The End of Dwyat
Shrrk!
It happened in the blink of an eye — no, before an eye could even close. Count Zerne's head, which had been sitting perfectly intact on his shoulders only moments before, went rolling across the floor, trailing blood behind it.
Judging by the expression frozen on his face, he hadn't even registered the fact that he was dead. His bulging eyes still burned with hatred for Duke Randert.
"C-Count Zerneur!"
Faced with his comrade's absurd death, Count Powsay could do nothing but scream.
This was not a man who deserved to die like this. The Supreme Commander of the Dwyer Empire could not be dispatched so meaninglessly. Even against Duke Randert, it was a humiliation beyond measure.
"Will you bar my path as well?" Duke Randert asked in a low voice.
Count Powsay knew the answer. If he stepped aside here, Randert would spare his life. He would be taken prisoner, yes, but he trusted he would be treated according to his station.
The Duke's famed fairness was known to everyone on the continent. He was an enemy, but even Powsay had to acknowledge it.
And yet, he tightened his grip on his sword.
"...I am the captain of the Imperial Guard, sworn to His Majesty."
That answer was enough. The Duke, for his part, had never expected him to surrender anyway.
"If there's anything you wish to say, speak it."
"My last words were already delivered to my family."
He had known for some time that today might be his last day in this world. All he could ask was that the path there be an honorable one.
"Duke Randert, I find myself curious how many exchanges I might survive against you."
And with that, it began. Believing that only the first strike could claim the high ground, Count Powsay lunged forward without warning.
His blade drove toward the Duke's unguarded flank. It was a genuinely exquisite technique — befitting the man who led the Imperial Guard.
But his opponent was no ordinary man. This was the swordsman who had subdued Count Zerneur — Supreme Commander of an empire teeming with masters — in a single stroke.
Through Duke Randert's eyes, Count Powsay's movements were slow and riddled with openings.
Ziiiing!
The Duke slipped gracefully past the Count's attack and swung his own blade. To the casual eye it seemed to cut nothing but empty air, yet an invisible force shot toward his opponent.
"Kugh!"
Blood sprayed from Count Powsay's throat. Dropping to one knee, he clamped his free hand over his neck to stem the gushing torrent.
Duke Randert showed no hesitation. His sword whirled and threatened the Count once more.
"Nngh!"
He could not let it end like this. Powsay gathered every last ounce of his strength and threw it into one final defense.
It was futile. His aura-laced sword tore apart like a scrap of paper. And Randert's blade did not stop there — it continued on its path, carving a long red gash across the Count's chest as it passed.
"Keohek!"
The searing pain in his chest forced Count Powsay's eyes wide open.
"I—I knew I would die by your hand, but... to go so hollowly, like this..."
It was a moment no one who hadn't witnessed it with their own eyes would have believed, no matter how many times it was told to them. However formidable Duke Randert was rumored to be, no one could have imagined he would demonstrate a gap in power like this.
During the Ten-Year War, the Duke had already surpassed the bounds of humanity — and it was plain that his might had climbed far higher still since then.
Thud!
Count Powsay's body split in two and crumpled to the floor.
"......"
Wordless, Duke Randert shook the blood from his blade and kept his gaze fixed forward. Behind him, Hayes was methodically carrying out her orders even as the Imperial Guard closed in around her.
"Whew."
The Duke drew a long breath and re-gripped his sword. Then he sprinted toward the center of the palace.
"Hayes!"
At the sound of Duke Randert's voice, Hayes broke off her attack and slipped aside without a flicker of hesitation. No words were needed between them — they had matched blades countless times.
Guooooo!
From Duke Randert surged a force beyond anything that had come before. The air trembled around him as mana spiraled into a vortex.
When that colossal power — enough to bring down a mountain — reached its peak, a strange, utter stillness descended.
But it lasted only an instant. Then light flashed, and in a single heartbeat the entire area collapsed. The entrance to the inner palace shattered, marble fragments scattering in every direction — and those fragments became weapons in their own right, flying sharp and true into the bodies of the enemy.
And that wasn't all.
Limbs were severed, flesh torn away, and a rain of red soaked the earth. It was a scene of pure slaughter.
Thus perished the Imperial Guard — the finest elite force of the Dwyer Empire — to the last man.
"Your Grace, I'll hold the rear."
With all this chaos, soldiers would come swarming before long. Duke Randert gave a nod and looked up at the ruined entrance of the inner palace.
A staircase spread with a red carpet lay before him. And at its end, Emperor Royan would be waiting. Slowly, the Duke's legs carried him toward it.
At the top of the stairs, a great door greeted him. The grand, imposing carvings that adorned it all depicted the wars of conquest of the Dwyer Empire.
Even branded a defeated nation, they could not bear to let go of their brilliant history of victories — and this was the result.
It had all sprung from a twisted ambition. And that ambition, along with the empire's history itself, had to end here and now.
Sseuaek!
With eyes gone cold, Duke Randert swung his sword.
Screeeech—
A hairline crack split across the iron gate, and moments later it sheared cleanly in half and collapsed.
"......!"
Just as the Duke had expected, Emperor Royan sat upon his throne.
But he was not alone. His own flesh and blood kept him company — his wife and children, their breaths long since stopped, stood guard at his side.
A thick stench of blood hung in the air. The only warmth and life left in the silent great hall belonged to Emperor Royan alone.
"Kukukuk... so you've come at last."
Raw laughter spilled from Royan's mouth, his two eyes bloodshot and rimmed in red.
Perhaps because he had sensed the end coming.
He was a completely different man from the one the Duke had known until now.
A dull, clouded gaze. A slumped, disheveled posture. The rambling speech of a man gone half-mad.
He looked for all the world like someone drunk on a drug that scrambled the mind.
"Was this your doing?"
"Rather than live to suffer humiliation, isn't it better to die by my own hand?"
Emperor Royan rose, snickering. Clutched in his swaying hand was a beloved pet dog of Barachel's household.
"You've gone mad."
To take the lives of his own kin with his own hands — the man was truly not in his right mind. The Duke had known he suffered from fits of madness, but it ran far deeper than he had imagined.
With bloodshot eyes blazing with hatred, Royan was a beast, plain and simple. No reason remained in him; only instinct ruled.
"You're the one who made me this way! My father's ruin too — it was you, Duke Randert. You destroyed him!"
"So that's why you tried to kill my son?"
"I wanted to take what was most precious from you, kukuku!"
The revenge he had carried out at the cost of losing even his closest friend had failed, and now he was paying its price.
"I have no regrets about my choice. This body was bound to die someday regardless. There's no finer tomb than this."
Gulp!
Emperor Royan smiled crookedly and swallowed something whole.
"......?"
"I know I cannot beat you. But I'll drag one of your arms down into my grave with me!"
In an instant, his entire bearing transformed. Royan's mana reserves were exploding, swelling wildly.
Pabat!
He hurled himself at Duke Randert at a terrifying speed.
Kwang!
A heavy collision rang out between the two men. Astonishingly, Emperor Royan did not give a single step. A fierce magical pressure radiated from the crossed blades.
"You dare challenge me with such a cheap trick?"
The Duke could not say precisely what Royan had swallowed, but he could roughly guess — some elixir, most likely, that temporarily raised one's level of power.
"How pitiful you've become."
The last shred of regard he had held for a fellow emperor, however much an enemy, evaporated entirely.
Pak!
Duke Randert's leg, faster than a bolt of lightning, drove into Emperor Royan's shin.
"Keaak!"
With the crack of snapping bone, Royan went flying. He slammed into the wall, rebounded off it, and rolled across the floor. He tried to rise at once, but one leg refused to obey him.
"Wh... why...?"
He had drained every remaining vial. The miracle elixir his father had personally devised — a single pill erased all sensation of pain. So potent was it that a man could move as though nothing were wrong even after his leg was severed.
And yet excruciating agony poured from his broken leg.
Could it be — against that man, even this was useless?
The Duke's aura, as he regarded him with cool, detached eyes, had not changed in the slightest from the very beginning.
"Kuhak! Kuhahahahak!"
Without warning, Emperor Royan burst into wild, rolling laughter.
"Yes! This is what Duke Randert should be!"
This was the man who had shattered his father's dream of unifying the continent — and his own. He had forgotten, however briefly, that no cheap trick would ever work on such a man.
Beyond the ruined entrance of the great hall, a round full moon hung in the sky.
"Kukuk... I'd forgotten tonight was the night of the full moon."
A thick, phlegm-choked laugh kept bubbling out of him. Duke Randert raised his blade and leveled it at the Emperor's throat.
At that, Royan's laughter cut off abruptly, and glaring up from where he sat slumped, he snarled,
"Coming back to your senses now?"
"In my next life, I will kill you without fail! And with that, I will avenge my father's bitterness!"
"Even at the very end, you cannot grasp what your sins truly were."
There was nothing more to say.
"Be gone, then."
This day was the day to cut away the chain of evil for good.
"I am the Emperor of this nation!"
Suddenly, Emperor Royan seized Duke Randert's blade with his bare hands. Crimson blood ran down his palm, along his forearm, soaking his sleeve red.
"Only I decide the manner of my death!"
The Duke had no chance to stop him. Royan, unable to relinquish his hatred to the very end, threw his own body onto the sword.
Thuk!
Duke Randert's blade plunged deep into the Emperor's chest.
"Kkuhh... even in hell... I will... curse you...!"
Even through the vicious agony, he spat out his maledictions. In craving his own death to the last, he was the very image of his father — Barachel of old.
The long bloodbath born of two generations' twisted desires was, at last, coming to its end.
"I'll spare you the pain."
The Duke knew full well the man would not want it — but neither was he the sort to simply stand and watch someone die.
Shrrk!
As the Duke withdrew his blade, Emperor Royan's breath cut off, and his body fell in two.
At that very moment, the palace gates were finally breached, and soldiers of the Polska Empire came pouring in.
And so the Dwyer Empire — which had once ruled the continent with ruthless cruelty — was slowly, steadily, erased from the world.
