Chapter 158
Chapter 158
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 158
Chapter Title: The Promise
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Silence fell upon the battlefield that had, moments before, been a scene of fierce clashes. Knights, mages, soldiers, and nobles of the church's forces had all ceased their movements.
They paid no heed to the blades descending upon them.
A young boy stood there.
He had extinguished the celestial light that had enveloped the area, commanding a world of darkness that defied description.
There was no rational evidence to confirm his identity.
But one could sense it instantly.
The Sachsen blood flowing through Dale's veins, and further, the tentacles of Shub coiled around his heart, began to squirm wildly.
How could he not know?
That the being before him was the other Sachsen his father, Lord Black, had spoken of—the true ruler of the 'Dark Land'.
"...Issue an order to the entire army."
And so, Dale spoke without a moment's hesitation.
He addressed Lord Yones and the Black Armor Company beside him.
"Have the entire force fall back immediately."
"Ah, yes, Captain!"
Simultaneously, the church's battle lines facing them began to retreat in step with Dale's forces.
"Frederick of Sachsen."
Leaving the entirety of both armies, now retreating in unison on his command, behind him, the Shadow Lord continued.
It was a scene like the representatives of two armies stepping forward to face each other.
"Dale of Sachsen, I humbly greet the clan's founder, the 'Immortal Duke,' in this place."
"Oh?"
He faced the other 'Shadow Lord' before him.
"Truly surprising, child."
"The other Sachsen in the Dark Land... Have the Eldritch finally broken their silence?"
"Ah, the day for that will come soon enough. But the time is not yet ripe."
The Immortal Duke Frederick replied with a smile.
"I have merely come to reclaim what is rightfully mine."
It was not difficult to grasp his meaning.
Dale glanced to his side.
Beside him, as always, was the girl with the horns of a black goat.
"Shub..."
"Ah, my lovely daughter."
Dale called her name, and the Immortal Duke spoke softly.
The Book of the Black Goat, said to have been created when the Immortal Duke Frederick sacrificed his daughter.
"Please, come back with me."
The Immortal Duke spoke, and Dale remained silent.
He simply waited for the answer from Shub, who was also silent by his side.
It was not something Dale could decide, and the same was likely true for the Immortal Duke.
—Why should I go back?
Just then, Shub tilted her head as if she couldn't understand.
Dale quietly drew a breath, and the Immortal Duke was no exception.
—You know, big brother. I like humans.
Shub then turned her head toward Dale.
—Like moths diving into a pyre, the foolishness and ugliness of humans struggling until the very end is so lovely I can't stand it. So...
She stretched out her arms and wrapped them lovingly around Dale's neck.
—I have no more interest in a child of Sachsen who has abandoned humanity.
Suddenly, it was no longer a young girl standing there.
A lady in a black dress, possessing maturity and grace, stood there, showing off her large, protruding black goat horns.
Her expression was cold, devoid of any emotion.
Countless tentacles writhed beneath the hem of her skirt.
"Is that truly your will, Mother of Black Plentitude?"
The gentleness he had used when calling her his daughter vanished as the Immortal Duke Frederick asked again.
"Are you... abandoning me?"
He sounded like a young boy, as if begging for his mother's affectionate reply.
No answer came.
Instead of his eyes hidden by black bandages, a shadow opened its eyes, and what the Immortal Duke Frederick saw was not a girl or a lady with goat horns.
The most terrifying and abominable being in the world was there.
An otherworldly horror, a collective of tentacles.
But what Dale saw was Shub as she always was.
"...Was this the only way from the start?"
The Immortal Duke Frederick understood the meaning and unwrapped the black bandages from his eyes.
Just as it had been with the Shadow Saint, what should have been underneath was not there.
Empty, black eye sockets were there.
"Are you trying to take The Book of the Black Goat from me, regardless of Shub's decision?"
"Do not dare utter that name so lightly."
The Immortal Duke Frederick replied coldly, and at the same time, a jet-black darkness began to swirl at his feet.
"That being was my daughter and my mother from the very beginning. The child and Her will gladly understand me."
In response, the Shadow Lord's avatar that Dale manifested, the Armor of Dark Blood, twisted its form like liquid metal.
Simultaneously, the Immortal Duke Frederick's 'black eyes' stared at Dale.
Pitch-black pupils.
"This is your last chance. Hand over what I have come for."
"I cannot do that."
"A fake who doesn't know his place. How pathetic."
The Immortal Duke Frederick burst into laughter.
The world of darkness he commanded began to tear apart.
From the otherworldly rifts tearing through the darkness, the eyes of 'one-eyed gods' began to look down upon the earth.
It was not just one.
Countless eyes tore through the celestial rifts, gazing down at the small, shabby beings below.
Like a person peering at an anthill through a magnifying glass, blinking their large eyes.
The Celestial Watchers.
The mass of madness began.
Screams erupted from all around.
Simply facing these beings caused minds to shatter; people began to weep and rave like children.
Some regressed to infancy, curling up like fetuses and sucking their thumbs.
Just as humans do not love ants... these were gods who did not love humans.
And these gods had countless tentacles attached to them.
Dale, too, raised his head toward those celestial rifts.
An absurd pressure, so immense that one's mind could break just from facing it.
Amidst it all, there was only one thing Dale could do.
"You said the ugliness and foolishness of people struggling in the face of ruin was so lovely you couldn't stand it."
He spoke softly to the girl beside him.
—Yes!
Shub laughed with delight.
She was unconcerned by the madness unfolding at the hands of the Immortal Duke.
"Then make a promise with me."
Dale quietly steeled his resolve, facing her.
"Protect me and my people."
—In exchange for what?
Shub, who had now grown into the form of a lady, asked in return.
As the Mother of the Ancient Dark and Black Plentitude.
"I swear here and now that until the very, very end, I will not stop showing you the ugliest and most foolish struggle a human can offer."
He was simply offering himself up as her entertainment.
"Because I will never give up on being human until the very end."
Dale said.
"Iä Shub-Niggurath."
—Ah, how truly lovely! How can humans be so gallant, so foolish, and so lovable!
The Mother Goddess of Darkness smiled in ecstasy.
Shub's arm gently wrapped around Dale's cheek, and then she turned her head.
Simultaneously, the tentacles of the Celestial Watchers... the one-eyed gods looking down upon the earth, surged toward Dale.
It was an act akin to a human crushing a single ant with a finger.
Circles and auras would be meaningless before such cosmic horror.
It was then.
—Withdraw, you ancient ones of the heavens.
Shub said.
She fluttered the black fan in her hand as if to show it off.
—This is not a stage permitted for you.
At the same time, tentacles began to surge from beneath Shub's skirt.
Black tentacles swirled upward, plunging toward the Celestial Watchers.
As the Mother Goddess of Darkness, she unleashed an overwhelming pressure that was incomparable to anything before.
A power strong enough to nullify even the madness and terror spread by the Watchers.
Shub's tentacles dug into the retinas of the one-eyed gods, and their eyes began to bleed and go wild.
Their pupils spun madly left and right, and soon, one by one, the eyes vanished beyond the otherworldly rifts as if fleeing.
Dale lowered his head.
"It seems..."
Watching this, the Immortal Duke Frederick smiled coldly.
He moved the countless eyes staring out from within his shadow.
The Immortal Duke waved his hand, and darkness swirled.
And before that vortex of darkness, the Shadow Lord's avatar enveloping Dale shattered futilely.
The Armor of Dark Blood broke into pieces, revealing Dale's body beneath.
"I understand Mother's will, but it seems a 'human vessel' is far too small and insignificant to handle your amusement."
The Immortal Duke sneered, and at the same time, Dale collapsed to his knees.
Shub had unleashed her power to stop him, and the cost of using that power was drawn entirely from Dale's black mana.
Dale, who could stand on equal footing with a 7th-Circle white mage, gasped in pain, squeezing his depleting Circles.
As such, Dale now lacked the strength to block even a single gesture from the Immortal Duke.
"However, I am not like that."
The Immortal Duke spoke to the otherworldly horror before him, sneering at the kneeling Dale.
As an Eldritch, a being who had forsaken humanity and even deceived death.
— ...
"Not yet, Shub."
Shub remained silent, and just then.
"It's my turn to fulfill my promise."
Dale pushed himself up.
"I told you I would show you the ugliness and foolishness of a human struggling in the face of ruin."
Like squeezing a few drops of water from a wrung-out rag, the Shadow Lord desperately ignited the Circles and heat engine of his heart and spoke.
"No matter how grandly you speak, nothing will change, usurper."
As the other Shadow Lord, the Immortal Duke Frederick sneered.
"You can steal my blood, steal my ideals, and steal my title to cover your own skin... but in the end, you are nothing but a fake, a pale imitation of me."
The hundreds of eyes blinking within his shadow began to twitch convulsively.
Madly, without regard for left or right, up or down.
"I will prove it here, Mother. And my daughter."
Simultaneously, the Immortal Duke's empty 'black eyes' gazed at Dale.
"Just how fleeting, insignificant, and fragile a vessel the existence known as 'human' is in this world."
Once again, a jet-black darkness began to swirl at the Immortal Duke's feet.
At the same time, Dale pushed himself up using Peacemaker as a support, and Shub's tentacles wrapped around his body.
The shattered avatar of the Shadow Lord, the Armor of Dark Blood, the 'Black Death,' began to envelop his body once more.
Proclaiming himself the ugliest and most foolish being in the world.