My Slain Dragon Bride

Chapter 236. The Creator’s Sin

Ferda thought upon hearing Ureas’s scream-like voice.

’Olivia?’

Ferda had never once thought of Olivia that way.

And because of that, he had assumed Olivia felt the same.

Olivia had received the favor of countless men, and in equal measure, she had been subjected to their filthy gazes.

The very idea of Olivia loving someone was something Ferda simply could not understand.

—Even that admired Grand Duke Golt! Alexander! And even I myself! We all want that girl so desperately, so why is it that you do not?!

Ureas continued.

"....."

—If you create desire, then naturally it should fall into the hands of the one who follows that desire! So why is the heavens so heartless?!

His lamenting cry lasted only a moment before his eyes once again burned with hatred.

—I’ll kill you, and Olivia will become mine. This castle will become mine as well, and everything will belong to me ...!

Ferda was certain.

’He’s been exposed to Trauma.’

Trauma was something that brainwashed people by turning the regrets they harbored into pleasure, but Ferda knew what Curved Demon had said.

He had said that the Trauma in the place Ferda had visited was special.

If that special quality was capable of amplifying this kind of persecution complex, then it made sense.

Ferda reached a conclusion.

Now that Ureas had changed this much, he was no longer something Olivia could control.

And there was only one fate left for something that could no longer be controlled.

’Eliminate him.’

At the same time, a question arose.

Can I actually take this guy down?

Looking at his black body, one might assume he had undergone Demon Race transformation, but there was something abnormal about that burning body.

Ferda had never heard of a Demon Race like that.

Could it really be his true form, just as he claimed?

If so, this was an unknown entity to Ferda, and there was no guarantee that he could defeat something unknown.

’If things go badly, I can use the final resort.’

Ferda was a Mage.

A Mage was someone who always carried a final means of turning the tables within his heart.

It was then.

A chill swept in from behind Ferda.

But since it was not directed at his body, he remained still.

What flew from behind him was an arrow tinged with silver light.

—Kuaaaargh!!

The bow that had fired it possessed enough draw strength to push the body of the monstrous Ureas backward.

Ferda turned his head and looked toward the direction from which the arrow had come.

There were Knights bearing the insignia of the Empire’s army.

And standing among them was their commander.

The man carrying a massive greatsword on his back was Oldin Rooster.

He walked forward.

After briefly glancing at Ferda, he passed him without another word and politely greeted Ureas.

"Greetings, Imperial Prince Ureas."

—Rooster ... You knew who I was and attacked me anyway?!

As Ureas erupted in fury, the flames around him grew even more violent.

He had effectively eliminated any possibility of making the excuse that he had mistaken him for a Demon Race.

"Grand Duke Golt asked me to convey these words to you."

Count Rooster said as he drew his greatsword.

"There is no malice. Everything is for the Empire."

—ROOSTEEER!!

"Attack with everything you’ve got!"

And so, they began a full-scale assault on Ureas.

With the attention no longer focused on him, Ferda quietly stepped backward.

’So this was their plan from the beginning.’

Attacking the Heinkel Kingdom had merely been an excuse to gather everyone in one place.

They had intended to eliminate Ureas while taking advantage of the chaos inside the inner castle.

When to do it was simply a matter of choosing the right moment.

Although Ureas’s attention had now been diverted, Ferda had an inexplicably ominous feeling.

Even if they shared a common enemy, could this man really be his ally?

Keeping that fact in mind, Ferda supported Count Rooster.

Regardless, Ureas had to be eliminated here.

***

The Audience Chamber, Deep Within the Inner Castle

"Everything is proceeding according to plan."

King Heinkel spoke as he watched the entire situation unfold.

"Although King Hudret escaped under Odograssado’s protection ..... it has actually worked out even better. My revenge can finally be realized."

"I am delighted that everything is proceeding according to your intentions."

Curved Demon lightly patted King Heinkel on the shoulder.

"I have done this much for you, so I trust you will also work for me."

"Of course. Even if my revenge fails, I will sacrifice myself for you first."

"Those are pleasant words to hear."

Curved Demon was about to leave when King Heinkel belatedly asked a question.

"May I ask you one thing?"

"Go ahead."

"Ureas ... What exactly is that man?"

Ureas Arken.

He was one of the targets of King Heinkel’s revenge, and after Hudret, he was the man King Heinkel most desperately wanted to kill.

Unlike Hudret, however, Curved Demon had not left him that way.

"You said this before. You called Ureas an excellent horse."

"That’s right."

"At first .... I thought perhaps you intended to turn him into a Demon Race and use him."

The image of Ureas came vividly into King Heinkel’s view.

As he fought against Count Rooster’s army, his appearance became increasingly distorted with every surge of anger.

King Heinkel knew how Ureas had ended up like that.

When Ureas entered the inner castle, all that had been done was to cast a minor hallucination spell on him.

Ureas had easily fallen for that hallucination.

The place he had been guided to was Trauma.

According to Linne, it was a room where an improved form of Trauma, one on an entirely different level from the others, was waiting.

Ureas had been exposed to the hypnosis of Trauma inside that room.

That was all.

His appearance had changed afterward.

"Does that Trauma turn people into the Demon Race?"

"Let me ask you something. Do you think what Ureas has become is the Demon Race?"

King Heinkel recalled what he had felt and shook his head.

"No. He was different from the Demon Race that had been created here."

"Yes. Just as you suspected, that is not the Demon Race."

"Then what exactly is it ....?"

Curved Demon spoke.

"The Arken Empire has a great secret. It is only natural for an Empire this large to have many secrets. One of them is a secret pact made with the Dragons."

"A secret pact ...?"

"All the monsters that attempted to attack the Empire this time were killed. At the hands of Silverwind’s descendant and Storeus. You know about that, don’t you?"

"Yes. I know."

"Why did the great Dragons suddenly interfere in human affairs? They are a race that rarely gets involved in such matters. Even if they were to make promises with humans, who are more sensitive to the passage of time than anyone else, it should amount to nothing more than a trivial amusement to them."

When he thought about it carefully, it was certainly strange.

Silverwind’s kind were uninterested in anything that did not occur in the Northern Tundra.

Storeus was fickle, and him helping someone was about as unusual as lightning striking from a clear sky.

One thing was certain: even an enormous fortune could never be enough to hire them as troubleshooters.

"Because it isn’t a promise. It’s a chain."

"What kind of chain is it?"

Curved Demon smiled as he answered.

"It should be called the sin the Creator committed against his creations."

"You’re saying that is connected to Ureas’s current appearance."

"Yes."

Even though he had merely listened, King Heinkel could sense that something was seriously wrong.

He focused on Ureas’s appearance.

"I see. I understand."

Then he understood what Curved Demon had meant.

At first, he had thought of it simply as a relationship between parent and child.

But the more Ureas’s form continued to twist, the more fitting the words Creator and creation became.

"They say the Golden Blood is commonly used as propaganda by the Arken Empire, don’t they?"

"That’s right."

Golden Blood.

As Curved Demon uttered those words again, he let out a laugh of disbelief.

"What an irony. They do not even realize that the bodies of those who stand in the most exalted positions carry within them the very blood they consider the lowest and most contemptible."

***

The army led by Count Rooster launched relentless attacks with the sole purpose of killing Ureas.

Ureas was unquestionably being driven into a corner.

Whenever he attempted to move, his movements were sealed off, and his limbs were severed again and again by Count Rooster’s greatsword.

—Aaaagh! Aaaaagh!!

His agonized screams did not cease.

—I’ll kill you! Every last one of you! I’ll kill every single one of you!!

He continued to spit out curses without allowing despair to break him.

And, astonishingly, the more he cursed, the more Count Rooster’s army was driven into a disadvantage.

A heart pierced more than a thousand times.

Limbs cut apart dozens upon dozens of times.

Being severed, sliced apart, and regenerated over and over again, his form gradually moved farther and farther away from that of a human, taking on a specific shape.

"What the hell is that ....?"

The Archers and Mages stared at the sight and voiced their fear.

It was an understandable reaction.

Even Ferda had initially thought that Ureas had simply become one of the Demon Race.

’A Dragon ...?’

The form that changed as though shedding its skin resembled a Dragon.

The remaining quarter of his face was torn away, and the shape of it became a long snout with the eyes of a lizard.

Wings sprouted from his back, and brilliant-red lava poured from his body.

’No. That’s not it....’

He certainly looked like a Dragon, but he was not a Dragon.

Ureas’s form was crude, and any Dragon who saw it would find it insulting.

’Blasphemy.’

Ferda became fixated on that word.

Yes.

This was a form that blasphemed the Dragons.

Once he thought of it that way, all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place, and Ferda was able to identify it.

’Amon.’

Among the Seven Great Demons of Hell, Amon—the Demon of Flame and Destruction.

He despised the Dragons who ruled over the surface world and, in order to blaspheme them, transformed all of his followers into forms resembling Dragons.

The more he blasphemed the Dragons, the more he became a demon that none of the Dragons, whether Guardian Dragons or Evil Dragons, could ever forgive.

’Strange.’

Ferda wondered why he had not realized it sooner.

He should have noticed from the bizarre shape of the horns and the lava pouring from his body.

But there was a reason he had failed to notice.

’I can’t smell sulfur.’

Anyone who used the magic of Hell would have been touched by the hand of a demon.

And anyone touched by the hand of a demon would carry the faint scent of sulfur.

Yet even though Ureas had taken on Amon’s form, there was no such scent.

It felt as unnatural as a freshly caught fish having no fishy smell at all.

’But what’s even stranger is....’

Count Rooster.

Judging from his reaction, it seemed as though he had anticipated that Ureas would eventually become like this.

Even Ferda himself had not known.

So how had Count Rooster known?

’No. That guy probably didn’t know either.’

The one who undoubtedly knew all the circumstances was Grand Duke Golt.

If Ferda wanted answers about this, he would have to question Grand Duke Golt.

"Do not stop! The Empire stands behind you!"

Those who had once believed that some part of Imperial Prince Ureas remained inside that creature no longer allowed themselves to think that way.

They simply wanted the damned demon to die as quickly as possible.

Ureas’s resistance grew increasingly fierce.

After the holy power corroded him over and over again, the battle finally reached its conclusion.

Count Rooster drove a holy relic into Ureas’s chest, bringing it to an end.

The flames that had been blazing fiercely gradually weakened, becoming embers, and his movements stiffened along with them.

—Ah...

Ureas muttered as though in sorrow.

—Everything was supposed to fall into these hands ... these hands .... Why.....

He raised his arms, with the bones and muscles exposed, toward the sky.

—Ah ... Olivia...!

Those were Ureas’s final words.

Ureas’s body turned to stone as it was, shattered into pieces, and became dust.

Exactly like the final fate of every demon.

As everyone watched the nightmare that had been Ureas disappear, they all breathed a sigh of relief.

Ferda was about to do the same alongside the soldiers.

That was when it happened.

Ferda instinctively sensed a chill.

Count Rooster, who had fought Ureas from the very front, subtly turned his head.

His eyes were directed toward Ferda.

No.

Not Ferda.

They were directed toward the Mage standing beside him.

"Bind!"

The Mage who received the command immediately attempted to restrain Ferda’s body with binding magic.

But the magic never reached Ferda.

He had never considered these people allies in the first place, so escaping from it was easy.

An allied Mage had attacked Regent Ferda.

The soldiers immediately raised their weapons toward Ferda without a second thought.

Ferda asked:

"What did Grand Duke Golt tell you to say?"

"Unfortunately, Grand Duke Golt said nothing regarding Regent Ferda. The mission we received was to eliminate the calamity that was throwing the Empire into chaos. The target was Ureas alone."

"You’ve just admitted that you were ordered to assassinate a member of the Imperial family. Do you think you’ll be able to return to the Empire?"

"Of course not. We came here today intending to bury our bones on this very battlefield. The Grand Duke desired victory, and that victory will end with our deaths."

"Then why drag me into this instead of simply burning to death?"

"Isn’t the reason obvious?"

Count Rooster rested the hilt of his greatsword on his shoulder and looked at Ferda.

He could feel it.

The man who had been purely businesslike when killing Ureas was now acting out of emotion.

"Because you are the Grand Duke’s enemy."

Before the malice had even faded, Ferda was confronted by new malice.

"My final act of loyalty will be to tear out your throat, Regent."

Ferda calculated internally.

How can I make it back alive?

Judging by the eyes of these men, which showed no signs of exhaustion despite their fierce battle with Ureas, his best hope was to take at least a few of them down with him.

That was when it happened.

Rumble—

The entire ground shook violently.

This place was a space created by King Heinkel’s magic.

The sudden earthquake meant that the space was collapsing.

It also meant that someone had reached the source of the magic and destroyed it.

The space began to compress.

But the anomaly was not limited to the space itself.

Something began to writhe within the ashes of Ureas’s destroyed body.

At the same time, a thick smell of sulfur began to fill the air.

"H-How?!"

"He should have been reduced to ashes ...!"

But the color of the flames was no longer red.

They glowed with a fluorescent green hue.

Those ominous flames belonged to Gamigin.

A certain phrase flashed through the minds of everyone standing there.

When humanity reaches its most desperate moment, a demon comes.

It was exactly like Ureas’s current situation.

His obsession with life.

His rage.

Even as his flesh was collapsing, he had refused to let go.

And in the end, he was transcending death and manifesting once again.

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