Chapter 283

“…Seventh….”

My face hardened stiffly.

I felt as if my breath was choked by the unexpected word.

I am tired.

It is a struggle.

It is painful and distressing.

It became unbearably painful.

It continued to be so.

“My seventh… Ars, you mean…?”

“Watch out!”

Amethus jumped in.

He hugged me and rolled on the ground.

Deballo Debius’s sword slashed Amethus’s shoulder.

Naturally, blood splattered.

Amethus raised his voice.

“Please be careful!”

“…Ah.”

The jade-eyed man sprang up even while bleeding.

And then he engaged in sword fighting with Deballo Debius again.

Amethus foresaw the future.

Deballo Debius wielded a sword that could not be avoided even if one foresaw the future.

The sound of sword clashing with sword resembled a Ghostly Wail.

The whole earth buzzed from the collision of power against power.

Amethus got angry while wielding his sword.

“If you can’t use your Ars, you can’t use it, but what are you doing losing your mind in the middle of a fight!”

“…I’m sorry…!”

I hurriedly regained my senses.

Even though I wanted to, it wasn’t easy to regain my senses.

My heart still had a hole, and the mana of the dagger Ashkal was hovering inside, shattering my soul.

On top of that, old wounds, fatigue, and the shock of betrayal.

Even so, because I could not collapse, I grasped ‘The Heated Iron Bloodline’.

The iron bloodline flies.

I swung the iron bloodline with all my might.

It was damn hot and damn heavy, so even Deballo Debius, the ‘Last General’, found it hard to ignore.

“It’s damn hot!”

Deballo expressed annoyance.

He is the form of a lion walking on two feet, and one with a steel mane at that.

His body was so sturdy that even after being hit by the iron bloodline a couple of times, there was not a single scratch.

However, the heat helplessly burrowed into his marrow, making even the thousand-year-old god extremely irritated.

“…….”

I gritted my teeth and handled the ‘iron bloodline’.

Every time the iron bloodline was swung, it burned the air.

The blazing heat cooked the skin just by getting close.

Deballo got annoyed at this hot iron bloodline and suddenly grabbed the line.

“You are being annoying!”

He grabbed the iron bloodline and pulled.

I tried to hold out but I couldn’t.

Normally, I would have held out with over a thousand ‘Fantasy Fingers’.

However, now the Septem Arcana was heavily damaged.

My body was dragged straight toward Deballo.

“Interfering when you can’t even take care of yourself!”

“Your Highness!”

Amethus gritted his teeth again and dashed out.

He rushed at Deballo Debius with the resolve to give up an arm.

Fortunately, he did not give up an arm, and it ended with about one joint of his little finger being cut off.

Even after losing a finger joint, he was rather tough.

The jade eyes of the man who gritted his teeth burned.

It was fire, fire.

Deep will blazed from deep within his pupils.

His Ars, ‘Light’.

A single sword is no different from light itself.

A dignity that could make the thousand-year-old god retreat, even if it could not match him.

Amethus thrust his sword with a boiling heart.

Deballo clicked his tongue and retreated.

A very slight gap opened.

“Your Highness!”

A slight gap.

Amethus shouted.

“Left! Please look at the left!”

“…Left…?”

I turned my head while holding the iron bloodline.

Amethus immediately rushed at me.

And then he kicked me with a Thud sound.

I was pushed back very far, helplessly.

“…Ugh…!”

Pushed far away, I groaned in pain but raised my head.

I looked at the subordinate who had kicked me.

“…What are you doing, Amethus!”

“Because you are in the way!”

Amethus shouted confidently.

Before long, Deballo Debius pounced again.

That lion walking on two feet knew I was Amethus’s weakness and tried to target him.

Amethus strained to block Deballo.

However, it was not easy.

No, it was very difficult to block.

Because he kept piercing through to the future, it felt as if all the blood vessels in his head would burst Pop at any moment.

“If you’re going to be like that, you should rather run away first!”

“…No, but still…!”

“Shut up and just go!”

Amethus shouted at the top of his lungs.

Even amidst that, he engaged in a fierce sword fight with Deballo Debius.

Considering the opponent was the ‘Last General’ who had lived on the battlefield for a thousand years, it was a very surprising feat.

“Go, you idiot, go-!!”

***

I could not bring myself to answer.

Instead, I turned around and ran.

“…….”

I, Shion Pollinglight, had a small build for my age.

On top of that, I had trained with Amethus for 7 years.

Therefore, my movements were quite agile.

Even with a hole in my heart, I ran well through the rainy mountains whoosh whoosh.

……. I continued to run without saying a word.

The silence was more painful than ever.

The raindrops continued.

They flowed down my body and seeped into my wounds.

This insignificant throbbing approached guilt.

“Shion-!!!”

Amethus’s shout reached my back as I ran.

Even though the distance had become such that he could not be seen.

How loudly he must have spat it out.

“Live!”

At Amethus’s voice, I gritted my teeth.

“It won’t be easy! It’s bound to be so!”

I, the Regressor Prince, ran.

Leaving behind the man who was once my greatest nemesis, and now the man who had become my greatest reliance, I ran like crazy to save my one life.

Not knowing where to go, I pushed through the rain.

“But you… will still be Shion! More than before, you will surely be you…!”

Now even the shout became distant.

The raindrops are achingly cold.

The struggling ankles hurt as if they would twist at any moment.

However, even amidst the rain, the heartbreaking voice was clear.

“So please live, Shion Pollinglight…. My, my….”

Coldness flowed over my cheeks.

Seeing how achingly cold it was, it seemed to be raindrops.

Wouldn’t that have to be the case?

For I, who put forward that I would trust no one as my secret, to shed tears?

No matter if it came from the eyes and flowed down the cheeks, this could not be tears.

“…My friend.”

***

“How embarrassing.”

Deballo Debius spat out.

“That should be enough for a testament.”

He let Amethus spit out his words towards Shion.

Amethus also already knew of Deballo’s consideration.

So he nodded with a grateful heart.

“More than that, can you block me alone, Last Aretion.”

“Why wouldn’t I be able to?”

Amethus answered calmly.

He was a man born with many things.

Even though he lacked nothing to be called a genius, he repeated efforts that far exceeded others.

On top of that, life’s trials always visited and made him stronger.

Amethus knew that in the West, the only one stronger than him was Obro Denoebang.

And that in some situations, he could be even more outstanding than Obro.

“Are you saying you can beat me?”

“That wouldn’t be possible.”

Amethus had already realized.

He cannot beat Deballo Debius.

Because Deballo Debius is Deballo Debius.

The Grand General of the Cordis Empire, the General of Generals, the Warrior of Warriors.

The indisputable Number One on the Continent!

“Commonly, it makes no sense. To beat a Man-God who has eaten sword-meals for a thousand years.”

But as it turned out, he is one of the Hotus Eight Gods, the thousand-year-old Man-God ‘Last General’.

Even for Amethus, there was no way to win.

“But there is no reason to lose either.”

Amethus raised his head.

He looked at the sky.

Suddenly, there was something he thought of.

Since that sky is the sky, it would be the sky anywhere.

Thus, this sky meant it was the sky of his ancestors’ island, Arete.

Under the same sky as the ancestors, the man’s eyes were the same jade color as the ancestors.

Therefore, he ended up grinning.

“He told me that I still have a lot left to do. Now I understand.”

“He? Who is it?”

“It was me.”

“Hmm?”

Amethus remembers the time he fought against Demon King Pāpīyān.

Before realizing the Ars, ‘Light’, another self had suddenly visited him.

It is the old Amethus that Shion fought before the Regression.

“The me of the vanished world, who cannot exist in this world. He came to find me… No… Wait, that means….”

Amethus looked at the sky again.

“Ah.”

He laughed.

“Was that it? So that’s what it was.”

He ended up laughing without realizing it.

Pahaha, a refreshing laugh burst out from deep within, and he could not endure it.

He laughed like that for a long time.

He giggled facing the sky.

Deballo Debius frowned.

He was already not feeling good because of Secundus’s death.

But since a guy much younger was giggling as if he had mastered everything, the unpleasantness was beyond measure.

“You’re going to die soon, so what are you laughing at?”

“Are you a god?”

“I am the ‘Last General’.”

Deballo Debius said.

He is a steel lion walking on two feet.

“I remember the Ancient Times. More than a thousand years ago, we trampled and killed the Ancient Gods and became new gods. Ever since then, I was a god!”

“Ever since then, you must have been mistaken.”

“Ha!”

Deballo shouted, dumbfounded.

“Do you know god?”

“I do not know.”

“Then why do you talk so much!”

“However, I know that you do not know either. We both do not know, but at least I have come to know my ignorance. Therefore, you cannot be a god.”

“…Sophistry.”

Amethus smiled even more deeply.

As he raised his sword like that, the flames went out.

The fierce jade-colored flames disappeared without a trace.

Then a mask appeared in his hand.

It is the mask detached from the face of an Ancient God earlier.

“……?”

That mask met Amethus’s realization and turned into the Ars called ‘Light’.

If that is called evolution, this was now devolution.

The soul that had ascended to a higher place came down to a lower place.

Deballo could not understand the reason.

“…Why do you put down the higher power?”

“Because I realized.”

“…What did you realize?”

“That realization is nothing.”

Amethus put on the mask again.

In his hand is just a single ordinary iron sword.

Yes, this was enough.

“Also, I realized.”

He could ascend.

To a high place where humans cannot reach, becoming light literally as the name implies, he could have disappeared into light.

He could have gone to a place without screams, grief, and sorrow, without all this wretchedness.

However, he decided not to do so.

“That my life, that I am for now.”

He always looked up.

The life of a swordsman is like that.

Stronger than now, more cruel than now, to a higher realm than now, more than now…….

He put it down once.

Oh, what meaning was there in all this ‘more than now’?

With the realization that it is all in vain.

He grasped the realization, crying out that all these struggles were in vain and that he was foolish.

However, he realized again.

In the heart that said more than now, more than now, there was Amethus Aretion.

Amethus’s life was such a thing.

Because that was painful and difficult, he tried to put it all down.

However, if he put it down, he could not be fully him.

“O Arete Island, O my ancestors. Thanks to you being forgotten, I lived. I cried for a long time feeling guilty towards you, but now I can smile.”

Amethus wore the mask.

It is the mask of our ancestors.

It is the torn-off face of the old Ancient God whom they had betrayed once.

“Because I have also come to want to be forgotten like you. Because being forgotten like that, I desperately desire to save my friend.”

From there, the jade-colored flame rose again.

His head began to turn like a single light orb.

The heart swells.

He wanted Shion, his wretched friend, to live tomorrow as well.

Thinking that he would be able to live another day, he was happy and so happy that he had no choice but to smile.

“That I can die here,”

He could have become light.

He could have left that high sky forever.

However, he decided not to do so.

He decided to breathe together on this land.

So he ended up reaching the highest place.

“Is truly good for me.”

Amethus Aretion’s Ars, ‘Breath of Light’.

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