A girl with fluttering silver hair gazed endlessly at the impregnable fortress.
She felt a faint sense of presence.
It was undoubtedly Edanant.
Edanant had arrived at the Immortal Fortress.
What could he be discussing with the Sword Saint?
Worry gripped her as she waited, fearing that Edanant might clash with the Sword Saint. If the Apostle of War collided with the Sword Saint, it would lead to a disaster too awful to imagine.
“I hope Edan finds out where Beatrice is this time…”
She could infer from the dreadful incident in the Pug Kingdom.
Beatrice hadn’t run away at all.
For some reason, she had stepped down from the stage where she had been active for so long.
There must be an underlying reason.
Something must have forced her to leave in a hurry.
“I thought she would have gone into hiding with her colorful boyfriends, since she’s a woman covered in a rainbow of flowers…”
When she heard about the Great Second Saintess who had vanquished the Demon King going missing with her beloveds, she didn’t pay it much mind.
Surely, she’d be back soon.
She thought she would return just like any other day, looking natural and carefree.
Yet it had already been two months, and Beatrice’s whereabouts remained a mystery.
Zebeline sighed heavily and shook her head.
“What’s the situation in the Boemon Kingdom?”
“It seems they’ve pulled most of their troops back. There’s no one near the fortress walls.”
Were they fearful of the repercussions of the clash?
Or did they vacate the area for Edanant and Regnas?
Her anxiousness pushed her to nervously bite her nails.
The ominous feeling soon turned into reality.
As soon as the warmonger and the Sword Saint encountered each other at the fortress, dark magical energy began to rise from the west.
It was the direction of the lair of the leader commanding countless Magical Beasts.
“S-saintess! The Magical Beasts are descending!”
“Whew…”
Dust erupted like crazy.
She realized that the forces of the Boemon Kingdom, who had been threatening with their sharp pikes, temporarily withdrew. So the Magical Beasts, cornered by successive hunts, began to writhe in unison.
The Holy Knights of the Holy Kingdom sprang into action.
Zebeline also started to respond to the sudden assault.
“Rue, stick close to me.”
“Yes!”
With a rough thunder, the previously clear sky darkened instantly. Following that, pure white bolts of lightning crashed down, brightening the darkened sky in no time.
Thunder roared again.
The sharp bolts of lightning scattered like a spider’s web.
The Holy Knights gazed in awe at the majestic spectacle, as if they were witnessing a groundbreaking event before their eyes.
“The White Dragon of the Holy Kingdom…!”
“We have the Saintess by our side! Raise your swords, everyone!”
The lightning of the white dragon protecting the Earth Mother fell on the Magical Beasts moving across the battlefield.
─────!!
────────!!!
Lightning struck down.
Each time it did, the Magical Beasts charging in darkness were gallantly incinerated. Despite their furious rush, they ultimately couldn’t reach the Saintess.
The heavens and earth turned entirely white with the dazzling thunderstorm.
Zebeline’s ability to freely command the sharp lightning reminded everyone of Edanant, who had unleashed overwhelming firepower during the Racial War. It was as if she had mimicked the battle style of the warmonger.
-GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Just as the majority of the Magical Beasts that had charged in were wiped out,
A roar echoed.
The massive sound was sufficient to shake the battlefield.
It was the moment the leader, who had tormented the Boemon Kingdom, made its appearance. The monster emerged, collapsing the mountainside, causing the Holy Knights to swallow their screams.
“…Since reuniting with Edan, everything has been going wrong.”
The Saintess reached out to a nearby fairy watching over her.
The fairy scampered over and handed her the staff she had been tightly clutching with both hands.
‘Where shall I test out the holy relic that the Holy Kingdom and cardinals have boasted about?’
She raised the scepter adorned with white ivory.
The Scepter of White Night.
The scepter Rue handed to Zebeline was the holy relic from the Holy Kingdom, stored in the Fairies’ Paradise.
Holding the holy relic, the Saintess stood in stark opposition to the evil monster like a holy crusader. Each time the vile creature pressed forward, fierce shockwaves surged, yet she never wavered.
*
When the Holy Kingdom’s forces dispatched to the Boemon Kingdom began the skirmish,
Edanant and Regnas focused solely on confronting each other, ignoring the deafening thunder.
The end of the world was near.
To prevent the predetermined outcome, they needed a ‘symbol of evil’.
Only then did the mystery begin to unravel.
Through Regnas’s explanation, Edanant realized the horrifying truth behind the massacre that had occurred in the Pug Kingdom. He also understood why the Sword Saint had fallen from grace to become the King Assassin.
“…Are you really going to embody the symbol of evil?”
“That’s correct.”
The Saintess Party, who had saved the world by vanquishing the Demon King, intended to shoulder the evil. At Regnas’s succinct answer, Edanant grimaced in anger.
Corruption.
Or perhaps falling from grace.
To declare one would abandon the sacred for malevolence was practically to bear the sin forbidden by the Holy Kingdom: the transgression of embracing evil.
The greatest of heroes fall from grace.
Edanant recalled the dazzling smile of Beatrice and gripped his rifle tightly.
“You foolish fools, you should have put me forth! If you serve the Apostle of War…! You could have perfectly replaced the dead Undying Demon King! How can your brains not work that way?”
If they had said the world’s end was at hand, he would have gladly accepted the necessary evil.
They needed an evil to replace ‘death’.
Then, just like death, they could simply present ‘war’, known as the Disaster of Innocence.
Why.
Why, exactly…!
He glared at the Sword Saint as if he could pull the trigger at any moment.
Finally, he understood the reason behind the protagonists’ disappearance after enduring through many twists and turns. Confronted by the truth he had desperately sought, Edanant erupted with trembling eyes filled with rage and despair.
“I too am merely regretful. If the Disaster God of Tyranny and the Disaster God of Famine had existed until now, we could have somehow substituted them.”
Had the Disaster Gods that had threatened humanity’s survival, like death and war, influenced their hold until now, worrying about the world’s end would have been unthinkable.
But alas, Tyranny and Famine had become mere ghost stories long ago.
The Disaster God of Tyranny was subjugated by the heroes of the former Ebelras Empire, which had become the Valtarian Empire, and buried in the desert of the West.
And the Disaster God of Famine was sealed by Belashiel, hailed as the Earth Mother’s foster daughter and the Supreme Archangel, and cast into the sea of the East.
Now, the only remaining curse of innocence was war.
Only a select few, including the Saintess Party, knew of it.
“Edan, I’ve said everything I wanted to say to you.”
The once warm presence of Regnas transformed into a fierce storm. He finally drew the sword he had been firmly grasping.
A chilling metallic sound rang out.
At the same moment, the sharp blade came into view.
“From now on, you are an enemy of the Saintess Party. To ensure the necessary evil of the world, you, who rose as the representative hero of the Empire, must become… our sworn enemy.”
“…….”
Whatever he said would surely be pointless.
The ones following the Saintess were all outrageous weirdos.
He decided to accept the proposal.
To confront Regnas, who declared their hostile relationship, he likewise drew Aldebaran.
“Regnas, you said you would never use force against the weak.”
“That’s a funny joke. Why is Edanant weak?”
KAGA-GAAAAAH-!
As soon as their words ended, their swords clashed.
Shockwaves shook the fortress walls.
Yet, Edanant and Regnas did not retreat and charged forward.
The sharp blades exchanged strikes repeatedly. Eventually, the impregnable fortress walls were cut down like vegetables, crumbling to dust.
“…Quite impressive swordplay. You’ve finally mastered Maximilian’s techniques.”
“It’s been three years since then.”
The warmonger’s sword grew dull.
And the Sword Saint’s sword grew dull.
At the same time.
In the same motion.
Just as Edanant mimicked the hero’s swordsmanship, Regnas mirrored him.
Was he perhaps trying to grade the techniques, qualifying as the judge? The monster of swordsmanship, who had mastered all the ultimate techniques that existed, deliberately used the same technique.
“I have no personal feelings towards you. Of course, if it were Maximilian, it would have been a different story.”
“I completely understand.”
The muskets deployed in the air simultaneously fired.
Countless bullets rained down on Regnas like a torrential downpour.
“I have no personal feelings either.”
The form of the sword energy flowing along the blade shifted.
*SWISH-SHOO-!
And he displayed the extraordinary feat of deflecting hundreds of bullets in one go.
He was a true newcomer befitting the strongest after having passionately pursued swordsmanship to join the Seven Heroes of the Warring States. Staring at the bullets that fell like scattered grains, Edanant clicked his tongue.
