Episode 62
When Velok regained consciousness, he found himself in a demon’s paradise—the Black Red Order’s biological laboratory. He was strapped to an operating table, his limbs bound by chains.
The experimenters were there too, staring at their “subject” with expressionless faces.
“Let’s document the pathological processes occurring in the subject’s body as it decays.”
With those words, Velok’s toes began to blacken and rot.
“No, no, it’s not me…!”
The decay spread from his toes throughout his body. Yet, death did not come easily. It was merely the beginning of the next experiment.
“Now, let’s see how long the subject survives after we sever his limbs.”
“We’ll extract his organs and replace them with those of an animal.”
“We’ll draw a lethal amount of blood and inject fresh chicken blood.”
“In collaboration with Walter of the Blood Flame, we’ll heat the subject’s blood to boiling and observe.”
“Aaaah, aaah! It hurts, it hurts so much!”
There was no sign of a zealot preaching the necessity of sacrifice for the wheel of history.
Velok thrashed and screamed, and his hell had only just begun.
Finally, the girl withdrew the tendrils that had been toying with his mind.
“Hee, heehee, sob, sniff!”
Velok, a 6th-circle dark mage, drooled and burst into laughter. After laughing, he began to cry like a child. Then, like a child, he clung and begged for forgiveness.
“Why are you begging for my forgiveness?”
“P-please, please, please, p-please, please…”
“In the face of the truth, wasn’t the suffering of the victims a sacrifice worth enduring? Isn’t that the wheel of history you so revered and shouted for?”
Dale tilted his head, puzzled by the sight.
“Is the wheel of history you worship so easily overturned just because your circumstances have changed? Then what meaning is there in turning that wheel?”
A wheel that can only turn through sacrifice and blood is better off broken.
With an expression devoid of any emotion.
“Reveal every detail of the experiments conducted by the Black Red Order that day.”
At Dale’s command, Velok flinched and bowed his head.
“If you tell the truth, I’ll grant you death here.”
He could avoid returning to that hellish place. He could die here. With that realization, Velok spoke without hesitation, recounting the unfiltered actions of the Black Red Order during the Empire’s unification war.
”…”
Each detail was nauseating, yet it was not much different from what Marquis Yuris of the Blood had revealed. It wasn’t the “true purpose” of the Black Red Order that the Empire was so desperate to silence. The Empire wouldn’t be so concerned over mere cruel experiments.
So Dale asked again.
“I-I don’t know the details!”
“Oh, really?”
“I-I swear… it’s true!”
“Then I suppose you’ll have to continue your tour of hell.”
As Dale prepared to unleash his tendrils again, Velok blurted out.
“The Arrowhead Project!”
Dale’s expression froze for a moment.
“It was an experiment to reach the 9th circle!”
“An experiment for the 9th circle?”
The pinnacle of magic, a realm no mage in history had ever reached. The ultimate destination of magic, beyond the grasp of human hands. The realm of the demon god.
“W-we, the unit commanders, didn’t know the details of the experiments! We were just puppets following the orders of the top leaders!”
“Then as a puppet, spill everything you know.”
At Dale’s prompting, Velok hurriedly continued, without pause.
“It was about inducing negative emotions in subjects by inflicting pain in a specific location, then concentrating them within a special barrier…”
Intentionally creating a living hell, and using the despair, pain, and negative energy born from it as a foundation—
“They aimed to open a gate to the ‘world of truth’ using negative emotions as energy…”
That was the true purpose of the Black Red Order, and the other experiments were merely secondary objectives.
“Our orders were to secure the negative emotions needed for the experiments!”
Living sacrifices needed for the true purpose.
That was all Velok, a mere unit commander of the Black Red Order, knew.
”…”
Dale didn’t expect more than that.
During the war, the otherworldly hero was merely an executor for the Empire. He knew nothing of the Black Red Order’s purpose or the Empire’s intentions.
But Dale knew. He knew a man who was not just a low-ranking commander but one of the leaders of the demon’s unit, who knew the whole truth. And that knowledge shook him to his core.
He simply recalled the man’s face.
A man he believed to be innocent of the Empire’s ambitions. A man who had severed ties with the dark past of the Black Tower and preached the value of life, a man who would never affirm the Empire’s justice.
“Father…”
Dale murmured softly.
The second-in-command of the Black Red Order, the Black Duke.
Even after the war, when the Empire tried to secretly maintain the unit, Dale’s father disbanded it of his own will.
He stood against Marquis Yuris of the Blood, the first-in-command and the unit’s leader, and ended the Black Red Order’s bonds… swayed by what he called petty morality.
But that could never be a reason for forgiveness.
─ Hey, brother.
It was then.
─ Can I play with him a little longer?
The girl wiggled the tendrils under her skirt, unable to contain herself. Dale turned his head again, toward the man begging for death.
“N-no, no, no, please don’t play with me, please, please…”
“Play with him to your heart’s content until you get bored.”
Dale replied, as if it truly didn’t matter. His voice was devoid of any emotion.
Thud!
Shub’s tendrils pierced, wrapping around the six circles in Velok’s heart.
“Gah, ugh!”
Just as a young vampire devours the blood of a dark elder and becomes a Black Red mage, absorbing an enemy’s power was not exclusive to vampires.
As a vampire craves human blood, Shub’s tendrils absorbed the dark magic within Velok.
The essence of magic that a 6th-circle dark mage had accumulated over a lifetime.
The black magic swirling at Dale’s feet grew darker than ever before.
At that moment, in the upper levels of the Black Tower.
Edgar, a 7th-circle dark mage, was there.
His neck severed, limbs torn, abdomen split open, spilling his entrails. It was a one-sided massacre, not even worthy of being called a fight.
Yet he lived, for the angel of death had not granted him death.
Amidst the scattered remains, a man with six black wings stood. Wings as dark and ominous as a raven’s.
”…How?”
“Did you really think I returned from that world empty-handed?”
That world.
The world of truth that the dark mages of the Black Tower so desperately sought. The divine realm beyond the veil of death.
“Ha, haha.”
At the Black Duke’s words, Edgar chuckled softly. It wasn’t a laugh born of pain or resignation. He didn’t care that he would lose this battle and die.
He simply found his own foolishness amusing.
“Yes, that’s just like you.”
Edgar laughed, looking at the angel of death enveloping him with six black wings.
“And now it’s my turn.”
Facing the angel of death, Edgar smiled calmly. Turning his back on the approaching veil of death.
“I too… will finally reach the same world you have.”
Even if it meant crossing a river from which there was no return.
“Truth always lies within death.”
”…”
“I’ll be waiting in hell, Alan.”
“Farewell, my friend.”
Alan of Saxon replied, spreading his ominous six black wings.
“──Nevermore.”
The angel of death spoke, and raven feathers scattered. Silence descended. And Edgar’s body, lying in disarray, finally fell silent.
And that silence would never be broken.
Silence settled like feathers. Like the feathers of a raven, it was a deep, dark silence.
In the darkness before dawn, Charlotte Orhart swung her black sword.
Without hesitation, she became the sword that protected the House of Saxon.
Not all Death Knights are created equal. Even if they wield the “Aura Blade” through the dark magic of a sixth-circle necromancer, the martial prowess reflected in their swords is crude and fleeting.
They are nothing compared to the swordsmanship of Dale’s Death Knights.
“Nothing like Dale’s.”
These beings are not true knights. Lacking the pride and honor of a knight, they are mere foot soldiers relying on their undead bodies.
“For the House of Sachsen.”
“For Dale!”
Thus, Charlotte swung her sword without hesitation, invoking the name of her lord, defending the House of Sachsen with her blade. She was ready to fulfill her knightly oath, even at the cost of her life.
“Hold your defensive positions!”
“Fight for the captain!”
Similarly, the mercenary company loyal to Dale, a hundred heavily armored infantrymen, desperately maintained their formation.
It was then that it happened.
The black sword of the Death Knight, poised to clash, suddenly halted. Silence descended.
Thud!
In the quiet, the Death Knights collectively knelt, driving their swords into the ground.
“What… what is this…?”
A Raven Knight murmured in confusion, but it didn’t take long to understand.
“Well fought.”
“D-Dale!”
The heir in black stood there.
He reclaimed the Death Knights, once controlled by the elders of the Black Tower, restoring the pride and honor of knights they had forgotten.
“Charlotte, and the swords of Sachsen.”
Dale spoke, addressing Charlotte and the knights clad in armor.
“Whether in life or death, we shall never forget the honor and pride of the swords loyal to Sachsen.”
The bloody battles against the elders’ assault came to an end. To prove it, the “Black Prince” of Sachsen walked among the Death Knights.
“Therefore, I promise we will show no mercy or forgiveness to those who seek to tarnish their honor.”
With a coldness devoid of any emotion.
The Sachsen stronghold.
The dawn’s light began to chase away the darkness, the first hints of morning breaking through.
In the dim light of early dawn, the “Black Prince” of Sachsen sat on the throne in the great hall of the stronghold.
With his mother and young sister by his side, and the loyal swords of the House of Sachsen under his command, he left behind the bodies of those foolish enough to challenge the ducal house.
The strongest knight of the north, Sir Helmut Blackbear, the Mad Sword.
Eris, the black envoy, and the elven mage, Sepia. The Raven Knights of the House of Sachsen, including Charlotte.
And among the elite guards of the ducal house, the 《Grave Guard》, who had not even been given the chance to draw their swords in the silence.
Sitting on the throne, managing the situation within the castle and issuing commands with precision, who could say that the “Black Prince” was merely an eleven-year-old boy?
The presence of the “Black Prince” there was unmistakably that of the Duke of Sachsen himself.