Chapter 182

Under the red and black sky, long platinum hair fluttered in the light of a twilight that would never set.

The man who had climbed to the highest tower of the castle held a thick stone tablet in his arms as he looked down at the capital spread below his feet and the winding city streets.

The capital that embraced shops, houses, waterways, taverns, inns, wells, mice, people, and livestock.

The man felt disgust as he thought of how many tiny creatures were crawling about on this small piece of land.

But even these feelings would end today.

The man could sense the planet gaining strength as it sparkled beyond the low-hanging clouds.

When the stars found their proper positions, his creator would finally open his eyes.

The man's pale white hand gently stroked the stone tablet he held.

This was his father's memory. The key to the countless life creations his father had made and the ultimate element needed to establish his father's existence.

But like all other ancient things and their relics, the stone tablet also required magical power to function as a key.

An enormous amount of magical power at that.

In the old days, there hadn't been enough sacrifices to supply the magical power.

So Yurik had waited for the time.

He had endured allowing humans to reproduce and multiply as they pleased.

If outstanding individuals appeared among them, he guided them with cosmic truth so they could become his collaborators.

He had waited and waited for the time when sufficient sacrifices would gather after establishing a nation and binding humans to the land.

How many years had he lived like this? How many beings had he encountered?

Yurik knew well that it was entirely his fault that he had come this far.

Pitiful, tiny, useless lives swept up in the tyranny of a monster who couldn't forget the past and desperately sought to regress.

But he had no intention of stopping.

That was because the being called Yurik den Menadia had lived for far too long for the sake of one original wish.

Having harbored one wish for so long, it seemed he had become the wish itself.

Yurik rested his head against the tower's window frame and quietly recited an ancient incantation.

[I am the way, the truth, and death.

No one comes to the Father except through me.]

The end of this farce would culminate with the human man he cherished.

Yurik now looked down at the scene below with even more ecstatic eyes.

The city district with rising smoke, the capital in riot, waterways stained with blood, wailing people, castle gates that had finally opened wide just hours ago, the capital where demonic beasts marched.

Yurik's gaze, which had been slowly scanning the landscape, stopped somewhere.

Someone had boldly run out to the empty front courtyard of the castle.

Red hair that was clearly visible even from a distance fluttered. Judging by the direction, he seemed to be heading for the underground dungeon where the guards were imprisoned.

But the red-haired figure stopped for a moment in the front courtyard.

He was looking at the sky. The red sky that had been robbed of all blue and only burned dryly.

Seeing the face of the person who was blankly observing the sky, Yurik suddenly burst into laughter.

After laughing like that for a while, he muttered without turning his head.

"What a foolish face. Is there no one there? Go and escort Duke Arenheit..."

When Yurik raised his head, the tower was completely quiet. The faint smile remaining on his face disappeared.

"Ah, how careless. I had forgotten."

His red eyes rolled around.

As Yurik stuck his head out the window and pondered what to do with Arenheit,

Behind him, the stone floor was writhing as it swallowed the blood-soaked sacrifice.

The hem of a servant's uniform issued by the royal palace was crushed and disappeared into the floor cracks.

* * *

Tales and legends of knights defeating evil dragons were widely known in the kingdom, but they only spoke of the knight's lofty honor and the beautiful princess obtained after the battle.

No one wanted to talk about the moment when the knight and evil dragon fought.

Amelia and Russel felt they now understood why.

Wings so black and enormous they could cover the sky spread wide.

Glinting reptilian fangs roared as they crushed the rising ice walls. The liquid flowing from the teeth melted everything it touched.

The tail that wrapped around trees and buildings lightly crushed everything like soft cheese.

The deity that had descended upon the west, a serpent that could never become a dragon and soar.

The giant evil dragon charged toward its target, which was jumping and leaping over falling rocks and terrain features.

However, the apostle blessed by an ancient deity did not lose his composure even before the heretical deity.

Following where the silver-white sword pointed, a massive ice spear shot up from beneath the belly of the evil dragon that was smashing ice walls and churning the earth.

[You bastard!]

"Stop calling me. Am I your apostle or something?"

With a roar filled with rage, the blood-stained ice spear shattered with a single wing beat.

Leandros, standing atop a broken statue to avoid the fragments flying like daggers, looked at the prayer house that had completely collapsed under the serpent god's venom and rampage.

And also at Amelia and Russel still hiding behind a wall that was barely holding up.

If he tried to crush it with ice meteorites like he had done in the southern sea, Amelia and Russel would obviously get caught up in it.

He wanted to tell them to run far away if possible, but he couldn't ignore the snakes that would be positioned everywhere.

There was also the matter of avatars, so if those two encountered the serpent god's avatar somewhere beyond his sight, that would truly be a disaster.

Ah, Your Grace. What would you do in a situation like this?

[Die!]

"You don't give me time to think."

The wide-open maw bit into the statue.

Leandros quickly fell from the statue, but marble fragments flew and scratched his face lengthwise.

The moment his feet touched the ground, the tail struck directly above him.

-Boom!

The ground caved in and dust rose thickly. The evil dragon hissed and whispered.

[Little rat, little monkey. The god you serve cannot come here. The star is above your head, but what use is it if he only watches?]

The evil dragon's tail lifted slightly, then struck the earth once more as if to bury what was underneath back into the ground.

-Thud!

[Have you forgotten that what you serve is a forgotten star? You utterly foolish creature. The ancient radiance has faded, so what will be your backing?]

-Thud!

[This is mercy I bestow upon you. Die with your whole body bursting like this. If you close your eyes like a lowly creature, the power of that arrogant star you call your god will also fade.]

It was indeed the deity summoned by the southern heretics who had offered thousands of sacrifices.

The god who ruled serpents insulted the divinity dwelling in humans with his thin, long tongue.

There was no movement from beneath his tail, and thinking that by now only bloodstains soaked with burst limbs would be visible, the serpent smiled with satisfaction and coiled his massive body in that very spot.

He intended to call his serpent children to fill their bellies with the torn corpse.

However, that was only for a moment.

As soon as the serpent god lowered his head to the ground, a small voice was heard.

"Your scales are indeed hard."

The tail at the very center of the coil, the tail that had crushed the human, stirred.

Before the evil dragon could realize this fact and strike properly this time, sharp white thorns burst out in all directions from the center of the coil.

Most of the thorns broke upon hitting the black scales, but a few pierced between the scales, penetrating flesh and forcibly making a path.

A small human crawled out between the blood-soaked needles.

"I learned something good. About the durability of beings called gods."

[Your life is quite tenacious.]

"So I thought about it, and this seems to be the only way after all."

Leandros brushed off the dirt and blood on his body as he ran across the serpent's body.

Though the body pierced by thorns writhed, it couldn't hinder Leandros.

Finally reaching the very top of the serpent's head, the serpent let out a scream so loud it made eardrums tremble.

[Insolent fool!]

"Open your mouth."

The god's torn pupils contracted.

Perhaps now was the opportunity. The venom in his molars could melt steel, and no living creature had ever survived entering his belly.

The ant that had crawled onto his head had to pay the price properly.

The serpent god shook his head and swallowed the human who had been flung into the air in one bite.

A mass smaller than a bean passed through his mouth and smoothly went down his throat.

All that remained was the ending of melting inside.

The moment the serpent thought this,

Massive ice tore through his belly skin consecutively and burst out.

The giant body riddled with holes slowly collapsed,

And eventually Leandros walked out from the hole torn in the side.

His cloak and light armor were already tattered from digestive fluid, but Leandros himself, who wore them, was unharmed.

It was one of the blessings received by the deity's favorite.

As Leandros was gathering his cloak with a displeased expression, Amelia and Russel came running frantically.

"S-Senior, are you hurt anywhere! More than that, wh-what exactly is the identity of that wicked serpent? Is that a snake? A dragon? Or a monster? Is it a demonic beast?"

"H-how did you do such a th-thing, more than that, th-that, that!"

"How about both of you calm down and talk? After we find His Grace."

The serpent god was dead.

The snakes that had been so spirited until just now had either died caught up in this battle, or were just hissing and glaring at them from between stone cracks and broken debris.

This shouldn't be a threat anymore, so he needed to secure His Grace's safety.

Leandros was about to request that Russel and Amelia, who were just stammering in confusion, search the nearby village while he dealt with the serpent god's corpse.

A cool breeze swept past Amelia, Russel, and Leandros.

Without understanding why, they all turned their heads toward where the wind had come from.

It was an unconscious reaction.

But among them, only Leandros took a step forward.

This wind.

This dry and cold north wind.

"L-Sir Leandros, th-there!"

Amelia screamed.

The direction she pointed to was the path they had taken to come west.

Everything in that direction... was burning.

It might be inappropriate to call it fire. The fire that Amelia and Russel knew was hot and turned everything to ash,

But the flames that whitened and froze the mountains and fields where they were located were silver-gray.

At the sight that looked like a silver veil undulating as it enveloped heaven and earth, Amelia screamed and grabbed Russel's cloak.

"G-God's wrath, divine punishment! We n-need to run the other way!"

"Senior! Please come this way quickly! We need to get out of the prayer house! Senior!"

But Leandros did not stop walking.

Rather, he was welcoming the white fire spreading toward him like wildfire.

"Aphoom-Zhah."

Grass frozen by the cold shattered beneath his feet.

To the territory left empty by his killing of the western serpent god, the deity who had barely lent him power had come.

But something was strange.

The fire flickered and burst white sparks into the air. The flames that devoured everything indiscriminately were too fast.

When Leandros carelessly reached his hand into the flames that had approached close by,

Anxiety, anger, and screams that swirled aimlessly like a blizzard echoed sporadically in his head.

[Give back, my, stolen, only, mine...]

What? What had the deity come here seeking?

[My, human, only, what was mine...]

[Where is it? Where?]

[Death, to swallow, him, mine,]

[My apostle, my believer, everything in its place-]

"Senior, Senior!"

Someone called him. Leandros exhaled the breath that had been blocked in his chest and opened his eyes.

"Senior... are you alright?"

"......"

Leandros's hand was covered with a thin ice membrane.

As he clenched his fist while looking at the traces where Aphoom-Zhah had caressed him, transparent scale-like ice fragments fell with a pattering sound.

There was only one reason why Aphoom-Zhah had come down from the north to here in such rage.

The ice and snow were searching for his one and only believer.