Ch.136Golem (13)

There was no time to lie down. It didn’t take Llewellyn long to realize this in his tangled position.

A sensation like needles piercing his brain with a numbing sting. Beyond a sense of crisis, the distinct haziness of panic disorder was clearly felt.

All his senses were sharpened, enhanced by what could truly be called an instinctive ability to detect danger.

A light thump, the sound of a gentle leap. But the following impact was anything but gentle. Llewellyn gritted his teeth and pushed Lorian aside.

CRASH!

While the unconscious Lorian rolled across the floor, a leg came flying in.

There wasn’t even time to block it.

He only felt his consciousness fading as the toe struck his solar plexus.

His breath was cut off. Consciousness slipping away. Only the temporary health and mourning remaining in his body kept his mind tethered.

“D-damn it…!”

As the intense pain began to dilute, Llewellyn rolled across the floor and desperately drew a weapon from within his cloak.

He couldn’t win bare-handed. Even if hand-to-hand combat was his specialty.

That thing wasn’t something that could be defeated with bare hands. Clenching his teeth until they might break, Llewellyn drew different weapons in each hand.

WHOOSH!

Thus bloomed a red wind and crimson flames that burned bright.

Through that gap, the golem pursued without hesitation. Its bronze body gleamed in the rising flames.

Suddenly it was within reach. The moment their eyes met, Llewellyn’s foot was dragged, and the golem’s leg shot forward.

CLANG!

The bronze foot connected with the blade. He raised the edge of the sword to meet it, but it didn’t cut.

It was a strange sensation. As if even the recoil that should have transferred to the blade was being absorbed.

Accordingly, the golem’s foot moved, stepping on the blade. Llewellyn moved the North Wind held in his left hand to avoid the consecutive kicks aimed at his head.

The gushing wind pushed back the foot, and the moment the airborne golem landed—

Llewellyn accelerated with the North Wind in his left hand, spewing red wind. He aimed for the eyes. The golem avoided the attack by twisting its head, then pushed away the thrust of the Star Blade with the back of its hand.

They were at close quarters now. Within punching distance, not weapon range. Llewellyn released the North Wind from his left hand and countered the incoming punch with his left hand transformed into dragon claws.

A series of metallic sounds rang out as impacts penetrated through armor into his body.

And the golem, which received all attacks without the slightest movement despite Llewellyn’s physical abilities that far surpassed those of humans, counterattacked.

The strange sensation still remained. It wasn’t just skillful defense. Something beyond technique.

Closer than arm’s length, with their knees touching, an elbow thrust pushed the golem back, creating distance.

A brief interval of less than ten steps. But they both knew well. If desired, this distance could be closed in an instant.

The golem’s dragging feet stopped with a crunch, and Llewellyn finally met its eyes.

“…Who are you?”

It was strange to ask now, but Llewellyn truly had no idea.

Why he was being attacked, why Elise had to die.

And why it spoke as if it knew him, yet continued attacking without saying a word.

Above all, he needed time to recover. Buying time to regenerate was reason enough to attempt conversation.

It turned out to be excellent insight. Insight brought by his uncanny intuition and the divine power that could read fate.

Llewellyn spoke:

“You attacked me without explanation, and when the coffin opened, you thought I would be a being like ‘myself,’ so you tried to kill me with one blow. Aiming for the neck to prevent regeneration.”

The golem stood there, mechanical and unresponsive. As if the function of conversation didn’t exist, it simply stared at Llewellyn.

Though it had no expression and no emotion could be read in its eyes, Llewellyn could feel hatred emanating from the golem.

“And you tried to kill me. I don’t think you’re trying to kill me out of madness.”

“You talk too much. Are you buying time?”

“I thought you would engage in conversation. If I died without knowing anything, revenge wouldn’t be as sweet.”

Llewellyn’s words were true. He himself believed that if the target of his revenge died without knowing anything, it would feel unsatisfying.

Even if there was a scheme to complete regeneration afterward, this was too tempting to resist.

The golem’s crystal eyes turned toward Llewellyn, and its mouth slowly opened.

In a voice like scraping metal, it said:

“You ask who I am?”

When he first heard it, he hadn’t noticed, but now he realized.

Llewellyn felt the deep hatred permeating that voice.

It wasn’t the kind of hatred one should harbor toward an individual.

Yet it was clear, black malice pouring specifically toward Llewellyn himself.

Llewellyn felt overwhelmed by that hatred even as he sensed his body regenerating. Blue light gradually flowed from the golem’s crystal eyes.

“I am vengeance.”

The first words evoked a sense of déjà vu for Llewellyn. But what followed was completely different from his expectations.

“I am the blacksmith.”

The relief carvings on the golem’s body, traces gilded with gold, shone with the emblem of an anvil.

“I am the pain of all the oppressed.”

Beyond the anvil, a screaming skull engraved on the forearm gleamed ominously.

“And the base of the rising sun.”

The relief carved on its face in the shape of shadows cast by the setting sun emitted a darkness that didn’t yield even to the light of the Star Blade.

“I am the sighs of those taken from me by you, and retribution.”

The golden reliefs across its entire body shone. All those seemingly different lights converged, and Llewellyn, overwhelmed, opened his eyes wide.

“You ask who I am? Traitor, fallen traitor, how dare you ask who I am?”

It was shining. Something belatedly entered Llewellyn’s vision.

There was something like a mural on the coffin, similar to what he had seen in the pantheon.

In the mural, shadowed and flickering from the flames of the Star Blade, was depicted a man falling, stabbed in the back with a dagger.

“I am ■■■■, the sovereign whose name you stole!”

An inaudible name. Llewellyn heard words whose meaning he couldn’t even comprehend and reflexively raised his weapon.

A defense performed instinctively without even recognizing the incoming attack. A counterattack created by his uncanny intuition’s ambush prevention effect.

But it didn’t connect. The bronze trajectory distorted and passed by Llewellyn, reaching behind him.

Blood spewed from Llewellyn’s mouth faster than he could register the golem’s disappearance. A cough of blood followed by impact. The golem moved toward Llewellyn’s body, hardened by temporary health.

It dodged the North Wind that Llewellyn swung reflexively and swept at his legs. His exposed foot, already without armor, twisted. With a snap, his ankle broke, and Llewellyn tumbled to the ground.

A foot dropped toward the fallen Llewellyn. The bronze foot wrapped in gold emitted a light all too familiar to Llewellyn.

BOOM! His entire body resonated. The cave shook. Bile rose from within.

As Llewellyn rolled his body, the trajectory pursued. A knee thrust upward. When he blocked with his wrist, it broke.

As he wrapped his arm with holy blood to stabilize it, two punches and two kicks pummeled Llewellyn faster than his foot could touch the ground.

With loud crashes, his armor dented, and no sooner had he forcibly straightened it with holy blood than it dented again.

What came to mind was a documentary he had once seen.

A documentary showing objects being crushed under high water pressure.

Llewellyn was like that now. A submarine crushed and left only to die.

Death approached. Amid the overwhelming attacks, Llewellyn consistently counterattacked and diligently defended.

But nothing connected. It was a strange sensation. The feeling of launched attacks twisting beyond the laws of nature.

The North Wind he swung was caught. Crushed along with his hand. With a squelching sound, his hand, crushed along with the armor, fell to the floor as a mixed mass of flesh.

“This is too valuable for the likes of you.”

The golem thrust its leg as Llewellyn gritted his teeth. When he blocked with crossed arms, they broke. The sword left his hand, and as Llewellyn rolled across the floor, he reached out to retrieve the North Wind.

But it wasn’t just the North Wind that returned. Llewellyn had to receive the golem that rushed toward him with a knee thrust along with the North Wind. With a crack, his wrist broke.

Attacks that ignored armor, pierced temporary health, and inflicted precise damage to Llewellyn’s body.

Llewellyn sensed familiarity in them. He felt they resembled the mortality and divinity he himself used.

But how? Intuition and divinity poured into his heated brain like a mold. The answer came to him naturally.

Blacksmith, vengeance, pain of the oppressed, shadow.

The sovereign whose name was stolen.

A god.

The moment Llewellyn’s intuition grasped this, the golem’s form rushed once more to drop a fist toward Llewellyn.

There was an energy flowing through that fist. Something too fast and chaotic to read before. Seeing it, Llewellyn reflexively reached out.

He diverted the divinity focused on regeneration. Turned it to wrap around his fist. Dragon claws could not withstand a falling hammer.

So, a fist it was.

The moment Llewellyn gritted his teeth—

CLANG!

The space vibrated roughly with a sound like a hammer falling on a piece of metal on an anvil.

The golem’s already emotionless face grew colder, and its crystal eyes fixed on Llewellyn.

Though no emotion could be felt from its face, the bewilderment and contempt were palpable.

Llewellyn growled as he felt his body regenerating more slowly than before.

In his eyes, he saw the avatar of a god, and behind that god, he saw the remains of the dead strewn about.

Elise, who had lost her head.

The woman who had given him candy when his expression wasn’t good, and who had done various things to cheer him up by his side.

She had even offered to let him touch her slightly transformed hand, saying it would make him feel better.

Of course, Llewellyn knew. That all of it was false affection brought on by “Father’s” factor, nothing more than an illusion.

That if Father’s factor disappeared, the affection would disappear with it and even turn into antipathy.

Moreover, that affection could be exploited. Llewellyn recalled Ellimul, who had swallowed his anger and desire for revenge and fled without realizing it the moment Llewellyn told him to run.

It was disgusting. He felt his faith in the being called Father weakening.

This god was the same. Though he didn’t know why or how, it was certain that it was connected to Father.

Perhaps it was just a sacrificial lamb, a victim.

All this death and what he was suffering might be something he deserved.

But, even so.

Was the death of those who had developed affection through that factor meaningless and contemptible?

[Mourning]

[Time Remaining: 72 seconds]

[Temporary Health: 12]

No way.

Llewellyn gritted his teeth and slowly straightened his knees.

He wrapped his broken leg, damaged from receiving attacks, with holy blood, and spread the explosive energy of “mortality” from his heart throughout his body.

Even if all that goodwill was false and an illusion.

Llewellyn had already decided long ago.

Even if all this was an illusion, he would do his best, and even if it was an illusion, he would live as if it were truth.

So that he could move forward without regrets, without looking back.

Llewellyn’s heart beat violently. The fear, confusion, and sadness he had felt until just now were gone.

Elise was dead. Elise had shown affection toward Llewellyn, and Llewellyn knew it.

Then there was something he had to do.

Gritting his teeth, Llewellyn straightened his knees. The moment his eyes fixed on the golem—

WHOOSH! His fist flew with the sound of cutting wind and pounded the golem.

The golem’s bronze body transformed into a beam of light and flew away, and Llewellyn lowered his stance after sending the golem flying.

‘I’ll avenge you.’

Boiling anger filled Llewellyn’s heart, and the golem felt the divinity leaving itself.

The two divine beings roared toward each other.

And then the cave filled with violence.