Chapter 200

A sword, a sword was desperately needed.

Obro Denoebang was thirsty for a blade.

To cut down an ancient god, a blade was necessary.

For he was a swordsman.

So where could he obtain a sword?

Should he try to squeeze out an old blade, even the miserable eight swords of ‘Purity’?

No, no.

A defiled purity could not be pure.

It was a lie and a deception.

It was meaningless, merely an imitation.

Unless it was the real thing, he could not cut down that ‘Black Light of the Abyss’.

He needed the real thing.

What was he, if not pure?

Who was the true Obro Denoebang?

Then,

oh, then…….

Let us look inside these miserable tears.

There, blood flows.

Shameful! It is shameful and shameful, and shameful again that hot blood still flows.

Filthy! The fact that a wretch like me still dares to live is filthy and filthy, and filthy again.

Let us look inside this shameful and filthy heart.

There, there is an empty space.

It was the place where the eight swords once called ‘Purity’ had been laid.

The eight swords had completely crumbled, leaving only debris.

They had become dust and ash, making the dirty empty space even dirtier.

The name of the dust was misery, and the name of the ash was sorrow.

There was no trace of nobility, only misery and sorrow had settled thickly.

And so it was all ash-gray.

Let us look inside the dust and ash.

There, there…….

……There is a spark.

A spark was buried in the pile of sin and shame.

Even when gathered with all his might, it barely amounted to a pinch.

Though he feared it would lose its light and go out at any moment, it never did.

Yes, that spark.

The thing he could no longer let go of, even if his hand was burned to a cinder.

That shabby spark was Obro Denoebang.

***

From the depths of his soul, he clutched the spark.

Holding it tightly with a heart that felt guilty even for screaming, his palm was burned black.

He gathered the dust and ash with a trembling, charcoal-like hand.

There were many blade fragments scattered about.

They were what had once been the eight swords of ‘Purity’.

He swept up the twisted and broken blade fragments, what had once been his soul, and made them into a single lump.

Then it was a shabby, grayish-white.

Like a dry tree branch.

Yes, the color of ash.

Ash is ash.

Just the dregs left after everything has burned away.

Yet it was strange that it was this hot.

Sprinkle it, sprinkle the ash.

Hold the ash in your rock-like palm and scatter it evenly over your burnt-out heart.

Whitewash it as if black never existed.

Shout to the long night.

That gray is the color of dawn, that dawn has now come, that it is time for the burnt-out heart to become new.

That though twisted and burned, it will be more beautiful than before.

It is fine even if you have collapsed countless times.

It is fine even if you have a dirty, shaggy beard.

It is fine even if you have a mouth that smells of alcohol.

Just raise your voice and confess.

That all the suffering has finally,

blossomed into a single blade.

Obro Denoebang’s Ars, made whole by being broken, which could no longer be broken,

‘Grayish-white Nobility’.

***

The Ars, ‘Grayish-white Nobility’.

Obro Denoebang’s final sword.

At first glance, it didn’t look like a sword.

It looked like a dry tree branch, and it was impossible to tell where the blade was.

But Obro Denoebang knew for sure.

This was a sword.

“……Eleven years…….”

He asked as if muttering.

“……What kind of eleven years do you think it was…….”

It was enough to turn a chatterbox into a mute.

It was enough for a person full of laughter to lose their laughter.

It was enough to lose everything that could be called ‘me’ while mulling over and over the meaning of despair.

The hero among heroes thus became a pathetic drunkard.

“I have passed through a time you cannot even imagine. The darkness was so deep that I trembled in fear of tomorrow…….”

Tears flowed.

“Such days did not end, but hundreds, thousands……. The fear of a day became the fear of a moment, and it gnawed at my soul hundreds of millions of times…….”

Obro Denoebang twisted the corner of his mouth.

A strange smile appeared, even as he shouldered a life ruined by suffering and pain.

“But I am happy.”

He raised ‘Grayish-white Nobility’.

The branch-like blade flashed against the black sky.

“To be able to save, even a little, those I lost through my mistake, makes me deliriously happy.”

He gripped the sword and ran.

Though his beard was still dirty, a laugh filled with a frantic, demonic energy burst forth.

He laughed, but he was angry.

The ‘Black Light of the Abyss’ expressed, as if it could not understand.

[…You’ve grown insolent just by holding a single sword.]

“I can’t help it.”

He thrust the sword.

A grayish-white slash tore through space.

“Because I am Obro Denoebang.”

The Black Light of the Abyss is an ancient god with six hundred tongues, sixty hands, and six eyes.

From the black sky, sixty gaunt hands descended to seize Obro Denoebang.

Obro snorted and waved his sword.

With a movement more akin to rowing than swordsmanship, he waved through the air, and thirty of the gaunt hands disappeared at once.

It was a marvel that he himself could not explain how he had done it.

He had simply felt that he should wave it like that, and when he did, it happened.

Serpents resembling centipedes rushed in in droves.

They were monsters with sixty-six arms that crawled on the backs of their hands instead of their palms.

There were six hundred of the monsters that he had barely managed to defeat, one with a broken imitation of ‘Purity’.

“Ha.”

Obro laughed.

He tucked the grayish-white sword under his arm and then swung it in a single breath.

A single sword swept in all directions.

The six hundred monsters were nowhere to be seen.

The Black Light of the Abyss is a vast darkness.

Obro Denoebang is a shabby spark.

But the darkness is slowly being eaten away, and the spark never goes out.

Obro, looking up at the overwhelming black sky that was covering him, was certain of victory.

Tongues, hands, and eyes, and the majesty of the ancient times that held the name Six-Hundred-Sixty-Six, were powerless before a single grayish-white sword.

Because it was a sword that had already been broken, it could no longer be broken.

“Ha—!!!”

Obro Denoebang suddenly leaped up.

He leaped into the seemingly empty black sky, and a face appeared.

It was the face of the Black Light, with six eyes embedded in it.

It was a terribly gruesome sight, contorted with anger and pain.

“…What a hideous face you have, Black Light.”

[…That’s not something for you to say.]

Obro chuckled.

It was as the Black Light said. Blood and sweat had dried on his dirty, shaggy beard and hair.

A demonic energy flowed in streams from his brown eyes, making him look more like a demon than a demon itself.

Obro Denoebang and the Black Light came face to face. And then they engaged in a power struggle.

Obro tried to split the land and sky of the Underworld in half with his grayish-white sword.

It was his intention to separate the Black Light’s head from its body.

The Black Light, unable to just stand by and take it, fought back with all its might.

A power struggle between an ancient god and a human.

It was an absurd notion, but it was actually happening. Moreover, it was the ancient god that was being pushed back. The six eyes of the Black Light contorted even more.

“…Now that we’re face to face, I understand.”

Obro Denoebang muttered.

He was still pressing the grayish-white sword against the Black Light’s neck.

It wasn’t that it wasn’t hard.

It wasn’t that it wasn’t painful.

It was simply because he could not lose them, losing Mariet, a second time.

“You were awake from the moment I entered the Underworld, but I understand why you appeared so late…….”

[…What are you trying to say……?]

“You.”

Obro Denoebang uttered.

“You were afraid of me.”

[…….]

The Black Light was speechless for a moment.

In complete contrast to how it had been constantly wagging its tongues, it fell into a long silence.

[……I am the Black Light. Would I fear a mere human?]

“I am more familiar with fear than anyone. So I know.”

He had been steeped in fear for a very long time.

He was afraid of the world and of his worthless self, and in the end, he feared life itself.

He was afraid of yesterday and tomorrow, and today made him tremble.

Because he was a man who had passed through such a mire, he knew for sure.

“You were afraid of this Obro Denoebang.”

More power was added to the grayish-white sword.

An endless stream of power poured out of Obro Denoebang.

If one were to ask where this power came from, one could only answer that it came from the eight years he had been broken.

It could only be explained as the fruit of a time when he could not die even while broken, a time when he never stopped trying even when he could not breathe properly.

He knew.

That he did not deserve the fruits of his life.

Because he was nothing more than a cowardly and miserable drunkard, he had let go of all the rewards he had sought.

Ah, but look. When he let go, it returned.

It was coming to him, having become even more beautiful.

He had to admit that he had no way to not fear life on his own and then life returned.

More than anything, it returned gently and benevolently and became his ally.

[…Ridiculous……!]

“Shut up, Black Light.”

A murderous demonic energy flickered in Obro Denoebang’s eyes.

“If you can’t even admit your own fear, then there is nothing more for us to discuss.”

[…Ugh!]

“Your era ended long ago, monster of ancient times.”

‘Grayish-white Nobility’ split the Underworld.

It declared an eternal dawn that would not lead to night.

“Let go of your grip.”

***

Shion Pollinglight saw.

Obro Denoebang, who had seized his own soul, cut off the neck of the ancient god and began to approach, leading the eight hundred survivors.

“Do you see it, Amethus? His Ars…….”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

The grayish-white sword was just a sword.

It did not possess great power, nor was it flashy.

It simply allowed Obro Denoebang to be Obro Denoebang.

Yet it was strange that it was so beautiful.

“It is supremely noble…….”

“That is the kind of man he is, the White Lord.”

Shion smiled.

There was the image of the hero he remembered, Obro Denoebang, whom he had once even admired.

The more miserable his state as a drunkard had been, the brighter he shone now.

He himself might not admit it, but at least in Shion’s eyes, he was more radiant than anyone.

“He will arrive soon. Let’s leave the gate open.”

The jade-colored flame grew stronger.

The gate to the underworld was slowly opening.

Now that the Black Light was dead, the gate would have opened on its own, but he wanted to open it for them even a little sooner.

They had already waited for eleven years.

Wouldn’t it be too much to make them wait any longer?

“We must welcome the White Lord’s return.”

***

Obro Denoebang had been completely ruined.

Years of fruitless hardship had crushed him deep inside.

His misery was as profound as his former purity. It meant that his fall was as painful as his flight had been high.

It is impossible to count all the pains he suffered.

It could only be described as agonizing and it was a time far too dreadful to be dismissed with that single word.

However,

even after all that time had passed,

Obro Denoebang is still white.

It was impossible not to be stained.

The scars would never disappear.

The marks left by life were so clear that he could not return to his former purity, yet he became even more solid and beautiful, grayish-white.

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