Chapter 70
Chapter 70
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 70
Chapter Title: The King Now Stands Purely Above It All, Advancing Toward the Sun (2)
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*
A deep abyss untouched by moonlight. Sucked downward into its depths, Fernandez was crumbling apart. Spatial leaps between voids were forbidden to beings bound by flesh. As space twisted and tangled, his body shattered.
‘Kuhk!’
Agony rampaged through his mind. His nervous system, already burned and torn, could no longer truly feel pain—it was mere phantom torment now. Yet with his unstable soul, he wailed.
-Do you finally get how I felt?
Feizashi’s laughter echoed from afar, sometimes near. Plummeting through the abyss, Fernandez screamed—sometimes sinking, sometimes rising, sometimes floating. That is, if he still had vocal cords.
‘Kughhh!!’
A soulless spirit was incomplete. Only the flesh’s vital blood and vigor could anchor the soul; the body was no different from an anchor for it. This was the moment he truly realized that obvious truth.
[You shall neither fall, nor lie down, nor find rest until your mission is fully complete. This is the first authority I grant you.]
From the distance came Beitasser’s damned voice. Fernandez groaned within a body repeatedly minced and destroyed, crushed by the pressure pulverizing his soul. The power of immortality was reconstructing his pulped flesh.
‘My son. My son. My son….’
Fernandez clung to those comforting words to hold onto his sanity. It was no easy task amid the searing pain. But if he stopped, if he surrendered his reason to soothing madness, all his efforts would be for naught.
‘My son. You and I have turned our backs for sixty years. And yet still.’
He recalled his dying son’s eyes. Dozens of times, those madness-glazed eyes as his son destroyed his own body into chunks of meat and bone dust.
‘I finally feel the same pain as you. This is my karma.’
A broken finger sprouted inside his heart. His spine lay beneath his feet. And yet, even as his brain turned to mush, language centers tangled, hallucinations blending pleasure and pain—
He lived again, and died again. Each death brought Beitasser’s mocking laughter.
[You shall neither fall, nor lie down, nor find rest until your mission is fully complete.]
‘Even without your words, I won’t lie down or crave rest until my goal is achieved.’
Fernandez roared with bloodshot eyes. No voice emerged, so his shout echoed within his heart.
[You shall neither fall, nor lie down, nor…]
‘I will never stop. I won’t give up. I won’t die. I won’t die. I won’t die like this.’
[You shall neither… until your mission…]
‘I am not your dog!’
Fernandez no longer called to his son for comfort. To him, his son was no symbol of peace or rest. Longing, wish, hope. The name of scorching fire and an eternally unhealing wound. Thoughts of his son always left him with a scar that wept blood, never scabbing over.
“We are drifters who’ve left time behind, adrift on distant paths,” Abel had said. That wise dragon’s words applied sadly only to her. He was no drifter. He had never drifted.
His sea chart always mapped toward the North Star. His compass fixed unyieldingly in one direction. She had her lighthouse too. But so did Fernandez.
‘I am not your dog.’
How much time passed? Time meant nothing in this space. Grinding his teeth, Fernandez repeated endlessly.
‘I am not fate’s dog.’
He had already proven fate wasn’t immutable by slaying his uncle. Killing himself would be easier still.
*
Abel stared blankly at the magic circle that had swallowed Fernandez and vanished, losing its mana core. She drowned in confusion and sorrow.
[You’re leaving…]
Her true form, the dragon’s shape, was rapidly devouring her soul. The shard of a broken god supporting her soul wasn’t strong enough to bear her full draconic self.
[Melisildur, it might be best if our journey ends here.]
Abel slowly knelt, collapsing to the ground. Her body shrank bit by bit. Ebony scales flaked away one by one; the massive muscles and pillar-like bones upholding the dragon’s frame dissolved.
Golden hair like a twilight wheat field clung wet from the rain; blue eyes that once sang of hope withered with tears. In human form, Abel prostrated herself and sobbed.
“As you said, Fernandez. I’ll never take dragon form again. I’ll heed your words. So please. Please.”
She touched her neck. The necklace was gone. Her bare nape tore at her heart like a blade. She thought she’d grown accustomed to death. Thought she’d honor the glorious heroes’ legacies. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t sing her lament with calm detachment.
-Flutter.
“…Kirhas.”
“The rain’s cold, Abel.”
Kirhas, who had approached unnoticed, draped her cloak over Abel. The sodden fabric clung to her body. Kirhas stroked Abel’s wet hair, soothing her.
“He’s gone.”
“No.”
“…?”
Abel looked up at Kirhas through tear-filled eyes. Kirhas’s body burned with sweat and heat, speaking of the grueling distance she’d run. She had raced here with all her might for her liege.
All she found was the throne room strewn with Fernandez’s bloodstains. Yet her turquoise eyes blazed with resolve and hope.
In truth, Kirhas still saw light. The deep blue of dawn sky. The path emitting that light. Faintly flickering, yet straight and true.
Her path to her liege. Even if delusion, a hope she couldn’t abandon. Clutching Abel’s shoulders, Kirhas said,
“Your grace lives.”
“…Kirhas.”
“Don’t drown in grief. Advance as always, minding the wildflowers at our feet.”
From her bosom, Kirhas pulled a dry, withered flower bud and placed it in Abel’s hand. Abel groaned as she accepted it.
“I’m sorry, but whether Sir Albert lives or truly died, we have one more task ahead.”
Prince Vicente approached with a sorrowful expression. He hadn’t yet recovered from the dragon’s revival and the recent battle’s shock. Even so, he managed to speak to Abel, now in the form of one breathtakingly beautiful woman.
Meeting Abel’s blue eyes, Prince Vicente flushed like a boy. Stammering, he continued.
“A giant is destroying our city. The Mausoleum Church’s revolt isn’t over.”
It took Vicente ages to voice the rest. Even then, the giant stirred, bringing ruin to the city. Time was short. Yet in his eyes, he saw the fragile, weeping Anak. And the mural of King Dane mourning the fallen dragon.
“Will you stand for us once more?”
“…Ahh. Yes. You young humans always needed my aid.”
Abel’s blue eyes gleamed as she forced a weary smile. Looking to Kirhas, she said,
“Kirhas. Do you know where he is?”
“…Yes. I see him.”
“Support him then. He’ll need your help.”
“And you…?”
“Dain’s children are like my own. Always have been. Frail humans. Needing my help. I can’t refuse these children.”
Guardian dragon of humans. Mother and mentor to the Knight King. She who had burned body and breath to shield a human city to her last moment couldn’t ignore humans pleading for aid.
She longed to seek Fernandez’s location right now. But she couldn’t. Not while Dain’s realm, his city, the plains and hills where dragons soared, crumbled like this.
“I trust you, Kirhas. Save him, bring him back.”
“Yes, Abel. I will.”
Gazing into Kirhas’s steadfast turquoise eyes, Abel felt even shame. To find hope in this young girl. Abel shook her head briefly.
“Child. Give me your sword. Though I made a promise with him, I’ll do my utmost.”
*
How much time had passed? A minute? An hour? Ten years? Perhaps a century. Leap spells fixed entry and exit coordinates in time and space, but the passage’s nature remained unexplained.
-Splash.
Even after hitting the ground, Fernandez felt no sensation. His body was merely a pile of flesh chunks. Far too diverged from humanity to sense as one.
-Hoooong….
But wind blew. The world stood still. Or perhaps his body did. Fernandez thought slowly amid nauseating disorientation. Far away, in his ear, Feizashi’s voice rang.
-Fool. Is this your end?
‘No.’
Unsure what “this” ended, Fernandez replied curtly. No end before his purpose.
-Thump, thump, thump.
Somewhere in his flesh, a heart slowly formed and pulsed. Meat gathered, bones twisted back into place—
-Crackle.
An arm bent backward, fingers regaining shape one by one. Like assembling shattered puzzle pieces. Piece by piece. Piece by piece. Slowly.
-Thump, thump, thump.
Demonica blood revived, flooding his veins; his form began restoring. Thick sinews writhed like snakes around his waist, climbing his arms. Strength returned.
Strength returned. Repeating it, Fernandez groped for the greatsword embedded somewhere in his body. An impurity in his flesh’s recovery.
-Shing.
Drawing it out, he instinctively braced the floor. The blade dug in. Using it as a pillar, he slowly knelt on one knee.
Black hair fell, veiling his face. His heart pounded fiercely again. Immortality’s stigmata merely evaded death. But as soul influenced flesh, so flesh influenced soul.
His body slowly, perfectly reformed to his soul’s desire.
-Are you sane? Has your mind broken?
‘No.’
Through black strands, blue eyes gleamed. Like a honed saintmetal longsword. Fatigue-clouded eyes burned away the dark.
[I have come upon you, and through this, you become my proxy and that of the Holy Pantheon. You shall neither crumble, nor compromise, nor stagnate. This is the second authority I grant you.]
Beitasser’s voice resounded in his head. The stigmata on his back blazed white. [Indomitable Stigmata]. In no case would his spirit, nature, soul, or vital soul waver.
Yet it wasn’t solely Beitasser’s blessing. Fernandez bit down, feeling his teeth. Fingers intact. Demonica’s blessing hadn’t vanished. Flesh fully restored.
A pity Shield’s blessing was absent. Perhaps due to the moonless abyss. Or incompatible with dual divine graces. Needed testing.
Even before immortality, his will had never died. Before indomitability, he’d never halted. Beitasser’s blessings were mere useful tools.
He had never stagnated. Fernandez slowly rose.
-Hoooong….
Wind blew. In the abyss, he sensed vast space. Fernandez snapped his fingers. No circuits for magic, but Flint Spark was skill, not spell.
-Flick.
A small spark jumped before his eyes, briefly illuminating. Demonica dynamic vision scanned the instant, sensing familiarity. Ruins he’d seen. Or rather, familiar structure.
Like Abel’s tomb. Assuming intact, not buried in earth. Same shape as the ruins where Avelessa slept.
Far off, a massive jade throne. King Dane seated upon it.