114. The Dragon of Despair
114. The Dragon of Despair
"Ah, Marcus. My pitiable younger brother...."
The vampire's corpse lay in grisly chunks, scattering polluted blood.
The calamity of pestilence, who had crushed even those remains underfoot, laughed mournfully as he recalled the lingering regret that had raised him from the dead.
"Humanity—the very thing you devoted your life to protecting after you sent me away—has ended up as playthings for arrogant monsters."
Tiny spores drifted from his shuddering body, spreading outward and seeping into the corpses of the heroes strewn across the area.
"...Yes, perhaps going mad would be the kinder fate. Even your would-be leaders chose to bow their heads to the grotesque to forget reality."
Crunch, creak. Flesh and joints twisted and deformed with sickening sounds.
The shrieks of the resurrected monstrosities echoed through the cave, and one by one, tendrils of terror began to bloom in the hearts of those approaching.
Pitiful souls who pressed on toward this place even after the heroes betrayed them.
The calamity of pestilence did not spare his pity as he gazed upon them—still imprisoned by the hope that they might at least secure a retreat.
"So go forth, heroes! With what remains of you who came to this world to save humanity, buy the respite needed for salvation!!"
To deliver those pitiable lambs, he would send forth the remains of the saviors who had descended upon this world.
And to save even more, he ignored the screams of those wandering the valley of death and turned his steps toward the destination that awaited at the end.
"By that borrowed time, I shall ascend."
What he came upon at the end was a vast space supported by massive bones as pillars.
At its center dwelled a tremendous energy—the concentrated, preposterous magical power that the fallen symbol of this world had held even in death.
"Not merely to surpass death, but to take into this vessel the being that once stood at the apex of this world...!"
Before that energy, Blight disassembled his own body and attempted to dissolve himself into the mass of magical power.
Reacting to that vast power, the spores swelled explosively and began to blanket the entire area.
And then...
****
"C-Commander! The undead assault is intensifying by the minute!"
A fierce battle raged inside the garrison zone.
What had initially seemed like a containable situation was tipping further into humanity's defeat as time wore on.
Because of the risk of infection, they were forced to fight conservatively. Meanwhile, the enemy struck again and again at those who couldn't make it past the barricades, swelling their numbers relentlessly.
"Fall back! Fall back to the defensive line!"
"Carriers have breached the defensive line! The clergy can't keep up with the healing!!!"
The plague's forces exploited the gaps the clergy couldn't cover, spreading at mind-numbing speed and swelling their ranks with the deserters from the front lines.
But what was more dire was that the strength of the infected was rising at a staggering rate with every passing moment.
-Kraaaaaah!
-Kyaaaaaaaah!
War's Red Knight.
Her magical power, slowly saturating this land, amplified the might of the undead whose numbers swelled by the hour within the garrison.
At least the Red Knight herself was being held in check—barely—by three heroes. But as long as her mere presence elevated the enemy's baseline might, the situation could only worsen unless she was brought down.
If only the heroes who could salvage this situation were still standing...
No, if only the White Knight and the traitor heroes had clashed, we might have hoped for mutual annihilation.
"Commander! The traitor heroes have turned into undead and are blocking the passage to the Dragon's Heart!"
"This can't be! Over a dozen heroes were wiped out by the White Knight already?!"
That last hope turned to ash as well. The White Knight had turned those annihilated heroes into her puppets and used them to wipe out the reinforcements trying to stop her ambitions.
"Why...."
Any chance to regroup, and any belief that they could thwart the enemy's objective, was brutally shattered.
Even allies who had fought with desperate resolve turned into foes and came for them. It felt as though everything they had done was utterly meaningless.
"Why... does the world make us this powerless?"
Was it because, having deemed it pointless to sink deeper into despair, his own brother had willfully walked the path of corruption?
Had his brother truly chosen to awaken as an enemy of humanity...
because he had foreseen this very future as he watched their homeland crumble?
-Rumble, kaboooom!
But the natural disaster crashing down upon this crumbling world
did not even grant them the luxury of dwelling on that despair.
"Commander! The mountain is collapsing!!!"
At the scream of the subordinate who first noticed the calamity, every soldier on the battlefield turned their eyes toward the sky at once.
A massive explosion erupted above the mountaintop.
Boulders shot upward like a volcanic eruption, then plummeted under gravity's pull, while a tidal wave of dirt cascaded down the mountain's ridges straight toward their position.
"Everyone fall back!! Retreat to the other mountain!!!"
Rumble, crash!
Disaster mercilessly swallowed the battlefield.
Bodies crushed under boulders were left so mangled that even those consumed by the plague could never rise again.
The moment that cataclysm, which turned the whole area inside out, descended upon this land—rendering even the battle cries against the dead's invasion meaningless—
"Wh-what... that...."
The survivors who remained couldn't even bring themselves to look upon the devastation.
Breath held, they turned their eyes toward the mountain above, where the Dragon's Heart was believed to reside.
Something had torn its way up through the peak, and now it surged through the haze of spores billowing from its own body, flaunting its existence.
"Kuhahah, hahahahahahahahahaha!!!"
Its head alone was the size of a mountain, dwarfing any castle.
The smoke-like spores gradually clung to that titanic skull, solidifying into flesh and form.
"Pitiful mortals, look upon this place!"
Borrowing that half-formed head, the calamity declared.
"Witness clearly as the transcendent being that once drove this world to despair descends before you once more!!!"
That it was here, unmistakably possessed of will.
And that its will was malice toward humanity.
-Kwaaaaaah!!
Starting from its head, a body began to rise slowly from the mountain.
Taking the exposed bones as its framework, the spore-smoke wreathed around it, its unstable shape gradually reflecting the form it had held in life.
"...A dragon...?"
The moment the silhouette revealed itself, humanity recognized it.
"It really is... a dragon...."
"A dragon's corpse... has become undead...."
A being that could not even be compared to the army of the dead that had harried them until now.
A great calamity that should have vanished into history had been rebuilt in this moment, bearing the will of one of the dead. They realized it now.
"Do you still believe there is hope in this world?"
The calamity looked down upon humanity, slowly revealing the rest of its body that had been buried beneath the mountain.
"It is because we pitied you so that we rose from our graves to deliver you."
The spores, forming flesh and muscle over the framework of bone, slowly solidified and strove to raise up that body.
The awakening was not yet complete. Still too imperfect to fully reflect a great being.
But even this much would be enough to exterminate humanity.
Feeling the power boiling within his body in this moment, the Plague Dragon realized that truth and felt an uncontainable exultation overtake him.
"So despair, slaves to hope!"
Riding that momentum, he spread the wings of his reconstructed flesh and roared.
"In this world so infinitely cruel to the living, know that the only salvation permitted to you is to prepare for death alone!"
Deeming even that insufficient, the dragon opened its maw and readied a breath to unleash upon all who stood here.
More merciless than the landslide's debris, a breath laden with polluted spores—so virulent that the barest exposure would drown the body in countless diseases.
"Nevertheless, for those who would still fight, I, Blight, the Plague Dragon, shall proclaim! Starting from this place, I shall spread pestilence across this entire world and drive all living things into death!"
Even as that breath foretold the annihilation of everyone present, not a single person standing there could even muster the thought of fleeing.
"...It's over."
Fighting with every last ounce of strength, only to feel powerless. The hope they trusted in, betraying them again and again.
And on top of that, even a calamity beyond their power now flaunted its existence. All a mere human could do was abandon everything.
"It's truly... over...."
Faced with that grim reality, even the legion commander, stripped of his will to fight, felt his knees buckle beneath him under the weight of despair.
That was the end that awaited a human who chased hope to the very last.
The only thing permitted at that end was acceptance.
Whatever happened next, all he could do was watch and accept.
-Whoooosh!
Just before that breath was loosed, the sky split open.
And the massive flash of light that fell from it slammed into the gaping maw, driving it into the mountainside—
-Rumble, kaboom!
Yes, something crashed down in that instant.
The shock drove the mouth shut before the breath could be unleashed, and the colossal body pitched forward, sending tremors through the earth once again.
"Wh-what... just what is...."
Regenerating his shattered body, Blight struggled to lift his head and grasp the situation.
Something with immense power had attacked him.
Humanity? Or a hero?
"I am an ultimate being! Who dares...!!"
Whatever it was, he had become a dragon.
A part of this world, yet a being with will.
He had blended himself into the vast energy that remained in those remains, reviving the records lingering in the corpse, and was surely advancing rapidly toward the primeval flesh.
"'Ultimate,' huh. You sure love that word."
Mocking that unshakable conviction, a massive being slammed its foreleg down with a thunderous impact.
The heat that radiated from it seared the ground, turning crumbling soil to lava that pooled like molten glass.
"You scrounged up a few bone fragments and put on a little act—did you really think you could compare to me?"
A towering presence that burned everything around it by its mere existence.
The moment that presence shifted into killing intent and focused squarely on him, a seed of terror began to sprout deep within Blight, who had declared himself an ultimate being.
"Y-you're...."
"Whatever the case, if you're going around calling yourself a lizard, you ought to know. We're all the type who can't stand anyone stepping into our territory."
-Kuuuuung!!
A colossal dragon slammed its foreleg into the earth.
But this was nothing like him—not some semblance cobbled over a corpse.
The flames blazing across that body in this moment proved beyond doubt that this was a true living being.
"...Little one."
Such a being spoke in this moment.
The instant a crack formed in the vow that humanity's annihilation would be achieved by her own hand.
"You've steeled yourself for the consequences of laying your hands on someone else's prey, I trust?"
The last firewood that remained in that body
had begun to blaze fiercely.