Chapter 167 - The Greatest Trace (3)

There were three men cutting through the fog-filled city.

The one taking the lead was the sword, followed behind by divinity and mystery.

Though they were three men of different ages, races, and affiliations, their destination was the same.

It was toward the heaven-defying tree floating upside down in the middle of the city.

"We're almost there!"

Bishop Pierre's crozier trembled more and more as they approached the plaza.

The inquisitor's crozier, which rejected wicked beings, had already sensed the entities within the plaza and was expressing its fierce anger.

"Then let's deal with the tree first... Ugh!"

However, as the group approached the plaza, the singing echoing through the fog became clearer.

"Uaaah..."

The first to collapse was Nibelun.

And the next to collapse was Vlad, who had sensitive hearing.

An ominous song that could not be described in words was lingering in their twitching ears.

'What kind of song is this!'

It was a sound that seemed to shake the soul.

The voice they heard was so clear and beautiful that it drew their attention, but the sorrow and anger contained within the rhythm were dredging up the dregs that had settled deep in their hearts to the surface.

"... This won't do!"

They were priests who followed the same will of God but walked different paths.

Bishop Pierre, an inquisitor and exorcist priest, realized he had no suitable countermeasure against the song and hurriedly aimed his crozier at Vlad and Nibelun's heads.

"One strike should do it."

However, the moment he was about to strike down with the crozier, a faint singing voice could be heard from behind Vlad's back.

- How truly beautiful. The rising morning sun.

"Hmm?"

The young acolyte, who had finally regained his senses, began to sing with all his might.

Though it was impossible to completely counter it, Jean's song, sung with his best effort, was at least enough to protect the group.

- The green peaks seen in the distance. The craftsmanship of my Father who built them is profound.

The woman's song was bizarre but was clearly based on a hymn.

Jean wove his voice into the spaces between that rhythm, lifting the group out from the wicked curse.

"... I should have raised an acolyte of my own as well."

As Jean's song began, the hands of Vlad and Nibelun, who had been covering their ears, started to drop.

Their minds began to clear just as gradually as the emotional dregs were sinking away.

The one leading the way had been Vlad's sword, but this time, the young acolyte's holy power was protecting them.

* * *

"Kuuugh!"

Even now, the false hymn continued to ring in the ears of the holy knights.

Some holy knights even ruptured their own eardrums, but her voice actually reached through the soul, not the ears.

Watching the suffering knights, the woman whose feet did not touch the ground smiled softly.

'We're completely blocked off!'

Hot blood flowed from between Gunther's tightly clenched lips.

It was a dilemma where they could neither advance nor retreat.

They always exerted great power against wicked beings, but this time, they were completely shut down due to a mismatch in compatibility.

"... Everyone, listen well."

The holy knights hid within a thick formation, using themselves as a wall.

However, they knew that only certain death awaited them if they stayed like this.

Before the moment came when he could choose nothing, Gunther decided to struggle with all his might.

"I will gather it up and strike all at once. Gather your strings of holy power and connect them to me."

"But Captain!"

"If someone must do it now, it is me."

The surrounding knights realized what Gunther was trying to do, but his will was already firmly set.

If ruin could not be avoided, it was a commander's duty to at least choose the lesser evil.

"Even if it's only one person, survive and report this matter."

If someone's sacrifice cannot be avoided, I will do it.

Gunther slowly raised his sword and brought it to his forehead, where the stigmata was engraved.

Watching him trying to become a symbol by making himself into the church's crest, the holy knights couldn't help but lower their heads.

"... Yes. You have no choice but to do that."

And the woman watching Gunther from afar.

Seeing Gunther's posture, as if she had expected it, she began to gather the headless knights and set up a formation.

"But no matter how close you get to Him, He will give you no answer."

She knew well that humans, whose every path had been blocked, had no choice but to beg for God's grace in the end.

But because she had walked that path, she knew.

The fact that God's will was too far to reach, and He did not answer as easily as one desired.

She was someone who knew that fact more painfully than anyone else in this world.

- O Saint Rosino, commander of the heavenly host.

Following Gunther's prayer, the holy knights' swords were aimed at each other one by one.

- I believe that you will guide the path of glory to Him.

And the respective holy power transmitted through their swords.

Their holy power, which contained the world of God rather than their own worlds, flowed along the swords without any difficulty and began to gather into a radiant light at the tip of Gunther's sword.

- I offer it. Through me. Boundless glory.

The first step toward God through sacrifice. Ain soph.

The holy power created by the holy knights became a shining staircase, sending Gunther to the side of the heavenly host's commander.

- Now...!

Gunther was about to escape the restraints of his physical body and ascend to a higher world.

He intended to burn the wicked beings with a light that would stay on the earth for just a brief moment, but...

- Hmm?

At that moment, a single twinkling starlight caught his eyes.

Though it wobbled precariously above the pitch-black night sky, it was clearly a starlight shining brightly.

"I can't hold out any longer! Three is too heavy!"

"We still have to go, what else can we do!"

Three men wobbling on a carpet were there.

Bishop Pierre, pale with fright, and Nibelun, desperately shifting back and forth while clutching the edges of the carpet.

Unlike the carpet used in the prison, this one was much larger and fancier, and it was slowly approaching the heaven-defying tree floating in the air.

Flying straight through the sky.

"... If it's here, I'll reach it even if I fall."

Seeing the tree writhing beneath his feet, Vlad began to take a quiet, deep breath, as if solidifying his resolve.

A golden light began to flow from Vlad's left eye as he looked down at the heaven-defying tree.

"Here we go!"

"Oh, damn it!"

A small prayer began to slip from Bishop Pierre, who squeezed his eyes shut to avoid looking down.

From Bishop Pierre to Nibelun, and then again to Vlad.

Three worlds that seemed impossible to overlap began to slowly lean on one another once again.

["What is the secret of the one-strike sure-kill?"]

"It starts from unpredictability."

["And seizing the initiative?"]

Vlad answered quietly according to the voice's questions.

The deeper he recalled his teachings, the deeper Vlad's golden light became.

"Flamboyantly."

["Good."]

Vlad, having received the light of divinity and mystery, stepped off the carpet.

A single starlight that began to fall, with nowhere else to reach.

It did not start from an incredibly high place, but it was undeniably a streak of light cutting across the pitch-black night sky.

"No!"

A flamboyant golden color that would catch anyone's eye.

The woman watching from below shouted loudly in panic, but Nibelun's mystery had already deceived her eyes and sent a single starlight plunging down toward the ground.

"Huuuuugh!"

He plummeted because he had no wings, but he himself had leveled the tip of his falling sword.

The start was a small twinkle, but upon impact, it became a massive cluster of light.

The meeting of two worlds was sometimes the beginning of a colossal struggle.

"Why! Did you! Why the children!"

Vlad's triangular cone, sharpened through anger, fell toward the tree thrashing its tentacles.

A triangular cone supported by the worlds of divinity, mystery, and the sword.

And at the very bottom of the cone, it was propped up by a white world more righteous than any other.

"Did you kill them! You son of a bitch!"

It could not be blocked because it was sharp, and it could not be rejected because it was righteous.

GUAAAAH!

CLAAAAAAANG!

A massive wave of fog began to swirl out from the spot where the knight's sword struck down.

It was a wave so massive that it shook the bell in the nearby bell tower as if it would shatter.

Where there is a will, there is a way.

Finding a way to do it instead of a reason why it couldn't be done, the tip of Vlad's sword finally pierced through the woman's fog and dug deep into the heaven-defying tree.

* * *

- Let's go 'round and 'round.

- Let's go 'round the matchstick.

- Huh? What's that?

Vlad, who was slowly falling, saw pitch-black children circling the tree down below.

The children, who had been continuously circling the tree, began to tilt their heads as they watched Vlad descending through the sticky darkness.

"Is it inside a dream again?"

["No, this is the world of the tree."]

This time it wasn't inside Jean's dream, but inside the world of the tree.

Quijano was informing Vlad that he had now fully reached the source of the curse.

"What do we do now?"

["We must cut it down. That bastard."]

Down below, there were children going around in circles with nowhere to leave.

Watching Vlad fall, the children raised their palms as if blinded by the light.

However, their gazes were pointed squarely at the radiantly shining Vlad.

"What if we cut down the tree? What happens to the children?"

["... They'll probably be cut down with it."]

There was a reason Vlad asked Quijano about the children.

The branches of the tree were tangled around each of the children's ankles.

It was pitiable, but the children's souls were already strongly entangled in the tree's branches.

It was a powerful bind of the curse, so strong that they could not possibly escape.

["If you don't cut it here, the curse will continue to spread. You wouldn't want to turn the entire North like this, would you?"]

"..."

At Quijano's words that the children had to be cut down as well, the tip of Vlad's sword was shaking slightly.

"Is there no other way?"

["... Hah."]

Quijano's sigh was deep, but Vlad was not hesitating merely out of a simple sense of justice.

"This isn't what I came all the way here for."

["... Right. You are correct."]

Vlad was someone invited to a dream that only children could dream.

Because he still dreamed of becoming something, Vlad, who could still be considered a boy, wanted to envision another possibility instead of a harsh reality.

["Then this is your final lesson."]

Then he had to teach him.

Since he refused to bend and insisted on walking the difficult path.

["The existence known as 'I' is itself a world. It is a noble possibility that no one can replace."]

The starting point of the world comes from 'me'.

From knowing who 'I' am.

["The sword is a brush. The various colors painted through your swings become a tool that expresses the person you are."]

The starting line of the world comes from the sword.

Announcing through the sword that the world known as 'me' is right here is the true beginning of a knight.

"Kuuugh!"

Dodging the writhing tentacles, Vlad slowly raised his sword and began to thrust it toward the heaven-defying tree.

From the tip of the sword that finally connected, the wicked tree's scream began to ring out loudly.

["And if you have been painting your colors up until now, it is time to complete it."]

If he had created a canvas through dots and lines, now was the time to paint his own colors upon it.

If he could bring the world drawn like that to the outside, the world that was once solely his own could become a world that everyone recognized.

["One who can perfectly complete their own world upon this world. That person is called a Swordmaster."]

"...!"

The words he heard were a teaching, but what he felt was guidance.

Following Quijano's words, Vlad forcefully began to twist the hilt of the sword he had thrust into the tree.

In order to set the entirely upside-down world right side up.

"Guaaaah!"

GUAAAAAAH!

The young children burning themselves in this dark, pitch-black world were pitiful.

Even if he couldn't bring them back to life, sending these children in the right direction was the world he envisioned.

CRACK!

Following the direction Vlad twisted, the deeply embedded branches began to rise.

The roots that had soared toward the sky began to sink.

"Haaaaah!"

It was Vlad's gesture trying to invert the world through the pushed-in sword.

It was a knight's struggle to scrape away the pitch-black world the woman had painted and restore its original colors.

* * *

RUMBLE!

The darkness began to slowly lift over Moshiam's sky, which had been nothing but pitch black.

And what arrived above it were the rain clouds that were originally supposed to be there.

"What in the world is..."

Gunther was wrapped in holy light, but right now, he was not the one shining the brightest here.

"No!"

The fog was washing away along with the heavy rain.

And from beneath the falling rain, a single tree was slowly moving.

"Give me back my children!"

"Now is the time! All units, charge!"

The woman hurriedly performed hand seals, but the holy knights, having finally seized an opening, were charging in.

As if he had never reached this close to the heavens before today, Gunther's entire body shone with holy power.

The roots to the ground, the branches to the sky.

Everything to where it originally belonged.

Along with the slowly tilting tree, the laughter of the children finally heading toward the sky began to be heard.

"... Dragon. Vlad."

Vlad's world was being painted over the pitch-black picture the woman had drawn.

The realization of the phase.

The single tree Vlad had drawn slowly began to settle onto the land of Moshiam.

Because it was a golden color more flamboyant than any other, it was a picture that even the white-haired man far in the distance could recognize.

["... Now then."]

And the greatest trace that awakened within that picture.

["The children have all gone to sleep, so shall we adults have a chat now?"]

The sword he held was the sword of the World Tree, but what was drawn was a silver sword.

Someone who stood up in place of Vlad, who had fallen asleep from exhaustion, was smiling.

Before long, white lightning was striking down from the sky he had drawn in Vlad's place.

One, But A Different Two

There was a very old pact.

That pact, which had been there since the beginning of the Empire, was to continue forever as long as one man's bloodline and will were not severed.

CRASH!

With a sharp sound, a red liquid spread across the pure white floor.

At the sudden, sharp pain, Sarnus clutched his neck and slumped to the ground.

"Keugh!"

Liquor bottles from the display cabinet came crashing down following his lost hand gestures.

As if trying to peel something off, bright red drops of blood were already forming at the tips of his fingernails as he urgently scratched his nape.

"Kuuugh...!"

Bizarre tattoos began to crawl up the nape of the oldest dragon.

The pitch-black tattoos that climbed up like a snake tightened around Sarnus's neck like a hangman's noose, slowly choking off his breath.

"This is... This can't be..."

Sarnus's bloodshot eyes were looking far beyond the window.

A sight he couldn't possibly see, yet had no choice but to see.

In the rainstorm gathering from the far North, pure white lightning was flashing.

That vivid, distinct white color was also one of the sharp memories etched into Sarnus's soul.

Etched alongside that memory was the name of the most noble and greatest man in the Empire's history.

The Founding King of the Empire and the great Dragon Slayer. And the man who was the only Swordmaster.

"... Frausen!"

Watching the white lightning striking down in the distance, the oldest dragon screamed.

Have you kept the promise, you cowardly dragon?

Have you kept the promise from that time when you bowed before me, begging for your life?

* * *

RUMBLE!

Pure white lightning was striking down over the city of Moshiam.

The lightning bolt descending from the sky was adding its own color to the city that had been nothing but pitch black.

["These are faces I've seen a lot of somewhere."]

Vlad—no, Quijano, who had taken Vlad's place—was smiling as he pointed at the headless knights.

["They act exactly alike, too."]

The wicked priest who harvested the breaths of children in the fog-filled village.

Seeing the headless knights that looked exactly like him, Quijano's cold anger flared up.

["So it was you."]

"...!"

And the one standing in the spot Quijano pointed at was the woman whose beginning was blue but whose end was black.

Seeing the colossal presence dwelling within Vlad's blue eyes, she involuntarily trembled her hands.

There was a terror there that even a non-beating heart could feel.

"That man, right now...!"

The woman tried to call her knights to stop Quijano, but his own world had already formed in Quijano's right eye.

["Me, what?"]

"...!"

The first thing to approach was the pure white light, and the next to reach them was the sound.

Quijano was at the spot her finger pointed to, but the one right in front of her eyes was also Quijano.

Only Quijano's afterimage fading faintly from behind was still smiling at her.

BANG! BOOM! BANG BANG BANG!

"Too fas...!"

"Guaaagh!"

Following the delayed roar, the headless knights began to burst apart.

A world drawn by Vlad but painted by Quijano.

Vlad's clumsy world, drawn for the first time in his life, could not contain Quijano's speed at all.

"Kyaaaagh!"

At the heavy impact striking her abdomen, the woman ended up letting out a dizzying scream.

'This makes no sense!'

A body that could not feel pain because it was not alive.

However, she was now screaming sharply and flailing about.

Because a presence that transcended the laws was suppressing the very entity that was her.

CLAAAAANG!

Along with a loud bell toll, the buildings around the plaza began to collapse.

Standing upright amidst the thick smoke was only the golden tree that Vlad had set straight.

The white world rampaging above it began to roar loudly.

["Upon my land, built for the powerless and innocent!"]

With every Sword Path extended, tall buildings were cleaved, and with every step Quijano took, the ground exploded.

It was Quijano's movement roughly peeling away every single pitch-black world the woman had drawn.

["What the hell have you bastards been doing!"]

"Kyaaaagh!"

Crushed by the colossal world known as Quijano, her two feet completely touched the ground.

Feeling the presence of God that she had been turning away from until now, the woman began to let out a short scream.

["Why the hell did you go around killing children!"]

"I didn't kill them!"

The smiling woman started to cry.

What formed in her eyes were black tears.

The resentment of a mother who lost her child, which no one could wipe away, began to crawl out from within her world once again.

"I was trying to protect them! From this godforsaken world!"

There was the church's crest stuck above the children who were burning pitch-black.

There was a nun who wept bitterly next to the graves of the children, who had been swept away simply for someone's cause.

She was a noble person with a beautiful voice.

"I will protect them!"

But what was crying out now were her vocal cords, horribly cracked and consumed by regret and obsession.

Black tears were forming in the woman's two eyes, completely smudged pitch-black because she couldn't bring herself to shed them.

"Inside the world created by me, not God!"

["...!"]

The scream of the woman, who couldn't distinguish between reality and the past, began to call someone standing beyond the fog.

CLAAAAANG!

["Keuk!"]

"Hup!"

Sparks burst out loudly as sword clashed against sword.

At the same time, the silver sword drawn by Quijano's world began to shake violently, as if confused by something.

["...!"]

"..."

A surprised-looking Quijano and a stiffly frozen Frausen.

The man who appeared with the fog was an entity possessing a face that even Quijano, who had barely regained his memories, could easily recognize.

"... It seems the arrangement worked properly."

Their reflections were cast in their meeting eyes.

They hadn't expected to meet like this at all, but a cruel fate ultimately stood them facing toward each other.

"As expected, he was quite an extraordinary guy for a young brat."

CLAAAAANG!

The confused silver sword was trembling.

Because the greatest swordsman and the greatest Dragon Slayer were glaring at each other.

The tip of the sword, not knowing who to thrust toward, was getting dizzy.

"Aren't you going to kill it."

["Kill who."]

Seeing Quijano trying to change the subject, Frausen ended up making a subtle expression.

"The greatest possibility of becoming a dragon."

["... Where is there a dragon here."]

Because a dragon was perfect, it was an immortal being that did not die.

Though shattered into pieces, it was a dragon that could resurrect as long as it gathered, and the man feared that even until his final dying moment.

["What I harbor is a star."]

However, someone saw an ominous dragon through the boy, while someone else saw a radiant star through the boy.

They saw the same thing, but now the two were talking about different things.

"..."

What is the foundation of the existence known as 'me'?

The two, who possessed different memories equivalent to the time they had been separated, began to distinctly divide into the existences of Quijano and Frausen through their recent conversation.

"It seems the formula was flawed."

Quijano, who dreamed of possibility, and Frausen, who returned to fulfill his duty, could now aim their swords at each other without hesitation.

Because the person in front of me is not me.

CLAAAAANG!

The closed right and left eyes began to draw the same world.

However, even if the colors were the same, the shapes they drew were different worlds.

"Keuuup!"

["Huaaaap!"]

Lethal strikes that perfectly resembled each other began to lunge at one another.

They were worlds of an unfathomably high level that no one could intrude upon.

BANG! BOOM!

"This couldn't be what I returned for!"

["No!"]

With every single clashing movement, a building invariably collapsed.

["This is what you returned for!"]

Leaving behind the golden tree and the weeping woman, the men began to tear into each other without stepping back in the slightest.

"What in the world is..."

Gunther and the holy knights, who had been welcoming the commander of the heavenly host, were looking at the collapsing city with blank eyes.

A duel between two men that seemed to have popped right out of a legend.

At that sight that sent shivers down one's spine just from watching, no one could easily regain their senses.

KABOOOOOM!

Every time their swords clashed, the sparks that flew up were burning the pitch-black sky.

Because of that, Moshiam's sky was gradually beginning to find its true color.

The sunlight shining down from there began to illuminate the corners of Gunther's eyes.

"... I will divert the formula!"

It was sunlight like a revelation.

The sunlight that passed by Gunther drew a straight path and this time began to illuminate the golden tree.

The golden tree that exactly resembled someone's hair color.

When looking there through the world of God, the brightly smiling children were raising their palms, as if the sunlight that was finally visible was blinding them.

"Excellent, Vlad!"

He didn't know how this happened, but it had to be a miracle.

The desperate wish of a knight in this heavily twisted city had undoubtedly called forth something akin to a miracle.

- May the grace of the Holy Spirit be bestowed through this holy ceremony to help these children.

The holy power they had gathered to welcome the commander of the heavenly host was pointing not toward the sky, but toward Vlad's tree.

KABOOOOOM!

The collapsing city, the sinking walls.

But even there, the unwavering voices of the holy knights' prayers were ringing out high.

- Free these children from sin, save them, and look upon them with mercy!

The last prayer one could hear before leaving the world. Last Rites.

God's knights, standing where they belonged, were paving a path through the golden color upon the earth and the white color beneath the sky.

"No! My children!"

The woman's black tears tried to block it, but God had already seen the pitiful children.

And so, the door through the sky began to open.

A radiant light of salvation was shining down on Moshiam.

* * *

"What's that?"

The military formation where the flags of the seven families were fluttering.

An unusual pillar of light began to appear before the highly tense knights.

It was the first strange phenomenon that could be verified in the city entirely shrouded in fog.

"Ooh... That light is."

"Do you recognize that light?"

He was Iron Duke Timur, who could be said to hold the highest position in the North, but even he had someone he must speak formally to.

"Yes. That light is a noble prayer guiding lost souls."

The old man who saw through the identity of the cluster of light descending over Moshiam at a glance.

Pope Conrad, head of the Northern Orthodox Church, could realize that the cluster of light shining over Moshiam right now was the Last Rites for a ceremony of ascension.

"It seems my knights inside have opened a path toward God."

"The holy knights did..."

Pope Conrad prayed while bowing his head, saying that this too was God's grace.

However, despite his explanation, Timur's expression did not easily relax.

'Two months have passed, yet there were still survivors inside?'

The woman's overly thick fog had even made the distinction between time and space ambiguous.

Because of that, the time spent inside hadn't even been a single day, but outside, two months had already passed.

Therefore, the doubt Timur held right now was completely reasonable.

RUMBLE!

"Your Grace!"

"I see it."

Right in front of them, Moshiam's walls were collapsing.

Dismally, as if something had exploded from the inside.

Watching the walls collapse despite no attacks being made, the soldiers of the Northern Alliance began to murmur.

"Knights... Gather the knights sent by each family."

Timur involuntarily stuttered.

Unable to hide his panic, he gave instructions in a trembling voice.

"You must gather only those who know how to wield aura."

"Understood, Your Grace."

Even while giving the order, Timur did not turn his gaze away from the collapsed walls.

Because a world's resonance that even flustered the strongest knight in the North was right there.

"... It's as if a Swordmaster has burst out."

A world's resonance that could be clearly recognized because he was at a high level.

Overwhelmed by that resonance, Timur hurriedly closed his left eye.

A pressure that he could not possibly withstand without invoking a world.

Right now, even though no one gave the order, all the knights standing at the advanced level were uniformly closing their left eyes.

* * *

"Oh my."

The white-haired man standing in the thick smoke.

Frausen sensed the presence of the knights felt outside the city.

Knights equipped with their own worlds.

Among them, there was one equipped with a world that even he could not easily ignore.

["Ngh!"]

Quijano, lifting up the rubble of the wall and coming out, began to laugh.

He was a mess covered in stone dust, but unlike the serious-faced Frausen, he could smile.

["There are a lot of this kid's friends here in the North."]

"..."

["Can you handle all of them, including me?"]

Frausen's gaze was looking at Quijano's trembling fingertips.

"He's lucky."

["This kid is lucky again."]

Quijano was desperately feigning composure, but this was the limit.

Though their wills were equal, the difference in the vessels containing them was inevitably clear right now; the more time dragged on, the more advantageous it was for Frausen, who possessed his original physical body.

"Do not forget. What duty I was shouldering."

The woman staring resentfully at the brilliantly shining cluster of light.

Hoisting her onto his back as she sat there blankly even now, Frausen finally opened his mouth toward Quijano.

"I have returned to kill the dragon."

["..."]

With those final words, the man disappeared into the fog.

Along with the slowly retreating waves of fog, today's sun gradually began to tint the sky above the city of Moshiam.

["I'm telling you it's not a dragon, it's Vlad..."]

As soon as Frausen's presence vanished, Quijano's vision gradually began to tilt.

There was something visible to him as he was falling over.

The golden tree that was shining even now.

Glittering powders chattered above Vlad's sword, which had now found its own color rather than being a silver sword, and flew toward Vlad's tree.