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‘Well. I’m not sure either. Divine power is boiling up inside me, and I’m certain I welcomed some higher being, but that doesn’t mean I can say I was chosen by the angels.’
[Whatever it may be, you deserve to be loved, Azadine. Have you not been persecuted since childhood, yet still striven to save people and protect virtue and justice? Even when others insulted and persecuted you, your convictions never wavered in the slightest. Yet those truly blasphemous things, made by grinding down angel statues, have grown a few wings and stolen the glory you should have enjoyed. Even though they call you a soulless blasphemer.]
‘I don’t know that either.’
[What do you mean, you don’t know?]
‘Because I want so badly to be loved.’
[…….]
‘Yes. I envy the worship and love the Celestials enjoy, and the firm trust poured upon them. No matter how much I become a member of the Rescue Knights Order and grow into a warlord of the Chadra Plateau, people will look at me with suspicion and distrust simply because I am of the Messenger Clan.’
[…….]
‘I want to be loved. I want to give trust and receive trust, and I want to know that I am not a solitary, lonely being on this land, but someone who can share affection and communion with others. But the more desperately I long for that, the more I suspect whether I hate them. If I feel hatred toward the Celestials beyond righteous anger, I fear that my jealousy and yearning may lead me to make the wrong choice.’
[You foolish… To think you would go that far.]
Arael’s voice, Arael, pitied Azadine.
In the eyes of Arael’s voice, the Celestials were trash who had usurped the glory that should have belonged to Azadine, the rightful agent of the angels.
Yet Azadine, despite having lived a lonely and painful life, still took a step back even against the Celestials who had committed fraud, in order to remain fair.
‘More importantly, scout for me. How far do these monsters continue?’
[I do not know.]
‘You don’t know?’
[The cold wind in the upper sky is a powerful magical storm, so it is difficult to fly and scout the surroundings. However, I can see even from this height that the being causing this wind is approaching.]
Arael’s voice shared her sight with Azadine. In the sky where Arael’s voice was flying, at about the height of two towers, it was not rain but a blizzard that was raging.
The blizzard and thunderstorm were descending from the north, and the source of that wind was gradually approaching this way.
[This is a good chance to watch those foolish Celestials destroy themselves. If you simply leave them alone, they will die. It will not be your responsibility either.]
‘Then I’ll have to go help them.’
[You fool.]
Arael’s voice lamented, knowing that Azadine would not leave the Celestials to die.
The Celestials under Triodana’s command were all exhausted.
Unlike Azadine and Triodana, who had hippogriffs, they had ridden ordinary horses, and had continuously used magic to infuse vitality into their mounts.
As the price of this forced march, they were rapidly losing their strength. The flames of their ceramite longswords were growing weaker and weaker, and the cold rainwater stole their body heat, freezing their hands and feet.
On top of that, increasingly powerful cultist mutants were appearing.
Until now, most of the cultist mutants had bodies about the size of two adult men, but now mutants as large as quadrupedal bulls and mutants as large as elephants had begun to appear.
The gigantic mutants, whose limbs had split apart into tentacles, were so powerful that even the Celestials avoided hand-to-hand combat with them. Even mutants of a size similar to humans could beat a horse to death in one blow, so how powerful would those enormous ones be?
“Fall back!”
Triodana struck down those large mutants with magic, but no matter how much he fired, monsters surged in endlessly.
Triodana’s magical power was also gradually being depleted.
“Where is Sir Azadine?!”
“I can’t see him!”
“Damn it. That man. He pushed us into a forced march, saying he had to save his merchants. Don’t tell me he’s trying to kill us in the meantime?”
The Celestials suspected that Azadine might be abandoning them. But then the mutants split apart, and a woman walked out from within them.
“Stop….”
At those words, the mutants halted their offensive. The Celestials also stopped resisting.
The surrounding soldiers had already been almost completely slaughtered, and the Celestials too were exhausted, weakened, and at their limit.
“Huhuhu. I see. Celestials, are you? Truly impressive. To think the Northern Emperor actually succeeded in this.”
She turned her blood-red eyes, which shone clearly even in the darkness, toward Triodana.
“Surrender. Child of the Northern Emperor.”
Triodana grew flustered when he discovered that woman.
He was afraid.
Triodana, even in his previous life as Prince Triton, had been a hero who knew no fear.
The only thing that had made him feel fear was the anger of his father, the Northern Emperor. Yet now he was feeling that same fear from the woman before his eyes.
“Who are you?”
“I am Griselda. One of the founders of Banreung Academy. Child of the Northern Emperor.”
She said that and pointed at her own forehead. The jewel embedded in her forehead opened. When closed, it looked like a jewel, but when it opened, a vertically slit pupil appeared within it, and an immense pressure flowed from the woman before him, Griselda.
The eye bled, and Griselda absorbed the blood flowing from it into her body.
“One of the founders of Banreung Academy, you say. I have never heard such a story before! In any case, you must be the leader of these things!”
While speaking with Griselda, Triodana suddenly charged at her. Then he swung his ceramite longsword, attempting to cut her down in a single blow from her side to her shoulder.
It was such a splendid surprise attack that even Triodana himself was astonished.
Had he ever put so much force into a strike, and swung his blade with such accuracy and without a single wasted motion?
However, Griselda simply extended a hand with nails sprouting from it and parried Triodana’s ceramite longsword.
-Boom!
The ceramite longsword shattered into pieces, and Triodana’s gauntlet was smashed apart. The right hand holding the sword had been gouged out so deeply that the bone was visible, and blood flowed from within it.
“Ghhk!”
Triodana sank to the ground from the intense pain.
“Huhuhu. So this is the blood of a Celestial.”
Griselda licked Triodana’s blood from her hand and rejoiced.
“How truly sweet. Perhaps because angel’s blood and human blood have been mixed together, it gives such a deep flavor.”
Griselda said that, then reached out to Triodana and seized his chin.
Her sharp nails pierced his cheek. Triodana tried to resist, but Griselda’s physical strength was tremendous.
Of course, Triodana was also a Celestial and possessed strength beyond that of a human, but if he engaged in a contest of strength with her nails embedded in his cheek, his cheek and tongue would all be cut apart.
“Your face is pretty too. Good. I shall make you my toy.”
“Sir Triodana!”
The other Celestials stepped forward to rescue Triodana, but at that moment, ominous black shadows appeared beside them.
They were beautiful women dressed in black mourning clothes. These women, who held side swords in their hands, cut the Celestials’ wrists with their blades and pinned them down.
“Kahahahahaha!”
“How handsome. As expected of Celestials!”
“Mother! May we have these ones?”
They asked Griselda while calling her Mother.
“…….”
Triodana tried somehow to resist, but after coming here on a forced march and fighting many cultist mutants, both his magical power and stamina were now completely depleted, and there was no way out.
Judging from their appearance, these women were vampires… If he was captured by them, he would be treated as preserved food while they continued sucking his Celestial blood.
‘Should I kill myself?’
It was when Triodana steeled his resolve.
“Have you ever drunk angel’s blood too?”
A clear voice asked from behind Griselda.
“Of course. That is… like chewing seasoning or spices raw just because they taste good. No matter how precious the spice may be, if it is too strong, it becomes unfit to eat.”
Griselda said that and looked at the one who had asked her. A young man wearing a bird mask was standing atop an elephant-shaped cultist mutant.
Astonishingly, the mutants could not perceive him standing on top of their bodies.
Because both magical power and presence had been completely erased from this man, the mutants, which did not see things with their eyes, could not recognize him.
“I see. You must be Azadine. How astonishing.”
“There’s one more thing I’m curious about. Do you know someone named Niselda?”
“Niselda? All my daughters have that name. When you have too many daughters, naming them becomes troublesome. These children here are all Niselda too.”
When Griselda said that, the female vampires who had seized the Celestials giggled and winked at Azadine.
“What about Bernard? He’s Niselda’s father.”
“He was probably one of my toys. The night is long, and my bed is too wide to spend it alone. Why? Do you also wish to become my toy and warm my bed?”
“No, I’ll decline. I have one more question. Is that jewel on your forehead the Eye of Ashajit?”
“How astonishing. You truly know many things. As expected of Azadine. Now I understand why the Shade Hags offered rewards for killing you.”
Griselda said that and touched the Eye of Ashajit, the jewel embedded between her brows. Then a blood-red wave burst out from her, and blood splattered onto Azadine’s body.
-Gwooooooh!
When blood stained Azadine’s body, his stealth broke. The elephant-shaped mutant, which had remained still without ever noticing Azadine on its head, finally perceived him and tried to attack.
But Azadine dodged the mutant’s tentacle attacks by a hair’s breadth and began guiding them.
The mutants grew excited and began attacking one another. In the midst of heads being crushed and brain matter splattering out, Azadine calmly expanded the damage among the mutants. It was truly remarkable skill and courage.
“Kahahahahaha!”
Griselda’s daughters charged in. They melted into the darkness, scattering and coalescing like mist as they flew toward Azadine and swung their side swords.
It was a dazzling assault, and they looked as beautiful, ugly, terrifying, and alluring as the daughters of a demon king.
However, Azadine did not even look at their dazzling attacks, but turned his back and ran in a straight line to evade them.
“Boo! How boring!”
“Look over here, pretty boy!”
Griselda’s daughters cackled as they chased after Azadine. At that moment, Azadine pulled out his bow while running, then lowered his head and looked behind him from under his own armpit.
He nocked the ceramite longsword, Aurelia Dawn, onto the bowstring and shot that sword behind his back.
“What?!”
It was when Triodana was startled by that bizarre sight.
The ceramite longsword fired from the bow emitted a dazzling light and then exploded, turning into dozens of streams of flame that began pouring down.
“Kyaaaaaak!”
“Guaaah!”
The blade itself melted into molten metal and burst apart. The cultist mutants and female vampires struck by that molten metal screamed.
The damage to the vampires was especially severe, as the fire clinging to their bodies would not go out no matter what they did.
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