< 65. Finale: Elegy for the Dead King >
*
Kirhas was swiftly moving across rooftops, heading towards the market street. The mission Fernandez had given her was simply to deliver a threat to Baimeer. Surely, nothing had happened to Fernandez… but she couldn’t shake her unease.
‘Anxious.’
What should she call this? Kirhas pondered as she stepped on the edge of a roof, bounced off, and leaped onto the next building’s window frame. Dependency? Since when had she become so reliant on someone?
Even when her clan was destroyed in the wasteland, and she was sold alone into the slave market, and then sold as a sacrifice to a heretical sect for being too proud and self-respecting to be used as a dancer, she had never entrusted her fate to anyone.
But. She remembered as she stepped on the roof’s drainage gutter, twisted her body, and leaped into the air. The smell of thick ash and flames wafting from the market alley brought back memories of the not-so-distant past.
-The reason doesn’t matter. People like you and me, the purpose is more important. ‘Save the world,’ ‘Burn the demons,’ ‘Eradicate the heretics.’ All good purposes, but they’re not our concern.
In the blood-stained underground sewer, as he opened the door to the world, Fernandez had said that to her. She remembers. The cold air of dawn, the deep blue sky behind him, and Fernandez’s eyes looking down at her.
It was the smell of embers. A pungent, hot smell. His words, tone, mannerisms, and small gestures—everything about him was enticing to her. She remembers his sharp jawline and gloomy eyes, bathed in the light of dawn.
‘Your Excellency.’
Call it dependency if you will. Even if her ancestors scorned her. Even if they scolded her for forgetting the great lineage of the Kalani clan and acting like a pet, like a slave. She had already sworn loyalty to Fernandez.
-Tap.
Kirhas knelt at the edge of the market alley’s roof, scanning the streets for Fernandez’s traces. The marks of magic and combat were etched here and there in the alley. The smell of ash obscured Fernandez’s scent.
‘Anxious…’
-Drip. Drip-drop.
A raindrop fell on her nose. She looked up at the sky, dazed. The sky, which had been bathed in moonlight just moments ago, was now shrouded in thick, dark clouds.
-Crackle!!
A greenish lightning bolt streaked through the clouds. The clouds were gathering towards the royal castle. Though she had no talent for sensing magic, her instincts detected the threat and sounded the alarm.
“Ugh…!”
Soon, an overwhelming presence loomed in the sky. The suffocating pressure made Kirhas lose her balance and collapse. Something was lurking in the sky above. On the black clouds, some entity. An ancient being.
A god-like being!
‘Your Excellency…!!’
The battle at the abandoned mining village flashed in her mind. Fernandez had fought to protect her, who had been paralyzed by the pressure and tension, and had suffered near-fatal injuries. She couldn’t let that happen again.
No more. She couldn’t be a burden to him!
-Thud, thud, thud.
Strength surged into Kirhas’s smooth legs, and her heart pulsed with willpower. Her blood flowed rapidly, and warmth returned to her body. She soon stood up. After a moment of staggering, she began running towards the royal castle again.
Her senses, intuition, and instincts, surpassing her five senses, instinctively caught Fernandez’s trail and began guiding her. The most optimized path, perfectly considering her physical condition, unfolded before her eyes.
Black rainwater obscured her vision, and the ground was wet, threatening to make her slip at any moment. But she didn’t stop. The path she saw was tinged with the deep blue light of that dawn’s night sky.
The path to her lord.
*
Abel stood on the church spire, gazing at the vast barley fields visible below the royal capital. Perhaps, after the barley harvest, they would grow another crop. Abel remembered a time when this entire hill was stained with blood.
The Hill Giant, the god’s bastard child. Or a fallen demigod. Its true identity was shrouded in the secrets of the mythical era, but it was one of the divine-blooded survivors since the Celestial War. She remembered when King Knight Dain had single-handedly defeated the giant, who was like a fortress just by sitting there.
My child.
Abel recalled the time when the barley fields were grasslands, and instead of this massive city, there were wooden fences and huts. The shining king. The sovereign of knights. The great hero who defeated the Hill Giant. Dain.
The countless people who followed him, and the countless knights who swore to protect them, came to mind one by one. Her realm of imagination, the winter tombstones.
I, too, fell with those heroes.
The last army of the Church of the Underground Burial was a great army raised from the remains of dead knights. Powerful knights clad in black armor, displaying their martial prowess from their lifetime, attacked Dain’s kingdom. Abel…
She flew over this meadow and landed right in the middle of them.
If the only resource needed to crush their army and protect these young humans was her life, then so be it. If the price of protecting her children was just that, then Abel was fine with it.
To the boundary between life and death, the underworld and the Material World. The divine flowing through Abel’s soul had nailed her there forever. Death was no rest for her. It was an eternal elegy for the knights she had to kill once more.
“If this is the price I must pay, I will gladly honor their deeds for eternity.”
Then, into her world, a man entered. Fernandez. Abel rolled his name in her mouth for a moment, her face turning red.
The Inquisition Officer who woke her, cast rude magic on her, and shamelessly reached out for help. She could see the exhaustion in his eyes, and deep within, an attachment. To life, and to someone.
Curiosity, a sense of justice. Call it whatever you want. She decided to step back into the Material World, even knowing her body wouldn’t last more than half a day.
“I wish you could see those scenes.”
Fernandez said there might be a better reward for her long sacrifice. That she could live a life for herself, not just for sacrificing for others.
“You rascal. You’re not doing that yourself, are you?”
Fernandez, throwing away his body, life, and soul, was running like a buffalo. For the “salvation of the world,” or for the “salvation of his son,” as he put it.
-Krrrrr!!
“Damn!”
An earthquake shook the bell tower she stood on. Abel snapped out of her thoughts, gripping the shaking walls. A tremendous force was felt from above and below. A strange magic was enveloping the entire city.
A familiar presence stimulated her nerves. The same vile, filthy necromantic magic of the mages who mocked her end. Abel glared at the sky with her glowing blue eyes.
-Kwarururung!!
-Swoooosh!!!
Dark clouds enveloped the royal castle, and black rain began to pour like a waterfall. Abel watched the dark green lightning flowing through it. Within, she saw clearly glowing sinister gazes and fragments of screaming souls.
-Kwarururung!!
The lightning struck the center of the darkened city, becoming the city’s light source. The city flickered white and black, stripped of color. Abel knew this sight.
“Church of the Underground Burial…!”
Abel’s eyes burned with anger. She grabbed the shaking railing of the bell tower and leaped toward the ground.
*
Hearing Moria’s last breath, Fernandez sat still for a moment. He looked at the fire engulfing the market alley around him. Even without his intervention, this massive fire would consume where he stood.
“Well, maybe that’s for the better.”
Officially, Moria was branded a witch, but he didn’t want her body hung on a pole as an example for the Temple of the Gods. Even if this was just a whim.
-You’re being overly sentimental.
Faijashi said quietly. Pain was mixed in his voice. The life of a talented mage who dabbled in hellish magic amidst abuse, discrimination, scorn, and ridicule was something he was familiar with.
Fernandez silently lifted Moria’s body. He carefully laid her in the rising flames.
-Tak tak tak.
Fire spread to his arms, roughly burning them. In the pain of his flesh cooking, Fernandez closed his eyes and looked at her peaceful, sleeping face.
-Fernandez. Can you hear me?
“Yes. There’s no more time for sentimentality.”
-Krrrr…
Fernandez’s vision detected magic rising from deep underground. A rift breaking the boundary between life and death was slowly spreading across the city.
If the Bronze Throne were functioning, it could have stopped the grand ritual underground. But Fernandez didn’t lament what he didn’t have. There was no time for that.
“The royal castle.”
-Correct.
The center of this massive magic was the underground altar, but the catalyst was in the royal castle. Fernandez watched the dark green magic traces spreading like spiderwebs across the sky. Traces of magic piecing together fragments of shattered souls.
“Mumto has returned.”
-Embraced by evil. Deserves to be angry.
“Using excessive power while sealed?”
-It’s self-destructive. Stopping him here will deal a blow to his forces.
Then it’s worth the gamble. Fernandez looked at the dark clouds gathering toward the royal castle. In the center of the swirling clouds, a sinister gaze appeared. Nightmarish Mumto was protecting this area.
-Kwajijik.
The boundary between life and death was broken once more. No one in the city had noticed yet. This area had become a land of death. Literally, any death here belonged to Mumto’s domain.
Fernandez checked his body briefly. The Bronze Throne couldn’t be used for a full day, and his right arm, burned by Chelini’s magic, was useless. His only weapon was a dagger. Honestly, he wasn’t in peak condition.
-Tak tak.
After loosening up, Fernandez ran toward the royal castle. The Blood of Diemonica was invigorating his body. He wasn’t about to collapse from exhaustion, and as long as he had that much stamina, he would never stop.
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