Chapter 185
Chapter 185
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 185
Chapter Title: The Demonic Spark
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Ramin Solost Muel knew all about the "Chosen Ones" as well.
He had even met one in person before, and in the past, he had imagined that he himself might be selected someday.
Of course, for far longer than that, he had considered it little more than a delusion.
'I've been chosen?'
The demonic spirit vanished without a trace, just as it had spoken in his mind.
Yet the sensation lingered in Ramin's body.
It was that tingling surge climbing from his fingertips and toes, crawling up his spine and swirling in his head.
The hero's power was awakening.
Mahim hadn't noticed Ramin's change yet.
'He's doing it on purpose.'
It was customary for heroes to hide what gift they had received.
If the enemy knew what power you wielded, they could counter it.
The demonic spirit slipping him this power in secret and departing seemed to stem from the same logic.
'I'll end it with the next strike.'
Anyway, Ramin lacked the stamina or blood to drag the fight out any longer.
Ramin dodged the Minotaur hero Mahim's axe blade, parried the edge, and plunged into his guard.
'This much is still easy.'
Even up to now, breaching Mahim's defenses to this depth hadn't been difficult.
The problem was always avoiding the follow-up attack.
The iron mace would come crashing down, and the short spear thrusting in.
Even if he barely blocked one, the other had to be taken with his body.
'But not this time.'
Ramin spread his left hand wide.
-Pzzzt...!
The air around his fingers cried out with crackling sparks.
Ramin thrust his left hand straight into Mahim's chest.
"...!"
Mahim froze in place with a thud.
Even as agony coursed through his entire body, Mahim struggled to move somehow.
'This mere... pain won't stop me...!'
But it had nothing to do with Mahim's will.
The nerve signals in a human body are transmitted via tiny electrical currents.
When an external current stronger than that floods in, it disrupts the signal transmission, and the nerves can misfire, causing contraction or rigidity.
And a heart made of muscle is no different.
Mahim's heart stopped.
The blood it had been pumping flowed through the arteries, hesitated in the capillaries, and stalled in the veins. Oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange halted, the breathing muscles needed to inflate his bloated muscles and lungs seized up, and his optic nerves delivered one last glimpse of the sky's light before everything went dark.
'...But I, hero Mahim, will not die yet!'
The hero Mahim somehow held his ground.
The touch of the Wrathful One lingered on Mahim's body.
A power that defied reason and logic lay dormant within him.
But Ramin didn't miss his chance.
'Teacher said to check twice even if you think the enemy's dead.'
Ramin figured his sword wouldn't fail to cleave even a motionless straw dummy.
The instant Mahim's fingers twitched, Ramin's blade slipped into the gap between Mahim's helmet and breastplate.
As Mahim crumpled to his knees, his armor clanged together with a heavy clunk, and his head tumbled free.
Ramin kicked Mahim's chest, sending the body toppling backward.
Blood gushed out in thick spurts, soaking the air sac.
Ramin swallowed hard.
The gnawing hunger he had momentarily forgotten came crashing back.
'No, I can't.'
Ramin shook his head and glanced around.
The clamor still rose from below, but up here, there was only him—and the wyvern clutching its pained eye, oblivious that its master lay dead.
'He's someone I had to kill anyway, and my prey at that. What's the harm?'
An old memory surfaced in Ramin's mind.
Ramin's journeys had taken him across the western continent, the Black Forest homeland, and the southern continent—and he'd spent the most time in this southern land.
Because law and order were scarcest here.
Even so, Ramin had strived to live rightly, per his teacher's teachings.
He never killed the innocent and helped the less fortunate when he could. That was the will of Yacheon, too.
But Ramin didn't consider himself spotless.
There had been that one time.
A robbery at an inn on the frontier.
The moment Ramin stepped inside, the thief who had snatched the innkeeper's money shoved past him and fled.
Ramin promised the distraught innkeeper he'd pursue the thief in exchange for a week's free lodging.
The thief was quick on his feet, escaping to the outskirts, but not as fast as Ramin.
The panting man whirled around and drew his sword.
He was a young man, barely shed of boyish features.
Ramin said he'd let him go if he returned the stolen money.
But the youth was tense, telling Ramin to scram.
At that moment, Ramin had a choice.
One was to persuade him calmly with words.
Approaching an armed man barehanded was risky, but words might just coax him down.
But Ramin chose the second option.
He drew his own sword and taunted the thief to come at him if he didn't want to die.
The thief attacked, and Ramin killed him.
What stuck in Ramin's memory wasn't the act itself, but his state at the time: parched and starving.
He had craved blood.
Despite having room for another choice, he'd provoked the thief to sate his hunger.
'So what? Everyone does whatever it takes to survive, right?'
Ramin snapped back to reality.
-Bang!
A gunshot.
The air sac's leather couldn't absorb all the Minotaur's spilling blood and let it pool.
And in that pooled blood, Ramin saw his own face reflected—hunched over the corpse on all fours like a beast, tongue lolling out.
"Huff, Ramin! Are you alright?"
Ramin looked up.
Gorgota Palu was clambering awkwardly onto the air sac.
Come to think of it, the wyvern that had been writhing behind him now lay slumped.
Gorgota must have spotted it while climbing up and shot it dead.
Ramin stood as well.
Hoping Gorgota hadn't seen him with his tongue out over the blood.
"Gorgota?"
Fortunately, when Ramin looked, Gorgota seemed too focused on scaling the sac to notice.
"No word from you, so I got worried and came up."
"I'm fine. What about below?"
"Even in my military days, I've never seen chaos like this."
Gorgota's talk of a massive moray eel soaring through the sky made Ramin think it was a joke.
But as he walked to the air sac's edge, he could see the battle raging around the airship.
The wizards swam through the air like fish in water, luring the giant moray with spells that shoved, yanked, or blasted it.
Yet the moray shrugged off the magic with eerie calm, pressing toward the airship.
"That moray seems built to counter Mazdari's spells."
"Spells?"
"Yes. Normally, even a giant guardian resists magic poorly. But..."
Ramin turned around.
"Then we'll need something besides magic."
Gorgota looked puzzled at first but understood after Ramin explained.
"I'll relay that to Mazdari."
"No need. Even looking like that, if it's the Wrathful One's guardian, it must have intelligence. Which means it knows anger, too."
"Pardon?"
Ramin went back, grabbed the Minotaur hero Mahim's severed head.
Then he strode to the edge again and bellowed.
"Hey, you ugly moray! See who I killed up here!"
The giant moray, mid-chase of Mazdari, slowly turned its head—or so it seemed.
It was an optical illusion.
Massive things always look sluggish from afar.
Ramin shouted again.
"Your dumb squad leader Mahim is dead! If you don't take him, he'll go on Yacheon's altar as an offering!"
A flustered Gorgota interjected from the side.
"The pantheon doesn't use human sacrifices!"
"I know that. It's just provocation."
"...Oh, right? I was worried for a second."
"What do you take people for?"
As the two bantered, the giant moray veered toward the air sac's top, straight at Ramin.
Mazdari looked thoroughly thrown off.
But this time, the moray ignored Mazdari's interference and attacks, homing in on the airship.
Ramin figured his taunt had worked.
"What, getting hungry now? Here, take it."
Ramin hurled Mahim's head with all his might.
The Minotaur head spun end over end, plummeting into the air below between Ramin and the moray.
-...You bastard!
The moray accelerated.
"Mad you missed? Here, catch this one for sure."
Ramin snatched up the backpack he'd hidden behind him.
It was Mahim's pack.
Stuffed full of dynamite meant to rupture the airship's sac.
Ramin gripped the strap and flung it with full force.
He yelled to Gorgota.
"Shoot it!"
"Too close!"
Gorgota aimed his rifle and said coolly.
Too close, and not only would the blast catch them both, but the airship would take damage too.
'But too far...'
The backpack arced down toward the moray's head.
But at that distance, it shrank to a speck.
-Bang!
Seeing Gorgota reload instantly, Ramin knew.
A miss.
'Then...'
Ramin thrust out his left hand.
A bolt of blue lightning linked his fingertips to the dynamite-laden backpack.
His vision flickered.
-
─┼
"Feeling better?"
Ramin opened his eyes at the voice.
He saw the air sac overhead.
He was on the deck.
Ramin shook his head against the dizziness as he rose.
"No... my head..."
"That's from using demonic power. Normally, you'd burn herbs to replenish, but since you passed out, I used a temporary fix."
Ramin glanced aside to see dried leaves smoldering.
Mazdari said,
"Well done. You exceeded expectations."
"Uh, what about that giant moray?"
"Your attack didn't kill it, but it lost nearly all its magic resistance. Thanks to you, we finished it off."
"Ah, good to hear."
Mazdari fell silent, as if pondering something.
Ramin voiced a twinge of unease.
"What?"
"Not entirely good."
"Why not?"
"In its death throes, it damaged the air sac."
"What?"
"The Thunder Whale is crashing right now."
"Why say it so casually?!"
Ramin scrambled to his feet.
Soldiers and wizards dashed frantically across the deck.
Ramin peered over the railing to see the ground rushing ever closer.
Mazdari said impassively,
"Everything that flies must fall eventually."