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At that moment, a loud bang rang out.
It was Lianna who had jumped at Juan. Just like Dembel, she too was feeling the tremendous energy that was emanating from Juan as he spoke. Enormous power naturally crashed down upon Lianna without revealing itself, but feeling such power only further increased Lianna’s hostility toward Juan.
Sina blocked Lianna’s way path to Juan once again and parried her sword. Sina was so powerful that she was only driven to a corner after both Lianna and Dembel charged at her at once. There was no way that Lianna could handle Sina on her own.
However, Lianna called upon the power of the Grace granted to her and slowly began to transform her body into that of a shadow beast.
“Lianna, stop it!” Dembel shouted.
[Don’t be stupid, Dembel.]
At the same time, Lianna’s body began to turn into a dark shadow, and spider-like limbs grew from her body. Lianna curled up inside the fog-like shadow and glared at Juan with hostile eyes.
[I’ve seen the people who are behind this bastard at the Magic Tower! He is only pretending to be the emperor to blind our eyes! If such a powerful man is covered up with well-made up lies, then…!]
‘Then everyone will be fooled.’
Lianna thought that the Priest and the fake emperor they killed earlier were just a joke compared to Juan; after all, fooling the eyes of others just with appearances alone would eventually reveal the truth and it would only be a matter of time before their act failed.
But if the fake emperor had enormous power and powerful strength behind him, the empire would soon collapse.
[That’s the real fake emperor who has come to destroy us! He is the Black Emperor!]
Dembel flinched upon hearing Lianna’s words. He had also heard of the rumors about the Black Emperor. The rumors about the Black Emperor and the Devil of Tantil were part of the prophecy that the previous Saintess had made.
‘The one who will come to turn the empire into ashes.’
Juan’s black hair further added to the persuasive power of the Saintess’ prophecy.
“The Saintess had also prophesied the return of the real emperor! If you believe in the Saintess’ prophecy, then you should also consider the prophecy about the real emperor as well!” Dembel yelled at Lianna.
[You can talk to him. But I’ve already seen enough evidence to believe that he is fake. My Templars will soon kill those behind that bastard and come here.]
Lianna attacked Sina with her sharp claws as soon as she finished speaking. Although Sina was a talented knight, it was difficult for her to hold out against the attack of the captain of a knight order led by Templars who was using the power of Grace.
However, the situation was quickly reversed when the rune engraved on Sina’s left eye began to burn. Lianna’s claws broke and turned into ashes whenever they met with Sina’s sword. Lianna stepped back with a painful expression.
“Lianna! If you have called your Templars here, I have no choice but to also call my Templars to…!”
“Templars? Are you talking about those out there?”
As soon as Dembel shouted at Lianna, Juan suddenly opened his mouth as he pointed toward the terrace.
At that moment, the outside of the terrace flashed with bright light. Lianna flinched and paused as she witnessed a huge fire burning along the surface of the Magic Tower. Something huge was flying and heating the surface of the Magic Tower in the dark.
“The Magic Tower itself is so big that Entalucia’s breath feels warm rather than burning hot,” Juan said with a smirk.
Lianna instinctively realized that the fireballs that were fiercely burning and falling from atop the Magic Tower were her Templars. Something had gone terribly wrong.
‘No way… there’s no way that such a huge dragon still exists…’
The only dragon Lianna had ever seen was the one that the centurion from the Fourth Division of the eastern army carried around. Thus the biggest dragon that she could imagine in her head was only about twice as big as the dragon that belonged to the centurion. However, the size of the thing moving dimly in the dark was beyond her imagination.
Lianna stood still and stared blankly at the terrace, but soon charged toward Juan as if she was convulsing. The moment Lianna used the power of the Grace granted to her with all her might, the entire room was covered with shadows. Hundreds of murderous shadow claws shot toward Juan.
“Lianna!”
If Lianna had a tongue, her roar would have been heard in the room. But both the attacker and the person under attack remained silent. Dembel trembled, since he couldn’t tell what was happening in the dark.
Then suddenly, the darkness which had covered the room disappeared without a trace. The moonlight shone into the room again, and the first thing that entered Dembel’s eyes was the scattered blood as well as two severed arms lying on the floor—they were Lianna’s arms.
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Lianna was hanging in the air with Juan holding her neck at a twisted angle. A beast-like groan was coming out of Lianna’s throat along with foaming blood.
“Two arms are enough to wield a sword. But you have too many,” Juan clicked his tongue.
Lianna was bleeding so much from her shoulders that it was clear she would not last long. No matter how powerful the Grace granted to a Templar was, death couldn’t be avoided in the case of major blood loss.
Dembel quickly picked himself up and lied face down in front of Juan.
“Your Majesty!”
Juan looked down at Dembel.
It no longer mattered to Dembel whether or not Juan was the real emperor. The mission given to him by the Church and the Saintess, as well as the teachings of the scriptures had long since disappeared from his head.
“Your Majesty, please have mercy and forgive her! She doesn’t know any better!” Dembel desperately pleaded.
“Do you think that ignorance can be used as an excuse?” Juan replied.
“We have only lived our life to serve and die for Your Majesty ever since we were young. She had just been clueless until now. If Your Majesty teaches us the right way and direction, then both of us will be the best swords to serve Your Majesty!”
Dembel was desperate. Blood began to run down from his forehead as he continuously slammed his head on the floor.
“Please have mercy on her!”
Juan looked down at Dembel and turned his gaze toward Lianna. She was about to lose consciousness due to suffocation due to Juan choking her.
“What relationship do you have with this Templar?” Juan asked.
“She is my fri-friend… no, no. S-she is my family. S-she is my fam-family that’s been with me all my life, ever since I grew up as an orphan,” Dembel stuttered and barely finished his sentence.
Juan stared at Dembel upon hearing the word ‘family.’ Juan had never liked the idea of Templars, especially ones that dared to point their swords at him. In that sense, it was the right thing for Juan to kill Dembel, just like Lianna.
Juan looked at Sina as if he was asking her what to do. Sina nodded her head—she meant that he should spare Lianna and Dembel’s lives.
‘In fact, I should have already known that asking Sina for her opinion would mean that she would tell me to spare their lives.’
Juan placed his hand over Lianna’s severed shoulder. For a moment, the sound of flesh burning echoed throughout the room. Lianna tried to scream due to terrible pain, but all she could do was tremble without a voice, given that her neck was still being choked by Juan.
Dembel managed to keep his head down on the floor so as not to raise his head.
“It seems like your ‘family member’ won’t be able to wield her sword anymore with her injuries. Then how do you intend to serve me from now on?” Juan asked.
“...In the scriptures, Your Majesty said that holding a sword is not the only thing one can do to serve Your Majesty. We will serve Your Majesty by being sincere and exemplary imperial citizens.”
Dembel was relieved at the thought that Lianna could live. It didn’t matter that Lianna had lost both her arms, since he could take care of her for the rest of his life if she somehow managed to survive. Dembel believed that Lianna, who was optimistic and had a strong personality, could overcome the aftermath of losing her arms.
“All right. Let’s see if you can keep your word.”
Juan dropped Lianna on the floor. Lianna curled up and groaned as if she were in terrible pain. Dembel hurried to approach and examine her condition.
“Lianna, Lianna, are you okay? I’m going to find someone capable of using a healing Grace right now, so you hang in…”
Then Dembel stopped talking. The reason why Lianna was lying on her stomach wasn’t because of the pain—it was to bite off the rosary hanging on her neck with her teeth.
“No!”
Despite Dembel’s scream, Lianna looked directly at him with drowsy eyes as she cut off the rosary without any hesitation. With a small sound, the rosary’s beads poured out onto the floor. Then the bizarre-shaped beast decoration that was hanging on the rosary helplessly dropped.
Dembel saw Lianna puffing her mouth as if she was trying to say something to him.
‘Sorry.’
At that moment, Lianna’s head disappeared along with a small tornado of blood.
***
Dembel was pulled out from his stupor as soon as a loud roar rang out.
Dembel stared blankly at the sight in front of his eyes.
Juan had snatched the beast decoration on the rosary with a grim and distorted expression before it could touch the ground, and at the same time his fist was pressed down where Lianna’s head used to be. Juan had slammed Lianna’s head so hard that all that could be seen above Lianna’s shoulder was only a blood-red mark.
Juan was clutching his fist as hard as he could with cold sweat running down his forehead. Juan’s fist was glowing with a reddish-orange hue and releasing so much heat that it was setting the surroundings on fire. Dembel could feel unbearable heat despite being quite a distance from Juan.
Dembel couldn’t figure out what was going on inside Juan’s clenched fist. All he knew was that Juan was pressing down on ‘it’ with an enormous amount of heat and pressure.
Crack! Crack!
A grotesque sound rang out from Juan’s fingers. Only then did Dembel realize that this was the sound of Juan’s fingers being broken.
It didn’t take long for Sina to realize that as well. Sina hastily ran toward Juan to hold his hand.
“It’s…”
Juan tried to shout at Sina that ‘it’s dangerous’, but an orange flame rose from Sina’s left eye as soon as her hand touched Juan’s hand. This time there was no smell of flesh burning like when Juan cauterized Lianna’s shoulders.
Juan stared at Sina for a while and then quietly murmured toward his fist.
“Hurry and fuck off to your hell.”
A little while later, the heat slowly began to die down. Juan stood up and opened his fist with an exhausted expression. The only thing left inside his fist were black ashes, which were scattered away by the blowing wind.
Juan looked at Dembel.
“Do you realize what your friend… no, your ‘family’, was trying to do?”
“...She tried to summon Kelegrenon.”
Sina looked at Dembel with startled eyes, since it was a name she had heard before. Kelegrenon was the beast that Bishop Rietto had tried to summon back in Hiveden in order to destroy the city.
“That’s right. Kelegrenon—Mananen McLeir’s pet beast that eats up Mana. She tried to summon Kelegrenon at the Magic Tower, huh? Then you must know what your ‘family’ was trying to do by summoning Kelegrenon.”
Juan approached Dembel and poured the remaining ashes over his head.
“Your family tried to kill the tens of thousands of people in the Magic Tower in exchange for my mercy.”
Dembel did not give Juan a reply.
After staring at Dembel for a while, Juan looked up into the air with a sigh.
“I keep trying to suppress my hatred and approach you humans, but I feel more and more tested. It’s as if someone is continuously asking me ‘Can you really forgive them? Even if they behave this way? Are you sure?’”
Juan’s words were not only directed toward Dembel—they were also directed toward Sina and Juan himself.
Juan stood silently for a long time. A heavy and oppressive silence was pressing down on everyone as Juan’s eyes wandered in the air for a while.
“Go,” Juan opened his mouth and spoke to Dembel.
Dembel raised his head, only to see Juan, who looked tired.
“I have already decided not to kill you. I won’t change my decision to forgive you just because of the sin committed by your family. Take her corpse and go back to the holy city of Torra.”
Dembel nodded in silence.
Juan left Dembel behind and headed out of the mansion.
Meanwhile, the Templars were rushing into the mansion after hearing the disturbance.
Dembel crawled toward Lianna’s cold body on the floor. Lianna had always been chatty, even after she had lost her tongue. But now she was completely silent.
However, Dembel could hear Lianna let out a scream louder than ever in his ears.
***
“I thought you would kill him.”
Sina opened her mouth on the boulevard to the Magic Tower. Juan looked toward Sina, and she looked back at him as if she was seeing someone unfamiliar.
“I hope you don’t make the mistake of thinking that I am becoming merciful. You should know that sometimes it’s more painful to be alive than dead. Besides, you already saw that Templars are no longer a threat to me,” Juan said.
“...You certainly do look quite a bit taller than you used to be.”
Juan, who used to look like a scrawny nine-year-old child when Sina had first seen him, now looked like a twenty-year-old young man who was taller than her. It was difficult for her to gauge Juan’s power at this point, since she had witnessed just how much stronger Juan would grow every time he grew older.
Juan snorted.
“Yes, yes. I don’t have to say ‘it’s nice to see you again’, do I? You always follow me as you please anyway.”
“If someone heard that, they would probably think that I’m chasing you because I have a crush on you,” Sina grumbled.
Then, a sound of several horse hooves clattering was heard from behind. Juan looked back at the sound and noticed the Templars with a white lotus symbol running along the boulevard. With a loud roar from someone, a group of bluish lights wrapped around the entire knight order to form a huge spear blade—it was a cavalry charge using the powers of Grace granted to all the Templars of knight order, similar to the one which had smashed the walls of Hiveden at once before.
Sina flinched upon seeing such a sight. Even though Juan had gotten much stronger than before, there was no way that he could block such an attack.
Juan focused his attention on the Templar riding a horse at the very front of the line.
The Templar who was running toward Juan and Sina without even wearing any armor was Dembel.
Dembel’s eyes were hollow and contained no murderous intent. In fact, his murderous intent was all directed toward himself.
“So that’s your decision, huh, Dembel?”
Juan clicked his tongue and stood upright while facing the attacking knight order.
“Then I will fulfill your wish.”