Chapter 113

〈 113 〉The Fallen Capital

Asha felt suffocated, thinking that all the work she had done so far had been in vain. Although she was far away in the air, she could clearly see that the battle was already over.

‘Was I too naive? If only I had noticed sooner…’

The march had never been slow, and now the Soldiers were sweating profusely as they force-marched to get here, but Asha felt a sense of self-loathing as she looked at the horrific scene.

Her face was terribly distorted, and she shook her head violently and slapped herself on the cheek. Lucia’s eyes widened at the sudden self-harm, and she stared at Asha, but Asha didn’t notice her daughter’s gaze.

“No, this is not the time. If there are any people left, I have to save them!”

It was easy to despair in the face of the unkind reality, but it was also foolish. Since coming here, the world had been unfair to Asha, and there had only been unbearable hardships.

Asha’s will was not so weak that she would be broken by this. She couldn’t do anything here alone. Asha realized that she had to return to the unit immediately.

“Lucy, let’s go. I need to talk to the Count and plan how to act.”

“Mom, you go first. I’ll take care of the Tentacles here.”

“Huh?”

Asha was taken aback by Lucia’s first request to separate from her. She met her daughter’s eyes. Unlike usual, her eyes were unreadable, reflecting Asha’s image transparently.

“Lucy, you have to be careful? I don’t think anything will happen, but I’m worried… okay?”

“Yeah. It won’t be difficult. Go and come back, Mom.”

As Asha released Lucia from her embrace, Lucia spread her wings and stayed in the air. Asha waved back at Lucia, who was waving her hand, and looked back at her daughter several times before quickly flying back in the direction she had come.

In the capital, Lucia was seeing a completely different landscape from Asha. Dense waves wrapped around the huge city… To Lucia, who could see the materialized Thought waves of the Tentacles, there were so many Thought waves emitted by the Tentacles that even the huge walls looked blurry.

Of course, Lucia could already tell from the first time she saw the city from afar that the entire capital was covered in Tentacles.

“There are so many, more than last time. At this rate, it will be difficult to protect Mom.”

As Asha disappeared beyond the horizon and completely out of sight, Lucia’s body gradually grew. Soon, she grew to just under six feet tall and stared at the capital with a blank expression. With her huge white wings spread, Lucia slowly approached the ruined city.

Asha flew desperately towards the unit, not thinking about her stamina. She broke through the short distance in an instant and soon found the Steel Regiment.

Asha landed on the ground, kicking up dust, and rushed to the Count. He was coming with the Soldiers, and he seemed to know what was going on just by looking at Asha’s face.

“The capital…”

Asha approached the Count and whispered quietly in his ear.

“When I went there, the outer walls of the capital had already collapsed and I couldn’t see anyone. I haven’t checked inside yet, but it doesn’t seem like the battle happened long ago.”

The Count’s pupils shook violently, but he didn’t open his mouth rashly and remained silent. After agonizing, the Count said to Asha.

“Even if the capital has fallen, what we have to do is rescue as many of the remaining kingdom citizens as possible. We need to find out if anyone has managed to evacuate and gather them.”

The Count was still burning with determination. Asha nodded at the sight of him.

“The sooner we go, the more people will be left.”

“Don’t delay.”

“Aaaah, stop, stooop, Kuaaaa!!”

“S, save me, Heueueue!!”

The Tentacles had captured the outer walls of the capital and were rampaging through the city. They dug tunnels everywhere, invaded buildings, and snatched people hiding in corners, one by one, like pulling earthworms out of the ground, and dragged them to their lairs. The humans, who had already lost all means of resistance, were being unilaterally toyed with by the Tentacles that covered all sides.

The minds of the individual Tentacles carrying out the Mind entity’s orders were weak. The Tentacles had a nervous system that was inferior to that of wild animals, but because there was a Mind entity that controlled them, the Tentacles could easily destroy even the human kingdoms.

While the Tentacles were rummaging through the city, they sensed something approaching from the west. Surely their sun was in the north, but another sun was rising.

[Sun, it’s the sun.]

[The sun is coming.]

The Tentacles, which were busy changing the capital as they pleased, looked up at the sky as if they were possessed. A silver-haired woman with huge wings spread in the air was slowly descending with her hands clasped together, but they could not see her, only a dazzling light.

[The sun is getting closer!]

[It hurts, it hurts!]

If a person looks directly at the sun, they will go blind. The price the Tentacles paid for looking at her was even more severe. Their minds, torn apart by transcendent Thought waves, disappeared without a trace, leaving nothing behind. The small Thought waves of the Tentacles, which had been screaming like waves, were swallowed up by Lucia’s Thought waves, which were like an exploding supernova, and after that, only silence remained.

As Lucia approached the ground with her eyes half-open, the Tentacles close to her stopped moving and froze one by one. The sight of a city full of blood and screams being enveloped in silence by one being was grotesque and terrifying.

“W, what’s going on, Heuaaaaa!!”

“Kkyaaaaa!!!”

The humans who had been saved while being unilaterally toyed with by the Tentacles were not safe even when they saw Lucia. The individual humans had minds that were much more complex and stronger than the Tentacles, but as soon as they faced Lucia, who had a different dimension, they shed tears of blood or screamed until their throats were hoarse as they felt their heads being squeezed.

Even those screams didn’t last long, and they fell like dry firewood and lost consciousness. The faces of the fallen people were all terribly distorted, as if they had seen something they shouldn’t have.

It only took Lucia 15 minutes to subdue the capital. After confirming that no more Tentacles in the city were moving, she withdrew the Thought waves that had been sweeping through the area.

“Such a small and weak world.”

Lucia didn’t do anything and strongly emitted Thought waves as if ordering the Tentacles, but that alone caused the millions of Tentacles that had covered the capital to self-destruct. To Lucia, the Tentacles whose minds had been destroyed and the fallen humans were no different.

“If they’re alive, they’ll bother Mom again…”

Lucia had completely lost the affection she had for humans after this incident. They couldn’t do anything themselves, and they bothered her mother or even put her in danger. If she wiped out all the humans here, her mother would be sad, but she would live a comfortable life.

Lucia, who had landed on the deserted royal castle, clenched and unclenched her hands and pondered for a moment about the fate of the humans remaining in the capital. What made her decide, as she weighed the lives of the 80,000 humans in the capital for the sake of her mother alone, was, ridiculously, not Asha’s words but the words of the old Orcs Sorcerer.

‘Lucia, there are still things you don’t know properly. Choices are easy, but they are irreversible. You must think before you decide something, and if it’s a problem you need to think about, you shouldn’t judge it alone. Please, keep my words in mind.’

Lucia didn’t become arrogant just because her power was strong. She had been thoroughly defeated by the Tentacles not long ago because her senses had been neutralized, and if she overestimated herself and became arrogant, she would be thoughtless. Lucia thought deeply about what Walter had said and lowered her hands.

“…I’ve gotten rid of all the Tentacles for now, so there won’t be anything dangerous.”

Lucia, who had decided to postpone the lives of the humans, folded her wings and reduced her body to its former childlike appearance. From the innocent appearance of Lucia, there was no trace of the being who had saved the kingdom from the brink of destruction and had almost destroyed the kingdom again.

In the city where everyone was asleep, she looked down at the world with red eyes and waited endlessly for her mother on the walls.