Episode 134
A storm of light and fire raged around Mikhail Lancaster, the Apostle of Flame and Light.
Magma flowed in place of blood, solidifying like molten rock, and his entire body began to twist and contort.
‘What is that…?’
The Armor of Conviction reflects the very beliefs of its wearer, and its form is never fixed. Just as Lady Shadow Aurelia’s avatar had transformed countless times to reach its current state.
“Peace.”
Amidst the swirling light, Mikhail Lancaster spoke.
“From the beginning, my only desire has been peace. Just as the hero from another world once sought.”
He repeated the words, gripping the hero’s sword, Peacemaker, once more.
“What the hero from another world brought to this world was far from peace.”
Dale spoke without a hint of hesitation.
“Do you truly believe that?”
“I do.”
“That’s just the slander of the Saxon family, mere outsiders to the Empire.”
Mikhail Lancaster sneered, but it was Dale who felt like laughing.
‘I am that hero, you damned fool.’
Swallowing the words that rose to his throat, Dale maintained his composure.
Within the storm of light, Mikhail Lancaster’s avatar began to twist. As the Apostle of Flame and Light, the Knight of the Sun, his ideology was shifting towards a second form.
“The hero from another world laid the undeniable foundation of peace on this continent. Through his power.”
Seeing this transformation, Dale swallowed hard.
“As a child, I could never forget the image of the hero who was the Empire’s champion.”
”……!”
“The hero from another world was, without a doubt, my idol.”
Mikhail Lancaster’s avatar took on a second form, and the armor of his ideology was not a simple suit of armor.
“I wanted to become a hero.”
There stood Hanseong, the hero from another world, gripping the hilt of the hero’s sword, Peacemaker.
The Empire’s hound, the monster of peace, finally revealed himself.
Dale’s past, his former self, stood there. He couldn’t even muster a laugh. Mikhail Lancaster’s ultimate vision of ideology.
There was only one certainty filling Dale’s heart as he looked upon the hero’s visage.
‘I cannot let him live.’
Having sacrificed his life as the Empire’s hound, he could finally understand. How twisted and distorted Mikhail Lancaster’s vision of peace and his idol truly were.
The hero from another world gripped his sword, Peacemaker, but he was no hero. He was merely a fanatic wearing the hero’s skin.
The Apostle of Flame and Light, the hero from another world, launched himself forward with unimaginable speed. It was a speed and destructive power that surpassed any form his avatar had shown before.
But it was nothing compared to the hero’s true might.
Clang!
Dale’s cursed sword, Gluttony, met the hero’s strike head-on. As they clashed, the hero lunged towards Dale’s chest.
‘…….’
Clang!
Yet, it was not difficult for Dale to counter Mikhail’s attack.
And that was not all.
Thwack!
The hero’s successive strikes, the crystallization of Mikhail Lancaster’s ideology, were effortlessly blocked by Dale’s sword.
‘Why……!’
Mikhail Lancaster unleashed his full power, convinced he could not lose. Yet his hero’s avatar was easily stopped by Dale’s sword.
Before a mere magician who did not even pursue the way of the sword!
It was like that time. No matter how much he struggled, he could not reach, just like the duel at the Fight Club.
‘Why on earth……!’
Mikhail could never understand.
The belief he projected, the hero from another world, was the true form of the man standing before him, Dale.
Moreover, Mikhail Lancaster was not even wielding the hero’s full power. He was merely imitating, a pale imitation.
He could never imagine that his true strength, as the Knight of the Sun, was what Dale truly feared. Yet Mikhail Lancaster abandoned himself, cloaking himself in another’s ideology, without fully understanding its meaning.
“Is that truly your conviction?”
Dale asked, parrying Mikhail Lancaster’s sword. The cursed sword, Gluttony, effortlessly deflected his strike.
‘Why……!’
Why couldn’t he reach? Mikhail could not comprehend. After his defeat that day, he abandoned his empty sword and resolved to find the only way to defeat the ‘Black Prince.’
He should have. But he could not reach.
“Why, why, why……!”
Finally, casting aside the mask of nobility he wore, Mikhail began to shout.
From the start, his life was that of a victor. Born into success, he thought merely walking that path was enough.
“Is this all you have?”
Dale coldly asked, parrying Mikhail’s strike. It was the same expression he wore when he overwhelmed Mikhail at the Fight Club.
Following the shadowy prosthetic, Dale adjusted his grip on the cursed sword, Gluttony. He parried each of Mikhail’s strikes without even glancing at them. How was this possible?
“Such a pitiful sight.”
Dale sneered coldly. His words were not directed at Mikhail Lancaster. They were a mockery of his past self standing before him. Though Mikhail could not understand their meaning.
No matter how much he struggled, Mikhail’s blade could not reach Dale.
He would never realize that this was the worst move he could make.
The object of Mikhail’s admiration, the endpoint of his ideology, was nothing more than a mere imitation of a hero.
“Do not dare speak of the hero’s ideals, you mere son of Saxon!”
“The hero’s ideals, you say?”
“Yes……!”
“Ideals, such a pleasant word.”
Hearing those words, Dale’s mind froze. At the same time, memories of his humiliating days as the Empire’s hound flashed by. In the hatred that threatened to paralyze his reason, Dale forced himself to remain calm.
“Then let me tell you the outcome of those hero’s ideals.”
Thus, Dale had no reason to hesitate. It was at that moment.
─ I’ve been waiting for this.
A voice whispered in Dale’s mind, the black tendrils gripping his heart. What was it? Dale had no time to ask.
─ Trust me, I would never do anything you dislike.
Swoosh!
In defiance of the hero’s sword, a mass of tendrils appeared beside Dale. A girl with the horns of a black goat. From the hem of her dress, countless tendrils began to emerge.
Not towards Mikhail Lancaster, the hero from another world, but towards the ‘Black Prince’ standing beside her.
”……!”
Dale had no time to feel bewildered.
The tendrils enveloped Dale’s head, arms, legs, and his entire body. It was not Dale’s will. It was the capricious tyranny of the grimoire, the Book of the Black Goat.
Wrapped in Shub’s tendrils, Dale gritted his teeth against the suffocating pain.
Yet, at the same time, one of the tendrils whispered sweetly into his ear.
─ I just want you to see your true self a little more clearly.
Shub whispered.
─ Even if it’s a form as terrible and twisted as can be.
Swoosh!
At that moment, the tendrils enveloping Dale burst apart. Black blood, as dark as night, splattered, revealing Dale within.
He was not the ‘Black Prince’ clad in the Duke’s attire beneath a shadowy cloak.
”……!”
Facing the hero from another world was the ‘Lord of Shadows.’
A black armor reminiscent of a night raven knight enveloped his body. But it was not merely armor. It moved seamlessly as if it were part of Dale’s body, willingly becoming an extension of him like the shadowy prosthetic.
Over the black armor, a shadowy cloak wrapped around his form like a silhouette. Even the writhing mass of black tendrils atop the cloak was no exception.
The Lord of Shadows, the Apostle of Darkness. A knight as dark as the world’s shadows stood there.
The Armor of Conviction, the avatar.
But it was not Dale’s will that donned it. It was the black tendrils rooted in his heart.
Nevertheless, nothing changed.
Facing the onslaught of the otherworldly hero, the Shadow Lord stomped the ground. The obsidian sword in his hand clashed with a resounding force.
“Is this all you’ve got?”
Even before deploying his avatar, Mikhail Lancaster was no match for Dale. A mere imitation, a shadow of the past, could never hope to defeat the “original.”
And now, at this moment… Mikhail Lancaster, once hailed as the closest to the Seven Swords of the Continent, was not even a worthy opponent for Dale.
Too slow. Far too slow. Even if he abandoned his current avatar and returned to being the Knight of the Sun, nothing would change.
Dale, who should have been a mere magician, was projecting the ultimate form of swordsmanship, the “Avatar,” within his world. How could anyone fail to grasp the significance of that?
“Damn it.”
”…!”
Even the two Seven Swords, engrossed in their own petty squabbles, couldn’t ignore the weight of the armor of thought wrapped around Dale.
“Prince Mikhail.”
The Shadow Lord raised his head slightly.
“Would you consider surrendering at this point?”
As if to say that any further fighting was meaningless.
“The world isn’t fair, is it? And in this unfair world, Prince Mikhail, you can never defeat me.”
”…!”
Dale spoke, and Mikhail, the “otherworldly hero,” hesitated not. He finally launched himself forward. Compared to the hero’s charge, it was pitiful, and before Dale, cloaked in his avatar, it was nothing more than child’s play.
“Child’s play.”
Even so, nothing would change.
The otherworldly hero swung, a shadow of his former self. And before him, Dale had only one decision to make.
Swoosh!
The Shadow Lord’s sword swung down. A fatal strike that even the apostle of fire and light, the otherworldly hero, could not evade.
Mikhail Lancaster fell to his knees. He wasn’t even at a level where he could heal his wounds like before.
Blood flowed.
It wasn’t the boiling blood of magma. It was a familiar blood, like the irreversible, fatal bleeding Dale had once experienced on that winter night long ago.
“Why…?”
The otherworldly hero vanished, leaving Mikhail Lancaster kneeling there.
Mikhail asked, unable to comprehend.
“Why can’t I reach it…?”
“You did.”
Dale replied.
“At least as long as you existed as ‘Mikhail.’”
“But the otherworldly hero…”
Mikhail struggled to continue.
“He was overwhelmingly stronger than someone like me, my idol who brought true peace to the empire…”
“Do you really believe that?”
Dale asked back. Mikhail nodded weakly.
Then Dale stepped closer to Mikhail.
He leaned in, whispering softly into his ear.
“The otherworldly hero was nothing more than a puppet dancing to the empire’s tune.”
”…!”
“From the start, he never had any notions of peace or patriotism for the empire.”
From within the Shadow Lord’s avatar, Dale murmured as if it were someone else’s concern.
“But in the end, Prince Mikhail’s wish will be fulfilled.”
“My wish…?”
“As you said, I will ultimately seize ‘peace’ for this world.”
Dale declared. Mikhail’s expression froze. Their conversation ended there.
Under the pale, dark winter night, the Shadow Lord’s sword swung once more.