Chapter 392: The Lightning Did Not Fall from the Sky - 11
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 392: The Lightning Did Not Fall from the Sky - 11
“What son of a bitch—! Is throwing this shit—!”
A beast’s roar shook the world. It was as if blood were bursting from his throat. His thick, booming voice shook the Cloud Waterfall.
Rough, thudding footsteps followed. It sounded like an elephant stamping its feet. The ground trembled and quaked from the footsteps of a single man.
As everyone flinched in instinctual fear, a large shadow shimmered beyond the Cloud Waterfall.
Tearing through the mist, a giant appeared, covered in blood. His shaggy hair was soaked in it, and his pointed, beast-like ears were pinned back. In one hand, he held a dagger that shone pure white, and he roared in fury and pain.
“Come out now—! If you do—! I’ll grant you an easy death—!”
Lunken the Blood-Soaked.
The last remaining boar beastkin in the world. That alone made him special enough, but he was more famous for another reason.
He was an Elder.
One of the thirteen vampires to whom the Progenitor had personally given her original blood. Among the Elders, he was the strongest and most reckless.
The Elder, nicknamed ‘Blood-Soaked’ because he was always covered in blood after a fight, was already drenched in it before this one had even begun. What had made him bleed was likely the holy sword Hilde had thrown… Seeing the clear form of an angel, he snorted.
“You baaastaaard—! An angel—!”
Thud, thud, thud. In just three steps, Lunken kicked off the ground and charged, ramming the angel with his shoulder.
It was a sudden attack, but… the angel was smaller than it appeared. Deceived by the lightning, Lunken rammed the wrong spot, passed through the lightning-wreathed wings, and rolled on the ground, electrocuted.
“Guaaaargh—! You coward! Fight me fair and square—!”
To attack and then fall on his own. It was a ridiculous sight you wouldn't even see in a third-rate play. However, both the Thunderarch who had been attacked and the Guardians of Thunder watching held their breath.
He had appeared from beyond the Cloud Waterfall and reached this spot in mere seconds. If even the Thunderarch had been careless, or if Lunken had aimed better… he might have had to take that charge head-on.
The tense Guardians stopped in their tracks, but they had no time to regroup. Because the voice of a young girl drifted from beyond the Cloud Waterfall.
“Heehee. This damn boar! Has that stiff fur of yours finally pierced your skull and burrowed into your brain? Try using your head before you move!”
A girl holding a small doll appeared. She wore a flowing, jet-black dress and a white frill on her head. Her small, cute face showed exaggerated changes in expression.
She looked like a noble girl out for a stroll, but her true identity was a terrible being one hesitated to even name.
Bloodweaver Kavila.
An Elder and a black mage. The discoverer of blood magic and a seeker of the forbidden. An Elder of sin who had crammed every element the Sanctum found horrifying into that small body.
The Elder, who had left her mark on history, placed her hands on her hips and shouted sullenly.
“We're here to greet Sis, not on an expedition because we're short on blood! Even if you are a beast, try to have enough self-control to know where to shit!”
As the venomous words poured out, Lunken shot to his feet and yelled indignantly.
“Shit! Did I charge in for no reason? I'm telling you, it's an angel—!”
“If it's an angel, you should close in slowly! Do you think it'll just let you ram it if you bristle your fur and charge headfirst? Are you an idiot? A moron? Oh, wait, are you blind? You couldn't even properly hit the angel you were aiming for!”
Though she stomped her feet while spewing insults, her expression actually looked relieved. It was as if she was delighted to have an excuse to be venomous. As Lunken hesitated, she gained momentum and was about to say more when a large hand blocked her.
“Now. That's enough. Let's think for a moment.”
The young man with a greatsword slung over his shoulder raised a hand to stop Kavila. Kavila, who looked like she could spit venom until the end of the world, snapped her mouth shut at the young man's words. Having earned a moment of silence, the young man stroked his chin, lost in thought.
“I can feel it. The Progenitor is here. We came to this place to escort the one who is our beginning and our end. But the path to her is… cluttered.”
A greatsword with a crimson blade. Fiery red hair. A pale, cold face that contrasted with his passionate hair color.
There were a surprising number of humans with such features. But if you limited the category to vampires, that number dropped dramatically.
And if he were an Elder, one could think of no one but ‘him,’ the very synonym for vampire.
The moment his name surfaced in everyone's mind, he too reached a conclusion.
“Then, shouldn't we clear it away?”
The first Elder the Progenitor created. The Duke of the Duchy of Mist. The Blood Knight. The Corpse Mountain.
Lord Sanguine Valdamir.
A terrible being who turned humans into prey. Three nobles of the vampires—beings whom any human should rightly fear and despise—had arrived. And one of them was Lord Sanguine himself.
Not only the Guardians of Thunder but even the Thunderarch grew tense. Who could remain calm before an immortal monster that the entire world had tried and failed to kill?
As learned fear hung in the air, Lunken scraped the ground with his foot and shouted eagerly.
“You mean we get to clear away all this trash, Valdamiiir—!”
“First, we negotiate. There's no reason to refuse the easy way.”
“Ugh.”
Silencing Lunken with a single sentence, Valdamir pointed directly at the Thunderarch and spoke.
“This path. Will you clear it? Or do you wish for me to clear it?”
As he spoke, a faint smile played on Valdamir's lips, as if he were testing the Thunderarch, already knowing everything.
He had become the Duke in the Duchy of Mist, where the Progenitor—a being no different from a racial deity—blatantly existed. What would it take to achieve that? Power? Authority? Or perhaps wisdom? Political skill?
The answer was all of them.
Lord Sanguine Valdamir reigned from a position second to one and above all others. Though one Elder was essentially no different from another, all the Elders acknowledged him as their undisputed representative. For he was competent enough to rule a nation, and he was the only one fit to welcome the Progenitor upon her eventual return.
The Thunderarch knew instinctively. No matter what excuse he made now, that terrible being would have already seen through it. There was no choice but to fight.
…Besides, if they hadn't intended to fight, Lord Sanguine wouldn't have come in person. Would a vampire, unwelcome anywhere, show up in another city in person?
“Vampires who should be in the Duchy, why are you here…!”
“It's still daytime!”
The Thunderarch raised a hand. The confused Guardians of Thunder fell silent and awaited their leader's command.
[Do not be afraid. They are the Elders of the Duchy. I do not know why they have come this far without notice, but this is a clear invasion. They are targeting our city and our citizens.]
Valdamir watched silently, his sword resting on his shoulder. He seemed to have no intention of acting until the Thunderarch finished speaking.
The Thunderarch hesitated for a moment, wondering if it was right to order an attack against this sudden calamity, but her deliberation was short.
If they were defeated, it would be the end anyway. One could expect neither morality nor dignity from the vampires of the Duchy of Mist, who treated humans as livestock. Bowing their heads might save their lives, but to live on as walking lunchboxes in a sunless mist would be a tragedy more terrible than death.
Her faith was not wrong. Vampires had to be eliminated. Those terrible creatures should not exist in this world, and the Thunderarch had to oppose them, if only to protect her city.
[The Thunderarch calls upon the guardians of the city. Repel them all. Do not let these bats who see humans as livestock set a single foot in our city!]
The Guardians of Thunder answered with a roar. They began to move to eliminate the clear enemy before them. Though there were only three, they were three great foes.
The Elders shouted as if they had been waiting for this.
“Good! That's more like it! Let's fiiiight—!!”
“Heehee! Did they get struck by lightning in the head? Looks like they've finally lost their minds! They're going to 'eliminate' us! Us! Heh, listen to the livestock yapping!”
Lunken charged forward at once, and Kavila picked up her doll. Behind the two whose bloodthirsty instincts had awakened, Valdamir stroked his chin and muttered.
“It seems the angel is trying to stop us before we can receive the Progenitor. For now, it's certain that the Progenitor is here, just as the intelligence suggested.”
The vampires and the Progenitor must not be allowed to meet. The Progenitor, Tyrkanzyaka, was the god and heart of all vampires. If the two were joined, vampires would overcome their limits and become capable of anything. Claudia was under the sun, so vampires could not invade it, but vampires protected by the Progenitor's darkness had once marched to the very doorstep of the Sanctum.
It would be better to defeat them one by one—so the Thunderarch judged. Valdamir, seeing through that thought, lifted the greatsword from his shoulder.
“Those angel types only ever start things; they never clean up after themselves. I suppose we'll have to do it ourselves.”
*
My stabbed stomach hurt. Hilde had healed me, but just because its form was restored didn't mean a broken body returned to its original state. Blood had flowed and organs had been crushed; was I healthy just because it was patched up? It was the same kind of bullshit as saying that running a lap around a track takes no energy because you end up where you started.
But I couldn't afford to lose focus yet.
The Lightning Thief. My conversation with Franc hadn't even begun.
“I won't. I said I won't do it.”
On a sloping ridge where clouds gathered thickly and thunder rumbled in the distance. There, where low grass grew thick, a man was flying a kite.
A large kite, folded neatly like a letter to the heavens. He had stretched thin fabric over a frame of iron ribs and sent it soaring on the wind. Tethered by a string, the kite still flew high in the sky. Riding the wind like a bird, it looked free.
A fierce wind, heralding rain and lightning, blew toward the kite dancing in the sky. While the short grass bent low to avoid the wind, the Lightning Thief gripped the string a little tighter and spoke.
“King of Humans. Do you know what happens to a kite if the string breaks?”
The nerve of this dead guy, speaking so informally to me when we've just met. How rude.
But, as the King of Humans who respects all humans equally, I answered him politely.
“It would either plummet to the ground or fly far away into the sky.”
“Correct. It's flying joyfully in the sky, but that's because I'm here, holding it and controlling it with this string. If I were to let go, or control it poorly, or if the string were to break, the kite would plummet. It would shatter into pieces, its body never able to fly again.”
A sudden gust of wind blew. The Lightning Thief, reading the wind, quickly let out some string, giving the kite slack. Caught in the gust, the kite masterfully balanced itself and rose higher.
“It's the same. Humans also need something to hold onto them. Where our roots come from. What values we must not forget. And in this world, the only thing that can do that is…”
“Faith?”
“…Yes.”
The Lightning Thief looked a little annoyed that I had stolen his line. He grumbled irritably.
“Originally, when I died, my corpse was to be made into a holy relic, and that memento was to be stored securely where no one could find it. My deeds were to be packaged into the story of the Lightning Thief and passed down as a legend of the Sanctum. It was a glorious affair, so I agreed to it. After finishing my work in Claudia, I went to the Sanctum of my own accord.”
“But this is your memento, isn't it?”
“…Tch. I never thought I'd cherish something like a kite I flew. It was just something I needed to send the Thunder God up into the sky.”
Cold droplets of water began to mix with the fierce wind. Small raindrops, heralding the start of a storm, gradually grew in number. The kite, battered by the wind and rain, trembled uneasily.
“I was just trying to establish order using alchemy. I was only trying to help the pitiful Fallen Dominion, who had lost everything, by using the lightning up there. But for me, a Sage, to be called a Divine? Just because I was a little more talented than others, I become a Divine? Tch. If I could go back to before I became a Divine, I'd stop myself.”
“Why is that?”
“If you don't know, then forget it.”
“Please tell me. If you're such an extraordinary person, you might be able to convince me.”
“This isn't a matter of persuasion. It's a difference of perspective and belief.”
The Lightning Thief turned his body and began reeling in the string, as if he had nothing more to say. Ever the man of faith, he remained devout even in death.
But since when did the dead get to speak to the living with their heads held so high?
“What meaning is there in a perspective no one else can see? What nobility is there in a belief you can't convey to others? If you're going to hug it all to yourself and die, then just be a corpse. Stop dragging this out.”
The Lightning Thief stopped reeling in the string. I walked toward his back and said.
“Somewhere along the line, things like 'belief' and 'faith' have become nothing more than tools for self-justification, all while people hollowly cry out that it's 'for humanity.'”
Plink. Plink, plink. The raindrops grew heavier. The rain, falling sideways in the fierce wind, struck my face and his with heavy drops. Engulfed by the storm, the kite swayed pitifully.
“I am the King of Humans. Now, if you truly acted for humanity, then tell me. Unlike a certain someone, as long as it's a human desire, I will listen to it, no matter what it is.”
Lightning struck nearby. It was getting closer. In a little while, the lightning would reach this area. The lightning, wondering where to fall, would not miss the mark that had risen from the earth.
As if seeing its own future, the kite flying in the sky vibrated anxiously, pulling on the Lightning Thief. The kite string dug into his flesh.
Even so, the Lightning Thief did not let go of the string. He pulled it in little by little and said.
“It was to protect the purity of humanity. If I had left the people of the Fallen Dominion as they were, they would have been reborn as a new species, like the vampires.”