Chapter 167
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 167
Chapter Title: It's Too Late.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The White Dragon Clan was the one clan in the Seven Dragon Society that had clashed with Rimon the least.
But that didn't mean they took him lightly.
If anything, it was the opposite.
They were the ones who had been the most wary of Rimon in the Seven Dragon Society, fleeing so much that they even got flak from the other clans.
Of course, with the dawn of the Iron Age, that fear had faded quite a bit.
But that was for ordinary clans.
Aynsha, who knew about the World Peace Plan, and the elder-level members of the White Dragon Clan still remembered their vigilance toward Rimon to some degree.
"Hic."
"Princess, hold your breath. I hear that stops hiccups."
"Holding my breath will kill me... hic, it won't work."
"Then get a scare. That works too, they say."
"Hic, aiming for a heart attack. Tata really is a traitor. As vicious as the Black Dragon Clan."
...Even Aynsha, the proud White Dragon Princess, had been so shocked upon learning Rimon's true identity that she'd experienced hiccups for the first time in her life.
It wasn't just her fault, either.
If the person they'd spent the whole day dating turned out to be Rimon, any princess except one would have freaked out.
In the end, Tata gave up on calming Aynsha and stared at Rimon with a hardened expression.
"Sword Duke, is that you?"
"Yeah."
"Just to confirm... you were the one who saved our princess that day too...?"
"Me."
At that crisp response, Tata's face went slack with despair.
The current Rimon was nothing but a pretender.
The faint hope that Aynsha's fated partner might be someone else had been utterly shattered.
"...So in the end, Tata and the princess were deceived from the start."
"Not from the start. If she hadn't suddenly proposed to me out of nowhere, I wouldn't have bothered hiding my identity to meet your princess."
"That's not what I mean by you deceiving us."
Tata thought to herself.
Should never have trusted the Black Dragon Princess after all.
She'd even used Aynsha's fated partner to trick them.
...For Li Chingwei, who had only intended to use Rimon's performance, this was an unjust accusation, but if it was karma, then it was karma.
'If I'd foreseen this... No, it wouldn't have changed anything anyway.'
Lamenting her own inexperience, Tata soon shook her head.
If he was Aynsha's fated partner who could save her, she would have tried to pair them even if he turned out to be the Sword Emperor instead of the Sword Duke.
That was why Tata could smile again.
"Then that's fine."
"Fine how?"
"In the end, what Tata has to do remains the same."
"You really mean to carry out the terror attack? To pair me of all people with your princess?"
"They say the deeper the grudge from a past life, the more happily married the couple becomes."
She seemed to have already steeled her resolve.
Tata gazed at him calmly.
And the Divine Dragon Squad, seemingly inspired by her, settled their agitation and exuded a solemn aura. Rimon narrowed his eyes.
"What about you? Are you prepared to kill your nanny even if it means getting past me?"
"...Of course. I am a princess of the Seven Dragon Society. I won't abandon what must be done."
"Is that so? Then come at me."
Rimon smirked at Aynsha's response, her hiccups forcibly quelled by psychokinesis.
He'd known persuasion wouldn't work anyway.
Still, he'd checked anyway—was it the old man's nosy nature? Or did he just want to hear the refusal?
Rimon didn't bother finding an answer.
He simply let the sword in his hand hang obliquely, a cold smile on his lips.
"I'll show you exactly how foolish a choice you've made."
Thwack!
"Huh?"
"PD? What's wrong?"
"Didn't someone just pass behind us?"
"Probably staff."
"No, it looked kinda white and floaty for staff."
"...We're not filming a spooky special. Don't creep me out."
"Maybe just my imagination...?"
Tilting his head, Kim Seungjun eventually turned forward again.
With the live Music Challenge broadcast prep in full swing, he had no time to spare even for a real ghost.
But Kim Seungjun didn't know.
That he hadn't been seeing things.
That a Divine Dragon Squad member had dropped behind him like a ghost.
That if not for a bear paw-like swat sending him flying like a salmon, his head would've been smashed by that hand.
The one who'd saved Kim Seungjun's life—Rimon didn't bother announcing it.
He merely flicked a nearby loose screw with his sword.
Ping!
The Divine Dragon Squad member, about to leap from the audience seats, dodged the screw flying at his face.
Before he could recover his stance.
Rimon rose behind him like a specter, smashed his head to knock him out, and propped him in a dozing spectator pose.
He wasn't the first forced audience member.
Three more lined up right beside him.
And five more dangled from the ceiling like blankets on a drying rack.
'...He's a monster.'
Glancing at them, Tata clicked her tongue.
It wasn't surprise at Rimon taking down over a dozen Divine Dragon Squad members in mere minutes.
Facing the Sword Duke, this was within expectations.
What was terrifying was Rimon handling every fight silently and cleanly, without a fuss.
Those leaping for the stage.
Those targeting staff.
Those aiming to smash cameras.
All met the same end.
Before anyone in the studio noticed, Rimon appeared like a ghost and subdued them without a peep.
It was inevitable, really.
A combat unit's true value shines in formation.
Scattered for terror ops, the Divine Dragon Squad was perfect for divide-and-conquer.
They hadn't foreseen Rimon showing up to interfere.
But even knowing now, Tata couldn't direct the squad to form ranks or check Rimon.
She had more pressing matters.
Like batting away a hazy light orb flying at her in dragonfly shape with her sleeve.
Bang!
The dragonfly shattered against her iron-hardened sleeve via Iron Robe Long Robe Style psychokinesis, reverting to thread.
But that wasn't the end.
Nearly a hundred dragonflies still swarmed around her.
Nor were their movements sluggish or predictable.
Each twisted like a living thing, yet packed unignorable power.
"Gah!"
One Divine Dragon Squad member with a shoulder impaled proved it clearly.
Even grandmaster-level experts like them couldn't shrug off attacks from dragonflies laden with massive psychokinesis.
At the swarm's center.
On a narrow beam barely a handspan wide, a white-haired girl manipulated her hands expressionlessly.
Sometimes curling fingers.
Sometimes flipping her palm.
Sometimes clenching a fist.
Her technique—controlling hundreds of threads minutely to command dragonflies without moving a step—was divine.
Only she, who perfectly foresaw every minute future outcome of thread movements and executed flawlessly, could do it.
Thus, the Divine Dragon Squad—except Tata—were picking up injuries one by one, cornered.
It was only natural.
Be it their revered princess.
Or Sword Master Rimon.
The squad couldn't handle even mid-tier expert Tata, let alone them.
Facing both at once without total wipeout was near-miraculous.
The reason? One only.
Aynsha and Rimon weren't allies.
Tang!
Rimon smashing a dragonfly about to pierce a squad member's throat with a flung stone shard proved it.
Ignoring minor wounds, he intervened only at lethal moments.
Without his aid, the squad—and Tata herself—would be corpses already.
But Tata felt no gratitude.
More than helping, Rimon fiercely hindered them.
Even as he saved one, he swatted another to the ceiling.
"...You're truly a nuisance."
Aynsha glared at Rimon with an expressionless face too.
Without him, she'd have massacred Tata and the squad ages ago; his meddling whenever she went lethal wasted time.
But she didn't attack Rimon directly.
Her goal: punish the traitor.
No reason to waste power on obstacles when traitors were right there... no, that wasn't it.
Even searching futures where she attacked Rimon, all visions were hazy, fragmented—she couldn't see outcomes.
'Unfathomable. Chaos. Mystery.'
Aynsha couldn't comprehend.
Her foresight struggled with Rimon, but until the date, she'd glimpsed his future somewhat.
After he gripped his sword?
From that point, his future vanished to her.
As if denying her the qualification to see it.
For the era's top seer, who viewed anyone's future freely, it was like encountering an invisible man.
That largely stopped her from attacking the squad harder.
In this sightless fog, she hesitated every choice, action.
'...This won't do.'
But hesitation had limits.
Few squad members left.
Once Rimon subdued them and Tata, she'd face him alone.
Before that, with him busy blocking terror, she had to settle it now.
Aynsha steeled herself and gathered psychokinesis.
Or tried to.
Thwack!
...If Rimon hadn't burst in and subdued Tata first.
Aynsha froze like a white rabbit robbed of the juiciest carrot.
She hadn't foreseen Rimon—prioritizing squad—suddenly ambushing Tata.
The squad halted instantly, like they'd been waiting for their commander's fall.
Among them, Rimon pinned the sprawled Tata underfoot and said calmly.
"Why not call it quits? You already know struggling more is pointless."
"Cough, hack hack!"
The solar plexus blow's shock was severe.
Tata coughed harshly several times before squeezing out words.
"Y-yes. I know. It was just a matter of time."
From the moment Rimon and Aynsha appeared here so quickly, the outcome was sealed.
Yet Tata felt no regret.
She just slowly raised her head.
"But that's enough."
Aynsha flinched involuntarily.
Not just Tata's faint smile.
Her disrupted foresight refocused; a future flashed.
Then she realized.
Why Tata and the squad resisted so recklessly against her and Rimon.
Not believing they'd break through—but to buy even a little time.
What Tata meant by 'sealed outcome.'
Why this scene felt familiar.
All of it.
"Sword Duke, you're too late."
But as Tata said, Aynsha's realization wasn't fast enough.
By the time Tata smiled.
Before the two arrived, the time bombs she'd and the squad planted everywhere had entered countdown.
And the moment the timer hit zero.
Kaboom!
Blazing light and thunderous roar swept the studio.