Chapter 109

“Wake up. There’s something you need to do.”

In the darkness, a voice echoed, and the girl’s eyes opened on their own. Through her vertically slitted pupils, the image of Archbishop Armata was etched.

The divine power mark forced her body to move, making her open her eyes even though she didn’t want to. The girl clutched her aching head with both hands.

The Hilrae Church wasn’t foolish enough to create an ultimate chimera without any means of control. The goddess herself had bestowed the girl with a holy mark, allowing those imbued with her divine power to command the girl. But that didn’t matter much to her.

What was worse than the headache from disobeying was the fact that the quiet voices she heard when her eyes were closed became louder and incessant when she opened them. They chattered nonstop.

“Yanid, poor child. Pitiful thing. Abandoned by your parents, and even the church, which should have shown you charity, cast you aside. No one loves you. What’s the point of living?”

‘Shut up.’

If the voices outside her head were annoying, she could just cover her ears. But the voices inside her head wouldn’t stop until she was truly dead.

[Kill them. Just kill them. They’re nothing but fragile organisms made of flesh and blood. Twist their necks, and it’s over. Afraid of pain? Being trapped is the real pain.]

“Why are you shaking your head like that? Accept me. Acknowledge me. Your body will break soon anyway. Giving up a little earlier won’t change anything.”

She just wished everything would stop. The half-elf, Yanid, clutched her head and pressed her forehead against the glass wall. Thinking she was suffering due to the restraints, Archbishop Armata responded.

“It’s no use. If you don’t obey us, the pain will only get worse.”

“The voices…”

“Voices?”

“Please, do something about these voices. Then I’ll obey. I’ll do whatever you say.”

Archbishop Armata sighed. Another flaw of the ultimate chimera was its… highly unstable mental state. To put it mildly, she was mentally unstable. To put it bluntly, she was just a crazy girl.

This was a major flaw in the Ultimate Chimera Project. A flaw no one had pointed out.

Since the temple believed it was natural for people to follow the goddess’s will, no one had considered that this project was perfect for turning a normal girl into a lunatic.

In truth, it was stranger—and even terrifying—for a child who had been abandoned by her parents and subjected to endless experiments in a lab to remain mentally stable.

‘I wish they had just erased her mind completely.’

Archbishop Armata sighed deeply but shook his head. He kept his thoughts to himself. If that happened, she would become no different from the corpse soldiers the Underground Castle used to produce.

The human mind is complex. If you completely erase it and turn someone into a tool that only follows orders, their efficiency plummets.

Were the corpse soldiers of the Underground Castle ever useful? They were just pathetic walking corpses that tripped over their own feet.

The corpse soldiers were weak individually and relied on numbers, so such flaws were acceptable. But imagine if the Ultimate Chimera were like that.

A pure tool that couldn’t even understand the orders given to it would be severely limited in its usefulness. It wasn’t that the Hilrae Church was being humane by leaving the girl’s mind intact.

“I will give you an order. First, stop this gate from functioning.”

Yanid nodded as she looked at the photo of the teleportation gate connecting Valles City and Grantera. Magic was created by dragons, for dragons. The girl was currently the closest thing to a dragon on this earth. At a glance, she could be mistaken for a half-dragon.

True half-dragons were closer to dragons in human form, capable of casting transcendent magic with a glance or a gesture, and could stop or reactivate gates with just a touch. Even though the gate was made by humans, the fundamental magical theory behind it was dragon-based.

Of course, Yanid couldn’t do something like that.

But stopping something is much easier than moving it, so stopping the gate wasn’t too difficult. A mere touch would suffice. Archbishop Armata issued a new command.

“And disable the Imperial Palace’s protection magic array. Can you do that?”

The Imperial Palace’s protection magic array, built by countless mages layering magic circles, was the greatest shield protecting the royal family. But in the end, it was just magic. Magic created by humans.

The dragon, the originator of magic, fundamentally cannot be countered by magic. All magical power is ineffective against dragons. The protection magic array would be torn apart like paper in her presence.

“I can do it.”

She hadn’t tried, so how could she know if she could or not? But the voices inside Yanid whispered. You can do it. Though they were noisy and maddening, they didn’t lie.

“Good.”

The Archbishop replied nonchalantly and issued the next order.

“And kill Ardein von Illumina. Use any means necessary. It doesn’t matter if your existence is revealed. She’s a Master, so it won’t be easy, but you can definitely do it. The Imperial Palace is built on the Dragon Vein, after all.”

The magical power flowing through the Dragon Vein was of dragon origin, making it hostile to most beings. Just as Duke Shimira and Kamira’s blood spaces were advantageous to vampires but disadvantageous to other creatures.

Only those who trained in related techniques and carried the dragon’s bloodline, like the royal family, could be exceptions. And now, Yanid had been added to that exception. What was the Dragon Vein? In the end, it was something created by dragons for dragons.

Now that dragons were gone, the royal family used the Dragon Vein’s power. But now, a dragon chimera had appeared. She was more than qualified to become the master of the Dragon Vein.

The more he thought about it, the more Archbishop Armata felt regret. If this chimera could be used properly, the resources and costs spent so far would be trivial in comparison. The money spent wouldn’t feel wasted at all.

All those resources, all that effort, all that money—only to use it for three days. But even so, its utility was undeniable.

The day of reckoning was approaching. With the dragon chimera on their side for such a major event, he felt reassured.

“Emperor. You foolish tyrant.”

As Yanid spread her wings and flew away, the Archbishop chuckled.

“Your carelessness will be your downfall.”

Some things cannot be hidden. By now, the Three God Faith had sensed that the Emperor was somewhat orchestrating a coup.

Yet, they decided to push forward because the Hilrae Church claimed they could break the Imperial Palace’s protection magic array.

The Emperor might have his own plans, but the Ultimate Chimera would crush them all. The Hilrae Church’s secret weapon had finally been deployed. Archbishop Armata laughed heartily.

At least for this moment, he had no worries or concerns.

*****

“What? The gate suddenly stopped?”

People buzzed at the sudden news. The Chancellor was so shocked that even a hint of dialect slipped into his speech.

“What on earth… Did they destroy the gate?!”

“No, that’s not it. Uh… well… the gate suddenly stopped for an unknown reason.”

“Listen, mage. What are you talking about? Was there a lack of magic stones?”

A mage from the Citadel Magical Nation scratched his head and answered.

“That’s not it either. There’s no lack of magical power, and they didn’t block or destroy the gate. But the magic circle forming the gate has frozen solid. The magic isn’t moving according to the array, so the gate stopped.”

“Then hurry up and fix it.”

“Your Excellency, the Chancellor. Give up hope. We’re doomed.”

Though he spoke calmly, the content was anything but.

“We don’t even know what’s wrong, so we can’t fix it. Ah… well, something very bad has happened. If we try to fix it carelessly and the gate explodes, we’re done for.”

“You’re all out of your minds.”

The Chancellor held his head, and His Holiness the Pope sighed.

But not everyone despaired. Even if the gate had remained open, how many people could have escaped through it? A handful? Maybe two at most?

In any case, the upcoming battle would determine everyone’s fate. Though people were startled by the news of the gate stopping, they soon realized it wasn’t a big deal. At least not right now.

“It feels like the last lifeline has been cut.”

The Chancellor grumbled.

“Completely isolated from the world. Not a good feeling. Let’s get moving. If it’s an accident and not intentional, there’s no one to blame.”

“Mr. Mage, are you sure no one did this on purpose?”

The Pope asked. The mage nodded firmly.

“Destroying a spatial gate is easy, but stopping it completely requires unimaginable magical prowess. Freezing an entire spatial magic array is something only the originator of magic, the dragon, could do.”

“Is that so?”

“More likely, it was a flaw from the beginning. This gate wasn’t designed to transport many people over a long period, so it’s entirely possible.”

“Dear me. We’ll just have to consider it bad luck. This doesn’t bode well from the start.”

We all looked at the blazing mountain range at the same time. Without anyone saying a word, people sighed. I did too.

“This won’t be easy.”

If anyone saw what we were about to do, they’d probably think of a herd of lemmings jumping off a cliff.