Chapter 361: The King Who Kills Others, The God Who Kills Himself (15)

– Clink.

The sound of the bell resonated in my hand.

Since ancient times, bells have been used to wake people from their slumber.

The Golden Lord’s relic was no different. Its clear tone pulled me out of the depths of his Spiritual World and back to reality.

My deeply submerged consciousness began to rise.

When I came to, I had returned to the exact moment I rang the Golden Lord’s bell.

Time spent in the Spiritual World, no matter how long, only amounted to an instant in reality.

To others, it would seem as if I had just been playing some quick game of bell-ringing.

My mind, however, lagged behind, trying to process everything I had experienced in that fleeting moment.

Perhaps I had read too deeply. I needed to snap out of it—quickly.

“Demo!”

At that moment, Elric rushed forward, shoving me aside.

Unable to anticipate her since I couldn’t read her thoughts, I was sent sprawling to the ground.

A heavy pain coursed through my back and waist.

Pain, indeed, is proof of being alive.

Though I hadn’t wished for this method, it did snap me back to my senses.

“What did you do to Demo, you bastard…!”

Elric glared at me with furious eyes but then quickly froze.

Her head trembled as she turned slowly toward the Golden Lord.

Her wide eyes were filled with shock, fear, and a dread of the unknown.

In a quaking voice, she called his name.

“De…mo?”

Her call went unanswered.

Instead, the Golden Lord began to move with a newfound clarity of purpose.

As the small figure of a boy stepped forward, a resounding tremor echoed as if a giant were leveling the earth.

He did not follow the woven path.

Instead, a path was forged wherever he walked.

By severing and reshaping the world to create what he desired, he truly embodied what it meant to be a Divine.

– Shhhhhh.

The world transformed before the Golden Lord.

With each step he took, the soil beneath him was compacted into a smooth plane and rocks reshaped themselves into neat squares to pave the way.

It was as if time itself reversed to build this avenue.

The Golden Lord walked forward with pride, followed by his homunculus soldiers and weapons.

Even Elric, who had commanded the Golden Palace, marched alongside them.

Demo’s Divine Relic, The Golden Lord, was the final work of a Divine who wished to rebuild the Golden Empire before his death.

This was the Golden Lord’s true power.

The fact that it had been playing house within the Golden Palace until now was what was truly strange.

This was how it should have always been for the Golden Lord’s wish had never wavered.

Until now, guilt had held him back, causing him to hesitate at the destruction that creation required.

Instead, he wandered the Fallen Dominion, repeating futile acts of creation.

But now, free of his inner restraints, nothing could stop him.

The old crumbled and shattered.

Broken materials were reshaped into new forms, becoming part of the Golden Empire.

With decisive destruction paving the way, the Golden Lord advanced toward his true creation.

The army surrounding us retreated—or rather, it felt like the entire Golden Palace was moving forward as if the world itself were shifting.

Once it had moved far enough away, Hilde let out a sigh of relief and turned back, her usual lively demeanor returning as she approached me.

“As expected of Father! ‘I’ always believed in you!”

｢Oh my? It actually work? I thought he was just stirring up trouble!｣

Her words and thoughts couldn’t have been more different.

How dare she lie in front of me?

As I stood up, I responded sarcastically.

“You believed in me? Really?”

“Of course! If not me, then who would believe in Father? No one knows you better than ‘I*’* do!”

“What could you possibly know? Go ahead, lick the lies off your lips.”

“Lick! See? Wiped clean!”

“That’s just proof you’re lying.”

“Oh my~! Caught red-handed!”

Hilde hadn’t fully trusted me.

It wasn’t that she doubted my strength, but rather, she had hoped this plan would fail.

Yet, despite her misgivings, she had cooperated.

Was it a gambler’s mindset, or was she just too deep into her role?

Either way, as Hilde said, the mission was a success.

War would not break out.

The problem now was the side effects this would bring… How should I even begin to explain it?

I’d need some time to figure that out.

More than anything…

“… What happened? Where is the Golden Lord going?”

Explaining this to Peru… I really needed to think carefully, especially for my own safety.

For now, let’s quickly summarize and move forward.

Maybe a simple list would make it easier to understand.

“Everyone, I have good news and bad news.”

Hilde responded to my words in a theatrical tone.

“Why do I feel scared all of a sudden~? If even Father thinks it’s ‘bad’ news, are we facing the end of the world tomorrow?”

“No, the world isn’t ending.”

“…?”

｢What does that mean? Does something else end instead? No way… right?｣

She understood perfectly but didn’t react as I’d hoped.

Still, I had no time to waste, or I would miss the golden moment.

So, I decided to get straight to the point.

“Let’s start with the good news.”

“Do I not get a choice? I’d rather hear the bad news first.”

“Too bad. After a serious conversation with the Golden Lord, I think a war with the Military State won’t happen!”

Hmm, why the cold reaction?

Wasn’t this supposed to be good news?

Surprisingly, Hilde didn’t seem too thrilled.

Instead, she grumbled in a dissatisfied tone.

“Well, that’s not really good news for ‘me’. I’d rather have the war. If we just take care of the Golden Lord, the Fallen Dominion is nothing.”

“…What’s the bad news?”

Peru interrupted Hilde, urging me to continue.

Ugh. I’d hoped to soften the blow with the good news, but it seemed I failed.

Now I needed to be careful with my tone.

Clearing my throat, I delivered the bad news with as much regret as I could muster.

“The Golden Lord plans to annihilate the Fallen Dominion.”

It was a plain and unembellished truth, but perhaps too blunt.

Peru and Hilde took a moment to process my words, seemingly unable to grasp them right away.

Hilde was the first to recover, tilting her head in curiosity.

“Huh? That’s good news for ‘me’.”

What’s good news to one person can be a dreadful tragedy to another.

That’s a universal truth of life, I suppose.

Peru, however, looked at me with disbelief and stammered.

“…W-What?”

｢…What? What happened for the Golden Lord to decide that?｣

“Let me explain briefly. Peru, the Golden Bell is a relic of the Golden Lord. To gain its acknowledgment, I intended to undergo a trial, but instead of offering a trial, the relic kept going on about rebuilding the Golden Empire. So, I criticized it, saying, ‘Is this even a nation? It’ll be stripped bare by Dholes within two days.’ And guess what?”

To be precise, it wasn’t my trial but rather the Golden Lord’s—but close enough.

I decided to keep it simple and continued.

“Before I even said much, the Golden Lord declared he’d eliminate all Dholes to ensure the permanence of his Golden Empire!”

“…Lies… That’s… not possible.”

“I wish it weren’t true either. Check for yourself. Time’s short because the Golden Lord has already started moving to burn the Dholes’ nest.”

In his final moments, the Golden Lord had envisioned a specific location.

Before being ejected back to reality, I read his thoughts.

The Fallen Dominion had become a semi-nomadic society because of the Golden Lord.

They avoided his destructive creations while scavenging what he left behind.

As a result, they could never settle down, always forced to wander.

Except for one place: a village at the foothills of a mountain, untouched by the Golden Lord’s path—the only permanent settlement in the Fallen Dominion.

A place ruled by the strongest Primarch, the Thunderarch, where she taught alchemy to children and provided them with wholesome food so that they could escape the curse of the Golden Empire.

“Claudia. The only settled city in the Fallen Dominion and the most populated.”

Until now, the Golden Lord had only created things for his vision of the Golden Empire.

But now, his approach shifted.

A nation left uninhabited becomes nothing more than prey for scavengers.

If that’s the case, why not eliminate the Dholes and turn them into homunculi to protect the nation?

Thus, the Golden Lord would move logically and methodically to eliminate the Dholes.

Morality? That’s for the living.

To the Golden Lord who had long been dead and freed of earthly constraints, it meant nothing.

“The Golden Lord will destroy Claudia and turn its inhabitants into homunculi—eternal protectors of the Golden Empire!”

Furthermore, the new homunculi will be unlike anything before.

Disillusioned by humanity, the Golden Lord had never sincerely designed humans until now.

With his full intent unleashed, what kind of humans will he create?

How human will they be?

As the King of Humans, I was curious—but before I could dwell on it, Peru grabbed me by the collar and yanked me down.

“…What have you done?”

Peru’s eyes burned with the fiercest emotions I had ever seen from her, glaring at me as if she wanted nothing more than to kill me.