Chapter 173
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 173
“Still, I have to ask.”
He was curious. What could have driven the clever Hexabel to make such a reckless move?
“What do you plan to do now?”
“...”
A thin blanket of black energy on the floor began to creep upward.
“We’ve lived in the same dungeon for decades. You know what I’m about to do, don’t you?”
He would kill Hexabel to destroy all evidence.
“I assume you came here confident you could win?”
Swallow, who had been smiling just a moment ago, now wore an ice-cold expression. At the sudden shift, Hexabel gasped.
“How could I ever dare?”
There was no way she could win.
Had Erebos ever truly clashed with Swallow? Had the humans, with their Heroes at the forefront, ever managed to bring him down?
Hexabel had watched Swallow for decades. Her doubts, the sense of dissonance she felt—it all stemmed from the immeasurable gap between them. In her right mind, even relying on the foreign energy of the mirror, she would never dream of fighting him.
That was why.
“One doesn't necessarily have to fight to win, do they?”
The shrieks of monster larvae echoed from the ground.
They were small larvae, spawned from the pool of blood Hexabel had spat out earlier. Though small for their kind, they were easily dozens of centimeters long.
“The Empire... it’s quite important to you, isn’t it?”
The foreign object.
It had already been proven that if these 'foreign objects'—which exuded the same energy as Swallow—existed within human nations, 'out-of-spec humans' like Heroes or Saints would be born.
If so, the Empire, which possessed three 'Heroes'—the strongest among those out-of-spec humans—must possess the most powerful of these 'foreign objects'.
‘And indeed, it is the most prosperous human nation.’
Swallow had possessed the power to destroy the Empire many times over, yet he rarely laid a finger on it. Even when he descended into Riaze a few months ago, he had only partially destroyed the capital. Putting it all together, there was a high probability that the Empire lay at the center of Swallow’s plans.
And the most definitive proof?
Swallow himself had descended here, in person.
“The Empire mustn't be destroyed, right?”
The ground convulsed as if alive, and hundreds of larvae burrowed through the earth, poking their heads out.
As their progenitor, Hexabel could command any of them instantly, so long as they were within a few kilometers.
“Normally, it would be impossible, but in this chaos, killing humans is child's play. And from this location, attacking the Imperial Palace is incredibly easy.”
“So you're holding the Empire hostage?”
“I've released insects in various other places besides here. Among them are flying insects and venomous ones. Besides, I think I know where the Empire's 'foreign object' is located.”
“...”
Swallow’s expression hardened.
‘Of course, he’ll try to kill me the moment I escape the Empire.’
Most of the larvae here were connected to her through a mental link. Even if her physical body were to die, her consciousness would survive as long as the larvae did. She could simply be reborn in a new body.
“What will you do?”
Dark clouds gathered in the sky.
She hadn't noticed, obscured as it was by dust and smoke, but the sky had been growing gloomy for some time. Now, with black energy surging from the ground, both heaven and earth were shrouded in darkness.
“I wonder.”
In the darkness, Swallow smiled again.
That black monster smiled far more often than any other creature she knew. This time, however, it was more extreme than usual, the corners of his lips stretching to a degree no human could ever mimic.
—What is making him smile like that this time?
Only when the corners of his mouth literally reached his ears did Hexabel stop breathing, seized by a chilling dread.
That was not a sneer. Nor was it a chuckle. Swallow did not normally smile like that. Why was he smiling now?
—Because Hexabel was truly that ridiculous to him.
The grinning corners of his mouth returned to their normal position.
Swallow silently raised his hand.
A casting sequence began in his hand. It was as crude as ever, but the calculations were twice as fast as usual, as if he were actually trying for once. Hexabel stood frozen, like a stone statue.
The spell was discharged.
It was a low-tier spell, yet quite powerful—a simple blast of condensed mana, sharing its roots with <Mana Explosion>.
—It grazed right past Hexabel’s head.
Her mind went blank. Her hearing felt paralyzed. The spell had passed by faster than she could even perceive.
The sonic boom caught up to her ears a moment later. Soon, the dark ground lit up brilliantly as a deafening explosion erupted in the distance. The sound came from somewhere far away, where a village used to be.
Hexabel turned her head back.
The innermost part of Riaze, including a portion of the Imperial Palace and the surrounding village, had vanished.
“Everything you said was fine, but you got exactly one thing wrong.”
Amidst the screams of the humans, Swallow’s voice rang out clearly.
‘Just now...’
He hadn't aimed at her.
He could have used a wide-area spell, but he'd gone out of his way to use a projectile. She was frozen by his pressure, completely unable to dodge, yet he had missed on purpose.
That spell just now...
‘Was aimed at the humans...’
Had he dropped a spell in the middle of the Empire just to show off? Moreover, the epicenter was right next to the Imperial Palace. In the aftermath, a portion of the palace was collapsing.
And this was despite her calculations indicating that the altar of the 'foreign object' should be inside that very palace.
Shouldn't Swallow want that altar to remain intact?
—Something... was wrong.
She had to get out of that monster's sight. Immediately. The thought became an absolute priority.
Whether it was a rational decision, she couldn't say. But her terror-stricken body commanded it, and Hexabel hastily dropped to the ground.
She had to burrow into the earth. She had to escape this place...
“Kaaah!”
Suddenly, her body floated up, defying gravity.
Her senses seemed to operate independently. Before she knew it, her body had been torn to shreds by black thorns that erupted from all over Swallow, leaving her with no sensation below the neck.
‘Six... no, even more than that...’
While her mangled flesh fell helplessly to the ground, Hexabel scanned her surroundings.
Over a dozen thorns protruded from Swallow’s body. And the maximum number she had ever seen him use was a mere six.
—It was as if he were mocking her, proving that all the information she had gathered on him was completely wrong.
Splat, squelch.
Each time a piece of her torn body hit the ground, it gushed fluid. When the segment containing Hexabel’s face fell, Swallow slowly walked over and ground it under his heel.
“Holding the Empire hostage?”
His expression flickered. At first, he'd been expressionless. Then, when Hexabel finished speaking, he smiled. Then he was expressionless again. Now, he was smiling once more. It was impossible to tell which was his true face.
“Do it. I'll wait. Send the signal to your subordinates. Since things have already come to this, I was planning to clean house anyway. If you're going to help me, I'm all for it.”
“K-Kieeeek, kueeeek...”
“The Empire mustn't be destroyed? Who said that? Did I ever say such a thing?”
It was a miscalculation.
“I said it would be troublesome if it were destroyed. I never said it was absolutely out of the question.”
“If you... destroy the Empire... all the other humans...”
Even as Hexabel spoke, the fragments of her body writhing on the ground began to coalesce. Swallow tore them apart once more, cutting her off.
“All the other humans will what? Rush at me?”
“Are you... fine with humanity... going extinct?”
“They won't go extinct.”
Swallow grinned.
“I know because I've tried it.”
He raised his head and scanned the surroundings. There was no other presence besides the gaze of Azi Dahaka.
Even Azi Dahaka was extremely wary of Swallow, doing nothing more than watching from hundreds of meters away. The moment their eyes met, he veered off toward Patrick.
Now, no one was left who could eavesdrop.
“I'll tell you this as a special favor.”
Only after confirming this did Swallow whisper to Hexabel’s face.
“Something similar happened long ago. The humans back then were tenacious. They even found that item of Nitocris you mentioned and pointed their swords at me.”
It was a story from well over a thousand years ago.
“Everything went completely awry.”
The entire plan was exposed. Humanity learned the whole truth.
“I had no choice but to wipe humanity out.”
He had slaughtered them all. Not just the humans, but every living creature on the surface that knew the secret.
The stench of rot was so thick that even the creatures who survived the slaughter died, contaminated by the decaying earth.
Within days, an immense number of grudges drifted aimlessly, coalescing in various parts of the continent. These massive clusters of resentment, seven in total across the world, took on grotesque forms.
“That was when the things called demons were born. And...”
While the few surviving creatures tenaciously preserved their species and the contaminated land underwent a centuries-long purification...
“Humans, who had vanished completely, suddenly popped up again.”
Humanity is a race blessed by those entities.
No matter how many times you kill them, they reappear from somewhere a few centuries later. As long as the world does not perish, humanity will never go extinct.
So, if everything goes wrong...
“I just have to wipe it all out and wait again.”
Hexabel’s writhing gradually subsided. Conversely, the countless larvae on the ground were thrashing about, trying to flee from Swallow.
—It's useless.
After mouthing the words, Swallow reached one hand above his head.
“Run all you want.”
A triangular magic circle manifested above his palm.
The magic circle, initially the size of his palm, expanded dozens of times in an instant. An inverted triangle formed within the first. Indecipherable, magical characters filled the circle, thrashing wildly within the inner triangle.
The method was completely different from the magic known to the world.
“I'll bury you along with Riaze.”
Hexabel’s head, which had been quiet, began to thrash again upon seeing the magic circle.
She had seen that magic before. Its calculation formula was far too similar to the spell that had destroyed the Kingdom of Astupena. There was only one kind of magic Swallow could cast without a single error: Ancient magic, composed purely of black mana.
Just as the spell neared completion...
“...”
The characters tangling wildly within the magic circle stopped moving.
Swallow furrowed his brow.
The Orcs had fled, the humans had evacuated—the area was supposed to be empty. Yet a single human, stained in black, was walking toward him.
It was someone he had seen before.
Phase. 10
Ar woke from the depths of darkness.
It wasn't because it was time to wake.
Normally, Ar would have been left to tremble in fear within that black world for an indefinite time. It was a silent, rippleless space, a place he could not escape on his own.
“……Ah.”
What dragged Ar out of such a place...
“Swallow.”
...was, paradoxically, the black energy.
When his senses returned and he opened his eyes, he was in a hospital bed. There was no one else in the small room. After looking around, he stood up.
……His body felt light.
A truly light body, without a single trace of pain. Feeling as if his weight had vanished entirely, Ar looked into the mirror.
It was blurry. The figure in the mirror was distorted and uneven.
He couldn't tell if it was an aftereffect of his madness or if his body was truly in such a state. Regardless, he was glad to be on his own two feet without anyone's help.
He turned his head to look at the table.
On the table...
Beside some fruit that was slowly beginning to dry up, a set of neatly folded clothes lay. They were pristine, without a speck of dust, as if someone had recently placed them there.
After changing into his knightly uniform, his body unsteady, Ar slowly walked out of the hospital room.
……The sounds echoing from afar were incredibly noisy.
He blocked out the noise and walked on.
Fortunately, the hospital was in the Empire's innermost district. He was certain of it; when he looked up past the streets, the Imperial Palace came into view. Using it as a guide, Ar made his way to his office.
His office...
Documents were scattered everywhere, blanketing the floor. Ar stepped over them indifferently, checking several of the papers as he approached his desk.
The magic circles he had mixed between the documents were gone.
The wooden pattern on the right corner of the desk was misaligned. When he rubbed it with his finger, an eye pattern revealed itself.
The mark left by the 'Third Eye'.
‘In the end.’
—Did Garot inherit everything?
He pulled open the desk drawer. As he did, the magic installed inside emitted a blue light.
The light wrapped around Ar a few times, then poured a recorded voice into his ear.
“This is the report on the completion of the directive.”