Chapter 74
Chapter 74
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 74
Chapter Title: Rage
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However, contrary to what Bison had hoped, Gil's sense of justice was being thoroughly sidelined.
"Cough! Get lost!"
Pushing back the dragon knight's scorching heat with his own flames was burden enough. If he paused his sword swings even for a moment, it was only a matter of time before that hideous blade, riding the heatwave, pierced his heart.
And that movement.
Agagtur's proxy walked slowly at first, then suddenly leaped skyward, unleashing a barrage of sword strikes even in mid-air.
The walls on this floor were already nearly gone. If not for the barriers and linked spells the seed cultivator had woven to protect the cultivation chamber, the Lord's Tower would have collapsed by now.
Anyway, barely scaling the tower walls to rise, he spewed heat from his entire body without even gaining distance, blasting Gil away. Then he slid back down the wall. Even approaching this foe who flew freely through the air was a struggle for Gil.
"Damn it... Does my flame not reach him?"
In truth, the reason Gil wanted to close in directly was that after deploying Mir, not a single one of his flames had touched the man.
Of course-Agagtur was the Mir of conflagration, after all.
How could anyone kindle a blaze hot enough to burn conflagration itself?
"Leave this place."
The silver lining was that Agagtur's proxy had no intention of killing Gil. He chained his attacks with elegant precision, yet held back from any lethal blows.
"Am I being utterly ignored?"
Gil knew the moment justice buckled was when one could do nothing at all. Which meant even if he couldn't do anything, he had to do something.
That was what it meant to be a knight.
"We did nothing wrong."
"No, don't even try to deny it. What you've done is evil-unforgivable!"
Just like when he'd first entered Godel, Gil pointed his sword downward, ignited a blaze that shattered the floor, and rocketed into the air.
Flames and light erupted through the space. Now the tower hung suspended in the sky, littered with shattered rocks and skeletal pillars, the outer red glow flooding in completely.
"I cannot forgive that!"
So the fiery arc pierced straight through the crimson light, lancing upward-but
Boom!
"It's futile, knight of the Empire."
Even that failed to breach the heat pouring from Agagtur's proxy. Gil screamed amid the searing agony as he plummeted once more toward the tower's lower levels.
He crashed into the seed storage chamber he'd glimpsed upon first climbing the Lord's Tower-right amid the charred corpses of children. And he punched straight through the intact warehouse floor below. At last, he came to a halt.
Above the seeds.
"Urgh... W-what is this?"
Seeds forged by the kin of sin. A potent force that shattered racial boundaries and imprinted demonic marks.
"Haa..."
Gil glanced back and forth between the seeds and Agagtur's proxy, floating serenely in the tower's upper reaches. What if he claimed them now? Could he gain power as overwhelming as that man's?
"No! My justice isn't-"
He shook off the fleeting temptation in an instant, but his words cut short. He had to stop.
"Why... is this?"
Gil looked up at the ceiling again. Had the seed crates in the upper storage broken open? Seeds and bundles of paper rained down wildly, but one thing was clear as day.
Fortunately, Agagtur's proxy showed no sign of descending. He could wreathe his sword in flames and climb again, but defeating that mighty dragon knight was impossible.
So the wise choice was to wait here for Bison and Gaon. That was the rational thought running through his mind-but the sight right before his eyes halted him.
He read the paper that had fallen atop the children's corpses.
A deal with the devil. A contract he hadn't noticed inside the seed crates on his way up.
It was unmistakably written in the Empire's tongue. The terms: surrender children in exchange for bulk seed purchases. At the bottom, the seal of the Empire's Great Cathedral Central Office.
Endless bundles detailing their ongoing transactions rained down over the children's bodies. Gil read on. The Cathedral Central Office would ship orphan children to Godel; in return, the seeds would be sown across Ennaun.
The seeds' origin was Godel, just as Gaon had said. But the Empire's Great Cathedral was the one distributing them.
And the ones who'd burned these children alive as fodder for horrific experiments.
Where had it all gone wrong? How?
In truth, the doubts had nagged at him all along. If Godel's experiments were truly to extend beastkin lifespans, as the airborne knight claimed, then what were these seeds spreading through Ennaun?
Even from the experimenters' perspective in Godel, dispersing seeds made sense only to beastkin. So why ship them to human cities?
Yet every time the questions arose, he'd swung his sword anyway-as a knight of the Empire.
"Because it was my justice."
They'd conducted atrocities, sacrificing children regardless of motive. They'd drawn blades on knights of the Empire, wielded heretical sorcery-the clear mark of demons, as decreed by the Cathedral Central Office.
Demons: his enemies. So he could wield his blade in justice's name. Because it was right. Because that's what knights did.
"Was I deceived?"
But if so, didn't that validate the justice he'd questioned? They weren't demons-just humans using seeds left by the kin of sin. They'd even claimed the experiments served beastkin; Bison might have sided with them.
What were demons, anyway? The Empire? Religion? Justice? Did any of it deserve to stand over these incinerated children? What was a knight?
Was he even one?
What was he fighting for now? For an Empire that sold innocent children to flood Ennaun with seeds? Or could he even trust this paper?
If it was real, what did the Empire gain? What was the point? Gil felt his justice not merely waver, but snap.
At last, the most righteous knight plunged into the abyss.
"I..."
And then, something strange happened.
Weary of the doubts that plagued his endless brooding on justice, he ceased thinking altogether-and peace washed over him. Gil raised his sword once more.
It felt light.
Unwavering, as if his own finger tipped the blade. He stood tall atop his shattered justice and drew a single sword. Its name: the vengeance of the one stripped of justice. The mightiest blade he could now unleash, transcending justice itself.
Rage.
He became the sword-and burned.
Why had he agonized so long? An enemy was just something to cleave. Demon, human, Empire-it didn't matter. Burn it all away, and causality itself would vanish, yielding flawless, thoughtless justice. And if he burned even himself at the end, nothing could stand against him.
I am justice.
Seething murderous intent rose from the Lord's Tower floor, igniting everything. Truly everything-rock, brick, seed, corpse-nothing escaped the blaze.
"From now on, I am justice."
Gil looked up at his foe. He knew he could reach now.
Rage.
Boom!
With firepower beyond compare, he rocketed toward the Lord's Tower summit once more. A red lightning bolt of a trajectory carried him instantly to Agagtur's proxy, whom he struck upward.
"What?"
The proxy couldn't even block-in the instant he registered it, all his heat was sucked into Gil's blade. He soared into the air. And realized: he was slashed.
"Impossible! I will protect it-no matter what!"
He swung his sword again. But now it couldn't touch Gil's blaze. Gil floated in the air, wreathed in flames just like him.
Unaware of the change, Agagtur's proxy swung once more. Gil caught it barehanded. As the proxy yanked in shock, Gil crushed the blade in his grip, then shattered the scale armor over his chest.
The proxy stared at Gil again without a scream. Into eyes blazing with a fire to consume all.
Rage.
Boom!
Gil slashed wide horizontally. The proxy-and the Lord's Tower upper levels behind him-disintegrated in a massive explosion.
"This is surely... Mir's..."
The proxy gasped amid his ruin. But even that failed to reach Gil. He summoned rage anew, hurling the proxy toward the ceiling.
Rage.
Boom!
Gil surged at the exploding, crumbling proxy, pierced the ceiling, and finally breached the seed cultivation chamber. Agagtur's proxy melted into the heat and vanished.
"The proxy, defeated? What excuse do I give the king?"
And there, in the heart of the seed cultivation chamber sprawling before him, the devil's cultivator appeared.
"You next? My enemy."
But nothing mattered to Gil anymore. Evil existed to be burned. To be cut.
Thus, rage bereft of justice engulfed the cultivation chamber.