Even If The Light Is Lost (7)

“Hathir is like a son to me, and you are my disciple—but still an outsider.”

Kazas had no choice but to say that.

And that answer was, if anything, good news to Azadine. At least it meant Kazas did not wholly approve of Hathir’s atrocities.

He helped him because he regarded him as a son. Holding that view meant he did not fully concur with what Hathir was doing.

“From where I stand, Hathir doesn’t look like such a paragon of filial piety. I don’t see the piety it would take to summon the Nether’s apostles and usher in the Age of Jupiter together.”

The Elders listening could not hold back and burst into laughter.

“You laugh?”

When Hathir snapped, the Elders immediately wiped the smiles from their faces.

Watching that, Azadine felt boundless disappointment.

When he was young, the Elders had been authority itself within the clan. Seeing them mind their words and deeds to read Hathir’s mood struck him as pitiful.

And he was sick to his stomach at the power and authority concentrated in Hathir. All the acts that gnawed at and destroyed the world, piling rivers and mountains out of the blood and flesh of innocents—those were the doings of Hathir, that demi-god. And yet Kazas loved and prioritized such a man over Azadine.

Hathir, too, could not abide Azadine’s presence.

“You do not make yourself a laughingstock alone—you make me one as well, son of Acre. I should have killed you, but Aldis interceded and you were spared….”

“Do you regret it?”

“I do.”

“If you regret it, that means you realize you judged wrongly in the past. In that case, there’s no guarantee what you’re doing now isn’t also a wrong judgment, is there?”

“Picking at words pointlessly. I thought to amuse myself with a bit of talk, but you’re not even fit for a diversion.”

Leader Hathir moved to give the order to kill Azadine’s party.

“In that case, Leader Hathir! I challenge you to a duel!”

Azadine challenged Leader Hathir to single combat.

“What?”

“You said yourself you were looking for a diversion, didn’t you? You can’t claim you’re suddenly too busy now. How about accepting my challenge?”

“You cur….”

Coolly considered, Hathir had no reason to accept. Even now reinforcements were arriving in the rear, and with a little time Azadine and Arael’s faction would be completely surrounded.

Numbers would decide it. But Azadine was famed as the clan’s “dull genius.” If the leader avoided such a man’s challenge, it would deal a heavy blow to the leader’s honor.

Doubts were already rising among the younger Messengers. Otherwise, no matter how many Nether fiends Arael commanded, she would never have made it this far.

They had come this far because the clan had been shirking—because many could not sympathize with Leader Hathir’s vision.

In this situation, would he really ignore Azadine’s challenge?

Hathir found Azadine’s demand impudent.

“I can see right through you. Fine. I can’t leave the stain that I ran from a duel requested by a so-called dullard famed across the clan. But you? Arael, perhaps—but you? Do you imagine you and I are of equal standing, Azadine the Disgrace? Even a duel challenge requires a matching of ranks.”

“If you defeat my younger brother, I’ll stake my life as well. Will you accept if I guarantee it?”

Arael put up her own life as collateral.

“Your life is already mine, Arael. What meaning is there in staking what’s already in my hand?”

“I state flatly—if I truly exert my power, half the Elders here will die, and you won’t have my body alive. But if you fell Azadine, I will surrender alive. Well?”

“……”

“Lady Arael?!”

The four of Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon were taken aback. Arael was saying that if Azadine lost, they would submit without resistance.

‘To that extent?’

‘No—Lady Arael is not in sound condition.’

Arael had expended vast power to cut through numerous forces. Reaching this point was already a miracle; she had all but made a miracle real.

The price was mana and life force; she was suffering fatigue and anemia. If she fought Hathir here, she could not display her full skill.

‘But why Azadine, of all people?’

‘Do you judge us inferior to him? He’s lost his left hand.’

The four felt regret at Arael’s choice… then straightened their hearts.

The Arael they served never did anything in vain.

It was not favoritism for a younger brother or to gift him glory; rather, of their current party, Azadine alone was truly capable of defeating Hathir—so she put him forward.

“Hm?”

Hathir also sensed that Arael was desperate to make this duel happen by any means.

“Good. Very well, Azadine. I accept your challenge. Rejoice—you are the first in a hundred and fifty years to challenge the leader. Though starting at a hundred paces by clan custom would be difficult now, wouldn’t it?”

“Fine!”

In that instant, a sword of light swept from Hathir’s hand. Before anyone could react, the sword of light sliced across Azadine’s neck.

“Th-the Emperor’s Sword!”

“Ararat!”

The onlookers were shocked.

The sword of light said to have been used by the Emperor when subjugating the monsters of myth bloomed in Hathir’s hand.

It was so fast and so devoid of mass that even Azadine could not react.

“Ah.”

Arael faltered…

“It’s over.”

Hathir snorted—but…

“?!”

Azadine stood there without a scratch.

Azadine, too, was taken aback.

He had heard the legend of the Emperor’s Sword, Ararat. The strike that was said to cleave giants the size of houses had cut his neck—yet, strangely, there was neither pain nor itch.

“Impossible!”

Hathir cast again.

This time the sky blazed gold, and lightning of sacred radiance struck Azadine squarely. The gold brightened as if thousands of lights had been gathered, then flickered out.

Lightning of sacred light—enough to burn even demon gods.

But Azadine still stood unscathed.

“What is this?”

An ordinary person’s eyes would have been seared—but Azadine had no eyes, and so was not dazzled.

“My turn, then?”

Azadine drew up, with deep breaths, the power of the Heavenly Kings’ Grimoire that slept within him. White mana seethed up and collided with Azadine’s innate, imperfect colorless mana of Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon, producing a fearsome synergistic rise.

It strengthened Azadine’s physical abilities—but damaged his body in proportion. Yet for some reason, this time the power flowed easily, without the needle-prick pain or tingling.

[Let me add strength!]

The Emperor’s Voice was aiding Azadine.

Unable to intervene directly in human affairs, existing only to support Messengers, the artificial spirit began to spend its very being to help Azadine directly.

“Well, there aren’t many Messengers left now, are there?!”

Azadine lunged forward.

—Kazas Grimoire, Twilight!

His body deceived the eye and closed the gap in an instant. Hathir tried to counter, but Azadine moved faster.

The halberd, the Azure Executioner, carved across Hathir’s waist.

Hathir raised a shield of light—but Azadine’s blow ripped the light-shield, pierced the light-armor, and grazed him.

He avoided a direct hit only because he reflexively used a defensive spell, half in doubt.

He evaded Azadine’s strike with astonishing reflexes, but Azadine’s physicality was extraordinary, and the Azure Executioner grazed him…

Hathir went tumbling, bouncing ungainly across the ground. A mere graze tore muscle from his arm and laid bone bare.

“Impossible!”

Kazas was the first to grasp the reason.

“Hathir! The Emperor’s magic won’t take!”

“What?!”

Then the Emperor’s Voice resounded.

[The Emperor’s proxy is present here; thus the Emperor’s arms and magics heed the voice of their true master. Hathir—you are excommunicated.]

“The Emperor’s proxy?!”

All who heard it were stunned.

Azadine, as the Emperor’s Messenger—the sole one left—stood here as the plenipotentiary agent of the Emperor’s Voice; the entire clan, even Hathir, the Emperor’s own son, had been cast out.

Therefore Hathir must face Azadine not as the son of a living god-emperor—but as one Aragasa.

“Don’t make me laugh! Even without a god’s power, do you think I can’t handle the likes of you?”

Hathir sprang back to widen the distance and drew his sword. A Shadowsteel greatsword drank all light and swung, shedding baleful darkness.

But…

—Kazas Grimoire, Twilight!

Azadine’s body left a blurred afterimage as he slipped past Hathir’s blade.

Then, with a trail of blue light that skimmed along the ground, the Azure Steel halberd scythed low, flying in to reap the shadow.

‘Azure Steel is impressive, but it can’t surpass Shadowsteel!’

Aiming to break weapons, Hathir angled the Shadowsteel blade to the ground to shatter Azadine’s halberd—but…

—Kazas Grimoire, Willow!

Azadine planted the halberd and snapped his body in, springing above Hathir in an instant. He scattered daggers and came on with bare fists.

“Urk!”

Hathir, in place of the Emperor’s magic, invoked Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon.

He knocked aside the flying daggers with thunder-winds and used the Shadowsteel blade to slash at Azadine’s bare fist.

He would take the arm!

So he hoped, but…

—Tang!

Along Azadine’s arm, an amber club spun and danced, knocking the Shadowsteel blade aside.

‘I figured you’d try to lop it off the moment I threw a bare-handed strike!’

Azadine had a weapon that moved without using his hands—Grimslone’s Club. With it, he protected his arm and succeeded in closing.

“Ah?!”

Azadine’s fist slammed into Hathir’s face.

—Thud!—

The onlookers were appalled at the spectacle.

Was that a human fist? With a single punch, Hathir’s jaw tore off and half his face vanished.

“Ghk!”

Azadine swept his arm back, seized the halberd he’d planted, and swung for Hathir’s neck and collarbone. The cut, poised to carve him on the diagonal, sliced only air.

—Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon—Willow!

Using the technique Azadine had employed—yet as true sorcery—Hathir swapped places by about thirty meters.

Unlike Azadine, who imitated it as sleight-of-body, he used true magic. As Aragasa, the gap was plain.

Even so, the one driven onto the back foot was Hathir.