(213)
A long-awaited sweet sleep came.
It was a comfortable slumber, as if floating in water.
I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept this comfortably.
I had done what I needed to do, protected the people I had to protect, and obtained what I had to acquire.
In the Northern region, Seberik; in the Eastern region, Cariosa; in the Western region, Purioaito and Marcus; in the Central region, Grace; in the Southwestern region, Caesar; and dozens of others—these were the Great Lords.
The lengthy negotiations in the hidden chamber had concluded.
Now they would swear loyalty to Jeilliris, just as they had to the late emperor.
And Jeilliris would become the true emperor who held the entire empire in her hands.
What had taken decades to achieve through the blood of millions before my return, I had obtained in less than two years.
Of course, blood had flowed in the process.
The former Gremoryus and the former Purioaito had died by my hand.
I had limited it as much as possible to thugs or those who were already corrupted, but I had slain and burned thousands in the slums, wreaked havoc in the Street of Learning, and controlled the underbelly of the capital through the red masks of the red-light district and the Konel of the old slums.
But that was not Jeilliris’s work; it was mine.
Her infamy stemmed entirely from the blood-soaked day of her coronation, and conversely, there had been little additional infamy created since then.
The great purge of the royal family was also known to be an act we had carried out together, and I had even guided the perception that it was increasingly something I led.
As a result, I had faced enough resentment to make my position precarious, but thanks to that, I had gained the trust of an entity with the world’s strongest military, wealth, and power, and my existence was legitimized through more titles and power.
I thought this was not a bad report card.
Of course, someone would question me.
– How can you measure the weight of life?
– Thousands have died. Is this a good outcome?
That might not be someone else’s voice but perhaps the conscience that still lingered within me.
I would admit it.
I thought that there might have been a better way.
But now, I scoff at that question.
“Of course, you can measure it. That’s my job.”
Sending a unit that suffered less damage to inflict greater harm on the enemy, sacrificing territories with fewer people to save more lives.
I was always paid for the dirtiest, most miserable, and painful moments in that job.
Unfortunately, in this world, there wasn’t a wicked Demon King who could bring about peace simply by killing.
Sometimes you had to create demon kings, and sometimes you had to support heroes.
You had to govern this precarious and beautiful world.
“Jeilliris.”
I mutter that name in my mouth.
She entered the underground magic guild where no one returned to take my place that summer day, returned alone years later, rose as the sanctified one of the first prince faction, and eventually reached the pinnacle herself, both welcomed and cautious at times.
In this life, I won’t make you a tyrant.
I like your laughter more than the cheers of the crowd.
Your laughter, the power you can give, the world you can create.
I want to be with you forever.
While I was lost in these thoughts, intoxicated by dreams within dreams.
“!”
Wooooh-!
A sharp pain pierced through my spine like a blade.
I jolted and raised my head.
“What’s going on?”
Before me lay Jeilliris, sleeping on the table, with yesterday’s drinks still lingering on her fingertips.
“It seems like it’s outside.”
“Your Highness.”
Sererassie and Lady Trentia, who had collapsed and fallen asleep on the sofa and table, respectively, also raised their heads.
Seeing Lady Trentia brush her red hair aside, I suddenly thought.
Can her hair color be seen at this hour?
Hadn’t I extinguished all the candles and chandeliers?
“!”
I hurriedly looked out the window.
The wide glass window was flooded with light, a pale turquoise glow that was certainly not moonlight.
“Holy shit.”
I cursed involuntarily.
A cloudy night sky, a massive turquoise light cluster floated and swirled around.
“This can’t be happening! Damn it! This is not right!”
It looked at least hundreds of meters in diameter.
I instinctively knew without needing to verify.
“How did I get here? I did everything I could and couldn’t do!”
That was a magical realm.
“Damn it! What kind of nonsense is this!”
It was one of the most formidable magical realms I had encountered even counting my entire 40 years before reincarnation.
Two emperors, a count, and a knight staggered out into the garden of the summer palace.
“This is ridiculous.”
“The world.”
“Valenciaunos, I’ve measured this before. It looks like it’s about to overflow.”
“Your Highness, I will get the armor. This doesn’t seem like a situation to be concerned about decorum.”
“Valenciaunos, are you alright?”
“Uh-huh.”
They were powers and beings beyond human, yet the situation of having a turquoise hole in the night sky was unfamiliar to them.
The Imperial Palace was located in the northern highlands of the capital, and the summer palace was situated quite high even within the Imperial Palace grounds.
Thus, they could see the massive hole illuminating the bright streets and sky of the city of Solentalouon even at night.
Zziiiit!
There was a sound like fabric tearing.
“Holy shit…”
Valenciaunos knew that sound was made when some enormous entity crossed over through here.
The sky jellyfish he had seen with Jeilliris in the dragon’s den would certainly be modest compared to the entity now crossing over.
Wooooh!
A turquoise mass with a diameter of 500m swayed significantly.
“Wooooh…”
From within, something immense emerged, stretching out its maw.
Valenciaunos felt as if he were watching an unrealistic circus as he gazed at its descent.
“A whale?”
Its back was smooth and black, while its belly was a soft gray.
Deep vertical folds stretched from below its jaw to its tail.
Its body was oval-shaped, sporting four large, half-flattened fins on either side.
Craaaash!
It landed in the middle of the Empire’s capital.
It was an entity that looked like a long-finned whale of the sea that had been given four pairs of legs and enlarged hundreds of times.
The central canal of the capital was not even wet by its feet.
Just colliding would cause stone buildings to crumble and shatter.
“Do you see how massive it is?”
Valenciaunos recalled that the story of the building’s floor height was 3.3m, estimating the creature’s length based on a six-story stone building that barely stood beside it without collapsing.
“The height from toe to back is about 250m. The distance from the end of its snout to the end of its tail is estimated to be about 1km.”
The numbers felt surreal as he spoke.
The grand stone buildings and luxurious hotels appeared like mere toys made of tin.
Valenciaunos recalled the evacuation plan he had devised in the whiteness of his mind.
“First, escort His Majesty to the nearby fort, have the black iron knights protect the mages of the Imperial magic guild, the blue knights will lure it out of the city…”
Just as he began contemplating where it should trample to avoid maximum casualties based on the population distribution of the capital.
That thought didn’t continue for long.
A second identical maw stuck its snout out beyond the turquoise glow.
“Are you kidding me? Another one of those?”
He drastically reduced the estimated number of survivors from the capital.
“This is bad.”
He intended to advise Jeilliris to head to the suburban fort immediately.
The sound of the black dead dragon’s wings echoed in his ears.
“Your Majesty.”
“Yes, you. I can’t ignore this.”
But the emperor ground her teeth like a beast that had its territory invaded.
“How dare those pests invade my territory!”
Golden light energy swelled around her body.
“Wait a moment, Great Lord. I will close that magical realm in one blow.”
Jeilliris stepped boldly forward.
With her white hair billowing in the night wind while reciting the destruction spell, she looked like the embodiment of a war goddess.
“Your Majesty!”
But Valenciaunos recalled the moment of decades past within his twin sister’s yellow eyes.
“Come to save me.”
The haunting echo rang in his ears.
He strangely felt that the proud empress seemed to tremble.
“First, analyze its substance with the court mages and instruct the blue knights—”
He forgot about rudeness and grabbed Jeilliris’s sleeve.
He couldn’t send her to a place from which she might not return twice.
He couldn’t repeat the same event even after dying and being reborn.
But the emperor rejected his advice with a clear voice.
“Do not speak nonsense. If such a monster had appeared before, it would not have gone unrecorded. And I have never seen such a record.”
Valenciaunos turned his gaze to Sererassie.
“Sister! What are you—”
The silver-haired mage inhaled at her half-brother’s unfamiliar urgent gaze but ultimately had no choice but to shake her head.
“There’s no precedent for this.”
Jeilliris calmly released the grasp of Valenciaunos’s finger that clutched her sleeve.
Valenciaunos cried out like a wounded beast, filled with the desperation of a reincarnator.
“Your Majesty! Don’t leave me behind! Don’t make me wait twice!”
Jeilliris smiled languidly and serenely as she always did.
“Yes, I wanted to do that as well.”
In the next moment, the emperor soared into the night sky.
Surrounded by a golden aura and the energy of incantations, the emperor looked like a shooting star.
“Jeilliris!”
As Valenciaunos’s collapsing voice echoed like a reverberation, a beam of light shot from the emperor’s grasp toward the monstrous entity of the magical realm.
The highest-level destruction spell, the Spear of Wrath.
Thwack!
The entity, struck directly, recoiled its head, while Jeilliris accelerated several times over.
Boom-!
The emperor disappeared into the magical realm after piercing through the second entity, which also fell back inside.
Valenciaunos gritted his teeth as he gazed up at the pale light emanating from the magical realm.
‘This time, I tried to protect you.’
An overwhelming sense of self-loathing weighed down on the shoulders of the young lord once more.
But the world did not give him time to despair.
In the middle of the capital, there was still one creature remaining.
“……!”
“……! ……!”
“……, …………!”
It trampled with its sheer size over the demise of countless lives.
Craack!
Just moving caused buildings to collapse.
The entity that had fallen from the magical realm was baffled by the unfamiliar energies of this strange world and embarrassed that the tantalizing scent of souls had diminished, ultimately concluding that it needed to gather companions.
Thud-!
The entity plunged eight legs into the ground and lifted its head.
Creeeak!
Simply that action caused a shockwave that tore through buildings like waves.
With its head raised in the dark, the creature resembled a colossal mountain, like a harbinger of the apocalypse about to envelop the world.
Its belly and chest swelled, its enormous maw gaped wide, and the turquoise energy raced through its veins and gathered toward its mouth.
And when that energy peaked.
WoOOOOOooooo!
A mental wave erupted that shook the entire capital.
8,000 who were instantly killed from being overwhelmed by such intense energy and reanimated as corrupt undead, and 15,000 who began to corrode while still alive.
“Gaaaaah!”
“Mom, mom! Don’t bite me!”
“Run awaaaaaay!”
“It’s the end of the world! Repent!”
“Gwaaaah! Uwaaaah!”
Thick tentacles sprouted from their heads, arms wrapped in exoskeletons morphed into clawed limbs, bodies swelled like frogs, and their flesh was covered in fur and spikes, their veins and sinews melting down and merging with those beside them.
In the center of the old slum, the six-story building, Konel, a first-term councilor from the orphan disabled poverty, began to chant a prayer to Amon to calm her subordinates who had spontaneously turned into werewolves.
“Konel!”
“What in the world is happening?”
“I didn’t even transform!”
“Everyone, stay calm. The power of the gods has been amplified by the strong energy of another ancient being,” she said.
“Ah…!”
“Start with evacuating the residents. We’ll head out through the west city gate!”
Having been through many upheavals that turned her world upside down, Konel calmly directed her instructions.
With the feeling of wanting to collapse at any second.
*
Valenciaunos wore an expression of a nation lost as he directed the messenger.
“We have no answer in close combat. Stand by the blue knights. Allow bombarding with high-tier magical tools. As for collateral damage… I will take responsibility for it.”
With the most hopeless voice in the world.
“And bring Marcus to me. Have the Nibelungen ready.”
