Ch.1130If You Want to Fight, Go Outside

The dwarves couldn’t abandon their asymmetrical power called Fafnir, so they ended up being dragged along with a leash half-held by the Holy State.

Then, how did the Dragon Kingdom, which had no such weakness, respond to the Holy State’s request for cooperation?

“Blockade the Great Desert…? It’s not difficult to issue such an order… but I doubt it will be effective.”

The king of the Dragon Kingdom, Cylude, expressed agreement with the blockade measure itself, but added that it was merely an impractical discussion with little significance.

“As you well know, there are numerous rebels in my country who don’t follow my orders even when I issue them. I thought their influence had somewhat diminished after the Holy-Secular War… but recently their numbers have begun to increase again.”

Those who obeyed Cylude’s royal commands were at best the court officials, the royal army, and ordinary citizens who had nothing to do with the so-called orthodox or heterodox factions.

Because the skilled Dragonborn believed in the bizarre ideology of “martial arts above authority” and prioritized the orders of their sect leaders over royal commands, Cylude’s power as a monarch was somewhat ambiguous despite his supreme status and bloodline.

In other words, issuing a blockade order to unpredictable groups who didn’t follow royal commands even in normal times meant they would hardly comply willingly.

“They are truly insolent creatures, but I cannot purge them all either. …Now that the royal authority has been greatly damaged by the overlap of the atrocities of those you call heretics and my own mistakes, it is even more so.”

Even if Cylude’s original plan to strengthen royal authority had succeeded, it might have been different, but that plan had been greatly complicated by the intervention of the apostles of the ancient gods and Haschal.

The First Holy-Secular War had fizzled out after Haschal secretly intervened to stop Persiella, followed by the great event of the Four Dragons’ return.

Additionally, during the attack on the royal palace, Cylude himself had gone mad and worsened the situation during the Demon Lord escape incident, rather than managing it.

Since that catastrophe, Cylude’s authority had plummeted dramatically, and the members of the Heavenly Horse Divine Palace, whom he had barely managed to bring under royal control, fled and established a new sect, claiming they could no longer trust the Dragon King.

Cylude couldn’t stop this flow. Or perhaps more accurately, he lacked the strength to stop it?

While he was busy recovering from his injuries and dealing with the chaos in the capital, Persiella, who should have been commanding the Heavenly Horse Divine Palace members, was busy following Haschal around.

Although he managed to extract various compensations from the Holy State using Persiella’s participation in the Evil God subjugation as justification, it was still a course of action where the losses outweighed the gains.

Of course, maintaining a friendship with the continent’s strongest person of the current era was also important, so Cylude neither criticized nor restrained Persiella.

“Given the political situation in my country… I will issue the blockade order as you wish, but you should not expect that order to be properly observed.”

In any case, Cylude decided to accept the request of the Holy State’s envoys and block the border toward the Great Desert, and the envoys returned satisfied.

About half a day later, a blockade order was issued in the name of Dragon King Cylude.

“Blockade order…? Don’t even set foot toward the Great Desert? What does this mean?”

Of course, the reaction of the Dragonborn across the Dragon Kingdom to the blockade order was exactly as Cylude had predicted.

“The entire underground contaminated with Dark Mana… a magical realm that even the Holy State has given up on purifying…?”

“Number of monsters, danger level immeasurable… unidentified hazards besides monsters… unauthorized entry may result in being designated as wanted by the royal army and holy corps…”

“In other words, it’s obvious we’ll only suffer if we go in, and we might end up fighting military officials or those scaleless ones from the neighboring country?”

The blockade order stated that the entire Great Desert had been designated as a magical realm and entry was prohibited, with a warning that unauthorized entry would make one an enemy of both countries.

The reaction of the Dragonborn—especially the heterodox Dragonborn—who confirmed this announcement was simple.

“…What are we waiting for? Let’s go right now!”

“Yes, that’s what I call a true friend!”

For heterodox Dragonborn, training meant liberating and nourishing their ferocious nature through boundless violence and slaughter.

For heterodox Dragonborn who believed they grew closer to the Four Dragons the more they were covered in enemy blood, Cylude’s announcement was more like an invitation than a warning.

An invitation to enjoy a hunting ground where they could rampage without restraint.

Numerous heterodox Dragonborn headed toward the border, letting out ferocious howls.

Having anticipated this, Cylude instructed the border guards not to forcibly detain the heterodox Dragonborn but to let them pass discreetly, resulting in the number of Dragonborn entering the Great Desert becoming almost comparable to an army.

Why did he give such instructions?

‘…Having failed to absorb the heterodox Dragonborn through the Heavenly Horse Divine Palace, they are now just troublemakers causing discord. If they want to die on their own, there’s no reason to stop them.’

From the moment he heard about the magical realm, Cylude had planned to push the troublesome heterodox Dragonborn into the Great Desert.

Had they remained obediently under royal control, it might have been different, but the Dragonborn who had fled and returned to being outlaws would obviously just cause problems as before.

Once heterodox Dragonborn began roaming the Great Desert, orthodox Dragonborn who were wary of them would also begin to set foot in the desert one by one.

Cylude’s strategy was to make the two factions exhaust their strength fighting either the monsters in the magical realm, the Holy State’s paladins, or each other.

For this purpose, he had told the Holy State’s envoys the face-losing story that Dragonborn didn’t listen to royal commands, severely damaging his dignity and prestige as a monarch.

By saying this, he could disclaim royal responsibility if Dragonborn entering the Great Desert clashed with the holy corps.

Thus, the blood of Dragonborn was newly added to the Dark Mana veins flowing beneath the Great Desert.

======[ Haschal ]======

Everyone has had such an experience at least once.

The experience of suddenly opening your eyes in darkness, wandering through a dream while being aware that you are asleep.

– Kuguugugung….

Yes, just like me now.

‘Is this a dream…? It must be a dream, right?’

The moment I lifted my heavy eyelids, a completely different scene from when I had fallen asleep at the Holy Corps’ rear base unfolded before my eyes.

A landscape like ruins swept by an unimaginably massive disaster.

The sky was torn to shreds, pouring down rain like fresh blood, and the earth was covered in dark red lava, boiling over.

“What is this? Hell?”

The joke that flowed out with a hollow laugh disappeared into the roaring sound.

Half-collapsed mountain ranges filled the surroundings. The fragments they shed while trembling rolled down the mountainside, spreading thunderous sounds.

I followed the rolling rocks with my gaze, looking down at the sea of lava that swallowed the fallen rocks and caused turbulence.

And I saw it.

Thousands, tens of thousands… no, perhaps even more.

Countless corpses floating on the sea of lava, burning, while gray specters held their hands and danced around in the air.

It was literally a scene one would encounter in hell.

…Seriously, what is this?

I don’t remember doing anything deserving of hell… well, honestly I’ve done quite a lot, but I wouldn’t be thrown in so abruptly like this. It’s not like I died or anything.

Could it be that I’m already dead and just haven’t realized it?

That’s impossible. Having awakened my divinity, how could I not distinguish whether I’m alive or dead?

I was clearly alive, and my instincts were screaming that this was not reality but something like a dream.

Just an unsettling dream, that’s all. When I wake up, I’ll just joke about having had a terrible dream last night and forget about it.

【 How҈̧̛̤̦̌͛̽̎͗͂̄ pathetic҈̡͎̦҇̒̃͗͌̇͑͒͊.҈̢͙̥͕͔̍̃̀̄͑̽́̈̕ 】

Just as I was thinking this and trying to wake from the dream, a thunderous voice literally struck my ears like lightning.

“Ugh… ha, what is this now?”

A monstrous sound closer to an animal’s growl than a human voice.

As I frowned at the noise that felt like scraping my eardrums with a saw and turned my head to look behind me,

– Kururrrrrung!

With a majestic and violent roar like the sky collapsing, the massive mountain range that had been towering behind me lowered its head toward me—

“Uh….”

No, it wasn’t a mountain range.

It was just so, truly so enormous that I had mistaken it for a mountain range.

What was behind me wasn’t a natural landscape like a mountain, but a being hundreds of times more massive and ferocious.

【 Krrrrrr… 】

Four legs like pillars supporting the sky. Sharp fur like spears. Gray chains binding its mountain-like massive body.

【 Against a fool҉̧̙͙͈͉̠̗͖̗̅̆̀̔̊͒͆̕ who threw away more than half of his power and charged in, even with the help of that piece of iron҉͔̱͎̲̠̈̓̈́̉̈́̓̊̚͜͝, this is the result? 】

And white chains of light, torn to shreds and almost broken, wrapping around its massive maw that seemed capable of devouring the world.

【 You are pathetically҉̧̖̙͓̳̮̬̜҇͆͂̾͊̿́͒ weak҈̨̤̖̫̰̦҇̈͛̑̆̉͗̈̍ to the point of being laughable҉̛͚͓̲̱́̊̈́̄̌̃̚͢. 】

A massive wolf, bound by two streams of chains—pure white and gray—glared at me and smiled.

The easterners call it Abha Gisaka’s malignant star.

The evil god of hatred and gluttony recorded in the scriptures of all nine remaining denominations in the Holy State.

The wolf that devours the sky, the malignant god Vanirgand.