Chapter 180 - The City Where the Dragon Roars (2)

A dragon piece, made by splitting apart the most perfect dragon.

Iron Duke Timur had expected that such trouble would follow from the moment he received Ravnoma's piece from the pilgrims.

Because dragons were immortal beings, and they constantly tried to gather together in order to become perfect.

"Count Bayezid."

"... Your Grace."

Gripping his sword, Peter was looking at Rutiger and Vlad fighting up ahead, at the end of the corridor.

My son and knight, trying to push back the approaching dragon.

He wanted to run to them at once, but Peter had something he had to do here.

"Not there. What we must do is here."

Every age has duties it must shoulder.

Just as the knights of this age had to fight up ahead, the knights of the previous age also had duties they had to shoulder.

"We must resolve the cause of the problem."

When Timur nodded toward Fernand, the mage soon began drawing a large circle in the empty air.

Then a hidden passage began to reveal itself.

A corridor that the mage who deceived space had painstakingly hidden was appearing before Peter's eyes.

"As we promised before, take charge of Ravnoma's piece."

"..."

The present situation had practically begun when Ravnoma of the West, a house of the Guardians of the Pact, fell.

Because the pieces were close together, they were becoming more perfect, and in order to resolve this situation, a new house was needed to keep a piece in Ravnoma's place.

And the only house capable of doing so was Bayezid.

"Will Bayezid be enough, Your Grace?"

"I would be more grateful than I can say if you stood beside me."

Hearing Timur's words, Peter raised his head and looked up at the ceiling.

The cries of dragons howled above the trembling city.

The sound grew fiercer as time passed, and as the vibrations of the pieces grew stronger.

"Understood."

Those with power must bear responsibility equal to that power.

Standing before the dark, pitch-black corridor, Peter nodded to say that he would.

"I will become the guardian of another piece."

For Bayezid, and for my sons who will move forward from here.

For the sake of the next generation, Peter decided to duly pay the duty he had to accept.

* * *

"Raaaaaah!"

It was so dazzling that the broad corridor looked narrow.

Golden afterimages tangled in intricate patterns across the floor, ceiling, and walls alike.

Amid the feast of lines continuing at high speed, Mircea's gaze began to waver, unable to find its bearings.

["Now!"]

The secret of the one-strike sure-kill began with the unexpected.

And the teacher who understood that secret best was likely Auguste, who shared the same swordsmanship.

"Who gave you the right to call me Dragulia!"

The route shown by the path of Auguste, the Imperial Enforcer Commander, had been built in layer upon intricate layer, deceiving even a dragon's gaze.

But though the path forward was complex, what he wanted was clear.

The Duelist's swordsmanship, which settled a battle with a single strike, began to extend through the tip of Vlad's sword.

"... Imperial Swordsmanship!"

The sword of the man whom anyone born a dragon could not help but hate.

Mircea's eyes twisted viciously when he recognized that sword, but by the time he saw it, it was too late, and by the time he realized it, it had already reached him.

"I am not Dragulia!"

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG CLANG CLANG!

The golden afterimage pressed onward, finally shattering the old corridor.

As Vlad pushed Mircea back, the ripples Jager had engraved surged beneath every footprint he took.

"I am Vlad of Soara!"

The two knights tangled in the thick stone dust, breaking through the walls that blocked their path, then breaking through, and through again.

Receiving Vlad's strike, as if his whole body had been turned into a sword, Mircea could not help but let out a suppressed sound through his teeth.

'This bastard is being affected by the pieces too!'

Strength and speed that only a dragon could possess.

Faced with that physical force beyond human standards, Mircea was pushed farther away from the dragon pieces once again.

["You have to keep controlling the battlefield! What did Jager tell you before?"]

The one-eyed knight Jager had said it.

Only attacks that flowed like water could overwhelm an opponent.

In other words, it meant he always had to prepare the next move.

"My patience has limits!"

As if he could no longer endure Vlad's charge, which kept pushing him back, Mircea's sword began to thrust out.

Mircea cut off the pulse of the attack along with a brilliantly iridescent aura.

His world, which cleanly severed Vlad's forward momentum connected by lines, was indeed perfect enough for him to call himself so.

'I won't dodge!'

But perfection meant there were no flaws.

If there was no flaw in his opponent, Vlad decided he would become the flaw engraved into that perfection himself.

Because the mud fight about to begin was also the method Vlad was most confident in.

CRUNCH.

"...!"

The pauldron the sword touched crumpled, and cracks began to spread across his breastplate.

Even so, his advance did not stop.

Seeing Vlad take the attack with nothing but his body, Mircea's eyes flew wide open.

"This is how we do it in the back alleys, you bastard!"

He used the angle of his armor to deflect the sword, then endured the resulting impact with a body-hardening technique.

It was a charge that was truly reckless and stupid beyond belief.

But the back alleys of Soara were a place where, if you could not endure the present, you could not dream of tomorrow.

"Ghk!"

Just as Vlad's forehead seemed to flash, it soon filled Mircea's vision.

THUD!

After the flash came a fierce pain.

Today, for the first time in his life, Mircea experienced what it meant to be headbutted.

"You ridiculous little...!"

"Raaaaaah!"

Joseph had said it.

The foundation of war was not giving the enemy what they wanted.

The battlefield they wanted, the time they wanted, and the method they wanted.

Vlad's attack, which had begun down in the mire, was not giving Mircea a single thing he wanted.

"Who am I! Say it again!"

Because he was born a dragon, he was vicious, and because he had grown up in the back alleys, he was rough.

Yet what he was wielding was noble Imperial Swordsmanship.

From root to fruit, an unexpectedness where not a single thing fit together was roaring loudly in the name of Vlad.

"Say it! Mircea!"

Vlad's world was a world of many facets.

The name Vlad, which changed depending on who saw it, was something only he himself could define.

* * *

Knights of Maringen, to me!

Harkita! Form a square!

Fordmills and Romnie, guard the wounded!

The lords who had rushed out of the conference hall were hurriedly gathering the knights of their houses.

The dragon killer knights and wyverns were still ravaging Bastopol up in the sky.

But the knights led by the lords finally began to form ranks swiftly, as if they had found their places.

THUNK!

SCREECH!

And far away, one wyvern dropped with a chilling sound.

From the ground that had only been suffering until now, a single ray of light had shot straight upward.

It was someone's spear, faster than an arrow and sharper than a sword.

"It's Sir Volkov!"

"Volkov of the Javelin!"

The knights of Baranoff began cheering as they watched the wyvern fall powerlessly.

"... Go bring me all my spears."

Volkov was so exhausted that even the order he forced out trembled.

Blood dirtied by dust ran down from his forehead to his wrist, and the armor he wore was broken here and there, but Volkov's eyes alone were not dead yet.

"As many as those flying fly bastards up there."

Everyone had a place suited to them.

And for Volkov of the Javelin, hitting the wyverns flying up above was a more fitting place than facing the dragon called Mircea.

* * *

RUMBLE!

The corridor was still shaking even now.

It was a corridor connected by mystery, but the dragon piece was rampaging so violently that even that passage was trembling.

"... Let us begin."

"Understood."

In the deepest place within the city made of steel.

Under the guidance of the mage Fernand, Timur and Peter, who had walked along the dark corridor, were finally able to stand before the sealing caskets where the dragon pieces were stored.

RUMBLE!

RUMBLE-RUMBLE!

The sealing caskets that held the dragon pieces.

The sealing caskets, which had been calling the dragons with all their might, began to howl even louder, as if they had recognized Timur and Peter's presence.

"Huuuuup!"

Timur's world flowed along his closed left eye.

Passing through a lock only a Baranoff could pass, the knight's sword touched the dragon piece.

GRAAAAAAAH!

"Gh!"

"...!"

Would it sound like this if beast and human screamed as one?

At the bizarre scream that could not be described in words, even the experienced Timur and Peter flinched for a moment.

"... It has quieted down."

"It has only fainted for a while."

A faint stream of blood was leaking from the sword he had stabbed in.

Looking at Baranoff's casket, which had quieted along with it, Timur nodded.

"Now it is your turn."

The dragons rampaging outside right now were being affected by these pieces.

They were remnants split away from the most perfect dragon, and disasters that would continue calling dragons without end.

Unless these things were stopped, even for a very short while, those born with dragon blood would trample Bastopol endlessly.

"I will cut it."

"I am ready, Count."

Looking at Ravnoma's lock, which could no longer fulfill its role, Peter closed his left eye.

Peter's world, slowly flowing out, resembled the walls of Sturma, standing firm.

"Hup!"

SLASH!

Peter cut away the lock of fallen Ravnoma, which was already heavily cracked.

Then the dragon piece that was trying to escape the sealing casket began to thrash.

"Hurry and swear before the Swordmaster's casket!"

Matching that moment, Fernand called forth a mystery and began to block the top of the sealing casket with a heavy and enormous space.

THOOOM.

Through his distorted vision, Fernand's space, barely visible, looked like a mountain compressed very small.

Even with an entire mountain placed over its head, the ground still shook, likely because the dragon piece was that desperate right now.

"I will continue to do what must be done, in the place where I must be..."

STAB!

With Fernand's help, Peter drove his sword into the place where the lock had been.

From the tip of his sword, the same bizarre scream as before began to ring out.

"The name that bears responsibility and will pay the rightful price is Bayezid."

Peter's expression began to twist as he chanted the oath.

Unlike with Timur, this time his blood was being drawn out along the sword he had driven in.

"Until this name reaches its end, Bayezid swears to guard your task."

Not just anyone could speak this oath.

Only the guarantee of one with power could say that they would protect something.

A pillar of the North for a long time, and the one remaining supporter of Ravnoma.

And only Bayezid, who had defeated Gaidar of the West and newly risen one step higher, had the right to give force to this oath.

And the Swordmaster's sealing casket also judged Peter's oath to be lawful and proper.

"Gnnnnngh!"

The blood that had flowed out along the sword began to gather into one mass.

The place where it began to gather was where Ravnoma's lock had been until just moments ago.

In place of Ravnoma's lock, which could no longer fulfill its duty because it had fallen, a new lock made from Peter's blood began to be set.

* * *

Bastopol, the city where dragons howled.

But the city that had been shaking precariously until moments ago was now slowly beginning to find its place.

"...!"

"...!"

As were the blue eyes that had been glaring fiercely at each other.

The wyverns that had been rampaging above were also floundering with wings grown heavy from the sudden sense of powerlessness.

'Ughhh.'

["Don't let go of your sword! You've only just returned to normal."]

Vlad, who had been excited by the constant exhilaration, was left bewildered by his body suddenly growing heavy.

And Vlad was not the only one bewildered by the current situation.

'It stopped? The dragon piece?'

There had been a call that grew stronger and more perfect the closer he approached.

Mircea had tried to complete his mission by following that call, but the current situation was unfolding in a way completely different from what his father had told him.

'Baranoff's is one thing, but even Ravnoma's casket?'

Baranoff's casket had a lawful owner, so perhaps it could be calmed, but Ravnoma's casket, which had already fallen so greatly, should not have been possible to put to rest.

Unlike what Timur or Fernand thought, that sealing casket, which had lost its qualifications, was one that no one could calm, no matter who came.

["Looks like they're ready! Vlad!"]

Until the Swordmaster's recognition was given.

The power one possessed was merely a condition for becoming a guardian.

Because Bayezid had protected, raised, and believed in the young possibility called Vlad before Quijano, Peter had been able to newly become a Guardian of the Pact.

"...!"

Feeling the immense heat coming from behind him, Vlad clenched his teeth.

A driver's duty was to bring the prey before the hunter.

Looking at the target he had to hold until the very end, Vlad tightened his grip on his sword once more.

"If you survive, tell that man who calls himself my father."

"... What?"

From the collapsed estate, a volcano heated red-hot was crawling out.

That volcano's name was Rutiger Bayezid.

"That I will come find him one day, no matter what."

It was the Dragon Slayer Rutiger Bayezid.

"Mircea!"

A volcano that had reached down to the deepest world and erupted was beginning to crawl into reality.

The color of the world Rutiger painted was entirely red.

"Let's end this here!"

Rutiger's world, born upon a snow-white field yet hotter than anyone else's, was flying toward the dragon that had lost its wings.

Exactly toward the place where the dragon driver had driven him.

BOOOOOM!

Heat that was impossible to endure began to scorch Mircea's fingertips.

Now that the call of the pieces had vanished, what Mircea wore was nothing more than a human body.

"Gnnnnngh!"

This could not be happening.

Following the dragon's call that should have flowed endlessly, I should have taken the pieces from this place.

Then what in the world was the Swordmaster's energy that Father said he had felt?

"...!"

In that instant, an indescribable intuition flashed through Mircea's mind.

The city of Moshiam, the Swordmaster, Imperial Swordsmanship.

Because the person connected to all of those things was now glaring at him.