Chapter 216
Chapter 216
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 216
Chapter Title: Herald of Destruction 1
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Azadin rose to his feet. Even after killing Aldis, something must have remained for him to rise again, but he couldn’t leave Hatir alive.
“An foolish daughter, you say? She was dragged into a fight she never wanted because of her responsibility to you and your clan. Because of your incomprehensible atrocities!”
“Are you blaming me for Aldis’s death? You’re the one who killed her.”
“Damn it! You should have compromised instead! If you’d just seized the throne, I might have understood. If that were the case…”
Azadin wouldn’t have stopped his clan.
He would have simply left the clan, and there would have been no need to kill Kazas and Aldis with his own hands.
“That’s exactly why Aragasa is doomed to perish. Without harsh selection training, Aragasa’s abilities dilute and fade away. But selection prevents population growth. If we can’t increase our numbers, we reduce theirs.”
“Do you think increasing or decreasing populations is a game? A clan that spouts such nonsense deserves to perish! For the sake of everyone in this world, it’s better if Aragasa falls—under your leadership, Hatir!”
“But from where I stand, you’re no different. I do this for what I believe in, and didn’t you kill the person you loved with your own hands for what you believe in?”
Hatir was right, without a doubt. The realization that he had killed Aldis crashed over Azadin.
“Urk!”
As his rage intensified, dizziness overwhelmed his head.
He had lost too much blood. Even with the king’s healing magic, even with regeneration magic lingering in his body activating his regenerative powers, anemia wouldn’t heal instantly.
Seeing Azadin gasping for breath, Hatir raised his Black River Sword.
“I never imagined the bastard of Acre I picked up that day would trouble me this much. But it ends now, Azadin.”
Hatir raised his sword to kill Azadin, but fear still lingered in his eyes.
This was the man who had routed him and even broken Aldis. Even if he looked battered enough to not kill a fly, it could be a trick.
If their positions were reversed, Azadin would suspect the same. Aragasa were trained from childhood to employ every trick in the book naturally.
“Kazas created a troublesome one. Why raise a kid who could’ve been half-assed with such sincerity?”
Hatir pulled out his bow to shoot, but his quiver was empty. Instead, he grabbed Aldis’s spear, snapped its shaft, and strung it as a bowstring. No fletching on the spearhead, but at this range, it would hit easily enough.
Azadin stared at Hatir aiming right at him but couldn’t dodge. Anemia weighed down his limbs.
That was when it happened.
-Kwaang!
Suddenly, a massive arm burst from behind Hatir.
A Nether emissary had materialized, tearing through the ground.
“What?!”
Hatir fired the bow backward and leaped forward to evade the arm.
Aldis’s spear lodged into the arm but barely penetrated; as veins pulsed along the emissary’s limb, the spear shattered to pieces.
“Fool! I’m not your enemy!”
Hatir shouted, but the emissary’s arm mercilessly spewed poison at him. It was a horrific toxin that blackened and burned even the silk drapes adorning Btuma Castle.
But even if mortally wounded and revived, he was the chieftain of the herald clan, no pushover.
“As expected, still just a beast that won’t listen… Ararat!”
In a pinch, Hatir invoked the emperor’s magic.
The Sword of Light, Ararat, swung horizontally, severing the emissary’s arm and slicing through the gushing darkness.
A massive blade of light cleaving the emissary’s arm straight out of myth—a scene worthy of divine glory. Even Azadin, who harbored no fondness for Hatir, found it majestic.
The emissary’s arm was severed, spurting blood like a fountain as lights flickered across its body before the entire limb burned away.
“Got it?!”
No sooner had Hatir spoken than the ground split, and countless arms erupted. Each arm rivaled the girth of ancient trees, their sight-inducing chill. A bone-chilling aura poured from them, enough to drive an ordinary person mad just by looking.
-Lightning of Holy Radiance!
Hatir cast the emperor’s magic again, raining bolts of light everywhere. Chain lightning exploded, overwhelming the emissaries.
“...”
Azadin eyed Hatir’s unguarded back as he battled the emissaries.
Now somewhat accustomed to the dizziness from anemia, he could strike and harm Hatir with a single thrust of his weapon.
But something felt off about attacking in this situation.
Aldis, Kazas, and many others had died loyal to him, so Hatir surely bore responsibility for the clan’s corruption.
He was hateful.
If this man had kept his sanity, Azadin never would have clashed with Kazas or Aldis. He wanted to pin everything on Hatir and kill him.
But ambushing him mid-battle with the emissaries? Azadin’s conscience wouldn’t allow it.
‘Damn this conscience…’
Azadin marveled at his own stubbornness as he rose.
“I’ll purify the throne! No complaints, right, Hatir?”
“You… That’s something Araelle made, isn’t it? Can you trust Araelle?”
“No idea!”
Azadin pulled out the grimoire crafted from the copy of the New King Formation Book that Araelle had given him.
The world brimmed with darkness, yet this grimoire alone emitted pure white light, dazzling its surroundings.
Of course, eyeless as he was, Azadin didn’t know dazzling, but this light assured him Araelle hadn’t played any wicked tricks.
“Urk!”
But as Azadin approached the Quartz Throne, the Nether emissaries began interfering.
Aldis’s corpse rose.
*********
Summer cicadas buzzed noisily.
“The Nether emissaries are higher-dimensional beings. True otherworldly entities whose perceptions differ utterly from ours.”
Kazas said this and uttered a snippet of the Nether tongue. Just that made the bug in the glass vial begin to change.
Nor was it just the bug. Changes rippled across Kazas’s skin where he’d spoken the Nether tongue.
Something sprouted, wriggling and alive like a bug.
Kazas drew a tiny obsidian blade and sliced into his flesh, incising it. Placed in the vial, it clashed with the mutated bug and the growth from Kazas’s body, cracking the glass.
“M-Master! Let’s escape!”
“Shall we?”
Kazas slapped the vial’s mouth with his palm. Blood filled it, killing both bugs outright.
“Huh.”
Young Azadin gripped his hands sweaty watching this. Awe mingled with fear at the terrifying, wicked power of the Nether tongue.
“Who recorded this Nether tongue?”
“It’s the emissaries’ song.”
“Huh?”
“Just as we can’t grasp the emissaries’ essence, they find us too insignificant to comprehend. So some offer themselves to the emissaries, becoming kin. The Nether tongue is the knowledge they recorded… but…”
Kazas gave a bitter smile.
“It’s offering your knowledge and soul to the emissaries. Destruction worse than death.”
“But there are Nether followers, right? Why serve something so horrific?”
“Because one day we’ll face the age of Jupiter.”
“?”
“You won’t grasp it easily, but great cities have buildings over ten stories, dizzying spires. When fire engulfs a spire, trapping people on the roof with no escape as flames close in, they sometimes hurl themselves into the blaze out of sheer terror.”
“Ah.”
“Same with ghostfires or beasts like tigers. Cornered with no way out, some rush in entranced, baring their throats to die. Those ignorant of magic think beasts enchant, but beasts don’t wield spells. It’s just overwhelming despair breaking the mind, making even resistance unbearable, so they choose active self-destruction.”
“Horrible.”
“Lose your fighting spirit, and you submit to despair. I’d say never lose it, no matter what… but it’s laughable coming from me. I’m in no position to lecture you.”
“No position?”
“I’ve already lost my star.”
“Huh?”
Hard to parse, but having learned from Aldis, Azadin vaguely knew what a “star” meant.
“Can’t you find a new one?”
“Who knows.”
Kazas smiled weakly at Azadin’s words.
“Now’s the time to shoot your bow, foolish disciple.”
“Huh?”
“I had goblins nearby make arrows. This reed bed’s perfect for reed arrows. Keep shooting till it’s gone—won’t even you master the Elven Bow then?”
“…This whole reed bed?”
Azadin gaped at the vast expanse.
His bow so strong fifty shots left his limbs trembling, face sallow as jaundice—now destroy the entire bed with arrows?
“Lose your fighting spirit, and you submit to despair. Take heart, Azadin.”
“...”
Cicadas buzzed noisily.
*********
Azadin gripped his bow with his mangled left arm, recalling that day.
Aldis hadn’t willingly submitted to approaching despair like other Nether followers. But for a fresh corpse to succumb to an emissary’s power and become kin? That was horrific destruction in its own right.
“Azadin?”
The thing possessing Aldis’s body called to him in her voice.
In that instant, Azadin understood why people hurled themselves into flames, why they embraced endless despair.
He wanted to believe.
That Aldis had come back to life.
Even if she were now a revenant or vampire, corrupted by evil energies, if her soul, her continuity remained her, he’d gladly yield to this darkness.
Yet even then, Azadin loosed an arrow at that Aldis.
Kazas, Aldis—they’d raised Azadin too well. When despair loomed to break his spirit, he reflexively resisted.
Likely Kazas had instilled that mechanism, hoping Azadin would overcome the despair he himself couldn’t.