Chapter 33: [Side Story] Richard

The sky was covered with a reddish light.

The appearance of the sky, which had changed like the twilight of sunset, was so beautiful that it conveyed many deep meanings to the viewer. However, Damian could not simply think of the sight before him as beautiful.

It was still too early for the sun to set.

The ‘Light of Hope’ created by four great wizards had freed the world from the power of foreign gods that had imprisoned the world in darkness and restored the time of the previous world, albeit locally.  In this place, protected by such a ‘Light of Hope’, the sky now turning red was an obvious anomaly.

“Is this your doing, Richard?”

Damian asked the man standing in front of him.

The man with hair the color of twilight, like the changed sky, nodded his head obediently in affirmation at Damian’s question. Seeing Richard just nodding his head without saying anything, Damian didn’t ask for an explanation as to why he did this.

From the moment Richard nodded, a sword was held in Damian’s empty hand.

Richard Erthuwen.

As one of only four archmages at present, he reached the state of transcendence and created the ‘Light of Hope’ with other archmages. However, this ‘Light of Hope’ was not a means to change night and day at will but rather a battlefield to remove the power of foreign gods that covered the current world.

Even without Richard saying anything, Damian already knew.

Every time they broke the boundary, he felt the discomfort of the foreign god’s divine nature that covered the world more intensely than ever before. Richard did not think Damian would fail to notice this fact, so he simply agreed without any excuse.

Although he was holding the sword as if nothing had happened, the fact that a trusted comrade who had fought alongside him until yesterday had fallen to the enemy was enough to tear Damian’s heart apart.

Questions about why he made that choice and what the hell had happened jumped up to his throat, but he swallowed them back and killed the emotions boiling inside him, gripping his sword. Regardless of whatever accomplishments he had achieved in the past or the positions he had held, the man standing in front of him, Richard Erthuwen, was a traitor and an enemy of humanity.

With that fact alone, Damian could bury his emotions deep within his heart.

-Crack!

As Damian regained his composure, the sound of flesh bursting came from the space between him and Richard. A spear, whose origin was unknown, pierced something invisible that was precisely aiming at Damian’s neck.

Unable to hide his body any longer, the strange figure, who had aimed for Damian while his arm was impaled with a grotesque blade, was revealed. However, that figure disappeared without a trace, swept away by the black flash exploding from the spear.

Finally, Richard, who had remained silent until now, spoke.

“Hahaha, too bad. I see you can’t be shaken by this much.”

Richard’s face was smiling, but there was no emotion in it. Damian also looked at him with an emotionless gaze, but Richard found the emotions he had failed to conceal in Damian’s expression and whispered softly.

“Don’t look at me like that. You know I can’t fight you head-on.”

“You know very well that these tricks don’t work. So, if you quietly lay down your head right now, I’ll make sure you don’t feel any pain.”

In response to Damian’s calm answer, Richard raised his head and replied.

“That’s impossible. I must kill you.”

As he stepped out of his seat, the red-tinged sky began to move accordingly. Because this place under the red sky was his domain, the space within the realm was following Richard’s orders. The sky began to fall as Richard lowered his hand.

As he took a step, the red-tinted sky began to move in sync with him. This place, situated under the red sky, was his territory, so the space within the territory was following Richard’s commands. When Richard lowered his hand, the sky began to descend.

It wasn’t a simple metaphor.

The red sky was constantly coming down toward Damian, and everything around him was collapsing under the increased pressure. The ground began to crack, and the mountains started to crumble, but Damian maintained his complete form, standing upright and facing Richard in the midst of this world that was falling apart.

“Is this all you can show me?”

Damian raised his sword high toward the sky descending on him.

And then he struck.

He sliced through the red sky that was coming down towards him, and cut through the collapsing world.

If Richard’s magic had destroyed the world at its limit, Damian had gone beyond the limit of swordsmanship and cut through the world. The sky, filled with the color of twilight turned like a shattered mirror and broke apart.

But that wasn’t the end. The fragments of the sky scattered all over the place soon became portals that started pulling in things that didn’t belong to this world.

-Bang!!

Damian immediately threw the sword he held in his hand and shattered the fragments.

However, a single sword was not enough to deal with the fragments scattered in all directions. In the end, Damian couldn’t break down all the portals, and as soon as the beings who came through the portals saw him, they rushed at him like a predator that found their prey.

Then a storm composed of the aura around Damian struck.

Those who came close to him exploded like balloons with the sound of something exploding. Even so, there were still many beings from the other world approaching Damian. Confirming that, Damian gave up destroying the remaining fragments and jumped toward the cause, Richard.

Those who approached him exploded like balloons bursting with a popping sound. However, there were still many creatures from the other world approaching Damian. Seeing that, Damian gave up breaking the remaining fragments and ran towards Richard, the cause of all this.

When the aura was poured into the ring, the Dragon Heart embedded in it released the weapons made from its own body. The body of the long-dead dragon was processed into various types of weapons, and they were not just swords.

A giant axe made from the dragon’s skull was now in his hand.

Damian slammed the dragon ax at Richard with all his strength, as if to tear apart the space.

-Thunk!

However, the axe did not split Richard into pieces. Suddenly, a gigantic being appeared behind Damian, holding onto the axe and preventing it from harming Richard.

“No matter how powerful you are, you can’t deal with the constantly appearing monsters alone.”

Richard’s voice, which came from right in front of Damian’s nose, irritated him, but he had no time to spare for it. Damian immediately dropped the axe and summoned the spear that he had first used, and threw it toward the head of the giant.

The spear pierced the giant’s head, creating a black light. Damian picked up the axe again and looked for Richard, but he was already surrounded by numerous summoned creatures, preventing him from approaching. The swarm of creatures that came at him was reminiscent of a swarm of insects.

The number of creatures was too great to defeat by summoning the storm of Aura alone. Even if he tried to reduce their numbers by swinging his weapon, the creatures kept pouring in from all directions like an army of ants, and the more he killed, the more they came.

The wave of creatures, made up entirely of monsters, swept Damian away.

No matter how transcendent he was, there were limits.

If one could handle tens of thousands of enemies, then one could just crush them in even greater numbers.

Furthermore, all the monsters summoned here had been strengthened by the power of outsiders, making it almost impossible for Damian to face them alone, even if he was called a god among transcendent beings.

Seeing Damian buried under the monsters, Richard started laughing like crazy.

However, there was no emotion in his laughter, unlike the sense of achievement he felt when he first laughed after achieving his goal. All that remained of him, who had been polluted by the divinity of a foreign god, was an irrepressible regret that had been with him since his heart first broke.

Still, Richard did not stop laughing. He thought he would lose his mind if he didn’t even do this much.

“Why are you laughing like that?”

The voice he heard clearly in his ears immediately stopped Richard’s unstoppable laughter. Richard turned to look at the tomb he had created. Then he began to doubt his eyes at the sight reflected in his own eyes. There, the light that should never be seen was leaking from the cracks of the monsters.

Finally, the one who was enveloped in a golden radiance as the monsters’ mountain collapsed revealed himself.

“I am not dead yet.”

He was still looking at Richard with the same unchanged expression as before.

***

“What the hell is going on…?”

Elena muttered as she looked at the sky, which was changing color every moment.

How could there be remnants of the outside world in this place where there was the ‘Light of Hope’?

The great magic barrier ‘Light of Hope’ created by the four great wizards had never allowed an outside invasion. It was not an exaggeration to say that it was this  ‘Light of Hope’ that had allowed humanity to survive until now, when they were on the verge of defeat due to the fierce attacks of foreign gods.

However, the power felt inside the barrier, which was thought to be unbreakable unless the true body of the foreign god descended, was undoubtedly the divinity of the foreign god.

In response to the sudden change, Elena hurriedly opened the barrier spell and checked it, but the ‘Light of Hope’ protecting the entire Merohim was still intact and there was no sign of damage to the spell.

Because of that, Elena wondered if her eyes were wrong for a moment, but the unforgettable discomfort she felt throughout her body told her that what she was seeing right now was real.

Elena’s intellect, shining like a star, did not allow her to be swept away by the confusion, and she sorted things out with great speed.

It was an invasion.

She didn’t know how they had broken through the barrier, but it was certain that the enemy had entered the barrier.

Perhaps this happened while she was away for a while.

Thankfully, the fact that the one who remained here now was him was a relief. Unlike before, even though there were fewer transcendents to confront him through foreign gods, his presence was still very important in continuing the war and thinking about victory.

Fortunately, the sky returned to its original color while Elena moved to the place where the incident had occurred, and the divinity of the foreign god that made her uncomfortable no longer felt.

However, she couldn’t help but worry about him. As sudden as the anomaly occurred, there was a possibility that he could have been injured no matter how strong he was.

Sure enough, the place that seemed to be the site of the anomaly as she expected was not normal. Everything was broken, and only traces of destruction remained.

“Damian!!”

Still, seeing him looking fine, Elena put a smile on her face and hurriedly started running toward him.

Until she saw the man lying in front of him.

The man lying down with his heart pierced by a sword had a very familiar and friendly face to Elena. He was a comrade who fought with them to the end in her previous life, and he was her oldest friend, so she could not help but feel shocked and surprised.

“D-Damian, what is this…aha!! This is a joke, right? Richard, stop joking around and get up! I’m surprised enough! Get up now!!!” 

At Elena’s words, neither Damian nor Richard, who was lying down, said anything.

Elena, who was shaking Richard’s body, knew well what that silence meant. She also felt the residue of the foreign god on Richard’s cold body, so it wasn’t that she couldn’t guess what had happened here.

Nevertheless, she couldn’t bring herself to let go of Richard’s clothes.

She simply tried to turn her back and ignored the situation in front of her, unable to believe that this was really happening.

It was a nightmare.

Truly a terrible nightmare.

[TN: You can support the translation and read 5 premium chapters on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/WanderingSoultl ]

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