Chapter 200
As the black dragon's jet-black scales reflected the light from the dark crimson sky, they shone with a ruddy glow.
The hastily constructed Great Wall stood in its place.
At its colossal size loomed the colossal black dragon, continuously emanating an aura of decay.
—Shiiiiiiik
"Uh, uaaagh!"
"P-Put some distance between us and that thing!"
As the dragon's aura stretched out in all directions, the battlefield began to descend into chaos.
The black dragon merely stood there, gazing at the mortals; and yet, just by the aura of decay radiating from it, anyone touched by that miasma was brought closer to death.
—Tak.
Erich descended from midair to the ground. Then he looked up at the black dragon.
"... So this is a dragon."
Even Erich found it hard to continue speaking in the face of such a being.
The black dragon, Karkas, which he had discovered deep within Haratakan, was but an emaciated shadow compared to the true form of the Lord of the Dead.
Whenever a human witnesses a transcendent and majestic scenery, a sense of awe is natural. Erich felt exactly that as he faced the immense dragon before him.
Although the Lord of the Dead had always been considered humanity's nemesis, Erich now sensed, from a true living dragon, both fear and awe rising within him—a tangle of emotions he could not exactly define.
At that moment, Mikhail, who had come up beside him without him noticing, spoke to him.
"... A dragon."
"After singing praises of dragons for so long, how do you find the real thing?"
"It's terrifying."
Erich could even hear Mikhail swallowing anxiously.
The Lord of the Dead—no, now fully a dragon—remained unmoving.
Only the strange noise of its pitch-black scales grinding against each other could be heard.
Between the towering height and the long, massive form of the dragon, some rotten flesh could be seen nestled between the scales.
No one could say why an immortal dragon had ended up looking so pitiful.
Erich, however, thought this too might be part of its authority.
'If you live forever, then decay becomes meaningless.'
Just to prove it, the aura of decay spread from the dragon and melted the members nearby into a black liquid, but the dragon itself seemed utterly unaffected by its own miasma.
'Of course, just as the God of Fire cannot be burned by his own flames. It must be part of the territory of its authority....'
Soon Erich's gaze dropped to the ground. The aura of decay hadn't reached here yet, but from its edge, a white frost was steadily spreading over the earth.
If you get too close, you'd rot from the decay; but even if you keep your distance, you would not escape unharmed from its frost.
A being that could be said to embody a natural disaster—such was the dragon before Erich and the coalition forces of the Empire.
—Grrrrrrrr.
Erich frowned. With his strength, he could manage to merely frown, but the other members could only scream.
Just the dragon's low growl made their eardrums bleed.
It wasn't only the volume; it was the unknown oppressive force that emanated from the very existence of the dragon.
'There is a fundamental difference in level, right here.'
Erich recalled the vision shown to him by the Lord of the Dead.
Slaves.
If that illusion contained no lies, then humanity were once the slaves of dragons.
And even after so many years have passed, the fact that dragons once dominated mankind had not changed.
That was why the primal fear branded into the instincts of all was now rising up once more.
'... I'm trembling.'
Erich realized that the hand gripping his sword was shaking. When he confronted the Lord of the Dead, the fear was born from the memory of the creature's overwhelming power.
Now, he was experiencing the instinctive fear that humans feel before dragons.
However.
Erich averted his gaze from the dragon and, turning to the trembling members, began to speak.
In a quiet but firm voice.
"Are you afraid?!"
Erich's voice swept over the battlefield, bringing silence. The gazes of the quaking members turned one by one toward him.
Then Erich's hand raised up. His lightly trembling hand made clear that he, too, was feeling fear.
"I am afraid as well. Long ago, we were their slaves."
Humans had once been their slaves. This was knowledge Erich had gained from the Lord of the Dead's vision of the past.
"The dragon before us now is likely the same as those faced by our ancestors so many times before."
His voice was not loud, but a subtle strength resonated in it. From a mighty existence, presence could always be felt.
After training his aura to the utmost, supplemented by the power of Incensus, and layering the divine ritual on top of that—finally burning even his own life—Erich's presence was anything but small. That's why the members raised their heads to look at him.
"But are we still their slaves, even now?"
The trembling in Erich's hand stopped. He quelled it by gripping tighter with a powerful force.
"Our ancestors surely felt the same fear. Yet even so, they faced the dragons."
Erich, with resolute eyes, stared back at the black dragon.
Just then, the Lord of the Dead's vertical, torn red pupils—which seemed to have completed their transformation—locked eyes with Erich.
At that, Erich slowly curled his lips into a smile.
'How ironic.'
Even Erich could sense the Lord of the Dead's gaze waver.
Why?
Erich did not know.
Still, he raised his sword to the side and spoke again—to breathe hope into the others.
And, to recreate the past, where humans had once brought down dragons.
*
The Lord of the Dead.
The dragon once called 'Ercheves' stared at the man before him. He had revealed his true form, intending to eradicate them all, but his feelings were, in fact, complicated.
Countless humans were looking to someone for guidance.
A man surrounded by white aura, tainted by the hateful power of Incensus.
Erich.
Without a doubt, all of this could be attributed to the machinations of Incensus.
He had led humans together with Incensus.
Incensus would rouse the humans in exactly this way.
He himself had always stood on the front lines, fighting against his own powerful kin.
But Ercheves, looking at the man before him, was reminded of someone.
Not Incensus.
He could not pull the name out of the haze of distant memory.
Even for a dragon, recalling memories from the dawn of time was a difficult feat.
But Ercheves remembered.
There had been one who stood at the center of humanity, shining with the white aura and raising a cry.
'... Incensus.'
Once, Incensus had said to Ercheves:
—Maybe it won't be us who end this war.
Ercheves had thought it nonsense.
Even after the dragons were wiped out, his thinking didn't change.
Humans rushed at the dragons like moths to a flame under the words of a single man, but no one had fought more fiercely on the front lines than he himself had.
Though dragons were kin, they were also oppressors and tyrants.
It had been the two dragons—Incensus and Ercheves—who had resisted such beings.
It was they who toppled the tyrants and ended the era of brutality—or so he had always thought.
But at this moment,
Why did Erich now seem to overlap with someone from his past?
Why did Incensus' words resurface in his mind?
Once again, the man who resembled another from his memory spoke up.
"So, how is it? Are we still slaves? Didn't they oust the tyrants and hand this world down to us?"
Once more, ercheves' gaze trembled.
Tyrants.
He knew well that his actions now were no different from those of the dragons from back then.
Yet, he felt his own actions were justified.
Humans never thanked him for ending the age of dragons.
They refused to admit they still needed him.
Thus, ercheves always believed this treatment was justified.
But.
Once again, Erich's low, calm voice sounded.
"We can stand against them. We already have."
—Clank.
Amid the battlefield's silence, a sword being raised rang out.
—Clank, clank.
One after another, everyone raised their weapons, with Erich at the fore.
The sound of weapons being lifted filled the air.
Tyrants.
Once, ercheves himself had also stood there, side by side with humans, raising his claws.
Had the dragons of that era watched the same scenery as he did now?
So wondered Ercheves.
No one knows who will win this battle.
Just that, now, he could not deny that he stood in the place of those long-ago tyrants.
Because he saw the scenery that they had once looked upon.
The difference was...
'There are no dragons among them. My friend Incensus,'
Perhaps Incensus had been right.
Whether they win or lose,
It is not the dragons who will end the war, but humans.
And standing on this final battlefield, except for Incensus who can no longer appear, is none but himself—the last dragon left in the world.
'If so... I must deliver the end.'
To himself.
And to the humans.
—Chwaaaaak!
At that moment, ercheves unfurled his black wings. The black bones, strung with red membrane, gave off an overwhelming majesty enough to crush any will.
A purple-red miasma rose up from his rotting flesh, spreading everywhere.
But the humans' eyes were unyielding. They quickly escaped the reach of decay and tended to their fallen.
—Shiiiiiiiik!
From Ercheves' black body, a dark-crimson aura surged. Then, visible only to dragons or Swordmasters, the transparent barrier woven by the mages came into view.
They were doing their utmost to prevent Ercheves from fully absorbing the essence from the half-dead dragon's corpse.
But as Ercheves gazed at the magic circle with his torn dragon's eyes, in an instant, cracks began to appear in it.
—Kwachijijijik!
From the unseen air came the sound of the magic circle shattering. Ercheves had wanted to fully absorb the power from the corpse of his kin if he could.
But there was no time for that now.
Slowly, power began to flow into him from the dragon. More than half of it dissipated uselessly into the air, but Ercheves no longer cared.
This very moment was the most important moment to him.
*
Erich glanced at the soldiers' eyes. The colossal aura was being sucked into the Lord of the Dead as a black storm raged—yet the soldiers did not falter.
'... Their morale is more than enough.'
When the magic circle shattered in the sky, Erich grasped the situation.
Ercheves would absorb the dragon's power, even at the cost of considerable loss.
Yet Erich felt a peculiar sensation.
A feeling that they would not lose.
He slowly turned his gaze, meeting the eyes of those who had fought beside him until now.
Mikhail nodded back at him with sharp eyes.
Frederick looked at him with a wry smile.
Milon bowed his head ever so slightly to him.
Hrung-ga grinned wide enough to show his fangs.
Many others sent Erich gazes filled with varied emotions.
Then Barnes, wearing a determined expression, gave a firm nod toward Erich.
Erich knew exactly what he had to do.
Bearing their expectations on his back,
—Clank.
Erich leveled his sword to the side, facing the mighty dragon.
And then—
Erich's knees bent briefly, and he shot forward like an arrow.
—Pakakakakakakakang!
White waves spread to both sides. Everywhere his footsteps landed, the earth melted and rippled.
Erich's goal was unwavering.
The Lord of the Dead.
Erich charged directly at that immense, crimson-black dragon.