Chapter 58
Chapter 58
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 58
Chapter Title: An Old Friend's Betrayal
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“Are you suggesting a magical duel with me?”
“As the heirs of our two Towers, for the sake of fostering exchange between Black and Red, and seeing as we are here together now.”
Ray Yuriseu nodded in response to Dale's question.
“It wouldn't be a bad idea to gauge each other's skills.”
“It would just be a trivial children's squabble.”
Dale replied as if it were someone else's business. After all, the boy before him was just a child his own age. There was no need to reveal his full hand.
“Do you really think so?”
Ray Yuriseu asked back, accelerating the two circles engraved upon his heart.
*‘Two circles…?’*
Furthermore, Dale gasped at the flood of red mana generated by the accelerating circles. He realized it upon seeing the rapidly increasing RPM of the two circles.
*‘This is not the amount of mana a mere two-circle mage could generate.’*
Moreover, achieving two circles at that age was no small feat. Even if it couldn't compare to Dale's own rate of growth.
Just as Dale wielded high-purity mana of chilling frost and refined darkness, the mana Ray generated held an incandescent heat, much like magma.
An absurdly high purity of red mana, like the raging inferno of hell.
The number of circles is an indispensable indicator of a mage's power. However, it doesn't tell the whole story. Dale, a three-circle mage, was proof of this, as was Sephia, the six-circle elven mage.
He could feel it instinctively. Though his fame and deeds were not known across the continent like the ‘Black Prince,’ the title of son to Marquis Yuriseu, the Lord Crimson, and heir to the Red Magic Tower was by no means an empty one.
Rather, it was a silence intentionally kept while hidden in the shadows.
“Will you not be taking out your artifact, the ‘Shadow Cloak’?”
Ray asked again, generating red mana from his two circles.
“…”
The Shadow Cloak. He knew the true nature of Dale's black artifact. Dale feigned surprise and took a sharp breath.
“As it happens, I too have a humble artifact of my own.”
Furthermore, Ray Yuriseu spoke.
As the son of the Red Magic Tower's Master, it wouldn't be strange for him to have an artifact or two. And unlike someone like Leonard Walter, he would surely have the capability to control it.
This world was vast. And in this vast world, there were those like Leonard Walter who saw the bottom of a well as the entirety of the world, but the young mage before Dale was not one of them.
A ruthless meritocracy. Yet, the irony was that this skill ultimately stemmed from bloodline and wealth. Such was the world of magic.
*‘Alright, let's see the quality of that golden spoon you were born with.’*
With that thought, Dale flapped the Shadow Cloak, which was disguised as a black surcoat. His intention was only to engage in a preliminary skirmish.
“Although it may not compare to yours, Lord Dale.”
In response, Ray brought out his own red artifact. The prized possession of Ray Yuriseu, son of the Lord Crimson.
“Have you ever eaten a friend?”
It was then. Before revealing his artifact, Ray asked a question. Dale remained silent at the truly abrupt words.
“I have.”
Ray answered, recalling the living hell of that day.
“I was so hungry, and there was nothing to eat.”
Dozens of children were in that sunless basement. Together in that place with no food or water.
“At first, we survived day by day by catching and eating rats and insects.”
But a person cannot live on rats and insects alone.
“So, I ate.”
Ray Yuriseu said.
“The flesh, blood, and entrails clinging to the bones, the marrow within, the brain and fluid inside the skull…”
Leaving nothing behind. Before Ray Yuriseu's confession, Dale did not answer.
“Humans are truly delicious and nutritious creatures.”
Only then did he realize. Ray Yuriseu had already brought out his artifact.
His mouth split open wide, revealing dozens of rows of teeth inside his jaw.
《Dragon's Jawbone》.
Dale finally gasped.
*‘A biologically fused artifact.’*
The most powerful, horrifying, and worst type of artifact, one that provides irreversible power.
Dale knew this as well. After all, the grimoire that had rooted its tendrils in his heart was, in a sense, a type of biologically fused artifact.
*‘So that is the monster of the Lord Crimson…’*
Monster. After thinking that far, Dale let out an inadvertent, dry laugh.
“What's so funny?”
“Nothing.”
Dale answered nonchalantly, controlling the swarm of shadows glowing at his feet.
“Are you not afraid?”
“Of what?”
Dale asked in return.
“…”
Seeing this, Ray Yuriseu smiled.
“It seems we're going to be ‘good friends’.”
Just then, a voice was heard.
“What are you two doing here?”
Overwhelming the surroundings, as if to halt the childish antics of mere children.
“Lord Black.”
“Father.”
Dale's father, the greatest black magician on the continent, was there. Black mana swirled at his feet as if to show off its power.
Ray Yuriseu's torn mouth had already returned to its normal shape.
“I was just having a conversation with the young lord of House Sachsen.”
Ray answered casually.
“As the heirs who will one day inherit the Black and Red Magic Towers.”
“…”
Lord Black did not reply to those words.
“The evening has grown late.”
After a moment of silence, Lord Black continued.
“Both of you should return for now.”
As if to say he would not permit any further conflict.
***
That night, in the duke and duchess's bedchamber.
“Papa! You're back?”
Dale's younger sister, Lije, ran toward her father. She had grown into a little lady who could freely express her will and move about energetically on her own two feet.
“Oh, my.”
Watching them, their mother Elena smiled warmly.
“Yes, Lije.”
Her father, Duke Sachsen, bent down to embrace little Lije. Lije kissed her father's cheek, and at his daughter's affection, Lord Black smiled silently.
A lovely wife and daughter.
And furthermore, a proud son with talent beyond compare.
He had wanted to break away from the old darkness of the Black Magic Tower and become a father who would not be ashamed before his son and wife.
This was the family of House Sachsen, his precious treasures that he wouldn't trade for anything.
At the same time, he reflected on himself, a man forced to submit to the Empire and partake in its evil to protect those treasures.
In the end, he too was one of the weak, forced to bow his head and kneel before the justice of the Empire and the Red Magic Tower.
A coward, forced to grovel before power and look out only for his own safety.
“Elena.”
Thus, Lord Black smiled silently at his wife, a very complicated smile.
“Thank you, truly.”
“Oh, you.”
At this, Elena burst into a delighted laugh.
“Why so sudden?”
“…”
Lord Black remained silent at Elena's question. He merely took a few sips of the wine Elena had poured for him and gazed out the window.
Silently, into the bottomless darkness of the night.
***
Sometime later. Necropolis, the upper floors of the Black Magic Tower.
When that man came to find him, ‘Edgar,’ a high elder of the Black Magic Tower and a seven-circle black magician, was not flustered.
The third commander of the demonic Black-Red Brigade. One of Lord Black's few close friends, who had trained and competed alongside Duke Sachsen in the Black Magic Tower since childhood.
“You've come, Allen.”
He simply accepted it nonchalantly, as if he had expected it all along. He uttered Duke Sachsen's name casually, a name few dared to speak.
“Why did you betray me?”
Duke Sachsen, Lord Black. And ‘Allen of Sachsen,’ asked in return.
“You've changed.”
Edgar gave a bitter laugh at the question.
“You've grown weak.”
“…”
“Forgetting the spirit of the Black Magic Tower, shackled by some pathetic morality about the weight of life…”
You refused to become a monster of truth.
“That day, our Black-Red Brigade's experiment could have succeeded. No, it *did* succeed.”
Edgar continued, speaking of the true purpose of the Black-Red Brigade, which the Empire desperately tried to conceal.
“Beyond the veil of death… did you not reach the ‘Truth’ that lies there?”
The Truth the Black Magic Tower had so desperately craved and sought.
“Why did you return from ‘that world’ with nothing?”
Edgar asked again, as if he couldn't understand.
“—Why did you give up on reaching the realm of the ninth circle?”
An unknown realm that not even the five mages at the pinnacles of the five-colored Towers—Black, White, Red, Blue, and Green—dared to reach.
An experiment to reach the realm of the ninth circle.
The undeniable truth flowed from Edgar's lips, and Duke Sachsen's expression wavered.
The true purpose of the Black-Red Brigade, which the Emperor desperately sought to hide. Furthermore, the real reason the Empire had so recklessly pushed for a war of continental unification.
An experiment to reach the realm of the gods in a mortal body.
A ritual to be reborn as an artificial god, a demon god.
For that purpose, the two Towers of color that pursued power and truth joined hands.
“Why did you forsake becoming a god?”
Lord Black did not answer the question.
“Is that why you betrayed me? My old friend.”
After a moment of silence, Lord Black spoke.
“Thanks to you, I get to watch the Black Magic Tower grow weaker and decline day by day.”
Edgar answered coldly.
“This Tower, with nothing left but cowards afraid to bloody their own hands, its very spirit dead. The weak and ridiculous sight of the Master of the Black Magic Tower trembling over the insignificant weight of life!”
“I don't want to kill you.”
Allen replied to Edgar's words.
“No, you will kill me.”
A seven-circle mage. Just below the five pinnacles, one of only a few dozen across the entire continent.
“And I hope you will return to the monster you once were.”
“…”
“What can make you return to being the monster of those days?”
The monster of those days.
“Can the sorrow of losing your family turn you into a monster?”
At Edgar's question, all emotion vanished from Allen's face. Jet-black mana began to swirl around his feet.
“Ah, it seems I've hit a nerve.”
Edgar finally smiled. Before the ‘monster of those days’ that he remembered.
“I will not let that happen.”
“No, it will happen.”
The seven-circle black magician, Edgar, continued.
“They should have arrived at your castle by now.”
“…!”
The color drained from Lord Black's face. He pictured the faces of his wife, Elena, his daughter, Lije, and his proud son, Dale.
“And no matter how much of an eight-circle black magician you are, I should at least be able to hold you back.”
“That won't happen.”
The Master of the Black Magic Tower, one of the five mages at the pinnacle of the five-colored Towers. The greatest black magician on the continent was unfolding his ‘World of Ideation’.
Lord Black's world.
*Flap!*
—Caw! Caw!
From behind Lord Black, several birds took flight with a flutter of wings. They were impossibly black and ominous crows, and their black feathers scattered wildly.