Ch.905Each One’s Reaction (2)

Persiella, who had retreated after gathering the forces of the Celestial Dragon Palace because she judged she couldn’t defeat Amitamir with her current strength.

“…She defeated it?”

She let out a hollow laugh filled with frustration upon hearing the news that Amitamir had fallen without returning to the Small Forest.

Meaning that if she had known things would turn out this way, she should have continued fighting instead of retreating.

“Interesting. That woman still had such power remaining…”

An unexpected outcome. Persiella lightly tapped the lower jaw of her newly worn mask and clicked her tongue.

She had clearly seemed so exhausted that she could barely perform proper techniques, yet instead of being killed by the dragon, she had managed to slay it.

It was hard to believe.

“Then… had we continued fighting without the dragon variable, I would have ultimately lost.”

While Persiella thought she had been fighting an equal battle, in reality, her opponent had been hiding overwhelming reserves of power.

Enough power to accomplish the slaying of a dragon, no less.

“According to my subordinate’s report, it was thanks to a joint attack with the Holy State’s border guards…”

“Nonsense. What help could such beings provide against a dragon? They would turn to ash with a single blow.”

Persiella dismissed her subordinate’s additional explanation as ignorant babble.

As someone who had directly faced that dragon, she judged that the Holy State’s mere Paladins would be lucky if they didn’t get in the way, let alone provide assistance.

She was certain that, contrary to rumors, defeating Amitamir was an achievement Haschal had accomplished alone.

“Sword of the Starry Sky. I thought it was just an empty title… but to think it meant this much.”

Something impossible for Persiella at that time. A deep sense of defeat disturbed her heart.

‘What a strange feeling… Is this the humiliation of the defeated?’

Persiella had been forced to retreat due to opposing forces before, but she had never lost in one-on-one combat against anyone.

For someone like her, this first taste of defeat was both unfamiliar and strangely fascinating.

‘…What a curious sensation.’

The dragon’s heart she had received through experimentation pounded violently, and she felt her body heat rushing to her cheeks, chest, and lower abdomen.

As the area between her legs grew slightly damp and tingled subtly, Persiella gently crossed her legs, squeezing her inner thighs together as she lightly bit her lip.

Her breathing became slightly labored, perhaps from the humiliation.

In the heated mind of the half-human, half-dragon, an image branded itself like a hot iron—the black-haired barbarian woman trampling on her cheek as she lay defeated and broken, laughing down at her.

‘It’s strange, but this is…’

Perhaps it was because of the memory of their duel, when their clothes had been torn away by the impact of their clash, leaving them fighting in an almost half-naked state by the end.

In Persiella’s imagination, both women were completely naked, not wearing a single thread.

Both Haschal, who was stepping on her cheek with a smirk, and Persiella herself, who lay fallen on her side with her head being trampled.

‘…Isn’t this somewhat… indecent?’

This humiliating fantasy seemed embedded in her mind, refusing to disappear.

Feeling somewhat confused by her body and mind’s reactions, which seemed somewhat different from what she had heard about, Persiella tilted her head slightly.

‘……’

While unconsciously squeezing her thighs even more tightly.

“—So, what should we do now?”

“Hm? Oh, what did you say?”

The question from her subordinate penetrated her dazed mind, bringing Persiella back to reality from her colorful thoughts.

“No, ahem. What did you just say?”

Startled into responding with a frivolous tone, Persiella cleared her throat with a light cough and asked again in a seemingly composed manner.

“…I asked whether you wish to continue the factional war, or regroup our forces and march to the border region.”

“March to the border? You mean to try and seize the dragon’s corpse?”

It was hardly a wise suggestion, so Persiella slightly furrowed her brows and clicked her tongue.

“Yes. It’s an intact dragon’s body that has appeared for the first time in hundreds of years. If we could seize it, wouldn’t it be an opportunity to greatly enhance our palace’s power…?”

“Enough. I have no interest in either seizing the dragon’s corpse or continuing the war with the orthodox faction.”

“Pardon…?”

The Dragonborn looked up rudely as he questioned her.

“From the beginning, this is a time when we should focus on regrouping and recovering our forces.”

Instead of punishing him for his rudeness, Persiella specially bestowed mercy by giving him a reason he could understand.

“The White Dragon of the Small Forest, Amitamir, fell as soon as it returned to the ground. But… would that be the only dragon remaining in this world?”

The reason why she herself judged that now was not the time to wage war against Dragonborn or humans.

“Dragons will return. And no dragon would be friendly to our palace. That’s the nature of evil dragons.”

While the dark faction Dragonborn aimed to become evil dragons, that didn’t mean evil dragons would protect dark faction Dragonborn.

Evil dragons were arrogant, self-centered, cruel, and violent harbingers of calamity.

There was no possibility that these mad dragons, who treated everything but themselves as insects, would treat dark faction Dragonborn with any leniency.

“So… our palace must also prepare. For the moment when the reincarnated evil dragons come charging at us.”

That was the fundamental reason why Persiella wanted to stop the war and focus on restoring their forces.

“…Then shouldn’t we focus all our efforts on securing the dragon’s corpse even more?”

“Even if it means engaging in a bloody battle with the being who brought down Amitamir? There’s neither need nor meaning in such an action.”

Persiella shook her head, dismissing her subordinate’s objection.

“With Nidhogg, it was a matter of competing for the remains of a dragon that had not yet been subjugated, so there was no issue… but seizing the corpse of a slain dragon is no different from being a band of thieves stealing spoils of war.”

Even disgrace has its limits. It was something she absolutely could not condone.

“If our palace were to show such vulgar behavior like common thieves, we could no longer call ourselves a divine palace.”

For her, who called herself the Celestial Demon, slaughter was a virtue that Dragonborn should rightfully pursue, but thievery was merely contemptible vulgarity.

Persiella extended her left arm toward her subordinate prostrating beneath the dragon throne, and clenching her scaled fist firmly, she declared:

“If we need a dragon’s corpse… we shall kill a dragon with our palace’s power and take it. Just like that woman did.”

A resolution that could be called determination. If that woman killed a dragon and obtained its corpse, she too would demonstrate her ability to subjugate a dragon, just like her.

That was her resolve as the strongest Dragonborn of the Dragon Kingdom, and her pride as one who called herself the Celestial Demon.

“Do you understand?”

“…Yes. If the Celestial Demon desires this, we shall simply follow.”

The prostrating Dragonborn bowed his head even deeper, expressing his agreement.

“Good. If you have nothing more to report, you may withdraw. And… go find Bernard and tell him. To promptly enter the palace and seek an audience with me. I have matters to discuss with him.”

Persiella dismissed her subordinate with a light gesture and ordered him to summon Bernard.

It was time for a long conversation about what she had learned during her duel with Aishan-Gioro Haschal—about his true identity.

Depending on the circumstances, they might end up conversing not with tongues but with swords.

A cold chill spread like mist over the Dragonborn’s wings, which still showed traces of recent growth.

======[ Feirous ]======

Several hours before Persiella summoned Bernard.

Feirous, having received news of Amitamir’s subjugation through Bernard’s report, ended the communication after saying “well done” and quietly closed his eyes.

‘…Fast. Too fast.’

All sorts of thoughts swirled in his mind.

‘Dragon-slaying as soon as the wall breaks… It shouldn’t be possible. Not yet.’

While Haschal, the “variable of fate,” was praised as the strongest warrior of the current era… even so, the fact that she had already managed to slay a dragon was difficult for him to believe.

If she were a non-human race that immediately regained their original power once restrictions were lifted, it might be understandable, but she had been in a situation where her growth was halted due to restrictions.

She might eventually become strong enough to defeat a dragon, but wouldn’t that require at least enough time to accumulate the necessary Karma?

To suddenly become stronger right after the wall broke—that wasn’t how humans… no, human knights grew stronger.

‘So, have the false gods begun to intervene?’

There was only one possibility he could think of. Feirous suspected that false gods had intervened in the dragon’s subjugation.

It was a suspicion close to certainty.

Now that the fourth wall had broken, it would be easier for the divine beings of heaven to intervene on earth.

‘Then it must be Astraea.’

The cunning false goddess who had bestowed her Stigmata upon the variable, creating a channel through which she could transmit her power and will to the variable.

It had to be her doing. Even Feirous couldn’t determine exactly what she had done, but still.

‘Things will become more difficult…’

Feirous let out a deep sigh. The intervention of a false god. It was not something he could welcome.

The false gods who created Heaven’s Wall had only one purpose: to interfere with his god.

The true supreme deity residing in the highest place.

Not a mortal who had ascended to divinity, but a transcendent being who had existed as a god from the beginning.

The true master of this world. The chaos before creation.

The father of all.

The first god, Alfodhr.