Even If The Light Is Lost (1)

The sounds of nearby people faded away. Like a dying campfire, the heat gradually subsided, and darkness pressed down with tangible weight.

In that darkness, Azadine, driven by hunger and exhaustion, slept as if he had fainted.

Regret and pain endlessly surged within him.

His life had been nothing but pain. He had never been loved by anyone and had lived in solitude.

Even his only blood relative had wounded him, and those he desperately loved had abandoned him.

Should he have condoned Hathir’s tyranny instead?

If he had, Azadine might still have been Elder Kazas’s beloved disciple and a cherished godson-like figure to Aldis.

He could have walked a smooth road within his clan and enjoyed wealth and honor.

Of course, the price would have been massacring innocents, unleashing evil forces upon the world, and denying all that humanity had built.

But that wouldn’t have been any worse than his current situation. At least, it would have been better in that he wouldn’t be alone.

Should he have done that? What was his conviction worth, and why had he done something so foolish?

Thus, Azadine spent his time in prison, consumed by regret and pain.

How much time had passed like that?

“Azadine!”

Someone called out to him.

Had he been asleep?

In his hazy consciousness, that voice sounded familiar.

“Are you all right, Azadine?”

“Don’t make a sound, Mediam. There are monsters all over the place.”

“But….”

Azadine finally focused his mind.

As his unique vision returned, he took in his surroundings. Mediam and Ismail were desperately trying to pick the lock on the prison door.

Perhaps Amun-Jadek had decided to kill Azadine; molten lead had been poured into the keyhole of the cell’s iron bars, making it impossible to open the lock normally.

In the end, Mediam was grunting with effort, using an iron crowbar to pry open the door.

“Give it here.”

Azadine sat up.

With his left hand gone, he used only his right to twist the bars with the crowbar.

The iron bars bent but not enough for a person to pass through. Making an opening big enough for someone to escape would take quite a long time.

“Ugh.”

His lips cracked and split when he opened his mouth; he had gone too long without food or water.

Moving his body after so long was agonizing. Even the phantom pain from his missing limb, which he had briefly forgotten due to unconsciousness, began creeping back to torment him.

Did he even want to escape this badly? Outside was only filled with pain.

Wouldn’t it be better to just end his life now?

Azadine let out a sigh and put down the crowbar.

“Enough. Go.”

“What are you saying, Azadine?!”

“It’s over for me anyway. Look.”

Azadine raised his left arm, where amber-colored resin covered the amputated area.

“You understand what it means for an Aragasa to lose an arm, don’t you?”

For those whose primary weapon was the bow, losing a limb was a fatal weakness. In the past, Azadine would have had to retire from being a Messenger.

However, Mediam refused to give up and asked,

“So what? Are you saying you’ll give up over an injury like that?”

“I might have acted all high and mighty in front of you, but in the end, I’m a pathetic failure. I’m not worth betraying the clan over…”

Azadine stopped himself mid-sentence.

If these children had come here to rescue him, that meant they had betrayed the clan.

Wouldn’t it be far too irresponsible for him to despair and give up alone, leaving the children—who had betrayed their clan because of his influence—behind?

“Ha.”

Ismail seemed to read Azadine’s heart and gave a bitter smile.

“You really are a kind person.”

Even in the depths of despair, his sense of responsibility toward Mediam and Ismail came first.

“I understand. At the very least, I should take responsibility.”

Azadine realized Ismail had seen through him and steadied his heart once more.

Though his heart was shattered, there was still something he had to take responsibility for.

‘At least for these children, I must do my part.’

Ismail handed Azadine a water flask and sugar-preserved fruit.

“First, eat and drink. Regain some strength.”

After putting water and food into his body—debilitated from blood loss and imprisonment—he felt life returning to him.

Having regained some energy, Azadine once again used the crowbar to pry at the bars.

Though his body was ravaged by injury and confinement, his monstrous strength remained. He easily twisted the bars and stepped out, looking at Mediam and Ismail.

“So. What’s the situation?”

“The Nagas have taken control of Vthuma and continue devouring this area.”

“And Amun-Jadek?”

“The Vthumans have evacuated to Bel Hoda for now.”

“What about Scott and Shati?”

“That much, we don’t know…”

“I see. Then how did you know I was here?”

“Well…”

“Scott sent us a necromantic message.”

“A necromantic message?”

“Yes. A corpse suddenly started dancing where we were, then drew a map on the ground.”

That was certainly something Scott would do.

“If that’s the case, he must be safe. Good. What about the King’s Church? What are the neighboring countries doing?”

“Korasar has fallen into the clan’s hands. As for the others…”

At that moment, the Emperor’s Voice answered Azadine instead.

[The King’s Church and the other kingdoms all hesitate to get directly involved. The distance itself makes an expedition burdensome, and no one wants to waste their own troops only to get beaten first. This is why I once sought to unify Hubris….]

In other words, no one wanted to spend their soldiers to resolve this crisis first.

Who would want to exhaust their national power first when they were already competing with each other?

[Moreover, with a fragment of the Light of the Crown gone, the boundary of the world is weakening. Not just in Vthuma but across all of Hubris, the Light of the Crown is fading; monsters are appearing, corpses are rising, and the boundary between the living and the dead is in turmoil. Hathir, you fatherless wretch….]

“It sounds a bit strange hearing that from you.”

Azadine felt a strange sentiment as he heard the Emperor’s Voice insult Hathir for being fatherless.

Was the Emperor’s Voice truly the Emperor? It wasn’t. It was an artificial spirit, operating using the Emperor’s replicated ego and soul, fully aware it wasn’t the Emperor himself.

Perhaps the 108 fragments had merged into one due to the Messengers’ betrayal, causing this side effect?

That was the only guess Azadine could make.

“Anyway, does that mean I’m the only Imperial Messenger left? Shouldn’t I be promoted or something?”

[From now on, all the Emperor’s Voices are yours, Azadine. As long as you fulfill your mission as the Emperor’s Messenger, we will support you with all our power.]

“Hmph. Even with a hand gone? In the old days, someone like me would’ve been retired from being a Messenger on the spot. The Imperial Messenger position really must have lost its appeal.”

It was once a position everyone desperately wanted; could it have fallen so low in value?

The drastic fall in the Messenger’s status made him chuckle involuntarily.

But as he laughed, a headache surged.

Phantom pain was, after all, pain caused by the brain. The brain that once controlled the missing limb now produced excruciating headaches along with it.

Could he really fulfill his mission as the Emperor’s Messenger with such a body?

Could he really carry out anything that required killing others with such a heart?

Both his body and heart were utterly broken.

The only reason he forced himself to move was to provide a slightly better environment for Mediam and Ismail.

Azadine, Ismail, and Mediam moved while holding their breath.

With the Messengers gone, the Emperor’s Voice now fully supported Azadine alone.

Thanks to that, the terrain around them was vividly projected in his mind. The Emperor’s Voice soared like a prophetic bird, showing him the surrounding terrain and enemy movements.

Amazingly, fortresses and villages a bit away from Vthuma swarmed with all kinds of monsters.

Necromantic spirits infested the corpses of war and prowled to kill the living and turn them into part of themselves. Even the war elephants abandoned by the Vthuma army were parasitized by Nether creatures, mutating their very flesh.

A war elephant with a huge eye where its forehead should be spewed octopus-like tentacles from its mouth, scooping up and devouring surrounding corpses.

And what of the royal castle?

Above the Vthuma royal castle, a black hole gaped in the sky.

A massive eye opened above the black hole in the sky, while disordered shadows took form at the boundary between reality and illusion, wandering around the city.

The air was saturated with the power of the Nether.

Frankly, it was practically suicide for Mediam and Ismail to have come this far.

“They’ve done something outrageous. No wonder everyone hates the Aragasa.”

“Well, they’ve always hated us. We’ve been hated for no reason from the beginning; maybe this much is needed to balance things out?”

Ismail sneered. In truth, he didn’t care what happened to the Hubris people. He just couldn’t let Azadine die.

“So what will you do now, Azadine?”

“First, let’s find a safe place.”

“Yes. And after that?”

And after that? After they found a safe place?

“You two must be safe.”

That was all Azadine repeated.

Ismail let out a sigh.

“Don’t tell me you think that because Mediam and I betrayed the clan for you, you can fulfill your responsibility by just taking us to safety?”

“Yeah. Sorry, but that’s right.”

“Do you really think that’s the best you can do?”

“Restoring or destroying the throne of Vthuma would be one way, but that’s impossible. The Emperor’s Voice is showing me. This world is dying.”

“If that’s all you’ve got, Azadine, then I’m disappointed in you. Do you know how much trouble we went through to get here? And you think you can just send us to safety and call that responsibility?”

“But I’m no savior. I’m the half-disgraced Azadine.”

Azadine gave a bitter smile and held up his severed hand.

“I can’t even draw a bow anymore. In the end, I failed. I was defeated.”

“Then why are you trying to take us to safety?”

“Because even a loser can at least do that much.”

It was then that Mediam suddenly asked,

“Azadine. Do the stars still look beautiful to you?”

It was an unexpected question.

But both the one who asked and the one who answered understood its meaning well.