Herald Of Ruin (3)

“Arael, you say? She fled.”

At Sion Ethar’s report, Hathir was dumbfounded.

“She fled? With that many people there?”

“Yes. I left her with grave wounds, so survival will be difficult. Even so, her reputation proved no lie.”

“What do you mean, ‘no lie’?”

“Half the Senate elders died by her hand.”

“You didn’t use that opening to finish her yourself?”

Azadine cut between Sion Ethar and Hathir’s exchange.

“Still talkative for a man with an arrow in him, Azadine?”

Sion flicked a throwing dagger at Azadine.

Both of Azadine’s arms were wrecked, so he couldn’t dodge—but Grimslone’s cudgel whirled through the air and smacked the dagger aside.

“Hm? A relic of the Nether, is it—ugh.”

As Sion moved in to kill Azadine, he grimaced at the miasma coiling round his ankles. The malice spilling from Aldis’s body lay across the floor like fog, and touching it sent a shudder over his whole skin.

“Good grief… Aldis is dead.”

Sion checked Aldis’s state and frowned.

“Aldis is dead, half the Senate elders are dead, and countless clanfolk beneath them are dead as well. Someone must answer for this chain of events, mustn’t they—Father?”

Sion Ethar’s eyes burned. The murderous light in them left no doubt whom he held responsible: Hathir.

“Insolent whelp!”

Hathir raged at Sion’s boldness in baring his fangs now that Hathir was weakened—but with both his right and left hands, Kazas and Aldis, gone, he had no way to resist.

“You fool! Azadine has meddled with the throne. This is no time! And as for Aldis—”

“Yes, I know. Thank you for your concern, but… from here, I’ll handle it.”

At Sion’s gesture, the servants beside him raised their bows. Yet when they looked at Hathir, their hands trembled.

To them, Hathir was the son of a god and the core of the Aragasa. The Ethar line carried Hathir’s blood as well—so to them the clan head was all but a living ancestor-spirit.

“Idiots.”

Seeing them hesitate, Sion clicked his tongue. Even so, he did not act himself.

With everyone shuffling the burden to someone else, every gaze slid to the youngest servant—Ismail.

“You do it.”

“You failed to properly attend the young lady; that guilt lies heavy on you, doesn’t it?”

They began foisting it onto Ismail.

“Haah.”

Ismail sighed, drew, and shot at Hathir.

“What—!”

Hathir moved to bat the arrow aside, but Ismail’s shaft punched through his palm and stabbed up into his throat.

“Ghk—?!”

Hathir toppled. The clan head of the Aragasa—the Emperor’s son, the “living god”—began crawling across the floor in a wretched sprawl.

Expressionless, Ismail nocked another arrow. He meant to finish Hathir for good.

But then Aldis opened her eyes.

“Ah—?!”

—CRACK—

Black malice erupted from Aldis like a storm. The low-hanging poisonous mist swept over the approaching Aragasa, and both Azadine and Hathir were flung away by the miasma.

“Ghh!”

Toppled to the ground, Azadine looked to the throne.

Within it, pure white light flickered—but the strength was far too feeble. The darkness was so dense and strong, while the light panted, on the verge of going out.

Was this the end…?

He stared at the Quartz Throne that scarcely exerted any power and felt a sting of regret.

[So it comes to this after all.]

Then he heard the Emperor’s Voice.

“…Emperor’s Voice?”

[I wished to watch over you a little longer, but it cannot be helped, Azadine.]

“What do you—”

[I release you from the Pact of Servitude. Last Messenger, Azadine.]

With those words, a key chased with gold leaf dropped before him. Azadine tried to pick it up—but he didn’t even have the strength for that.

[Tsk. You cannot even pick it up?]

At that, the fallen key rose of its own accord and slipped into Azadine’s arms.

“What is this?”

[It opens all of the Emperor’s Treasury. Do not use it now. Open it when the true Age of Jupiter comes. The power to save people and the world lies within. Now—everything after this, I leave to you!]

So speaking, the Emperor’s Voice let itself be drawn into Vthuma’s throne. The artificial spirit wrought by the Yaegas Gods’ magic burned its own existence, adding white mana to the throne.

—VMMMM—

A brilliance incomparable to moments before—the Light of the Crown—poured from the throne and began to scour the surrounding darkness.

Arael’s grimoire and the Emperor’s Voice resonated, and together they cast out the summoned beings of the Nether with the Light of the Crown.

—GROOOOAR—

Outside, the colossi—the towering shadows of the Nether apostles—grew faint. Their manifest forms dissolved, and the world began to right itself.

“D-did it work? The Emperor’s Voice sacrificed itself…?”

The Emperor’s Voice was an artificial spirit, a copy of Emperor Yaeslat’s personhood. It did qualify as a lord of the throne.

But as a spirit, to “sit” was to accept dissolution. The Emperor’s Voice had chosen its own end.

However—

“Ahahahahaha! Magnificent, Aragasa!”

Aldis—or rather, the apostle that had seized her body—burst into wild laughter.

She lifted a hand, and the Nether’s power—about to break apart under the throne’s radiance—began to converge toward her. Power unlike anything just moments before surged from her.

Paradoxically, the rest of Brutuma was being purified by the Light of the Crown—but beneath the throne itself, closest to the source, the light did not reach.

From Aldis’s shadow, a hand of malice shot out and seized Hathir’s fallen body.

“Gkh!”

Blood spattered from his nose and mouth. The apostle’s black shadow lifted Hathir, and when its forefinger pierced his temple, his eyes rolled and foaming spittle mixed with blood drooled from his lips.

The apostle had not only taken Aldis’s body—it now aimed for Hathir’s as well.

“Eek!”

Other Aragasa loosed in panic—but Aldis merely swept her cloak, and a black wind knocked every arrow from the air.

Nor was that all.

“Gaaah!”

“M-my flesh—rots!”

Those struck by the miasmal gale screamed and tumbled.

Anyone too near Aldis died; those farther away collapsed with grievous wounds.

Even Sion Ethar, shocked, yanked a corpse in front as a shield and flattened himself behind it to survive by a hair.

“Damn it. We’ll all die here. We have to get out—but…”

Drowsiness washed over Azadine.

Too much blood. His strength was gone.

The Emperor’s Voice has purified the throne; the apostles raging like this are in their death throes. The world… will be fine.

Thinking that, Azadine could no longer find a reason to force his body to move.

His star had already fallen.

And the Emperor’s Voice that had borne him his charge was gone as well—though in the end it had done something truly great.

‘H-huh? So… it’s okay if I die now?’

As sleep closed in, Azadine’s eyes drifted shut.

Mediam, as a legitimate successor of the Ethar line—though not the eldest—was important enough.

But she had aided Azadine and betrayed the clan. Ismail had deliberately knocked her out and defected to the Ethar line to save her life.

Yet in this very moment, as the Nether apostle wielded its power, Ismail cut down those holding Mediam and loosed the ropes binding her.

“Ismail!”

“We must flee, Mediam!”

“Y-you cur!”

The Ethar retainers reeled to see Ismail free the captive he had brought back.

They had all trained together—they knew. Ismail had feigned defection solely to protect Mediam’s life.

But that he would go so far as to kill the Ethar retainers who had eaten from the same pot with him as a child, just to free her—none of them had imagined!

“You brat!”

A burly retainer thrust with twin short swords. A dazzling flurry of stabs sped at Ismail.

Ismail set his blade vertical, split the flurry left and right on his own steel, slid to his right, and shed every strike.

“You—!”

Drawn by Ismail’s defense, the man shifted his body—straight into the gale of malice pouring from Aldis.

“Gkh!”

In a blink his arm rotted; skin and muscle sloughed apart, dangling.

“Thank you.”

With a dry quip, Ismail stabbed the burly man in the chest, used the body as a shield against the miasma, then snatched his weapon and tossed it to Mediam.

“Here! We have to go, now!”

“Wait! Ismail—Azadine!”

“We can’t save him with what we have! He’s too big!”

Ismail was cold-eyed. With just Mediam and himself, escape was possible. But Azadine was far too large, and wounded besides—he couldn’t even hold himself up.

Saving him was impossible—not if Ismail and Mediam were to survive!

“Please!”

Even knowing that, Mediam tried to save Azadine.

“Are you telling me to die for the man you love?!”

Ismail’s loyalty sprang wholly from love. But the woman he loved loved another—and now asked him to stake himself for that man.

From Ismail’s view, it was enough to make his chest explode.

And yet—

He clutched his head with a groan and sprinted to Azadine, hoisting the fallen man up.

Heavy.

Though trained as a clansman, sheer size made lifting him by strength alone nearly impossible.

Ismail ran Flowers–Birds–Wind–Moon through his body, let mana flood his muscles, and heaved Azadine across his back.

While Ismail bore Azadine, Mediam took up a blade and guarded the front.

Her status as Ethar blood—and the rampaging apostle Aldis’s wicked aura—kept everyone well back, opening them a path of retreat.

“Go, Ismail!”

“…Mediam!”

Seeing Mediam prepare to stay behind to hold the rear, Ismail bit his lower lip.

“It’s fine. I’m of the Ethar line. They wouldn’t kill me, would they?”

“……”

They would.

Sion Ethar meant to remove Hathir and take the clan head’s seat. In that position, sparing Mediam—who had betrayed the clan twice—would ruin his face.

This time, he would surely kill her.

“Thank you, Ismail—for humoring my selfishness.”

“……”

Hearing Mediam say it with a small smile, Ismail was lost for words.

“We’re both fools—you and I….”