Chapter 222

Shion panted heavily.

I let out a ragged breath, filled with a rage that was baffling to Karkarsso.

“……I am Anger, the Demon King of Wrath.”

Karkarsso asked.

“Are you teaching me about hatred?”

“I didn’t want to know it either.”

My eye sockets began to melt and drip.

I saw Karkarsso feel a sense of dread.

“Even now, I want to forget.”

Blue flames began to mix with the black flames. No, my blue began to devour the black.

That blueness was a deeply piercing blueness.

It flowed out from my melting eye sockets.

“To the time when I didn’t know, please, I want to return.”

A cry seeped out of me. Within my dripping eye sockets were many faces filled with grief.

Millions of screams were there. They hummed and chattered.

‘Come back.’

‘Please come back, oh, our lives.’

‘Our lives, which we can no longer even remember, please, come back.’

The millions of grudges swirled, overwhelming the Demon King.

A sorrow and pain that could not possibly be described mixed together, becoming miserable, and I saw Karkarsso realize just how ridiculous it was for him to dare to call himself a Demon King.

“…But, that is not possible. Even if I want to go back, I cannot. Even if time were reversed, a world once lost cannot return…….”

There were as many sobs as there were screams within me.

‘Poesia, Poesia, my beautiful Chyallo flower…. My child, my, my, my joy…. Where did you go, child, where have you gone….’

‘Look at this miserable Obro. I let Mariet die because I was drunk. I drank without even knowing that the child was alive. And yet, look! Look at this good-for-nothing-like drunkard, who is still drinking-!!!’

‘I will live as a madwoman. The Yulan I waited for was not the real Yulan, I was stupid, I was cowardly, I, I, I… If I let him die, what am I if not a madwoman? If this Aida is not a madwoman, then who in the world is?’

‘Shadi, there was a woman named Shadi Shandor…. She worked for me, she fell because of me, she loved me…… I, too, have now realized I love her, but…… the woman who could not open her eyes again, is still in my heart…….’

I sobbed with them.

It was a strange thing.

Serena does not cry.

Obro rescued Mariet.

Aida also met Yulan, and Amethus still has a chance to save Shadi.

And yet, these sobs of theirs from before the regression were deeply engraved in my soul, so I could not help but sob with them.

“It cannot be undone. What has passed does not disappear. If you constantly dwell on only this fact, your heart breaks. And after it breaks, that is when the real pain begins…….”

I cried as if I were laughing.

“All of this is the Empire’s doing. It is Cordis’s sin. And yet, the things of the Empire live on, shamelessly and happily. That is why I hate it. I have no choice but to.”

“……”

“I hate the Empire, and I hate everything that bears the name of Cordis. But I am more Cordis than anyone. The Cordis of Cordis, the bloodline of Emperor Continua. That is why I hate myself.”

My melted form was already the Hunchback.

And yet I did not stop my transformation.

“And yet you know of hatred, Karkarsso?”

“……”

The Demon King was at a loss for words.

“I am angry, Karkarsso.”

I distorted further.

I became sharper. I became hotter.

“A wretch like you, the very person who carried the Empire’s calamity to the West, talking of hatred… I absolutely cannot stand it.”

And so, I moved further, away from being human.

“I, we, have ended up in this state, even trying to abandon this flame, I just can’t, so I melt, and congeal, and in agony and misery, I’ve finally become foul……. I’ve become inhuman, left with no choice but to realize that this is what hatred is…….”

Fangs sprouted from my maw.

Horns rose from my head. Heat welled up inside me.

“To call just that hatred, and to get angry, and to display it as if you’re proud… Ah…….”

All my preceding Ars gathered into one at the sixth. No, they were originally one from there.

“……It is simply, detestable.”

Septem Arcana, the sixth.

***

The sixth flame swallowed all my preceding flames at once, making them one.

Now, it leaves only the last, single flame.

Seven Secrets, Seven Ars.

First Secret, ‘He dreams a vain dream’.

Second Secret, ‘He does not trust’.

Third Secret, ‘He does not give up’.

Fourth Secret, ‘He is trapping’.

Fifth Secret, ‘He burned it all’.

And the sixth secret,‘He became inhuman’.

An Ars is one per soul.

But I possessed seven Ars.

This is the reason I became inhuman.

It was a long, a truly long time.

The time I had lived not as a human, despite being human, was so long and drawn out that it was long enough for me to forget completely what a human life was.

The beginning is ‘Soul Fire’.

Hearts that had melted to the point of becoming smoke burst into vivid-blue flames and covered me.

Next is ‘The Hunchback’.

From within my maw, covered in Soul Fire, a black, emaciated figure burst out.

This is the real me, screaming, unable to find rest, even while trembling that I cannot go on any longer.

‘The Heated Iron Bloodline’ covers the Hunchback.

It swells my black, emaciated figure, and swells it again.

My limbs elongate and my back hunches.

My neck and chest distorted as if stuck together in one lump.

The disgustingly heavy and disgustingly hot iron bloodline wrapped tightly around me, resembling scales.

‘The Unclosable Twenty Steps’ is a declaration.

It was my scream declaring that I could no longer be satisfied with just becoming the Hunchback, that I had no choice but to become more hunched, more twisted, and hotter, until I was no longer human, and so all you who have hearts, leave me.

And ‘Fantasy Finger’.

Millions in number.

Woven together, they became a pair of wings on my back.

They flapped powerfully as if to soar high into that sky, toward the utopia all people look up to, but as if it was just a fantasy, it was merely in vain.

All my preceding Ars were bound as one.

No, it is correct to say they regained their original form.

I became a single dragon.

Instead of lips, I chose fangs; instead of whispers, flames; instead of soft hands, two thick forelegs.

I could not endure otherwise.

And so, my sixth Ars, finally revealed,

‘Dragon of Six Horns’.

***

I have six horns on my head.

I became a dragon, so it is not strange.

I roamed the land on all fours, wrapped tightly in the blackly heated iron bloodline instead of scales.

On my back, millions of hands flapped as a pair of wings.

In my mouth is the Demon King.

The Demon King Pāpīyān was being thoroughly chewed to bits by me, burning in my blue fire, and screaming.

“…No, I must have more! I am Greed!”

“…No, I must be wrathful! I am Anger!”

“…No, I don’t know why, but no! I am Ignorance!”

The Demon King screamed with three heads.

I paid it no mind and chewed Pāpīyān with my maw.

Pāpīyān tried to block using the black lotus as a shield, but it was useless.

When I swung my forelegs a couple of times, even the seven-star magic quickly scattered and vanished.

“““…No! I am the seven-star mage. I am the Demon King Pāpīyān……!!!”””

A crunching sound was made.

It was the sound of my maw finally chewing and obliterating the Demon King Pāpīyān.

The Demon King, who had sacrificed an Ancient God to ascend to the seven stars, lost his life inside my maw.

As the three souls were destroyed simultaneously, there was no way out.

“……”

I, the dragon, having swallowed the Demon King, stretched my neck long.

I stretched the neck I could not straighten when I was the Hunchback long, very long, and looked at the sky.

My blue eyes blazed.

“…Hateful……”

I was not satisfied even after swallowing PāpTiyān.

I raised my six-horned head even higher.

A roar burst out from my long neck.

“Hateful!!!”

‘Dragon of Six Horns’ is different from ‘The Hunchback’.

The Hunchback constantly screamed. It couldn’t speak proper words and just wailed, Cordis, Cordis. That was because I tried not to spill out my inner heart.

I know what state my heart is in.

The smell of blood, the smell of screams, the smell of lies that always waft.

How hot and how foul it has become, what would happen if I vomited such a thing onto the world… as I struggled not to vomit out my agonizing, agonizing heart, my soul distorted.

Thus I became the Hunchback and did nothing but scream.

But now, I decided to reveal it.

I decided to hide it no longer.

I, Shion Pollinglight, am already not human.

From the depths of my soul, I have reached a state that cannot possibly be called human.

Therefore, instead of a scream, I let out a roar, a cry close to a declaration, upon the world.

“I hate it!”

I, the dragon, cried.

Even with a maw full of sprouted fangs, I shouted thunderously with an endlessly clear voice.

“I hate you, Cordis!”

The woman with empty eye sockets, my wife Serena, is sobbing within me.

She is crying, asking for their child back.

Obro also cries.

Aida also cries.

Amethus also cried, and Niko also cried.

In my heart, there was no day that crying ever left.

“You snatched away what was mine-!!!”

I turned my eyes.

When I, the dragon, turned my gaze, the whole world grew quiet, frightened.

The place I was in was Föhn, the capital of Schmeizen; it had become ruins because of the Demon King Pāpīyān, but many people had survived.

Looking at each one of them, I suddenly felt hatred.

“No, it’s not just Cordis… We collapsed like that, I became this way… but why are you all……”

Anger is always misplaced.

It is a flame that flares up, impossible to stop even knowing it is misplaced anger.

I realized that my heart, pickled in hatred, had finally put scales over my own eyes.

I realized I had become twisted, but there was nothing I could do.

I just hated everything, with no way to help it.

“You, you all… why is this world so peaceful……. No, I have, all this time, for this peace… But if that’s so, that time, those past moments……”

Every time I muttered, flames rose.

Blue flames undulated.

It is ‘Soul Fire’. My fifth Ars, capable of incinerating tens of thousands of people, an entire city, in an instant.

“…Ah, aaaah……”

I raised my hate-filled eyes and looked at the sky.

More than anything, I hated myself. I hated life. I hated the sky that gave me life.

And so I, the Dragon of Six Horns, raised my head toward the sky and began to spew blue flames.

And presently,

I ripped my own maw wide.

“…Eu, aaaaaaah-!!!”

Hatred burst from my ripped maw.

Inside my mouth are the traces of the Demon King Pāpīyān having melted.

And also, my, Shion Pollinglight’s, last remaining will is there.

“—Ame, thus—!!!”

‘Dragon of Six Horns’ shook my mind with a violence incomparable to even ‘The Hunchback’.

I, Shion Pollinglight, barely, truly barely, continued my shout.

“—My, most loyal subordinate—!!!”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

The jade-eyed man was already by my side.

He bowed his head deeply toward me, the six-horned dragon.

“Amethus is here.”

“……Cut.”

I said.

I sensed instinctively that if I delayed even a little, I would not be able to return.

“Cut off my head, now!”

“As you will.”

Amethus’s Ars, ‘Vairocana’.

The sword that cannot fail to cut.

The diviner obeyed without question.

My head, the dragon’s head, rolled onto the floor.

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