Chapter 412: The Fall of Kronos (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 412: The Fall of Kronos (3)
It was a surreal sight.
The Emperor who ruled the continent's greatest empire stood entirely alone, without a single guard to protect him.
Was it a trap?
It was a reasonable suspicion.
Yet, even as Roman expanded his senses to sweep the surroundings, he detected no other presence. The same went for magical energy. Although he could not fathom the other man's intentions, Roman Dmitry did not care.
No matter what traps had been laid, it would not be enough to stop him.
As Roman Dmitry stepped inside, the Emperor of Kronos forced out a raspy, exhausted voice.
"...From the very beginning, I knew it would end like this. That fool, Marquis Memphis, believed that struggling to the bitter end would forge a path to survival. A vain hope. Roman Dmitry... how could someone like Marquis Memphis possibly stop a being whom Alexander himself revered?"
Once, the Emperor of Kronos had been a formidable figure.
Despite his imperial status, he had reached the realm of an Aura Swordsman, hailed by all as possessing the greatest talent in history. Yet now, he cut an incredibly pathetic figure. Even speaking seemed to drain the last of his life, as he gasped repeatedly for breath. He looked as though he could drop dead at any moment, but within his sunken, dark eye sockets, his gaze still gleamed with a sharp intensity.
"All this time, I wanted to see you with my own eyes. I wanted to understand why the entity encroaching upon my consciousness felt such boundless awe toward you. Alexander was not a man to respect or fear anyone. He was a monster who created Aura and manipulated the fate of the continent for epochs. He considered himself the absolute pinnacle, yet before you, Roman Dmitry, he became an infinitely small human being."
Possession.
Through it, their emotions had intertwined.
Although the Emperor could not know the exact details of the life Alexander had lived, he had at least read the emotional turmoil that stirred within the ancient monster whenever Roman Dmitry was mentioned. It was shocking. Alexander was a beast who had surpassed human limits, yet when it came to Roman Dmitry, he had mentally accepted the position of an absolute underdog.
It was a total surrender of the mind.
It did not stem from the logical outcome of victory or defeat; Alexander had simply, unconsciously, placed Roman Dmitry above himself.
"To be honest, I still haven't uncovered the truth about you. What is certain is that a man named Roman Dmitry defeated Alexander and conquered the capital of Kronos in a single day. Alexander's awe was not merely a baseless emotion; he truly had no choice but to acknowledge your existence."
He was in awe.
Roman Dmitry had turned what the world deemed impossible into reality.
Having drifted through the vast, boundless ocean of the Abyss, the Emperor had reached a single conclusion the moment he reclaimed his own life.
"I, the Emperor of Kronos, acknowledge your existence. You are worthy of striking me down, of destroying Kronos itself."
His eyes flew wide.
Squeezing out the very last drops of his life force, he cried out desperately.
"O new Absolute! Claim my head before the eyes of the world!"
* * *
He could never forget the events of that day.
The Emperor of Kronos, who had briefly lost consciousness during his coming-of-age ceremony, suddenly snapped back to his senses one day.
"...What is the meaning of this?"
Years had passed since the ceremony.
Time had been erased.
Although his mind vividly recorded how he had lived during those missing years, none of those actions had been thought out or decided by the Emperor himself. Like a puppet strung upon countless threads, he had moved according to another's design. As the years bled by, the world came to view the Emperor of Kronos as a symbol of absolute terror. Realizing that things had gone terribly wrong, he tried to fix the problem, even if he was far too late.
However, the moment he stepped out of the designated mold, the Emperor's consciousness was violently sucked back beyond the Abyss.
Gurgle...
He suffocated.
It was stifling.
In the pitch-black darkness, the Emperor of Kronos lived like a spectator peering into someone else's life. The puppet of his subconscious lived the life commanded by Alexander, and sometimes Alexander would directly take control of his body. As the possessions repeated, he realized the devastating reality. Alexander had turned him into a mere vessel, and against that overwhelming magic power, the Emperor of Kronos had no way to escape the Abyss.
His mind was slowly eaten away.
He let time slip by like a hollow shell of a man. Even as he stared wide-eyed at the atrocities committed in his own life, there was nothing he could do.
Then, one day, an anomaly occurred.
Having temporarily regained control of his body, the Emperor of Kronos forced out his voice to correct the horrific mistakes made in his name.
"...Is anyone there? I asked if anyone is there!"
He summoned his people.
And then—
"This war was waged for unjust reasons. Fully accepting my responsibility, I hereby declare a ceasefire."
He ended the war.
At the time, he believed it was the right thing to do. He thought it was the only way to resist Alexander, who had seized his consciousness. This was the hidden truth of Kronos that the public never knew. The sudden declaration of a ceasefire that brought an end to the First Continental War was the result of the body's true owner, the Emperor of Kronos, briefly regaining control of his own mind.
But once again, his consciousness slipped back beyond the Abyss.
Sensing that he had little time left, the Emperor of Kronos gritted his teeth and screamed inwardly.
Alexander. If I ever break free from this dreadful cycle, I will do what is right as the Emperor of Kronos. I will endure until the bitter end. I will not let my consciousness fade, even within the depths of the Abyss. I will wait for whatever fleeting opportunity comes my way. Just as I declared a ceasefire of my own free will for that brief moment... your world will not last forever.
Deep within the Abyss, he continued to lose himself.
Yet, amidst the suffocating darkness, the Emperor of Kronos held onto a single name.
Roman Dmitry.
If there ever came a day when he reclaimed his life, it would undoubtedly be because of that being whom Alexander so deeply revered.
* * *
And now, in the present.
The Emperor of Kronos spoke.
"This world was plunged into chaos because of the Kronos Empire. Society collapsed, and countless innocents had to live through a hellish reality. As the Emperor of the Kronos Empire, I have no intention of evading that responsibility. Though I did not decide or command those atrocities, it is an undeniable fact that Alexander was also a man of Kronos."
Alexander.
He was unequivocally evil.
Although he had planned everything single-handedly, the atrocities he committed could not be separated from the Kronos Empire. After all, he, too, had been an emperor of Kronos.
Having founded Aura and laid the foundation of the empire, Alexander was a symbolic figure who embodied Kronos itself. How could such an existence be denied? If the people sought a target for their resentment in this cruel reality, Alexander and the Kronos Empire where he was born and raised would inevitably bear the blame.
Therefore, the Emperor of Kronos accepted reality.
"I have thought long and hard within the Abyss. I pondered what I, a man who lived his entire life as a puppet, must do for this country and the world to move in the right direction. The conclusion I reached after endless agony is that I must die a meaningful death. Due to the repeated possessions, my life force has already reached its limit. Rather than desperately struggling to cling to a life that could end at any moment, I wish to bring a worthy end to a life that has been lived in ugliness."
A tremor ran through his frail body.
His eyelids kept drooping, and a nauseating sensation welled up from deep inside, making him want to vomit everything up right then and there.
Not yet.
It was not time yet.
Because he still had much to say, the Emperor of Kronos forced himself to hold onto the fraying thread of his consciousness and explained why he had remained here alone.
"Execute me before the masses. By slaying me, the symbol of this dark era, you will claim all the glory of the Kronos Empire. Its prestige, its territory, its people. The one who executes me—the man who, like Alexander, plunged this continent into ruin—will earn the right to claim it all."
After his death, this new Absolute would rule the land in his stead.
Choosing the future of Kronos was the absolute best the dying Emperor could do.
In truth, he felt wronged. He had done nothing wrong, yet accepting that he had to be sacrificed to this devastating reality was a bitter pill to swallow. If he had been given just one real chance, if he had days left to live, the Emperor of Kronos would have bowed his head and sworn loyalty, doing whatever it took to cling to life.
But knowing that was impossible, he accepted his fate.
And yet—
"I refuse."
The response that came back plunged the Emperor of Kronos into utter shock.
* * *
The Emperor of Kronos.
He was a man with a complicated and tragic story.
Roman knew that nothing about the Emperor's situation or his final decision was easy, but that did not give him any reason to grant the man's wishes.
"...W-What on earth do you mean by that?" the Emperor of Kronos asked, his voice trembling.
The proposal he had just made was one where the other party had absolutely nothing to lose. He was offering his own neck, willing to die as the ultimate symbol of evil. Why on earth would anyone reject such an offer?
Roman Dmitry spoke.
"People often fall into a certain delusion—the delusion that they have the power to decide their own fate. Emperor of Kronos. You are the embodiment of defeat. Because you and the previous emperors of Kronos were incompetent, you fell under Alexander's dominion, and the innocent were forced to bear the brunt of your failure. Why, then, should I inherit your will? If I were not currently holding a blade to your throat, your words might have carried some weight. But right now, you have no other choice, do you?"
"Roman Dmitry! I am not trying to debate victory or defeat! Is my willingness to accept death, my decision to acknowledge defeat, so laughable to you?!"
His sunken eyes flared.
In his boiling rage, he spat out his intense, long-suppressed emotions.
Roman understood. To the Emperor of Kronos, this decision must have felt like his absolute best, his final shred of dignity.
"That is precisely why it is a delusion. For the defeated, reality is inherently unreasonable."
In his past life, Roman Dmitry had risen from the very bottom to the absolute peak of the martial world. Unlike the Emperor of Kronos, he had not lived his entire life as a ruler who could always make decisions.
"Emperor of Kronos. You were granted the life of a decision-maker from birth, which is why you view this situation as abnormal. Most people live unreasonable lives. Simply because they are commoners, or because they were not born with talent, they bear the consequences of the mistakes made by decision-makers and accept it as their daily reality. Your life now, your current situation, is simply the unreasonable reality you must accept. From the moment Kronos failed to control the disaster that was Alexander, you were not some pitiful being living a tragic life alone; you were merely living the life of a loser, just like any other ordinary person."
The story of the Emperor of Kronos was not noble.
He might be pitiable, but there was absolutely no reason to elevate his life as something special.
In the end, he had simply been defeated.
He had succumbed to Alexander and failed to control his own destiny. To him, it was undoubtedly a tragic and unfair story. It was indeed unfortunate to be born as the heir to the Kronos Empire, already swallowed by a massive conspiracy, and to have his life consumed before he could even resist.
But looking at it from a different perspective, he was not the only one who had lived a devastating life. Unlike Kevin, who was born weak and took being preyed upon for granted, the Emperor of Kronos had at least been born as the heir to the imperial family, giving him the privilege to even attempt to embellish the end of his life.
That was the cold truth.
And that was why Roman did not accept his proposal.
He refused to allow the Emperor's final decision to ever be romanticized by the masses.
"History will not look back on today with pity. You will be remembered only as an incompetent emperor ruled by Alexander. There will be no noble sacrifice for the empire. Only then will the people crave a leader who is truly strong, one unshakable by any threat. That is the future I intend to build. I will not leave even the slightest room for your life to be romanticized. This moment exists entirely for me."
"...What on earth..."
The Emperor of Kronos's pupils trembled violently.
Not once had he ever encountered a mindset like Roman Dmitry's. It was no different now; he was simply not permitted the right to control this situation.
"Emperor of Kronos. Here, in this place where no one will remember you, meet your powerless end."
Slash!
His head was severed.
The Emperor of Kronos.
It was a hollow, pathetic end that he had never wished for.
* * *
Blood stained the marble floor.
Without a single glance at the pathetically sprawled corpse, Roman Dmitry walked away. He felt not a shred of lingering regret.
Some might call him cruel.
After all, he had denied even the final wish of the Emperor of Kronos, a man who had accepted his death after spending his entire life trapped in the Abyss. But as a leader, compassion and reality had to be kept strictly separate. No matter how tragic the Emperor's story was, there was no telling what kind of repercussions his legacy might bring in the future if he were martyred.
An ending was only meaningful when there was no next page.
In the future he was about to build, there was no reason to leave any room to romanticize the past of a loser.
Thinking about it, the Emperor was a truly pitiful being. While others were given the chance to decide their own lives, the Emperor of Kronos lived in a reality where even that basic opportunity was denied. Since the Emperor had chosen to face him rather than flee, granting him a swift, private death—rather than dragging him out like a dog for a public execution—was the absolute minimum courtesy Roman could offer an enemy who had stood his ground until the very end.
As he stepped outside, Lucas approached and bowed.
"We have found traces of Marquis Memphis. It appears he is hiding in a secret room."
In the near future, Marquis Memphis would face a devastating reality.
A reality where, unlike the Emperor of Kronos, he would never be allowed to die peacefully.
Roman Dmitry spoke coldly.
"Lead the way. I will handle him myself."