Episode 165
For generations, the heads of the Saxon family had passed down their accumulated wisdom, wielding power that could rival that of a sovereign. Yet, none among them had ever borne the title of “Shadow Lord.” Not even Dale’s father was an exception.
They lacked the “Book of the Black Goat.” But Dale was different.
Thus, as the first Shadow Lord, Immortal Gong, had called Dale a “usurper,” it was time for him to seize the throne.
The place was a dark sorcerer’s workshop.
In the past, the Saxon family had been feared as apostles of deep-rooted darkness. Even the Black Tower, which inherited their ideology, was no exception. They were truth-seeking monsters, blind to the truths beyond death, willing to use any means necessary.
On the operating table lay a human body, its abdomen opened. Like a surgeon, the dark sorcerer began experimenting with his dark magic on the body.
Simultaneously, the knowledge and information he acquired flowed into Dale’s mind.
The essence of the dark arts, built up by the Saxon family over generations, was nurturing Dale’s growth as a sorcerer.
Without a shred of conscience or moral restraint, just as the dark forces of the Red Cult had done before.
The wheel of history turned with the shedding of blood, and the knowledge accumulated by the Saxons was being passed down.
The man had once been one of the old heads of the Saxon family.
Blood, blood! The wheel of history turns only with the shedding of blood!
An incredible depth of understanding was being etched into Dale’s mind.
With each inheritance of the dark knowledge, Dale experienced indescribable growth as a sorcerer.
The accumulation of knowledge that could never be amassed in a single lifetime began to permeate Dale’s four circles, evolving them.
Like planting a seed and accelerating the blooming process a thousandfold, the “truth of Saxon” flowed endlessly into him.
The essence of the dark arts, accumulated and built up by the truth-seeking monsters, was endlessly nurturing Dale’s growth as a sorcerer.
How to increase the efficiency of circle acceleration, methods to refine the purity of dark magic, formulas to control the dead more effectively…
This was no longer about reaching the fifth circle.
It was the power of a sovereign.
The power of the rulers who existed as the empire’s overlords.
He could hardly resist the urge to test this power immediately.
An insatiable thirst was being quenched by the endless flow of power.
Yet, the atrocities of the Saxon heads continued unabated before Dale’s eyes.
With each drop of blood shed by the victims, the Saxon wheel turned. Simultaneously, their blood was nurturing Dale’s growth.
Watching this, Dale thought to himself.
──Could the blood shed by these victims be, in some sense, a “sacrifice worth making”?
The essence of the dark arts flowed endlessly into Dale’s mind.
Was this power ultimately obtained through the blood of the victims?
Wasn’t the current Saxon’s ability to feign noble hypocrisy ultimately built on their sacrifices?
Amidst the river of blood rising to his chin, Dale pondered.
The Saxon heads were truly monsters of truth.
Yet, the monsters who committed the unforgivable atrocities of the Red Cult were, in the end, human, weren’t they?
What does it mean to be human?
At that moment, Dale recalled the sixth-circle dark sorcerer he had once defeated. As a lieutenant of the Red Cult, he had committed the atrocity of rotting a mother’s legs to experiment with maternal love.
That man was a demon. As was Walter of the Burning Blood.
Not human.
”…”
Dale remained silent.
“It’s enough, Shub.”
After a moment of silence, Dale spoke, without a hint of hesitation. Shub smiled, as if amused, and asked.
─ What is?
“I don’t need these things.”
Dale said, rejecting the essence of the dark arts still seeping into his mind.
─ Are you saying you won’t inherit the dark knowledge accumulated by Saxon?
Shub tilted his head, as if unable to understand.
─ Are you giving up the power to become a sovereign?
The power of a sovereign that Dale’s father, the Black Duke, had once obtained.
“Even if it’s an invaluable secret of the dark arts that can’t be exchanged for anything…”
Dale replied.
Finally, he spoke the realization he had come to.
“It’s not worth giving up being human.”
They were not human. It wasn’t just about the state of their bodies.
Monsters of truth, demons wearing human masks. Beasts.
“Even if this power brings me closer to the sovereigns, it will never allow me to defeat the Golden Sovereign.”
Even if the Saxon heads had not yet transformed into “Eldritch,” it made no difference.
At that point, it was already power obtained by giving up being human.
“I promised you, didn’t I? That I wouldn’t give up being human until the end.”
Dale finally understood the weight of that promise. It wasn’t due to any grand morality or sense of guilt.
This method would never allow him to reach the Golden Emperor, the Golden Dragon.
─ Then what do you think it means to be human?
Shub asked.
“Being human isn’t a creature.”
And Dale spoke the realization he had come to.
“It’s a phenomenon, like water or liquid.”
And that phenomenon is so precarious and unstable that it can undergo a phase transition with the slightest trigger.
Blind to the truth, giving up being human, succumbing to the temptation of immense wealth, giving up being human.
Just as the sorcerers of the Red Cult gave up being human in the face of the sweet fruits of academic pursuit.
Like water vaporizing into steam at over 100°C.
With just one small trigger, people can give up being human.
Therefore, the definition of being human can only exist when one insists on being human.
Moreover, the only way to defeat the Golden Emperor is to insist on that phenomenon of being human.
“I will remain human until the end.”
Thus, Dale turned away without a hint of hesitation.
Rejecting the power of Saxon, the power of a sovereign obtained by giving up being human.
Hearing Dale’s answer, Shub remained silent.
After a moment of silence, she burst into laughter.
─ Ah, how utterly lovable! How foolish and lovable humans are!
By then, the presence there was the Mother Goddess of Darkness.
The ancient mother of darkness and black abundance smiled as if she found it truly enchanting.
─ Truly delightful, child of humanity!
It was at that moment.
“Ugh!”
The jet-black tendrils coiling around Dale’s heart… the “Book of the Black Goat” began to thrash wildly.
In excruciating pain, as if it would crush and burst his heart, the tendrils slithered between the four circles, writhing.
It felt as if the alien creature parasitizing his body would burst through his abdomen.
Dale gritted his teeth desperately.
One of the tendrils moved between the four circles and began to coil into a ring.
It wasn’t an ordinary circle, fixed and built through the flow of mana.
The source of darkness, the jet-black tendrils, claimed to be the “fifth circle,” gripping Dale’s heart.
A living circle.
Simultaneously, Shub’s actions didn’t stop at constructing another circle.
Surpassing the relationship of host and parasite rooted in the body… the “Book of the Black Goat” began to merge with Dale’s body as one entity.
Splat!
In the midst of pain, blood gushed out.
It wasn’t the crimson blood of before. Like the armor of the Dark Blood, it was black and dark, decayed blood.
What flowed through Dale’s body now was not human blood.
The source of darkness was absorbed into Dale’s body, beginning to reconstruct his body from within.
Crack, crack!
Each cell was being recombined, and the pain was so intense it felt as if his body was twisting, causing his consciousness to blur.
Shub gently wrapped her tendrils around Dale’s neck and smiled.
─ Now nothing can separate us, brother.
It was a significance far beyond a mere sorcerer building a circle.
─ I trust your promise to remain human until the end. The appearance doesn’t matter.
The dark blood pulsating from the heart began to spread throughout Dale’s body.
The “Book of the Black Goat,” another source of darkness, shed its parasitic form on the heart and finally became one with Dale’s body.
The fifth circle, made of jet-black tendrils, meshed with the heart and the remaining circles like cogs.
A living circle.
The five circles began to spin.
Instead of a mana ring, the jet-black tendrils began to rotate from the heart, and once again, black blood gushed from his mouth.
Whoosh!
At that moment, an unimaginable amount of black mana began to surge.
Even when he created a heat engine within his body through the Igniter, it wasn’t like this.
Dale had rejected the power of a sovereign built by the Saxon heads, and paradoxically, that act had granted him the power of a sovereign.
The only power capable of standing against and defeating the Golden Emperor.
It was at that moment.
In the midst of a storm of swirling black magic, the world shattered like glass.
When Dale looked around, he found himself on the top floor of the Black Tower.
Before him stood the throne of the Black Tower’s master.
“The trial…”
Beside it was Eris, the black envoy, and another familiar face.
“You’ve truly passed the trial unscathed.”
It was Dale’s father, the Black Duke. Though he still appeared as a twelve-year-old boy, his expression was anything but childlike.
“Father.”
“You’ve finally found the answer.”
The Black Duke smiled quietly, observing his son, who had formed five circles and merged with the Book of the Black Goat.
“I didn’t understand back then what it meant not to abandon humanity.”
The Black Duke’s smile turned bitter. Eris stood silently by his side.
“That’s why I, too, abandoned my humanity to gain the ‘power of the lord.’”
As the lord of darkness and death.
“But you chose a different path.”
He recalled the moment his son, gifted with a talent for slaughter, encountered the darkness of Saxon.
The thought of succumbing to that darkness and becoming a monster of truth was terrifying.
“Thank you, Father.”
Yet, even if his body had fused with the most dreadful darkness of this world and become twisted…
The son standing before the Black Duke was, without a doubt, still human.