Ch.115Chapter 115. Tashian Pailoi

Dragon.

The apex of all creation and a part of the world itself, a being that exerts such influence on this world that it could be called a small world with its own will.

The ancient dragons helped cultivate the world under the guidance of those called gods, but their descendants, despite their innate nature, lived empty lives after losing their purpose once the world was completed.

She too was destined to walk such a fate.

Dragon-Linked Tashian Pailoi.

Using an absolute covenant binding to dragons, she was the symbol of a fallen era, barely sustaining her shattered body.

-Thump, thump.

The final ember she had left behind.

She felt it gradually igniting as she faced the dragon that had just declared humanity’s extinction.

“It really happened as foreseen.”

Now she could exert her power even without fulfilling the conditions of her covenant.

Her covenant was to judge whether humanity’s existence had value, and if deemed impossible, “to bring about humanity’s extinction by her own hands.”

Naturally, if someone caused a disaster that would annihilate humanity before her moment of judgment, she would have to prevent it, as she couldn’t fulfill the result of exterminating humanity by her own hands.

“Well, if they’re a species destined for extinction without my intervention, then they have no value anyway.”

-Thump, thump.

The moment her long-dormant heart began to beat fiercely.

She finally realized she had lived for this moment, and tossed the cigarette she’d been holding in her mouth to the ground.

There was no longer any need to suppress her power by inhaling the fragments of herself.

“…Are you going?”

A faint voice from behind her as she prepared to head to the scene.

Pausing her steps forward, she exhaled smoke and answered.

“I must. The end has finally come.”

“Yes, if you step in now, you won’t be able to stop.”

The priority to determine humanity’s extinction had been given to her.

But even if she succeeded in stopping the enemy, she would never return to being a mere observer.

Once kindled, firewood continues to burn until completely consumed, and she knew that wielding this power would be her last chance to annihilate humanity herself.

“But are you really okay with this?”

Such a future had already been prophesied by the seer who now stood behind her.

Despite the lingering concern in the question, Tashian turned with a smirk to look at her.

The figure of the seer, holding a crystal ball, gazing sadly at the future about to unfold.

“How long have we known each other that you’re worried about me?”

“Hyoseong will be sad.”

A slight flinch, a trembling body.

Though just for a moment, the seer didn’t miss that reaction.

That response revealed that the fallen calamity, who had only cared about her covenant, couldn’t take lightly the existence of her chosen nemesis.

“Tashian. Let me ask you once more.”

If she stepped forward now, she wouldn’t be able to stop.

After this moment, she would become a calamity against humanity, which would also mean becoming the first trial for him who was building his strength to oppose her.

“Are you really okay with this?”

“…I must endure it.”

And Tashian had already resolved herself to this path.

“It’s the path I chose, and the path he decided to walk.”

If he had fallen before reaching this point, that would have been the end.

But since he hadn’t broken and had come this far, she too had to be prepared to clash with him.

-Whoosh.

With those final words, her burning body soared toward the sky, becoming a streak of light.

And then she fell.

Beginning to burn a piece of firewood buried in ashes.

-Boom!!

The symbol of the fallen world descending to earth. The Firewood Dragon Tashian Pailoi.

The last embers remaining in her body, now little more than ashes, responded to her will and began mercilessly burning the plague spores.

****

-Rumble, boom!

As such calamity began to rage across the entire mountain range.

Insignificant humans watched the spectacle from afar, while even the Undead that had gathered around were swept away by the heat and debris.

-Crash!!

Whether it was the avatar of war who belatedly noticed the situation, or the army of the dead under her command.

Such things could be easily trampled and crushed by a dragon whose single movement made mountains tremble and split the sky.

“Tashian…”

The only thing at this place that could match her was just one.

The mass of plague that imperfectly mimicked the ultimate being by borrowing the remains of a being like her.

“Tashian Pailoi. You were… alive.”

The Plague Dragon – Blight.

As he crumbled under her onslaught, he tried to recall her name by searching through his memories.

Yes, half a century ago, such a calamity had existed in this world.

Although unlike his sister who had followed the hero, he had never seen her directly, he had heard countless times how her existence had ended the era of war.

“Amazing. That power, that presence…”

Above all, her mere existence had calmed the madness of humanity that had been killing each other, uniting them all under the banner of fear and survival.

A being who moved the world just by existing.

The terminator of all things, rightfully called a part of the world itself and a small world with its own will.

“If I make that body’s vitality and power mine…”

The Plague Dragon, confronted with such a being.

Feeling the lingering attachments of the dead that formed his consciousness becoming clearer, he began to charge toward her.

“If I make that power mine, the world that person created will never collapse by anything!”

The helplessness he had felt when a prosperous kingdom was destroyed by plague.

To create a world that wouldn’t collapse from any disaster, a kingdom of the dead, he needed the power of an absolute being like her.

-Crunch!

She easily stopped his desperate charge by biting his neck, then began to exert her power as she pinned his body down with her front paws.

No matter how imperfectly constructed, he was still a being called a dragon. He might not be able to overwhelm her power, but he should at least be able to resist.

“Hey kid, do you know what a reverse scale is?”

Yet the reason he lost strength just from having his neck bitten was simple.

Even for beings at the apex of all creation, there existed at least one place that could be called a weakness.

“My ancestors told me this. The Creator made a means to control the slaves used to create the world.”

A single scale among a dragon’s scales that faces the opposite direction.

As soon as that sole weakness was pressed by her teeth, convulsions ran through his body, and the spores forming his body began to scatter regardless of his will.

“Heh, hahaha!”

But what escaped from Blight’s mouth despite the seizure was not a scream but joy.

While trying to suppress the collapse of his body from the unexpected attack, it wasn’t to regenerate himself.

“Reverse scale? What does that matter! This body can’t even feel pain to begin with!”

As he said, this body was merely an imitation created by mixing himself with the immense potential of dragon remains.

If he perfectly imitated it, his actions would be stopped when the weakness was struck, but if it broke, he could just use the broken pieces to pressure the opponent.

-Hiss!

He pulled the decomposed body toward himself as much as possible, then projected that power toward her.

Spores that squeezed through the gaps between the scales covering the massive body responded to her vitality, eating away at flesh and blood, rapidly swelling in size to dominate the living dragon.

“No matter how great a being is, as long as it’s alive, it can’t be free from disease.”

Moreover, what he was wielding now was the plague that had destroyed his homeland.

That disease, not originally from this world but an “otherworldly disease” that had torn through dimensional gaps, would be something even a great being couldn’t have complete immunity to.

No matter how much she had reached the apex of this world, that was limited to this world. Her absoluteness wouldn’t extend to other worlds.

“Tashian Pailoi!! Great danger to humanity!! I will consume you here and become an even greater being…”

“You talk too much.”

-Whoosh!!

Following a small mutter, flames erupted from the mouth that had bitten his neck.

Feeling his body burning from having his reverse scale bitten, Blight began to express his terror at the incomprehensible phenomenon.

“H-how? My disease should have penetrated every corner of your body, yet such power…!”

Even dragons, being living creatures, feel pain.

If it were an otherworldly disease, some flesh might have rotted away, creating gaps and giving the opponent a chance to counterattack.

“What does disease matter? This body has nothing left to burn.”

“W-what?”

“Can ashes catch disease?”

What stood here was the Smoke Dragon.

Her body wasn’t made of blood and flesh, but smoke formed from scattered ashes that had nothing left to burn.

Even a corpse could be a medium for disease.

But a body that was no better than broken ashes had no capacity for germs to penetrate in the first place.

“A body… that can’t be infected by disease… Not even a corpse anymore?”

Despite foreseeing that the last embers remaining in such a broken body would soon burn everything in their path.

The Plague Calamity, now on the verge of being engulfed, felt no despair.

“Oh, ohhh…”

Admiration arising from the unconscious, emotion that could be called reverence…

Yes, the being before him had far transcended even the “ideal limit” he had envisioned.

The dead could at most raise corpses from graves, leaving their traces in a destroyed world.

But to forcibly extend life even at the edge of one’s lifespan, as long as will accompanied it.

“Dragons are…”

Defying the inevitable fate of all living creatures.

Beings that could maintain themselves through sheer will, even if the vessel containing their soul was cracked.

To a scholar who had longed for an absolute being that couldn’t be destroyed by anything, this was an irresistible charm.

“Dragons truly are… amazing…”

But such human sentiments.

To a calamity that split heaven and earth just by existing, they meant nothing.

-Roaaaar!!!!

With the karmic fire finally spewing from her mouth, everything that formed his body began to burn to ashes.

Not just bones but also the spores that had swelled to form his body, and the rotting consciousness maintained within that vessel.

Beyond that, everything that existed in her path.

****

-Drip, drip.

Raindrops falling one by one at the scene where everything had ended.

Feeling the heat on his face cooling from the cold air, Marcus silently took time to observe the scene unfolding before him.

“C-Commander. What… what just happened?”

Soldiers beside him voicing their questions one after another.

They too would find the current situation incomprehensible.

Another calamity descending from the sky to deal with the resurrected great calamity, and the sight of everything burning in its breath…

-Pouring rain.

The raindrops turning into a heavy downpour, cooling the scene that had been blazing with heat—this was something they had never experienced before.

“Could it really be…”

But Marcus was feeling déjà vu from the current situation.

The phenomenon where all moisture in the area evaporated from the heat and rose to the sky, rapidly condensing into clouds to form rain clouds.

The resulting downpour, though temporary, had begun to erase the heat that should have existed where she had passed.

“Could she really have been alive…”

Yes, it had been raining that day too.

A downpour that had settled after an intense battle, washing away all the overheated heat and blood from that day.

The difference was that unlike that day when she had disappeared, now she was revealing herself, albeit in a deteriorated body.

“Tashian Pailoi.”

The nemesis of the last hero this world had produced.

At this moment, she began to reveal herself before humanity’s army, emerging from the shattered dragon body in her deteriorated form.