Chapter 164
Chapter 164
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 164
Chapter Title: Legacy of the Shadow Lord
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* * *
Dale nodded at Eris’s words, and a wind began to howl.
It was a wind that carried a chill so sharp it felt like it could flay the flesh from his bones. Soon, Dale realized the ground he stood on was neither the Black Magic Tower nor even Eris’s world.
A frozen wasteland of cold and darkness.
Dale tried to turn his head and look around, but his body wouldn't obey. It had escaped his control and begun to move on its own. He soon realized that he was inhabiting the body of another being, sharing their visual information.
Before him stood a man who was incredibly familiar. For a moment, he felt a sense of dissonance at the man’s appearance, but it wasn’t long before he recognized him.
The founder of House Sachsen, Frederick the Immortal Duke, was there.
“The truth will set us free.”
Beside him stood a young girl in a dress, adorned with goat horns.
As the Shadow Lord who possessed *The Book of the Black Goat*, he raised his head toward the enemies before him.
A light so brilliant it was impossible to gaze upon directly raged in the distance. A being that shone so hot and radiant it was like trying to stare straight into the sun.
But upon seeing that figure, Dale gasped in astonishment.
That man was there.
An enemy whose hateful visage he could never forget.
The Golden Lord and the Sword of the Sun… Arthur Pendragon Magnus.
Furthermore, the beings guarding his side were also unforgettable.
The Lord of Fire and Blood, Marquis Yuriseu. And the Red Witch, Lady Scarlet.
Countless other powerful beings and lords he had defeated as the ‘Hero from Another World’ were also present.
The mighty figures who ruled the current empire were existing casually within this ancient scene, a landscape recorded only in history.
It was a time in antiquity when Black and White were a single tower, and no other magic towers existed.
The ‘Black’ of that era did not signify the Black Magic Tower of today, nor did the ‘White’ of that era mean the current White Magic Tower.
It was Shadow and Gold.
Only then did he finally understand.
This was the Black and White War, the war between Shadow and Gold, where Frederick the Immortal Duke and his Black Faction were defeated and fell. He realized that all five colored magic towers were merely offshoots that had originated from a single tower.
And standing against Gold as the leader of the Shadows was the Shadow Lord of that era.
Shub’s tentacles coiled around his body, and just as they had for Dale, the Darkblood Armor materialized over Frederick’s form.
An avatar of the grimoire.
The Darkblood Armor worn by the Immortal Duke emanated a level of power and pressure that was incomparable to Dale’s avatar.
“To think a mere worm of a human…!”
Seeing this, the Golden Lord burst into laughter, as if he could no longer contain himself.
His human-shaped body began to twist. His human skin became scaled like that of a fish, and animalistic wings tore through his shoulder blades and burst forth.
His body, which should have stood on two feet, bent and contorted into that of a beast.
His form grew endlessly larger and more massive, beginning to radiate an indescribable golden light.
It swallowed the madder-red light behind it, declaring itself another sun as it scattered its brilliance across the land.
The golden dragon, bearing the name Pendragon—the Head Dragon—spread its two wings and roared.
“The God of Radiance will devour you children of darkness!”
Before it, the Shadow Lord formed the ‘Blackblood Sword’ from his Darkblood Armor and readjusted his grip on the hilt.
A black knight, holding a sword, facing a dragon hundreds of times his size.
It was a scene straight out of ancient mythology, unfolding before Dale’s very eyes.
The Shadow Lord, Frederick the Immortal Duke, kicked off the ground and surged toward the golden dragon.
Simultaneously, the Darkblood Armor enveloping Frederick’s body generated an uncountable number of tentacle bundles, which began to layer over his body once more.
Tentacles coiled and coiled again, until a 《Shadow Titan》 rivaling the golden dragon stood in their place.
It possessed a madness and majesty no less than the golden dragon’s… a presence that defied description.
‘That is the Shadow Lord’s avatar?’
It was an overwhelming scale, utterly incomparable to when Dale had donned the Darkblood Armor.
The two kings at the pinnacle of monarchs, the Shadow Lord and the Golden Lord, revealed their true forms and clashed.
And with each collision of these beings, a flood of unknown sensations began to seep into his mind. It was knowledge being injected directly into him, accompanied by a pain so intense it felt like his head would split open.
Knowledge being violently hammered into his mind.
Just then, the girl ‘Shub,’ who was guarding the Immortal Duke, turned her head.
—Welcome, brother.
She looked at Dale and smiled.
—This is the true power you will come to possess. What do you think? Isn’t it cool?
Frederick the Immortal Duke, facing the golden dragon, had his Darkblood Armor transformed into the 《Shadow Titan》.
In a sense, it wouldn’t be wrong to call it a colossal avatar, reminiscent of a giant robot.
The golden dragon opened its maw toward the Shadow Lord’s avatar. A scorching heat, like a solar wind, poured out.
At the same time, tentacles began to sprout from the Darkblood Armor. These were not the kind that unfurled from a human-sized form, but colossal tentacles emerging from armor that had grown large enough to touch the sky.
Those very tentacles, in defiance of the heat spewed by the golden dragon, coiled and wrapped around the Darkblood Armor.
A light of annihilation then erupted from the dragon’s mouth.
The jet-black tentacles, each hundreds of meters long, crumbled into ash, and a flood of blackened blood sprayed out, beginning to swallow the surrounding area.
At that moment, the golden dragon flew toward the Shadow Lord and tore into the Darkblood Armor with its jaws.
The Shadow Lord, in his titan state, roared, and madness began to consume his mind.
It was a clash of cosmic beings that literally made the heavens and the earth tremble.
But at least until that point, Frederick the Immortal Duke had not forsaken being human.
* * *
*Squelch!*
The jet-black tentacles entwined around Frederick the Immortal Duke’s heart were ripped away. The scene resembled an operating room where a parasite was being forcibly removed from a body.
*The Book of the Black Goat*, which had fused with the Immortal Duke’s body, was torn out, and he thrashed in agony.
But the Golden Lord watching over him, as well as ‘Lord Crimson’ who was performing the surgery, showed not a single trace of emotion.
The pain of defeat and the heart-wrenching despair he felt were superimposed directly onto Dale’s mind.
‘A human body cannot defeat a dragon.’
‘Without transcending humanity, I cannot defeat that being.’
‘Unless I become something more, something more horrific and loathsome, I can never reach it.’
He despaired at the weakness of man.
‘—I will abandon my humanity.’
In the agony of defeat, having lost *The Book of the Black Goat*, Frederick the Immortal Duke muttered.
The world was engulfed in darkness.
* * *
When he looked up, Shub was there, the tentacles beneath her skirt writhing.
—I liked the old Dad.
Looking down at the struggling Frederick, Shub smiled.
—You see, brother, I like humans. The most wretched and foolish struggles they are capable of… I find them so lovely I can’t stand it. And Dad back then was truly lovely, too.
“Does watching our ruin bring you so much pleasure?”
Dale retorted coldly, recalling the despair and pain Frederick the Immortal Duke had felt, desperately steeling his will against it.
—Why would you think that?
Shub tilted her head as if she couldn’t understand.
“Frederick the Immortal Duke gave his all to fight the Golden Lord and was defeated. A human could never defeat a dragon.”
—No, that’s wrong.
Shub shook her head, puffing out her cheeks in a feigned pout.
“Wrong?”
Dale asked, and Shub replied with a smile.
—Because killing a dragon is something only a human can do.
The Golden Lord, the head of dragons.
“Then why was Frederick the Immortal Duke defeated?”
—Because he gave up on being human.
“The Immortal Duke only abandoned his humanity as a result of his defeat.”
—No.
Shub shook her head and answered.
—You have the order reversed. Try to remember that day’s battle more clearly.
He recalled the overwhelming scene of the Black and White War, when the Golden and Shadow Lords had faced each other.
To fight the golden dragon… the Shadow Lord had wrapped himself in the Darkblood Armor and become a titan of darkness.
“Don’t tell me.”
Dale muttered softly, and Shub laughed, delighted.
In that very battle, at the final moment, Frederick the Immortal Duke had transcended humanity.
—When he fought the dragon, Dad believed he had become a god. That’s why he lost.
That was why he was defeated.
“...Then what in the world is a human?”
Hearing that question, Dale asked his own.
—A creature that knows courage.
Shub replied. It was a truly ridiculous answer.
—Courage is an emotion only humans can possess. Do you know why?
Dale fell silent for a moment before answering.
“To know courage, you must first know fear.”
The strong do not fear the weak.
Dragons and vampires would never feel fear toward mere humans. To be without fear is not courage. But for the humans who stand against dragons and vampires, it is different. They would be afraid. That is why they need the courage to overcome that fear.
—That’s right. Because humans are such weak creatures.
At his words, Shub clapped her hands and beamed.
—But in the final moment, Dad couldn’t muster his courage. So he chose to abandon being human and become a god.
“Even a god couldn’t defeat a dragon?”
—Because killing a dragon is something only the weakest being in this world can do.
Shub smiled.
—Courage is the sole domain of cowards. And I like cowards. I find their struggles so lovely I can’t stand it.
“...”
Dale remained silent, his expression impassive.
The aberrant beings who ruled the empire. And the Golden Lord reigning at their pinnacle. There was only one reason for this.
Those beings, who knew neither courage nor fear, could never defeat a dragon.
And at the same time, the only beings who *could* defeat that dragon were being ruled by those very ‘aberrant beings.’
Realizing this, Dale let out a laugh.
“...So that’s how it was.”
He felt he could finally understand what Eris meant, and what they meant by ‘human.’
His heart felt incredibly light.
Reaching a realm beyond the Third Circle was never about technique or skill. It was about one thing only.
Enlightenment.
What Eris and Shub had given Dale was precisely that enlightenment.
All that remained was to see how far he could carry this will.
Right now, before Dale, was the entrance to the Fifth Circle. And it was fundamentally different from that of the other Sachsen heads.
Because they did not have *The Book of the Black Goat*.
Therefore, for the current Dale to inherit the history of Sachsen meant only one thing.
To carry on the will of the founder of Sachsen and the first Shadow Lord… Frederick the Immortal Duke.
It was time to inherit the throne of the Shadow Lord in the truest sense.