Chapter: 503
As the dragon’s wrath shot forth, the black dragon, once soaring in the sky, retreated to the distance.
Clearly, there was damage.
No matter how tough a dragon’s scales are, this time it was the breath of a dragon that could erase everything in front of the world. How could a black dragon remain unscathed in the face of such an assault?
However, the external signs of the dragon’s damage soon vanished.
The power of the Void. The strength of the Evil God stationed within the barrier erased its wounds. Seeing this, Karia couldn’t help but frown.
“How infuriating. This scroll is expensive and hard to obtain.”
“Did you think a mere trick would bring down the judge sent by the divine?”
The Apostle of the Void chuckled at Karia’s irritation, but Karia calmly retorted.
“Of course not. If this could be solved that easily, I wouldn’t even need to come here.”
“Trying to act calm is pointless! In the end, everything will submit to the Void!”
“Shut up, idiot. I don’t need to shout to know what you’re thinking, so can you please just be quiet?”
Karia lightly countered the mad voice and pulled out another scroll.
If physically killing it is impossible, then at least I need to buy some time. It might not last long against such an opponent, but it should be enough to confuse those idiots.
The moment Karia tore the scroll, countless chains shot out from thin air, binding the dragon’s limbs.
Chains made from a mixture of dragon’s blood and bones. These chains cursed and bound the dragon’s limbs.
Maybe it’s because the scroll is a bit old; its performance seems questionable. It won’t last long.
Well, I don’t really care. I have plenty of scrolls left.
“Stop that woman!”
As Karia took out another scroll, the followers of the Void transformed into different shapes and charged, but Yuden blocked their path.
The sword of the Sword Saint sliced through the legs of the followers, forcing them to halt.
“Do you really think you can stop us with just that?!”
Seeing his attack go unnoticed, Yuden slightly raised an eyebrow.
It’s slowed down.
It’s definitely slower than before.
The power he possesses has weakened.
Well, that makes sense. He’s merely the agent of the Evil God.
Without the Evil God lending power, he can’t do anything.
But his garbage of a master is currently embroiled in countless matters inside.
He needs to bolster the fighters near the breach of the barrier.
He must invest strength in taming the dragon.
And he’s likely allocating power to the disturbances that keep cropping up around the Academy.
Most importantly, the energy heading underground is massive.
Cracks are beginning to form.
The grand task that was being accomplished based on the overwhelming power erupting from the magic circle is starting to fracture.
Now, all that’s needed is a tiny variable.
If just a small variable appears, everything will collapse!
*
“Why are you sitting around doing nothing?”
Arthur glanced with a bit more intensity at his mother, who raised her teacup with a smile.
The brat, claiming to be a piece of the progenitor, labeled this place a trial.
So what’s in front of me? What is being tested?
Just as Arthur harbored those suspicions, something came into his view below.
The face of a woman, dead and in agony.
She had died after violently expelling everything inside her. Even if he tried to put it nicely, her appearance was so horrifying it could only be described as gruesome.
His mother while dead. His mother was over there.
“Arthur?”
At the sound of his mother’s voice calling his name again, Arthur lifted his head to see another version of his mother standing behind the one holding a teacup.
The mother, now taxidermied, pierced through the neck by an arrow shot from somewhere.
His mother had never died like that. No, she had never even gone to a place associated with dangerous weapons like arrows.
She had always moved in very limited spaces.
So what was that?
For a brief moment, Arthur pondered before quickly realizing what that corpse was.
That was one of his nightmares.
To be precise, it was one of his nightmares.
Not long after his mother’s death, when Arthur was too busy blaming himself to get even an hour of sleep, her face kept appearing in his dreams as she died in all sorts of ways.
Soon after Arthur noticed, something landed on his shoulder.
As he cautiously turned his head, he saw the gnarled hand of a woman and jumped back in terror.
In turn, the poor mummy, having lost its support, collapsed to the ground. The shock made it impossible for the mummy to keep its form, and a waft of blood filled the air around him.
Following the scent, Arthur turned to find a corpse impaled in a tree, blood oozing out.
“Can’t you hear me?”
Amid the continuity of death upon death, Arthur understood why the brat claiming to be a piece of the progenitor told him to endure.
With each corpse he viewed, the emotions from his childhood nightmares seeped into him.
Fear.
Self-blame.
Sadness.
Futility.
Resignation.
Resentment.
Longing.
It continued.
It kept tearing through his mind.
As his legs lost strength, Arthur collapsed. At that moment, the bodies surrounding him grabbed his arms.
Voices echoed.
Words filled with resentment reached him.
Amidst feelings of hatred directed at his very existence, Arthur couldn’t muster a voice to rebut.
The one who usually stands confidently in front of friends was gone. The one who took jabs but still stood firm had disappeared from existence.
Here, the Arthur present was merely the young and delicate version of himself.
A kid who, having lost his mother, wished for death instead of a reason to live.
“Can’t you hear me?”
Raising both hands to cover his ears, just like he used to do as a child when he pulled the blanket over his head to ignore the world.
“Arthur. Our son. Are you alright?”
Yet still, the voice drilling into his ears made him sick, causing him to clench his teeth tighter and he finally lifted his head.
Among countless corpses stood his mother, intact.
The first one who spoke to him, now upright in his nightmare, gazing at him with genuine concern.
She alone bore a complete appearance in a world filled with death.
Maintaining her calm in a place meant to shatter one’s sanity.
“What are you so afraid of?”
Arthur, hearing her soothing voice, gazed at the living face of his mother.
Rationally, her presence seemed odd.
How could there be a support when destruction was the goal of this trial?
No matter how he thought about it, it made no sense.
It had to be a trap.
That was definitely a setup.
“Aren’t you going to tell her?”
But what does it matter?
Just because it’s a trap doesn’t mean the warmth his mother possesses will vanish.
Holding her hand might just make the swell of emotions in his mind disappear.
Maybe he could escape from all this pain he had endured.
How could he…
“Are you scared? It’ll be fine. Arthur, don’t worry. You don’t harbor any resentment towards me.”
The moment Arthur was about to stretch his hand towards her soft voice, he froze suddenly.
In a state akin to being frozen, his mother tilted her head in confusion, but Arthur merely chuckled and withdrew his hand.
“Thanks, I just remembered something from the past.”
“Arthur? Why are you saying that all of a sudden?”
“You were just someone who got lucky to become the queen, as others said.”
An unnamed noble raised to the rank of queen due to the king’s whims.
A fool who didn’t even receive proper education.
That was Arthur’s mother.
Although she was reluctantly forced to learn various courtesies after entering the palace, such years of innocence couldn’t just vanish.
Even up to the moment of dying, she remained plain in a good and bad way.
“It’s just my thought and assumption that you died because of me.”
Arthur didn’t think he was wrong in his reasoning.
It was evident that someone who could provide support for him perished because of his presence. Otherwise, there would have been no reason for his mother to die.
“That’s not your conclusion, Arthur. Though I think it might be worth mentioning as a son’s duty, you were never capable of making such a conclusion.”
However, whether his mother could make that conclusion would be another issue.
He believed his mother wouldn’t have known anything.
She didn’t comprehend the palace’s sinister nature, so she only smiled around despite facing all the rough things.
She wouldn’t even have considered that someone might want to kill her.
And certainly, she would not have imagined it would be related to her child.
“You were also a nightmare I created.”
His mother, the benevolent figure he believed was the most painful, nodded and took a step back.
Arthur exhaled a long sigh and stood up.
The sounds surrounding him were still horrific.
The stench was enough to make anyone sick.
The countless emotions swirling within him hadn’t vanished either.
But now, he could handle it.
Thanks to the long-forgotten memory, he realized all of it was fake.
He understood that all the self-blame would not lead to atonement.
“Sorry? Why, Arthur? Are you saying it’s because of you I’ve ended up like this? What does that even mean?”
“Is that so? I don’t really know. Even if your words are true, there’s no need to apologize. I, too, have plenty to apologize for! Like eating too many sweets, drooling on a book, or spilling ink everywhere.”
“You knew all along!? But you didn’t care!? That’s definitely Arthur! My son! Sooooo sweet!”
“Ugh, well, if you’re really sorry, let’s do this. You become tremendously happy! Then I’ll be tremendously happy too!”
“Why would that even happen? The happiness of a child is the happiness of a parent! If you can’t understand this obvious thing, our Arthur is still just a brat!”
“Got it? You’ll be happy?! It’s a promise!?”
After checking that no one around could nag him, Arthur knelt and locked eyes with his mother, who extended her pinky finger with a smile devoid of any decorum.
Arthur then wrapped his pinky around his mother’s.
They promised to be happy.
Yet that promise had never been fulfilled for even a single day.
Because on the very day they made that promise, his mother lost her life.
“Lucy Alrn had every right to treat me like a fool. I had forgotten such an important promise.”
The moment Arthur gave a bitter smile, the surroundings crumbled, revealing a brightly shining magic circle before him.
The magic circle created by the Great Mage Erginius.
The magic that had been passed down through the blood of Soladin.
Seeing that magic circle, Arthur understood what it was.
How to handle it.
And he finally understood why Lucy Alrn had brought him here.
As Arthur reached out to the magic circle, it resonated with him.
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