Episode 214
The tension in the air finally shattered. The Grand Duke of Lancaster, a master swordsman, drew his sword with a swift, fluid motion. In an instant, the tip of his blade was at the neck of the Crimson Duke.
“Oh, you startled me. Why did you stop your sword?” the Crimson Duke sneered coldly.
“Shouldn’t you have swung it to sever my head?”
But the Grand Duke’s sword did not cut into his flesh. They understood the weight of the blood that flowed through their veins, just as Michael Lancaster had once done before the “Black Prince.”
“Was this all a scheme of your Red Tower from the start?”
“Please, don’t misunderstand,” the Crimson Duke replied with a shrug.
“I merely fulfilled the foolish wish of your second son, Michael.”
”……!”
The Grand Duke’s expression froze at those words.
The truth would eventually come to light through the continent’s greatest dark sorcerer, the Black Duke. The Crimson Duke had simply taken the initiative. That was all.
“So, my son, Michael….”
York and the “Black Prince” had been right.
The Grand Duke murmured weakly. His once trustworthy and proud son had harbored the monstrous visage of a nightmare. It was unbelievable, yet undeniable.
The four tower lords and the Shadow Lord were not the only ones gathered there.
Beside the Celestial Duke stood the Holy Knight Aurelia, the Grand Duke of Lancaster, and his adopted daughter, the Celestial Sword Charlotte.
Finally, the Shadow Lord and the swords of Saxony, Sir Helmut the Light Sword, Master Baro the Silent Blade, and the Wandering Sword were present.
The masters of sword and magic at the pinnacle of the empire.
“I deeply regret the matter concerning your sons,” the Crimson Duke said, maintaining his composure.
“But you have mistaken whom to hold accountable.”
”…….”
“To hand over your only precious daughter to the one who should bear the responsibility!”
The Crimson Duke shrugged again, smiling. The Shadow Lord, Dale, froze.
“Do you know why Prince Michael was drawn to such a reckless ‘path of evil’?”
“Are you trying to shift the blame onto me now?”
“I am merely stating the facts. The bitter jealousy and inferiority Prince Michael felt after losing to the empire’s greatest genius, the ‘Black Prince’!”
The Crimson Duke spread his arms wide, laughing. The Grand Duke of Lancaster remained silent.
“The despair and frustration of facing an insurmountable wall led the brilliant Prince Michael down a twisted path of evil!”
“I’ve heard enough nonsense.”
The Shadow Lord spoke coldly.
“By your own admission, you have confessed to assassinating the Lancaster family’s eldest son. Even as the favored Red Tower Lord of the empire, you must answer for this.”
“Answer for it, you say?”
The Crimson Duke chuckled with interest.
“And how do you propose I do that?”
”……!”
The emotion drained from the Crimson Duke’s face.
“Are you thinking of waging war? Or perhaps a duel to the death?”
The Crimson Duke was not ignorant of the weight of a clash between the empire’s strongest. Nor was the Grand Duke. Yet this man had whispered demonic temptations to the sons of Lancaster and brazenly assassinated the Lancaster heir in front of the Grand Duke himself.
“Not quite the conduct befitting a great noble of the empire.”
It was then that the Grand Duke turned his head slightly.
“Charlotte Orhart.”
His adopted daughter, clad in the armor of the Night Raven Knight, swallowed hard.
“Charlotte Lancaster, or should I now call you Charlotte of Saxony.”
“Your Grace….”
Charlotte whispered, her voice trembling.
“I could only watch as my friend lay dying. That was the ‘conduct befitting a great noble of the empire.’ Taking you in and teaching you the Plum Blossom Sword was merely my way of turning away from my past cowardice.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
Charlotte shook her head.
“Teaching me your father’s sword required a courage that was beyond compare.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
The Grand Duke of Lancaster smiled as he spoke.
He turned his head back.
“The Lancaster family has always conducted itself as befits a great noble of the empire.”
“I remember well the loyalty of the former Lancaster lords.”
The Crimson Duke smiled quietly. He had witnessed the rise and fall of countless Lancaster lords over the ages.
As a vampire, a blood elf, he had achieved an immortal life.
“And this is the result.”
The Grand Duke finally drew his sword. The sword once called the Sky Sword, its blade as clear and transparent as a crystal sky.
“Ho.”
“I have lost two sons, and my daughter ‘Charlotte Lancaster’ is under Saxony’s protection, not mine. What do you think is the conduct befitting a great noble of the empire now?”
“Please, enlighten me.”
The Crimson Duke awaited the answer, and it came.
With a swift motion, the Grand Duke closed the distance, swinging the Sky Sword in his hand. He paid no heed to the weight of the blood that flowed through their veins.
This was his answer.
”……!”
With a swift slash, the Crimson Duke’s neck was severed, blood gushing forth. But the Grand Duke’s strike did not stop there; he swung his sword again to dismember the body.
Clang!
Yet the follow-up strike never came.
The blood pouring from the severed neck writhed like a living serpent, forming a barrier that blocked the Sky Sword.
The Lord of Blood and Fire, Marquis Eurys.
“Oh, my….”
Simultaneously, the blood from the severed neck coagulated, forming a new human shape.
Another head emerged.
The severed head at his feet dissolved into blood, which was absorbed into the ground.
“You have made a truly foolish decision.”
The Crimson Duke spoke, his voice now devoid of any emotion.
“And now, you must pay the price for that foolishness.”
At the same time, the world around the Crimson Duke inverted.
What he had once shown Dale was the unforgettable ruins of the old Earth.
But now, the “world of thought” the Crimson Duke unfolded took on a different form.
Just as a knight’s avatar can take various forms according to their thoughts, a sorcerer’s world need not have a single form. Especially for a high-ranking sorcerer like the Crimson Duke.
As a weapon designed to thoroughly defeat his enemies, the continent’s greatest red sorcerer unveiled his world.
“Power.”
No flames burned.
“There is only one thing that rules this world: absolute violence that no one can defy.”
And the Crimson Duke’s world did not just engulf the Grand Duke. It drew in everyone gathered there, showcasing his world with pride.
The Celestial Duke, the Black Duke, the Blue Veil, the Shadow Lord, and their knights, including the Seven Swords of the Continent, were all caught in it.
“Those with power take from those without. And those who are taken from bleed. History rolls on the wheels of blood, and with each turn, the cries of the weak being crushed and broken echo.”
It was a sea of blood.
A boundless ocean of blood stretched beyond the horizon. The Crimson Duke, Marquis Eurys, stood upon that river of blood.
“In other words, the wheel of history is a history of violence. And this world is made of the blood of those crushed and suffocated under the empire’s wheel.”
“I have no time for the mad ramblings of the Red Lunatic.”
Within that world, the Grand Duke of Lancaster adjusted his grip on his sword.
At a high level, the distinction between sword and magic blurs. As Charlotte Orhart had once demonstrated.
As his title suggested, the sky unfolded before him.
But the sky the Grand Duke of Lancaster revealed was not filled with the celestial holiness or golden wonder of the White Tower’s priests’ world. It was not a sky brimming with the goddess’s mercy and compassion.
It was simply a clear, crystalline sky.
And upon that sky, the Grand Duke of Lancaster stood.
Opposing him, the Red Tower Lord, Marquis Eurys, stood upon the crimson river.
“Then let us begin the trial by combat.”
The Crimson Duke smiled as he spoke. A contest defined by the empire’s laws, where strength determined the righteousness of one’s claim.
As he said, it was a battle where the victor gained everything, and the loser lost it all.
It was also a move to prevent other powerful figures from interfering in the fight.
“I accept your challenge.”
The Duke of Lancaster responded. It had only been a few short months since he had acquired the name of the Divine Sword.
Even now, despite possessing the name of the Divine Sword, there was only one path he pursued—the path of the Sky Sword.
The place where the azure sky and the sea of blood intertwined was a realm of extraordinary strangeness.
It felt as if he was walking above the heavens, while simultaneously treading upon a river of blood—a bizarre and unparalleled landscape.
Regardless of the circumstances, the presence of the Sky Sword, Duke Lancaster, was among the most formidable on the continent.
Even if his opponent was the Red Tower Master, it would make no difference.
The Divine Sword, the Sky Sword, surged forward, propelling itself from the ground. With its movement, the world of the sky began to expand, swallowing the realm of the blood-red sphere.
“Ah, the pitiful struggles of humans.”
Watching this, the blood-red sphere sneered coldly.
As the continent’s foremost dark sorcerer and the pinnacle of the Red Tower, the eight circles embedded in his heart began to accelerate.
“O Book of Blood.”
At the same time, Marquis Eurys finally uttered the name of his grimoire.
With a deafening roar, the sea of blood surged like a storm, engulfing Marquis Eurys.
And then, the blood-drenched sphere raised its head.
It was a naked figure, unadorned, with scars etched across its skin.
Like a sculptor carving a relief, the entire body was inscribed with scars, densely writing out ‘letters.’
The letters were carved into the flesh, and blood began to flow along the lines.
The Book of Blood.
True to its name, it was a book written on the pages of flesh, with blood as its ink.