Chapter 230
Chapter 230
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 230
Chapter Title: Toward the Central Spire
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“Heading to the central spire?”
Time was running critically short.
Obin nodded his head frantically at Miria’s question.
“If we, if we go there, we can still turn this around. The barrier…”
Valencidis, his entire body a mangled wreck and half his facial flesh melted away, exhaled labored breaths as he nodded weakly.
“I’ll provide support. You all handle Elamas.”
“But the city center’s crawling with primitives right now. In your condition…”
“Crawling… swarming, crawling.”
“Bart, Pipi, you two help Valencidis and Obin. Clear the path to the clock tower. Rem, provide covering fire here until we reach the spire.”
There was no time. At Rain’s command, Bart nodded immediately.
The city had long since turned into a battlefield, whirlwinds of vengeful spirits choking the air with acrid smoke, eerie screams echoing from every direction.
A few primitives latched onto Bart like leeches as he raced ahead down the street. Their grotesque teeth couldn’t pierce his black iron armor.
“Hah!”
A dragonbone spear impaled the heads of the primitives flung onto the cobblestones, smashing their skulls.
And that wasn’t the end of it.
Echoing in response came the primitives’ shrill wails, their shadows surging in from all sides.
Obin, running behind and weeping at the horrific sights of the city, was firmly shaken his head by Valencidis.
“Don’t cry. Don’t stop moving. Right now, think only of victory.”
How long could the city hold out?
This was the final hour.
Could Obin reach the spire before the city fell completely, and perform whatever secret technique was passed down only to royalty…?
‘But even if Obin succeeds, it means nothing if Elamas survives.’
A head-on clash with the Black Church’s pillar…
It was beyond Valencidis’s imagination, nothing more than a vague, impossible fight.
If things had gone according to plan, Tureina or Elamas’s scheme should have successfully thrown the entire world into chaos.
‘But Rain Ludwig’s appearance is cracking the gears the Black Church spent centuries building.’
Just like three hundred years ago, when the hero party shattered their schemes.
Wearing the same wide-brimmed hat as the great archmage Lin from the hero tales his father read to him as a child, using the same incantations.
Ah, yes.
So that’s how it was. He’d denied it deep down because it defied common sense, but denying it now would be the strange thing.
‘The hero party’s great archmage has returned.’
Then the battle unfolding there—was it between the elven race’s youngest-ever apostle and humanity’s youngest-ever great archmage?
* * *
BOOOOM!
A deafening explosion rang out as crimson flames and black flames twisted together in midair.
Billowing smoke assaulted the senses, the air raging without oxygen as the transcendent beings’ power clashed in a grand feast.
“Magic barrier formation, deploy—Fire Formation Blood Seal.”
Push forward.
Don’t give them a moment’s rest. Push relentlessly.
Even if controlled by necromancy, that body was a true dragon… its flame resistance defied logic.
‘Then just overwhelm it with so much fire even that resistance can’t hold.’
Make them think that’s what I’m planning.
Remember this.
The key to victory in this fight isn’t me. Rain steeled his resolve.
“……!”
Seven bolts of lightning tore through the crimson sky.
‘What the hell?’
The true dragon’s wing membrane enveloping Elamas charred and blazed red. The flames’ heat seeped downward.
‘That speed with this power?’
Elamas’s robes ignited, the flesh on his right shoulder below searing as he widened his eyes in disbelief.
‘It works. Even against a true dragon, flames from another true dragon…!’
As Rain pondered his next move, Elamas clasped his hands and chanted a dark hymn.
[Aruu!]
A chant speed explainable only as that of an ancient apostle.
The prayer’s incantation finished the instant he sensed the attack.
From the language’s edge erupted abyssal power, a wave of spirits surging forth with chilling high-frequency vibrations.
‘Damn, too focused on the dragon…!’
Line Iron Halberd.
Lightning wedges from the sky layered atop one another, deflecting the wave—but this too was one of the ancient youngest apostle’s tricks in the art of numbers.
The moment Rain Ludwig moved to defend, tremendous power stirred in the true dragon’s throat.
“!”
The air churned at the prelude to that power. Rain Ludwig’s mind quaked with fear.
A power no half-dragon like Rain Ludwig could wield—the dragon race’s exclusive command over the power of words.
The inherent dragon force that subjugated heaven and earth with a single roar, making creatures cower: the Lion’s Roar.
Struck directly, a human’s organs explode within, leading to swift death.
The sound.
Swallowed.
Everything—no, it couldn’t.
The roar shaking the dragon’s throat and surging from its massive maw collided with something in midair, unleashing a massive shockwave.
With another sound.
A frail flicker like a candle flame, quiet as winter firewood—unlike the true dragon’s deep, oppressive bellow.
Yet it was a Lion’s Roar.
The power of draconic words manifested from an identical true dragon.
“──!”
The fiercely entwining sounds in the sky vanished in a silent explosion.
Only the lingering echoes swept past like a tide.
“Aki Punch.”
And then, leaving the crackle of rising flames, a hatchling’s fist closed in beneath the true dragon’s body, slamming into Elamas’s abdomen in one breath.
“Cough.”
Before Elamas could spit blood, the true dragon’s forepaw smashed down—but the hatchling had already retreated far back.
As Elamas glared at the hatchling in incomprehension, it settled into a martial stance, a moment of stillness falling.
In that silence, the emotion swelling Rain’s chest alongside his pounding heart was…
‘Aki.’
How much had her skills advanced?
Just as Celine the Heavenly Flame Dragon had said. Overwhelming talent in martial arts, mastering everything in a single go.
Celine, if only you could have seen this just now.
‘She was so young back then.’
Crawling on all fours, clinging to my back—that’s all she could do.
‘I thought she’d stick by my side like that until we reached [Flame Myriad].’
So I’d judged I needed to protect her with all my might.
But you.
Now fighting for others. Protecting their lives.
‘Just like Alakishi did in the land of death.’
Three hundred years ago, watching victory reports from the front lines, the dean auntie must have felt something similar.
What expression had she worn then? Rain pictured it now, mirroring his own face.
To hold back the hot tears stinging his eyes, Rain squeezed them shut.
“Where do I know you from? Those techniques—I’ve definitely seen them somewhere, but I can’t pinpoint it.”
Elamas clutched his temples as if struck by a headache, groaning briefly before lifting his head with an irritated sigh.
“No idea why, but you disgust me. Your very existence. Enough to turn my stomach with revulsion.”
Elamas clasped his hands together.
Linear formations spread at his feet, filled with ancient script. The true dragon’s veins resonated with necromantic extremes, blazing purple.
“I’ll show you something special. The true power of a dragon.”
An oppressive pressure crushed his shoulders like boulders, dominating the very air.
“Miracle Realm, Dark Sky Bridge.”
Dangerous. This situation was dangerous.
A Miracle Realm—known to be accessible only to a handful of apostles… a domain that maximized divine powers.
He knew he needed to buy time before an irreparable disaster unfolded.
“Severing Chain Flame Bind, Thunder Formula!”
Countless chains whipped like lightning, coiling around the true dragon’s body—but failed to pierce the soul beyond.
Perhaps because no soul dwelt in the flesh, or because his spirit’s rank fell short.
Mocking the gap, a single wingbeat snapped the chains instantly, black flames pouring from the true dragon’s maw.
“Flame Crimson Realm!”
No time to inscribe origin runes.
Maximize destructive power with the Flame rune, reinforce with the primal Crimson rune.
Expand that amplified force vastly with the Realm rune. Maximize potency with the Venerable rune of Flow Sovereign.
“Hmm, a new spell?”
The flame curtain clashed with black flames, unable to fully extinguish them but enough to deflect their path.
“Made it on the spot? You’re incredibly strong.”
Elamas casually addressed Rain as he wiped cold sweat, perhaps to make him feel the skill gap?
Aki lunged again, targeting that opening.
The fist pierced the flaw perfectly, striking true…
Only to ignite fierce flames in empty air, inflicting no damage on the foe.
“……?!”
What just happened?
The true dragon’s body split into segments, reforming far away.
Like no living thing but a puppet—purple currents writhed at the severed edges, reconnecting the parts.
What was that?
How…?
“You think I’d fall for the same ambush twice?”
Before the flames cleared his vision, something more siege ram than tail came whipping in.
“Magic barrier formation.”
The strike landed before he could fully register evasion—the dragon’s reflexes strained to follow the chaining speed.
“5-star, Thunder Heaven Bombardment.”
Before the tail crushed Aki, a lethal flash from afar blasted it aside with thunderstrike.
“Aki, don’t charge in—fall back!”
[Aaruru!]
“Aki is on standby!”
Elamas turned an intrigued gaze to Rain.
“First human I’ve seen wielding magic that fast. No, maybe as fast as Jernix? Though that old man’s long beyond human limits.”
Even from that distance, his whisper felt like it was right in his ear—threatening.
And rightly so, for as he spoke, the dragon’s vocal cords already trembled with power’s roar.
The Lion’s Roar was coming… but thanks to Aki, he’d already devised the counter.
“Rune creation, magic formation—Thunder Helix Rhythm.”
Sound with sound.
Thunder Resonance collided with the dragon’s cry, electricity crackling across the area.
Not only that—despite nullifying nearly ninety percent, the backlash made his bones tingle.
As if praising the desperate struggle, Elamas clapped.
“Excellent moves. That’s why it’s so hard to understand. With that power, why fight for those pathetic worms?”
“What are you getting at?”
“Don’t they disgust you, those weaklings? So selfish—huhu, look even now. Leaving it all to an outsider like you and fleeing.”
“…….”
“Why not embrace this power? You’d be several times stronger than now. Maybe even as strong as Jernix.”
“Yeah?”
“Let the weak get weeded out by the tide of the era. A new world! There, you won’t be exploited—you’ll rule as is natural. Why fight against it?”
If I’d craved power, would I have listened to that whisper?
No.
Each time, auntie’s face filling my vision would have stopped me from straying.
“I was originally a pathetic weakling. An orphan in the slums, just waiting to die.”
I wasn’t a great archmage from the start.
I had nothing.
Truly nothing—until she found me and gave me everything.
“She was my parent, my benefactor, my master. She asked me to become an adult who could share the light of magic with others.”
That’s why I fight now.
That’s why I’ve fought my whole life.
“Otherwise, when I meet auntie again in heaven someday, I’d be too ashamed to speak.”
She gave me everything freely, so I shall do the same.
“What I learned traveling with her and my comrades is that power isn’t for ruling—it’s for serving.”
That devotion doesn’t vanish meaninglessly; it passes to the next generation, bearing fruit.
Like how a selfish me stands here now, like how Aki has grown so splendidly.
And perhaps Shalesarum hoped Elamas would become the same.
“Elamas, this fight between us is a clash of beliefs. No compromise. Your rampage ends today.”