Chapter 290
Chapter 290
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 290
Chapter Title: Dogs and Wolves (15)
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“Still talking about the past...!”
Riak kicked Horus in the stomach as he charged.
Horus’s body slid backward.
He tried to press his advantage, not letting the opening go, but.
“Kugh!”
His clenched fist trembled violently.
A dizzying, excruciating pain, as if sharp needles were tearing through his flesh, coursed through his body.
‘The Law’s constraint.’
He hadn't used enough of his Stigma's power to be subject to the Law's constraint yet.
If so, then.
[Hah, hah.]
In the distance, he could see Vega, collapsed on Oh-jin's palm, panting raggedly.
Just as Riak took a step toward Vega with a worried expression.
“Where do you think you’re looking!”
Horus, charging like a thunderbolt, slammed an uppercut into Riak’s jaw.
Riak’s body, launched nearly five meters into the air, crashed into the wreckage of the broken fountain.
“Didn’t you see how that bastard Kalike died earlier?”
Horus glared at Riak with blazing eyes.
Losing focus during a battle was no different from offering your neck to be killed.
Riak, who had been slammed into the fountain, staggered to his feet.
He wiped the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth and gave a low nod.
“My apologies.”
This wasn't the time to worry about Vega's condition.
He had to focus on the enemy before him.
A dear friend and comrade-in-arms, with whom he had grown up since childhood.
“Here I come.”
*Crackle!*
Blue lightning crackled through his silver mane.
After Horus and Riak's gazes met in mid-air.
*KABOOM!*
The two wolves kicked off the ground almost simultaneously.
Two wolves, dashing toward each other.
It was Horus who struck first.
“Hmph!”
He slashed diagonally with his claws, which had grown long like blades.
A black aura enveloped his claws, flaring like fire.
Riak, maintaining his forward momentum, stomped his foot.
The ground around him caved in, launching Riak high into the air.
“Where do you think you’re going!”
Horus looked up, tracking Riak's position, and stomped his foot.
He thrust his claws, gathered together like a spear, toward the airborne Riak.
*Crackle!*
Riak, twisting his body in mid-air with a Lightning Step, dodged Horus's claws and clenched his fist.
His fist, blazing with lightning, slammed into Horus’s solar plexus.
“Keuk!”
*THUD!*
Horus crashed down like a meteor.
He looked up at Riak, who was freely changing direction by creating footholds of lightning in the air, and let out a dry laugh.
“When did you learn a technique like that?”
“A hundred years is a long time.”
It was true he had locked himself behind a wall.
But that didn't mean he had been idle inside it.
“Indeed.”
Horus nodded and smirked.
“Just as you said, a hundred years is a very long time.”
His black mane bristled as he crouched low.
A stance on all fours.
A red light gathered in Horus's eyes, like will-o'-the-wisps burning in the dark night.
“Grrrrrrrrrr!”
Horus let out a low growl, his red eyes fixed on Riak.
Is this what it would feel like to enter a cage of starving wolves?
A bloodlust so thick it was suffocating just to look at it swallowed the surroundings like a swamp.
“…That’s.”
Riak's expression hardened.
Berserk.
It was a state where the beastly power inherent in the Beastkin was pushed to its absolute limit.
Several conditions were required to enter a berserk state.
One, the blood of the beast must run thick enough to use the berserk state.
Only the pure-blooded, who inherited the thickest beast blood among the Beastkin, could use it.
Two, the stamina to withstand the berserk state.
An average Beastkin would instantly die the moment they went berserk, their blood boiling in their veins.
And third, a full moon must be in the night sky.
The berserk state could only be used under a full moon, when the beast's blood was at its strongest.
However.
“How in the world did you go berserk in broad daylight?”
It was the middle of the day, not even sunset, let alone a full moon.
Even if the first and second conditions were met, he shouldn't have been able to go berserk.
As if by some magic, Horus had gone berserk in the bright light of day.
“Didn’t you say it yourself? A hundred years is a very long time.”
He was even maintaining enough rationality to speak coherently while in his berserk state.
“Hehehe. I see.”
Riak swallowed hard and clenched his fists.
He watched Horus's movements with tense eyes.
The eerie red eyes, burning like will-o'-the-wisps, darted about, and then.
*BOOM!*
A sudden, excruciating pain shot through his body.
In a moment so brief it could only be called an instant.
Horus, who had vanished like a phantom, appeared before Riak.
“Kugh!”
Startled, Riak hurriedly raised his arms to block his face.
It wasn't a conscious reaction, but a defense born of instinct.
Horus's fist slammed into his forearms.
*DRRRRRR!*
The ground beneath Riak's feet was gouged out as if by an excavator, and he was pushed back.
“Grrrrrr!”
The attack didn't end with one blow.
Horus moved at a speed impossible to follow with the naked eye, swinging his fists at Riak.
Power and speed incomparable to before he went berserk.
Riak's body was beaten to a pulp by the relentless barrage of fists and sent flying backward.
“Cough!”
A mouthful of dark red blood poured out, as if his internal organs had been turned to mush.
“For all your big talk, you’re not much, Riak.”
Horus's red eyes looked down on Riak.
“……”
Riak wiped the blood and got back on his feet.
He clenched his fists and tried to silently take a stance, but.
“Kugh!”
*Crackle, crackle!*
Blue sparks flew, and Riak's body staggered.
The Constraint of the Law binding the Constellation had begun to take full effect.
“…What’s wrong?”
Horus, also noticing that something was wrong with Riak, narrowed his eyes and watched him.
“It’s nothing… Kugh! Kuaaaargh!”
Riak dropped to one knee and doubled over.
An unimaginably immense pain ravaged his entire body.
As if threatening him not to take even a single step.
“That’s enough, Riak.”
Oh-jin approached the crumpled form of Riak.
He grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back slightly.
Riak shrugged him off and glared sharply at Oh-jin.
“What are you doing, brat?”
“The Law’s constraint has started, hasn’t it?”
“That’s…”
“I’ll finish this.”
Oh-jin looked at Horus and gripped his spear.
Now that the blessing's duration had ended, fighting Horus head-on would be difficult, but.
“Mr. Oh-jin!”
“Oh-jin! We’ve cleaned up all the guys in the village and we’re back!”
Just then, Isabella and Ha-eun, having dealt with the situation in the village, arrived.
If the three of them worked together, they should be able to handle even a berserk Horus without much difficulty.
“You’ve held on long enough.”
They say Holy Spirits are less affected by the Law's constraint than Constellations.
But that only meant they were less affected, not completely immune.
If he used any more power, the Law's constraint would tear Riak to shreds.
“…Held on long enough?”
But.
Riak let out a dry laugh and pushed himself up.
“Don’t be ridiculous, brat.”
He gritted his teeth and took a step toward Horus.
Just taking that one step felt like his entire body was being diced by knives, but.
“This is a fight between wolves.”
He wouldn't let anyone interfere.
Not even if it was a rule of the world created by a transcendent being.
*CRACKLE!*
The blue lightning, which had faded, flared up fiercely once more, as if doused in oil.
Cracks, like on shattered glass, began to spread across Riak's body.
Blood gushed from the split flesh.
“Hey, hey! What’s happening to your body?”
Ha-eun shouted, her face filled with horror.
He looked as if a hammer had struck a pane of glass.
His body, fractured like a spiderweb, looked as if it would shatter into pieces at the slightest touch.
“Kugh… Kuaaaah!”
The more he drew on the power of his Stigma, the more the pain intensified.
Riak bit his lip and took another step forward.
Oh-jin watched Riak's receding back with a hardened expression.
“Riak…”
“You’re the one who said it, brat.”
Riak turned his head and grinned.
“That holding back solves nothing.”
If pain is the price.
I'll gladly pay it.
Just like you did.
“*Haaaaaah.*”
Riak took a deep breath and raised his head.
An illusion of ‘the wall’ appeared before his eyes.
The wall he couldn't overcome for a hundred years—no, the wall he *wouldn't* overcome.
The shackles of fear that he had placed on himself.
“Khuhuhu!”
A laugh escaped him unconsciously.
It was a wall that had seemed impossibly high, one he could never surmount.
But looking at it now, it couldn't have seemed more fragile.
“Was this all it was?”
He clenched his fist.
Blazing blue lightning.
The Stigma engraved on his left chest shone brightly like a star.
A terrible pain followed, as if threatening him.
As if to say, *How dare you even think of crossing ‘the wall’.*
“I’m not crossing it.”
The Law's constraint intensified, and pieces of his flesh crumbled and fell off like cubes.
The pain, like his head was being incinerated, burned away his reason, but.
“With just! This much!”
*BOOM!*
He stomped his foot violently and roared.
I don't care if I break.
I don't care if I crumble.
“Do you think you can bind this Riak Khan!!!”
He swung his fist at the wall before him.
*Crack.*
The wall that had imprisoned him for a hundred years began to crack and crumble.
And beyond that wall.
“Khuhu! You’re as reckless as ever, you brute!”
Horus was looking at him, bursting into a bright laugh.
“Horuuuuus!!”
“Riaaaak!”
The two wolves charged.
*RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE!!*
The earth shook, and the royal castle, dozens of meters high, began to collapse.
The bodies of the two wolves, charging straight at each other, crossed paths.
And then.
“Cough, hack!”
Horus, with a hole the size of a basketball punched through his chest.
Riak's fist had pierced through his back.
“Khuhuhu!”
With his chest impaled on the fist, Horus let out a cackle.
“That was… a magnificent blow, Riak.”
“Stop trying to look cool.”
*Cough.*
Blood poured from Riak's mouth.
Horus smiled faintly and placed a hand on Riak's arm, which was piercing his chest.
“Born a wolf… I lived like a dog.”
A voice full of regret and guilt.
“But thanks to you.”
A bright smile formed on Horus's lips.
“At least in the end… I get to die as a wolf.”
Thank you, Riak.
With that final murmur.
The light faded from Horus's eyes, which had been burning red.
*Thump.*
Horus's body collapsed.
“…Rest.”
Riak gently closed his old friend's lifeless eyes with his hand.
He straightened his back, clenched his fist, and struck his left chest three times.
*Thump.*
*Thump.*
*Thump.*