Book 8 Chapter 22
Episode 196
‘This is a fight between pinnacles. I know that if I interfere, I'll only be a hindrance, not a help.’
Before the Dragon Slayer's dragon bone spear pierced Rein's neck.
‘But even for just a moment.’
Without even considering the option of putting down the dragon bone spear and backing away.
‘If I can create an opening, even for just a moment.’
That guy will do it.
Miria, gathering the wire that had been severed by overwhelming strength, felt a somehow certain conviction that he would.
Rather than conviction, it might have been a fervent wish for it to happen.
“Finish it, Rein!”
So, at that moment, it should have been "Finish it for me," not "Finish it."
Even she herself didn't realize that this was the first moment Miria had called Rein by name.
As if the gods were answering that prayer, a bolt of lightning that robbed the world of all light and color, turning it red, struck the dusky ground.
“───!”
Rein’s eyes opened wide.
No, it was just before the red lightning struck the ground. Golden lightning struck from the opposite sky.
A massive tremor rippled through the area, an echo of transcendental power clashing in the sky.
“Don’t underestimate me, half-dragon.”
What on earth──?
He had focused the power of five Fiery Blood Bursts—in other words, the power of thirty-five lightning strikes—into a single blow, yet it was nullified?
“If flame is the authority of the Red Dragon, then lightning is the power of the Yellow Dragon!”
And then, a shockwave spread widely, crumbling, charring, and twisting the ground into rubble.
“When it comes to controlling lightning, I am several times superior to you!”
In the midst of that shockwave, which even a master would find difficult to withstand, a fiery staff and a lightning spear countless times intersected, scattering sparks.
“I personally killed eleven Yellow Dragons with these hands! And absorbed their power completely!”
With some unknown technique, he twirled the massive spear in one hand, generating a fierce wind pressure, then repeated slashing and thrusting.
“This is on a completely different level from those idiotic Paequarius girls who use fragments of Yeouiju!”
The immense wind pressure created by the dragon bone spear made it difficult to even open his eyes properly, and above all, he couldn't read the flow of attacks.
Kigigigigigigig!
And another annoying thing was the chains of the Demon Slayer, which occasionally swept over the area, escaping Doran and Valencidis's control.
“Agh!”
“Stay away!”
The moment an opening appeared while dodging the chains, the Dragon Slayer took a deep breath.
“I’ll show you something special—what real lightning is.”
A straight line from head to toe, and the balance created from the center aligned with it.
Muscular strength drawn from body parts unified solely for a single action.
The preparatory movement seemed quite large and elaborate, but the next moment, he slammed his overwhelming weight deep into the ground.
“Dragon Thunderstrike Slice.”
Transcendent brilliance surged from the spiderweb-like cracks spreading across the ground where the dragon bone spear was embedded.
‘Could this possibly be…’
Only then could Rein see it.
A spirit sword materialized in the hand holding the spear, with the tangible spear and the illusory sword overlapping.
Had he synchronized the spirit sword and the dragon bone spear?
‘Is such a thing even possible?’
Before that alarming thought could blank his mind, an overwhelming flash of lightning covered his entire vision.
‘I must protect them.’
Lightning, swirling like a slash across the entire island, swallowed everything on it.
Light.
It burned, melted, twisted, and swept all creation into ashes.
‘Aki, Miria, Valencidis, and everyone else.’
Surely everything would have vanished without a trace.
*Hwal-leuk*…
If he hadn’t concentrated all available power, all magic, to deploy a barrier across the entire island.
……*Hwar-reu-reu-reu-reuk*.
As the flames, stretched wide enough to swallow the horizon and blocking hundreds of lightning strikes, slowly receded, blood burst from Rein's mouth.
‘Magic runaway…’
The backlash of overusing transcendental power overwhelmed his entire body.
Did I stop it?
Did I block it?
His consciousness grew hazy, and his limbs convulsed. *Piiiiiiiiii*, a ringing echoed in his eardrums.
“Astonishing. To cover this entire island with flames and still cling to life. Is this truly the master of the True Dragon’s Yeouiju?”
Perhaps his hearing was damaged; the surroundings felt excessively quiet.
“I retract what I said earlier about being disappointed. Thanks to you, I’ve enjoyed a fun fight after a long time. This is what a fight should be like.”
A deadly technique where dozens of lightning bolts struck from the sky and hundreds, even thousands, of sword strikes danced on the ground…
He had blocked the power of the lightning but not the vortex of slashes.
Through his blurry vision, he could see the ground everywhere was askew with cracks, as if hit by an earthquake.
“I heard roughly about you from Zernix.”
Was he hit by those slashes, or by the Demon Slayer…?
“They say you’re on an adventure with a hatchling?”
Valencidis and Doran were also visible, sprawled in a pool of blood. Doran even had one leg missing.
“And they say you cherish this hatchling more than your own life.”
And in the distance, the Demon Slayer was also approaching, dragging its chains.
Did I fail?
Did I fail?
Seeing a pair of flames still dancing in the sky, it seemed Pipi and the Beast Slayer's fight was still ongoing.
“Foolish one, if it were me, I would have swallowed this hatchling’s Yeouiju immediately before it became an adult.”
Gasping for breath that seemed on the verge of breaking, what Rein saw as he lifted his head was… despair.
“If you can’t even protect it, why carry such a precious thing around for others to covet?”
The guy had Miria’s neck in his left hand and Aki’s head in his right.
“Aaaah-woo-woo-woo!”
Even if it was a True Dragon, it was still in its infant state.
‘Stop it.’
It was only natural that he couldn't react to the movements of Humanity's Greatest Sword in his current state of confusion.
‘Please stop.’
It was already a struggle just to catch his breath, so he uttered words that made no sound.
“Do you take me for a fool? Someone who stops just because an enemy tells him to? But rest assured. I’m not the type to take minnows hostage and threaten.”
The Dragon Slayer slammed Miria to the ground, then pulled his arm back slightly, intending to stab Aki’s heart.
‘No.’
In his despair, the world seemed to stretch out endlessly, as if trapped in an eternal swamp.
His concentration wasn't amplified. The horizon of his thoughts wasn't expanded.
He was just helplessly watching the situation of despair maximize…
‘Don’t.’
Miria, who had lifted her head, and Rein himself began to shout something. But he couldn't hear what those shouts were in his own ears.
What magic could he use?
What magic could he use to stop that guy, who moved like lightning?
‘Help me.’
At this moment, Rin would have cried out those words. Because she had comrades by her side who would gladly respond to that cry.
But now…
In this era, 300 years later…
Knowing that it wouldn't reach anyone, yet the moment he shouted those words, a miracle drenched the air.
Pure Azure.
An eye-blindingly blue flash flickered three times across the horizon, which had already been covered in darkness.
He knew it intellectually.
Where that light originated from.
Because 300 years ago, whenever Rin was in danger, an arrow from the White Spear Bow would inevitably fly in from somewhere.
“What is this…?”
The White Spear Bow, made from a branch of the World Tree, was famous for its arrows, woven with the bow’s magic, being miraculously clear and beautiful.
Staining the arrow’s trajectory with the light of life…
From the point where the arrow struck, life-binding vines sprouted, wrapping around the Dragon Slayer's arm and sealing his movements.
‘Vines that seal the target’s movement, Life Lotus.’
The next arrow struck Rein in the chest.
Was he taking a fatal wound like this?
No. The arrow slowly melted away, spreading cool vitality throughout his body. He vaguely doubted this heartbreakingly nostalgic sensation.
‘Undoubtedly, a special ability of the White Spear Bow.’
And the owner of the White Spear Bow was…
‘Impossible.’
It was a crazy thought.
Hadn’t that silent old drunkard died in an era 200 years apart?
‘Kies died.’
He knew it, he knew it in his head, yet he couldn't stop the tears from flowing down his left eye.
At that moment, the nourishment from the World Tree drenched his fatigue-ridden brain, and his consciousness exploded in a vibrant blue.
His perception shifted.
Reality vanished.
Instead, four moons and stars, and a lake hanging upside down and swaying, filled his vision.
The pure white World Tree rising from the center of that lake.
And the person standing before it was…
[It’s been a long time.]
His two eyes opened wide.
Everything he saw began to blur. A hot, intense tremor pulsated in his heart.
[You’ve grown a lot taller since I last saw you.]
His hair, swaying in the wind, was a fresh green color, like new foliage…
[No, has your body changed?]
The person writing on a wooden tablet made from a World Tree branch, with crooked and crude but accurate vocabulary, was none other than…
“…Kies.”
Squeezing out the name from his lead-heavy chest, an answer that should never have come back, returned.
[My vocabulary has grown quite a bit, hasn’t it?]
He wanted to leap into his embrace.
In the past, Kies would run to him first and stroke his head, but now, this time, 300 years later.
But Kies raised a hand, as if to restrain his actions.
[You cannot come this way. You must not.]
This was a world of delusion.
The spirit that manifested a physical body was merely Kies’s lingering thoughts, a handful left behind in the White Spear Bow.
“I see.”
It was strangely easy to accept.
That he couldn’t cross this invisible wall, that he couldn't face those rough, calloused hands again.
Thus, with a bitter smile, he lowered his gaze.
“We can’t meet again.”
Then Kies smiled, the same smile he always wore when he looked at Rein. A fresh smile like a spring bud. A smile he could only see in dreams.
[I didn't leave a fragment of my soul in the White Spear Bow to bind you to the past.]
And he took a step forward.
He placed his hand over Rein's, which was weakly fumbling at the invisible wall.
[Even if only a little, it was to give you the strength to move forward into the future.]
Because he had promised to return.
Because he believed he would return, no matter when or what time it was.
[Rin.]
So he left a part of himself here. He left descendants and founded a lineage, raising disciples. So that their hearts could connect.
[It's too early for you to come here yet.]
So that this feeling could reach you, who will return one day.
Even if their bodies couldn’t go together.
So that their hearts, their spirits, could be with you. With you, who sacrificed your life that day and opened a future for all of them.
[It's time to return to the future, to the people waiting for you.]
With those words, cracks began to appear in the sky and the lake of the illusory dimension.
[Thanks to the gods who allowed our reunion, which originally could not have happened.]
The cracks spread to the World Tree, and fragments began to fall from various parts of the space.
Rein could no longer be held in a world detached from reality.
If they met again, if only they could, there were mountains of stories he wanted to tell. Memories wider than the ocean he wanted to share.
“That’s right, Kies, I have to go to the future.”
At the word "future," his shockingly hazy consciousness began to stir again.
Because he had promised Alakish.
Gaining this body, being able to meet Kies again with this body, it was all because of that promise with her.
“You know, I made friends.”
Because in this short time, he could only say a handful of words, could only convey a trickle of his feelings.
“I went to school too. And I even have a daughter. I’m not even married. And you know, I met a child who looks exactly like Rista.”
He wanted to talk more.
He wanted to tell everything, but it would probably take days and nights.
“Kies, just a little, will you wait just a little longer?”
Until he finished all the stories he had kept bottled up, he wanted to sit here and talk.
“When this journey of life ends…”
But.
But.
The wall built between them by the name of 300 years could simply not be overcome.
“Before, you all came to find me…”
He could only talk about the future. He could only promise an uncertain future.
“This time, I’ll come find you all…”
Just like 300 years ago, when he froze his body with the Lord's Small Cold Reversal in the face of death.
“Because I will definitely come to meet you again…”
As the dimensional cracks grew larger, Rein saw moisture shimmering in Kies’s smiling eyes.
“So, Kies…”
The moment the cracks spread across the entire dimension, for that instant, the invisible barrier shattered.
And it reached.
His hand, pressed against the barrier, and that hand touched his head. Like the everyday moments 300 years ago.
“…Will you wait for me just one more time?”
With those last words, Rein’s spirit, which had come to the illusory dimension, dispersed like a mirage.
And again, before his eyes, unfolded an overwhelming despair named reality.
Perhaps a long time had passed in the dimension of delusion, but in reality, it was only a fleeting moment, not even a second.
“…”
At that instant, a beam of black light burrowed into the Dragon Slayer.
Then, it snatched Miria, who was prostrate at his feet, and Aki, who was gripped in his hand, and instantly arrived before Rein.
The footwork of a first-class swordsman…
“What is it, you. Let go.”
Miria, caught in his grip, struggled, unaware of the situation.
“Rein, is this guy someone you know?”
But Rein knew the situation. He had to know. Because of the face revealed beneath the visor that the giant had clankily lifted.
“It’s been a year, Rein.”
As Aki was held in his arms, a shock, as if he had been punched, raced through his mind.
The full plate armor covering his body and the double-headed axe on his back were all made of black iron.
A hideous scar starting from his forehead and trailing down his left eye to his chin… Rein had come to like that stern face.
In an agony that felt like his heart would stop, he called out his name.
“Bart…?”
Because he had received immense help from these comical fellows during his first adventure.
Because he owed his life to them when he almost died in the ant hill.
That guy who had suddenly disappeared from his side, claiming he had received a summons from Trident Point.
He could tell from the aura radiating from him that he had become several times stronger than a year ago.
But how, on earth, was he standing before him now?
“I’ll explain the details later. He looks like an formidable opponent even at a glance, and even with Rem providing support, there doesn't seem to be any time to relax.”
Rem? Rem?
Was that Rem, who was now using arrows to stop the movements of the Demon Slayer and the Dragon Slayer?
“What do you need us to do?”
He didn't know why or how these guys were here. Perhaps this was a hallucination he was seeing after death.
But.
Whether this was reality or an illusion, there was an undeniable fact: these guys were on his side.
“Stop that guy. About 10 seconds will do.”
10 seconds.
Within those 10 seconds, he would sever the connection between Milea and the Demon Slayer with Bell Quirius.
And at the same time, recover enough magic and stamina to face the Dragon Slayer.
“No.”
Closing his visor, Bart, gripping his axe handle, said.
“15 seconds is possible.”
Did he know against whom he was claiming he could last 15 seconds?
“Even 10 seconds was an incredibly unreasonable request.”
Yet, for some reason, he felt these guys might be able to do it.
“This insolent archer…!”
It was then that the Dragon Slayer tore off the roots of the White Spear Bow that had bound and covered his body.
And simultaneously, a deadly voltage swirled and exploded around him.
Before the guy could pull out the dragon bone spear he had plunged into the ground, Bart, taking a deep breath into his lungs, kicked off the ground with all his might.
“Trust us.”
The mental barrier was still maintained.
Looking back at the Demon Slayer tearing at the White Spear Bow’s vines, Rein’s vision opened red.
1001010101001010100101010010101010101111111001101110100111110111.
The seven-pointed star shining in his pupils.
He read everything in this world as a mathematical equation. The world reflected in these two eyes was a world composed of binary code.
Now, let’s begin the analysis.
The path to the future, connected by a friend.
* * *
As the dimension completely collapsed and the residual thoughts shattered into particles, Kies lovingly stroked the empty space where Rin’s head had been.
‘Alcohol is truly good.’
Because it makes you forget a past that is only sad and painful, with its sweet and bitter taste.
‘But Rin, you…’
Kies smiled faintly, tears streaming from one eye.
On that distant day.
In that glorious era that could no longer be returned to, he recalled memories of laughing and chatting with Rin over the most trivial things.
‘Only you and you all.’
As the physical form of the residual thoughts finally scattered into micro-particles, Kies, at the end of the wooden tablet, answered 'Rin’s heart' with 'words Rin taught him'.
[You made me forget alcohol.]