Chapter 307

Outside the city gates.

The Ten Great Generals of the Empire are gathered.

There are two old men in front of the gate.

One is Deballo Debius.

One is Sen Hostanio.

They are Cordis’s Grand General and Two-Flame Grand General, respectively. As they blocked the gate and stood guard, no one dared to pass through.

‘How is this playing out?’

Nana Nereyades felt doubtful.

‘I came out receiving an order to stop Prince Zionis… but suddenly a Succession War?’

She scanned the two old men and the other Ten Great Generals of the Empire.

Everyone looked flustered.

Especially the Six-String General.

He had followed Shion all the way here, prepared to be branded a traitor.

But Shion is not here, and Sen Hostanio stood blocking the gate together with Deballo.

He looked to be contemplating which side was the right one to stand on.

‘Rather, it’s like we are the ones tied down here.’

Nana swept back her hair.

She could not know why the Ten Great Generals of the Empire were blocking entry into the capital Lutilium.

Which side was loyalty, and which side was faithful to the Emperor’s command.

So she asked.

“Grand General Deballo.”

“Speak, General Nana.”

“You are preventing us from returning inside the capital, to the Imperial Palace, right?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps….”

Nana giggled.

“May I help from that side?”

“That is welcome news.”

Deballo also smiled back.

He jerked his chin to his left.

“Come and stand over here quickly.”

“T-Then I will too…!”

The Six-String General also hurriedly opened his mouth.

He was constantly agonizing anyway.

Since he couldn’t know how everything was playing out, he chose to be on the same side as the Two-Flame Grand General Sen Hostanio for now.

Nana and the Six-String General moved their steps.

They moved from the blocked side to the blocking side.

The glares were fierce, but they did not care.

There are eight of the Ten Great Generals of the Empire.

There are four on the blocking side.

There are also four on the blocked side.

The names of the blocking side are as follows.

Grand General Deballo Debius.

Two-Flame Grand General Sen Hostanio.

Six-String General Subuneo Sanjita.

Nine-Streams General Nana Nereyades.

The names of the blocked side are as follows.

Four-Grief General (Name unknown).

Seven-Forged General Marina Debius.

Eight-Thread General Manton Menetia Motea.

Ten-Coffin General Soltus Sortem.

“……What kind of behavior is this?”

The Four-Grief General opened his mouth.

Following that, the blocked four spoke in turn.

“…We must return. Step aside.”

“Like a dog! Dad! What are you doing!”

“Grand General Deballo, you are chasing a ghost. It has already been 7 years since Great Emperor Continua stepped down.”

“What are you trying to do to His Majesty?”

Marina Debius was especially noisy.

She is Deballo Debius’s daughter, and yet she had heard nothing about this situation.

She pointed a finger with her left hand, which had only two fingers.

“Come out! I need to go in!”

She shouted, full of anger.

It is a Herculean strength that collapsed the Bellos Grand Bridge with bare hands.

When she struck the ground with her spear shaft, the earth rumbled.

Deballo looked at his daughter with sad eyes.

Originally, his nature was so laid-back, but after Secundus’s death, he became increasingly impatient and irritable.

Deballo was in fact the ‘Last General’ who had lived for a thousand years, but his affection for his daughter was sincere.

So there was no way to avoid the sadness.

The father tried hard to pretend to be calm and reasoned with his daughter.

“Calm down, Marina.”

“How can I calm down! What are we doing right now?”

“No one must interfere. The most important event in Cordis history will be concluded. Only after a long, very long time has passed, finally…….”

“…The most important event…?”

“Yes.”

Deballo nodded.

“It will be completed soon.”

Completed? Marina tilted her head.

The other Ten Great Generals of the Empire, and even Sen Hostanio, did not understand and expressed doubt.

However, Nana alone accepted something.

Right, it’s soon, it will end soon.

Even without knowing what was ending, she ended up feeling that way.

Strangely.

“So I cannot let anyone interfere.”

“What in the world have you been saying since earlier…!”

Marina Debius looked ready to lunge at her father right this moment.

The other Ten Great Generals of the Empire were the same.

If the sky hadn’t brightened in an instant, they really would have.

“…Ugh!”

“…Hm.”

Silver light flashed.

It flashed so intensely that it seemed like the sun had risen tonight.

Clouds remained in the place where the silver light disappeared.

It is a dragon cloud.

The clouds that came from the north soon vomited out a single dragon.

The silver dragon had forty-eight wings.

“Sen Sorti has come.”

Deballo spat out.

He knows that that silver dragon with forty-eight wings is the ‘Last Mage’.

The silver dragon exchanged a brief eye greeting with Deballo on the ground and soon flew toward the Cordis Great Imperial Palace.

“…What is that?”

“…Sen Sorti? Sen Sorti…?”

“This, what….”

The Ten Great Generals of the Empire muttered, their souls having left them.

They are superhumans who crush boulders with bare hands and jump over buildings if they leap.

However, the silver dragon that just passed was a mystery that could not be compared even to them. It was something in a different, higher realm to begin with.

The humans who thought themselves the best were at a loss for words at the overwhelming sensation.

Especially the Four-Grief General, the five-star mage, heard Deballo call that dragon Sen Sorti.

A person from 400 years ago, the eternal First Mage. Is that silver dragon Sen Sorti?

Then is the Silver Dragon Magic Kingdom his country?

Was he alive until now?

Then is the Great Witch perhaps?

The Four-Grief General, who realized unimaginably deep secrets at once, fell into mild dyspnea.

“…They are coming one by one….”

Deballo Debius continued to look at the sky. He felt other presences.

Some from the west, some from the east, some from below…. Each one is familiar.

They are existences he has known for a thousand years.

“How long has it been since all eight gathered….”

Deballo swept his beard.

“I shouldn’t be late either.”

He looked at Sen Hostanio.

“Sen, can I entrust this place to you?”

“……You’re telling me to block all of them?”

“Aren’t the Six-String General and General Nana here too. It won’t be difficult.”

“…You, Deballo, when you return, explain what is going on.”

“You will come to know even if you don’t want to know.”

Deballo’s eyes deepened.

He looked back on the thousand years he had lived.

It was soon now.

It is the end now.

Whether it would lead to a new beginning or become an eternal end, he cannot know.

So even more, there was a place he had to go.

He moved his steps toward the city gate.

“It is the end. The end has really come….”

***

I was still a dragon.

I was in a radiant form, wrapped in White and Gold.

On my head is a crown with six horns.

I cast myself away.

I realized and admitted that I was dirty, and let the world grind me up and drink me.

It was painful and agonizing.

However, I met a gentle breeze.

I experienced the things I cast away returning having become more beautiful, and could reconcile.

There was an old man in front of me.

His name is Continua Cordis Magnus, my father and the former Emperor.

I heard he was lanky when young, but now his back was somewhat hunched.

Compared to me who had become a dragon, he is far smaller.

Even so, Continua did not care about such things in the slightest.

“I am old, my son.”

“It is awkward to be called that by you.”

“Whether awkward or not, you are my son.”

Continua swept his beard.

“Anyway, I am old so I want to sit a little.”

“Do as you please.”

“Just in time, there is a chair I used to sit in often.”

We are in the throne room.

Ferbias ran away and now it is just the two of us, me and Continua.

Continua nonchalantly sat on the edge of the golden throne.

That place was his seat.

He has sat there for a thousand years as the ‘Last Emperor’.

Even after sitting, Continua had a dissatisfied face. He tapped the golden throne with his finger.

This throne was really made of gold (processed with magic), so naturally, it was cold and hard.

“I should have made this chair a little more comfortable.”

“You should have done so.”

“I couldn’t think that far a thousand years ago.”

Continua is the 49th Emperor.

Also, he is the 1st Emperor Cordisias.

At the same time, he was also the 33rd Emperor Aurelia.

All three Great Emperors were him.

No, in fact, all 49 Emperors are him.

“Now there is nothing to hide.”

Continua said.

“I am a Man-God. The leader of the Hotus Eight Gods.”

“I know.”

“However, I am a little different from the other Eight Gods. My physical body is human.”

He pointed to his face. The wrinkled lines, liver spots, and the hunching back. He experienced 49 youths and 49 old ages.

“It means I lived for a thousand years by switching to the bodies of my descendants.”

“As expected, it was like that.”

“It was like that.”

Continua listed one of the deepest secrets of the world as if it were nothing.

The existence of the Hotus Eight Gods, the ‘Last Emperor’ who lived for a thousand years.

The reality of the Empire ruling the Empire…. However, I am not shaken.

I was already after having reconciled with everything.

“Are you going to take my body too?”

“No. I will not do that.”

The old man shook his head.

I felt doubtful.

I had reconciled, not become omniscient and omnipotent.

There were still many things I did not know.

Especially Continua’s intentions were absolutely impossible to guess.

“Let’s have the rest of the talk after everyone gathers.”

Silver light flashed.

“Because it has been a thousand years since all eight gathered.”

***

First was the Silver Dragon.

“Shion.”

“Master.”

The dragon with forty-eight wings is my master, Beluchian Pollinglight.

He was also Sen Sorti. His name as a Man-God is the ‘Last Mage’.

“Long time no see!”

“A face that is no help.”

“That’s too much! Too much!”

Following that, a flower with a thousand petals appeared.

In the center is a man’s head, and each petal is a wriggling hand.

That flower of strange shape chatters exaggeratedly.

The name of that thing that frequently breaks the mood is Beila Beile, the ‘Last Clown’.

“It is quite far from Horm to here.”

There is a woman who appeared dragging long dancing clothes.

She wore seven layers of thin cloth.

The only things visible are two eyes with long eyelashes, which were surprisingly captivating.

She is the ‘Last Dancer’.

“I also came from far away, no different from you, Dancer.”

It was a face I knew.

A dim face that could not distinguish whether it was a man or a woman, an old man or a child.

The Chairman of the Western Dawn Brotherhood, the master of the Seventeen Elders, Hika Hireium, who looks like he has realized everything yet looks more foolish than anyone, soon to be the ‘Last Slave’.

“Your Majesty, Kerenneus has come.”

An old man resembling an eagle walked in.

He is aristocratic.

He wrapped white cloth around his body that would only suit a very ancient era.

His hooked nose had become a beak before anyone knew it.

He is the Man-God with an eagle head, Kerenneus Cansella Caseptus, the ‘Last Minister’.

“I have also come. I prevented all the Ten Great Generals of the Empire from interfering.”

An old man smelling of blood. One who resembles a lion.

Deballo Debius, the ‘Last General’.

“Glad to see everyone.”

The one looking down on all these people from the throne.

Continua, the ‘Last Emperor’.

“The time has come.”

He raised his hand.

“The time of completion, where all eight gather.”

I spoke.

“But there are only seven?”

“No. Eight have gathered.”

“……?”

I tilted my head.

The Emperor pointed a finger at me in the form of a dragon.

The other Hotus Eight Gods also all looked at me.

I soon realized.

The ones gathered here were exactly eight.

Including me.

“The last one is you, my son.”

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