Book 8 Chapter 25

Episode 199

Before I gained power, though born a human, I couldn't live like one.

As an orphan, I was exploited by adults as they pleased, simply because I was strong and had a good physique.

Then, around the age of nine, Arthur Brio was framed for murder and faced the threat of execution.

‘I met him just before I was about to be hanged.’

Like a light piercing through the darkness, he severed fifty heads with a single slash and then extended his hand to me.

– Your only fault is not knowing the true way to use power. Follow me. I will teach you what power truly is.

Master Lilkyure could truly cleave heaven and earth and make the seas retreat with a single sword.

He carried the true holy sword of an ancient era and possessed the power to awaken it.

He was truly a swordsman who had mastered the pinnacle of martial arts, yet he taught Arthur, who had nothing, everything about that sword without reservation.

– Those who are weak from birth harbor selfish hearts. That is why I despise the weak.

– Why?

– Because gods and dragons have instilled the bizarre notion that the strong must always sacrifice themselves.

Lilkyure often said that a new and complete order could only be established when the world bled, but Arthur was only in his teens then.

– Humans don't try to know what sacrifices this world was built upon. They just keep emphasizing mercy and compassion to the strong. Yet, they mercilessly trample those weaker than themselves. I will cut down this futile world.

– How?

– I will tell you someday, when your sword reaches the same level as mine.

Then, when he reached the realm of mind-sword around the age of seventeen, Lilkyure told Arthur to go south.

– In a world of swords and blood, you too will gain the same enlightenment. Go south.

And he gave him the name Arthur Brio instead of As. He said Brio meant 'swordsman'.

– Meet the strong ones on the battlefield. They will teach you how to use power.

And so, he met his comrades.

Those abandoned by the world, by their families, by their friends, by the gods—those with nowhere to go.

The world that looked down upon us and ignored us will, from now on, look up to us and fear us.

– Starting with us, we are Slayers.

I haven't yet received his recognition.

If I had received his recognition, he would have taught me his true meaning.

In this second life, I must definitely reach the same realm as him…

“Until then, I… cannot lose to anyone…!”

I promised to give those fools a good life, even if I have to turn this world upside down.

I must keep that promise.

As the transcendent magic, now charged with lightning after swallowing the Yeouiju, collided with the power of the Psalms, a shockwave that seemed to press down on the atmosphere erupted.

‘Have you ever seen such a mad monster…’

Cold sweat beaded on Rain's forehead as he desperately clutched Arthur's wrist, which held the mind-sword.

If one were to compare, he was several times stronger than the incomplete Shar’kas or Nariaduke.

Is this truly the supreme being called the foremost sword of humanity? A sense of despair, as if fighting a dozen dragons simultaneously…

“Stop, stop, stop.”

It was then that the Sun Parrot, its wings torn, beak shattered, and on the brink of death from its bloody battle with Pipi, flew in to incinerate Rain's wrist.

At that moment.

Once again, a blue flash burst, and the Sun Parrot's body was pierced by an arrow and flew far away.

That was.

The sight of the Beast Slayer, finally succumbing to death and rolling on the ground.

“Bisl…!”

It made Rain momentarily see a vision where Arthur's and his own circumstances were reversed.

His breath caught in his throat for a moment.

Arthur's face overlapped… with the illusion of himself struggling while bound by the chains of the Creation Psalms.

‘This guy and I could have been in completely opposite situations.’

Was it because the light emanating from the Black Yanglin allowed him to glimpse the last memory the foe recalled in his death throes?

‘If, during my orphan days, I had met someone like Zernix instead of the auntie…’

Instead of seeing and walking the same path as Lista, Kiese, and Fride, I might have ended up in a relationship of exchanging blood, screams, and shouts.

– This is not where you belong.

At that time.

At that time, you.

– Come, follow me.

If you hadn't extended your hand to me. If you hadn't taught me what power is, what the path to truth is.

– That's not how you use power, Lin.

If you hadn't cried so sadly, scolded me, and embraced me every time I was about to go astray.

Link.

Niels.

Alakish.

Aki.

Thinking that the countless connections I made while walking this path might have become enemies… a sorrowful breath escaped him.

‘Tureyna.’

So that he wouldn't become like that.

So that he wouldn't stray from the path.

I should have guided him. Should have set an example. Should have scolded him.

– Aki is Aki!

So Aki.

Aki, at least.

Must never leave his side first. I must teach him and guide him. So that he can become a great dragon like Alakish.

I cannot die.

I cannot die here.

“Uuuuuuuaaaaaaaaah───!”

Amidst the desperate shouts intersecting, no help came from anywhere.

“────Tzaaaaaaah!”

Bart was crawling in his own pool of blood, and Pipi, too, was merely writhing on the ground, perhaps that last flight having been its final burst of strength.

“If I sever your neck…!”

The same went for Rem, whose skin and clothing were entirely scorched by lightning. He seemed to have made a final effort to stop the Beast Slayer, then collapsed and lost consciousness.

“Then these cursed characters will also disappear…!”

It's dangerous.

His strength was draining from his hand.

He could no longer think with his head.

“Then my brethren you killed, and Bisl, I'll bring them all back to life──”

Just as the blade was about to touch his carotid artery, at that very moment, a dark crimson blade pierced the Dragon Slayer's neck and emerged on this side.

“──No, it’s all over.”

This power, it's the Demon Slayer's…

The Dragon Slayer's vision, futilely spitting out blood, turned crimson.

Before he could turn his head to see the assassin's face, the magic that formed the mind-sword began to scatter into countless particles of light.

“Serves you right, you bastard.”

If he had been granted even one more second of reprieve before death, Rain's neck might have been severed.

“Milia.”

In the silence where the tension dissipated, Rain blankly uttered that name.

As his soul finally extinguished, perhaps the binding on the Yeouiju also weakened?

His body became covered in chains of characters, and the moment those chains interlocked into one, a blinding flame of creation exploded.

And in the next moment, his body could not be found anywhere. Had the Psalms deemed his very being 'unclean'?

The greaves of the dragon scale armor dug into the ground, causing a heavy tremor.

In the vacuum left by the vanished body, a beam of light flashed. That clear golden light surged upwards in eleven streams, then suddenly converged in the sky.

When the small flash of light, which erupted as the lights combined, dissipated, the creature that appeared was…

‘…A hatchling dragon?’

Had the eleven Yeouiju created a new body?

Immature dragon scales, clearer and more elegant than any gold, formed the young body of a golden dragon.

The hatchling dragon, curled up and asleep, was drawn by the light of the Black Yanglin and settled into Rain's arms.

‘Did Karenden’s will guide this to me? Why?’

When he lifted his head from the shock of Aki suddenly hugging his head, Milia was kneeling by his side.

“You’re completely battered.”

“Well… I barely survived.”

“Abat, ababat.”

Aki, who had been rubbing his head against Rain's face, suddenly spotted a fellow creature in his arms and his eyes sparkled.

“There’s a tasty smell coming from here.”

Then, he abruptly picked up the yellowish hatchling dragon and, out of nowhere, bit its head hard.

“Hey! That’s not for eati── Ugh.”

He reached out to stop Aki, but perhaps it was because the tension that had even suppressed the pain had vanished? Intense agony swept over him, and all strength drained from his body.

“That’s why I told you to leave before I got hurt.”

It sounded like a scolding, but tears streamed endlessly from Milia’s eyes.

– Be a person who can extend a helping hand to others without expecting anything in return, Milia.

I thought I was alone.

Until this path ends, until it is completed.

But, but until I was covered in blood like this, until I was completely battered.

– Someday, such a person will appear in your life too.

The tears flowing out were the tears he had buried deep in his heart on the day he vowed to become a Goblin Slayer.

What made the sorrow well up in tears was the pain that had festered and solidified for 11 years to the point of rotting.

What was flying away pure white in his mind was the vow he made that day, never to cry again.

“Milia.”

What should he say in this situation?

The memory, the recollection that came to Rain's mind was the words the Dean-Auntie had said to him on the day she took him in.

The words he heard then, her smile, were so dazzling and radiant that he could never forget her voice for his entire life.

“You don't have to cry anymore.”

The light I received from you that day.

Now, I shared it with someone else.

Socrafres.

– You can inherit the progress of ‘Unique Magic’ research from the surrounding environment.

– Progress: 79.8% => 84.1%.

* * *

There were eyes that watched the transcendent beings' performance, which had laid waste to the entire island, from beginning to end.

‘Hmm…’

It was the pinnacle of a golden pyramid whose external surface was uncontrollably spreading with cracks.

If it hadn't been for the flames unleashed by that brat and the barrier jointly cast by the special forces mages, it would have collapsed from that dance.

Even now, it was at a level where it would crumble if anyone so much as lightly touched it with magic.

‘I never knew that old hag's favorite minion had such skill.’

If they had clashed after his power had fully recovered, there's a high probability that even this Zernix might have been defeated.

‘You should be thanking me, Rain Ludwig.’

You won by a hair's breadth, didn't you?

If I hadn't secretly subdued his minions, you would have definitely lost.

‘No, I should be the one thanking him.’

Tentacles grotesquely sprouted from the puppet's back. The Priest Slayer and Engineer Slayer were held unconscious by those tentacles.

‘Hehehehe, thanks to you, that old hag's forces were greatly weakened overnight. I should be thanking you instead.’

I'll need to use these guys. On the day that body finds my true self, they'll be very useful.

A sinister smile spread across the puppet's lips.

A horribly dark dimensional rift, the color of a moonless night's darkness, opened behind it.

As its body was slowly sucked into the rift, it last looked down at Rain and greedily licked its upper lip.

‘That body will be further tempered in the battles to come. I truly look forward to that body, which will soon be mine.’

But something is strange. That blonde woman… doesn't she look too much like that girl who became Elamas's 'doll'?

But only their faces are similar; her skill is truly pathetic.

Anyway, a mage who follows that brat Lin's style, an heir to the White Spear Palace, the Sun Parrot from 300 years ago, and a girl who strikingly resembles a hero.

‘This is quite an unsettling combination to dismiss as mere coincidence…’