Chapter 220
Chapter 220
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 220
Chapter Title: Herald of Ruin 5
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For the Aragasa, power is everything.
No, it wasn’t just the Aragasa.
Those without power earn no respect. Azadin had felt this firsthand ever since his powerless, cursed boyhood days.
Yet the power he had spent his entire life building was now utterly useless.
Azadin’s power had lain in Kazas Hasseo, which awakened the impure, incomplete force of Flower-Bird-Wind-Moon within him, converted it into pure physical prowess, and manifested Flower-Bird-Wind-Moon’s assassination spells through his martial arts.
With his body broken now, he could no longer use Kazas Hasseo. It was questionable whether he could even manage daily life.
Had killing the person he loved most, intervening in his clan’s civil war, and causing so many deaths led to this—to becoming a cripple?
It was too horrific.
To escape this horrifying reality, Azadin turned his head, but Indim continued her story.
“We’re fleeing by boat. We’re heading inland to avoid the nagas, traveling upriver toward the half-mountain.”
“And Btuma?”
“Btuma is stabilizing. Hatir is dead, and the Elder Council has collapsed. Of course, the Five Great Bloodlines and their merchant houses remain, so the clan might regroup around them, but for now, it’s our victory.”
“Victory…?”
“Yes. The damage was heavy, but strategically, we placed Araelle’s grimoire on Btuma’s throne and crushed the Elder Council. However… there’s something we need for the aftermath.”
Indim rose to her feet.
Tall enough to be mistaken for a man, her muscular frame and the soft swell of her breasts revealed her true gender.
To Azadin’s astonishment, Indim had been warming him with her own body heat, naked beneath her clothes.
And now she said this to him?
“I need your body.”
“…….”
Indim dressed hurriedly, then lifted Azadin effortlessly. Unable to resist in his weakened state, he could do nothing.
*What is she planning? I’m not even worth killing now. She already took the Divine King Scripture and placed it in Btuma’s throne—there’s nothing left to gain.*
That question was soon answered.
A massive magic circle was drawn on the deck, where Araelle and the three surviving members of Flower-Bird-Wind-Moon waited.
No… the three who had once been four.
Of Flower-Bird-Wind-Moon’s four, only Indim, Seraph, and Dimia remained.
Three out of four surviving was impressive, but their servants—and Dimia’s sister Jenis—were nowhere to be seen.
“Azadin. My brother. You’re awake?”
Araelle turned to look at him.
“Dimia and Indim kept you warm with their body heat for a whole week. I was worried you’d die, but you pulled through. Thank goodness.”
“…Araelle.”
Azadin scowled at the sight of her.
Both her legs had been severed, bound tightly with tourniquets.
Azadin had become a cripple, but so had Araelle. That was why Dimia and Indim had shared their naked body heat with them both for a full week to raise their temperatures.
Since Azadin had no memory of it, he must have been comatose the entire time.
*The mighty Araelle, reduced to a cripple too? But… no, her situation is better than mine.*
Araelle was better off than Azadin.
Unlike Kazas Hasseo, which was more martial art than magic, Araelle wielded true magic—so even without her legs, she could still fight.
But having lost so much of her body, she could no longer wield her former strength. Her remaining lifespan had likely been greatly shortened as well.
“Your legs…”
“The price of destroying the Elder Council. Aragasa… the Elder Council is finished now. Sure, the Five Great Bloodlines are left, but at this cost, I’d call it a bargain.”
Araelle had started to say “Aragasa is finished” but corrected herself to “the Elder Council,” forcing a bitter smile.
“Didn’t you and the Elder Council slaughter and exploit other races all to dominate them and make our Aragasa strong and prosperous? And now internal strife has led to Aragasa’s decline. Aren’t you ashamed?”
“No regrets. You stopped the Elder Council and Hatir’s actions, didn’t you, Azadin? So you know we have more legitimacy than they did. That’s why you fought on our side, right?”
“I don’t remember joining your side. I’m grateful for the treatment, of course… So what now? You’ve lost your legs… and your body looks like hell.”
Araelle was supposed to be the goddess of the battlefield.
Her tribe held together through her charisma alone. Among the Aragasa, Araelle had maintained that charisma because she was beautiful and strong.
Strength earned respect—not just among the Aragasa.
Even among the Yaegras divine race and divine kings, physical defects meant forfeiting succession rights. No matter how much magical power Araelle retained, without her legs, she could no longer lead.
“Are you abandoning all ambition to live quietly in hiding like a normal person, Araelle? That wouldn’t be so bad. You could still fend for yourself…”
“No. If we can’t fight, Aragasa dies. And truthfully, both you and I lost so much blood we’re in mortal danger right now. But Azadin, did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That siblings can share blood with each other? Especially twins—the success rate is even higher.”
“…….”
Azadin looked at the magic circle. Then he examined the surviving Flower-Bird-Wind-Moon members.
Seraph and Aleph had been brothers. Dimia and Jenis, sisters.
Only one from each pair had survived—and remarkably, they appeared unscathed. If Araelle had lost both legs, their battles must have been brutal too.
“No way?”
Azadin peered closely at the magic circle on the floor. He didn’t know magic, but he had assisted Kazas in deciphering Nether tongue and learning Nether spells, so he could read it.
The circle inscribed here was Nether magic.
“What are you thinking?”
“I told you.”
Indim approached, scooped Azadin up, and placed him in the center of the circle.
Azadin stood frozen atop it before his legs gave out and he collapsed.
“Become Araelle’s flesh and blood.”
“You… you absorbed your siblings? You’re insane…!”
“It was what they wanted!”
Seraph protested.
“I’d never let my brother—Aleph—die otherwise! But between the two of us dying, one had to live!”
“That… that’s.”
It was logical. But Azadin shook his head.
“No. It’s insane! Araelle! I was robbed of everything from birth because of you! Even the grimoire that’s Aragasa birthright! My eyes too! And now you want my life as well? That’s too much!”
“Isn’t it? But Azadin, we can’t survive like this.”
Araelle began chanting. The magic circle glowed and activated.
Araelle unleashed a complex weave of Nether’s vile necromancy, green life magic, and more.
For a moment, Azadin was transfixed by the intricate spells.
*No, it’s not that—it’s that my body won’t move. I can only watch.*
He could do nothing but watch.
Araelle, using a staff in place of her severed legs, leaped into the circle.
But…
Dimia, Seraph, and Indim recoiled in shock.
“Araelle!?”
“What…”
“What are you doing?!”
Araelle grabbed the immobilized Azadin and laid his head on her lap, against the tourniquet-bound stump of her thigh.
“Born on the same day, yet we’ve hardly ever talked, have we, little brother?”
“Who’s your little brother? I…”
Azadin tried to protest, but his eyes met Araelle’s gaze.
She looked down at him with tender, loving eyes, as if beholding someone truly precious.
The same expression Aldissa had worn when gazing at Azadin as a child.
Azadin was stunned. Could Araelle make such a face?
“Azadin. It hurt, didn’t it? Not being loved.”
“What?”
“It’s absurd, isn’t it? Men suffer for not being objects of desire, women for being them—that’s the state of the world, don’t you think?”
“What are you talking about, Araelle?”
He asked, but sadly, he already understood her words.
Men are not objects of desire.
Unless they hold wealth, power, or exceptional beauty, men rarely become the focus of a woman’s longing.
Women, even if plain, are desired by someone.
But is that always a pleasure?
Far from it.
They become playthings, their fates ravaged by others’ desires.
But why bring this up now?
“You suffered too? You’re saying it hurt because your popularity was too overwhelming to handle?”
Azadin wasn’t a fool, of course.
From the story of how Deputy Leader Hatir had lusted after Araelle’s exceptional birth and sought to claim her, he already knew she wasn’t the enviable figure he’d imagined—untouchable in her superiority. She had been a being whose body and soul were constantly threatened under the Elder Council’s order.
To protect herself, Araelle had ceaselessly proven her abilities, her power, her necessity.
Even so, once she came of age, regardless of her wishes, she would have become Hatir’s concubine, forced to bear children as the Elder Council’s vile mages desired.
And Hatir had likely been a descendant of Azadin and Araelle’s ancestors—making Azadin and Araelle his blood too, if you traced the lineage.
A horrifying thought.
If Azadin had been persecuted for his weakness…
Araelle had been treated like prime breeding stock for her talent and beauty.
In the already brutal life of the Aragasa, how much agony would a young girl endure with such a fate predetermined?
However…
Azadin didn’t want to understand her inner turmoil.
If he did, who would cherish the boy he’d been—the one hurt and tormented by Araelle, driven to thoughts of suicide?
Did every one of Araelle’s wounds demand understanding—from everyone, even from Azadin, who had been abused by her?
Don’t make me laugh!
That would make his childhood self too pitiful!
Azadin refused to understand Araelle’s past.