Chapter 150
Chapter 150
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 150
Chapter Title: Arandal's Verdict
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“Arandal...!!”
Unlike when Beskin appeared, Darcan's dark emotions were laid bare the moment Arandal showed up.
Inferiority complex, despair, rage...
Arandal's eyes, confronting the full maelstrom of those vile feelings head-on, weren't even fixed on Darcan.
They turned instead to Beskin, pinned against the tree trunk and bleeding profusely.
“Hey, Beskin. You must be exhausted. Tsk tsk, look at all that blood. Should've trained harder, huh.”
“...I'm sorry.”
“Come on, lighten up. Just kidding, kidding.”
His tone was as mild as if he were chiding a child, but Arandal's eyes burned with fury.
He knew better than anyone how diligently Beskin had trained.
After all, no one in the Hexagon had pushed himself harder to keep up with the Third Young Master.
Arandal's gaze shifted from Beskin to my broken arms and legs.
“Oh no, what a mess. You really went through hell, Third Young Master.”
“You're late, Sir Arandal. If you'd come, you could've blocked it sooner.”
“Haha! My apologies. But where's the flair in that?”
He said it playfully, but I knew the truth.
The gate had barely stabilized when he'd come racing here at full throttle, ahead of everyone else.
“Was this what you had in mind with your fourth request, Third Young Master?”
Arandal's face hardened as he asked.
“Well... something like that.”
“It was far too dangerous.”
The night I announced in the conference hall that I'd challenge the Hall of Trials, I'd pulled my father aside with one final request.
Not to punish Darcan, one of the Hexagon—but to never interfere, no matter what I did before the Hall of Trials.
“Still, it all worked out, didn't it?”
I spoke as if the matter were already settled, and Arandal let out a disbelieving chuckle.
“Third Young Master, the danger isn't over yet.”
“Eh. From where I'm standing, it looks perfectly safe.”
We might've looked like we were chatting casually, but Arandal's right hand never stopped moving.
He was parrying Darcan's relentless assaults with his sword the whole time.
“Araaaaandal!!!”
“I can hear you just fine, punk.”
Darcan's bloodshot eyes bulged with veins as he screamed, a stark contrast to Arandal's unflappable calm.
“You've grated on me from day one! Same Hexagon, yet you strut around all high and mighty, like successor selection has nothing to do with you!”
Kwaaaaaa!
A colossal surge of energy shot toward Arandal, vast enough to devour the stars themselves.
Against that overwhelming force, Arandal's compact frame seemed all the more frail.
“You're the only Hexagon whose name brings glory to the Shield Family! Nothing about you sat right with me! All because of you!!”
“Yeah? And?”
Darcan's pathos-laden scream washed right over Arandal without leaving a mark.
The trajectory of Arandal's outstretched sword cleaved Darcan's overwhelming aura in two.
“Your lame sob story? I couldn't care less. All that matters right now is...”
Darcan's severed dark aura gave way to Sir Arandal's, gleaming like starlight in the sky.
“...that Beskin, vital pillar of the Hexagon and Ice Knight, lies bleeding.”
Arandal's face—always smiling, never angered—was colder than I'd ever witnessed.
“And that Jerome von Carviot, the lord's cherished third son, has shattered limbs.”
Arandal's left hand drew the massive shield from his back.
“As head of the Carviot Count Family's Hexagon and the Light Knight, I cannot abide such a grievous sin.”
Kiiiiing!
The black aura devouring all it touched melted away upon striking the shield—like shadows fleeing the dawn—leaving no trace.
“In Lord Bacchus von Carviot's stead, I will punish this sinner here and now.”
Crack!
Arandal slowly unclasped his necklace.
Kuuuuuu!
Brilliant radiance erupted fiercely from his body.
The aura felt as unyielding as Father's had in the Beast Forest long ago.
“Who's punishing who!?”
Baaaaam!
Darcan refused to yield easily.
“Me. You.”
The light-erased black aura reignited like flames from the earth's core, clashing at the center.
Kwaaaaaang!
As if that collision signaled the start, explosive slashes warped space itself, each one aimed to kill.
Darcan's strikes were sharp, swift, ferocious, and deadly.
Unlike his festering inferiority and defeatism, his rampaging stage-2-unlocked sword surpassed any ordinary master's.
Arandal's, by contrast, were heavy, deliberate, fluid... and immense.
Shockingly, with only stage 1 unlocked, Arandal matched Darcan blow for blow.
...Arandal was this strong?
Just stage 1, and he rivaled jade throne ascenders.
Stage 2? He'd overwhelm them in an instant.
Wait—in my past life, why didn't he unlock stage 2 before Father died?
Even after losing his lord, Arandal fought the Imperial Army to the end without ever unlocking stage 2, perishing in battle.
I mulled over the baffling reason.
Baaaaam!
Darcan wrenched his sword upward from below, aura overflowing to perfectly control his shattered body.
As Arandal blocked with his shield, Darcan swiftly retreated, creating distance.
“...You insufferable wretch. Unlocked only stage 1... and you match the power I forged by burning my life away?”
Darcan knew full well Arandal had only stage 1.
Stage 2 showed your life aflame.
Just like Darcan's body now crumbling to pieces.
Arandal showed no such signs.
“What? Done already?”
Arandal, having effortlessly deflected Darcan's frenzied strikes, slung his sword over his shoulder.
“Think unlocking makes you strong by default? Naive, Darcan. It's about balancing mind, energy, and body.”
He glanced my way, then continued.
“If sheer mana made you strongest, the Empire's Pope—with his bottomless divine mana—would rule unchallenged.”
The Pope was jade throne caliber, sure, but never history's pinnacle.
Arandal was driving that home.
“Your battered body from fighting the Third Young Master. Your warped mind. Your berserk aura. Imbalance incarnate.”
Balance...
His words tickled the back of my mind.
I'd fixated on reclaiming my past life's power.
Three core sources:
Continent's mightiest martial art: Pankration.
The unknown latent aura I'd nurtured via Earth.
And above all, my Heterogenous Power: Steel.
Post life-or-death with Marquis Crank, I'd internalized gains through training—but now, with old power restored...
...I'd sought growth solely in Steel. Stage 3's peak demanded stage 4 clues.
Yet Arandal's words hinted at another path.
“You, bloated with raw aura, against my balanced mind-energy-body? You'd never win.”
“......!!”
His parting "advice" to Darcan lit up my mind like lightning.
Right. No need to cling only to Steel.
Golden Vajra Guardian and Golden Vajra Yaksha—Steel fusions—owed strength to Steel, not aura mastery.
Train aura. Train Pankration. Then balance, like Arandal says.
One-sided power hits walls.
“What the hell are you babbling about!!”
Kwaaaaaa!
Like encroaching dusk smothering the dying sun, an aura tempest swirled around Darcan's blade.
Darcan bellowed nonstop at Arandal's exposition, but Arandal ignored him—mid-fight—still watching me.
Finally, spotting payoff in my expression, Arandal turned fully to Darcan.
“Ah, right. Pointless for you now.”
His raised shield shattered the storm as he steadily closed in.
“You're dying anyway.”
Calm and direct, Arandal brooked no detours.
Right now, I'd seized his hint—clue to the next stage in hand.
Dodge aside? I'd be exposed, and the insight lost.
Darcan's barrage raged endless, but Arandal's shield held.
Braving a power clash, parrying countless aura blades, he reached Darcan's front.
His sword blazed like the continent's three full moons piercing the night.
“Power's waning soon. Can't let you off easy, though. Final words?”
“.....”
Unlocking's end loomed; Darcan's mana road's aura ebbed at last.
He stared at Arandal's sword.
His own devoured light—versus one banishing all worldly dark.
That blade, in youth, had crushed him with talent, warping his path.
Now, it claimed his life.
“...Hahaha. Damn it all.”
Sensing his mana road shrivel rapidly, Darcan laughed emptily.
“What a hollow end.”
Darcan's final sight: flawless, blinding radiance.
Slash!
Arandal returned to Lake Dozmarie, supporting Beskin and me, some five hours after executing Darcan.
The sun had long set; night reigned.
The Trial Gate, rattled by Darcan's assault, stood serene once more.
“My apologies, my lord. We were delayed.”
Arandal bowed to Bacchus.
“...Result?”
Subjectless, objectless—but everyone grasped Bacchus's meaning.
Arandal wordlessly untied a bundle from his belt, offering it.
Swish.
Bacchus hesitated an instant before opening it, peering inside.
“...So...”
“Forgive me, my lord. Stage 2 unlock... made capture pointless.”
Bacchus's eyelids flickered.
The Dark Knight—Hexagon's second shield—no mere betrayal, but stage 2 to defy family capture.
Shame beyond shame. Devastation.
“...Jerome. That name from your recording orb earlier. You knew?”
The Empire's Third Princess, Ibarella.
“Yes.”
“Your take?”
Brief, but weighty.
Few beyond Dwain eyed Ibarella closely.
She'd spurred Philador's revolt, but most pinned true guilt on the executed Prince Versailles.
Now, though...
Bacchus—heavenly plaque of Carviot House, alliance pillar—watched her warily at last.
“A dangerous woman, my lord. Alliance sees her as a bungling princess whose half-baked Philador plot flopped. Far from it.”
I unraveled the threads I'd gathered.
“Sharon Kingdom's Elf Princess rescue? Holy Knights interfered. Prince Peter suspected kingdom spies. I peg Ibarella as the architect.”
No hard proof—yet conviction near certainty.
“Even now, she sows silent powder kegs across the alliance, my lord.”
I eyed Darcan's head in the floor-bound bundle.
“Time to heighten alliance vigilance. Cripple her Empire standing. We've a perfect 'evidence' proxy in-territory, too.”
The archbishop held in Banten.
Virgin Palace Luna.