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Krawrarrak!
Pentacrios struggled desperately.
But he could not block the onrushing green breath.
Powerful, mana-infused scales formed a shield, but the green breath found the tiny gaps between those scales and slipped into his body.
Damian watched from above Eckhart’s skull with a faint smile.
‘So simple…’
The legendary Frost Dragon Pentacrios.
There are so many anecdotes about him they could fill one wall of the library.
What those countless tomes all note in common is Pentacrios’s ferocity.
In terms of destructive power he rivals Eckhart, but his unpredictable, savage temperament means he communicates with no one.
I’ve always wondered that. Why on earth didn’t he communicate?’
He has lived a long time.
He is comparable to Eckhart, who has lived since before the beginning.
To live that long without speaking to anyone is an extremely painful thing.
And yet this creature lived in isolation.
‘What on earth happened?’
Damian smiled faintly and controlled the green mana that had seeped into Pentacrios.
The mana slithered deep into his body and instantly took hold of his brain.
Having never faced this type of attack before, Pentacrios was swiftly consumed by necromancy mana.
‘Let’s see…’
Damian searched Pentacrios’s memories and soon found the scene he wanted.
A single Frost Demon stood facing him on a snowy white mountain.
The demon, with translucent blue skin, was female, and Pentacrios felt something for her.
‘Feelings? No. It’s deeper than that.’
Damian had difficulty finding the right word.
‘Affection? No. It’s a weightier feeling than that.’
It was a feeling Damian had never experienced, so it was hard to define.
Then Nocturne’s voice was heard.
-Master. Humans typically call that feeling “love.”
-Love?
It was a word he’d heard before.
He had also seen it in books.
But he did not really know what that feeling was.
-It’s the feeling when a woman and a man like each other, perhaps? Some books describe it more complexly…
-Tell me.
-A feeling where, without any purpose, one can feel a deep fulfillment merely from the other’s existence.
-Who defined it that way?
-The poet Müller.
Damian snorted and laughed.
Ridiculous.
To be satisfied merely by the other’s existence.
‘Wait. I know a similar word.’
-Carnal desire.
-It’s somewhat different. That’s an instinct animals also possess. But love is commonly said to be a noble feeling only humans can experience.
Damian paused, then pointed out a flaw in Nocturne’s words.
-That doesn’t seem right. Didn’t you just say this “dragon” seems to love that Frost Demon?
-Ah, I see.
-A dull one.
Expecting a long rebuttal, Damian instead watched Nocturne immediately admit the mistake without further argument.
In any case, the conversation ended there, but Damian felt he somewhat understood the feeling the dragon had for the female demon.
‘So, he likes her.’
It was astonishing that such an affection could exist despite their different species.
Anyway, everything Pentacrios said and did afterward made sense.
Damian began to pry into the subsequent memories.
Pentacrios’s consciousness resisted fiercely, but there was no way to block the necromancy mana’s effect.
He was forced to reveal long memories and emotions while defenseless.
Eventually Damian discovered the most direct event that caused Pentacrios to guard this place.
The female demon had died.
She died of old age, and just before death she left these words.
<I dreamed of my descendants’ destruction. Please help so that it will not happen.>
At that time, Pentacrios wept in the form of a Frost Demon.
Damian did not know the full meaning of that tear, but he perceived one thing.
‘If I use this woman, I can brainwash him.’
Pentacrios had been guarding this place only because of his promise to her.
If he could manipulate the woman in the memories, he could move Pentacrios to suit his own purposes.
‘I must learn this demon woman’s true name.’
Damian questioned Pentacrios’s rational mind, but he resisted desperately.
He even drew out all remaining mana to bolster his mental defenses.
-It’s a futile effort, Pentacrios.
-I will never submit to you!
The fiercer the resistance, the broader Damian’s smile grew.
Eckhart’s remains, which he rode upon, collapsed to the ground from exhaustion, but the terror radiating from them was so fierce that no one dared approach.
With the surrounding ice gone, Lord of Frost Qairas and the other Frost Demons fell into a collective panic,
and scrambled among themselves to flee.
Damian had no interest in them.
He was focused on brainwashing the still-living dragon Pentacrios.
‘Almost there.’
Damian’s viscous mana particles pierced the defensive barrier.
Only a very small gap opened, but it was enough.
Like water leaking from a cracked vessel, Damian’s mana flowed into Pentacrios’s brain center and soon found the name he sought.
When Damian spoke that name, the dragon’s entire mind writhed.
At the same time, the memories Damian had seen became vivid.
The appearance of the female Frost Demon emerged clearly.
Long, lush, silvery-white hair that shone translucently.
Her hair flowed down to her waist, the ends tied with a ribbon adorned with ice crystals.
Every time she ran lightly, her hair swayed and a scattering of silvery light appeared.
Damian admired her appearance for a moment.
Not flashy but neat and elegant.
Skin so blue it was nearly pale.
Eyes that gleamed with a luminous teal.
But Damian’s attention was not caught by that beauty.
He had only one concern.
‘This is the end.’
Damian used the power of true name magic to create an illusion of Icera.
Then he whispered to Pentacrios.
-Stop now. I’m here.
Though his voice was very small, the reaction was intense.
-Icera? Is it really you?
Icera did not answer; she simply smiled.
In the most beautiful form that was preserved in his memories.
Pentacrios stood before her, transformed into his appearance from that time.
-How could this be…?
-You don’t need to know that. What’s important is…
-That we are together.
Long ago.
The place where they once spoke had long since eroded away, but it remained vivid in Pentacrios’s mind.
He repeated the words he had once said to her as if out of habit.
-I need nothing but you.
After that, it was easy.
He only needed to lead him.
Icera soothed Pentacrios like a child, and he soon became meek like a gentle lamb.
‘This is finished here.’
Damian did not care what happened to the Lord of Frost and his kin.
Now all that remained was to check Emma’s condition.
Damian descended from atop Eckhart’s skull down to the ground.
The moment his feet touched the ground, Eckhart’s skull—barely maintaining its form—fell to the earth lifelessly.
Kukukukukukung-
A heavy reverberation sent up a cloud of dust.
Damian moved through the dust toward the center of the plain.
There lay Emma’s spirit form collapsed.
Damian gazed at her blankly.
‘What should I do?’
One option was to completely annihilate her right here.
That would easily give him the fifth Mana Ring.
But oddly, Damian did not want to do that.
He wanted to watch her a little longer.
‘I just want to see how far she can go.’
He had little interest in destroying the subterranean netherworld or sweeping away demons and the Demon King.
He was already strong enough that they couldn’t touch him.
What he wanted to observe was simply Emma.
He wanted to see how far she could go with her spectral form.
‘I could also test the power of a bound spirit.’
Damian inspected the still-lying Emma’s condition.
He knew a spirit couldn’t die anyway, but his expression was grave.
With bright eyes he examined her here and there and noticed something at her neck where a “binding” was placed.
It was a crack.
A fracture caused by Pentacrios’s attack.
His ice breath was strong enough to leave traces on the “binding” sent by the Wheel of Eternity.
It also completely froze Emma’s spirit form.
‘I didn’t know a dragon had that level of power.’
Strength enough to freeze a dead soul.
He hadn’t felt dragons were that strong before, but seeing the cracked binding made it tangible.
‘Just as Equinox said.’
At that moment, Equinox’s voice was heard for the first time in a long while.
-Dragons are strong. They cannot be compared to the Sand Dragon.
-But he was too easy an opponent.
-That is…
Equinox hesitated for a moment, then continued.
-It is because Honored Master has become too strong.
Damian smiled faintly.
Strength had been what he pursued from his past life until now.
His attempts to gain immortality across time and to master necromancy were all for the sake of becoming stronger.
And his presence here now was no exception.
He met Emma to obtain the fifth Mana Ring.
Damian stroked the cracked binding around Emma’s neck and asked.
-Emma used draconic-word magic here. It was the greatest spell she could use. But it didn’t activate. Do you know why?
-Because of the mana.
-Mana?
When Damian asked again, Equinox began to explain calmly.
-Eckhart’s draconic-word magic uses only pure mana. That means pure mana, untainted by anything, must be present for draconic-word magic to activate.
Hearing that was enough for Damian to understand the whole situation.
-Now I understand. Pure mana is scarce here.
The subterranean netherworld was tainted in all things.
The air is thin, the light dim, and even the mana is mixed with many impurities.
Unlike the Frost Dragon, who uses tainted mana, Emma uses pure mana, so she couldn’t cast magic freely here.
‘Then I should compensate for that.’
Damian instructed Ceres to fit a new iron collar around Emma’s neck.
Then he took from his bosom a jewel he always carried.
A crimson ruby imbued with mana.
‘With this I can make something useful.’
Damian recalled an old memory and infused mana into the ruby.
He then drew a magic circle in the air and began to craft.
Soon the ruby began to radiate a lustrous light, and Damian affixed it to the iron collar around Emma’s neck.
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