Chapter 179 - The City Where the Dragon Roars (1)

The Dragulia estate in the capital, Brigantes.

Dragonblood Duke Sarnus stood by the window, gazing toward the far northern distance.

His face reflected in the window looked noticeably gaunt, perhaps because of the white bandage wrapped around the nape of his neck.

'... The sword of the Swordmaster has been drawn.'

On the day the Pact had suddenly activated, Sarnus had become certain.

Somewhere in the Empire, the sword of the Swordmaster had been drawn.

For the Pact with the Swordmaster that had activated, however briefly, was something that could be carried on only through bloodline or will.

'Is it the Iron Duke? Or Bayezid?'

There was no way Frausen, already dead, would suddenly have a successor, so the only possibility left was the Swordmaster's sword.

And according to rumors, in fog-filled Moshiam, there had been a white lightning bolt that split the city.

'If I find that and destroy it, I am free.'

Though Sarnus had been born as one who took, the Pact had bound him and forced him to become one who protected, and now he was dreaming of true freedom.

And at the end of the dream he dreamed, the perfection the dragon blood so desperately longed for would be waiting.

"Hm?"

But for one brief instant.

It had truly been only a brief instant, but Sarnus felt a prickling pain digging into the nape of his neck.

It was somehow different from the sensation he had felt before, yet it was also a pain he clearly knew.

"... Blood?"

A fleeting sensation that had been almost like an illusion.

Sarnus lifted his fingers to touch the bandage, then froze in confusion at the red liquid smeared across his fingertips.

"But the sword should already have been drawn."

The silver knight, which could be drawn, perhaps, but had no rightful heir to its will and thus could only remain silent.

And yet, on the white bandage Sarnus wore, a single drop of bright-red blood was spreading.

It was a very small trace, but it was clearly making its presence known.

* * *

Was the one before them a dragon, or a knight?

The northern lords, swords drawn, glared at Vlad as he stood with his head lowered.

The blond knight who had been roaring violently only moments ago had clearly been howling with a dragon's voice.

"We must cut him down even now."

"... Wait."

"Count Peter. I know it pains you, but this is for the greater cause."

"..."

At the voice that came from beside him, Peter clenched his lips shut.

The man was right.

If one stood where one had to stand, one had to do what must be done.

For Dragulia blood was no different from poison to the North, which had to become one.

"Still, let us wait a moment."

Yet Peter could not move his sword so easily.

The young knight born in Soara and found by Bayezid.

Peter remembered the young squire who had swung his sword countless times beneath the walls of Sturma.

And also the bright smile of his son, who had brought that squire back with him.

"He is moving."

Vlad had been kneeling on one knee, his head bowed.

As he slowly began to rise, the lords' gazes began to sharpen.

Some of them were already drawing up aura through their closed left eyes.

"Sir Vlad..."

Standing behind the lords, Alicia watched Vlad, who still remained silent, with an expression as if she were about to cry.

The inexplicable tremor that still shook the ground continued to shake her uneasy heart.

RUMBLE!

Stone dust was falling from the ceiling.

Amid the cries of the fragments shouting for him to hurry and turn his eyes to this place, Vlad quietly opened his eyes.

Vlad's eyes as they opened were still deep blue, but their focus was clearly fixed.

"Vlad Aureo."

In the heavy silence, Iron Duke Timur's voice rang out from the highest seat in the conference hall.

Though he tried to suppress it, the unavoidable tremor in his voice blurred the end of Timur's words.

"Tell us, who stand here, who you are."

Within Timur's world lay a sight he had seen and felt, yet could not bring himself to believe.

The other lords may not have known, but Timur, Guardian of the Pact, had seen the young dragon acknowledged as a knight beneath the shining tree.

"I am Vlad."

'How many people in this world know who I am?'

But only today did Vlad clearly realize who he was.

Because he had found the root from which he began, and the goal he wished to become throughout his life.

"The master of myself. Vlad."

With those words, Vlad turned his head at the boundary where he could become a noble.

For he no longer needed a name of his own given to him by someone else.

THUMP!

In the chest he had been clutching with effort, a single shining star was still afloat.

Vlad gathered that star and quietly transferred it into the sword of the World Tree.

At the sight of the light that had moved along the dragon's heart, the sword of the World Tree began to shine.

"Then I will go and do what I must."

Though no one had given him permission, Vlad began walking out toward the doors through which he had come.

They were doors he had struggled until now to enter, but there was not the slightest hesitation in Vlad's back as he turned away.

* * *

Following the howls cried out by the dragon pieces, the wyverns in the sky were roaring.

The more the pieces howled, the stronger the wyverns' scales became, and now they no longer yielded even to arrows, while the breath they endlessly spat was driving the knights of Bastopol into a corner even now.

Before the forms of dragons that became ever more perfect the closer they drew to the pieces, the northern knights could only grit their teeth and resist.

"Is that all you have, Rutiger Bayezid!"

"...!"

CLANG!

Sword struck sword, but the sound that rang out was like something exploding.

Along with the hot blast that spread through the corridor, Mircea's roar echoed out.

"What a waste of that confidence you showed a moment ago!"

Between the swords pressed close together, Mircea could be seen laughing savagely.

His blond hair was stained here and there as if scorched, but his madness-filled blue eyes remained unchanged.

"That insolent blow. Try it once more."

"As many times as you like..."

Their eyes met beyond the swords that shrieked as they ground together.

Having cast aside both the positions they held and everything happening around them, the two men facing each other were focused solely on one another.

"... I will!"

Rutiger struck his sword hard, then used the recoil to raise it high once more.

Rutiger's world, drawn up from the Deep World and made to erupt through the crater called rage.

The scorching aura gathered at the tip of his sword resembled lava bursting from a volcano.

'I can see it!'

Yet Mircea merely kept smiling as he watched Rutiger's sword.

Mircea's senses became ever more perfect the closer he drew to the pieces.

The dragon's gaze, which could pierce through even beings in the far distance, showed him exactly where Rutiger would strike.

BOOM!

With a tremendous sound, stone dust half-melted by aura began to spray up.

But what Rutiger's sword tip touched was only empty air.

"...!"

"I told you earlier, did I not?"

Rutiger could feel a chilling presence against his ear.

A voice that brushed against him, yet dug in sharply.

With instinct faster than judgment, Rutiger quickly rolled across the corridor.

"You are too slow!"

GRRRRIND!

The place where Rutiger had been was being torn apart by Mircea's strike.

The corridor wall, unable to withstand the force of the swing, was not merely cut but shoved away entirely.

At the sight of that distant, overwhelming strength that surpassed human standards, a chill ran down Rutiger's spine.

"... So this was it."

Looking at the corridor filled with pale stone dust, Mircea was smiling.

His own blow, unbelievable even when he saw it with his own eyes.

The thrilling sensation still remaining traveled up his hand and reached his brain.

"So this was a dragon."

His own existence, felt through the opponent he had wounded.

Looking at Volkov and the northern knights collapsed far away, and at Rutiger sprawled out after being pushed back by the wind pressure, Mircea was finally able to realize who he was.

He was a dragon.

A perfect being that wretches like these could never stop.

"Let us end this now. I have no more business with you."

Rutiger had been facing him head-on until just moments ago, but through the dragon's gaze, he had somehow become a being far below.

If there was something beneath him, then trampling it and looking upward was the instinct a dragon possessed by nature.

To meet the higher world called the Iron Duke, Mircea decided to climb over Rutiger's corpse.

"Let us part here."

"... Try it, if you can."

Watching Mircea prepare the final blow, Rutiger quietly began to breathe deeply.

He could not know what had happened, but his opponent was growing stronger with each passing moment.

Before the force Mircea emitted became an unapproachable river, Rutiger had to cut it off.

"..."

Mircea's world, seen through the closed eye, was like a shining jewel.

His world, polished by someone, was a world that pursued flawlessness and allowed not even the smallest blemish.

THUMP!

However, Mircea could not call forth his world from that deep place.

Because he noticed someone rushing toward him from behind Rutiger at terrifying speed.

"Who are you!"

A speed that even the eyes of a dragon could barely follow.

Yet the light charging toward him was made of gold and was dazzling beyond measure.

CLANG!

Faster than the fastest dragon.

Sharper than the sharpest dragon.

"I am Vlad of Soara!"

World finally met world.

And the two who collided like that had blue eyes that looked exactly alike.

* * *

RUMBLE!

When dragon met dragon, the pieces below began to roar loudly.

The beings closest to perfection among all the dragons they had ever called.

Recognizing that brilliant possibility, the pieces were shouting for them to hurry and seize them.

"This is hardly what we should be to each other."

"Then what are we to each other?"

Sword rang against sword, clashing loudly because they were pressed together.

Between the one trying to advance and the one trying to hold him back, there was not the slightest opening.

"You know now too, do you not? Who you are."

SCREECH!

The balance of the clashing swords tilted greatly toward Vlad.

Because the strength only a dragon could possess was ruthlessly driving Vlad back.

"Ghhh..."

["Hurry and get away! You must not understand that man by human standards!"]

The marble floor beneath Vlad's feet was shattering without mercy.

It was marble that had stood guard for long years, but unable to withstand the force pressing down, it was breaking apart miserably.

"Come to us, little brother. As you are now, you are more than qualified."

The brightest-shining one among the seeds Father had scattered.

There was clearly sincerity in Mircea's words, telling him to come to Dragulia.

For the Dragulia Family had been maintained that way from the very beginning.

"What a load of... bullshit!"

"...!"

But Vlad instead flew into a great rage at Mircea's words telling him to come to Dragulia.

"You should have said that before my mother died."

"...!"

If you people were so great, you should have come long ago and reached out your hands.

Back then, when his mother had died, it had been so cold, and he had been so young, he had not even been able to make her a grave.

GRRRRIND!

With Vlad's rage, the sword of the World Tree began to level the balance once more.

Strength that pushed back strength began bursting from Vlad's muscles.

"How can you, who were not there then, possibly be my older brother?"

BOOM!

If you are a dragon, then so am I.

Along with bitter memories, Vlad accepted his identity as a Dragulia.

Even if the blood flowing within him was hateful, and even if he wished to reject it.

"Kh...!"

A dragon's power that he knew how to wield, but had never once received before.

Feeling that intense force for the first time, Mircea was sent sliding all the way toward the end of the corridor.

"Lord Rutiger!"

"Yes."

There are thoughts that pass between people without being spoken.

Meeting each other's eyes, the two decided what they had to do through familiar experience.

"Buy me time!"

THUNK!

Rutiger drove his sword into the floor, hurriedly closed his left eye, and sank once more into the Deep World.

Deeper than before, until he came close to touching the world called himself.

Using the time bought for him by Bayezid's finest dragon driver.

"Vlad! Vlad Dragulia!"

"Do not call me Dragulia!"

Vlad shouted loudly at Mircea as he approached from the darkness.

He acknowledged that he had been born with that blood, but he could not bear being called that.

Because that was only a name you people had given him.

"I will not live like you people!"

Vlad, Vlad, Vlad.

Standing straight the name he had earned, Vlad began building his world while thinking of those who had helped him earn those names.

For the golden tree Vlad created had been raised upon soil given to him by his teachers.

"I will live not as a dragon, but as a knight!"

The step he took forward came from Jager.

The skill to twist armor came from Justia.

The optimal path for charging in came from Auguste.

The solid energy wrapping his entire body came from Lamund.

And the secret of the one-strike sure-kill he now thrust forth came from the knight of knights, the Swordmaster.

"Hraaaaaah!"

Along with the great roar Vlad unleashed, the sword of the World Tree began to shine fiercely.

That light was his Deep World, brought along the heart that beat with the star.

Watch closely, dragon. See who I am.

See me, now able to shine not with someone else's name, but with my own.