Chapter 16
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 16
Chapter Title: An Equal Opponent
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It was that night with Jinwoo.
When I fell asleep, I would often have the same dream.
The corpse of the black dragon collapsed and covered in black blood, and the figure of a hero leaning against its massive back.
But that night was different.
When I opened my eyes, there was no familiar back and no blood-scented snowy plain.
Instead, what surrounded me was a black space where light seemed to be swallowed whole, its end unknowable.
Dark, ominous, unsettling... and yet, strangely, it didn't suffocate me.
Rather... it felt like something heavy was sinking deep into my chest.
That was the moment.
A low, rumbling breath.
"Grrrrr...."
The sound alone made the space tremble.
Not the earth, but the world itself vibrating.
I raised my head, and there it was.
Crimson slit pupils.
Jet-black scales that devoured light like the night sky.
A presence so overwhelming that merely its breath could dominate all life.
The Black Dragon Fafnir.
Normally—no, as a human—I should have been gripped by terror.
My knees would buckle, my voice would vanish, and I'd flee without even being able to breathe.
And yet.
Strangely, I... wasn't afraid.
My heart was calm, my gaze unwavering.
Not even the thought of running crossed my mind.
On the contrary, this place felt familiar.
As if I'd known it for ages.
As if I weren't a visitor to this space, but its master.
That's when I realized it.
The one standing here right now wasn't Elysia von Valenhardt, the duke's daughter.
The man who slew the black dragon and gained immortality from its blood.
The being who had transcended even the taboos of myth.
Siegfried.
With his gaze, his breath, his resolve... I faced the black dragon.
And Fafnir looked down at me as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
A moment of silence.
The next instant—
"RAAAAAARGH!"
With a roar that tore through the air, claws descended from the sky.
A strike meant to split the earth. Instant death if I couldn't dodge.
No, the very notion of dodging was already "human" thinking.
As my body instinctively moved to react, a voice that felt unfamiliar yet familiar echoed in my mind.
'That's not it.'
Right.
Siegfried wouldn't dodge an attack like that.
Clang!!
The moment the holy sword clashed with the claw, a shock ran through my arm and shook my entire body.
Pressure like my bones were shattering. The sensation of my innards twisting.
But the sword didn't waver.
'Endure it.'
To the very end.
Trusting the sword, trusting his body, trusting every battle he'd fought until now.
Fafnir's blood scattered into the air.
In that instant, I felt my body grow firmer.
The legend of immortality.
A body that grew stronger the more it was bathed in the black dragon's blood.
Siegfried didn't run. He clashed head-on and made that power his own.
"Grrrrk!"
Fafnir spread its wings and soared into the sky.
Storm-like winds.
The power in a single flap enough to sweep away entire mountain ranges.
But Siegfried didn't look up at the sky.
He kicked off the ground.
Closing the distance in one breath, diving under the wings.
Between the scales, in the joint gaps.
'There.'
The sword slashed by as if merely passing, twisting one wing.
Fafnir's balance crumbled.
Siegfried didn't miss the opening.
He threw his body forward, stepping onto the black dragon's scales and mounting it.
Blood and heat.
Every breath a catastrophe.
Yet his hands never released the sword.
Stab the wing root, slash the neck, stab again.
He fought.
Slashed, and slashed again.
And then, the moment he reached the peak riding the black dragon's body high into the sky, Siegfried loaded all his weight and resolve into the blade, plunging down with gravity.
KABOOM!
The holy sword pierced through Fafnir's body and burrowed deep into the earth.
The ground split open, and black blood gushed up like a fountain.
Fafnir wailed as it collapsed.
And I saw that final moment clearly.
The scene of Siegfried standing tall, having pierced the black dragon's heart.
...However.
That scene wasn't the end.
Like a theater curtain falling and rising again.
I blinked, and the fallen black dragon rose as if nothing had happened. My blood-soaked body was pristine, as if it had never been.
Another roar.
Another charge.
Another battle.
Once.
Ten times.
A hundred times.
Each time I felled the black dragon, time rewound, and the battle reset to the beginning.
An endless loop.
But amid that repetition, I was coming to understand.
This wasn't a trial.
Not punishment, not vengeance.
—It was learning.
And at some point, doubts began to creep in.
Why was I moving faster and faster?
Why did Fafnir's attacks feel predictable?
Why did the next scene flash in my mind before I even raised my sword?
The answer came with final enlightenment.
"...It was you."
The words slipped from my lips naturally.
"The one who showed me this experience, over and over."
This dream wasn't Siegfried's.
This battle wasn't a reenactment by the hero.
How to fight to endure longer.
Where to strike for deeper wounds.
When to plunge the sword to fully bring down the foe.
All of it was being taught directly by the one who had endured it—the victim herself.
My hand fell away from the holy sword.
And unconsciously, it reached forward.
Toward it—
No, toward her.
Black scales.
Hot breath.
Endless arrogance and pride.
Yet there was no sense of rejection, strangely enough.
This wasn't an enemy.
Not hatred.
This was communion.
Only in this moment did I understand.
The owner of this memory wasn't Siegfried.
The teacher of this battle wasn't the hero.
This was the Black Dragon Fafnir's memory.
The being who had burned the world and rotted away in boredom, with no worthy foes left to face.
The record of that singular moment when she finally met an enemy who could slay her—and she savored even defeat to the very end.
So she left this memory behind.
For the next one to grasp the sword.
I lowered my head.
In gratitude.
To the existence that had invited this worthless me into this endless ballroom.
To the black dragon who taught me how to become a monster, not a hero.
And in that instant, Holy Sword Balmung trembled faintly.
Acknowledging me as its true master, not the legend of another.
"Black dragon... a black dragon?"
Aurelion's voice carried unmistakable agitation for the first time.
It was impossible.
In this world, if the purest color was white, then the most ominous, arrogant, and reviled symbol was singular.
Black.
Any race, any nation, even any god—ask them to name the "most ominous color," and they'd point to black without hesitation.
Thus, beings dyed in black light remained only as symbols of corruption and sin, those whom the gods themselves had judged and cast into hell.
Moreover, ancient dragons were different.
Beings forged by the primordial highest gods at the world's creation.
They had reigned as incarnations of nature and order, cloaked in prismatic lights.
Yet a power equal to an ancient dragon—no, comparable to one—manifesting in the form of a black-dyed black dragon?
And from a human, no less?
"This isn't... a matter of evil."
Aurelion's eyes narrowed in a faint tremble.
"Lady Elysia. You have seized power unworthy of your station!"
With those words, a radiance on another level unfurled behind his back.
Not the wings of an ordinary dragon.
Wings of pure white light itself, condensed and tearing through the air as they spread.
Aurelion shot into the sky in a single burst.
Almost brushing the edge of the barrier enclosing the dragon's nest.
But.
Kwadududuk—!
"Urk...!"
In an instant, his head slammed into the barrier.
Incomprehensible speed.
"What in the...!"
The moment Aurelion turned his body.
A black meteor—no, a black dragon—was hurtling toward him.
"I won't... let you escape."
Elysia's voice was low and astonishingly calm.
Boom!!
The two beings collided in midair.
The shockwave radiated outward, making the entire dragon's nest wail.
Aurelion pulled back, his eyes sinking into cold resolve.
"Then..."
As he raised his arm, the air warped.
Life.
Nature.
Order.
Every concept under his dominion began to take physical form.
Axes.
Spears.
Shields.
Swords.
Living armaments endlessly spawned in the air and rained down on Elysia all at once.
"Pursue her unto death."
At his command, the weapons howled like beasts and charged.
But even that—
Thud.
Crack.
Shatter!
The weapons shattered one by one the instant they reached her grasp.
Not slashing them.
Not blocking.
Simply crushing whatever she touched.
With a mighty flap of the black dragon's wings, space itself tore, and the fragmented armaments scattered like rain.
Only then did Aurelion realize.
What he faced was no human, no dragon—a calamity.
A living myth itself.
That was when it happened.
Drip.
A single cold droplet trailed down beside Aurelion's eye.
"...?"
The sensation at his fingertip.
Only then did he notice.
'Sweat...?'
His thoughts ground to a halt.
This was impossible.
He was an ancient dragon who governed mortal life.
A being who had shaped the world alongside the primordial gods.
For him to sweat against a mere human—at best, a lowly creature of the mortal realm?
The moment he acknowledged that fact, something within Aurelion began to crumble.
...No.
He realized it.
He was gripped by fear.
Terror.
An emotion he had never needed to name across tens of thousands of years.
The reality that a single duke's daughter had drawn it forth from him.
That realization swiftly transmuted into another emotion.
Anger.
Slowly, but uncontrollably, it boiled over.
This was no mere anger.
It was humiliation, scorn, the violation of his divine dignity.
'...How dare she.'
How long had it been?
Since he'd glared at an opponent with such sincerity.
Since he'd wrung every divine sense dry to find their weaknesses.
Aurelion's gaze swept over Elysia's entire form.
In that instant—
"What's that?"
Her back.
Beneath the black dragon's wings, peeking between the scales—a heterogeneous shape.
A pattern like a leaf.
It looked engraved into her flesh, yet like something "overlaid" upon her skin.
A scar?
A remnant of branding?
He couldn't tell.
But his ancient dragon senses screamed like a banshee.
Pierce it.
No explanation was needed.
Instinct reached its conclusion before reason.
There was only one thing left to do.
Aurelion shed the pretense of divine leisure.
In this moment, against an equal foe, he moved solely for victory.