Chapter 78
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 78
Chapter Title: Epilogue to the Prologue
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“The Empire—?!”
Slashed.
From shoulder to waist, Pervias, who had been creating an absolute frost storm by spinning his Dragonbone Spear—and the heart that lay in its path.
Slashed again.
The collection of all organic and inorganic matter along the trajectory from the central passage to the control room.
And slashed again.
The gates of the control room, and beyond them, the blade of the True Holy Sword… Yoniulan, which had been coiling around and tearing at Tarsiyo's body.
‘This brat…’
In that fleeting moment, Ryukael, who had withdrawn Yoniulan to wrap it around herself, was unharmed.
‘He closed a distance of over two hundred paces in an instant.’
And… Ryukael felt a thin line being drawn across her cheek.
Before the warm blood could even trickle from the torn tissue.
In that moment, as she processed the long-unfelt sensation of being cut, realizing she had lost her captured prey.
BOOOOOOOOOM—!
It was the echo of providence reasserting itself, a response to a being bound by its laws who had dared to break them.
A sonic boom.
The delayed boom unleashed a powerful whirlwind inside the control room.
“Sorry.”
The master of that whirlwind appeared, clad in the Dragonscale Armor, a draconic mail that radiated a faded brilliance.
On either side of his back, flickering dazzlingly, were the Sword Wings, the Thunderous Fragrance Spirit Fish Swords.
Unable to withstand the extremely condensed transcendent power, the shattered red cuffs—the suppressors—tumbled across the distant spot where he had stood just moments before.
“I pulled it out.”
That very sight, that wretched final appearance.
Was it because it felt like the final signpost of his fate as a FakeWarrior, with no way back and nowhere to lean on?
Facing the death that had crept up right behind her and laid a hand on her, she felt her mind and body grow tranquil.
“Ah, so this is how it ends…”
That moment, on that day.
It was the first and last time.
That I ever saw you sob so sorrowfully.
“Don’t ask me why I pulled it.”
I remember how you looked when you answered, your eyes lowered, when I asked why you saved me back then.
Did you know back then?
That in this very moment, I would give the same answer as you?
“You’re not supposed to ask a man that. Especially not one who seems to like you.”
Epilogue to the Prologue,
Here Lies the FakeWarrior (4)
It took only three steps.
To exit the control room and the central passage and reach the stairs leading to the fourth floor.
As if having calculated the probability of this outcome, Karduel was waiting there.
[Go, quickly. Rescuing the young mistress from Eldia Mu (04) is a feat bordering on a miracle.]
“Karduel, what about you…?”
[Young Master, I cannot escape. The dimensional gate to Ikillas has already opened. I must control the facility before it gets out of hand. That is the duty of a guardian.]
Chhhk, with a metallic clang like coiling chains, blades flew forth, tearing through the staircase itself.
CLAAAANG…!
He had intended to turn and block it with Solang's shield, and he would have succeeded.
‘What…?’
If his opponent hadn't been the True Holy Sword, Yoniulan, which was said to penetrate even the molecular structure of its target to seize and tear it apart.
Fierce sparks flew.
Solang's shield, dragged away by the blade of Yoniulan as it elongated and then reconverged into the shape of a sword, tumbled across the ground.
「To think you’re carrying four swords so far beyond your station, FakeWarrior. No, on second thought, they suit a creature of your standing.」
FakeWarrior.
The word had never sounded so terribly shameful as it did now.
Was it because the one before him was the original? It felt as if she were saying, *You are, and always will be, nothing but a fake.*
「It’s bad enough that a fake like you is running rampant, but to steal my dear disciple’s techniques and even his armor… Are you begging me to kill you?」
“By that logic, aren’t you a fake, too? I heard the old Warriors had ashen hair.”
「You fool. It isn't hair color that determines if one is a Warrior, but the strength of their power.」
“By that logic, I must be a Warrior, too.”
「The likes of you? If you're trying to play with words, I'll humor you. Had Alkaios been given the same opportunity you just had, I would already be dead.」
He had pulled the pin on the suppressor, but the situation was dire. To think he would encounter this being here…
- The memory of the Dragon Slayer… who exactly is this being named Ryukael that appeared in it?
He had once asked Setsunen of Thunderous Fragrance. It had been the first time he had ever seen her face turn so deathly pale.
- How should I explain it… I suppose I must describe her as the first pillar of the Black Church and an old, true Warrior.
- What?
- Neither Mir nor I know how it came to be. But it was an undeniable fact that Ryukael had become a limb of the Abyss and had, over hundreds of years, unified all the demon races.
- Unified the demon races…?
- During the ‘Black Summer,’ the most Mir and I could do together was temporarily push her back… The price was steep. It was Ryukael who left Mir in his current state.
So the reason Mirngadia's body was being eroded by the Abyss wasn't because of The Forgotten Kings, but because of his battle with an old, true Warrior?
- I, too, was left unable to properly use my body ever again.
Setsunen showed him the scars all over her body. As if the seams of her soul had been severed, the light of her spirit shattered out from the joints of her flesh.
- I learned the staff from my father and the sword from my mother, but that is all a story from a distant past now. Keep this story to yourself. I fear for the army's morale.
He couldn't possibly speak of an old Warrior's betrayal…
He couldn't believe it, either…
No, enough of this. He had roughly five minutes of life left. There was no time to be lost in memories.
“Lord Karduel, take Tarsiyo and run.”
[But the dimensional gate—]
“—Can’t we just destroy the control room?”
This suffocating, transcendent pressure.
The atmosphere was being torn, convulsing and screaming in shades of violet. This… was the true pinnacle of the sword.
The Supreme Holy Swords trembled faintly, shuddering at her majesty and power. Or perhaps it was me trembling.
[Kaisen, the gate is open. It's massive enough to cover the sky… Even I have never seen a gate this large. The beasts of Ikillas are pouring down without end.]
The transcendent authority inherited from the Light Dragon amplified his physical abilities beyond their limits.
A world losing its color.
In this world, the world was not a single, continuous flow of movement, but a series of over a hundred intermittent scenes.
—Supreme Dragon Sword Arts, Dragon Thunder Flash Cut.
He plunged the blade of Aradamanthel deep into the floor.
Lightning spread through the ley lines in the cracks of the ground. Unable to withstand the pressure of the seething brilliance, the cracks spiderwebbed across the entire inner wall.
With this area-denial technique that once tore even Neigallas's body apart—a dazzling, rampant wave of light and electricity from the fissures—he began his combination.
—Triple Severance.
The blade of the True Holy Sword Yoniulan flew forth, twisting the very concept of thunder, seizing and tearing the light.
It was fine.
The Dragon Thunder Flash Cut was meant to dull the senses, after all. The real attack began now.
—Severance, Wave of Light and Heat.
A savage wave of power that evaporated all darkness into pure white under the pressure of its light.
This was the Severance of Gaumris.
The raging torrent of power poured out in multiple streams, pushing back even the blade of Yoniulan.
—Severance, Spacetime Rend.
It was the Severance of Scherpang that slashed and tore the very fabric of this world, now covered in the brilliance of lightning and pure white light.
At this moment, the Thunderous Fragrance Spirit Fish Swords—the Sword Wings—repeated every movement made thus far exactly ten times.
Meaning, the slash that sundered spacetime itself was drawn ten times, each on a different trajectory. And then, the power of Solang, which should have absorbed all the energy unleashed so far—
「Tear it all apart, Yoniulan.」
—All the light that had been dancing in a frenzy was twisted and sucked into a single, jagged violet line.
An attack, an attack is coming…
He remembered trying to shift his body into an evasive maneuver amidst the fading light, based on that judgment.
Pshaaaaaaak…!
A total of forty-four metal shards roared ferociously.
The blades shattered his armor, tear his flesh, ripped out his organs and ribs as a spray of blood erupted in all directions.
Simultaneously, his soul—the fragments of his soul that had barely been holding on against the Abyss's erosion—was mercilessly torn apart.
「My Yoniulan's special ability is Soul Rupture. It tears not only the external, physical parts of a substance, but the internal as well.」
I can see clear shards of steel…
It was the debris of Scherpang's great blade, shattering into pieces and scattering.
「Be it inorganic or organic, or even special abilities like magical formulas, it's all the same.」
Was his entire face already covered in blood? His vision was stained red, and the whole world felt distant.
What he had just witnessed was power.
The kind of power that overturned any disadvantageous situation in an instant, like an eagle in the sky mocking a worm crawling on the ground.
「I'll give you credit. You have the skill to have taken down both Neigallas and Chalyuan. But you had the misfortune of facing me.」
Something flew and embedded itself in the ground before him. A familiar brilliance, a familiar scent—the shield of the Supreme Holy Sword, Solang.
「You were planning to absorb my power with that and land the final blow, weren't you?」
Chhhk…
The forty-four blades, stained with the blood of his flesh and the fragments of his soul, merged back into the form of a single sword.
「Blocking the first strike with your shield and leaving it in front of me was all part of your calculation, wasn't it? Did you think I wouldn't know?」
Kaisen chewed on a Dragon's Blood serum syringe, glass and all, that was bouncing on the collapsing floor, and regenerated his body…
「And *this* is how you use Schurbiel's hammer.」
The moment he did, his vision was dyed a savage, pure white. His entire body burned away in that pure white superheat.
「How many hundreds, no, thousands of times do you think I've seen techniques like these, ‘Fake’? From the ‘Reals’ who used the original versions!」
In that flash, his body was momentarily lifted into the air.
Breath, my breath…
A bone-crushing grip and gravity focused on his neck, choking him.
「Curious about why you lost? I simply absorbed your powers with that shield, transferred them to Yoniulan, and detonated them. I returned your little trick right back at you. Do you know the original name of this power? It's called ‘Wavelength Conversion.’」
What does that…
Does that mean she can use Solang's Severance as long as she has the shield as a catalyst?
「Trash like you who revere this as some secret art, when it's nothing but a rudimentary imitation that Alkaios would have laughed at… what? A Warrior? Don't make me—」
Just then, a wave of light converged into a single wedge and shot forward.
This power is…
Ryukael, sensing the familiar yet deadly aura, stepped aside as a pure white point grazed past her head, kicking up a fierce wind.
“Let… Kaisen go…”
The True Holy Sword of Eldia Kata (05) Enuel, Sharrilion.
When her dead comrade wielded it, Sharrilion had aimed for the heavenly throne with a majesty that made even the old kings tremble in fear.
Not like this detestable girl, who was all spirit and no substance, gasping for breath as she lay dying.
「I'll send you both to your mother's side together, so don't be impatient.」
In that instant, an orange arrowhead of light sprouted from Ryukael's shoulder.
A strike so precise and sharp that if she hadn't twisted her body at the last moment, it would have pierced her heart and killed her.
No, if the True Holy Sword Hisgibide had been in his hands, she wouldn't have escaped a fatal wound even if she had dodged.
[Ryukael, why have you forsaken the duty of a guardian! Why!]
An orange light was exploding from Karduel's body.
The light formed the outline of a human holding a bow. The mechanical parts naturally became the core.
Watching that sight, that miserable sight, the corner of Ryukael's eye twitched.
「Please, just, stop…」
[…?]
「I said, just stop! You and I, we cut down countless kings of the Abyss, their kin, their nobles! But look at you! Look at you, barely surviving inside a pile of scrap metal! Is this just?」
For a moment, a fierce silence fell.
[Ryukael, do you think it is right for the clay to question the potter about the purpose for which it was made?]
Chhhhhk!
Once again, the blade split into forty-four metal shards and easily captured Karduel.
「Is *this* right? Look at this brat! He's fought so hard for others all his life, only to be driven here in his final moments! Just like us!」
[Ryukael…!]
「Tell me! What value is there in a world like this—a world that demands unconditional sacrifice just because you have power, a world that can't exist otherwise!」
The sounds…
All those sounds were growing more and more distant…
[…Everyone, move out. The wolves have appeared again…!]
[…Another enemy from the opposite direction…!]
[…Well done, men…!]
[…Th-they’re pouring in endlessly from over there, too…!]
[…There are too many, and the blizzard is too strong… I can't even count them anymore…!]
[…M-my body is freezing… H-help me…!]
[…Let us fight bravely! Blessed by the gods, we shall not retreat from any tribulation…!]
[…This is the 4th Armored Regiment, the colossus won't activate! The steam core is destroyed! The cockpit door won't open! I-it's frozen shut, gyaaaaaaaah…!]
That wall of sound…
Piercing through that wall, which grew fainter yet impossibly solid…
《You've got it easy. Is this any time to be sleeping?》
So very clearly.
And so very brightly.
《Jeez, you've gotten huge, but you're still a crybaby just like the old days. What am I gonna do with you?》
Within a radiance so nostalgic it brought tears to his eyes.
In his short lifetime.
For his entire life after childhood, the person he had missed so dearly was standing before him.
《Now is not the time to cry. It's not, you brat. Can't you hear those sounds? Everyone is looking for you, for the Warrior.》
For a moment, he couldn't speak.
Not because of the physical pain, but because he was afraid that if he rashly made a sound, this final dream would shatter.
《So get up. You have to get up, Kaisen Alter Aradamanthel.》
In that heart-wrenching warmth.
The world that had been stained red simply crumbled away, pulsating within a hazy light.
“Master…?”