Chapter 144
Chapter 144
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 144
Chapter Title: Jackson's Fall
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Jackson shook off the curse and brought his halberd crashing down on Na-young.
At least, that was what Jackson thought.
But his halberd slammed into the empty dirt ground.
“You’ve got some tough luck hanging on!”
Jackson bellowed, relentlessly smashing the empty ground over and over.
Both armies froze in place, staring at Jackson’s bizarre antics.
“...Now’s our chance! Kill him!”
Billy charged in first, thrusting his spear into Jackson’s side. The other Western Continent Union warriors piled on.
“Protect Lord Jackson!”
The imperial troops rushed to defend him too late. Jackson had already turned into a human pincushion.
No matter how much of a Master he was, he couldn’t ward off the Western Continent Union warriors’ onslaughts with his bare body, bereft of aura.
“...What the hell is this...?”
Bleeding from wounds all over, Jackson couldn’t make sense of it. The witch had clearly been bisected beneath him, and there were no other enemies around.
Yet suddenly, a searing pain like a burn flared in his side. The witch’s form warped like a mirage and vanished. His body was now riddled with spears and swords.
“Not dead yet? Again...!”
Just as the Union warriors geared up for another attack.
Jackson swung his halberd in that state. A Master’s physique transcended human limits. His stamina might have been drained, but it was enough to shove the Union warriors back.
“I’ll kill you all!”
As he reared back for one final desperate swing, Na-young’s mana needles punched a hole straight through his forehead.
Jackson’s body locked up, halberd still pulled back.
He lost his balance under the weapon’s heavy length and toppled sideways like a felled log.
Na-young slowly rose into the sky.
“Imperial forces, surrender now! There’s no need to throw your lives away!”
The imperial soldiers had already lost their will to fight at the sight of her feat. Her violet aura—terrifying yet strangely beautiful—extinguished their battle spirit entirely.
* * *
“Your Majesty. Allow me to report on the results of the recent battle.”
Grand Master Joshua—the strongest in the Eastern Continent, perhaps even in all of Tellus—delivered his report to the Emperor seated on the throne. The Emperor of the Empire, Douglas Edwin Koho III, was already a frail old man with no strength left. He looked less like the ruler of a mighty empire and more like a dying invalid with days numbered.
“So many dead again.”
The Emperor listened impassively to the casualty figures and battle outcomes from each unit.
“Are the new Masters ready?”
“Numbers 1, 5, 38, 41, and 42 are prepared. The remaining sixty-five were discarded. This brings our Master count to twice that of the Western Continent.”
“Finally, preparations are complete.”
Joshua glanced back, and soldiers opened the doors.
In walked five young men and women, barely adults.
Their bodies were sturdy and their postures ramrod straight, but their eyes were vacant, devoid of souls.
“Kneel.”
At Joshua’s command, the five dropped to their knees before the Emperor.
“I’m sorry to ask this of you. It’s all for the peace of the realm—please endure. Send them out at once.”
“Yes, Your Majesty!”
They departed at the Emperor’s order, and the doors closed.
“Your Majesty, the Emperor of the Empire must not speak such words.”
Joshua bowed his head as he spoke.
“Blood... too much blood has been spilled.”
“It will end soon.”
“If you took the field, this long war would be over in no time.”
“As long as the Western Continent’s Divine Archer has her sights on Your Majesty, that’s impossible.”
The Divine Archer Nella, hailed as the strongest Master on the Western Continent. She could pierce space itself with her arrows, striking any foe in Tellus no matter the distance.
With her targeting the Emperor, Joshua was confined to the palace.
Nella, in turn, couldn’t join the war. Her ability wasn’t something she could spam at will, and she was restricted to sniping through space from the Western Continent’s tallest sacred peak.
The moment Nella descended and lost her sniping vantage, Joshua would charge into battle. Even ten Masters couldn’t defeat him, and when it came to brutality, he was unmatched in the Empire.
That was why the two watched each other ceaselessly.
“I know, I know. No matter what I say, you won’t budge. I was merely lamenting a little. It’s been so long, so very long. But we’re almost there. Just a bit longer.”
“It pains me that the fools cannot comprehend Your Majesty’s profound intentions.”
“It’s the karma of this curse that lets me see the future.”
Through his clouded eyes, Douglas reminisced about the past.
The Emperor of the Empire, Douglas, had never been destined for the throne.
150 years prior, when no empire yet existed on Tellus.
Born the third prince of the Exbrian Kingdom, a remote backwater nation in the northeast, Douglas wasn’t even fated to rule that small realm.
But the timid, ambitionless Douglas had no complaints. Becoming king meant enduring all sorts of hardships.
Despite his royal blood, Douglas never lorded it over others. He mingled freely with the common folk.
“Your Highness, if your brothers find out you’re cavorting with the rabble, you’ll be in for it.”
Dana, the maid who had cared for Douglas since childhood, cautioned him gently.
“If my brothers don’t know, it’s fine. Come on!”
Sword training and studies were dull. Kicking around this round leather ball with his friends from the castle town was far more fun.
At first, they were common boys who’d flatten themselves to the ground and tremble at his approach. But after a few tastes of the fine foods Douglas brought, they opened up, and now they were true friends.
“Your Highness! Incoming!”
Robin, the butcher’s son, booted the ball hard.
Thwack!
Douglas didn’t react in time, and it smacked him in the nose. Blood trickled down.
“...”
Robin’s face went deathly pale. No matter how close they’d become, the gap between commoner and royal was vast. To draw a prince’s blood?
“S-s... sorry.”
Robin prostrated himself flat on the ground.
“Hahahaha! It doesn’t... doesn’t hurt at all.”
Seeing Robin quake in terror, Douglas forced an even louder laugh. His nose stung fiercely, but he wiped the blood with his sleeve and didn’t touch it. Showing pain would only worry Robin more.
But the blood kept flowing.
Dana rushed over and checked his nose. There was bleeding, but nothing broken.
“Your Highness, please, I beg you. Time to go inside.”
Dana, Robin, and the other playmates’ faces had gone from white to blue. Even if the bleeding stopped, they couldn’t play anymore, so Douglas nodded.
“Got it. Robin, this didn’t hurt a bit. I’m tough, you know. Let’s play again next time.”
Douglas didn’t worry much. Once the blood stopped, it was just a bit red.
The next morning, he woke to find Dana, Robin, and Robin’s entire family beheaded, their heads displayed on the castle gates.
“......Urk!!!”
“To wound a royal’s face and leave it be?! How much further do you mean to drag the royal dignity through the mud?!”
His second brother screamed, but the words didn’t register.
‘Because of me... because of me...’
His usually stern second brother had never gone this far. Had they committed a capital crime?
Inherently shy, Douglas grew even more reclusive after that. He stopped opening his heart even to ordinary folk or servants. He feared anyone he grew close to could die from a single mistake.
On his fifteenth birthday, a lavish coming-of-age ceremony was held, but Douglas felt no joy. He merely sat there like a puppet.
After the ceremony, exhausted, he collapsed into bed without even changing.
He drifted off to sleep.
And dreamed a nightmare.
Of being stabbed in the chest with a dagger right there, in that very bed. The assassin was a servant dispatched by his second brother.
What followed unfolded as vividly as if he were witnessing it firsthand.
His death would be hushed up as illness. Years later, his eldest brother would meet the same end.
Their father would pass, and the second brother would inherit the throne, strengthening the kingdom. Radical yet brilliant, the second brother would expand the army and invade western minor states to grow their power.
But Exbrian would grow too large. It would catch the eye of the southern superpower Beria, reducing the border minnow to ashes.
Sweating profusely amid the torrent of visions, Douglas snapped awake—to see the dagger-wielding servant right there. The same face from his dream.
Their eyes met.
“Forgive me! It’s all for the kingdom’s peace!”
The servant plunged the dagger down.
Douglas rolled off the bed, dodging. The blade stabbed where he’d lain. He snatched the candlestick from the nightstand and jammed it into the servant’s eye.
The fruits of his diligent knight training, done in silence and obedience, paid off here.
The servant stiffened and toppled backward.
“Urk!”
His first kill. Sickly by nature, Douglas retched repeatedly. Composing himself, he pondered the dream.
Douglas had foreseen this assassin’s arrival. If so, the rest must be true too. He didn’t know why he’d received this “gift,” but with foreknowledge of the future, he could avert disasters. No—he had to, for Exbrian’s people.
“Yes... it’s all for the kingdom’s peace.”
Steel-ing his resolve, Douglas repeated the servant’s words. He couldn’t protect his subjects if he remained weak. He couldn’t protect his eldest brother.
Gathering his wits, Douglas built his power base. Knowing every twist ahead in the kingdom’s fate made amassing wealth and secretly raising private troops a breeze.
As he grew stronger, he purged every malignant element in the realm. But his temperament persisted—he never bloodied his own hands directly, always delegating.
He promoted the able and aided the needy.
His wildly ambitious second brother proved impossible to reform.
“Go... on, kill... me...”
“Have you forgotten sending assassins after me?”
He drove the dagger in his brother’s chest deeper with his full weight. Bile rose, but he’d steeled himself—no one else would kill his brother.
“Gurk...”
As the second brother crumpled, Douglas vomited up everything inside. His second kill, but no less nauseating.
Had it not been for his eldest brother and the people, he’d have preferred death over fratricide.
He served his eldest brother, who ascended as king after their father’s death. With Douglas’s foresight, the kingdom prospered daily.
He launched no wars of conquest against neighbors.
He wed Princess Christine of the eastern minor state Wisecast in a political marriage and fathered two children.
Though arranged, his wife was a good woman. He was happy.
It was a peaceful life.
“Gaaah!”
Douglas bolted awake, drenched in sweat.
Used to this by now, Christine silently wiped his brow without a word.
“S-sorry.”
“It’s fine. Shall I help you back to sleep?”
“I’ll grab some water. You rest.”
Even as he drank, his hands trembled. To seize this happiness, he’d condemned countless to death. Only two by his own hand, but all those lives lost at his command.
Of course, it allowed far more to live in peace. He told himself it was worth it. But peace never lasted long.