Chapter 327
Chapter 327
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 327
Chapter Title: Hawk, Wolf, and Sea Serpent (4)
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-Grrr, gruk.
A low boiling sound of blood echoed. Karadskar lay collapsed on the ground in confusion, gasping raggedly. He couldn’t comprehend the situation. A pathetic spark of mana had flashed, and suddenly all strength drained from his body.
But there was one thing he could understand. His defeat. Still fallen, he rolled his eyes toward the approaching Fernandez.
Death was coming. The dark silver greatsword in his hand gleamed ominously under the moonlight. Blood smeared thickly around his mouth and his limping leg suggested his own body wasn’t unscathed either, but there was no means to turn the tables.
“Have I lost?”
“Yes.”
Fernandez knelt on one knee beside Karadskar’s heaving face. The scent of blood wafted through his rough breaths.
“How hollow.”
“Has your mind cleared?”
“I was always in my right mind. Even when roasting human flesh, drinking blood, or rolling children under cartwheels. No excuses, Imperial. I chose every one of those acts, and if given the chance again, I’d do them gladly.”
Fernandez gazed steadily into his eyes. Two eyes flickering with red glows. Traces of his soul shaken by demonic corruption and mana erosion, crumbling human spirituality.
Yet, even so. The fact that he retained his reason in that moment paradoxically showed how sturdy his soul had been, making one imagine what kind of man he might have become had fate been kind.
He would likely have unified the plains of the pale nomad tribe, wretched and impoverished. Perhaps even built a mighty force and revived his people through proper diplomacy with northern civilized society.
The pale nomad tribe’s forces were essentially their entire populace. Unlike other civilized nations, nearly all their tribal members could be classified as immediately deployable combatants. Thus, the legion that rose at his command was their whole race.
No matter how this war ended, their future would never have been bright. The people and foundations lost in battle, a vast continent they could conquer with their numbers but never rule, and rebels rising every moment.
Founding a nation and governing it were entirely different matters. The territory Karadskar could rule with his strength and authority was limited. Even dispatching trusted subordinates to govern in his stead would only scatter his own people.
The downfall of a nation lacking population relative to its forces lay ahead. Karadskar was a conqueror. But he could never have been a ruler. Therefore, he must have known this war would ultimately lead to the continent’s mutual destruction.
-Perhaps Yekaset desired that.
‘Nothing remained for him but ruin.’
-Like us. Yes. A dead son never returns.
It was as if his soul’s interior had turned to ruins. People like that sought to project their personal desolation onto the world. Fernandez understood his heart more keenly than anyone.
“Finished with your defense?”
“…….”
Karadskar looked up at Fernandez wordlessly. He reached into his bosom and drew out a rosary. Charruk. Iron chains wrapped around his wrist, producing a harsh frictional sound.
“Illegal entry, civilian massacres, cannibalism, arson and theft, murder, illegal occupation of private lands. Listing your war crimes would have no end…….”
“You intend to judge me by civilized society’s standards?”
“No.”
-Chak.
The rosary swayed slowly above his head. Beyond it, Fernandez’s deep blue eyes, bloodshot, gleamed.
“Demon worship and heretical gatherings, hostile acts and indiscriminate attacks on cathedrals. The deaths of innocents resulting from them. Will you defend these sins?”
“Your civilized society’s religion is heresy to us, Imperial, and the evils your cathedrals committed are demon worship to us. Speaking of innocents’ deaths? You? My son, killed by your orders! What sin did that child bear to die so blamelessly!”
“None.”
“What……?”
“That child bore only the crime of a future, but was innocent. Karadskar. Though I tolerated a small tragedy to avert a greater one, I won’t defend my sin.”
With those words, Fernandez dropped the rosary beside the wolf’s head.
“Religious tribunal jurisdiction, immediate execution of heretics, exorcism force delegation, proxy for church sacraments……. I will not exercise the authorities granted by the Holy Pantheon. At least to me, I lack the qualification to wield them against you, so I won’t face you as a priest. Thus, this court has no plaintiff or defendant.”
“What does that…….”
“In other words, I stand before you not as an Imperial, apostle of the Holy Pantheon, or priest of St. Bartholomew Monastery, but merely as a murderer who assassinated an innocent child. The price for the life and soul you should have enjoyed, the future stolen from you. You have the right to take that from me.”
Kwachik. Fernandez crushed and shattered the rosary. Leaving his greatsword plunged into the ground, he peered quietly into the dying Karadskar’s eyes.
It was like a play. A clumsy comedian reciting lines from a contrived script. Both Karadskar and Fernandez shared the same thought in this moment, with death at hand.
“……Why did that child have to die.”
“A man who, far in the future, would march on civilized society like you. Becoming the khagan of the wilderness, grinding hundreds of thousands of innocents under cartwheels.”
“How paradoxical.”
“……Yes.”
The child’s death had led to the same outcome after all—an utter paradox. Fernandez looked down at the dying Karadskar with sunken eyes.
He whispered through ragged breaths.
“You’ve lost one too. Right……? Son or daughter?”
“……A son.”
“If you hadn’t done it, we might have shared a drink. I won’t forgive you, but I understand you.”
“……Nor will I apologize to you. No regrets. But I understand you.”
At those words, Karadskar let out a deflated laugh. Even if reborn, they could never be friends. They’d commit the same acts without remorse, driven by the same actions and mindset.
Like reflections in a mirror. The two mirrored each other more than anyone else in the world. Little conversation had passed, but in that instant, they understood one another.
“The wolves aren’t howling.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you find it strange? Even as you and I clashed, my soldiers aren’t targeting you?”
Karadskar gasped blood-flecked words. Fernandez gripped the sword hilt tightly and raised his head. An icy silence without a whisper of wind enveloped them.
“……Ha.”
“I don’t know why they prepared so much for just you, but run. It’s a trap…….”
-Kwachik!
In that instant, Karadskar’s head snapped back violently. No matter his demonization, his body wasn’t ethereal. Flesh of blood, meat, muscle, and bone twisted in an impossible direction.
Fernandez yanked the sword hilt upward and retreated. Uduk, uduk. Accompanied by horrific frictional sounds, Karadskar’s body crumbled into a pile of flesh.
[Familiar sight, isn’t it?]
“Yekaset…….”
[Or not, Feizashi? What a joke. Naming himself in our tongue, daring to turn blades on us. Traitor. Yes, that name suited him absurdly well.]
-Ududuk!
A laugh like clashing metal shards erupted from Karadskar’s remains turned to flesh pile. A tone so venomous it seemed to boil the brain just hearing it.
Fernandez wiped the blood from his mouth. Though his battle-damaged innards were rapidly healing, the Demonica blood reacted to the great demon’s presence, boiling anew and twisting his vital energies.
-We must flee, Fernandez. Few cards left in our hand.
‘Can we?’
Fernandez scanned the surroundings with cold eyes. To the edge of the darkened horizon. Yellow-glowing eyes densely clustered, flickering. Soldiers turned beasts lurked in the shadows, glaring at him.
Even starting to flee, how many could he break through? Fernandez assessed his condition. Broken right ankle, right arm with severed tendons unresponsive, left arm barely gripping the hilt, organs burst and torn where even breathing caused blood to reflux.
With the bronze throne severed, magic was impossible. At least for now. Until researching other means, it was out. All cards played.
Karadskar had required that level of preparation. Compared to soloing a great villain even young Darian couldn’t assassinate alone, it was apt expenditure. But against a great demon.
When facing Sadarkelia, he’d had plenty of expendables. Slaughtering Mumto, Beitasser’s divinity and conclave souls. But now, alone with a powerless body and vanished mana against a great demon.
[Thought you hid it well? That we’d all forever be puppets in your play? Feizashi, you sly, pathetic human……. You showed us too much.]
The encircling wolves murmured in unison. A colossal presence descended from the massive moon above, scattering across the entire land.
His brain felt like it was boiling. His blood screamed to eradicate the demon before him. Not holy duty, but pure destructive urge. Early mental corruption symptoms.
[Well, Feizashi. Ring any bells?]
-Ududuk!
Karadskar’s remains still ground bone fragments. The flesh pile, beyond human form, birthed a single bloodshot eyeball rolling up.
Fernandez didn’t avert his gaze.
“Dead flesh.”
[Haha, then I suppose I must mimic dialogue too, to scatter even the moldy rust on your old memories.]
The flesh pile laughed eerily. Soon, faint groans and pleas leaked from within.
[Kill me…… please kill me. Father, Father, kill me please.]
-Uduk.
Fernandez’s grip on the hilt tightened involuntarily. Knowing the demon’s ploy to shake his reason, fury still surged through boiling veins, squeezing his heart.
[Remember now? Feizashi. We saw you. Many of us fell to your hand. No more. Now we know you, and those lowly heavenly false gods’ schemes! You’re too late again. Your plots end here, and this world will burn merrily under us once more!]
“Talkative now.”
The frenzied laughter echoing from the flesh pile quieted at Fernandez’s cold words. He stared straight into the rolling eyeball.
“Not fully recovered yet, are you, Yekaset?”
[…….]
“No, not even your true manifestation. Ah…… yes. Your ridiculous seal’s final condition was an apostle’s heart, wasn’t it? Pity. The apostle who’d voluntarily rip out his heart died with reason intact.”
[You bastard…….]
“Ask you in turn. Thought you hid it well? That I wouldn’t notice? If you knew my past, saw my previous life, you should’ve been warier. Yekaset. Yekaset of the seven crowns. If you remember Feizashi of the Crimson Tower, you should’ve been far more cautious!”
Fernandez’s eyes blazed like fire.
He took one step forward. Ignoring the pain rising from his broken ankle, the stumbling gait from lost balance!
Undeterred by the great demon’s presence scorching the air, the madness boiling hot in his blood, he glared at the flesh pile with burning eyes and spoke, word by deliberate word.
“Begged to be killed? Wanted to mimic my past life? Shake me? Then you succeeded. Look forward to it.”
He spun the hilt, raising the blade. The tip pierced the sky like moonlight, and Fernandez swung down at the flesh pile.
“I’ll make you mean it, repeating those words with all your heart. By the name of Feizashi Wildcast, sorcerer who ruled five thrones of the Crimson Tower, I swear.”
-Kwachik!
The blade sank into the flesh pile. The glaring eyeball burst. The whispering wolves around fell silent at once, glaring at him standing tall under the moonlight.
Fernandez ignored them. He stared straight at the bloated, rotten moon beyond the cloudy sky.
“By any means. You won’t survive longer than today.”