Chapter 328

War, there was war.

The war between the West and the Empire 53 years ago was a very great battle.

For the first time, the Millennium Empire seemed to be cornered.

The West could not miss this opportunity and rushed in like a pack of wolves.

At least outwardly, that was how it looked.

However, it was all a manufactured situation.

The pinnacle of the West was Hika Hireium, the ‘Last Slave’, and the Empire had three Man-Gods.

This great war was an intentional chaos meant to elevate the figures who would soon appear.

Four men changed the entire war situation.

As expected, Deballo Debius stood out the most.

He was the ‘Last General’ who had warred for over a thousand years.

There was no one in the world more familiar with war than him.

He was experienced in siege warfare, cavalry battles, and naval battles.

In fact, any kind of fight did not matter.

Deballo especially enjoyed being in an overwhelmingly disadvantaged position.

Given the chance, he would take three or four like-minded people and plunge into a force of tens of thousands.

Of course, those who were like-minded with him were extremely rare.

If one had to name them, it would be Sen Hostanio, who later became the Two-Flame Grand General, and Niko Nereyades, the Whale of Hobel Bay.

When Deballo, Sen Hostanio, and Niko gathered, even thirty thousand troops trembled in fear.

He viewed the battlefield as a playground, and he was very proficient at the game called war.

Kerenneus Cansella Caseptus was the best administrator.

The ‘Last Minister’ who had lived for one thousand three hundred years knew everything.

The topography of the entire continent, when what kind of wind blew, how far the river swelled around this time of year….

What he was familiar with was not just the topography.

Kerenneus knew every piece of equipment and every corps used by the Cordis military command.

What manpower and equipment were needed to operate the most recently developed magi-chariot, and what was necessary to supply that equipment….

If Deballo achieved victory, Kerenneus refused defeat. He always looked beyond the war.

These soldiers were also subjects of the Empire.

He worked hard to drastically reduce all types of losses.

Hermai Merhes was a variable among variables.

No matter how capable Deballo and Kerenneus were, they could not reveal their power as gods.

Thus, there were times when they fell into trouble if the West exerted its full potential.

That was when it was Hermai Merhes’s turn.

He was a six-star mage.

He also had outstanding aptitude for spatial magic.

He could cross the continent in barely two hours.

Hermai Merhes would always appear so suddenly and overturn the battlefield.

When he brought rain and thunderbolts from a clear sky and changed the topography, a normal battle could not possibly be established.

Deballo, Kerenneus, Hermai.

In their center was Continua.

The three confidants listened to no one else.

Only Continua could command them.

Naturally, the merits of the three men all turned toward Continua.

It was widely known that Continua, the 49th Emperor, pushed aside his father, the 48th Emperor, and took the throne.

Of course, this was different from the truth.

Both the 48th and 49th were the ‘Last Emperor’, Cordisias.

However, the people had no way of knowing.

So there was definitely a negative perception of Continua among the public.

This negative perception completely vanished in barely two months.

The entire Empire was enthusiastic about Continua the Great Emperor and his three confidants, who had saved Cordis in crisis.

The West, naturally, trembled in fear.

The entire world was being aligned around Continua the Great Emperor.

***

In the north of the Empire was the Silver Dragon Magic Kingdom.

The ruler of the nation was the Great Witch Beluchian Pollinglight.

Her original name was Sen Sorti.

Sen Sorti was in a hole, which she had brought as the price of separation, in the basement of her castle.

This hole was nothing.

It was a void created in the world due to the descent of an Outer Being.

Yet it was an oddity that existed.

In the middle of the oddity, the ‘Last Mage’ lifted her eyes.

“Shion.”

She called her son’s name in the distance.

Sen Sorti was a Man-God.

If she paid a little attention, she could peer into every single battle and the details of the war happening in the distant land.

“Your father waged war for you, saying he wanted to give you refined hardship.”

Sen Sorti’s eyes were tinged with sadness.

War was war.

No matter how intentional it was, it was bound to be horrifying.

She saw it.

Humans being mutilated, young girls being dragged away by men’s crude hands, lives being trampled, and insults and screams that were too difficult to utter.

The ugly truth of humanity that she could not look away from even if she wanted to.

The responsibility was heavy.

She was a god.

Her husband was also a god.

They became gods even though they were human.

Therefore, they bore a great responsibility for all that horror and misery.

There were too many wounded and bleeding souls.

Unimaginable griefs gathered here, into the inside of the hole.

“I could not stop it. You will be distressed. You will be greatly hurt, and greatly sad. You will eventually collapse and become miserable.”

Sen Sorti bit her lip.

“…Do not….”

She bit so hard that blood flowed.

“…Do not forgive me.”

It was a monologue.

Nothing more, nothing less.

There was no way Shion could hear it.

However, I was listening.

I was listening carefully to her murmuring as an observer from the future.

“But….”

The mage mumbled.

“I will go find you, to give you a gift. Because if you experience misery, you must have the strength to overcome it.”

She raised her head.

There was a forest inside the hole.

“Cordisias does not know.”

This forest was people.

They were the people before Hotus and the people of Hotus.

All the people who had perished twice due to the foolishness of the Eight Gods were here.

“That they are only taking a light nap. That if one speaks to them, they will answer…. I conversed with them for a long time, and they gladly complied.”

Sen Sorti blew air from her mouth.

The air was silver.

The forest scattered into pieces and then became one mass.

It looked like a huge wind, yet it was even more insubstantial.

“Now, they are just power. And on top of that….”

Grudges gathered.

“…These screams.”

Sen Sorti summoned the grudges dying in the war here.

They were in the form of blue flames.

She gathered the clamor-like screams and merged them with the mass of power.

Then it became an even greater power.

As she said, these were power.

Nothing more, nothing less.

It was a peaceful light nap, yet it was also a sharp clamor.

“It can become anything, but for now, it is nothing.”

She gathered that large mass of power in her hands.

She pressed everything between her two palms, as if imitating the Undying Demon Queen.

But it was just something blue.

“If I give these to you, what will you call them? What form will this take?”

Sen Sorti mumbled.

“……I hope it will be a beautiful form.”

***

Seven Secrets, Seven Ars.

I, Shion, called them the Septem Arcana.

Even though the power was given to me, I could not easily enjoy it and wrapped myself tightly with the Seven Secrets.

Each one was a terrifying form. Even the last one was a lie.

The name of the first Ars was ‘Fantasy Finger’.

I dreamed a vain dream that I could not tell anyone for a long time.

I grabbed and wounded the world with tens of thousands of screaming hands, but it was always secretive.

The name of the second Ars was ‘The Unclosable Twenty Steps’.

I was so wounded, even a hole was created in my heart, that I could no longer bear other minds coming close.

So I pushed them away, pleading, Please go far away, all minds, a vain dream is enough for me, please do not touch me.

The name of the third Ars was ‘The Heated Iron Bloodline’.

Since the bloodline, hardened by long hatred, always boiled inside, I inevitably had to take it out.

My bloodline was dirtily heavy and dirtily hot.

So much so that I could not endure without taking it out and wielding it at others.

The name of the fourth Ars was ‘The Screaming Hunchback’.

I tried hard to lock it up, but in the end, I could not lock it up and it burst out from inside.

The shouting sound inside me was loud.

The hunchback always wailed and banged loudly on everything in sight.

The name of the fifth Ars was ‘Soul Fire’.

It was because I had burned everything up.

I could no longer do anything, so only blue flames flowed endlessly from my empty eye sockets.

The sixth Ars was the ‘Dragon of Six Horns’.

It was simply because I became inhuman.

Because I was distorted, heated up, and became gigantic.

Because I had no choice but to wail hatred in an inhuman form.

Despite the six horrors, I reached the seventh.

The seventh was a lie.

Such a thing did not exist.

But I reconciled.

The seventh came after I reconciled.

The name of the seventh is the ‘Crown of Paradox’.

It meant that it was completed in a beautiful form.

As I already said,

I was finally Shion.

I was still Shion.

***

“We have arrived, Shion.”

The Undying Demon Queen Lefren said.

She smiled with her beautiful center head.

We were suddenly in a space that was nothing.

The beings of the past and the stories of the past were nowhere to be found.

“What follows this is a story you already know.”

“…….”

I, Shion Pollinglight, raised my head.

I realized anew that there was a wooden crown on my head.

I had a lot to think about.

I had to think about what I had gone through.

Lefren wanted to help me like that.

“Do you remember your first life?”

“Of course.”

I arranged my life.

“I was born.”

I grew up in the Imperial Palace, and ran away when I was about eleven.

I lived doing odd jobs in the West, met Sen Sorti who came looking for me, and later met Serena and gave birth to Poesia… lost Poesia and Serena… and after that, it was nothing but war, hatred, and finally the first death.

The first life was too long to be summarized in one paragraph, yet it was summarized.

“And you are going through your second life.”

“That, too, of course.”

The Regressor Prince looks back on his second life full of secrets.

“Regression, Succession War, and Grand Convergence,”

The arrogant older half-brother Ferbias.

The muscular Secundus who was a better person than I thought.

The silver-haired Princess Leniar and the Reclusive Prince Kateka.

The fat Nebulo and his miserable end. Pies Roesti, the chestnut-haired knight who was my confidant but eventually betrayed me.

“I declared the secret that I would destroy the Empire and ran away from the capital again.”

Amethus chased after me.

In Hobel Bay, I faced Gold-toothed Kifkos and Gureunarut Gloriosus, and then Niko Nereyades, and fought with ‘The Heated Iron Bloodline’.

And Arete Island.

Amethus’s revealed secret.

The ‘Breath of Light’ and ‘The Screaming Hunchback’, the jade-eyed man who became my subordinate.

“And I settled in the West, in Merion.”

I prepared for battle with Amethus in Merion, drove out Del Conti, and married Serena again.

Meh al-Hmed, Brass Arm Onseu Om, Pneuve Freira, Archbishop Hille, and Head of the Etceteras Guild Veranio…. Names that felt strangely distant.

“The Empire began its invasion,”

The Guidone Lord married Santia Hostanio.

The Mustache Mage Cornelius came as an envoy from the Empire.

Nine Streams General Nana Nereyades popped out after pretending to be a maid.

Nana’s Ars, ‘Freestyle’. Niko’s Ars, the ‘White Whale’, who had rushed over with big steps to protect her and me wailing in the form of a hunchback against them.

“Before the war, I set out to find the two heroes.”

The White Lord, Obro Denoebang.

I raised the drunkard who had become a miserable sight again.

The lives he could not save do not return.

He is still a drunkard.

Yet, it is amazing that there are those he has saved.

Obro Denoebang still lives grasping ‘Grayish-white Nobility’.

And the Widow Queen of Schmeizen, her husband Yulan, and the Three-Faced Three-Poison Demon King Pāpīyān.

“And finally, the war came.”

The Three Heroes overwhelmed the Empire.

Eight-Impact General Zeronimus lost his life to Obro Denoebang’s two sword strikes, and the Empire could not advance because of the Widow Queen.

I blocked the valley and even burned half of Nana’s face.

However, when Continua the Great Emperor’s three confidants participated, the West was quickly cornered.

Deballo Debius pierced the West’s defense single-handedly, and Kerenneus crushed Grand Duke Pret.

Hermai Merhes even drove out the Widow Queen.

“…I met Brother Secundus again.”

Secundus Debius.

A consistent man.

He still regarded me as his younger brother.

I was glad to meet him.

But he died soon after.

Because of Ferbias, who was jealous of him, he returned to the Imperial Palace alone and died.

“Thinking about it, Brother’s death made me impatient.”

I rushed.

I became more distressed by hating the detestable Cordis even more, and strived too desperately.

Then I was quickly betrayed.

I was stabbed by the hands of the people of the West who could not possibly follow me.

I fled after a hole was made in my heart that way.

“……Amethus…….”

Amethus died for me.

He blocked Deballo Debius and saved me.

I smiled bitterly.

I lost my best confidant like that and was imprisoned in Kosavagarobira.

“But.”

I lifted my eyes.

“There were people who came to save me.”

It was Serena.

It was Leniar and Kateka.

It was even Nana.

And… It was Poesia.

A letter came from Poesia, the child I lost in the previous life, the child that does not exist.

I had no choice but to live.

I had no choice but to rise again.

I struggled in a miserable state and soared.

I headed to the Silver Dragon Magic Kingdom, entered the hole, saw my dirty self, and a breeze blew, and finally I reconciled.

The proof of reconciliation is still in my head.

And, after I started walking toward the Imperial Palace, various people including Sen Hostanio followed me, I intimidated Ferbias and made him run away, I faced Continua and the Hotus Eight Gods, and after seeing their past…….

“…….”

At last…….

“…Now, it is time to rise.”

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