Chapter 411: The Fall of Kronos (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 411: The Fall of Kronos (2)
A short while ago.
Marquis Memphis had been rushing toward the source of the explosion when he received an unbelievable report from the Capital Guard.
[Marquis Memphis! Roman Dmitry unleashed his Aura and brought down the castle wall! The cracks have spread throughout the entire structure. It is impossible to carry out repairs, even if we buy time. The siege defense operation has completely failed. Please come to the scene and give us new orders!]
He stopped dead in his tracks.
A cold shiver ran down Marquis Memphis's spine as the report echoed in his mind.
“…The wall collapsed?”
It was shocking.
Kronos had made thorough preparations for this day, yet the wall had crumbled while he was away. It was a situation that defied common sense. If the report was true, Roman Dmitry was strong enough to obliterate a castle wall in a single blow, plunging the Kronos Empire into an inescapable crisis.
Gulp.
He swallowed hard.
He had no way of knowing the true nature of Dmitry's operation. He could never have imagined they had used laborers to undermine the foundation. The only certainty was that a siege defense was no longer possible. Their entire strategy relied on the wall remaining intact. But with it collapsing right at the start, a fundamental question arose: did Kronos even stand a chance?
It was impossible.
The war was over.
Fear suddenly gripped him at the thought of the monster who had killed Alexander and brought down the wall coming for his head next.
‘If Kronos is defeated like this… will I be able to survive?’
Probably not.
There was a high probability he would be executed to set an example.
Roman Dmitry was that kind of man.
Among the commanders who had declared their intent to oppose him, not a single one had ever survived. Barco, Marquis Benedict, the Emperor of Valhalla—the list went on. It might have been different if they had accepted a compromise when it was offered, but the desperate pleas of the defeated meant nothing to him. What mattered to Roman Dmitry was setting a clear precedent rather than winning public favor, and thus, all his enemies had died.
‘For all intents and purposes, the war is already over. If we have no way to deal with Roman Dmitry now that the wall has collapsed, we will all end up dead because of that single being. Joining the forces at the wall is pointless. There is no reason for me to sacrifice my life for the sake of a falling Kronos Empire.’
“…My Lord Marquis?”
A knight of his family asked with a puzzled look.
Looking at him, Marquis Memphis declared,
“We are not heading to the wall.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Can't you see what's happening?! Roman Dmitry brought down the wall. The Devil of Dmitry is charging at us with fire in his eyes, eager to slaughter us! At this point, a desperate last stand is meaningless. We must survive somehow to fight another day.”
“…Understood. But where do you plan to flee? We have no path of retreat.”
Only then did he face reality.
The empire's only escape route was the secret passage.
If he had moved with the Emperor of Kronos, he could have escaped through it. But then he remembered that he had personally ordered poison gas to be released into the passage and had it sealed off. Dmitry's operation had been deliberate. By sending smoke into the secret passage, he had dispersed their forces while simultaneously setting the stage for Kronos to block its own escape route.
Chills ran down his spine.
Just how far…
How far ahead had Roman Dmitry planned?
As the noose slowly tightened around his neck, Marquis Memphis bit his lip anxiously.
He had to think of a way to survive.
The magic communicator kept demanding a response, and some of the knights following him shot him looks of disgust. But none of that mattered. As Marquis Memphis racked his brain, he suddenly remembered a place that the Emperor of Kronos—when possessed by Alexander—had frequently visited.
“Yes, the secret room! That's the place!”
He was certain.
His only chance of survival was to hide until the storm descending upon Kronos passed.
* * *
It was a disastrous reality.
At the news of Marquis Memphis's flight, Alvaro, the Capital Guard Captain, gritted his teeth, his face looking as if his entire world had collapsed.
“That miserable bastard. Abandoning his country just to save his own skin.”
The future looked pitch black.
In his line of sight, he could see his soldiers being unilaterally slaughtered, and he couldn't think of a single way to resolve this crisis. To be precise, having faced the enemy directly, he had completely lost his confidence. At first, believing they were all merely human, he thought they had a chance if they fought without giving up. But after clashing with Dmitry's soldiers, he had to admit that Dmitry could no longer be called a weak nation from the periphery.
They were strong.
Dmitry's elite soldiers overwhelmed even decent knights.
It was then.
“Are you the commander?”
Step, step.
Someone approached him.
Looking up, Alvaro saw sharp eyes and striking blonde hair. From the terrifying aura radiating from the man, it was not hard to guess that this was Dmitry's Flash. For a moment, his blood ran cold. He had absolutely no desire to face someone like Chris, but since he was already pushed to the edge of a cliff, he figured this wasn't a bad way to go out.
“Yes. I am Alvaro, the Capital Guard Captain.”
He gripped his sword tightly.
Even if he died, he wanted to leave a mark.
If he could achieve the feat of killing Dmitry's Flash, his name would be remembered in history, even if he died a gruesome death here. His eyes gleamed fiercely. The Emperor of Kronos was merely Alexander's puppet, and Marquis Memphis, the man who was supposed to lead Kronos, had cowardly fled.
This country was finished.
Watching his opponent warily, Alvaro instantly exploded his Aura the moment Chris took a step forward.
“And I am also the man who will kill you!”
Flash!
Rumble!
It was explosive.
He closed the distance in an instant, and the Aura erupting from Alvaro's sword spread out as if to swallow the world. It was a deluge of Aura. At the cost of his own life, Alvaro gathered every last drop of mana circulating through his body.
He would kill him, even if it meant dying together.
He intended to prove with his own strength that Kronos was indeed the empire that had once dominated the continent.
And that…
Flash.
Thud.
…was Alvaro's last memory.
Without even dodging the attack, Chris slipped through a sharp opening and severed his opponent's head in a single blow.
Single Flash.
He had become even faster.
Visualizing Ares, visualizing Kevin, Chris had continuously refined himself.
For Roman Dmitry's sake, he gladly celebrated the growth of his comrades, but he had absolutely no intention of letting his own position be overtaken. Martial arts were not merely about training the physical body. Because Chris's mind had entered a new realm, Alvaro had failed to properly perceive his opponent's attack until the very moment of his death.
Chris turned around.
He was thirsty.
Even more than Kevin, he wished to prove himself.
* * *
Kronos had lost the will to fight.
The wall had collapsed from the start, Marquis Memphis was nowhere to be seen, and Alvaro could no longer issue orders. The soldiers only fought because they had been pushed onto the battlefield. They showed no strong desire to win this war.
They knew it, too.
They knew they stood no chance.
Roman Dmitry keenly perceived this rapidly shifting tide of battle.
‘Marquis Memphis is still nowhere to be seen. With the Emperor of Kronos revealed to be a mere puppet, the absence of the commander with the highest authority means he has abandoned the war and fled.’
No explanation was needed.
It was plain to see—the sheer confusion of the enemies who had lost their commander.
In that case, there was no need for Dmitry to stubbornly drag out the battle at the cost of further casualties.
‘Heavenly Sword.’
Up into the sky, Aura soared.
The eyes of the crowd focused on a single point as the strike fell like divine judgment, sweeping away the space before them in an instant.
Boom!
Crash!
Rumble!
It was an overwhelming sight.
Those who watched in a daze, those who fled to save their lives, those who unleashed their Aura to resist somehow—all of them were obliterated. While an indiscriminate eruption of Aura was not a particularly efficient technique against single targets, the soldiers of the Kronos Empire could not withstand its sheer destructive power just by being swept up in the blast radius.
Heaven Beyond Heaven.
It transcended human limits.
In the sudden silence that followed, Roman Dmitry raised his voice.
“The war is already over. Your commander, Marquis Memphis, has fled, and no one is coming to save you. I ask you: on a battlefield where neither the Emperor of Kronos nor a commander to lead you exists, what exactly are you fighting for?”
The question hung in the air.
In an instant, the fighting ground to a halt.
Men with blood-stained faces stared at Roman Dmitry in a daze, reacting with confusion to the news of Marquis Memphis's flight. They hadn't known. They had only fought because they were ordered to, with no way of knowing that their leader had abandoned them. Thus, the shock was immense. The soldiers of Kronos looked at one another, desperately wishing someone would explain this chaotic situation.
“The Kronos Empire used Black Magic. Alexander proved that fact, and black mages were deployed even in the battle just now. Is this truly the kind of country you desire? Do you intend to sacrifice your lives to the bitter end for those who seek to grasp power even at the cost of using Black Magic, which drives humanity to ruin?”
These soldiers had no authority to decide on war.
Because they were people forced onto the battlefield, he granted them one last chance to end it.
“If you wish to fight for Kronos to the end, I will slaughter every last one of you from this moment on, leaving not a single prisoner of war. Choose. This is your sole opportunity to decide your own future.”
At those words, the soldiers fell into confusion.
As they hesitated, unsure of what to do, a man stepped forward from the crowd.
“May I ask you one thing?”
He was an ordinary soldier.
A mere commoner whose name was unknown.
* * *
The soldier spoke.
“From what I know, you never give a second chance. We missed our opportunity to surrender, and until just moments ago, we struggled desperately to kill your people. And yet, are you truly offering us a chance? We know that the man named Roman Dmitry has never shown mercy, so what are we supposed to believe in order to throw down our weapons?”
It was a desperate voice.
He could not bring himself to trust those in power.
While preparing for this war, Marquis Memphis had emphasized a certain point to the soldiers:
“Roman Dmitry is a devil on the battlefield. Have you ever heard of him sparing an enemy? The Kronos Empire has already been classified as an enemy by Roman Dmitry. Therefore, if you want to survive, you must win at all costs.”
Those words had been engraved in their minds.
Believing they had no choice but to die if they failed to defeat Dmitry, the soldiers of Kronos had brandished their weapons to the very end with terror-stricken faces. Since they were already pushed to the brink, they firmly believed it was better to cling to a sliver of hope for victory and fight, rather than flee just to survive for a few seconds longer.
But now, their commanders had reportedly fled.
With the hope they had desperately clung to shattered, the soldier who stepped forward represented everyone's position with a pitiful gaze.
Roman Dmitry spoke.
“If you were the decision-makers capable of determining your own future, I assure you, I would not have granted a second chance. Refusing to allow precedents is for the decision-makers. The Emperor of this country, or people like Marquis Memphis who drove you onto the battlefield until moments ago, belong to that domain.”
It was not out of a desire to show mercy.
A precedent required a clear target.
If he could set a precedent by killing everyone here, Roman Dmitry would gladly carry out the slaughter. However, the commanders who had driven them to their deaths had all fled. Even if he slaughtered every single one of these soldiers, the precedent left by the brutality of the battlefield would be practically useless.
In the end, this was land he had to rule.
Just as he had accepted people from other factions during his conquest of Murim, these people were also destined to become his subjects.
“The reason I am giving you a chance is clear. This land also needs people who will live for me in the future. If you accept my existence now that you are able to decide your own future, you will gain the opportunity to live a new life.”
That was the very answer the ruled desired.
The mere fact that they were being given a chance to live meant that the ordinary soldiers no longer had any reason to fight.
Clack.
“I surrender.”
He dropped his weapon.
He was the beginning.
Clatter.
Clang.
One by one, weapons dropped all around.
It spread like an epidemic in an instant, and the soldiers of the Kronos Empire knelt and bowed their heads.
“We surrender.”
“Please spare us.”
The long-standing, ill-fated history with Kronos had finally reached its end.
* * *
The situation was settled.
The soldiers of Kronos had completely surrendered, and Lucas reported the current situation.
“As expected, Marquis Memphis seems to have fled. We have sent a pursuit squad to investigate his tracks. There is no indication that the Emperor of Kronos has left the imperial palace.”
“Understood. Find Marquis Memphis at all costs.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lucas withdrew.
Now, it was time to occupy the imperial palace.
Roman Dmitry took a step forward.
Chris and Kevin followed close behind him, with Dmitry's soldiers forming a grand procession. It was a breathtaking sight. Though they were marching right into the imperial palace of Kronos, not a single soul stood in their way.
It was desolate.
There was no one guarding it.
In truth, it was an expected outcome.
Castro and the Imperial Knights—the forces guarding the imperial family—were Alexander's dogs. Now that he was dead, there was no one left to fight for the Emperor of Kronos, who was nothing more than a puppet. It was, quite literally, a bloodless entry. In the silent space, the thought occurred that perhaps the Emperor of Kronos, now freed from possession, had already fled.
And so, they reached their destination.
When they pushed open the massive doors and stepped inside, an unexpected sight greeted them.
“To think the capital would fall in just a single day.”
The Emperor of Kronos.
With a gaunt and sickly face, he sat alone upon the emperor's throne, having chosen not to flee.