Chapter 75 - Episode 11. King of Chaos (6)
Chapter 75: Episode 11. King of Chaos (6)
──────
Cowardly Lord Laika believed he was having a nightmare. This had to be a dream. Something like this could not happen otherwise.
“D-Don't come any closer...! A-Aaaagh!”
The Five Dragon Brothers, whose spiritual power circuits had collapsed in the previous battle, could offer no resistance.
The Fifth Dragon Lord, who died with a trite final cry, was the lucky one. The Fourth and Third Dragon Lords were beheaded with their eyes wide open. The Second Dragon Lord ran toward the 「Narrow Gate」 that would never open, then turned to dust with a scream.
“What do you want from us?”
Then came the First Dragon Lord's voice, steeped in fear.
The moment he heard it, Laika felt something inside him crumble. What he was witnessing was not merely the First Dragon Lord's downfall.
It was...
“Please, spare me. I'll give you whatever you want if you let me live. Skills? Status? Honor? Just name it! If you tell me what you want, I'll ask the Great Lord himself to...”
The silent sword moved, and something flew through the air.
Eyes that had forgotten death for so long, yet remained full of disbelief to the very end. Laika stared at those lifeless eyes for a while.
Had a woman's voice not suddenly rung out, Laika might never have escaped his panic.
“Oh, there's one more.”
One step, then another.
Jaehwan approached with Dokbul in hand.
Cold sweat ran down Laika's forehead.
This was the man who had defeated the Five Dragons. Laika could never stand against him. An alarm bell rang in his head, paralyzing his thoughts. He knew he had to run, yet his feet would not move.
The black sword slowly moved. Laika felt as if time had slowed.
What was death again?
For nine hundred years, he had lived having forgotten it.
He had never even thought about it.
There had been no need to.
Since 《Palace of Rebirth》 was founded, the Lords had gained immortality.
They did not dwell on death.
Because they did not dwell on death, they had never thought deeply about existence, either.
Such matters were for mortals to worry over.
Because life was finite, they searched for why they had been born and for a purpose in life. They counted the time left until death and agonized over the value of their limited days. It was all a long journey toward accepting death.
But the Lords were not like that.
Long ago, they had forgotten how to give life meaning by imagining death.
He was going to die now.
For Laika, who had been so far removed from death for so long, it was an unbearable shock. His whole body trembled. His back was drenched. Cold sweat poured down his face. He thought he might even be crying.
By the time he came to his senses, he was repeating only one phrase.
I don't want to die.
“Do you want to live?”
When Jaehwan asked that, Cowardly Lord Laika nodded like a dog.
Sirwen, who had been watching from the side, spoke.
“Ah, I remember now. You're the Cowardly Lord, aren't you?”
“Do you know him?”
“I heard there was a Lord like this. Last place in the Lieutenant General rankings. He got lucky and stumbled upon a great opportunity, gaining Lieutenant General-level spiritual power, but his skills are so pathetic that even eighth-stage Adapters beat him up sometimes.”
Laika's lips trembled without his realizing it. It was true, so he could not argue.
When Jaehwan did not move his sword right away, Sirwen asked in confusion.
“What are you doing? Aren't you going to kill him?”
“I need a witness.”
“A witness?”
Without answering, Jaehwan asked Laika, “Where is the 「Fruit」?”
Laika's mind gradually cleared at the question.
Perhaps an opportunity had come.
Hope for life flickered within him.
Would it be all right to reveal the Fruit's location?
He could feel the overwhelming Spiritual Pressure of the Warlords in the distance. Right before him, the man's sword point hovered.
His hesitation was brief.
“Over there, in the vault...”
Laika pointed to the entrance of the pocket dimension vault installed in the main hall of the Pavilion of Pleasure.
Pocket Dimension Vault 「Rebirth」
Along with the 「Narrow Gate」, a Treasure of the dream demons, it was one of the two greatest Treasures possessed by 《Palace of Rebirth》.
As he watched Jaehwan and Sirwen approach Rebirth, Laika's lips twitched faintly.
This would not be easy.
Pocket Dimension Vault 「Rebirth」 was an extraordinary vault invented by the 「Master Craftsmen」. It was a Treasure among Treasures, capable of preserving an almost limitless number of Fruits.
What was more, its Lock used an endlessly regenerating password...
Clank!
“Yay, I opened it.”
Laika's face went pale in an instant.
She opened it? Without even the Palace of Rebirth Lord's help?
Laika was rendered completely speechless as he watched the man and woman calmly unlock the vault and enter.
“See? I'm Master Craftsman Sirwen.”
“The security here is laxer than I expected.”
“What are you talking about? I'm the impressive one!”
“They must have been certain no one would ever break in here.”
Only then did Laika realize that the woman was a dream demon. He caught sight of small horns poking through her pink hair.
A Master Craftsman-class dream demon.
“N-No...!”
This was the end. Even if the Warlords came rushing in now, once they found out all the remaining Fruits were gone, he would be as good as dead.
A short while later, Jaehwan emerged from the pocket dimension with an armful of golden Fruits.
Fruits filled with the radiant light of birth.
Laika suddenly came to his senses. Only then did he truly understand what was happening.
“There are fewer than I thought. Is this all of them?”
Only a little over ten Fruits remained.
The Fruits they had used for nine hundred years were finally running out. Laika barely managed to gather his courage when one Fruit rolled onto the floor with a soft thud.
“...T-Taking those is not the right choice.”
Without realizing that he was speaking politely, Laika continued.
“You are making every Lord in the 《Great Realm》 your enemy.”
“Thank you for the advice.”
Jaehwan picked up the Fruit from the floor and placed it on the table. Then he looked indifferently toward the windows of the Pavilion of Pleasure.
Something was approaching through the shattered glass.
“They should be gathering soon.”
A powerful Spiritual Pressure could be felt.
With a spark of hope, Laika looked in the same direction as Jaehwan. Yet the people flying in through the window were not who he expected.
“South Sea Hall Master Cayman, returning after completing the mission.”
“I’m back, brat. You enjoy working an old man to the bone, don't you? I caught two of them, and my back is killing me.”
Cheongheo and Cayman were battered beyond recognition. They looked exhausted, as though they had fought a difficult battle. They threw the Lords they had subdued onto the floor.
“They are barely alive. I had no choice, since I nearly died myself.”
“You did well, Cayman. You too, old man.”
“Well, well.”
Laika's face filled with shock when he recognized the Lords who had been thrown down.
After the Palace of Rebirth Lord, even Flaming Wheel and Seven Tribulations...!
Mist Lord Hickmeyer, who had fought Cayman, along with the Flaming Wheel Lord and Seven Tribulations Lord, who had fought Cheongheo, lay sprawled there.
Cheongheo spoke.
“By the way, why did you tell us to bring these guys here?”
“To kill them.”
“We could have killed them ourselves, so why...”
Cheongheo's eyes widened in an instant.
He had seen Jaehwan's sword cut through the air.
Laika once again witnessed the technique that had been used on the Five Dragon Brothers. A technique that severed the Pineal Threads connecting body and soul.
The Lords, writhing like insects, screamed. Without a word, Jaehwan drove his sword into their necks. Their struggling bodies went limp.
Their souls returned to dust.
Laika thought,
This was a massacre.
He did not want to believe what he was seeing.
Severing Pineal Threads? That could not be possible.
He had heard rumors that a Commander of Rupture used a technique that could cut Pineal Threads, but they were only rumors.
Besides, the man before him was not even part of the Rupture.
There was no doubt. This was a lie.
Or a vile illusion.
Once he went outside, the Five Dragon Brothers and the other Lords would surely be alive, looking perfectly fine. They had to be.
“You don't want to believe it.”
The voice sounded as if it had read Laika's mind.
“But you will.”
Each word was branded into Laika's soul. The pain dragged his discordant mind back to reality. He stood where death was most visible.
Who would die next?
“...A-Are you going to kill me?”
He was scared. Terrified.
The thought that he had to imagine death terrified him, and so did the thought that he might become unable to imagine it.
Jaehwan smiled coldly.
“I won't kill you. Someone has to tell the story of this place.”
Laika realized that his entire body had been restrained. The fixtures of the Pavilion of Pleasure, gathered from every direction, bound him tightly. It was Sirwen's magic. She sat atop the fixtures with an unhappy expression, glaring down at Laika.
Laika wanted to ask.
What did it mean, to tell the story of this place?
“Is that the 「Fruit」?”
South Sea Hall Master Cayman stared at the table with clouded eyes.
Golden Fruits lay upon it.
Countless emotions surfaced and vanished in Cayman's eyes. Before him was something that carried nine hundred years of regret. The Abyss Expedition had set out to obtain it. Countless souls had died and suffered humiliation for it.
“Yes.”
The Fruit of Resurrection. A miraculous fruit that grew at the top of the Tree of Illusion. A precious object said to grant life to anyone who ate one.
Unlike Cayman, whose eyes shook visibly, Cheongheo remained calm even with the 「Fruit」 before him. He looked as though he had no particular interest in it.
Jaehwan looked at Cheongheo, then turned back to Cayman.
“What do you want to do?”
Greed filled Cayman's eyes.
With that, he could have life again.
“If you want it, take it. Do as you wish.”
Cayman approached the Fruit. A Treasure that could restore his life.
His voice trembled as he spoke.
“...Is it really all right for me to do as I wish?”
“I do not care.”
With Jaehwan's permission, Cayman reached for the Fruit. The Fruit in his hand drew close to his face.
It had been a long time.
It had been a long fight, and the years had been cruel.
This was the moment when the soul of a man who had lived such a life would be rewarded. His was a life that deserved such a reward.
Yet why?
The Fruit that should have entered his mouth passed his face, rose high into the air, then plummeted toward the floor.
Crunch.
Crushed pulp scattered across the ground. Releasing vast spiritual power, the Fruit disappeared.
Crunch.
One, two, three...
The sound of life bursting apart.
Cayman did not hesitate. Jaehwan watched with an indifferent expression, Cheongheo with mild surprise, and Sirwen and Laika in horror.
The legend of the Tree of Illusion was vanishing before their eyes.
Yet no one dared stop Cayman. Jaehwan's presence, and his silent approval, prevented them from doing so.
At last, when one Fruit remained, Jaehwan spoke.
“Now tell me why you destroyed the Fruits.”
Footnotes:
Chapter discussion