Chapter 159
Chapter 159
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 159
Chapter Title: The Lord of Black
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The surrounding landscape sank into darkness, leaving only the 'two Shadow Lords' standing.
From beneath the Shadow Lord's feet, tentacles erupted and surged forward in unison.
To counter them, the 'Shadow Lord' reshaped his armor of dark blood like liquid metal, creating blades. His sword of black blood cut through the tentacles.
He immediately readjusted his grip on Peacemaker's hilt and kicked off the ground.
At the same moment, more tentacles shot up from beneath the Shadow Lord's feet. Each time, the 'Shadow Lord' reconfigured his armor of dark blood to cut them down. However, one unavoidable tentacle wrapped itself around his arm.
*Crack!*
A dull sound, like a twig snapping, echoed through the air.
Black blood gushed from the severed arm.
But the 'Shadow Lord' paid it no mind. He swiftly manipulated the shadows to reconstruct a prosthetic arm and overlaid it with the armor of black blood.
As he restored the broken conceptual armor, the distance between them closed. No, it *should have* closed.
The other Shadow Lord… the body of the Immortal Duke Frederick lost its substance and crumbled away.
"What a futile struggle, child."
A voice came from behind him.
The Immortal Duke, who had been in front of Dale just moments before, was now laughing from a distance behind him.
Once more, tentacles erupted around him and plunged toward Dale.
There were too many to strike down one by one. Even by twisting his armor of dark blood into blades, he couldn't cut through them all.
*Crunch! Crack!*
Several tentacles coiled around Dale's body, snapping it like a twig. With each break, dark blood splattered. Yet, even through the pain that threatened to steal his consciousness, Dale did not kneel.
The instant his body broke, he filled the gaps with a prosthetic body of shadow, restoring and overlaying it with his conceptual armor as he forced himself up.
He was like a shattered machine, endlessly repairing its broken joints and springs, a tattered coat mended over and over.
But nothing changed.
A battle between two lords.
Yet, from the start, it was a one-sided mockery. What Dale displayed was nothing more than an utterly wretched, desperate struggle.
A meaningless struggle in the face of inescapable doom.
"Truly wretched and foolish."
The Immortal Duke muttered, as if he couldn't comprehend the sight.
"A mere glass vessel that would shatter mercilessly with the slightest pressure... why would Mother..."
Just then, the Immortal Duke stopped mid-sentence, as if he'd realized something, and burst out laughing.
As if he finally understood.
"To see you desperately struggling, willingly playing the part of a toy for Mother and her daughter... it is truly ridiculous and pathetic."
The Immortal Duke smiled faintly.
"But since you seem to delight in this sight, I suppose I must play along with this little game."
In his eyes, Dale was nothing more than a glass vessel that could shatter at any moment. But why had the Mother of Darkness and her beloved daughter chosen to remain by its side? It was for this very reason.
"I shall gladly watch over your destruction."
The ugliness and folly of a desperate struggle in the face of inescapable despair, refusing to give up.
It was all to see this sight.
*Shhhlick!*
Once again, the tentacles of <> coiled around Dale's arms and legs, and his limbs were torn away.
At last, a scream tore through the silence. Black blood rained down.
The moment his limbs were ripped off, shadow limbs took their place, and the armor of dark blood once again covered his prosthetic body.
But the armor, which should have been impenetrable jet-black heavy plate, had become so thin and shabby that even 'light armor' was too generous a term.
Through the endless cycle of being broken and restored, his very essence was steadily wearing away.
—And yet, he did not kneel.
That made it all the more hilarious, so funny he couldn't bear it.
This was it. The kind of pleasure only a human could provide her.
The Immortal Duke Frederick finally understood what the ancient Mother of Darkness and her daughter truly desired.
The ugliness of clinging to a rotting rope of hope in the face of an insurmountable, overwhelming gap in power.
That this ridiculous ruin was the very pleasure the Mother of Darkness and her daughter so desperately craved.
That was why he couldn't kill him easily. Controlling his power was crucial. Painful enough to kill, but never enough to actually shatter the vessel.
*Shhhlick!*
"Come now, child. Rise again. The fun has only just begun."
He said this to Dale, who was wringing out the last dregs of his essence, which was on the verge of depletion after being worn down again and again.
Like a child taking pleasure in pulling off the legs and segments of an insect one by one.
Yes. That being was an insect. And what his Mother and daughter desired was the raw desperation of that insect squirming to survive amidst the pain.
So Frederick laughed, like a young boy torturing an insect.
His opponent wasn't even worth a flick of the wrist.
The founder of Sachsen, Immortal Duke Frederick.
Setting aside the fact that he was the pinnacle of the Shadow Magic Tower and had revealed his power as an <>, this was never something that could be called a fight from the very beginning.
The sadistic torment began.
*Crunch!*
Again, a tentacle wrapped around Dale's body, breaking his limbs and torso, armor and all. As if shattering every single joint. His ribs and organs were twisted and ruined along with his armor, and dark blood poured from Dale's mouth.
But that was only the beginning.
Mages and knights do not die as easily as ordinary people. For a being like Dale, burning with the will to live, that obsession and determination would be all the more tenacious.
*Thud!*
Desperately restoring and mending his broken body… Dale tried to rise, but instead, finally fell to his knees.
His posture collapsed completely.
"How is it, Mother? And my beloved daughter."
Immortal Duke Frederick asked again.
*Crunch, crunch!*
As his tentacles coiled around Dale's body, meticulously carving up every joint within.
"Are you pleased now?"
Fractures, and further, the tentacles constricting his body, obstructing blood flow, causing necrosis in tissues throughout his body.
And yet, Dale's body did not cease to function.
He endlessly stitched his broken body back together, his tattered form desperately twitching.
"Daughter, not yet?"
Frederick asked again, inflicting more pain on the squirming insect.
But in response to his question, no answer came.
Frederick turned his head. He looked at Dale, who was no longer even trying to get up, just struggling desperately while sprawled on the ground.
"Mother? ...Lije?"
The Immortal Duke spoke again, as if to say the game was over.
"Do you still want to play more? Lije."
But that was not the name of Dale's sister.
It was the name of the daughter the Immortal Duke Frederick had sacrificed to write <>.
Hearing that name, Dale burst into laughter. A sound like escaping wind, which couldn't even be called a laugh, flowed from his lips.
Even while unable to lift a single finger, he did not stop his wretched and foolish struggle.
"What's so funny?"
Frederick asked coldly.
"Have you... still not... awakened from your delusion?"
Dale muttered with great effort, his face pressed to the ground.
"A delusion?"
*Crunch!*
Once again, the Immortal Duke's tentacle crushed Dale's body.
"Let's be done playing with this thing."
He had no doubt that 'they' would return to him once the game was over.
"This world is still overflowing with toys for you to play with."
The tentacles rising from beneath his feet merged into a bundle, its tip gleaming menacingly like an awl.
The final blow to end this game.
Just before that blow landed, Dale laughed again.
After laughing, Dale spoke.
"—That was enough fun, right, Shub?"
—*It was super fun!*
"......!"
At the same time, a voice was heard. To Dale, it sounded like the innocent nod of a young girl.
But that was not what Frederick heard.
"■■■■—!"
The most terrifying scream in the world echoed out. It was neither the Mother's voice nor the daughter's.
"Why...?"
At last, Frederick tilted his head as if he couldn't understand.
"Mother? Lije?"
Frederick muttered like a frightened boy.
He turned his head toward Dale, who was letting out a weak laugh, like air escaping.
"The game ends here."
The Immortal Duke's tentacle plunged toward Dale's heart.
*Thrust!*
The tentacle, sharp as an awl, pierced Dale's heart and emerged from his back.
An undeniably fatal blow. Dale's body, which had been resisting with twitching fingers, finally ceased all movement.
And that meant only one thing.
Inescapable death.
It should have been, and just then.
*Flap!*
At the same time, another sound echoed.
—*Caw! Caw!*
Several crows took flight, flapping their wings. Their feathers scattered in all directions.
Amidst the chaotically descending black feathers, his father was there.
Beside his son, whose heart had been pierced by a tentacle that now protruded from his back.
—Dale, who should have met his death, smiled quietly.
As if he had known this would happen all along.
* * *
'Lord Black' was there.
Before the founder of Sachsen, who once bore the name 'Immortal Duke', stood the heir who carried on the clan's legacy.
"Why..."
Seeing this, Frederick took a sharp breath. Like a child unable to accept what had just happened before him.
"Why is this?"
Just then, Lord Black also spoke.
"To my son... why have you done such a cruel thing?"
In Dale's memory, it was a voice filled with a cold hatred unlike any he had ever heard.
"O great founder of Sachsen."
"......"
After a moment of silence, Immortal Duke Frederick raised his head. His empty black pupils turned toward the father and son, unfocused.
"I can't... see."
Frederick muttered faintly.
"Neither our ancient Mother of Darkness, nor my beloved daughter. I can't see anything."
He paid no heed to the descendants standing before him.
"Why can't I see? Why is the world so dark?"
Ignoring the black bandages lying at his feet, he asked again, as if uncomprehending.
"Do you still not understand?"
Dale answered his question.
Dale, whose body had just been torn to shreds, whose heart had been pierced by a tentacle, who should have been dead.
"Understand what?"
"The reason why you can't see her, why she doesn't answer."
Having escaped the death that should have claimed him, Dale stood there perfectly fine, without a single scratch.
At a glance, it was a sight not much different from the healing magic of the Master of the White Magic Tower.
But while the philosophies pursued by the 'Continent's Greatest Black Mage and White Mage' were different, their forms were the same. Just as the Black and White Magic Towers were once one.
The control of life and death.
Just as the absence of life is death, the absence of death is life.
That was why Lord Black appeared there at the 'opportune moment' and erased the death that should have come for his son.
*'Do you still not understand? I have not permitted your deaths.'*
As the Continent's Greatest Black Mage, the pinnacle of the Black Magic Tower, capable of manipulating the very concept of death.
How could he have appeared at such a perfectly coincidental time? Dale couldn't know. Yet, he was certain.
Because he had made a promise with Shub.
"Don't try to understand Shub's silence in such a complicated way."
That was why Dale spoke.
"She hasn't hidden herself and remained silent for the complex and fickle reasons you imagine, Immortal Duke..."
The truth that Immortal Duke Frederick was trying so hard to turn away from.
"—She simply prefers to be by my side."
That <>, of its own will, had chosen to be with 'Dale' instead of its author.
Hearing that answer, Immortal Duke Frederick burst into laughter.
At first, it was a small laugh, but soon he threw his head back and laughed like a madman. It was a laugh filled with insanity.
"How dare... How dare a mere usurper of the false Sachsen...!"
At the same time, the air in the area began to churn violently.
But facing this world's oldest monster, the Immortal Duke, was no longer Dale's role.
"Stand back, Dale."
The 'Duke Sachsen' who stood against the other Sachsen stepped in front of his son.
Spreading six black wings from his back.
Facing the immortal monster, the angel of death was there.