Chapter 612: A Tale of the Forsaken - The King of Humans Wants to Know the Human Heart
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 612: A Tale of the Forsaken - The King of Humans Wants to Know the Human Heart
It was a suicidal blow. If she merely dodged or deflected it, Maximilien's attempt would be for naught, and he would shatter under the force of his own power.
“Yes. I see. Your gears.”
Knowing this full well, the King of Humans reached out her hand to meet it.
“Interesting, but that’s all it is.”
The flame-wreathed gear and the pale, soft hand collided. Against the massive mechanism, the human hand looked utterly fragile. The gear lunged at the King of Humans as if to crush her in an instant, but…
The result was the exact opposite.
Sparks flew between the fist and the gear. The gear ground away as if scraped by sandpaper. The crushed and mangled shards of steel became gunpowder themselves, setting off small explosions.
Crushed and molten iron. Shattered metal fragments. Flames and sparks. Even as she clenched all of it in her hand, the King of Humans was unfazed. Withstanding the barrage of gears without the slightest tremor, she spoke.
“No matter how powerful the force you imagined, it's useless without a foundation to support it.”
The magnitude of the power created by the interlinked gears was, in theory, close to that of the sun. Not even the Beast King could dare to withstand it.
But that power was a product of Maximilien's fantasy, a delusion overflowing with greed that failed to consider the limits of reality.
“It won’t work. You knew it wouldn’t. Why do you sadden yourself with such reckless acts?”
The King of Humans, murmuring sadly, pushed the sun-like wheel away with a slight exertion of force.
That was all it took.
The King of Humans was cold reality, and though Maximilien may have been the master of gears, he could never be the master of the world. His everything had collided with the wall of reality.
The immense power surged back. The gears, pushed to their limit, broke simultaneously. To gather the power of all the gears meant that the shockwave would also be transmitted to all of them.
Hundreds of gears lost their connection and scattered. Blood-soaked fragments rained down.
“Graaaaargh!”
Bones shattered, gear fragments dug into his body. The rotational force turned into searing heat, crushing him.
The power he could not handle returned to destroy him. Collapsing to his knees, Maximilien coughed up blood from every orifice and muttered.
“Qi Art... so it is... Was that technique... also chosen...”
The King of Humans withdrew the Qi Art she had spread through her hand and said.
“It's useful. Unlike gears.”
Maximilien had suffered a great blow in a previous battle and had modified his body with gears. Now that they were all destroyed, he was as good as dead.
He could only speak because he was using the few remaining gears to move in place of his bones. If his consciousness were to fade for even a moment, he would fall asleep and never wake again.
Sensing this was the end, Maximilien painstakingly forged each and every word.
“...Hh, hngh. Honest, and powerful. Unlike him.”
Though he didn't say who ‘he’ was, the King of Humans understood and nodded.
“My brother might have been. That child is weak and ordinary, so he has to use everything he can.”
Those who lack power have no time to be picky about their methods. They must observe, understand, and analyze, then hide their hand until the very last moment to strike at a weakness if they are to have any chance of victory.
But that was the perspective of the weak.
“...You are... far too strong. So strong you have no need for what is mine.”
The truly mighty are not bound by such things.
He was the Warforger of the Military State's Six Generals, an alchemist once considered a Primarch of the Fallen Dominion, and an executive of the Human Regime.
And yet, even Maximilien, a powerhouse in his own right, was no more than a commoner before the King of Humans.
“Why did you do it, knowing all this? You can't change me. You must have known that.”
It was the kind of affectionate yet emotionless question a parent who couldn't understand their child might ask. Maximilien met her gaze and slowly lifted his head.
“...Do you truly not know the reason? Even though you are the King of Humans?”
“I don't. The person who would have told me is gone.”
“Kahah! Then, my death will have meaning.”
Maximilien laughed, spitting blood. Even as his life flickered like a candle in the wind, he had found one last thing to burn. He gathered his final strength and opened his mouth.
“Listen, O King of Humans who does not know humans. Humans live to leave a part of themselves behind.”
A person on the verge of death does not lie. As they cast off the shell of life, there is no need to weave a shroud of falsehoods.
Maximilien had always been a straightforward man, but in the face of death, he became even more so.
“Be it through children, achievements, teachings, or creations. We live to leave something behind in the world, to carve the traces of our existence. Our lives are short, but what I leave behind will remain even after my death.”
Some might disagree. Others might point out that the statement was too broad to have any real meaning.
But for the man named Maximilien, it was his truth, the fuel that drove him.
“But that alone is not enough. For all things have an end. My descendants will one day die out, and my creations will wear away and vanish in the currents of history. My teachings will one day be forgotten, and my achievements will be buried in the dust.”
Maximilien clutched the gear that served as his heart. Forcibly holding and pulling out the core that powered his entire body, he felt himself crumble as he squeezed out his last ounce of strength to offer the gear.
“Only an achievement comparable to that of a Divine will remain for eternity, becoming a foundation of the world that will sing my praises.”
The blood-soaked silver gear spun on its own like a water wheel. Maximilien held out the gear that contained his everything and coughed out blood-drenched words.
“Take it, King of Humans. This wish you cannot know. This human desire you have not realized...! Even if I die like this, even if I failed to etch my gears upon you...! I will at least leave the mark of a gear... upon your heart...!”
The gear containing all his power never reached the King of Humans.
But the gear containing all his emotion clearly did. The King of Humans accepted it as if in a trance.
“Remember... me...!”
With those final words, Maximilien's body collapsed. The way it scattered into pieces was less like a death and more like a breakdown, a disassembly. It was an ending befitting Maximilien the Warforger.
The King of Humans watched him for a moment before turning her head away. Immediately after, red flames incinerated Maximilien's corpse. With a gentleness uncharacteristic of fire, it cremated his remains as if embracing them warmly.
The King of Humans silently gazed at the gear he had given her. Maximilien's final memento was still spinning, even though its master's breath had ceased. If another gear were connected to this one, it too would likely turn without stopping.
For this was the legacy of Maximilien, the magician of gears.
“Even if you hadn't said that, I would have remembered everyone anyway.”
For she was the world's smallest ossuary, a library that mourned the forgotten.
Reading, remembering, and preserving every human.
A Beast King formed from them all, who reminisces in solitude.
An ossuary does not know the sorrow of the bones, and a library cannot read the words in its collection. It merely preserves and holds them.
There is no librarian to read the books. The library can only place them on the shelves, unopened.
Clutching the gear, the King of Humans headed where she needed to go.
* * *
A butterfly flew in from somewhere and landed on Nevida's corpse. The butterfly, mistaking her eyes for flowers, prodded them, then spread its wings upon realizing the taste was strange. The butterfly, debating whether to drink the blood-flavored dew, exercised restraint and left.
In the transparent eyes left behind, the light was gone. The Stellar Flames had severed Nevida's life along with the Divine. Her incinerated lower body had vanished somewhere, leaving only her torso to lie strewn upon the ground.
Even the end of a Divine was no different from an ordinary death...
But it was.
Roots sprouted from the severed cross-section of her body. The roots, feeding on the corpse, groped furiously at the earth. After digging deep into the ground, they gradually spread out, touching the roots of all manner of plants.
After feeling their way through the earth for some time, Nevida's roots finally reached the Tree of Genesis.
In that instant.
A flower bloomed from Nevida's corpse. Like a flower blooming from a corpse, or a cordyceps fungus, the blossom devoured Nevida's body as it grew, until it was large enough to swallow her whole. After Nevida's body was covered, melted down, and became one with the world, the flower shed its petals and bore a large fruit.
It looked just like the fruit from which humans are born.
How much time had passed? Connected to the Tree of Genesis, supplied with its essence, having consumed Nevida's corpse, the steadily growing flesh-fruit eventually ripened fully.
Crack. The rind of the flesh-fruit split open, and pulp no different from amniotic fluid spilled out. From the writhing inside, a small girl tumbled out.
She looked as Nevida might have as a young woman just entering adulthood. The horns on her head were as small as a finger, and her arms and legs were as gaunt as winter branches. The girl, coughing as if she'd been choking, slurred her words like a fool.
“Cough, cough. Ugh. Ah.”
The newborn Nevida stood on trembling legs. She stared blankly at the fruit from which she was born and muttered.
“Did... I die...?”
Return to the Source. Nevida's technique for trapping an immortal being in the great cycle of nature, causing them to lose themselves for eternity. The mortal power that had killed even the Undying Sacrificial Vessel.
Nevida had used that power in reverse to resurrect herself from death.
The Tree of Genesis was her Unique Magic, a Divine in itself. This was possible because her consciousness remained within it. Even if Nevida died, she could contact the Tree of Genesis and reconstruct her body.
“What happened? Who... Ugh.”
But losing herself was a consequence for Nevida as well.
Memories reside in the flesh. Even memories etched into the Tree of Genesis could not be as vivid or sensitive as the instincts of a living being. Nevida tried to recall the memories she had accumulated before her death, but it was like trying to sprout leaves from a withered old tree.
Yet, even an old tree cannot forget some things. Nevida remembered the wish she had engraved upon her Divine.
“...My King. I must see my King again.”
Nevida's everything, Nevida's wish, and Nevida's lingering attachment and past.
Even after her body had been reconstructed once, it still remained, driving her.
“Where could he be? I was certain I was serving him. I can't lose him again. I...”
“Nevida. It's been a while. Did you sleep well?”
A soft voice reached her, as if from a dream. Nevida was so startled she could barely breathe. Just from hearing the voice, dew formed in her eyes, which had been as dry as an old tree.
Where the voice had come from, there stood the King Nevida had longed for even in her dreams.
“Ah, ahh...”
“You've gotten younger? Were you born anew from this tree? It seems you've been through a great deal as well.”
“My King...”
“But, Nevida. I'm curious.”
Nevida's King was still gentle and full of curiosity. And still cold and indifferent. She didn't wipe away the flowing tears, nor did she embrace the overjoyed Nevida. She simply watched her with a gentle gaze and asked.
“Was reviving me truly worth turning your body into a tree, passing through all manner of life and death, and enduring for eons?”
But this was the King that Nevida had wanted to see. Through her tears, Nevida replied.
“...Yes! It was! This humble servant has lived every moment for that purpose alone!”
“I see.”
It was from the heart, and therefore, it was the truth. The human heart needed no further understanding; that was the end of it.
“I've made you wait a long time. I won't say I'm sorry. If I apologized every time I couldn't grant a wish, I'd become nothing but an apologetic doll.”
“Your words are more than I deserve. How could this humble servant dare wish for such a thing? I merely wished for my King's return.”
“And?”
And? She had never thought beyond that. Seeing the King of Humans again had been a distant, unrealistic wish even for Nevida. She'd never had the chance to think about what would happen after her wish was granted.
However, human greed knows no bounds, and a wish does not stop just because it has been granted once.
“This is an order, Nevida. Tell me what you desire.”
At the command from the King of Humans, Nevida poured out the great, heavy lump in her heart.
“...Let all humans look up to you, my King! Reign so that they may never dare to denounce, assassinate, or insult you!”
“Reign!”
“Reign!”
“Reign!”
The members of House Baskerville. The Human Regime. And the countless ordinary citizens who had awaited the King's return.
Drawn by the King's presence, they all began to shout in unison with Nevida's words.