The Decisive Duel: Geum Taeyang Visits the Widow Sophia
‘How fleeting it all is.’
After beheading his rival, Red Eye, Conan Barbara felt the warrior’s fire within him fade. He had grown too strong. His very identity had been forged as the mightiest Mohican warrior, yet after Red Eye Baccara, no worthy opponent remained. Everyone simply bowed before his overwhelming power. Even the dream of uniting the Mohican tribes lost its appeal. What meaning was there in forcing submission from those already beneath him?
“You are no longer simply the warrior Conan Barbara. You are now Chieftain Conan Barbara of the Gaia Tribe, the one who must lead the Mohican people. You must view everything through that lens,” Sophia had gently reminded him. The wise woman had seen what he could not: that he had failed to grow into a true leader worthy of his strength. He remained little more than a kind-hearted chieftain, not the towering figure his power demanded.
Yet Conan could never escape the shadow of the warrior he had been. The memory of crossing blades with Red Eye, the crushing pressure of that moment, refused to fade. Compared to that, conquest felt like a child’s game. All he truly wanted now was to lose himself in Sophia’s impossible beauty and live in peace.
In the end, he could not shed the warrior’s skin.
—Puuuuk!
The result was his right shoulder, the arm that wielded Paewangchammado, being pierced by the sword of his adopted son, Geum Taeyang, who had already become a leader in his own right.
“Honey!!”
Sophia Barbara had not looked away for even an instant. Though the exchange had been too fast for the eye to follow, she knew that in a single moment, one of the men she loved could cross the river of death. What she witnessed instead was her husband’s shoulder being run through.
“Kuhhh… Heavy. So this is the sword of a leader who looks higher than a mere warrior?” Conan’s brow twitched, his face twisted in pain, yet a smile still lingered on his lips.
‘Now that the blade has reached bone, I understand… There was still something higher I needed to reach.’
Motivation mattered. Conan’s drive to become the strongest warrior had been perfect. He had trained relentlessly, met Red Eye, seized every opportunity, and finally claimed the title of the mightiest Mohican. But the path of leadership had never called to him. Only when Geum Taeyang’s sword pierced his shoulder did the fog clear. The weight of that blade was different. It carried not only personal will, but the responsibility to protect an entire tribe.
‘Your eyes have changed, Conan Barbara.’
Geum Taeyang saw the realization dawn in Conan’s gaze.
“I’m glad I learned of another sky, even now,” Conan said, gripping Luciena’s blade that had pierced his right shoulder. “But I fear that time will be far too short.”
—Fwoooosh!
He yanked himself backward, tearing the sword free. Blood gushed from the wound like a crimson fountain.
‘A fatal wound. And to the right arm he uses for Paewangchammado. Father has no chance.’
Even Athena could see the scales tipping. After defeating Red Eye, Conan’s motivation had peaked, but the years of complacency had taken their toll. He could not win this fight.
‘The chieftain… the White-Haired Siakan is losing?’
‘The White-Haired Siakan? The man hailed as the greatest Mohican warrior in fifty years?’
The arena, once roaring like a furnace during the fierce exchange, fell into stunned silence. The crowd could feel history shifting before their eyes.
“My strength has been greatly diminished, but my will and focus are no less than in my prime. This will not be easy for you.”
Conan seized Paewangchammado with his left hand.
“I shall show you the final form of the White-Haired Siakan, Geum Taeyang!”
—Fwoooosh!!
Blue light blazed in his eyes as he charged, radiating the ferocity of the great tiger Siakan of Galatea.
—Fwoooosh!!
Geum Taeyang met the charge in silence, blade poised in a razor-sharp stance. It was the highest respect he could offer the former greatest warrior who had only now found his true path.
—Kwaaaang! Kwaaaang! Kwaaaang!
The clash resumed. Though Conan fought with his off-hand, the impacts were even more thunderous than before. The brutal spectacle left the surrounding crowd breathless.
‘Watch my back, my beloved wife, Sophia Barbara.’
Conan had already resolved to die, pouring out his final strength. Geum Taeyang was simply waiting for the moment that strength would falter.
‘I won you by promising to show you the greatest Mohican barbarian… yet I failed to keep that promise…’
Both men understood this truth. Conan had fallen for Sophia the moment he saw her—the most beautiful and virtuous woman in the tribe. A man who had lived only for battle and taken countless concubines had suddenly wished to marry and spend his life with one woman, even die for her.
‘My inferiority, the way you shielded and protected this unworthy husband… you must have suffered so much…’
A woman like Sophia yearned for a male with grand ambitions. Conan had sworn to become such a man for her, yet he had grown complacent. That regret had haunted him for nearly ten years.
‘Even in my final moments, I want to show you the spirit of the Conan Barbara you first met.’
Conan said his silent farewell to the woman he felt most guilty toward—Sophia Barbara—in the proud manner of a barbarian man.
—Drip…
As if his heart had reached her, a single tear traced down Sophia’s cheek.
Then—
—Puuuuk!!
Geum Taeyang’s demonic sword Luciena pierced Conan Barbara’s left abdomen.
“—Kuhhh!!”
A low groan escaped Conan’s lips as he collapsed to his knees before Geum Taeyang.
“Uwaaah! Chieftain! Chieftain!!”
“The White-Haired Siakan of Galatea!!”
The crowd, which had already sensed the outcome, erupted in shock as the scene unfolded before their eyes.
—Shhhk!!
Geum Taeyang expressionlessly withdrew Luciena from Conan’s abdomen.
“Kuhk! Kuhuh!”
Conan coughed up a great spray of blood. Crimson poured from the mouth of the man once hailed as the strongest Mohican warrior.
The arena fell silent once more.
“Your victory, Geum Taeyang. You possess extraordinary combat power, an extraordinary sword, and an extraordinary mentality. A perfect victory.”
Conan cleanly acknowledged his defeat and the victor’s superiority.
“Take care of Sophia and Athena.”
The final words of the White-Haired Siakan Conan Barbara, who had risen to the peak of the Mohican tribe with Paewangchammado, were a request to protect the two women he loved.
“I will.”
—Puuuuk!!
With a calm reply, Geum Taeyang drove Luciena into Conan Barbara’s heart.
—Twitch!
Athena’s body flinched as she stood beside Geum Taeyang, watching her father’s heart being pierced. Blood continued to flow.
Sophia’s gaze fixed on Luciena protruding from Conan’s back. She simply wept in silence.
—Thud!
When Geum Taeyang withdrew the blade, Conan Barbara closed his eyes and collapsed.
“He is dead.”
High Priest Gandalf approached to confirm the death.
“The Goddess Gaia has chosen this man, Geum Taeyang. All children of Gaia gathered here, welcome the birth of your new chieftain! Geum Taeyang, Chieftain of the Gaia Tribe!”
“Waaaaah! A new chieftain is born!!”
“Geum Taeyang! Geum Taeyang!”
Gandalf declared Geum Taeyang’s official victory and bestowed legitimacy in the name of the Goddess Gaia. Geum Taeyang had become the new chieftain of the Gaia Tribe. The tribespeople surrounding the arena cheered and chanted his name in celebration.
‘Without a somewhat cold-blooded nature, this situation would shake even my mentality.’
Geum Taeyang surveyed the cheering crowd with a calm expression. Had Conan been a tyrant? No. Had he been utterly incompetent? No. Yet not a single person mourned the fallen former chieftain. Though some might harbor such feelings in their hearts, the Gaia tribespeople accepted the new chieftain as naturally as the flowing waters of the Raonjena River, as if this were simply fate.
To Geum Taeyang, who carried memories of his previous life as an illiterate, it felt profoundly alien.
“In the end, you didn’t make me a young widow.”
“Of course not. I keep my promises.”
Geum Taeyang brushed aside such sentimental thoughts and gave Athena a cool reply as she came to greet him.
“Gandalf and Darius will handle the procedures. The final decisions are yours.”
“I know.”
“Even so, you should rest a little, right?”
“Yeah. Athena, come report the situation to me whenever you have time.”
“Got it.”
The tension had peaked during the duel, but the true complexity began after the outcome was decided. Clear calculations regarding gains and losses had to be made.
***
By the time the sun began to set after the duel’s conclusion, a golden barrier had been erected around the central tent. It functioned as a prison that only the new chieftain, Geum Taeyang, could freely enter and exit.
Inside sat the former chieftain’s lawful wife, Sophia Barbara.
‘Conan… I already miss your face…’
Sophia sat on the Siakan pelt before the chieftain’s throne, gazing forlornly at the empty seat. The two had lived together for twenty-five years. Since Conan had already been chieftain when they married, that throne had always been his. Simply looking at it made his imposing figure seem to appear before her eyes. Yet she would never see him seated there again. Only the memory of that magnificent man would remain in her mind.
‘You even understood how I worried for Taeyang…’
Athena had stood firmly on Geum Taeyang’s side despite Conan being her blood father. In barbarian society, that was the correct choice. But Sophia had been unable to do the same. Though Conan had been overwhelmingly dominant, she loved Geum Taeyang enough to consider breaking the taboo.
Seeing her like this, Conan had said nothing.
‘Even when people called him an ominous child, you silenced them and accepted my will. And when I brightened because of Taeyang, you looked so proud.’
After Geum Taeyang rescued her from the Memphis army’s massacre site and brought him into the tribe, an ominous star had twinkled in the Gaia Tribe’s sky. People interpreted it as the arrival of the one who would topple the White-Haired Siakan and unanimously demanded Geum Taeyang be cast out. Conan had agonized. No one wished to be dragged down from the peak. Yet in the end, he had not expelled the boy. Geum Taeyang had restored the smile to Sophia after she lost her first son. So Conan had taken him in as an adopted son and silenced all talk of the ominous constellation in the chieftain’s name.
‘I presumptuously told you to embrace a leader’s heart… It seems I am the one unfit to be Great Mother. Look at me, drowning in personal sorrow…’
—Drip… Drip…
Recalling her past with Conan, tears once again spilled from Sophia’s beautiful eyes. She had been praised as Great Mother and strived for the greater good, yet instead of waiting with dignity, she was showing such a pathetic display.
From behind her came the sound of steady footsteps cutting through the darkness.
“Great Mother.”
It was the only one who could cross the golden barrier—the new chieftain, Geum Taeyang.