Book 9 Chapter 26
Episode 225
“What, is it all over?”
Elamas chuckled as if Valensidis’s words were not even funny.
“It’s just getting started, what are you talking about? Redrawing a magic circle is nothing.”
A sinister glint in Elamas’s eyes sent a shiver down his spine, but that was all.
‘Is this really one of the pillars of the Black Church, like Zernix?’
He couldn’t feel the overwhelming presence that only transcendent beings possessed. Zernix and Tureina had been so suffocating just to face.
‘Could I actually win?’
This wasn’t the time to be thinking such things.
Now, the safety of Obin and Obira must be prioritized.
The best option was to pretend to fight, then retreat from here and disappear.
“The princess is too young; she might faint if I did something like this to her, but a mute prince who’s been rolling around outside the palace is different.”
“……!”
“Here, your beloved uncle is here. If you don’t want him to die, play the final movement to release Rigwind’s seal.”
It seemed like he was proposing a blackmailing deal.
But Elamas instantly snapped his fingers, and Regent Fredal, who was transforming into a primitive man, had his limbs torn apart.
Obin’s forehead was drenched in cold sweat at the sight of the body squirming on the ground. He belatedly covered his sister’s eyes.
“Hmm~ Your uncle is a bad guy, so perhaps you’re not feeling a sense of alarm? If that’s the case…”
It was around that time.
The palace guards, who had confirmed an unidentified object invading the inner palace, rushed in.
The guards immediately reached for their sword hilts at the gruesome sight, then doubted their eyes when they saw Obin there.
“Your Royal Highness.”
“It’s His Royal Highness!”
“His Royal Highness has returned!”
But what happened?
Is that man an enemy?
But why is the prince trying to distance himself not from that man, but from the priest?
‘Unfortunately, there’s no time to explain everything.’
While they buy me time, I need to escape from here with Obin. If Obin dies, everything is over.
“Guards of Solond! The priest was the mastermind behind all of this! He killed the former king to break Rigwind’s seal and also frantically tried to kill the prince, but failed!”
The guards couldn’t believe their ears.
Only a few guards accompanying Obin knew the truth…
They couldn’t immediately accept that the priest, who had dedicated himself to the country for years, was the mastermind.
“Yes, those will be good.”
Elamas could have argued against that to cause confusion, but instead, he chose to give a playful smile.
“Prince, from now on, I will kill your loyal guards here one by one.”
Suddenly, a gigantic shadow covered the Asaheart Mausoleum.
At that moment, all mortals’ minds froze solid in the fear of death…
As soon as the shadow landed on the ground, the earth shook violently, and the guards lost their balance, falling on their bottoms or kneeling on one knee.
‘No, that’s impossible…’
Valensidis shivered at the cold sweat running down his lips.
It was a True Dragon (眞龍).
An absolute life form with a colossal majesty like a mountain and a dignity like a storm. One of the five avatars that shared the power of the Divine Dragon.
‘Elamas using his power… could it really mean this?’
Recently, due to the ludicrous actions of that baby True Dragon, he had forgotten such majesty…
But how could this be…?
Is it possible for a mortal to control an immortal? There’s no chance. We must escape. As quickly as possible.
“Everyone, stay still. The show starts now. Absolute Domain (絶代地境).”
The True Dragon stretched its neck long and let out a roar.
Eardrums burst, and a metallic, rusty smell assailed his sense of smell.
Confusion of hearing and smell, and a hallucination.
The world he saw transformed into a lake, and dark blue droplets fell onto its surface, spreading ripples.
Due to this confusion, he was half a beat late in realizing the anomaly.
‘What.’
His body wouldn’t move.
His arms, even a single fingertip, his legs, his toes, his tongue wouldn’t move.
It was as if time had stopped… but his five senses were definitely alive. Nervous cold sweat flowed like rain.
‘Absolute Domain, which only absolute beings like True Dragons can create… he can even manifest that power?’
Only Obin was permitted to move.
In that stopped world, Elamas approached one of the frozen guards.
Giving Obin a playful look, he drew a sword from the guard’s scabbard.
“I said I’d kill them one by one, didn’t I? Your body can’t move, but your senses are clear.”
“……?!”
“So, you see? You’ll slowly savor the sensation of the sword penetrating your heart, the sensation of dying, as you die.”
Elamas unfastened the guard’s breastplate, fully exposing his chest.
“And then you’ll think, ‘Why isn’t the prince saving us?’ Oh, how resentful you must feel~!”
And he slowly, gradually, began to push the sword tip into the heart, as if dipping a brush in ink.
“No, no, stop it────!”
The sword tip tore through the skin, crushed the ribs, and pierced the heart that was beating inside.
Blood gushed out, but the guard couldn’t even scream.
He merely expressed the terror of death with wide eyes.
“What, you could talk? Were you pretending to be mute? Why?”
Obin, painfully gasping for breath, cried out with tearful eyes.
“W-why, what, what have those people done wrong?!”
“Don’t you know that for the weak, just living and breathing is a sin? Even as a prince of a nation?”
“……?!”
“Come on, hurry up and play the flute of your own free will! Until then, I’ll be diligently killing all fifty or so of these guards, one by one.”
* * *
In the skies above the central-eastern city of Bara, flashes collided, and explosions erupted.
“Drunk Archer, Goblin Needle.”
30% Drunkenness.
Like will-o’-the-wisps enchanting people’s hearts, three brightly flashing blue arrows suddenly split and targeted their mark.
“Drunk Archer, you shoot quite well.”
Pell yawned with boredom as he easily intercepted the attack in mid-air.
“Even so, it’s archery that’s hard to rank among masters.”
Rem raised an eyebrow scornfully.
“Are you really that famous an archer?”
“I was once considered the best on the continent.”
“The best among elves?”
“Elven warriors don’t practice archery in the first place. They consider it a cowardly weapon.”
“Idiots.”
“My point exactly. Anyway, my only rivals were humans, and it was too easy. Human physical abilities are too insignificant compared to elves. My skill wasn’t even that great, but I became a top-tier archer.”
Actually, it was impossible not to know Pell’s name as an archer, even if one wished not to.
He was called the greatest archer of the generation after the legendary Archery Saint Kyes, and the fact that he was an elf who disdained archery garnered even more explosive attention.
That very point—the fact that the opponent before him had achieved such renown—made his palms tingle with tension and stirred a fierce anticipation.
“This is an absolutely fantastic situation.”
“?”
“If I defeat you in archery here, wouldn’t I become the greatest archer?”
As Rem smirked, Pell burst out laughing as if dumbfounded.
“Come to think of it, your hair color… are you perhaps a descendant of that Archery Saint? No, I don’t even need to ask. Seeing that you have that bow.”
After a short laugh, he sighed and took something out of his pocket.
“Do you know what’s most important to an archer?”
He seemed to be taking out some special equipment, but what he held in his hand was… a simple gold coin.
Is it just a gold coin in appearance, or a special magical artifact?
“Spatial perception? Marksmanship? Wind calculation? Shoulder and arm strength? All wrong.”
Since Pell had mastered the ‘lucky shot’ technique using this gold coin, he had never been defeated by any archer.
“It’s luck.”
Only once.
Excluding the unofficial match against the Archery Saint Kyes.
“Well, let’s see how long you last?”
Drunk Archer.
A unique archery technique that uses drunkenness to exclusively fire indirect shots (곡사) to their limit, rather than direct shots (직사).
One of the supreme archery techniques founded by the Archery Saint Kyes, who pacified the era of turmoil in the past.
“──!”
Rem, who was about to drink from the gourd at his waist, had to twist his body. Heat grazed his temple.
“With just luck, there’s no need to aim!”
An arrow…?
What is this rapid fire?
“When luck is on your side, you hit even if you just shoot carelessly!”
He bounced his body in the air, avoiding the endlessly incoming arrows, but it was abnormal no matter how he thought about it.
‘What’s going on?’
Someone wielding proper archery requires three preparatory movements.
Mana heart warm-up.
Nocking the bowstring.
Aiming and shooting.
But how is it that this guy is completely skipping step 3?
“Drunk Archer, Triple Volley Playful Star (遊戱星)!”
70% Drunkenness. Arrows released from Serwebon’s bowstring scattered in three directions.
One to the sky, another to the left, and the last one to the right.
The arrows, which had flown out of the opponent’s sight, changed their trajectory there and flew towards the target the archer had aimed for.
This is one of the very difficult high-level techniques among the Drunk Archer’s simultaneous impact firing methods.
“Oh, what’s this?”
Pell, chasing Rem, whistled in surprise and nocked an arrow.
He didn’t aim at all, just shot carelessly in any direction like a child playing. Archery that showed no technique or skill.
But those arrows… intercepted Rem’s arrows in mid-air with incredible accuracy.
“You’re starting to understand now, aren’t you? That no amount of effort or talent can ever surpass innate heavenly luck (天運).”
What an outrageous thing to say… “You wouldn’t believe your eyes” must be a phrase for times like this.
‘How am I supposed to win this?’
Rem dashed across the rooftops and outer walls of the chaotic city, performing somersaults with agile archer movements.
‘When I shoot one arrow, he shoots three or four.’
Arrows imbued with the abyss’s poison relentlessly chased him, and even as he fled and intercepted, their number only increased.
Arrows clashing endlessly, dancing in the sky, looked like acrobatics to anyone watching.
Indeed, martial arts honed to the extreme often bestow an aesthetic beauty akin to acrobatics.
‘Is he really shooting just with luck? Or is there some trick to confuse me?’
He said it was more luck than talent, but if so, that makes no sense.
Because it implies that it’s not luck, but that *he* was born with truly unrealistic talent.
It was then, as Rem jumped from a three-story building and fired two arrows at Pell while airborne.
“!”
Three of the ten arrows chasing him embedded themselves in the ground.
As the ground corroded and crumbled from the poison, his landing was unstable.
Six arrows sharply altered their trajectory, embedding themselves into market buildings on both sides… and melting their pillars, causing the structures to collapse. Towards him.
‘This is insane…’
Before he could even assess the situation and act, a searing pain erupted in his side, and he involuntarily spat out blood.
The arrowhead that had pierced his side was glistening with blood. The skin near the wound immediately began to blacken and decay…
And then, countless debris from the collapse poured down upon him…
Kugugugugugugugu…!
Seeing the buildings collapse like a landslide, swallowing every target caught between them, Pell nodded with satisfaction.
“As expected, that guy was abnormal. It means there’s no one in this world who can beat me, Sir Pell, with a bow.”
He knew he had no talent, Rem thought.
That’s why he had trained and trained like crazy. He had repeatedly challenged himself in life-threatening crises to hone his skills.
Yet, even with such effort, is there a realm beyond genius that he couldn’t even reach the toes of…?
– Uncle, Uncle!
At the moment which could be called the final chapter of his life, a memory flashed through his mind – the ‘memory of a beginning’ from a distant summer day.
Amidst the clamor of cicadas, two sounds seeped into that rhythm.
The whoosh of arrows cutting through the air, followed by a continuous series of piercing sounds as they accurately struck their targets.
– Hmm?
Amidst the intense heat of summer, about two months in, Rem had once urgently sought out Leoren.
– They say our archery school was founded and Serwebon was left by our ancestor to help Sir Lin, is that true?
– So it’s known.
Leoren loosened the taut bowstring he had been holding and turned to Rem.
– But why is our tomboy princess suddenly curious about that?
– Then I want to become an incredibly strong archer like you, Uncle! So I want to use Serwebon!
– Hmm? Why that conclusion all of a sudden?
– Because then, when I meet Sir Lin later, I can explain to him how diligently our grandfather, father, and you, Uncle, have lived.
How much they have striven, following Kyes’s teachings and his dying wish to assist Lin.
Rem’s father and grandfather, the directors of the three great imperial archery schools, were always busy, leaving no time to care for Rem as a daughter or grandchild. They were only strict.
Kyes’s descendants were staking their lives on producing a successor to Serwebon. It was directly tied to their family’s prestige.
One might feel resentful about that, yet to grasp such a great idea… Leoren was immensely proud of his nine-year-old niece.
– And I feel so sorry for Kyes-nim. So I’ll become a master archer and someday convey that feeling.
Leoren ruffled Rem’s hair vigorously.
She was always a cute and lovable child, but today he wanted to shower her with even more affection than usual.
– Listen carefully, Rem. There are countless people who want Serwebon as a symbol of success and fame, but there will be no archer other than you who desires it by understanding his heart.
– Not even you, Uncle?
– …
– ?
– You will surely become a great archer. It seems Serwebon will someday understand your heart and choose you.
Serwebon, famous for having a will of its own, chooses its owner by its own will.
– So until you become a splendid archer, I will continue to keep Serwebon.
One who is not chosen as its owner cannot even wield Serwebon, even if they were to get their hands on it.
– But… can I really become one? Dad said I don’t have an ounce of talent and told me to go out and beg.
Leoren smiled kindly, instantly dispelling Rem’s worries.
– Our ancestor also said so. He said he didn’t fight alone, but merely fought alongside Serwebon.
Since you’ve understood Kyes’s true intentions, Serwebon will surely respond to your sincerity.
Fighting alongside Serwebon…?
I don’t know if that’s possible. I can’t read Serwebon’s true intentions. I only guess its feelings by its light.
Srrrooo…
Pell, who had been heading towards the inner palace before Elamas could scold him, looked back and gasped in astonishment.
“He’s alive?”
New green branches sprouted from Serwebon were pulling Rem out of the rubble.
From them emanated an absolute life force, dispelling the poison of the poisoned arrows and infusing his body with tremendous vitality.
Blood-soaked Rem slowly regulated his breathing, which had been on the verge of stopping. Without Serwebon’s vitality, his body would have already died… But.
‘What happened…?’
It should be normal to see nothing, as Serwebon’s vines were covering his eyes.
But he could see.
More precisely, he could feel the vibrations emitted not only by living things but also by objects. He had arrived at a field of vision where those vibrations were accurately detected.
‘Is Serwebon showing me this?’