Ch.890Broken Mask

Imitation never surpasses the original.

The clash between the fake Celestial Horse Summoner and the original Celestial Horse could only flow in favor of the latter, as was all too natural.

“You were talking big, but are you tired already? Your cold energy has become quite lukewarm!”

In other words, in my favor.

“Kyaaaaa—!”

I unleashed a superhuman barrage of attacks, sparing no ability except for my overly conspicuous flight and sky-cutting techniques.

Karma of Murder. Flame. Collapse. Severance.

All those powers were admirably destructive, and they even had perfect compatibility against Persiella’s abilities.

– Kwajajajak!

Ice spikes shooting up from the ground shatter as they collide with the spikes of murder karma spreading through the same ground.

– Kwaoooo…!

The freezing cold that was icing the atmosphere dissipates as it mixes with the rune’s flames, creating a violent windstorm.

– Pueoeoeong!

The ice barrier she deployed to block my attack explodes into powder the moment it touches the power of collapse engraved on my left arm.

– Kwadeudeuk!

The “Frost Claw” shatters from within as it clashes with “Hwibyek,” and Durandal, imbued with the power of spatial cutting, slices through the Dragonborn’s scales—the hardest material on earth—like tofu.

It was a perfect match.

And one where I had the overwhelming advantage.

Moreover, unlike Persiella who had to consume considerable mana to break through the Tagubongjin, I still had plenty of strength left thanks to conserving my karma of murder.

“Kuuugh…! You, vile—”

“Surely you’re not going to whine about me being vile? This is your own doing.”

Persiella, who had not yet obtained the power level of the original work, had absolutely no chance of winning.

“This is the price for wastefully squandering your mana trying to show off the dignity of the Celestial Horse.”

“You fiendish thing…!”

Persiella growled, grinding her teeth with a voice full of dismay. Like a cornered dog barking fiercely.

Her previous appearance, overflowing with arrogance, had completely disappeared, replaced by a truly miserable state.

Of course, the plate armor I was wearing had also cracked like glass in various places after repeatedly overheating and overcooling, and I had some sword wounds on my body from slashes that penetrated the Unyielding Flesh’s protection, but…

“Is this really your limit? Seeing you growl without being able to refute anything…”

It was nothing compared to Persiella’s condition.

Blood dripping down her arms. Lacerations where scales had been torn away. Hair and clothes soaked and clinging from melted ice.

Even the mask she had been wearing was damaged beyond repair from the impact of our clash, looking like it would crumble into pieces at the slightest touch.

Though she was stubbornly holding on, endurance was her only option.

After persisting until both her innate mana and the mana in the atmosphere were completely depleted, she would become lizard sashimi in less than ten seconds.

Unless she suddenly spouted nonsense like “Actually, I’ve been hiding my power too” and powered up.

“…Descendant of the Twelve Killers. I thought it was just typical human exaggeration, but to think you were this powerful…!”

Persiella muttered while freezing her wounds to stop the bleeding.

What an inhuman method of hemostasis, befitting a Dragonborn. If a human had done something like that, it would have turned a minor injury into a major one.

“Is that all for your last words? Then I’d appreciate it if you’d hurry up and die. I have quite a lot to do.”

I tossed aside the shattered dragon-scale sword like garbage while suppressing my bleeding with the power of murder karma.

“After killing you, I need to find and kill Bernard wherever he’s hiding, then advise the remaining Dragonborn to stop their nonsense and go home.”

That should bring some peace to the Dragon Kingdom. Probably.

“So, just die already!”

With a fierce roar, I kicked off the ground and launched my body. Thrusting the blue-silver longsword firmly gripped in both hands like the blade of a guillotine.

“I admit it. That as I am now, I cannot defeat you…!”

Persiella straightened her back while staggering, raised her scale-covered left hand to grasp her mask, and shouted.

That as she is now, she cannot defeat me.

‘…As she is now?’

At the ominous tone contained in those words, I frowned deeply and put more strength into my advancing steps.

– Kwaang!

The ground exploded. My accelerated body cut through the air like a shell. The blue arc extended toward Persiella’s neck like a comet’s tail.

However.

“Kaaaap!”

As Persiella applied force to her left hand and crushed her mask into pieces, her waning aura suddenly surged nearly twofold.

– Kaaaang!

A clear collision sound. Persiella’s sword blocked Durandal, which had been aiming for her neck. It was an impressive display of strength.

I suspected it, and sure enough, she had been hiding some kind of trump card…!

If you had something like that, why not use it from the beginning!

I clicked my tongue and twisted my waist to kick her head with my right foot.

– Pueoeoek!

Persiella blocked my leg with her left arm that had been covering her face. Her body lurched greatly and slid sideways.

“You blocked it? You actually blocked it?”

I landed and bent my knees, adjusting my posture. To crush Persiella, whose strength had roughly doubled just from breaking her mask, along with that newfound power.

And when I raised my head to look in the direction Persiella had been pushed, she too lowered her left arm and glared at me.

With a hudududuk sound, pieces of the mask fell away. And finally, Persiella’s bare face behind the mask was revealed.

“—You have seen it.”

Persiella muttered through gritted teeth, her voice filled with killing intent.

“My face…!”

Dragonborn are a race that increasingly resembles dragons as they grow stronger.

Just as Kalix’s face had completely transformed into a lizard-like visage, Persiella, who had reached the limit of Heaven’s Wall, should rightfully have had a long face resembling a dragon.

Indeed, her bare face had several features reminiscent of a dragon.

Golden pupils reminiscent of reptiles.

Pointed ears with membranes.

Sharp fangs and silver horns covered with scales.

These were characteristics that clearly indicated her Dragonborn lineage to anyone who saw them.

“Why are you so angry? Do you have some kind of complex about your face?”

But only up to that point.

“Well, it’s not really a Dragonborn face, is it?”

I pointed at Persiella’s face with my left index finger and smirked.

“It’s quite strange. I heard Dragonborn are a race that cannot produce mixed-blood offspring, so what method did you use?”

Mixed-blood.

There was no other way to describe her appearance.

“Ah, perhaps the truth is that mixed-blood children can be created, but no human would want to mate with a lizard, so mixed-blood children aren’t born? Something like that?”

Her face resembled a human’s too closely in every aspect except for the horns, fangs, pupils, and ears.

“Close that mouth…!”

“Wow, this is truly a product of possibility. I’m personally quite curious about who your father was to have mated with a lizard.”

“Kiaaaaaaak-!”

Persiella filled her eyes with rage and let out a ferocious scream.

“I will not let you live. I shall not let you live! Anyone who has witnessed this appearance must be killed without exception!”

What’s she on about?

“Your parents too? Ah, is that why you gave off such strong orphan vibes? I guess there really were no exceptions.”

“Kyaaaaaaak!”

Persiella raised her sword with a monstrous scream.

“If you cannot close that mouth of yours, I shall force it shut!”

An immense power dwelled within the blade forged from dragon scales. Something completely different from mana.

‘Huh?’

A vague intuition whispered to me.

The new power that the woman before me had drawn out was bizarrely twisted and distorted, utterly alien…

‘That is…’

But its essence was undoubtedly the blessing that only pure-blooded humans could possess.

The power of Karma.

“Ha, interesting.”

A smirking smile escaped my lips.

An impossible hybrid of human and Dragonborn. The blessing called Karma that should be denied to mixed-bloods.

Persiella, who had revealed her final trump card, was an anomalous existence that was difficult to explain.

Almost as much as myself.

“Did I look so easy to you that you think you can show off just because your strength increased a bit?”

I raised the corners of my mouth and overlaid the power of murder karma onto my body.

– Kiiiiii!

The blade imbued with the power of spatial severance tore through the air with a fierce scream, and the power of murder karma, fully invested in strengthening my body, churned and boiled on my skin.

“Falling Star Sword—”

Persiella, who had awakened both Karma and mana, pulled her sword back behind her shoulder and extended her left arm forward.

Blue streams of light wrapped around her blade like threads, eventually becoming a storm of ice blades swirling above the sword.

– Hwiooooo…!

The whirlwind of cold compressed smaller and spun faster. The air around the blade froze completely and shattered.

And when the rotation reached its peak,

“Break Army—!”

Persiella thrust her sword toward me, releasing all the compressed power at once.

– Kwagwagwagwagwa!

A vortex of cold, terribly frigid and terribly sharp, ground through everything between her and me as it shot forward.

Perhaps it was because the power of Karma had been added. It was certainly a power of a different level compared to her previous techniques.

‘With that level of power, wouldn’t she deserve the name Celestial Horse?’

[ Not in the slightest. ]

Hersella cut off my joke sharply. Her tone suggested she was quite upset for some reason I couldn’t quite understand.

‘Oh, really?’

I shrugged my shoulders lightly, then launched my body toward the whirlwind of cold, straightening my bent knees.

– Kiiiiing!

While tearing apart and collapsing space itself with Durandal exerting the power of severance.

A thunderous roar shook heaven and earth.

======[ Apostle ]======

On a remote mountain ridge, several hundred meters away from the training ground where Persiella and Haschal were engaged in fierce battle.

“You’re listening, aren’t you, Feirus? The worst prediction has come true.”

The fifth apostle, Beast Tamer Bernard Feiler, was overlooking the battlefield from there.

“The variable that had not shown any trace of its whereabouts. As expected, he was here.”

With a communication crystal clutched in his left hand.

“…How is the battle situation?”

Feirus asked in a troubled tone.

“Not good. Because Persiella, who should have been our trump card, has been tied up by the variable, the battle situation is flowing unfavorably. At this rate—”

“No, I don’t care about the lives of the Dragonborn.”

Feirus interrupted Bernard’s words. For him, the direction of the civil war was not even worth caring about.

“Whether they’re orthodox or heretical Dragonborn, they will all become sacrifices for the Holy Grail.”

As long as one side was annihilated, enough deaths would gather to break Heaven’s Wall.

It would be even better if both sides were completely destroyed.

“What I’m asking about is not that, but the battle between Persiella and the variable.”

Therefore, the only issue Feirus cared about was the fight between the variable—Haschal.

The variable who had reached the limit allowed by Heaven’s Wall and was unable to claim the karma accumulated from killing enemies as her own, instead dedicating it to strengthening the wall.

If by any chance she slaughtered Persiella, it was hard to even imagine how much stronger the wall would become.

“…I don’t know. It’s not so simple to gauge the depths of those stronger than myself. Both sides are truly monsters beyond imagination.”

Bernard answered thus, then sighed deeply before speaking again.

“Either way, neither outcome would be welcome to you. Isn’t that right, Feirus?”

If Persiella dies, the very meaning of instigating the civil war disappears.

The Dragonborn souls collected so far would not be enough to break through Heaven’s Wall, which would be further strengthened by Persiella’s death.

Conversely, if Haschal falls, that too would be something Feirus, who cherishes the “variable,” could never accept.

“……”

“Though I am the fifth… I advise you as an apostle. Feirus, didn’t you say you had a final measure that could correct things even if they went wrong?”

The final measure. That was why Bernard had reported the situation of the Dragon Kingdom to Feirus.

“From my perspective, now seems to be precisely the time to use that ‘final measure.'”

Things had certainly gone wrong, so something needed to be done before the entire plan collapsed.

Just then, Persiella’s Break Army and Haschal’s Severance collided like two stars crashing into each other.

– Kwaaaaaaaang!

The storm of cold was torn apart spatially and exploded, producing a thunderous sound that made the mountain tremble.

“…Before it’s too late.”

Bernard finished his report while watching the scene with anxious eyes, then launched himself toward the battlefield.

Having completed his role as the fifth apostle, it was now time to fight as the Beast Tamer of the Celestial Horse Divine Palace.

—-

“Hmmmm….”

Feirus looked down at the crystal with the communication cut off and let out a groan mixed with worry.

‘…Should I use it?’

As Bernard had said, he had a means to somehow overcome this situation.

However, despite possessing such means, Feirus could not use it immediately and hesitated, falling into contemplation.

‘It’s such a waste. Such a terrible waste….’

Feirus sighed and opened his left hand, staring intently at his palm.

-Grooooooo…!

More precisely, at the black-gray soul mass that was constantly churning within it.

‘…And I had finally obtained a dragon’s soul.’

Nidhogg’s soul.

The dragon’s soul that Feirus had obtained after a fierce battle in the deep underground waterway during his infiltration of Extrashafel was churning in his hand.

That was the final measure that Feirus could deploy at the current point.

If he offered the dragon’s soul to the Holy Grail—a soul of incomparably higher grade than those of humans or Dragonborn—it would easily be worth at least ten thousand human souls.

That would be more than enough to break the wall.

‘However….’

A dragon’s soul was too precious a treasure to be consumed for such a purpose.

Even Feirus was reluctant to offer it.

While he had been able to obtain Nidhogg’s soul relatively easily because it was like maggots clinging to a corpse, getting the soul of a healthy dragon was nearly impossible even for him.

“Hmmmm….”

In front of the altar in the quiet shrine, the sighs of the man lost in contemplation continued to echo endlessly.