Even If The Light Is Lost (8)

Azadine gave chase.

“You cur!”

Hathir met the onrushing Azadine with his sword, but at every clash he was the one forced back by sheer strength.

Once his center of balance was driven rearward, he had to keep retreating just to avoid falling. Each time, Azadine struck at just the right moment, herding Hathir the way one dribbled a ball.

“Kaakh!”

Hathir let out a hideous roar.

New flesh sprouted across the face torn away by Azadine’s fist, the arm hewn to the bone knit over—and a translucent brown chitin spread over his body.

An insect’s exoskeleton sheathed Hathir like armor, and insect legs sprouted from his shoulders and elbows, each tipped with a sharp sickle-spur.

The legs stabbed into the ground, barely steadying him as he was being shoved back. Then those insect legs lunged at Azadine with terrifying speed.

Barbs so sharp they looked as if they would pierce to the spine—yet when Azadine swept the Cheong-ui Executioner, the legs were lopped clean off.

“For one who calls himself a god’s son, your last resort is the Nether’s sorcery?”

Azadine sneered.

“Silence! You—whelp of Acre!”

Hathir tried to parry Azadine’s halberd with his Shadowsteel blade.

The Shadowsteel sword he wielded was the Aragasa’s treasure, called “Arael’s Judgment”—a blade forged from the dragon-scales shed in the battle between the angel of justice Arael and the evil dragon Azadine.

There was nothing this blade could not cleave. Even if the foe wielded a fine sword of Azure Steel, Shadowsteel was held superior among the Aragasa.

‘If I just break that halberd, I can make up for this disgrace!’

So thinking, Hathir tried to rely on the superiority of his weapon to subdue Azadine.

“Pathetic.”

Azadine turned the Cheong-ui Executioner to meet Hathir’s Shadowsteel with the haft. Knowing his foe leaned on his weapon’s edge, he answered accordingly.

—Skeerk!—

The Shadowsteel carved through the halberd’s shaft.

And then—

—Crack!—

Azadine spun and drove a back kick that smashed into Hathir’s arm.

That was not all. Even after shattering the arm, the force remained; it buried the arm deep into Hathir’s torso. The arm-bone snapped, the rib it slammed into broke, and Hathir’s trunk buckled.

The chitinous plates and mutant limbs that had erupted from his body tore away from him.

“Grrhk!”

Blood sprayed from Hathir’s gaping mouth.

Gripping the broken-haft halberd like a tonfa, Azadine whirled in and closed on him.

“Y-you! The Heavenly Kings’ Grimoire… it’s the Grimoire’s power!”

Hathir realized the source of Azadine’s brutal strength and recoiled.

“It’s a long story… Think of it as dying to the Grimoire and be at peace. Now die with that.”

Azadine swept the Cheong-ui Executioner toward Hathir. Given his current physical power, the blow could have split him straight down in one stroke.

The clan’s loftiest being—the living god’s son, Leader Hathir.

The clan’s lowest outcast—the traitor Acre’s son, Azadine.

Who would have thought their duel would end like this?

With a weighty clang, something slammed into the halberd blade that was about to hew Hathir.

—KAAANG!—

A Shadowsteel Blade streaked in and struck the Azure Executioner’s edge.

When the clan handled weapons, they prized Shadowsteel above all and ranked Azure Steel beneath it—but Azadine’s Azure Executioner, even hammered by a Shadowsteel Blade, didn’t chip a tooth.

The shock, however, passed whole into Azadine.

His mask flew off, and blood burst from his mouth and nose.

“Ghk?!”

His head rang as if from a heavy punch, and his mouth filled with blood.

“That’s far enough!”

Kazas dropped between Azadine and Hathir to block the way.

“Kazas!”

“Run, Hathir.”

So saying, Kazas stood in Azadine’s path.

“Master….”

Azadine couldn’t hide his turmoil as he looked at Kazas standing before him.

To think he would break into an Aragasa duel itself just to save Hathir. The taste of blood rose in Azadine’s mouth.

“How dare you foul a duel?!”

Arael, enraged, drew to shoot—but Sion Ethar and the Elders moved.

“Protect the Leader!”

The four of Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon and their retainers clashed with the Elders’ faction.

But many of the Elders aimed at Azadine. A rain of arrows poured toward him all at once.

‘Damn….’

Seeing the Elders’ arrowstorm, Azadine foresaw his death.

Shadowsteel Blades were mixed in that rain. Even if he deflected those aimed at his head and torso, he would lose more limbs as before—and this time he would bleed out.

But—

—Pupupupuck!—

Dull, meaty thuds sounded.

Arrows ripping flesh and breaking bone; any Messenger could tell by sound alone how deep the wounds ran.

These were punctures—mortal wounds at best.

And yet Azadine felt no pain.

Because none of the arrows had struck his body.

The Elders’ shots had not gone harmlessly into the air, of course.

“Urgh.”

They were buried in Kazas.

The Elder who had already broken the duel to save Leader Hathir had stepped in front of Azadine and blocked the arrows with magic, with skill, and with his own body.

“M-Master?!”

“E-Elder Kazas?!”

Both Azadine and the Elders’ attackers were thrown into confusion by the unforeseen turn.

“Kh….”

“Hey! What are you doing? Loose!”

Sion Ethar drew again. A second volley came screaming.

Azadine started in shock, about to bat them aside, but again Kazas raised a mana barrier and, striking arrows away himself, shielded Azadine.

“Excellent, Azadine. I never imagined you would best Hathir.”

“W-what are you doing?!”

As Azadine gaped, Kazas silently raised a hand and brought it to Azadine’s face.

Kazas’s blood-smeared hand brushed Azadine’s cheek. Already Kazas’s eyes had lost their light; he could no longer see Azadine.

Without thinking, Azadine took Kazas’s hand.

“How willful of you! You shouldn’t have shielded Hathir to begin with! That man is—”

Azadine broke off.

Because Kazas was smiling even though his wounds were far too deep to save.

“So I shouldn’t have. Hahaha….”

Kazas said that—and began to chant.

A wind of mana kicked up across the palace forecourt. Blue lightning flashed within the gale and swallowed the oncoming arrows.

It was a wind-spirit for arrow-warding—nullifying the storm of arrows the numerically overwhelming Elders loosed.

In days long past, when the Aragasa had been his enemies, Kazas had boasted of how he’d tormented them with this very spell.

He had cast it again—this time to protect Azadine.

“Azadine… find your star. As for me—my star is already….”

Leaving those words, Kazas’s breath ceased.

So many arrows had pierced him that the force of them kept him from even collapsing; he still stood upright, and the sight filled Azadine with inexpressible grief.

“Kh!”

Azadine understood to the marrow why Kazas had chosen this.

In the end, Kazas could abandon neither Hathir nor Azadine.

He said with his mouth that he placed Hathir first, yet he could not cast off Azadine either. When Azadine not only overwhelmed Hathir in the duel but moved in to kill him, Kazas himself broke the sacred law of the duel.

And yet he could not allow Azadine to die under the Elders’ arrowstorm, either.

If he’d wanted to save Azadine, he should never have intervened at all—yet even when forced to choose one of Hathir or Azadine, he chose not to choose.

‘Foolish… What was Harkonia to you?! Why!’

Azadine embraced Kazas and gently laid him on the ground.

Kazas had been the person who had spent the longest span of Azadine’s life at his side.

The teacher who gave him the strength to fight and to keep his dignity; family—beyond words in preciousness.

And yet it was Azadine’s jealousy that had driven Kazas into a place where he could only die.

By forcing Kazas—who could abandon neither Hathir nor Azadine—to choose between them, Azadine had brought this about.

“Azadine!”

Mediam tried to rush in to help Azadine. But Ismail sprang in behind her.

—Thwok!—

Ismail’s body vanished in an instant—then appeared above Mediam’s.

It was “Mistletoe,” a Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon spell that teleported onto the opponent’s body.

At the same time, Ismail tapped Mediam’s carotid and knocked her out.

“U-uh?!”

“…Forgive me, Mediam.”

Ismail caught the collapsing Mediam.

As expected, the Elders’ attack veered past Mediam and Ismail and poured onto Arael’s group.

Mediam had publicly smeared Sion Ethar’s face, but they wouldn’t want to kill Mediam—one of the legitimate successors of the Ethar bloodline—here and now.

“Well done, Ismail. I can’t forgo punishment entirely… but quick on the uptake, aren’t you.”

Sion Ethar praised Ismail for subduing Mediam at just the right moment.

“Yes. Quick on the uptake.”

Cradling the unconscious Mediam, Ismail muttered again with a bitter face.

“So quick… I can’t stand myself.”

“Azadine! Focus! We don’t have time for this!”

Arael’s shout dragged Azadine back to the present.

Even with Kazas’s sacrifice, Azadine and Arael were still in peril.

Because Kazas had broken the duel and died, the Elders could attack Azadine’s party without scruple; wielding overwhelming numbers, they began to overrun the four of Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon.

If not for the arrow-warding wind spirits Kazas had summoned, the four—and Arael—would already have perished.

Even so, the spells layered onto the arrows remained dangerous.

“You filthy wretches!”

Arael, enraged, drew her blades. A fine Azure Steel sword and Wendigo’s dagger—which had originally belonged to Azadine—danced in her hands and began to spill blood.

“Grahk!”

“As expected of Arael!”

In a heartbeat, she felled many Aragasa, and even the Messengers feared her and dared not approach. Yet even so, numbers told, and the blood of Arael’s party stained the ground.

And that was not all that urged the clock on.

—Kwoooooor!—

A vast shadow—not yet fully in the present world—the King of Storms the Nagas sought to summon—let out a roar.

The Nether mana pouring from Vthuma’s royal citadel was growing ever stronger.

—Rrrrrumble!—

The earth shook, and the ground of Vthuma’s citadel burst open.