Chapter 129
Chapter 129
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 129
Chapter Title: Flames of the Dragonheart
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As Shar’kas spread his right hand, spiderwebs disgustingly sprouted not only from his fingertips but also from his back and waist, wriggling like wings and a tail.
Shar’kas wasn’t rushing or showing impatience. He was simply walking while upholding the dignity of an ancient royal.
Yet no one could stop his advance. In fact, aside from a few, everyone was seized by primal terror and couldn’t even move.
“Light of Flashing Brilliance, Shallen.”
Frisbiya had personally unearthed relics of the gods, mastered their use, and equipped them.
The mechanical breastplate of hers now split open to the sides, revealing a reactor—one of those relics. The blindingly white-hot reactor spat out a straight beam of light.
It was the legendary light said to incinerate all and reduce everything to ash, but as Shar’kas swung his hand once...
Chachachachachachang────!
The light refracted wildly along a dozen strands of spiderweb, piercing through three innocent warriors and one adventurer, killing them instantly.
“!”
Frisbiya’s eyes widened slightly. Impressive—those spiderwebs could deflect the very concept of force itself?
‘Heh, I’ll find out up close.’
Frisbiya charged at Shar’kas, dodging the tentacles of spiderwebs over and over as she closed in.
“How about point-blank range?”
She aimed a kick at the young lord’s head, but it was futile—caught effortlessly by his casually extended hand.
But even that seemed part of Frisbiya’s plan. A hatch on her knee guard flipped open, and light concentrated at the barrel that emerged.
“Baptism of Dawnlight, Garinbella.”
Oh, oooooh... The warriors and adventurers marveled at her seasoned battle instincts.
「Pathetic. A half-baked creation by Karenden.」
Frisbiya’s leg, wrapped in Shar’kas’s spiderwebs, was forcibly twisted with a sickening snap of her hip joint, turning the barrel toward her.
Had she not severed her own leg and rolled backward at that exact moment, her body would have been vaporized by the light that scorched the air.
Blood gushed as her leg flew off.
“C-Captain!”
As her squad members rushed forward to protect her, Shar’kas lifted the corner of his mouth as if struck by a delightful idea.
「Yes, shall we play soldiers for the first time in ages?」
Suddenly, half the warriors and adventurers encircling the young lord began moving their joints in stiff, jerky motions.
“......?”
“......?”
“......?”
The next instant, they started attacking those who had been their friends, family, and comrades moments ago—with expressions of horror.
These were warriors accustomed to battling abyssal horrors, but this situation...
When one became undead, expressions vanished from their faces. Their skin rotted and sloughed off, and the king’s marks appeared across their flesh.
That was why they could cut them down without hesitation. Because they believed it granted them peace.
But now... What attacked them before their eyes was unmistakably alive. Friends who retained their reason, alive.
「Ahahahaha, it’s always a spectacle...!」
Amid Shar’kas’s wicked laughter, beastkin claws pierced friends’ hearts, and fangs tore into comrades’ necks.
It was a hellscape, a brutal, merciless hellscape too wretched to witness with open eyes.
Those controlled by the spiderwebs pressed on with mad charges, even as their joints dislocated from impossible movements.
“Alakish!”
As blood soaked the snowfield red, billowing mist, Griffion finally set Rain down on the ground. Precisely in front of Alakish.
“R-Rain...!”
Kasena, who had watched the unbelievable carnage like a ghost-possessed soul, let out a dazed moan upon seeing the boy’s corpse with its heart pierced.
「Where, where is it... Rain, where is Rain’s forehead?」
Alakish’s vision had already gone pitch black; he couldn’t even discern his surroundings.
Pipi fluttered desperately and earnestly before him, guiding Alakish’s hand to Rain’s head with its wingbeats and warmth.
In his final death rattles, Alakish pressed his forehead to the dragon egg one last time, bidding farewell, then placed his hand on Kasena’s head.
「Grieve not. This is the final mission decreed for me, Alakish, by Karenden...」
He gazed at the heavens, offering his last prayer, then kissed Rain’s forehead. There, the miracle began.
* * *
Did even the gods share the same thought while beholding this twilight vista?
When my eyes opened—eyes I thought would never open again—what warmly bathed my vision was a world of dusk.
In this near-monochrome frozen wasteland, arriving here made reality feel faint... or so I’d like to say, but this land felt quite familiar.
‘The Crimson Mountains?’
At least, it bore a strong resemblance... To think this place would appear at life’s end. Had I loved it so much that I felt nostalgia?
Still, it wasn’t bad.
Beneath the warm spring sun, trees rustled softly, insects chirped, birds called—all blending into a single harmony.
「No, it is the landscape of my homeland, which I, Alakish, have always cherished and longed for.」
Turning at the familiar voice, I couldn’t help but smile. Alakish gazed at me, bathed in the lonely twilight.
“I must have liked you more than I thought, Alakish.”
「Hm?」
“I’ve lived a rough life, it seems, because I loved this story so much. The one where those who’ve gone before come to greet you when you die.”
It’d be a lie to say I’d never stayed up all night wondering who might appear.
If Rista had come, it would’ve been a riot—What kind of life did you live? Who did you love? What places did you see?—endless questions until I collapsed from exhaustion.
If Fride had come, we might’ve bantered playfully, then she’d puff cigarette smoke and suddenly grin, saying, “You lived hard, huh!” startling me.
If Kies had come, we’d have just smiled at each other for a long while without a word. Like when we met Pipi.
Tureina would’ve been awkward. My disciple outliving me by over three centuries, achieving even greater feats—what could I say? We’d just feel embarrassed.
If the chancellor auntie and my academy friends had appeared together... I might not have held back tears.
“But it’s you who came, Alakish. I never imagined it, but it’s not bad.”
Regrets from this life surfaced—words unsaid, deeds undone—but so did a strange relief that it was all over.
It’s finally done.
Now I can go too.
I’d held back from following them in death, unsure what they’d say if I gave up my life, but this ending... well...
「Your face is filled with regrets over a life lived.」
“......”
「Forget it. You haven’t lived long enough to warrant such regrets.」
I chuckled, thinking it an awkward pun, but Alakish’s expression held no jest.
「You told me, this Alakish, to go south together. Hearing those words then... it felt like my dying heart revived.」
“Yes...?”
「Going south with my daughter, to the homeland of my kin. Just dreaming of it let me feel happiness again after so long, heh heh heh.」
As Alakish smiled innocently, a tearing pain gripped my chest, and my eyes welled up red.
「This is a transaction, Rain Ludwig. I give you my soul. In return, can you show my daughter that dream in reality?」
“Alakish, what are you...?”
「You alone. You’re the only one I can entrust her to. You who’d shed tears for beastkin and tell me to go south together. No one but you, called directly by Karenden.」
With those words, Alakish turned, his form blurring like mist in a dream.
Not just Alakish—the entire dusky mountain range, the vision of the homeland he’d yearned for all his life, began to fade.
Only my own form remained intact, stirring an odd unease. I frantically called Alakish’s name.
「My daughter’s name is Akiraea. It means freedom. Now, she’s in your hands. So she can live a life befitting her name...」
By the time his voice escaped his lips, the dream world vanished like morning mist, and the brutal imperial snowfield sprawled vast and uncontrollable once more.
“Rain...”
Kasena’s tear-choked voice roused my hearing.
The sight of her sobbing, clutching Alakish’s body—his eyes closed in a serene smile of fulfillment—roused my vision.
And Pipi’s warmth, landing on my shoulder, flapping madly, and nuzzling my head, roused my touch.
“Ah...”
Dazedly lowering my gaze, I saw the clearly pierced wound near my heart perfectly healed.
And within, a heartbeat pulsed with a power I’d never felt before, clear as day.
The mana circulating my body wasn’t freezing cold but blazing like flame. A nucleus of overwhelming, absolute power forbidden to humans flooded my entire being with transcendent energy.
Pressing my chest with my right hand—which had surely been severed—drew a quiet sob of sorrowful farewell from the bond.
“Alakish...”
In that instant, flame slashed long across the air, condensing into a clear form, revealing a mystical silhouette.
It was a stone staff adorned with four rings symbolizing the four forms of flame: the Four-Ring Staff.
The staff’s shaft gleamed an impermanent gray like ashes, while the dragon-shaped metal fittings blazed with living dignity—gold, then crimson, rippling in deep scarlet waves.
The Cintamani.
The authority breathed into dragonkind by Karenden at their creation, said to hold near-infinite power.
The final step in FakeWarrior body modification was receiving this Cintamani from the Yellow Dragon to infuse the soul.
As my trembling, grief-stricken hand reached out cautiously to grasp that noble soul...
“...This time, we fight together.”
Ancient flames surged fiercely, incinerating the endless blizzard-spewing dark clouds over this irreverent empire, opening a path of light in the night sky.
「───?!」
The snow clouds blanketing the heavens were no natural phenomenon but the law of power born from madness.
No human fire could burn them, no mortal light pierce them.
Thus, when Rain emerged from the flame’s rampage, Shar’kas’s smile vanished, dread surging in his mind.
「You... how are you alive?」
The boy offered no answer to the hollow question. He merely swept his gaze around lightly.
With eyes of divine extremity, blooming seven petals.
Then, the countless spiderwebs embroidering the air caught fire... and the warriors perpetrating kin-slaying tragedy collapsed to the ground.
‘My authority, in an instant...?’
Burning that many webs should have drained commensurate power, yet why did that brat show no fatigue?
He shouldn’t have panicked.
He shouldn’t have given the boy time to plant the staff of fire into the ground and form the transcendent mudra.
“Mental Image Construct.”
The mudra formed by reverently clasping both hands: three seals.
Ra (羅).
Gyeong (警).
Hwa (火).
Like light piercing a world of black darkness, vibrant flames greedily devoured the monochrome domain ruling this vast white realm.
“Fire Realm: Flowing Measure World Venerable.”
First, vast mana concentrated at high speed, forming a ring of flame around him with a three-meter radius. At its center, embers scattered as the rune of Hwa (火) engraved itself.
「That script is surely Karenden’s...?」
The eight foundational elements of magic—Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Ice, Metal, Poison, Lightning—exist as runes themselves.
Composing magic with these ‘origin runes’ grants transcendent attribute energy, power no mortal can wield.
Even Lin could handle only the Lightning rune for Thunder Palm Blood, and even that was child’s play compared to Fire, leader of the four great elements.
‘Because the mana demanded by origins is unreasonably immense...’
The next instant, like fire spreading along oil, five triangles rose sequentially from the flames within the Fire circle.
Yu (流).
Ryang (量).
Se (世).
Jon (尊).
Gyeong (警).
The ancient blaze roared fiercely, tongues lashing, illuminating this wicked mystic polar region like a city that never sleeps, causing Shar’kas’s body to halt momentarily.
“Don’t let him go, Rain... I smell fear from the young lord Shar’kas right now!”
Griffion, sensing something in the sequence, shouted urgently. Kasena, dazedly staring at the boy’s back, asked.
“Fear smell?”
“It’s what terrified prey emits. What they give off right before fleeing!”
Mortals are mere insects swept in the flow of causality.
The immortal who turns causality’s wheel bestowed upon me, Shar’kas, dominion over all life’s apex.
An irrefutable truth none on this land could deny... And now, I feel fear of such an insect?
「Heh, heh heh heh heh heh... Absurd. What could vermin less than bugs possibly do? Me, Shar’kas, flee?」
Crunch, crackle, grind... Suddenly, four pairs of spider-leg-like bony limbs burst from Shar’kas’s back, horrifyingly grotesque.
Fetid mucus oozed from the eight spider legs, writhing like evil shadows.
Simultaneously, a repulsive, pale absolute abyssal power exploded, paralyzing the consciousness of all nearby mortals.
「If you revived once, I’ll just kill you twice. Simple.」
Primal terror stood before them.
Terror took the form of a boy attended by mucus that corrupted and melted all the world in an instant.
A noble of a forgotten era, granted transcendent power by the ancient king...
「Seal it: Heavenly Spider Web.」
As that loathsome profane power split into countless strands and raged, space quivered, heavens and earth melted, and great nature wailed.
In the past, I couldn’t have endured even a second, but now I see it. Now I can oppose that power.
Amid a sense of omnipotence like swimming in a dream.
“Bell Quirius.”