotism or a desire for the Empire’s peace.”
Within the Shadow Lord’s avatar, Dale murmured nonchalantly, as if talking about someone else.
“But in the end, Lord Mikhail, your wish will be granted.”
“My wish…?”
“Just as you said, I will ultimately obtain ‘peace’ for this world.”
Dale said. Mikhail’s expression froze. That was the end of their conversation.
Beneath the white and dark of the winter night, the Shadow Lord’s sword swung.