I Am the Legion
At last, having broken free of her cocoon and stepped out into the world beyond, Hana attained the truth.
She awakened to reason, ascended to the rank of Dragon God, and became a more complete being.
But everything comes at a price.
The karma of a Dragon God forcibly thrust upon Hana the duty—the burden—of a Guardian. Now that she had accepted it, she was to protect this Earth. That, it declared, was her fate.
I am the Queen of the Demon Blood Species.
Yet the Blade Queen defied that fate. Before she was a Dragon God, she had been the sole queen of the Demon Blood Species—the sovereign who led them.
The name the Chief God bestowed upon me is Hana. It means the beginning of all things, and uniqueness itself.
…Hana.
The number that is the primordial beginning of everything. When Chief God Randolph had named her Hana, there must have been meaning in every syllable. The Blade Queen sought out that meaning and that truth, and before long she arrived at enlightenment.
I am the Legion.
That she herself was the Legion, and the Legion was her. That she was the one and only being who was both all and one. The karma of a Dragon God had not diminished the qualification she originally possessed. On the contrary, it served only to remind her of what she already was.
The moment she attained that realization, change began to stir among the Demon Blood Species as well.
"Glory to Lord Hana!"
"Evolve! Become beings worthy of our Lord!"
"We are one, and we are all!"
"Connect! Link our consciousness—bind everything into one!"
"Transcend! Shatter the limits and go beyond!"
Radically. At a speed impossible by any natural means, the Demon Blood Species transformed—body and mind alike.
Watching her Legion change, Blade Queen Hana at last sank to one knee before her Chief God.
"I shall return after I have judged the fools who dare resist the Chief God."
She felt she already knew his will, even without words. Chief God Randolph. She and her Legion recognized only Randolph as their god. His enemies were the Legion's enemies.
After that, she set out alone for the battlefield—intending to hold Isera at bay until the Legion's complete evolution was finished.
So this is my first enemy?
The Blade Queen was sincerely disappointed. Isera, too, commanded a legion. But that legion was nothing more than consumable fodder to him. He called it a legion, yet it was no such thing—no different from scarecrows born of a sovereign's ignorance. No matter how many scarecrows one gathers, one does not call them a legion.
"Evolution complete!"
"Grant us leave to march!"
"More materials!"
"Better genes!"
The Demon Blood Species thirsted for evolution. They sought to absorb more powerful genes and be reborn as higher beings. And so the Blade Queen granted her Legion permission to march.
"I am the Legion."
She would teach these scarecrows the true meaning of the word.
The Seventh Lord, Basara, gazed quietly into the empty air.
The completed Dragon Vein had been concealed—but only moments ago, she had witnessed a Dragon God departing through it.
"Hmm. A peculiar one."
A new Dragon God. This one was clearly of a different order from every Dragon God she had ever seen. A truly strange sensation. She could not define it with any precision—and for Basara, that was an enormous matter.
A being I cannot define…
Had there ever been such a creature? It was not so overwhelmingly powerful that it sent a thrill through her. Nor did it seem weak. And yet she felt she could not win against it. There was an instinctive revulsion radiating from that Dragon God.
…Yes. This was revulsion. More precisely, it should be called disgust. The way a human recoils in horror from a bug. A human is not weaker than a bug—yet flees from it out of disgust. To Basara, that Dragon God was the same sort of existence. Something she simply did not wish to collide with.
Is that the Dragon God Wilhelm created?
If so, he had crafted something truly bizarre. Of every Dragon God that had ever existed, this one was the most unusual—an individual with the most peculiar methods and the most peculiar weakness.
The Dragon God appeared, yet Wilhelm's true body never showed itself. That must be connected to the Dragon God's weakness.
It was a pity she had not seen Wilhelm's true form, but she had not come away empty-handed. Basara had read everything. The Dragon God and Wilhelm's true body within that Dragon Vein—the two of them were bound by an immense fate.
Would her little brother Isera manage to grasp this fact? Should she tell him before it was too late?
Basara smiled.
"Little brother. If you're not careful, you'll die again."
…If he failed to notice it on his own, he would simply have to die once more.
A Dragon God is a solitary being. A guardian who protects the world alone. One who neither carries others nor possesses a legion. Perfect neutrality—for one must devote oneself solely to the world.
And that is supposed to be a Dragon God?
Isera could not shake the question. The newly born Blade Dragon God possessed her own legion—the cursed Demon Blood Clan.
But… can the Demon Blood Clan even fly?
The representative monster of the Demon Blood Clan was the Desert Queen, ruler of Faisalmer—a creature that had governed a city for ages by continually changing its outer skin. As far as Isera knew, the Demon Blood Clan had wing-like appendages, but they could not fly. Those were less wings than enormous mouths. And yet the Demon Blood Clan before him now had transformed those "enormous mouths" and were soaring through the sky. Even their body structures had subtly changed—as if optimized for lightness and flight.
…Those are her weakness!
Ah. At last Isera understood. The weakness of that Blade Dragon God—it was that very legion. A Dragon God who called herself a legion and commanded one had no precedent. That alone was absolute proof that the legion itself was her weakness.
Kill them all, and she dies too.
The realization drew a smile across Isera's lips. She must be running out of strength, revealing her weakness at last.
"Agnes. Annihilate those vermin."
Agnes, the Spirit King of Fire. Absolute sovereign of the spirit realm, and Isera's spear that pierced through all things. Though greatly weakened in the Intermediate Realm, he was still a monster capable of bringing down Dragon God Lucaria. How much had Isera sacrificed to forge that contract? Those Demon Blood Clan trash would be wiped out in an instant.
"Agnes…? What are you doing?"
But despite the order, Agnes stood motionless with his arms crossed. Isera frowned and demanded an answer, yet Agnes did not respond. His gaze was fixed on a single point.
The Reaper.
The being who freely manipulated warps. The one who had halted the portal was almost certainly that Reaper. Agnes was staring through him as if to pierce him clean through.
…This is maddening.
His own spear would not obey. Never once since the contract had this happened. What in the world was that Reaper to him? Long-lost family reunited after ages apart? But spirits did not have families.
"Tch."
Isera clicked his tongue and shook his head. It did not matter. Even without Agnes, he could crush the Demon Blood Clan with his own legion. No matter how numerous or tightly packed they were, they were still Demon Blood Clan—cursed, pitifully frail, crude life-forms of unknown origin. Whereas demons? Born of the demonic, they were a single legion that existed solely to exalt the Demon King. Until now he had been too preoccupied dealing with Dragon God Lucaria and that damned woman to focus—but a battle of legion against legion was one of the fields in which Isera was most confident.
"Legion. Annihilate those vermin."
He would sweep them away in a frenzy.
I quietly surveyed the Dragon Vein.
Hana, perfected as a Dragon God, had taken the field alongside her blood kin.
The Dragon God's weakness… to think it would be me.
Dragon God Hana's weakness was none other than myself. I slowly recalled the Dragon God's weakness.
Dragon God — Follower
Takes damage only when Randolph is under attack.
Immune to all other attacks.
It meant she only took damage when I myself was under attack. Not that she shared my wounds. Literally: only while I was being attacked could damage be dealt to Hana.
In other words, as long as I stay hidden here, Hana is invincible.
A completed Dragon Vein does not reveal itself to the outside. Entering a concealed Dragon Vein required multiple procedures. So long as Isera did not target this Dragon Vein, Hana was invincible while I remained here.
At this point, I was curious. Would Isera manage to figure out Hana's weakness?
Basara, with that monstrous instinct of hers, could probably find it out…
Against Basara, it might have been exposed. Her ability to sense danger was, in a certain sense, even more powerful than the White King's. That wondrous power of dismantling everything before her eyes was truly peerless. And what Basara dismantled and absorbed as her own was not limited to an opponent's techniques. Basara could make everything about her opponent her own.
But Isera was not Basara.
…Therefore, Isera could not defeat Hana.
Absolutely not.
Isera felt as though he were dreaming. All of this had to be a lie.
Those things… are not ordinary Demon Blood Clan.
The legion-versus-legion clash he had been so confident about. But the shape of the war did not unfold as Isera had imagined—because the Demon Blood Clan soaring through the air suddenly began to explode.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOOOM!
They detonated the instant they made contact, scattering a rain of blood. That blood-rain carried tremendous acidity, melting the skin and flesh of the demons. It could not be blocked. This was self-destruction in the truest sense—staking their very lives. They were blowing themselves up to inflict damage on the enemy. And that damage transferred directly onto Isera.
At this rate… this is dangerous.
Instinct warned him. This was truly dangerous. It was of a different dimension from attacks that merely damaged a part of the body. Those could not be called self-destruction in the true sense. But this—this was the real thing. The unique, one-of-a-kind weakness he himself had set!
Not one or two. A Dragon God with over a hundred thousand suicide troops!
What kind of Dragon God was this? Was a Dragon God not supposed to be a guardian? And yet she was using her own soldiers as suicide bombers—and those suicide troops were sacrificing themselves without a shred of hesitation.
An attack that offers up every life of one's own free will. Only that can leave a fatal wound on me!
Simply being forced to detonate by command meant nothing. In truth, only when the self was sacrificed of one's own volition could damage be dealt. They would only be following orders—not truly sacrificing themselves. Or so he had thought.
Sizzle—!
And yet… the moment the blood of a detonated Demon Blood Clan member touched him, holes opened in Isera's skin, leaving wounds that would not heal. Miron's regenerative power did not activate. Seeing that, Isera was horrified.
How… what am I supposed to do?
He could not even flee. Every direction was sealed, and he could not open a warp. Isera trembled faintly. This mutant Dragon God was an existence of an entirely different order from every Dragon God he had ever met.
I am the Legion—those words. Exactly as spoken, that Dragon God herself was the Legion. One and all, all and one! That was why a Dragon God who should not be able to possess a legion could possess one.
Only now grasping the meaning, Isera's pupils began to shake violently.
At this rate… I die!
…Because at this rate, the only end awaiting him was his own death.