Like Father, Like Daughter
Rumble—rumble—rumble!
The White King's Hall shuddered violently.
Crash—crash—crash!
As the walls of the White King's Hall collapsed, a sonic boom that seemed to punch straight through eardrums tore across the air, and an earthquake began to roll through the whole of Kramdel.
"Wh-what was that?"
"An earthquake?"
The monsters of Kramdel reeled in shock. A quake of this magnitude was without precedent.
If it wasn't an earthquake, then someone was attacking them. The problem was that the epicenter of the shaking was the White King's Hall itself.
"Don't tell me someone's attacking the White King's Hall?"
"You'd have to be insane to attack the White King."
"From where, though?"
"Medusa would have spotted them first, wouldn't she?"
It wasn't an attack from outside.
Someone was clearly striking the White King's Hall from within. How they had slipped past the eyes of the Four Lords and reached the Hall was anyone's guess, but this was only the second time the White King's Hall had come under attack since Kramdel's founding.
"…The White King?"
Gunggi's brow furrowed. He had barely left the Hall to prepare for war, and already this had happened.
Worse, the attack was unmistakably the White King's own. The ground-overturning Dragon Spout was one of the White King's signature techniques.
But why?
Why would the White King suddenly unleash a Dragon Spout inside his own Hall?
Only three people were currently inside the White King's Hall: the White King, Aria, and…
"…The Fifth Lord!"
Gunggi's mind snapped into focus. That was right. The Fifth Lord was there—to attend a banquet with Aria.
If anyone could provoke the White King enough to draw a direct attack, it could only be the Fifth Lord, no matter how he turned it over in his head.
What on earth had happened in the meantime?
Gunggi spun around and raced back the way he had come.
Gunggi, Medusa, and Dae-to-ryong—every Lord still remaining in Kramdel—felt the uproar and made straight for the White King's Hall.
Boom! Rumble—rumble!
Where the half-collapsed Hall stood, a mushroom cloud was rising. That was the aftermath that always followed a Dragon Spout. Dust billowed upward next, and a black typhoon formed as if lightning were striking down from the sky.
They couldn't see inside, but every Lord who drew near shared the same thought.
It's over.
…It was over. After the first Dragon Spout, there had been no further reaction or counterattack. That meant the opponent had been pulverized in a single blow.
No one survived a Dragon Spout head-on. Not even the other Lords could have withstood that catastrophic strike. The target had almost certainly been the Fifth Lord.
"Looks like the Fifth Lord is dead."
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Dae-to-ryong clicked his tongue lightly. Clearly the crow had crawled up the White King's back again, just like last time, and brought this disaster on himself. He must have thought the White King would keep tolerating him forever.
In the end you crossed a river you could never recross, you mad crow.
He had seen it from the start. If a crow was going to go mad, it should at least have gone mad cleanly. The mad crow had finally crossed the line, and the tipping point had arrived. He had taken the White King far too lightly for far too long.
But once the White King turned his back on someone, he was merciless. Especially if he judged them an enemy—or a traitor—he would bite down and never let go until they were dead.
As I thought, he was nothing special after all.
Still, Dae-to-ryong had expected the mad crow to put up at least a little resistance. From the moment of his first appearance he had been nothing if not theatrical. Completing the Tower of Myth that even the White King had failed to finish, sealing Ahram the King of the Dead, seizing control of the Abyss Labyrinth—that much raw potential had been genuinely impressive.
And yet, one hit.
He had been overestimated. They had simply been too astonished by the feats he had put on display. In truth he was nothing more than a frail corpse-crow. Compared to the White King…
"Hah! The White King's Hall!"
"L-Lords! What happened at the White King's Hall?"
"The White King is unharmed, right?"
The residents of Kramdel came flooding in as well. With the Hall at the heart of the city in ruins, they could hardly stand by and watch. In an instant the crowd of monsters swelled into the thousands.
Even so, the Lords found no easy answer to their questions. Only—
"…The typhoon is clearing."
Gunggi spoke in a grave voice. Just as he said, the typhoon's force was ebbing. Before long the black storm began to peel away, and when those who had stood inside the eye of the typhoon came into view—
"…!"
"That is—!"
"Why is the White King doing that to the Fifth Lord?"
—the monsters cried out in shock as one. Those who recognized the Fifth Lord were especially stunned.
…Because the White King's hand had punched clean through the Fifth Lord's chest.
And yet something was wrong. Far too wrong.
"He's alive…?"
"How is he still alive?"
The Fifth Lord was unmistakably alive. A hole through the chest should have meant instant death—and this was no ordinary being's attack, but the White King's. An assault of that caliber left nothing it could not cut, nothing it could not pierce. It even severed the soul itself.
And still the Fifth Lord lived. Perfectly intact, even. If anything—
"Why aren't either of them moving?"
"There's an eye on the White King's chest…"
"A crow's eye?"
That was it. The White King stood frozen in place, his hand still driven through the Fifth Lord—and on his chest, a crow's eye had sprouted, half-lidded and watching. It seemed that eye was what held the White King motionless. And if every one of those crow's eyes fully opened…
Gulp.
Everyone watched the standoff between the two in taut silence. And before long—
"Father and daughter both have a habit of never listening to the end of a sentence, caw."
…the Fifth Lord opened his mouth.
Like father, like son.
No—like father, like daughter, was that it?
Attacking before they had even finished listening was something Aria and the White King shared in common.
Darkness Form — Skill of One Who Blooms Darkness
Attack ignored.
While in this state, One Who Blooms Darkness takes 1,000% additional damage from Light and Holy-attribute attacks.
Eye of Dreadful Omen(Lv. 10) has activated.
The White King has fallen into the Blooming Darkness state.
But the White King's attack did not work on me.
Darkness Form—the skill of One Who Blooms Darkness, which turned me into darkness itself. Not true invincibility, but a staggering level of attack negation all the same. Duration: thirty seconds.
Of course it wasn't without weaknesses. Once activated, I couldn't shut it off at will. And in this state, even sunlight hurt. A direct hit from a Light or Holy-attribute attack would probably leave nothing of me behind.
Fortunately, the White King possessed neither of those attributes. And just as he couldn't attack me, I couldn't attack him either.
The Eye of Dreadful Omen can still be used in Darkness Form.
The only skill I could still use was the Eye of Dreadful Omen. This was the same skill that had temporarily seized ownership of the Northern Sky Ice Sword.
"An amusing… little trick."
The problem was that the White King was a genuine monster. The Eye of Dreadful Omen that had bloomed on his chest had not fully opened. The eyes had to open completely for the seizure to take hold—and the White King was enduring it. He was drawing steadily closer to his true body.
What a monster!
Perhaps because of that, the Omen's eyes were beginning to close again, little by little. At this rate, Darkness Form would wear off soon, and the Omen's eyes would shut as well. What would follow after that was obvious without looking.
"Aria is alive, caw. Or do you want to see this through to the end, caw?"
"Alive… you say? But you clearly performed a Binding…"
"Which is why I gave you a taste, caw. Of my power of Seizure, caw."
"…"
The White King was at a loss for words. The eye binding his body right now was the same as the crow's eye engraved upon the Northern Sky Ice Sword. This, then, must be the Fifth Lord's authority—an absolute power that could even snatch away bound equipment. Experiencing it firsthand made everything clear.
So the Fifth Lord had carved it into him deliberately, to clear up the misunderstanding and help him understand.
"Shall we continue, caw?"
As the fierce resistance faded, I slowly released the Eye of Dreadful Omen. I had little choice—I was already at my limit. Keeping a straight face was about the best I could manage.
Even like this, binding his body is all I can do.
Still, I had come a long way. In the past, that single Dragon Spout would have reduced me to dust. The fact that I had even managed a counterattack meant I had grown absurdly strong. If my opponent had been a Lord instead of the White King, I might have had more of a fight in me.
"I will confirm it with my own eyes. …But if this was a misunderstanding, I will apologize."
Freed from the binding, the White King looked at the frozen Aria as he spoke. Even in the middle of all this, Aria had somehow come through unharmed. To use a skill of that magnitude and still maintain such precision…
But this was no time to stand around marveling.
—Wh-what is this?! Stop it! What did I do to deserve this?!
As the Omen opened its eyes again, the ego of the Northern Sky Ice Sword shrieked. Was this thing doing it on purpose? I may have dominated it, but freezing Aria had not been my will. That was the Northern Sky Ice Sword's doing.
I should just smash it.
—D-don't smash me. Okay, I'm sorry! Whine!
When the Omen threatened to open its eyes all the way, the Northern Sky Ice Sword finally waved the white flag. And then—
Sssssssss.
The glacier melted. Before Aria's body could fall, the White King caught her in his arms.
"…She lives."
"So listen all the way to the end next time, caw. And the one who attacked me first was that one, caw."
"Aria…?"
The White King looked startled. But then he accepted it. If it was Aria, she was more than capable of something like that. He hadn't expected her to do it even to the Fifth Lord—but it wasn't impossible.
His whiskers trembled finely. Then he spoke to me.
"…I am sorry."
The White King had apologized. In front of everyone, no less.
But this was not something that could simply be waved off with an apology alone.
"Fifth Lord. What is it that you desire?"
How did I wish to be compensated for Aria's mistake—and his own?