Ch.710Premature Awakening

– Crack.

Alfodhr’s first apostle, Feirus, raised his head with a start at the sudden strange sensation.

A feeling like his fingernails were shattering stimulated his mind. A sensation all too familiar to a mage—the feeling of his magic formula being broken.

‘The soul veil has been breached…?’

The perception-inhibiting magic he had planted throughout the underground waterways to prevent the imperials from discovering Nidhogg’s corpse.

Despite using human souls as mana sources, which should have maintained the spells for decades without his intervention, they were breaking one after another.

‘Did Elpinel’s agent perform some purification miracle throughout the waterways…? No, even then, they shouldn’t be able to destroy the formula itself. At most, they could only temporarily weaken the perception-inhibiting effect….’

Feirus furrowed his brow. Even as he pondered what was happening, the soul veils continued to shatter one after another.

The speed was alarmingly fast. As if someone knew exactly where his formulas were hidden.

‘…This is troublesome. At this rate, it won’t take long before it’s discovered.’

It was truly problematic.

Although he had already extracted Nidhogg’s soul, the worm dragon still slumbered at the bottom of the underground waterway. With a body being reconstructed through the multiplication and fusion of hundreds of millions of worms.

If the Empire witnessed this sight, they would immediately try to destroy the worm dragon’s body. The dragon, having devoted all its energy to physical reconstruction while suppressing its consciousness, would be unable to resist.

‘…Should I wake it?’

Feirus pondered with his chin resting on his hand. Awakening the worm dragon itself wasn’t particularly difficult.

Even though it was a soulless body, a severely degraded version of the original, it was still a dragon—he had implanted a command spell in its skull to use it at full power when needed.

Feirus had originally planned to awaken the worm dragon only after the war between the Empire and the Ka’har had ended. So that the “variable” who had defeated Orhan would return to the archipelago instead of marching toward the Great Plains with the momentum of victory.

That was why he had assured the Third Apostle not to worry.

If the worm dragon started rampaging near the archipelago, the Empire’s First Sword would have no choice but to abandon the eastern expedition and return.

Although the Third Apostle had lost the Eighth Apostle and things had gone awry with the Dane due to her distrust and independent actions, Feirus had no intention of abandoning her.

Cutting ties with her would mean completely losing information and influence in the Great Plains.

However, that plan had been disrupted with the breaking of the soul veil.

‘I didn’t expect to wake it this early.’

Feirus sighed. It was far too soon. The dragon’s body needed at least several more tens of days to complete.

The war between the Empire and the Ka’har hadn’t even ended yet, but he was being forced to wake an incomplete worm dragon. He couldn’t help but sigh at the situation.

‘I have no choice.’

However, if he didn’t awaken the worm dragon now, he would lose the dragon’s body he had worked so hard to obtain. There was no other option.

‘Before that, I should contact Eleonora first….’

Just before awakening the command spell implanted in the dragon’s brain, Feirus picked up a communication artifact to inform the Seventh Apostle in the archipelago about the dragon’s impending appearance.

– Woooong!

The crystal ball in his hand vibrated softly, emitting a gentle mana light.

For quite some time.

‘…She’s not answering. Is she in a situation where communication is impossible?’

However, there was no response from the Seventh Apostle. As if she couldn’t take the call right now.

‘I assigned guards to her, so there shouldn’t be any problems with her safety… Perhaps the Radiant Emperor has visited her.’

He could roughly guess why there was no response. After Eleonora returned to the archipelago, Emperor Leopold would occasionally visit her secretly for brief conversations.

According to Eleonora, he was trying to relieve the mental fatigue from governing by conversing with his younger sister.

He was a pitiful human. Even in Feirus’s eyes.

A man born with flawless lineage and talent who would have been praised as a wise ruler in peaceful times, yet was swept into an inescapable era of chaos and becoming worn down by responsibility.

He lost his mother to Isabella’s schemes, faced assassination threats since childhood, and even after ascending to the throne, instead of enjoying luxury, he maintained the reckless belief that an emperor must take responsibility for all imperial citizens, living an unbearably tight schedule filled with political affairs…

‘…A pitiful man indeed.’

In any case, with communication with the Seventh Apostle impossible, Feirus had no choice but to proceed. He had to trust that the guards he had assigned would protect her safely.

『 Awaken. 』

‘―Surgit.’

Feirus commanded the spell possessing the worm dragon’s brain. To wake from its long, deep slumber and spread its wings toward the sky.

-Grrrrrrrrr….

At the deepest part of the archipelago. At the bottom of the underground waterway, the worm dragon that had been sleeping finally rose.

—-

‘What is this…?!’

The first to detect the anomaly was Ophelia van Sigmillus, who was leading the investigation team toward where the dragon slumbered.

She stared down at the ground dozens of meters below with her five-colored eyes wide open.

A massive—no, even “massive” was woefully inadequate—tremendous torrent of dark mana. Literally, a tsunami of dark mana was rising like lava from deep underground.

‘This, this dark mana…! Could it be alive? The worm dragon?!’

Ophelia’s face turned deathly pale.

The worm dragon Nidhogg, one of the disaster dragons. Nothing else could explain the dark mana she was sensing now except that such a being had awakened.

“Everyone escape from here! Right now!!”

Ophelia turned around, shouting with desperate urgency. The mage tower wizards who had followed her had also detected the dark mana surging from below and were pale with fear.

“L-Lady Sigmillus. T-this dark mana, could it be…?”

Ophelia gritted her teeth and said.

“Yes, we need to go up and report immediately. The disaster dragon, Nidhogg, is about to appear…!”

A calamity that would sweep across the archipelago was approaching.

—-

Ophelia and the search team members rushed out of the waterway to the surface as if their tails were on fire.

“Why is everyone suddenly…? Has something happened in the waterway, Lady Sigmillus?”

“Yes, it’s an emergency!”

Upon reaching the surface, Ophelia, with a face turned blue with fear, informed the guards who were looking at the emerging mages with bewildered expressions about the dragon’s revival.

“Elpinel have mercy…! Is that true?!”

The guards jumped in shock, their faces showing no less horror than the mages. No, they were even more shocked.

While the search team members had begun their investigation after hearing that dragon remains might be buried underground, the guards were merely soldiers managing access to the underground waterways.

“I don’t have time to argue with the likes of you! Run to the Imperial Palace, the Church, and the Mage Tower right now and report that a dark mana-filled disaster dragon is about to emerge, so they need to devise countermeasures!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Gone was her usual composed and dignified demeanor befitting a former count’s daughter and high-ranking mage, replaced by an urgent and sharp tone filled with anxiety and impatience.

Sensing the gravity of the situation through her demeanor, the guard dispatched his men on horseback to the Imperial Palace, the Grand Cathedral, and the Mage Tower.

“Ah, damn it. Of all times for Haschal to be away…!”

Watching the military horses galloping away urgently, Ophelia bit her lip tightly.

Haschal gone, Frider gone, even the 3rd Corps absent—a disaster dragon awakening in such circumstances. It was the worst possible scenario.

So bad that she should even consider fleeing with Claire.

“Lady Sigmillus, what should we do…?”

The mages who had escaped with her asked cautiously. Ophelia turned to them sharply and snapped.

“Aren’t you all from the Mage Tower? What are you doing? Run or fly to the tower! What good will staying here do except get you killed?”

“What about you, Lady Sigmillus—”

“I’m returning to the mansion. I need to gather whatever forces we have. I don’t know how much help we’ll be without Haschal, but still.”

Immediately after finishing her words, Ophelia lifted herself into the air and flew toward the mansion of the Thousand Swords, Haschal’s personal knights.

Levitation magic that manipulated air currents.

It was an unstable spell where even a slight disruption in mana control could lead to immediate falling, and it required tremendous practice to fly freely… but traveling in a straight line wasn’t particularly difficult for Ophelia.

‘Who’s at the mansion right now? Demian and Millia. And those two drunk fairies?’

…Not a single reliable force among them.

In Ophelia’s view, those who remained behind from the eastern war were all either lacking in skill or character. Including herself.