Chapter 227
Chapter 227
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 227
Chapter Title: Paladin's Final Stand
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“I surrender! I’ll do it, so please, please stop!”
Prince Ovin raised the white flag, his voice breaking into sobs, just as Elamas was about to kill his fourth guard.
Elamas dispatched the human guards in ways so creatively cruel it was as if they were mere toys to him.
He had been on the verge of shoving a blade down this guard’s throat all the way to his heart when Ovin cried out.
“That’s right. If you’d listened sooner, how much better would it have been? These three died because you hesitated, you incompetent fool. Not because of me.”
As Elamas flashed a sinister grin and Ovin brought the flute to his lips, Valensidis was seized by a sense of utter despair.
‘No.’
Stop, Ovin.
The only reason he’s keeping you and the princess alive is because you still have some use.
If you play that final movement now and shatter Rigwind’s barrier... Elamas will kill you without a doubt.
‘I’m sorry to the guards, but even if it means sacrificing every last one of them, we have to hold out until Rain Ludwig arrives...’
I have to stop him.
I have to guide him onto the right path.
But... but... but... he couldn’t escape this absolute pressure crushing his body, his flesh, his very soul.
‘Ovin, no! Don’t play the flute!’
* * *
“There’s no way Ashuka rang that bell five times for nothing.”
“That must mean the prince has returned.”
“We have to go help him.”
A significant number of the soldiers stationed throughout the castle grabbed their spears and swords, heading toward the palace.
They should have arrived one by one by now, but they were held back.
By a single paladin guarding the path to the palace.
“Severing Form: Flash Cut.”
The holy spear Ryunak unleashed a long, ferocious flash from the paladin’s grip.
A slash of sword energy. Beams of wildly raging power swept across the entire area.
Buildings standing tall on both sides were sliced through like paper and collapsed, clearing the stuffy surroundings in an instant.
“W-what is this...?”
“The Light Spear...?”
“That’s definitely the priest’s guard...”
The soldiers would have met the same fate.
If the massive figure in black iron hadn’t stepped in front of them to block that blade of execution.
Heavy... The dragonbone spear creaked violently in Bart’s two-handed grip.
“Fall back until the fight’s over! Staying here is just asking for a dog’s death!”
As Bart bellowed at the soldiers, they exchanged glances and retreated step by hesitant step.
“With that last clash, the difference in our power is clear.”
Paladin Snir twirled the spear shaft with artistic flair, shifting his stance.
“My orders are to guard this pass. I won’t pursue or mock those who flee.”
Orders, yes, orders. If they were orders, they must be.
Orders that could not be refused.
His body, revived by the Lizard Lord’s authority, was bound utterly to Elamas’s commands, who wielded that power.
“Inexperienced warrior, there’s no need to rush toward death.”
Bart gave no reply.
He simply advanced toward the former paladin, his black iron armor clanking silently.
“I wonder what gives you the audacity to stand against me. It can’t be your own strength. Could it be that Dragon Slayer spear?”
What halted Bart momentarily was the paladin’s next move.
“No need for surprise. This is to teach you.”
What Snir gripped was a wooden club rolling on the blood-soaked ground...
The kind children might use in soldier games, or perhaps for shaking out laundry.
Whatever its original purpose, it was hardly a suitable weapon for this situation.
“What matters to a warrior isn’t the weapon, but the warrior’s own skill.”
Was it because he saw it as an insult to his pride?
Or was it impatience to reach the palace as quickly as possible?
Bart kicked off the ground, closing the distance in one breath, swinging the dragonbone spear with inhuman strength and speed.
“...!”
That strike, powerful enough to shatter a cliff face in one blow, was blocked effortlessly in midair, as if by magic.
What caught the dragonbone spear was a club wrapped in an instant explosion of mana...
The flow of power halted so calmly that to onlookers, it might have seemed like a lightweight toy had merely bumped into it.
But as if to shatter that illusion in an instant, a fierce gust whipped up, filling the air with thick clouds of sand and dust.
It went even further.
The wooden club that had halted the dragonbone spear spun gracefully, then struck Bart’s breastplate, sending him flying far away.
He crashed through an alley fence, cracking the outer wall of a stone building, and blood poured from the slits in his helmet.
‘This can’t be...?’
He felt the same despair as back then.
When he faced the Dragon Slayer...
It was exactly like standing before an endless cliff.
Did those at the peak see something invisible to him?
“No need for despair. We first descendants are born with a vast physical disparity compared to you humans.”
Among warriors, Snir had a fairly average build.
His height barely reached average, and in terms of physique alone, Bart held a clear advantage.
And yet... this was the pinnacle?
If FakeWarriors were the pinnacle of the sword, paladins were the masters of the spear. The twin pillars of might protecting the civilized world.
To sever the despair surging in his mind, Bart let out a piercing shout and thrust the dragonbone spear with all his might.
“Namryun Emperor’s Seven Forms: Five Clear Mountains!”
He’d never been arrogant about his own strength, but surely his skill wasn’t this pathetic. It couldn’t be.
“Shouting louder doesn’t change your mastery of technique.”
But no matter how he swung, thrust, or slashed, it was Bart who was gradually cornered.
“Compared to that spear’s original owner, your skill is shamefully lacking.”
No matter how he struggled and flailed, it all rebounded back onto his own body...
“Can’t you hear the spear weeping?”
Every precise cut exuded elegance. There were no openings in that chain of grace.
‘It can’t have been for nothing.’
Ten seconds?
Maybe fifteen at most.
‘All that effort couldn’t have been for nothing.’
In those fifteen seconds.
Snir hadn’t moved a step, taking all of Bart’s attacks unscathed, while Bart’s armor was over eighty percent shattered.
Beneath it, his body was drenched in blood... Even his hands gripping the dragonbone spear were slick with it.
- Uncle.
- Uncle Bart.
- If the world spins, you must grip your weapon.
Seeing Bart press on despite his state, Snir felt a flicker of puzzlement.
From that near-obsessive resolve, he sensed... some tension?
Before Bart could unleash the next Namryun Emperor’s Thirteen Forms, Snir—who had held only defense until now—counterattacked for the first time.
“The fight was decided long ago. What drives you to keep charging?”
The club, honed to a razor edge of sword energy, halted chillingly before Bart’s eyes.
It hadn’t missed.
The opponent had simply ensured it didn’t connect.
“Do you seek to rise to fame by felling a paladin? To be a tool of the Light Church? Or do you simply wish to die?”
From within the dented black iron helmet came ragged breaths.
“I’ve never once dreamed of being the world’s greatest. Such impossible goals never crossed my mind.”
He inhaled.
Exhaled.
Between those breaths mingled the wet rattle of internal bleeding. Each of Snir’s counters had been lethal.
“Then are you charging at me simply to die?”
Humanity’s hero Rista.
Humanity’s greatest swordsman Arthur Brius.
He knew bone-deep that he was not their equal, that he could not walk their path.
Knowing he could never reach the peak, why not set down the sword? Why keep swinging it?
The reason had been the same from the day he first gripped it until now. Unchanged.
“I just want to create a world where children don’t have to cry. That’s why I fight. From the first time I picked up a blade, and even now.”
At those words, as if displeased by the very fact of his resurrection, Snir’s expression rippled with something strange.
“Admirable.”
A faint smile touched his lips. It felt like his own words.
- Did you hear that just now?
How had his own path strayed so far from the one who spoke those same words?
The joy of the day Apostle Seoryung selected him as paladin remained vivid in his memory.
Draping pure white silk cloaks over both shoulders was the final rite of the paladin ceremony, proof that the apostle had chosen him as her guardian.
- I like him. Snir, was it? I choose this one.
Seven warriors had made it to the final selection back then. All renowned spear masters from their clans.
Compared to them, the seventeen-year-old Snir had been a mere green boy without qualification.
Raised by the red true dragon Shalesarum, the youngest apostle who illuminated the world’s darkness with good deeds and shone with beautiful renown, Elsa.
- But Apostle, this one is the least promising among all the warriors here...
When she asked why he had learned spear arts, he remembered giving the exact same answer as that human warrior just now.
- A promising talent?
She had laughed innocently like a child and chosen Snir.
- What do you think, Father?
Ignoring everyone’s objections, she draped the white cloak over Snir’s shoulders.
She bestowed the holy spear upon his hands.
She chose Snir as her lifelong companion and protector.
- I too am moved by this child’s resolve.
That was when he vowed.
To dedicate his spear, his life, his very soul to her, no matter the circumstance.
‘She was meant to bring light to this world.’
Wherever Elsa went, flowers of laughter bloomed. Whether humans, subhumans, or elves...
She carried the fragrance of the gods. In her words, actions, laughter, voice—everything.
Serving her up close was a miracle beyond miracles.
‘To say I felt no affection would be a lie, but knowing my place and duty, I never let it show.’
Even hiding his heart, ten years of unparalleled happiness repeated.
‘But when Shalesarum fell on the front lines, everything changed... as if her very personality had been replaced.’
Contempt and persecution of the weak, and corruption.
She seemed to believe the weak had driven Shalesarum to death. When that great flame had gone of her own will.
In the end, she sought necromancy through contact with Lizard Lord Neigallas.
The abyss had seeped into her grief and lamentations. Snir couldn’t stop it.
The situation spiraled to the worst.
Before their racial pride became a disgrace, the elves dispatched a massive subjugation force to end it themselves...
- Paladin! Why protect such a villain? Have you fallen too?
On the day the elves’ finest warriors arrived, Snir set aside his beliefs for duty.
He wanted a world without crying children, but seeing the child following one warrior burst into tears froze him in place.
That day, Snir was pierced by seven spears and met his end. After slaying one paladin and 148 warriors.
- You’re not dead. Serve me again. Stay hidden for now.
He thought he had died, but his eyes opened, and now he was bound by necromancy, under Elamas’s control.
Once he served out of duty and love, now revived...
Yet now, hearing those words from another’s lips—words he himself had spoken long ago—the chains felt a little looser.
“Truly admirable.”
Muttering that, Snir astonishingly created distance first, stepping back nearly ten paces.
He tossed aside the club and spun the holy spear Ryunak from his back, gripping it firmly.
The spear, obeying its master’s will, emitted elegant light, forming its blade.
“Forgive my rudeness in calling you an inexperienced warrior.”
As a warrior, the way to atone for that rudeness was to end this duel with full commitment.
Tzzzzz... With the crackle of electricity, the spear blade swelled massively as mana surged into it explosively.
It took the high holy spear Ryunak, forged in the elves’ exclusive forges, just 1.7 seconds to reach maximum output.
“Human warrior, I would know your name.”
Not omnipotent like the all-purpose sword called the “cure for all ailments,” the spear had its own strengths.
Namely, the extreme point.
The sword energy thrust by a master concentrates lethality to a single point, granting a “focused might” that wide-ranging sword energy lacks.
“Bart Yurions.”
Known in the world as the 11th platinum rank, but mere prey before Snir, Bart could not wield sword energy.
He could not counter that sword energy with his own.
All Bart could do was close the gap before that sword energy pierced him and finish Snir.
“I will remember your name.”
It was around then that Rem, having finished with Pel, arrived.
“What the hell is this?”
There was no time to even stop the fight amid the near-scream. Rain and Miria were rushing in from the other side.
“Bart!”
Before he could grasp the situation, Bart cracked the ground with reinforced leg strength and shot forward like an arrow.
The holy spear Ryunak, blazing at full power like the sun, let out a high, mournful cry.
A torrent of pure white flash erupted from its tip, stripping the world of light, shadow, and color for an instant...
“...!”
The intense wave of power shot straight, grazing Bart’s shoulder.
A scorching burn—even a mere brush melted his pauldrons into slag.
The strike pierced holes through every structure in its path until it hit the horizon. Seeing Bart evade the sword energy and charge Snir, Rem clenched his fist.
“He dodged it! As expected!”
No, did he dodge?
Miria’s judgment, honed near master level by memory resonance and her swordsman’s instinct, differed.
“Something’s off. It’s like he deliberately made the sword energy easy to dodge.”
And that was not all.
As Bart closed in and they exchanged blows, even that didn’t feel like a desperate deathmatch.
“Belief alone achieves nothing, Bart Yurions.”
Snir’s momentum, scattering elegant spear energy, was impeccably pure.
“A warrior’s belief!”
It held no deception or trickery to lure openings. As if to say, watch and learn.
“Must be built upon the bedrock of effort, passion, and skill!”
If the suspicions had ended there, they would have intervened to slay Snir.
“Keep striving!”
But...
Snir pointed out flaws in Bart’s stance, exploiting them without simply piercing.
He could kill at any moment yet refrained.
“But I lack your talent! I can’t build that kind of skill!”
Like a swordmaster refining a disciple’s form in a wooden sword spar.
“Like when Rista taught Lin spearmanship long ago.”
Memories from a past life surfaced without context, making Miria flinch and glance at Rain.
“No need for despair. Build your soul upon belief. One day, you will reach it.”
Find one worth devoting your life to protect, inexperienced warrior.
Or perhaps no need to seek.
You’ve already taken up the spear to protect this world’s children.
- Come here, Snir.
Perhaps his own belief had always been weaker than yours.
His growth exploded only after becoming her spear, beyond mere belief.
What more was there to say? All had been spoken through the spear.
“...!”
“...!”
In that instant, Snir and Bart crossed paths. Then, almost simultaneously, they turned and thrust their holy spear and dragonbone spear.
How much time passed after that?
In Bart’s eyes, he saw Snir.
From his right shoulder to his lower body, impaled by the dragonbone spear, reduced to a bloody pulp. Only his left shoulder and face remained intact.
“What?”
Necromantic power fled the dying flesh, purple haze billowing from the severed sections.
“What did you do?”
Bart doubted his senses.
The pain stabbing his entire body remained unchanged. In other words, exactly as before.
No additional wounds on himself.
“Why pull back the sword energy, paladin!”
The moment he saw the flash boiling from the holy spear and leaped into it, he’d sensed his end.
‘Then at least try to wound him for my comrades’ sake.’
Snir’s expression as he faced death seemed to answer the mystery.
Not bewilderment at this unacceptable outcome.
Relieved, as if finding an answer, and apologetic... Snir coughed up blood.
“I hope you understand... I didn’t withdraw the sword energy to mock you...”
“...?”
“I too once... held the same belief as you when I gripped my spear... I simply couldn’t strike you down...”
He had drawn full power only to test Bart’s sincerity. All are honest before death.
He hadn’t kept his belief to the end, but after 500 years, someone held the same.
He couldn’t encourage, but wouldn’t block the path. Couldn’t open the way, but wouldn’t hold back.
“I... ultimately protected neither my belief... nor her heart... nothing...”
His own fight was over.
Fouled by an unforgivable sin.
- We’re going to practice singing now, so sit in that grass and listen, Snir.
- But as your guard...
- Who’d attack me? Just listen quietly. Ah~! You smiled? Laugh at my tone-deafness and you’re done for.
- But Apostle, why sing? I know you handle strings well.
- Kids love songs, right? Easier to sing along than instruments. Think anyone can just buy an instrument?
- I see.
- Yeah.
- Understood. I’ll listen with all my heart.
He wanted a world where everyone smiled.
With her.
Now, someone here ran toward the dream they had shared.
“Bart Yurions... don’t make my mistakes... hold that belief in your soul and advance... into the future...”
With his dying breath, the paladin extracted the core forming Ryunak’s central circuit.
Pressing that core— the essence of elven forging—against the dragonbone spear’s blade, it fused seamlessly, as if always one.
He felt the dragonbone spear pulse powerfully, fiercely.
“Help her... so she cries no more...”
Originally forged crudely from dragon bone into spear form, now imbued with orderly power, a new force was born.
This was the succession rite.
When a paladin died before their apostle, or the holy spear was badly damaged, passing its power to a successor.
“And build it... a world where... children... don’t cry...”
With those final words, Snir’s body fully dissolved into haze.
The only trace left by the old paladin was Ryunak’s shaft, rolling on the ground without its core.
But his heart would live on in the spears and souls of future warriors...
“Bart!”
“This monster beat a paladin?”
“Today only, I’ll allow ‘Bart and Rem’s Heart-Pounding Money-Copying Adventure Squad’ instead of ‘Rem and Bart’s.’”
“Approved, approved, ah, approved.”
That was when his scattered comrades rushed in. No one else was as gravely wounded as Bart, bringing odd relief.
“It’s not a win. He let me win.”
Leaving words meaningful only to him and Snir, Bart leaned on the dragonbone spear and rose.
“Let’s go. Ovin’s waiting.”
Hoping his fight hadn’t been in vain, Bart swung his spear—and it hadn’t been.
That heart had reached the great warrior, lingering on his old life. It freed him from necromantic control.
Roll...
Long after they left, the holy spear Ryunak rolled to the feet of a wandering child, sobbing for his vanished mother in the wrecked world.
The lingering light from the coreless spear pointed somewhere.
Drawn by that light, the child soon reunited with his desperately searching mother.