Ch.828Misjudgment and Misjudgment

Mersin’s prediction had more or less come true.

In other words, it hadn’t matched perfectly.

Well, if someone could perfectly envision a situation several days ahead with just a few pieces of information, that would no longer be prediction but rather the realm of prophecy.

Though it might be regrettable for Targiyan and Mersin himself, Mersin was no prophet and thus lacked the ability to demonstrate such talent.

Besides, unlike the “warrior-like” Targiyan—in both good and bad senses—his opponents in this battle of wits were the leader of the sorcerers and his successor, who preferred using their tongues and minds over wielding swords.

“…You say Imara is fleeing westward, evading Targiyan’s pursuit?”

“Yes. Fortunately, she appears to be safe so far, but—”

“It’s a trap. If Targiyan were truly serious, he couldn’t have failed to capture Imara. He must be using her as bait to lure the Blue Banner Army outside of Ordos.”

One of Mersin’s purposes in releasing Imara had been figured out long ago, just from the circumstance that she was still on the run.

“Then should we leave Princess Imara be?”

“Certainly not. I know exactly what she has seen—how could I possibly let her go?”

Meiharin knew. She knew that her daughter, Imara, had witnessed the ritual site of the great sorcery hidden in the underground dungeon.

And she had even told the absurd lie that she herself had permitted it.

This meant that, with one misstep, Meiharin’s own identity might spread throughout the entire Great Plains.

The Imara she knew was a short-sighted child who didn’t know how to watch her words, and would likely carelessly blabber without even considering what it meant to be a sorcerer’s daughter or how dangerous it would be to reveal such information.

That’s why Meiharin couldn’t ignore this, even knowing it was a trap set by Targiyan.

“I will handle bringing Imara back myself. Tell Sahakal to dispatch troops and engage Targiyan’s forces. There’s no need for all-out war—it’s enough to just keep their main force occupied.”

She could only choose a method that would minimize losses while retrieving Imara.

“Will that be all right?”

“What do you mean?”

“Given the circumstances, Princess Imara is undoubtedly fleeing toward the Wall. If we’re not careful, those sent to retrieve her might encounter the Patricidal Wolf…”

The Patricidal Wolf, Haschal. A monster in human form capable of facing an entire legion alone.

If she were to discover warriors approaching the Wall and reveal herself before them, the warriors Meiharin would send wouldn’t just fail to recover Imara—they wouldn’t even be able to save their own lives.

“Ah. As for that woman… there’s no need to worry. A Khan who has just established her Gurun couldn’t possibly be wandering around so leisurely. She’s surely too busy dealing with mountains of state affairs to even leave the palace for an outing. So there’s nothing to worry about.”

Haschal would be buried under piles of documents and wouldn’t have time to personally address minor disturbances near the Wall. That’s what Meiharin thought.

It was a sensible and rational judgment. The Haschal she remembered was a violent and barbaric wild dog of a woman, but at least not one to neglect her duties.

How could she have possibly known?

That the Queen of Hestella, the kingdom beyond the Wall, was not the Haschal she knew, but someone entirely different who had taken possession of that body.

Contrary to Meiharin’s expectation that she would be too busy with queenly duties to move an inch, the current Haschal had dumped all the complicated and troublesome state affairs on a puppet she had appointed as regent, while she herself focused entirely on military training.

This was something no normal ruler would do even with dirt in both eyes.

It was said that power shouldn’t be shared even between parent and child, yet to entrust someone else with the authority to oversee state affairs? This was behavior perfectly suited for becoming a figurehead rather than a true ruler.

From the beginning, the position of regent itself was a role meant to control state affairs at one’s own discretion while using a weak king as a figurehead, so it was inconceivable that any monarch would voluntarily appoint a regent without being forced to do so.

Therefore—

======[ Imara ]======

Berengaria, the dozens-of-meters-high wall separating the Great Plains from the Empire.

Due to insufficient time and resources to fully repair the sections damaged by the rune of collapse, it was an unsightly structure with wooden palisades mixed in here and there among the collapsed stone walls…

Nevertheless, Berengaria still fulfilled its role as a solid barrier dividing east and west.

The Ka’har of Orhan’s time might have been able to break through the palisade sections by striking them like a hammer, but the current Ka’har were too busy checking each other and gathering power to even think about looking westward.

In other words, the very approach of Ka’har warriors near the Wall was an extremely unusual situation from the Empire’s perspective.

And now, such an unusual situation…

“…Who are you people? You don’t seem to be Targiyan’s hunting dogs.”

Had become an undeniable reality.

“Be at ease. We are not warriors of the pretender Targiyan, but the Empress Dowager’s personal guard sent to escort you back to Ordos.”

Ten miles from Berengaria, in the middle of the wilderness. Imara glared at the twenty men surrounding her, gripping two daggers firmly.

A desperate situation. Her warhorse had suddenly coughed blood and collapsed dead, so she could no longer flee, and she had long since used up all her bow arrows shaking off Targiyan’s pursuit.

The only weapons she had left were about seven daggers. It was a situation where she couldn’t even properly resist, let alone defeat the men surrounding her.

“My mother sent you?”

“Yes. Your mother is anxiously waiting for the princess to return safely to the palace.”

Sharp eyes filled with hostility and rejection scanned the appearance of the men surrounding her.

Men wearing black leather windbreakers with hoods pulled down to cover their faces, and necklaces strung with animal claws and bird feathers around their necks.

Though they carried spears and swords, their attire didn’t suggest they were warriors.

Imara instinctively realized. The men surrounding her were not warriors, but sorcerers who practiced dark arts like her mother.

“Return… What if I refuse?”

“…Please stop this meaningless resistance. Since you’re going back anyway, wouldn’t it be better to return with your body intact?”

The man who stepped forward as the sorcerers’ representative sneered with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

To this high sorcerer of the ‘White Valley,’ Imara’s defiance was nothing more than a child’s tantrum.

The difference in skill was so great that he could burst her heart with a single gesture—it would be several times harder to control his power to avoid killing her than to fight her.

‘Even so…!’

Though Imara instinctively knew she couldn’t win… she had no other option. It was clear that nothing good would come from giving up resistance and being dragged back.

“Whether it’s meaningless or not… we’ll have to see!”

So instead of putting down her weapons and surrendering, she twisted her waist and threw the daggers she was holding like arrows.

Two streams of steel blades shot toward the throat and heart.

“Foolish act.”

At this blatant yet futile resistance, the man let out a hollow laugh and raised his right hand, wiggling his fingers grotesquely.

Sorcery. The crystallization of power that westerners called mana gathered at his fingertips and stretched out like a snake.

– Caw!

“What…?!”

The sudden cry of a bird.

Imara’s eyes widened. The moment her thrown daggers were enveloped by the streams of light emitted by the man, they writhed like clay and transformed into two crows that flapped their wings.

“Please allow yourself to be captured quietly. I’d like to return as quickly as possible.”

The man plucked one of his own hairs, placed it on his palm, and gently blew on it as if cooling tea, sending the plucked hair flying toward Imara.

The hair, flying in a straight line toward Imara, gradually grew larger as it got closer to her, and finally transformed into a black snake that coiled around her entire body.

“Ugh…!”

Imara, helplessly bound, contorted her face and collapsed. It was truly a meaningless resistance that ended with a single strike, just as the sorcerer had promised.

“Kuh…! Release me this instant! This thing, this thing…!”

Even while bound, Imara tried somehow to draw her remaining dagger to cut through the black snake coiled around her, but somehow the snake, which had been mere hair, wouldn’t be scratched or cut no matter how much she slashed or stabbed.

“Always making things difficult…”

Swallowing the rest of his thought—”this girl who has nothing but well-born parents”—the sorcerer approached Imara, who was struggling against the binding spell, with a crooked smile on his lips.

To drag her back to Ordos as ordered by their master, the Great Sorceress Meiharin.

It was then.

– Kwaooooo-!

With a thunderous sound echoing from the sky, a crimson flame resembling a comet burst through the clouds and plummeted down.

“That’s, could it be…!”

“Impossible, why here…!”

“Have we been discovered?!”

“Damn it, they said we could rest easy!”

The White Valley sorcerers surrounding Imara looked up at the sky, uttering shocked exclamations.

Their previous composure and confidence had completely vanished, their wide eyes filled only with terror and confusion.

They already knew the identity of the crimson trajectory soaring through the sky like a hawk and plunging down like a meteor.

“Retreat! Retreat!”

The high sorcerer who had been trying to capture Imara urgently turned around and shouted for retreat. Now that “that thing” had appeared, capturing Imara was as good as failed.

Just as Imara had been powerless against them and neutralized, they couldn’t even dream of confronting that thing with their power.

“It’s him…! The reincarnation of the Celestial Demon, Abha Knight Haschal is coming!”

With someone’s despairing cry—

– Kwaaaang!

The blood-colored comet struck the earth like a nightmare.

The ground, melted by the heat, turned to lava and exploded in all directions.