124. The Ends of Those Who Defied the Natural Order
124. The Ends of Those Who Defied the Natural Order
The Undead Legion, and the Demon Lord Army.
News of the two forces clashing had already reached the human side, and their leadership was even drawing up plans to exploit the moment—to annihilate both factions in a single stroke.
Securing the dragon bones to grow stronger mattered, yes. But if they played this right, they could deal a crippling blow to the military strength of both threats to humanity at once.
"Ironic, isn't it? The very soldiers dispatched for that purpose are now standing with us. Keh-heh."
Inside the garrison the humans had occupied just days ago.
Gorgon Zola watched the corpses of the soldiers who had originally held this place, now arrayed in neat, orderly rows. An ironic smile played across his face as he studied their forms.
The human side had intended a surprise attack—but impulsive heroes drunk on their own importance, and foolish officers who saw the chaos not as a reason to retreat but as a chance to seize glory, had pressed the charge.
Thanks to all of that, the humans had been routed, barely escaping annihilation, and the Undead Legion had secured a foothold to wage this war on favorable terms.
For the Undead Legion, war was a means of replenishing their forces. A direct clash with the human side meant receiving far more reinforcements than they had anticipated.
Having seized such a golden opportunity—and succeeded in toppling one of the Four Heavenly Kings—wasn't abandoning all those gains to retreat now... truly regrettable?
"Ah. You're a bit late, Your Majesty the four-year-old king."
"...You arrived before me."
As if to show that the same thought weighed on him, the death knight Briton IV spoke with a bitter edge as he rejoined the main force.
In reply, Gorgon simply offered his usual playful grin.
"Keh-keh. I am her servant, same as you. How could I dare disregard her command and act as I please?"
What was truly regrettable wasn't the war—it was that their liege's condition remained so vividly perceptible.
A state where her emotions were wavering even without explicit orders. Those who served her could never afford to ignore such a thing.
"Well. Standing around chatting among ourselves won't settle anything. Let us go to her at once."
"Before that—one moment......"
Briton IV stopped Gorgon, who was about to take his leave.
His gaze drifted down to the severed head dangling from Gorgon's outstretched hand.
"...What exactly are you holding?"
"Ah, this? The head of that so-called Four Heavenly King I dealt with. What was his name again? Gluttony... Glutton something?"
A head that looked like a cross between a pig and a grasshopper.
He had been a demon of considerable power—enough to rise to the rank of Four Heavenly King. But now, Gorgon Zola had drained every scrap of nourishment from him. The skin and bones clung together in a pathetic, shriveled mess.
No matter how powerful he might have been, once the human army joined the fray and the sheer weight of numbers became overwhelming—was any other outcome possible?
"Anyway, that was his name. Called himself the 'Demon of Gluttony.' His innate power meshed oddly well with mine, so I sucked him dry, marrow and all. I was thinking of presenting him to our liege as a trophy. A little something to commemorate the victory. What do you think—would she be pleased?"
"......Forgive me. As it happens, I have no sense for such things. I doubt I can offer you useful advice on gifts."
"Tch. You rigid fourth-born. At times like this, you could at least pretend."
Gorgon grumbled at Briton IV's reply.
Then, irritably tossing the head aside, he took the lead. His voice came back bitter, almost to himself.
"A bitter thing, isn't it. To think the one I could trade such jokes with... has now disappeared, too."
Yes—what truly troubled him in this moment was why their mistress had abruptly undergone such a violent shift of emotion.
The cause was something the two of them—faintly connected through her guidance—had already guessed.
*****
The Undead Legion's current base was a site humans had once occupied.
Scattered here and there were buildings assembled from prefabricated components. And the place where their monarch now sat resembled a small chapel—a holy statue, a cross upon the altar.
For her, who in life had been revered as a saint of the Order, there could be no place more familiar.
"Ah... Enabel. Enabel......"
But the woman occupying that prayer room was not offering prayers for victory in war. She was slumped on the floor, and nothing but lament poured from her lips.
One look at her, and the two knights understood.
The one who led all the dead and dreamed of the world's annihilation had, for reasons beyond their grasp, fallen into total emotional collapse.
"O great monarch, why do you grieve so......?"
"Gwen."
Yes. The being before them now was not the king of the dead. It was a single woman, reduced to nothing but 'Gwen Hwibar.'
Sensing this, Briton IV moved from Gorgon's side without hesitation and approached her—not as a vassal, but as a companion.
"Gwen. Look at me. Gwen!"
"...My king."
"Did those two fail?"
He guessed the reason at once.
In life, she had been a symbol of the Order, renowned above all others for her gentle nature.
For someone who, after rising from death, had resolved to slaughter all the living for the sake of a greater cause—there was only one thing that could shatter that resolve.
Because more than the cause she herself had placed above all else, she had found herself swayed by the 'personal lingering attachments' that had grown only more pronounced in this second life.
"Enabel......"
As if that guess had struck true, a desolate sob soon seeped from Gwen's lips.
"I had yet to bestow upon you what is called love. And before I could awaken you to it... just as when I was among the living, you have left my side once more."
"...Gwen."
"I wished to be loved by you. I wished to teach you love. Yet now, if you are leaving me... how am I to fulfill this lingering wish to be with you...? Why do you abandon this mother alone in the world, leaving only yourself behind and departing...?"
"Pull yourself together, Gwen."
Briton IV seized her shoulders and shook her as she lost herself.
Only then did Gwen's eyes turn toward him—but what she wore upon her face was a profound despair he had never seen in her before.
"...My king. Are you not sad?"
No. He had seen it once before.
When she had lost her daughter in the usurpation war that decided the kingdom's fate, she had been swept up in grief just like this for a long, long time.
It had seemed her heart might be soothed when she was reunited with that daughter. But even that hope was left unfulfilled when pestilence consumed their homeland.
"The fruit of our union. The chance to finally realize that bond... has now vanished for good. Are you truly not saddened by this?"
-Flincing.
Briton IV felt his body tremble at her words.
He had indeed realized that she was his daughter. Yet unlike Gwen, he had not been able to give his heart directly to that child.
He, too, held affection for his blood—but that was merely founded on the memories of a living man.
Unlike the one before him, he was not in a state where that fact could take precedence over the greater cause.
'Can I truly... set aside my old bonds for the sake of the Legion's purpose?'
To feel no empathy for his companion grieving their daughter's death.
When he was alive... had he truly been such a selfish man that he placed his duty as king above protecting his family?
"O King of the Dead. Would you grant me your hand, just for a moment?"
While he was still lost in that confusion, a low voice reached him from the side.
Turning his gaze, Briton IV watched as Gorgon, who had been observing the scene, stepped toward Gwen.
"...Gorgon."
"I am of humble station. But even so, I have words I wish to offer—words born of pity for you. If you would accept this heart of mine... please, take hold of this old, insignificant hand."
A withered hand extended casually before her.
Gwen stared at it for a moment. Then, as if spellbound, she reached out and grasped Gorgon's hand.
It was cold and hard. Yet it was a hand that carried will.
"...Gwen Hwibar. Consort to the wisest of kings. A saint of the most upright character."
Feeling that sensation, Gorgon Zola began to recall the time of his own awakening—and to speak his innermost thoughts.
"When I first opened my eyes, you were comforting the dead as they passed on. I respect and revere you for that. For us dead, who must place our lingering attachments first... to make that attachment an act of selflessness is no easy thing for a human to do."
As he spoke bitterly, the hand gripping hers gradually tightened.
Had his emotions simply welled up at his own words?
A chill permeated the air. Still, Gwen did not shake off Gorgon's hand.
If she did not refuse him... then no matter what happened next, there was nothing to do but watch.
Even if something were to happen afterward.
"Yet your heart is far too tender to carry out such a task. To be so bound to the relationships of your former life that you crumble—to the point of straying from your original purpose......"
The moment those words left his lips and his voice dropped low, a sound rang out—Craaack!
Gwen's right arm withered and shrank under his innate power of famine. Briton IV, startled, reached for the hilt of his sword.
"Gorgon! What in the world are you doing——!!!"
"Your Majesty, Briton."
Even so, Gorgon Zola did not release the Corpse Lord's hand.
Undeterred by that alarm, he continued his explanation in a cold, level voice.
"As you know, I was nothing more than a lowly peasant. I lived in so remote a place that I was beyond even your sight, you who sought to look after all your subjects."
A king and a queen. The heir who, though not born of the royal house, undeniably carried its blood. And a scholar who served them faithfully.......
Unlike the highborn stations the authorities leading the Legion had been born into in life, Gorgon Zola's birth was endlessly humble.
"But even such a life suited me well enough. I was born a rural farmer. I lived day to day, working and earning my daily bread....... I figured that living that way without any particular doubts, and when the time came, dying without any particular attachment—that was simply my lot."
Yes. By all accounts, he should have become no different from the countless, commonplace dead.
For a dead to awaken a sense of self required a lingering attachment that surpassed the will to live. Awakening such a thing in the life of an old farmer content with his tenant farming was no easy feat.
"Do you know how it is that I—a man who lived such an insignificant, hollow life—awakened a self even after death...? How it is that I came to stand on equal footing with you beyond the grave?"
"That's......"
"It was a single book. An illiterate farmer, out of sheer curiosity, came into possession of a book brought by a traveling merchant. So I began to learn my letters—just to grasp its contents."
A man who had spent his days surviving on plowing and harvesting, whose sole pride was serving his country by paying his taxes.
For him, the book he happened upon was a small spark of curiosity. And the process of learning to read—just so he could peruse it—gave him a sense of achievement on a level wholly different from tilling the fields.
So much so that before his death, he had even set himself the vague goal of finishing that book.
"But I never did get to read the whole thing. When the plague reached our village, people who couldn't even spare firewood threw that book into the campfire."
Once the borders were sealed to contain the plague, the village ran out of everything. Food. Firewood.
It was only natural to gather every scrap of kindling in the village to endure that cold.
What remained of the book he had been so engrossed in was but a fleeting moment of warmth. And the rest of the book's contents—the pages he longed to know—remained unknown to him even now.
"To stave off hunger, the villagers began to devour one another. I was old and sickly, so I was beneath their notice....... But even so, in the end, I could only die a solitary death, locked inside my room."
As he spoke, Gorgon Zola continued to hold Gwen's hand, drawing out her magical power through the power of famine.
His will ran quiet and clear.
Unlike the absolute monarch, who must uphold her image—he was not one to crumble at the mere truth that he could not fulfill the familial love left unfinished in his former life.
"But tell me, Your Majesty. Why is it, I wonder, that as I lay dying... I did not think about wanting to live—but instead recalled the sticks of firewood burned to fend off the cold?"
"...Gorgon."
"Your Majesty, all I wish is to know. To repeat the same feeling I had back then—that is my only desire. I awakened solely to achieve that one pure purpose beyond death. Which means I am one who has nothing to lose. Neither a great cause, nor past bonds—unlike you, unlike our liege."
He was an insignificant old peasant. No family, no friends, not a single relationship to fixate on.
And since even that purpose was nothing more than a hunger to know, one could say he possessed no lingering attachments at all capable of obstructing it.
"Even so, I do hold gratitude toward the one who awakened me....... If she desires the annihilation of this world, then I shall pour my pure desire into that purpose. And in her stead... I shall fulfill it."
To annihilate humanity with their own hands, before the world itself perishes.
Such a thing can only be achieved by killing the human heart. That makes it a task far better suited to a hollow dead like himself than to someone overflowing with compassion like her.
"Using the 'endless desire of gluttony'—which is melding with my body in this very moment."
Yes. In this instant, Gorgon Zola felt a yearning to pursue that purpose.
Because the moment the power of the 'Demon of Gluttony' he had faced before arriving here fused with his own body—he felt it blending with his own lingering attachment, his 'starvation,' awakening something deep within.
"...My king."
Gwen sensed that malice was directed at her. Yet she did not pull back her arm as it gradually dried up under that power.
Rather—it was as if his words had persuaded her.
Realizing that the role of the absolute monarch did not suit her, she merely whispered quietly toward the one fragment of her 'final lingering attachment' that remained to her.
"I pray... for eternity......."
At that lonely voice, Briton IV could not summon the will to swing his blade.
And as if seizing that split-second opening, Gorgon Zola's other hand began to swing toward Gwen's head.
As though draining her power alone were not enough—he transformed that hand into a gigantic, gaping maw, intent on devouring her body whole.
-Crunch!!!
The moment the swallowed body was crushed from within rang out, he could feel their connection to her fading in real time.
And simultaneously—he could feel her innate, immense power becoming eternalized within his own existence.
"...Your Majesty. What will you do now?"
Nothing remained to bind them anymore.
Gorgon, realizing this, invoked the relationship born from old memories. But what Briton IV actually felt toward him was something best described as terror.
"With her gone, the only thing controlling you now is your own unique lingering attachment....... For the sake of that attachment, will you stand with me? Or will you, like her—tormented by old affections—choose the path of opposing me?"
As if to prove that intuition was no illusion—crackle. Crunch. Gorgon's body began to swell, slowly, grotesquely.
As flesh gradually filled out his once-gaunt frame, the 'starvation' that had once defined him could no longer be seen.
"Either way, I shall simply keep moving. Until the day I have come to know all there is in this world—and until I have devoured everything in it, to satisfy this endless hunger......"
The craving that drove him now was not only the lingering attachment from his starving days. It was a state where the desire of gluttony had been added on top of it.
The mouths sprouting between stretches of bloated flesh were the outward manifestation of that urge—the craving to fulfill those drives.
"...This is."
Such was the empty, hollow end met by the king of the dead who had yearned for annihilation.
And the birth of a Great Calamity that would surpass her.
Witnessing that spectacle, the death knight Briton IV—the moment his connection to his monarch was completely severed—foresaw a single truth.
"Is this... the karma that returns to those who try to defy nature?"
The earnest wish of the dead, who had looked upon their ruined homeland and sought to prepare for the world's end—
Had given birth to the 'Great Calamity of Gluttony,' which sought to devour even that very end.