Ch.50And the Dragon (3)

It felt like I was dreaming.

I was in a daze, as if floating over an abyss.

All kinds of thoughts chaotically rose and fell, and among them, the purest thoughts floated to the surface.

I thought about Grim Darker.

I thought about why I loved this game so much that I ended up in this state.

Furthermore, I reflected on why I had acted the way I did in this world.

Why I threw myself into battles that weren’t mine, and enjoyed fights I’d never enjoyed before, to the point of getting my head cut off.

Thinking about it, the answer was simpler than I thought.

I didn’t want to be an embarrassing brother to my sister.

I wanted to be a brother she would be proud of if she saw me. Of course, that alone couldn’t explain all my actions.

The biggest reason lay in a more intimate place.

Where my desires and thoughts converged.

Deeper inside than my reluctance or my desire to avoid regret.

I confronted the reason I had hidden from myself.

It seemed I had grown more attached to this world of Grim Darker than I realized.

And for good reason.

Though I started playing this game to understand my sister after she disappeared, it had now become a part of me.

I couldn’t help but view it favorably simply because it was a world my sister had loved.

But as I followed in her footsteps, I realized I had genuinely come to love this world.

That was partly thanks to the Homunculus Mourner build.

The image of pushing through any obstacle or interference without wavering.

The fortitude to not yield despite countless pains and hindrances.

It was essentially the ideal I wanted to become.

I wanted to be like that.

I wanted to live that way in a life full of pain and obstacles.

I thought I wanted to become such a strong person that everyone would look up to me.

To be supported, and someday help and speak to people like me.

To tell them that I was once like them.

Becoming a strong person who could say such things—perhaps that was what I truly desired?

So I regretted. As I was dying, many regrets surfaced.

I should have been more adventurous.

I should have reciprocated when Isla showed affection toward me.

I should have done more good deeds.

I should have met my sister.

All those regrets filled my mind chaotically before slowly draining away.

Like blood flowing from a cross-section. Even realizing the futility of all those regrets, I still regretted.

Thump.

I came to my senses at the sound of a heartbeat that shouldn’t be audible.

Thump, thump.

Not the sound of my heart.

It belonged to some transcendent being too vast for humans to comprehend, so only its heartbeat could be heard.

It pitied me.

It looked down upon me as if it couldn’t just watch and pass by.

I could feel that touch, that gaze.

I conveyed my will to that being.

What use was pity when I was already dying?

Unexpectedly, contrary to my thought that it would be just a complaint muttered to myself, my will reached that being.

It sent me some kind of meaning.

‘This is the second time.’

That’s how it felt. A faint will transmitted through the pulsing sound.

What did it mean by “second time”?

Despite my lack of understanding, the being offered no explanation.

It simply stated calmly:

‘There won’t be a third time.’

And at the periphery, like a moon halo, another drifting will:

Live without regrets.

With that, I felt as if someone had pushed my non-existent back.

Screeeeeech!

And my eyes opened.

“Ah, ugh, uh…!”

Pain lacerated my body. My body trembled involuntarily, my back hunched, and my clenched teeth made cracking sounds as they broke and regenerated.

“Kuh, huh, this, damn…”

My neck reattached, and wounds burned as they healed.

A transcendent power coursing through every nerve and vessel in my entire body raised me up.

Despite blood spontaneously pouring from my mouth and feeling something burst from my bulging eyes.

I rose with a roar.

As if expressing the unbearable pain and some energy surging through my body ready to explode, I lifted my head high and roared.

With the roar, strength drained away. Twitching muscles settled, and swollen blood vessels calmed.

In place of the subsided pain, I felt countless gazes upon me.

“…Father?”

Blood Knight Lorian muttered blankly.

“Ruwellin!”

Isla, relieved yet ready to help, holding her crossbow.

“No, no, no, nooooo!”

The dragon roared. Blood dripped from its mouth, and despite the pain of twisted vocal cords crushing its brain.

“An impostor, a mere impostor!”

It charged with jaws wide open. A sudden massive presence sent my body flying.

With a ripping sound, my body soared. I heard the dragon’s roar.

A roar filled with resentment. Despite scattered armor pieces and a body that began tearing again as soon as it regenerated.

I knew what I had to do.

To push through interference and move forward.

[Mourning]

Pain raced up my spine as I collided with the wall.

Blood welled up in my mouth and dripped down, and I saw the massive dragon flying toward me, flapping its wings faster.

And I swung my fist toward the dragon’s head as it flew at me.

My arm was torn off from the elbow. But I didn’t care.

Gooooooooooo!

The dragon’s charge missed, and though it knocked me back after pummeling me, the dragon wasn’t unscathed either.

Scales peeled off the rolling dragon, and fluid flowed from its dented skull.

Even so, it turned its jaws to bite me, but.

Thunk!

A precisely shot crossbow bolt struck.

Squish!

The bolt pierced the dragon’s eye precisely. Isla, with tear stains on her face, quickly threw herself aside to avoid the tail.

“Hup!”

In the gap created, the Mourner leaped up and brought down a clenched fist, driving the dragon’s head, which had just begun to rise, into the floor.

In that moment, I saw the Blood Knight.

The Blood Knight, wandering and looking at me. Soldiers around her, frozen in indecision.

They had no choice.

At best, they could kill us and then fight and lose to the dragon, or fight the dragon and then face us afterward.

Realistically, it had to be the latter. For a Blood Knight who chose to attack steadfastly even when her gender changed, the choice was obvious.

Eventually, the Blood Knight gritted her teeth and.

“Everyone, assemble! Subdue Nerilmeius!”

She decided to assist me. As they each drew their weapons and charged, the dragon bulged its remaining eye and opened its maw.

A breath attack. But it didn’t follow through. Without hesitation, one of the soldiers who stepped forward extended a hand with an incantation, and a solid sphere enveloped us.

Kwaaaaaaaa!

The breath attack deflected around the barrier, and the Blood Knight stood beside me with complicated eyes.

No words were necessary. We who had exchanged swords understood each other. I ran forward, and the Blood Knight followed with her soldiers.

I swung my regenerated fist, stomped with my leg, and threw my body to avoid the swinging tail or front paws.

The soldiers died one by one, unable to fend off the swarming undead, and some even died after being caught in the dragon’s attacks they failed to see in time.

But the Blood Knight faithfully followed me.

“Blood bag!”

She threw her sword. A sword blazing with flames. Star Blade.

I caught it and thrust it toward the tail rushing at me. Changing my footing, slightly twisting my waist for a horizontal slash.

The decapitation sword, following the exact trajectory I swung, completely severed the tail I had cut, and the severed end floated in the air.

The tail wasn’t the end. We advanced together, swinging our swords in coordination.

Toes, tail, skin, and even the maw.

Kwaaaaaaang!

A front paw I failed to dodge pummeled my body, but soldiers filled the gap as I was sent flying.

Each one as strong as the Aulbear shapeshifters I had fought before.

Powerful individuals who could wound the dragon’s body, though they died before me without regeneration and vitality.

The fact that they were originally enemies, or that they had come to take me away, was secondary.

Against the calamity of the rampaging dragon, we formed a temporary alliance.

The sword in my hand rolled on the floor, and the dragon, rampaging and crushing soldiers and knocking away the Blood Knight.

It was charging toward me.

From beginning to now, the dragon was only interested in me.

At first, it tried to protect me, thinking I was its father.

Now, it wanted to kill me for daring to impersonate its father.

The dragon, Nerilmeius, hated me more than anyone else here.

So much that it prioritized me over the countless others attacking it.

There is no rationality in a madman. For them, reason exists only in their twisted minds.

I extended my left hand toward the maw trying to devour me.

Squish!

At the moment of collision, cracks spread across my armor.

I realized through experience. Iron Man could not only adjust the location of the shot.

It could also adjust the direction of the shot.

So I let cracks spread across my entire armor.

The cracks covering my entire body simultaneously lacerated me, until they were fired with massive recoil.

Crack-crack-crack-crack!

Countless iron fragments were fired. Only forward, toward the dragon trying to devour me.

Naturally, my armor-clad body was reduced to tatters, and flowing blood covered the area.

Even the dragon, momentarily stopped by the sudden barrage of iron fragments to its head, visibly faltered.

But it wouldn’t last long. The dragon would soon resume its attack, and if that happened, I had no chance of winning.

There was only one opportunity. I clenched my fist.

Placing my tattered, bloody left arm in the dragon’s maw, I pulled back my right fist.

Then, in the dispersing breath, the world condensed.

The condensed world gathered in my fist.

I had been resurrected from death twice.

Once when I jumped from the fortress of the Three Clans.

And once just now.

My spirit and body had gone through two deaths.

As a result, I could intuitively feel the connection between spirit and body.

That ‘connection’ cannot normally be touched.

But the closer death approaches, the closer the opponent’s death is.

The opportunity to interfere with that connection increases.

The power increases, and the range expands.

No one explained it to me, but I intuitively knew.

This technique isn’t listed in the status window and doesn’t exist in the game.

It was mine alone, usable only by me who had gone through two deaths.

I extended my fist forward.

Then the world turned monochrome and stopped.

Crack!

The sound of something breaking. The sound of engraved cracks twisting deeply.

In the monochrome world, cracks raced.

From my fist to Nerilmeius’s massive body.

The world I had condensed extended from my fist, engraving cracks.

Deeper cracks than those engraved on armor.

With the world frozen, only my soul and Nerilmeius’s moved.

Crack.

A splitting soul. A crumbling body.

This attack cannot be avoided.

This attack grows stronger the closer death is.

This attack cannot be blocked even by a dragon with the hardest scales.

In the completely monochrome world, my mouth moved beyond reason.

“Mortal.”

As color returned to the world.

Crack, crumble!

Along the cracks, the soul burned brightly.