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Gerard touched his face with a shocked expression.
Juan lay on his back, facing the sky, since he no longer had the strength to maintain his mana arm. However, his eyes were still fixed on Gerard.
“This is just, this is… but how, where…”
“You’re scared, aren’t you?”
Elkihel, which Gerard had taken back from Haild, was hidden in a secret place that only Gerard could access. As far as Gerard knew, Elkiehl could only be brought out using his own spell—but what he didn’t know was that there was one more Elkiehl.
Gerard didn’t know about this fact, but Juan and Sina did.
“Dane Dormund gave it to me as a gift. He told me to make sure to kill you when he did.”
It was the Elkiehl in the form of a dagger—the dagger that Dane had given Sina while trying to convince her to assassinate Juan at the Magic Tower.
“According to him, that was the way for him to take back the Crown… although he ended up dying first.”
Gerard touched the wound on his face once more, a look of disbelief still visible on his face. His wound had stopped bleeding, but the fact that he had been cut could not be reversed.
The power of Elkihel took effect as soon as it left a wound on Gerard. The Crown would immediately be liberated if Juan were to take the crown away, and then death would be instantaneous if Juan tried to take his life.
Gerard felt that all the time that he had endured until now and all the future that waited for him was crumbling down. His vision began to feel distant and he felt the ground beneath his feet shaking.
‘Is this how everything I accomplished collapses? Was it all in vain? Just because of a trivial fight like this? Then why did I kill His Majesty? Why did I turn myself into a sinner and hide from everyone’s eyes in shame?’
“Ahhhhhhhh!”
Gerard let out a roar and snatched at Juan with a mana arm, aiming to fling him into the air.
Juan was helplessly thrown into the air, since he no longer had any energy left to resist.
As soon as she saw Juan being flung away by Gerard’s mana arm, Nienna ordered the soldiers to rescue him. However, Nienna couldn’t even detect Juan anymore since he was instantly buried in the huge mass of tentacles wrapping around him.
Just as Gerard was trying to suffocate Juan, he suddenly felt that something was strangely off.
‘Why am I still alive?’
As someone who had used Elkihel several times, Gerard knew better than anyone just how fast Elkiehl’s power came into effect. Yet, Gerard couldn’t feel any change within himself. Not only did the power of the Crown remain the same, but his heart was still beating.
Then, loud laughter burst out from the sky. It was Juan.
Gerard hastily lowered his tentacles, bringing Juan’s face in front of his.
“You look like a scared dog.”
Juan continued to laugh as if he couldn’t stand it even after seeing Gerard’s pale face.
With a dazed expression, Gerard asked, “Was that Elkiehl a fake?”
“No. It was certainly real,” Juan answered without even a moment’s hesitation.
Even though he had asked that question, Gerard already knew the answer, since the power emitted by the dagger felt like the real thing.
‘But then why am I still alive?’
“I could have killed you,” Juan smiled faintly at Gerard as he answered.
Gerard also knew that Juan could have easily killed him. His question was why Juan had decided not to.
‘Was it sympathy? Pity? No. It’s nothing like that.’
“But I feel like you will be revived again someday even if I kill you now—just like I was.”
Based on how Dane had acted, as if he had always known that Juan would come back to life, Juan had a strong hunch that Gerard would also be revived after his death.
“The Crack will remain open and your subordinates will keep wandering around.”
Juan already felt the unusual creatures crawling up through the Crack. The current Aruntal was nothing but a bunch of trivial greenhorns compared to those beings. In fact, none of the members of the real Aruntal was alive now. The current Aruntal just consisted of fools that couldn’t even be called Aruntal.
Juan revealed his teeth in a big smile, and continued with some chilling words.
“But no, that shouldn’t happen and cannot happen. You must die for good. Don’t even think about being resurrected. I will make sure to lock you up in complete emptiness and darkness, Gerard. Dying by Elkihel is too sweet a death for a terrible bastard like you.”
He paused for a moment, then, surprisingly, shook his head.
“But, unfortunately, that is not my job. It will be a human who kills you.”
“Human?” Gerard asked back.
“The emperor must die at the hands of humans,” Juan said with a pale face. “The gods, the emperor, and the monsters all must die at the hands of humans. That is the only way for everything to be corrected.”
Juan’s expression was more determined than ever. His eyes were now looking far into the distance, beyond where Gerard was standing.
“What are you talking about?” Gerard asked.
Juan turned his head and stared at Gerard. Gerard felt himself crouching without even realizing it as soon as his eyes met Juan’s. They were the eyes of a man Gerard had feared and respected at the same time throughout all his life.
“You would have understood what I mean if you truly loved humanity,” Juan said.
Gerard clenched his teeth and glared at Juan. Then, he turned his head.
Anya jumped at Gerard with a scream and Nienna also threw her spears of ice at him. Yet, Gerard’s tentacles once again began to tightly squeeze Juan despite their efforts.
The weight of an entire mountain range bore upon Juan at once.
***
Gerard appeared with a flash.
As soon as he arrived, he stumbled and stomped the ground, feeling it difficult to stand. A sudden stabbing pain swept through him. It was a headache that he hadn’t felt for a long time—ever since he had experienced it in the Red Citadel.
The situation here, which had been chaotic due to Gerard’s sudden disappearance, became rowdy as soon as he appeared again. Everyone was confused, and Bekelt was the first to come running breathlessly and fall down at Gerard’s feet.
“Your Majesty! Your Majesty, are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
Gerard couldn’t understand what had happened. Neither had he let his guard down, nor had he looked down on Juan. It was true that Gerard was confident enough to think he would never lose, since he had absolute power, but that didn’t mean that he had been negligent during his fight against Juan.
Yet he had almost ended up dying and had only managed to survive due to his opponent’s incomprehensible intentions.
Gerard couldn’t help but think that Juan was showing sympathy toward him. Even with the absolute power of the Crown, Gerard’s life had ended up being spared by a person that he considered no different from an ordinary human.
Gerard had a hard time understanding that. However, the cut left on his cheek was definitely real.
“Your Majesty, your wound…”
Gerard touched his cheek with his hand upon hearing Bekelt’s words. There was red blood on his palm.
‘But the wound had been healing on its own until just now.’
Gerard shook his head as the headache made his head pulse once more. This time, he could also clearly feel the pain from the wound on his cheek. Gerard tried to heal the wound by concentrating his strength on it, but it wouldn’t heal no matter what he did.
The wound was trivial enough to be cured with simple magic, let alone the essence of the emperor, and yet…
“...Just leave it,” Gerard murmured.
Gerard wondered if the power of Elkihel had made him lose his ability to regenerate, but when he gave himself other wounds to check whether that was true, those wounds recovered on their own. Only the wound left behind by Elkihel did not heal; it was as if it was a reminder for him not to forget.
Gerard breathed heavily and recalled Juan’s eyes. He wanted to believe that Juan was only special because he had the power of the Crown.
‘But what if that’s not true? What if humans could actually kill me and lock me up in an eternal void just as he said?’
By Gerard’s standards, Juan’s power was no different from that of ordinary humans. Yet, Juan had gone beyond just a threat and had even driven Gerard into a corner, to the point where he really could have died.
Gerard suddenly felt a burst of anxiety. He had thought that he was above the heavens, but he had suddenly been thrown to the ground in just an instant.
“Where have you been, Your Majesty? If you had given me an order to escort, I could have…”
Bekelt appealed to Gerard even though he knew that it was meaningless. Up until now, Gerard had only ignored his followers and refused to talk to them.
To Bekelt’s surprise, however, Gerard turned his head and made eye contact with him.
“I’m sorry, Bekelt. I was too careless.”
“...Your Majesty.”
Bekelt had to try and slow down his beating heart upon hearing Gerard’s apology. He felt as if Gerard had returned to who he was during the days when he was the Captain of the Order of Lindwurm.
“I went to see the remnants of my father,” Gerard murmured as he clutched his head.
“...Are you talking about the old emperor? Then this wound is…”
“It’s a wound caused by Elkiehl.”
“Elkiehl!? But that’s…!” stammered Bekelt, but he shut up when he saw Gerard’s face. After all, Gerard was still alive.
“What happened to that bastard?” Bekelt asked.
Gerard raised his empty eyes and stared into the air.
“He is dead. I tied him using Quzatquizail’s tentacles and buried him under the mountains.”
Bekelt looked relieved upon hearing Gerard’s words. But Gerard bit his lips with an anxious expression.
He was lying.
He had indeed done exactly that, but even he himself didn’t think that Juan had actually died for good. He regretted suffocating Juan with tentacles instead of directly stabbing him with Elkiehl and absorbing the remaining power of the Crown in him.
Unfortunately, Gerard had been unable to make a proper judgment at that time, since he was also in a state of panic. He at least figured that it would be difficult for Juan to get out easily as long as he was bound with Qzatquizail’s tentacles.
“Did you just say that Juan is dead?”
The moment Gerard turned his head, his eyes met Sina’s. She drew her sword and glared at Gerard, completely ignoring Bekelt.
Bekelt immediately felt an unusual energy from Sina. It was not only him—at that moment, everyone felt that she could take action any second.
Although Bekelt knew that Gerard was treating Sina as someone special, he wondered if that would continue to be the case even when she pointed her sword toward Gerard.
Bekelt placed his hand on the hilt of his sword just in case, but then, Gerard slowly opened his mouth.
“Yes, he is dead. I pulled off both of his arms, put some spears through him, and buried him in the deepest place of this world. You’ll have to lift up the entire mountain range to dig up his corpse.”
Gerard shrugged at Sina as if he was asking her what she was going to do about it. Sina’s hands were constantly twitching, as if she was ready to charge at Gerard at any time, but she only continued to glare at Gerard in silence.
Finally, after staring at Gerard for a long time, suddenly relaxed her hand and let go of her sword.
Even Bekelt was perplexed by her unexpected actions.
Sina gazed at Gerard.
“So he’s still alive.”
“What?”
“You both have similar quirks when lying. Perhaps it’s because you are family. You don’t really believe that Juan is actually dead at all.”
Sina turned away as if she had lost interest. But Gerard immediately grabbed her arm and turned her around.
Sina felt a sharp pain from her arm, but she didn’t hesitate to fiercely glare back at Gerard.
“What do you know!?” Gerard shouted.
“Whatever it is, I’m sure I know better than you do, Gerard Gain,” Sina whispered as she glared at Gerard. “I don’t know what you did to Juan, but the emperor will return—not you, but the real emperor.”
Gerard glared at Sina as if he wanted to kill her. Sina could feel a sharp murderous intent that could drive her to her death at any moment.
However, she did not avoid Gerard’s gaze. She had already managed to survive in the face of death many times, and she had even died once.
In the end, it was Gerard who backed down first. He erased all emotions on his face, and before anyone knew it, he was expressionless once more.
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“If you want to believe that, then so be it,” Gerard said briefly.
Hearing this, Sina roughly shook off Gerard’s hand and strode away.
Bekelt frowned as he looked at her back. Sina was a big and unexpected variable to Gerard’s followers. He wanted to execute her if possible, yet he had no choice but to leave her be due to Gerard’s incomprehensible sense of protection toward her.
“Your Majesty, I will move her to another dwelling if you wish.”
“There’s no need,” Gerard replied briefly.
Instead of ordering Bekelt to move Sina, he gave him a different order.
“Rather than that, I have an order to give all of you”
Bekelt knelt down in joy and the same was true of all the Priests from the Thornbush Priest Organization. This would be the first order that Gerard would give them after ignoring them for days.
Gerard looked beyond the Crack over the horizon and then opened his mouth.
“My sister and her army are on their way here.”
Bekelt understood that Gerard was referring to Nienna, the Northern Army, and Juan’s subordinates.
Gerard had been ignoring them until now because he judged that they wouldn’t be harmful to him. To Gerard, all humans were fragile and equally worthy of protection, whether they were rebellious or obedient.
But his perception had now changed. Juan had shown Gerard that everything he had could disappear in just the blink of an eye.
“They are traitors. Kill them all.”
“You have my eternal loyalty, Your Majesty.”
Gerard looked at the Crack with bloodshot eyes. The words left behind by Sina were ringing in his ears—the real emperor would return.
And this was true.
Juan was coming back.
‘But his comeback is meaningless if I destroy everything he has before that.’
***
It was dark, but Sina stood on the edge of the Crack.
Sina felt like she was nailed on the spot rather than just standing. It felt like she was going to dry up just as she was until she turned into a dead old tree—until all her body fluids were squeezed out and the wind finally broke her down and turned her into a part of the desert.
Of course, Sina knew that she wouldn’t die, since Gerard was constantly supplying her with mana.
Sina was so disgusted by Gerard that she wanted to scratch out all of his mana that was flowing inside her.
‘Juan.’
The reason why Sina hadn’t collapsed when she heard that Juan was dead was that she had seen him come back alive from many circumstances.
Juan had revived among the flames in a more powerful form even when she thought that death was inevitable. Sina was convinced that Gerard’s words were lies, but she had no evidence.
She knew that she was just being unreasonable in a way, since she didn't want to admit Juan’s death. But she thought that Juan’s resurrection would mean nothing if it were to happen thousands of meters below the dark ground.
‘I need to go and save him.’
Sina had not forgotten the message from Juan—he was coming. There was no way Juan would have sent such a message without any meaning. It was only natural for Sina to help Juan to come if he said that he would come.
But the Crack was wide and vast. Even the nearest rock was at quite a distance. Sina had already imagined leaping across the rocks numerous times despite knowing that such a task was impossible. Yet it was still very tempting to at least give it a try.
Sina measured the distance between the distant rock and herself with a firm look. She took one deep breath after another. She knew that it was impossible, but still, she somehow felt that it was going to work.
Sina believed that she knew Juan well, and Juan knew just as much about Sina. She thought that Juan probably already knew how she would act in a situation like this.
‘Don’t leave the judgment to Juan. I should just be myself.’
Sina took a step forward.
At that moment, she felt someone clutching her wrist.
“What do you think you are doing right now?!”
It was a sharp but low voice.
It was Opert.