Herald Of Famine (2)

“You traitorous bastard! What are you doing right now?!”

“If you do not move aside at once….”

“If I move aside, what? What are you going to do?”

When Azadine asked, the Messenger Clan members were flustered. Naturally, their gazes turned toward someone. A middle-aged elder was commanding their attack.

If Azadine had asked that for the sake of assassination, they should not have responded so naively. He might have immediately charged at the elder and killed her.

To the Messenger Clan, the existence of Azadine itself was such an overwhelming shock that they lost their composure and even forgot basic rules.

“I am Elder Mantra Jeddaha. Azadine. It is not too late even now. If you return to the clan now….”

“Don’t tell me you will forgive me and accept me back? Elder, is that possible?”

“…….”

For a moment, Mantra Jeddaha was left speechless.

Azadine was the one who had killed Grandmaster Hathir and ruined the clan’s long-cherished wishes. He was the one who had committed the most terrible sin the Messenger Clan could imagine.

No matter how much they needed him right now, was forgiving him and accepting him even reasonable?

Of course, right now, they had to somehow coax him. But telling such an obvious lie was far too shameful.

“I like your honesty! Of course that’s impossible!”

Azadine said that to the elder and laughed.

“And even if you say you will forgive me, that is impossible. Rather, you should be begging me for forgiveness!”

“What?!”

“You bastard, you’ve gone mad!”

“You think you get to decide whether to forgive us or not….”

“Of course I decide. I am Azadine, First Messenger of the Emperor. I am the only remaining Messenger! If not, then say it! Is there a Messenger among you?!”

Everyone was rendered speechless by Azadine’s shout. As he said, there was no Messenger now.

“You are a Messenger?!”

“Yes! The ones who betrayed the covenant were not me, but all of you! You joined hands with the Nagas, yearned for the power of a death god, and now you’re trying to starve the people to death? Where did your pride in killing even God-Kings to correct justice go, that you’ve fallen into trash like this?”

“That is….”

“Rather, I will give such people as you a chance. Come to me! Then I will give you pride and promise you an honorable battle. I will give you the chance to protect humanity, protect the virtues, serve justice, and live proudly!”

“…….”

All the Messenger Clan members were shocked by Azadine’s words.

The man who had been persecuted by the clan had said he would decide whether to forgive the entire clan, and now he was outright advising them to betray the clan and surrender to him.

However, when Azadine removed his mask, everyone realized that his eyes were the Eyes of Harkonia, which the Messenger Clan held sacred.

The Eyes of Harkonia had appeared in the one called Azadine of Disgrace?

“If you have the pride of the Aragasa, there is no way you would not know which side is truly an honorable battle! Those who took pride in executing corrupt officials as the Emperor’s Messengers are now joining hands with Nagas and burning the food of starving people!”

“…….”

At Azadine’s shout, several Messenger Clan members inhaled sharply.

When the Messenger Clan was persecuted by others for the sin of killing the Yaegas God-Kings, they possessed the pride that they had executed corrupt officials and saved the people.

Yet now, they had clearly stood on the side harming the people, so there was no way they themselves did not know that this action was contradictory.

“Everyone, keep raining arrows down. Burn the grain transport ships.”

Perhaps thinking it was meaningless to exchange words with Azadine, Mantra Jeddaha gave instructions to her subordinates.

Once again, arrows flew toward the grain transport ships. Even if they had doubts about the clan’s course of action, the Messenger Clan had a culture with a strict hierarchy of command and obedience. The words of Azadine the Traitor were sophistry that they must not heed, no matter how valid they were.

“So in the end, this is all you amount to?”

Azadine unfolded Garuda. Blue azure-steel arrows danced in the air and intercepted the incoming arrows.

But each time the arrows collided, the magic power placed by the Messenger Clan shaved away the magic power of Garuda that was cast on Azadine’s arrows.

If they kept attacking, they would eventually break through. At first, they had watched in a daze because seeing Garuda unfold was so fascinating, but no matter how great a powerhouse someone was, there was no one who could stand against sheer numbers.

“As expected, even if you can use Garuda, protecting the ships is all you can do.”

Mantra Jeddaha gave a bitter smile as she looked at Azadine.

It was regrettable, that ability of his to have mastered Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon to the extreme, but he was still someone they could not leave alive.

“But aren’t you forgetting something?”

Azadine snorted and laughed.

“Mm?!”

“Here we go, here we go!”

Suddenly, the Nagas turned around and ran.

To be exact, black necromantic magic flew like whips and struck the corpses of dead Nagas, raising them and making them charge.

And beside the sailors who were defending the grain transport ships from below and working to extinguish the fires, a knight with a gloomy expression appeared.

“I will join you.”

Sir Zebec swung his sword and began cutting down the Nagas aiming for the sailors.

“This is….”

“This is no time for us to stand around either!”

“We cannot leave it only to them! Break through the encirclement!”

The Celestial Fire Knights continued driving back the Naga glaive soldiers blocking them and broke through the encirclement.

To begin with, in terms of martial force itself, the Celestial Fire Knights were overwhelmingly superior. They had only lost their breakthrough power and been robbed of time; in terms of troop casualties, the Nagas had actually suffered more.

If they did not burn the grain transport ships in the meantime, their strategic objective could not be achieved, and Azadine’s party was obstructing that very objective.

The Messenger Clan’s operation was precise, but if one thing went wrong, the others had no choice but to go wrong as well.

The isolated Celestial Fire Knights began to regain their vigor. Originally, they should have been able to burn the grain transport ships before the knights could even react.

“Traitor of the clan! I will kill you if nothing else!”

“Everyone keeps saying that, so why am I still alive?”

“You bastard!”

One bloodthirsty Messenger Clan member charged at Azadine. He unfolded Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon: Twilight Step, instantly narrowed the distance, and rushed in, but….

-Clack!

When Azadine swung the Blue Executioner, the weapon he was holding was cut away entirely.

The azure-steel poleaxe, the Blue Executioner, broke steel weapons like sorghum stalks with even a graze.

“…Uwa?!”

The one who had charged at Azadine felt a chill run through his liver and guts. The steel weapon in his hand had been cut, yet there had been no sensation in his hands. If Azadine had thrust the poleaxe in just a little farther, even he would have been chopped apart.

Suddenly, he realized that Azadine had gone easy on him. The reason Azadine was only protecting the grain transport ships with Garuda was also because he did not want to kill the Messenger Clan members. If Azadine had truly set his mind to it, something terrible would have happened.

“Everyone, stop!”

Mantra Jeddaha realized that staying here any longer would make it impossible to achieve their strategic objective.

The Celestial Fire Knights were breaking through the encirclement.

“We are retreating! Azadine, son of Acre! Remember that you have committed yet another great sin against the clan!”

The Messenger Clan members gnashed their teeth and retreated.

Perhaps because of their strict caste system, the Nagas threw themselves against the Celestial Fire Knights and the undead troops Scott created while the Messenger Clan retreated, buying time for them to escape.

The Messenger Clan failed to achieve their objective, and the Nagas also escaped after suffering enormous casualties.

The Celestial Fire Knights had also suffered fairly heavy damage, but only soldiers and servants had died; there were no deaths among the Celestials.

Looking back, there was no great damage. However, if Azadine had not stepped in and blocked the fire arrows, the grain transport ships and the food being carried by them would not have been safe.

‘What should I do?’

Karna, commander of Celestial Fire, approached the grain transport ships with complicated feelings.

Azadine launched himself from atop a grain transport ship stranded on the sandbar.

“That was my first time using Garuda, and it’s really good.”

The arrows that had been under Garuda returned to Azadine’s quiver. There was damage here and there along the arrow shafts from colliding with other arrows, but the arrowheads alone were not even nicked.

Azadine struck the arrow shafts with a dagger to recover only the arrowheads, then discarded the rest.

-Drip, drip….

But the moment he discarded the arrow shafts, red drops fell onto the ground. Blood had begun flowing from Azadine’s nose, eyes, fingernails, and so on.

“Mm….”

Azadine gave a bitter smile as he looked at his own body, from which blood was flowing.

Even though he had actually reduced his magic power, the magic power inside his body continued to run wild. It was good that he had become stronger, but his condition was unstable.

Azadine wiped his nose and turned his head.

Zebec and Scott approached Azadine’s side. Scott was panting, perhaps because he had hyperventilated while fighting the Nagas.

“Keh. Kheuuh. Cough, cough.”

The sight of him suffering from the limits of a race whose balance had been ruined because too many high-performance functions had been crammed into it was both comical and pitiful.

It was not as if Scott had wanted to be born this way. To think that if he got too excited while using magic, he would hyperventilate and suffer.

In contrast, Zebec was calmly looking at Celestial Fire.

“Young and beautiful. An ideal knight order that truly seems to have come out of an old storybook. It is so ideal that it is almost disgusting.”

Even to Zebec, who had been expelled from the Order and become a fallen Holy Knight, Celestial Fire was so dazzling that he suspected it might only be gilded.

In truth, because he had heard from Azadine about the Celestials’ true nature, he knew that they were gilded.

Even knowing that, their outward splendor was so beautiful that it stole his heart.

“Anyway, boss, what are we going to do now? We helped them without thinking, but weren’t we wanted?”

“That is something we have to resolve through conversation from now on. Fortunately, the Celestial Fire are somewhat reasonable.”

Azadine answered as if it were nothing serious.

Around the grain transport ship stuck in the sandbar, the Celestial Fire Knights gathered like clouds.