CH 344

The only sound breaking the suffocating silence in the forest was the measured sound of footsteps.

Iceline and Lucifer were at the top branch of a tree dozens of meters tall, but the young man that had appeared just then was walking toward them on the tree branch very peacefully as if he were merely walking on the plain ground.

Iceline’s petal-like lips slowly opened.

“Joshua…?”

The reaction of Lucifer, the man who had been intimidating her, wasn’t different.

“You’re…”

“Has it been three years?” Joshua pulled his spear out of the tree. “Grand Duke Lucifer.”

Lucifer was shocked.

“…Is it…? So the rumor was indeed true? I can’t believe I met you here.” He broke into ominous laughter. “Are you going to stop me again?”

Joshua shrugged. “If you covet my country again.”

“Do you think I’m the only one?” Lucifer smirked.

“I’ll do the same with everyone else.”

“You’re still arrogant,” Lucifer replied, narrowing his eyes.

“You too.” Joshua retorted.

Lucifer gave him a sharp look.

“Do you think you can beat me?”

Joshua tilted his head thoughtfully. “You asked the same question back then.”

Lucifer flinched.

“That was the question you threw at me at the Great Plain of Kraden three years ago,” Joshua added.

“Are you talking about the day when you were hunted down?” Lucifer shot back with a crooked smile.

“I wasn’t the one being hunted…” Joshua trailed off for a moment then looked straight into Lucifer’s eyes. “...because I was luring you all.”

“…What?”

“If I hadn’t done so, the Avalon Empire wouldn’t have survived until today.”

“You made us hunt you down on purpose?” Lucifer asked disbelievingly. His mind raced as he delved into his memories.

Back then, one man had stopped the empires’ allied army of a million soldiers. Joshua had run again and again to the Great Plain of Aiyas—hundreds of kilometers away—slaying countless heroes of the Swallow Empire right before Lucifer’s eyes.

‘I didn’t have to chase him down—-no, I wouldn’t have wasted three years if I didn’t have to hunt him down. The promise was just about making the world forget about Aden von Agnus, so the disappearance of him and the emperor of the Avalon Empire was the perfect opportunity to take over Avalon…’ Lucifer thought, his face darkening a bit.

However, there was only one reason he hadn’t done it.

‘Contrary to my expectations, I had to chase Joshua around.’

The spearman’s techniques had been incredible, especially for a man who wasn’t even twenty years old at the time. The people who had gone against Joshua were strong enough to be called heroes, but their limbs had all been chopped off while they had been still alive. Whenever Joshua had swung his red spear, Lucifer’s soldiers had collapsed, spilling their blood across the ground.

After some time, Lucifer had finally realized that Joshua wasn’t the hunted—in fact, Joshua was the hunter. The allied soldiers had become very spiteful by the time they had arrived at the Tower of Trials, their final destination, but there they had encountered a transcendental being whom humans couldn’t do anything about—a demigod with a set of abyss-like black eyes.

When Lucifer remembered that much, he became stiff as a statue.

“Wait, you’ve anticipated everything…?”

Joshua didn’t say anything, but that told Lucifer that he was right. The Grand Duke stared at Joshua with an uncharacteristic scowl marring his visage.

“Answer me,” Lucifer demanded.

Joshua stayed silent.

“You bastard!” Lucifer growled.

At that moment, Lucifer released a formidable amount of energy. A cloud of blood-red smoke rose around him. Shocked birds flew high up into the air, and the trees bowed down, lowering their leaves. But suddenly the birds began to plummet out of the sky. Lucifer was at the highest level of killing intent, so he was able to take lives away with only his willpower.

“…Yes, there was definitely a rumor about how an adult black dragon appeared in the skies of Avalon several years ago. Surprisingly, a human was riding on top of the dragon like the dragon knight from the legends.” Lucifer’s lower lip trembled. “I thought it was just nonsense that the Avalon Empire came up with… but were you the dragon knight?”

“Are you going to retreat, then?” Joshua nonchalantly asked.

Lucifer’s eyes widened for a moment, but a bone-chilling smile crept onto his lips.

“No way. That lizard isn’t scary enough to stop me from executing my plan when I’ve waited dozens of years.”

Lucifer gradually began to release more energy, enough to shake the towering tree they stood on and to make the sky rumble.

“I’m the one who killed your father, the man the people worshiped as a god, so if anyone stands in my way, I’ll kill all of them—even if it’s a dragon’s grandfather…”

“Kill? Who killed who?” Joshua sarcastically asked.

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That was the finishing blow. Lucifer stood dumbly as if he had been hit in the back of his head. Judging from Joshua’s words and his face and if Lucifer’s intuition was correct…

‘…He knows the truth…?’ Lucifer wondered.

After a moment, Lucifer swept aside his bafflement and regained his composure. The situation kept taking an unexpected turn. He needed to verify everything before he moved on, even if it would take more time.

“…Come, you don’t want this woman to suffer from our fight, do you?” Lucifer’s eyes turned cold.

Iceline groaned in pain because Lucifer had tightened his grip on Iceline’s neck again. This time, it was very strong.

“I have no intention of forcing you… but she’ll die if you don’t come.”

Joshua glanced at Iceline, who was furtively gesturing at him to not listen to Lucifer.

‘Don’t come. You’ll be in danger,’ Iceline silently kept signaling to Joshua even until she was forced to disappear with Lucifer.

Left alone on the top branch of the tree, Joshua put the spear on his back. There was no need to ponder whether or not he should go after them. He had already decided he would not leave behind any regrets ever since he had received a second chance at life.

With a small sound, Joshua disappeared.

* * *

The plain before the castle gates of Einberg turned unbelievably quiet in spite of the fact that two hundred thousand soldiers were present.

“Huff, huff, huff!” Duke Eima, the reason why the soldiers were silent, was panting hard, soaked in sweat. “Fuck… I didn’t know the levels of our abilities were this different.”

“You were quite good,” Duke Tremblin said.

“Kek… are you assessing me?” Eima asked.

“I had zero intention of doing so…”

Eima laughed self-deprecatingly. “I wouldn’t have been defeated so devastatingly if only my level as an elementalist was a level higher…”

“You’re just making that analysis based on what actually happened. It could have turned out differently.” Tremblin’s eyes then turned cold. “Are you going to continue?”

“I’m not sure why you’re suddenly asking me that.” Eima’s eyes narrowed. “Aren’t you here to drive us out?”

Tremblin shook his head. “No, I’m here to stop a war from breaking out.”

“It sounds the same.” Eima chuckled bitterly and shrugged.

“Are you the man in charge here?” Tremblin asked.

“As you can see.”

“Retreat,” Tremblin curtly ordered.

“Do you think your request makes sense?” Eima asked disbelievingly.

“A defeated general never speaks,” Tremblin said with a sharp look.

Eima raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think I’ve lost yet.”

“Are you really going to continue fighting until one of us dies?” Tremblin asked menacingly.

Eima chuckled. “Yeah, I’ll have to accept the fact I lost, so in return, I’ll tell you the answer that you’ve been desperately looking for.”

Tremblin shook his head in confusion. While he was trying to process the situation, Eima sent him a telepathic message.

-Emperor Marcus is alive.

Tremblin was petrified.

“What?”

“Are you interested now? Hehehe.” Eima giggled.

The air around Tremblin changed completely.

“…Explain that more clearly.”

“You’re blackmailing now, huh…?” Eima joked.

“Do you think I’m joking?” Tremblin growled.

“It looks like I won’t be the one who will answer that.” Eima looked up at the sky and smiled.

Tremblin glared coldly at him.

“Are you seriously…”

“Can’t you feel it, Sword Emperor?” Eima grinned.

“Why do you keep saying nonsense—”

Tremblin couldn’t finish his sentence. A shiver ran down his spine as he finally noticed the intense energy.

“Th-this is…?”

“Heh… how much longer was he trying to make me wait?” Eima giggled.

“Who could have such a high level of killing intent and such strong energy…?!”

Eima just chuckled again.

“…Sky!” Tremblin’s head jerked upward and he stared into the sky with wide eyes.

“Wowwww!!!”

At that moment, an earsplitting shout echoed throughout the plain as the soldiers gazed upon the man with blood-red hair. Although the man wasn’t a mage, he was floating in the sky unsupported, looking down at the ground. He was one of the three Absolutes, those known as the “Sky.”

“The Grand Duke is here!” a knight of the Swallow Empire yelled at the top of his lungs, unable to hold down his excitement. His shout startled the wyverns, making them run amok.

Lucifer was already a god to the people of the Swallow Empire, but it seemed that the real god didn’t like what he was looking at.

“Wa-wait! The-there’s one more!” one of the knights murmured. Gradually, the murmuring spread among all the people in the castle.

“Th-th-that’s…!” A wyvern knight with good eyes stared dumbfoundedly at the second man in the sky.

Standing not so far away from their respected Grand Duke, there was another man floating in the sky. The man’s deep blue hair was just as striking as Lucifer’s blood-red hair. The man was holding a long spear, a rarity in Igrant, although that particular spear wasn’t familiar to the onlookers. Most people of the Swallow Empire that were there could never forget who he was: he was the damned Grim Reaper that had slain countless heroes of the Swallow Empire.

“It’s the He-Hero King… Jo-Joshua Sanders!” the wyvern knight loudly screamed.