Episode 159
The landscape was swallowed by darkness, leaving only the “two Shadow Lords” standing.
Tendrils erupted from beneath the Shadow Lord’s feet, surging forward in unison.
In response, the Shadow Lord reformed his armor of dark blood like liquid metal, creating blades that severed the tendrils with a single sweep.
He adjusted his grip on the Peacemaker’s hilt and launched himself forward.
Once more, tendrils rose from beneath the Shadow Lord’s feet, and each time, he reformed his armor to cut them down. Yet, one tendril managed to wrap around his arm.
Snap!
A sound like a breaking branch echoed through the air.
Black blood gushed from the severed arm.
But the Shadow Lord was unfazed. He swiftly reformed a shadow prosthetic and covered it with the black blood armor.
As he repaired his shattered armor, the distance between them should have closed. But it didn’t.
Another Shadow Lord… the body of the Immortal Prince Frederick crumbled, losing its form.
“What a futile struggle, child.”
A voice came from behind.
The Immortal Prince, who had been in front of Dale just moments ago, was now standing far behind him, laughing.
Tendrils rose around him again, striking toward Dale.
There were too many to fend off individually. Even twisting the dark blood armor into blades couldn’t cut them all.
Crack! Crack!
Several tendrils wrapped around Dale’s body, snapping it like twigs, and each time, dark blood splattered. Yet, even in the agony that threatened to steal his consciousness, Dale refused to kneel.
As soon as his body broke, he filled the gaps with shadow limbs, restoring his armor over them and rising again.
Like a machine endlessly patched and repaired, its seams and gears barely holding together.
But nothing changed.
The battle of the two lords.
From the start, it was a one-sided mockery, and Dale’s display was nothing but a pitiful struggle.
A meaningless flailing in the face of inevitable destruction.
“So pitiful and foolish.”
The Immortal Prince muttered, as if unable to comprehend.
“Why would Mother…?”
At that moment, he paused, as if realizing something, and burst into laughter.
Finally, he seemed to understand.
“Your desperate flailing, pretending to be a toy for Mother and her daughter, is truly ridiculous and pathetic.”
The Immortal Prince smiled softly.
“But since you delight them so, I suppose I must indulge in this amusement as well.”
To him, Dale was nothing more than a fragile glass that could shatter with a mere touch. Yet, why did the Mother of Darkness and her beloved daughter choose to remain by this fragile glass? It was for this very reason.
“I shall gladly witness your destruction.”
In the face of inescapable despair, the grotesque and foolish struggle to survive.
This was the spectacle they desired.
Swoosh!
Once more, tendrils wrapped around Dale’s limbs, tearing them apart.
Finally, a scream pierced the silence. Black blood poured down like rain.
Simultaneously, as his limbs were torn away, shadow limbs replaced them, and the dark blood armor was restored over Dale’s body.
Yet, the armor, which should have been an impenetrable black heavy armor, had become so thin and shabby that even calling it light armor was generous.
Endlessly breaking and restoring, the process wore down his resolve.
──And yet, he refused to kneel.
It was so absurdly amusing that it was unbearable.
This was it. The joy that only a human could provide her.
The Immortal Prince Frederick finally understood what the Mother of Darkness and her daughter truly desired.
The grotesque clinging to a decaying thread of hope in the face of an overwhelming gap.
That ridiculous destruction was the very joy the Mother of Darkness and her daughter longed for.
Thus, he couldn’t kill him easily. Controlling his strength was crucial. Painful enough to be unbearable, yet never breaking the vessel.
Swoosh!
“Come now, child. Rise again. The fun has only just begun.”
Toward Dale, who was squeezing out the last of his resolve, on the brink of exhaustion.
Like a child delighting in cutting the limbs of an insect one by one.
Yes, that was it. He was an insect. And what his mother and daughter desired was the very desperation of that insect struggling to live in pain.
Thus, Frederick laughed like a boy tormenting an insect.
An opponent not even worth a gesture.
The progenitor of Saxon, the Immortal Prince Frederick.
The pinnacle of the Shadow Tower, and beyond that, the power of the Eldritch. From the start, it wasn’t even a fight.
The execution of cruelty began.
Crack!
Once more, tendrils wrapped around Dale’s body, breaking his limbs and torso along with the armor. Like shattering each bone into pieces. The armor twisted, mangling his ribs and organs, and dark blood gushed from Dale’s mouth.
But it was only the beginning.
A wizard or knight doesn’t die as easily as an ordinary person. Especially someone like Dale, burning with the will to live, his obsession and determination would be even more tenacious.
Thud!
Desperately restoring and reversing his broken body… Dale tried to rise, but finally, he knelt.
His posture collapsed.
“What do you think, Mother? And my beloved daughter?”
The Immortal Prince Frederick asked again.
Crack, crack!
His tendrils wrapped around Dale’s body, meticulously breaking each bone.
“Is it to your liking now?”
Fractures, tendrils pressing against his body, disrupting blood flow, causing necrosis in his tissues.
Yet, Dale’s body never ceased to move.
Endlessly patching his broken body, his tattered form desperately squirmed.
“Daughter, not yet?”
Frederick asked again, inflicting pain on the writhing insect.
But no answer came from his question.
Frederick turned his head. Looking at Dale, who could no longer even think of rising, desperately flailing on the ground.
“Mother? …Lize?”
The Immortal Prince spoke again, as if suggesting the game was over.
“Do you still want to play more, Lize?”
But it was not the name of Dale’s sister.
It was the name of the daughter Frederick once sacrificed to write the “Book of the Black Goat.”
Hearing that name, Dale burst into laughter. A sound like wind escaping his lips, not even a laugh.
Even in a state where he couldn’t move a finger, he didn’t stop his pitiful and foolish struggle.
“What is so funny?”
Frederick asked coldly.
“Still… haven’t escaped your delusion?”
Dale muttered with difficulty, his head buried in the ground.
“Delusion?”
Crack!
Once more, the Immortal Prince’s tendrils crushed Dale’s body.
“Let’s end this plaything.”
Confident that once the game was over, “they” would return to him.
“There are still plenty of toys in this world for you to play with.”
Tendrils rose from the ground, overlapping in bundles, their tips gleaming like sharp spikes.
The final blow to end this amusement.
Before that blow, Dale laughed again.
After laughing, Dale spoke.
“──Are you done playing, Shub?”
─ It was so much fun!
”…!”
At the same time, a voice was heard. To Dale, it was the innocent nod of a girl.
But to Frederick, it was not.
”■■■■──!”
The most horrific scream in the world echoed. It was neither the voice of a mother nor a daughter.
“Why…?”
Finally, Frederick tilted his head, unable to understand.
“Mother? Lize?”
Like a frightened boy, Frederick muttered.
He turned his head. Toward Dale, who was letting out a weak laugh, like air escaping.
“The game ends here.”
The Immortal Prince’s tendrils plunged toward Dale’s heart.
Thud!
The sharp, spike-like tendrils pierced Dale’s heart and emerged on the other side.
An unmistakable fatal blow. Dale’s body, which had been resisting with twitching fingers, finally ceased to move.
And that could only mean one thing.
An unavoidable death.
It was meant to be, and it happened right then.
Flap!
At that moment, another sound echoed through the air.
─ Caw! Caw!
A flock of crows took flight, their feathers scattering in all directions.
Amidst the swirling black feathers, his father stood there.
Next to his son, whose heart was pierced by tendrils protruding from his back.
──Dale, who should have met his end, smiled quietly.
As if he had known it would come to this all along.
The ‘Lord Black’ was present.
Before the founder of the Saxon lineage, once known as the ‘Immortal Lord,’ stood the heir who would carry on the family’s legacy.
“Why…?”
Frederick swallowed his breath, his voice barely a whisper. He seemed like a child unable to comprehend the scene unfolding before him.
“Why did you do this?”
At that moment, Lord Black spoke as well.
“Why did you inflict such cruelty upon my son?”
His voice carried a cold hatred that Dale had never heard before, not even in his own memories.
“O great founder of the Saxons.”
”…”
After a long silence, the Immortal Lord Frederick lifted his head. His empty black pupils, devoid of focus, turned towards the father and son.
“I can’t see…”
Frederick murmured softly.
“I can’t see our ancient mother of darkness, nor my beloved daughter. I see nothing.”
He paid no heed to the descendants standing before him.
“Why can’t I see? Why is the world so dark?”
He questioned, as if unable to comprehend, ignoring the black bandages at his feet.
“Do you still not understand?”
Dale responded.
Dale, who should have been torn apart, his heart pierced by tendrils, yet stood there unscathed.
“What do you mean?”
“The reason she doesn’t appear or answer.”
Dale, who had escaped the death that should have claimed him, stood there without a scratch.
It was a sight not unlike the healing magic of the White Tower’s master.
Though the philosophies of the continent’s greatest black and white mages differed, their forms were the same. Just as the two towers of black and white were once one.
The control of life and death.
The absence of life is death, and the absence of death is life.
Thus, Lord Black appeared ‘just in time’ and erased the death that should have come for his son.
‘Do you still not understand? I have not permitted your deaths.’
As the continent’s greatest black mage, capable of manipulating the very concept of death, and the pinnacle of the Black Tower.
How he managed to appear at such a precise moment, Dale did not know. Yet he was certain.
He had made a promise with Shub.
“Don’t overcomplicate Shub’s silence.”
Thus, Dale spoke.
“She isn’t hiding and silent for the complex, troublesome reasons you think, Immortal Lord…”
The truth that Immortal Lord Frederick was trying so hard to turn away from.
“──She simply prefers to be by my side.”
The ‘Book of the Black Goat’ had chosen, of its own will, to remain with ‘Dale’ rather than its author.
Upon hearing this, Immortal Lord Frederick burst into laughter.
At first, it was a small chuckle, but soon it grew into a mad, uncontrollable laughter. It was a laughter filled with madness.
“How dare you, a mere usurper of the false Saxons…!”
Simultaneously, the air around them began to tremble wildly.
But facing the oldest monster of this world, the Immortal Lord, was no longer Dale’s burden.
“Step back, Dale.”
The ‘Duke of Saxon’ stood before his son, ready to confront another Saxon.
Unfurling six black wings behind him.
Against the immortal monster, the angel of death was there.