Book 1 Chapter 379

“Great God of Shadows, may I ask why you have sought me out?”

There was no longer any attempt to gauge Leo.

Kirin’s attitude had changed the moment she met Leo in person.

Kirin, kneeling, looked up at Leo with her hands clasped together.

A reverent attitude, as if offering a prayer to a god.

Leo, leaning back in his chair with his chin in his hand, clicked his tongue.

“I’m not a god.”

“No, you are like a god to us. You are the absolute light who saved all shadows.”

Judging by her outward appearance alone, Leo was still just a sixteen-year-old boy.

Of course, his actions were surprising.

Not only did he become the student council president of Lumern in his first year, but in his second year, he proved he had the power befitting a student council president.

The Hero Records he had conquered were also extraordinary.

Leo had officially conquered the worlds of Luna and Dweino.

Unofficially, he had attended the entrance exam for Azonia during his first-year summer break and conquered the world of Arion.

Even those who achieved great deeds recognized by the gods and became heroes were not given the opportunity to conquer a world of a Great Hero even if they searched their whole lives, yet Leo had already conquered the worlds of three Great Heroes.

And that’s not all.

He had even gained the recognition of Seirun, the Comet Mage, one of the heroes of the Genesis.

The public no longer saw Leo as a mere hero candidate.

They believed without a doubt that Leo would soon have his name etched in the Hero Records and become a hero.

All of this was publicly known information.

If one looked within, there was another Hero Record unknown to the world.

The owner of the Shadow Scroll and the ruler of the Shan Empire.

‘That alone is amazing, but…’

Kirin looked up at Leo with a smile.

As the Shadow Lord, she had slain traitors and demons in the darkness for a long time.

Due to the nature of shadows, her existence was not known to the world.

However, Kirin was someone with experience and power that overwhelmed even the heroes whose names were on the Hero Records.

Even the skill Leo displayed in the arena, which she had only seen on video, was enough to make her admire him as worthy of becoming the ruler of Shan.

But meeting him in person like this, she could feel Leo’s true nature, which couldn’t be understood from videos alone.

The most striking thing she felt was the darkness coiled beyond Leo’s red eyes.

A darkness that even she, the Shadow Lord, could not fathom its depths.

And a sixteen-year-old boy held it.

An incomprehensible, unknown being who possessed both the brilliant light of a hero and the unfathomable darkness of a shadow.

‘If such a person is not a god, what else should I call them?’

Leo sighed as he saw something in Kirin’s eyes as she looked up at him.

‘She’s gone mad in a different sense than Anias.’

Anias, the daughter of the Northern Shadow Lord, had also followed Leo from the moment they first met.

That was a result of Anias’s beliefs.

To become a servant of a noble hero who did not hesitate to dirty their hands for the sake of the world.

That was the ideal and belief Anias had long held as a shadow, and Leo fit that description, which is why she decided to follow him.

Anias believed Leo was a great hero who would drive out evil from the world.

However, Kirin saw Leo purely as a shadow.

Leo could discern the conviction Kirin held as a shadow.

‘Thoroughly annihilate everything that threatens the world in the darkness.’

She would not follow a hero like other shadows.

She was a person who lived by her own convictions.

And with the emergence of the Shadow Scroll, such convictions were recognized.

Shadows had risen to the same level as heroes.

Kirin clearly saw Leo, who made this possible and was the ultimate shadow, as a god.

‘I can tell by her eyes.’

Leo knew beings with such eyes.

An emotion that could not be found in this era.

An emotion seen in the distant past, before the Age of Calamity and in the Age of Gods.

‘The pureblood elves had similar eyes.’

What was in Kirin’s eyes was fanaticism, bordering on madness, beyond mere faith.

‘It doesn’t seem like we can have a conversation. Well, it doesn’t seem like it will harm me, though.’

Knowing that conversation with this type of person was impossible, Leo decided to let it be.

“We’re here to explore the underground labyrinth.”

“It won’t be difficult to grant you permission to enter, but you probably won’t find what you’re looking for. There are no Hero Dungeons here.”

“I know. What I’m after is the treasure left by Lodius, the Genesis Dragon.”

“The Genesis Dragon?”

Chen Xia, who had been watching the conversation beside Leo,’s eyes widened.

“The Genesis Dragon. Lodius’s treasure… I felt a powerful dark energy beyond the seal at the end of this labyrinth and have been managing it as dangerous, so I never imagined that the seal was to protect the treasure left by Lodius, the Genesis Dragon.”

“You feel a dark energy?”

“Yes.”

At Kirin’s answer, Leo fell into thought.

‘Larel told me that Lodius left something related to Lissinas in this treasury. And you feel a dark energy there?’

Lissinas, the Dragon of Wisdom.

The leader of the Great Heroes and the great dragon who led the world to salvation.

All Great Heroes were special, but Lissinas was even more special.

If Leo were asked to name the noblest being in this world, he would choose Lissinas without hesitation.

It wasn’t because she tried to save the world.

‘The Age of Calamity was an era where everything fell.’

It was an era where everyone endlessly fell into depravity.

An era where nobility was lost and they became endlessly ugly.

Conscience and humanity were objects of ridicule.

Even in such an era, there were those who shone.

Luna and Arion, Dweino were like that.

Because they didn’t lose their light, they would have joined the expedition force without hesitation.

But even they could not bring themselves to think of saving the world.

No, the world at the time was so foul that even they turned away from it.

Lissinas bore all of that and tried to save the world.

She did not hesitate to save even those who were already tainted and depraved.

She said with a smile that if they saw light and hope, they would regain their original selves.

If Kyle was the hero of the beginning who ended the Age of Calamity and opened a new era.

Lissinas was the beginning of salvation who guided the world to light.

Wiser and nobler than anyone else, and benevolent to the end.

However, even Lissinas had one aspect of herself she disliked.

Leo was the only one who knew Lissinas’s complex.

‘Darkness.’

Lissinas was a black dragon.

And black dragons were a race of dragons that lived by consuming darkness.

The dragons were the first race to fall during the Age of Calamity.

Many dragons turned their backs on the world after endless depravity.

One could not blame them.

What they did during the Age of Gods was what Kyle did, and what shadows do now.

They were the black dragons who devoured the demons of Tartarus and the traitors, growing stronger.

That is why Lissinas truly hated the darkness she held within her.

The long journey of defeating Tartarus and subduing Erebus.

During this journey, Lissinas achieved great deeds as a mage and summoner.

People of this era remember Lissinas as the strongest summoner in history.

Indeed, the basic concepts of necromancy, beast summoning, and elemental summoning used in the current era were all created by Lissinas.

Lissinas was somewhat underestimated in her magical achievements.

Perhaps if Luna hadn’t existed, Lissinas would have been revered as the greatest mage in magical history.

She reinterpreted the curses of the Tartarus demons and developed draconic magic.

At the same time, she also created the framework for existing draconic magic.

‘Lissinas’s greatest achievement, perhaps, was making the unique magic of each dragon race usable by all dragons.’

Originally, the unique magic of a fire dragon could only be used by a fire dragon, but in this era, fire dragons use the unique magic of water dragons.

‘The influence of this is great in why dragons are called the strongest race.’

They were already a powerful race, but their status now is even greater than their status in the Age of Gods.

However, the only magic Lissinas did not leave behind was the unique magic of a ‘black dragon’.

It was a magic that even Leo, her companion, did not know.

Lissinas believed that if she had embraced her identity as a black dragon, she would not have been able to save this world.

‘That was true, too.’

If Lissinas had unhesitatingly cut off those she considered worthless, this world could not have been saved.

It was because she could embrace the ugliness of the world that she could save it.

And Kyle took on that role for Lissinas.

‘Because I was the most suitable person.’

Even if they were stained by ugliness, one cannot carry those who cross the line.

It was Kyle’s job to put them down.

‘She worried about useless things.’

Leo smiled bitterly as he recalled the past.

Then he seriously pondered.

‘If it’s dark power related to Lissinas… it might be the unique magic of a black dragon that she didn’t tell me about.’

Magic she didn’t even tell me about.

But that unique magic might have been passed on to Lodius, who conquered Lissinas’s world.

Given the nature of Hero Records, Leo could inherit Lissinas’s powers that he didn’t know about.

It was when Leo reached that conclusion.

*Swish*

A beastman male appeared from the darkness.

Leo, Chen Xia, and Kirin, who had sensed his presence, calmly looked at the man.

“Master.”

“Why?”

“We have received a report that a hero dungeon is showing signs of going berserk in the monster forest.”

At those words, Leo’s eyes twitched.

***

*Thump. Thump.*

On a dark night in Gardsron, Kyle, covered in blood, arrived at his home and found Lissinas sitting on a chair in the desolate garden.

Lissinas looked up and saw Kyle.

“Welcome, Kyle.”

“What are you doing out here? It’s late.”

“I heard from Dweino. That you…”

Lissinas gritted her teeth.

“Went to execute the traitors. I was worried, so I was waiting.”

“You worry too much. Compared to the monsters of Tartarus, dealing with those traitors is nothing. So don’t worry.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

Lissinas reached out to stop Kyle, who was passing her and heading into the house.

Kyle dodged Lissinas’s outstretched hand.

Lissinas’s hand sliced through the air.

Seeing Lissinas flustered, Kyle shook his head.

“My hands are too dirty for you to touch.”

He didn’t want Lissinas to touch him.

More accurately, he didn’t like the blood of the traitors getting on Lissinas.

To someone foolish enough to embrace everything in this world.

Kyle absolutely could not allow the blood of garbage, for whom even pity was a waste, to stain her.

At those words, Lissinas furrowed her brow.

Then she sighed and forcefully took Kyle’s hand.

“It’s absolutely not dirty. It’s you?”

Holding Kyle’s scarred and bloody hand, Lissinas smiled benevolently.

“For me, for our friends, for the world. These are the hands that delve into darkness. They are absolutely not dirty.”

Kyle smiled bitterly at her soft but firm voice.

“I’m worried, actually. If you keep doing this… I’m worried your purity will be tainted.”

“If it were going to get this dirty, it would have gotten dirty long ago.”

Kyle chuckled.

He unconsciously reached out to pat the head of his worried colleague.

At that, Lissinas flinched.

“Ah, is it not okay to touch my head?”

“No! It’s okay.”

“Last time, you patted Luna’s head with your bloody hands, and she threw a fit.”

“That’s because she’s fussy!”

“No, you’d be uncomfortable too, wouldn’t you?”

Kyle opened the door.

“Then I’ll wait. After I wash up…”

“It’s too late. What are you waiting for after washing up?”

“Well, it’s not that I’m waiting for anything specific. It’s just that it’s so late, so I’ll be staying at your place. That’s what I meant.”

“You’ll be inconvenienced by being with me. Anyway, if you use teleportation magic, you’ll arrive at your house right away. Don’t worry too much about me. So, rest well tonight. You must be tired, right?”

Earlier that day, Lissinas had repelled the demons who invaded Gardsron.

Kyle, showing consideration for his friend, went inside and closed the door.

Looking at the door that had shut unforgivably, Lissinas clutched her head.

“Idiot! Why did I get nervous and flinch for no reason…!”

Kyle often patted Luna’s head, but he had never patted Lissinas’s head.

The reason was simple.

Before being Kyle’s friend and comrade, Lissinas was a leader.

The rigid Kyle, even when bickering and spouting rude remarks like calling her a lizard, undeniably respected Lissinas as a leader in his actions.

From Lissinas’s perspective, it was completely unnecessary and annoying respect.

So, she sometimes envied Kyle and Luna, who seemed as close as siblings.

But for the first time, she tried to pat his head and lost the opportunity by getting nervous for no reason.

Lissinas, blaming herself, opened the door and gritted her teeth.

As a noble dragon, she disliked vulgar language.

But in times like these, there was one word that involuntarily slipped out of her mouth.

“Seriously, what an idiot.”