Side Story 1. Invasion of the Empire (5)

An emperor is one who reigns above all, who never kneels to anyone, who stands equal to the gods.

And an emperor is.

One who bears all responsibility.

“Your Majesty. We can no longer stop the rebels’ advance.”

“Why can you not stop them?”

Imperial Army Commander-in-Chief Berald hurriedly summarized the unfolding situation for the emperor.

For some reason, the legion commanders were rising in rebellion one after another, and they were now attacking the Imperial Army in turn.

Additionally, the 10,000 clone soldiers made of platinum plates had taken their own lives, and the wings of the Heavenly God Soldiers had turned black and corrupted.

Soldiers who had charged at the enemy suddenly stopped in their tracks, screamed at the sky, and then their heads exploded.

The reports coming in one after another were utterly horrifying, and by the time the emperor heard that the corpses of fallen Imperial soldiers were rising again as monsters, he was forced to taste the despair of darkness clouding his vision.

“Stop shouting about problems and find a solution, a solution!”

Yet no one had an answer to this calamity.

The empire’s ministers all kept their mouths shut, and the commander-in-chief could only sweat profusely.

There was no solution to be found. The empire had already given its all, deploying nearly every resource at its disposal.

But the opponent was simply a monster far beyond human comprehension.

The horde of rebels numbered 100,000.

Most of the Imperial Army, for some reason, would turn into rebels the moment they stepped onto the battlefield, making the situation utterly maddening.

“It’s not mind control. Not enchantment. Not some kind of curse either! What in the world is the problem?! This isn’t just dissatisfaction with the empire! There’s clearly something much bigger at play here!”

Most of the rebels weren’t attacking the empire of their own will.

Soldiers screamed that they didn’t want to do it as they stabbed their comrades in the back, leading the emperor to suspect that the enemy was using some means to control the Imperial Army. But investigations yielded no answers.

Unaware of the existence of soul chains, the empire had no way to resist Shion’s power. Had there been even one person with the Spirit Eye, they might have sensed Shion’s presence and his power, but the empire had no such individuals.

In the end, the Imperial Army, oblivious to the cause, had their bodies seized by Shion and were forced to raise their swords against their own comrades and families.

The empire was being torn apart by a single person.

A heavy silence filled the emperor’s audience chamber.

The enemy’s numbers remained unclear, and the labyrinth city itself seemed entirely unaffected by the war, remaining peaceful.

Only the empire’s lands were being dyed in blood and death. In the end, the emperor decided to play his hidden card.

A last resort. A biological weapon he had never intended to use.

“Release it. Release them.”

“But Your Majesty…!”

The chancellor raised his voice in protest, but the emperor remained unmoved.

His decision was absolute, and all could only fall silent.

“The empire’s proud weapons have all proven useless. We can no longer wallow in incompetence. With our current technology, there is no way to stop the enemy. All that remains is to awaken them.”

“……”

The director of the Magic Technology Bureau merely nodded at the emperor’s command without objection. He, too, shared the emperor’s thoughts.

Once they were awakened, the empire might cease to be the empire. The emperor was gambling. Yet, he had no choice.

Because he was the one who made decisions and gave orders. Because he stood in a position where he could do anything-at the cost of bearing all responsibility.

The emperor ordered the awakening of the ancient weapons.

“Do we even have a proper method to control them?”

“There is a way. Do not worry.”

“…Understood.”

Sword King Tairan saw madness in the emperor’s eyes. The emperor was clearly lying.

There was no way to control them. He was simply throwing the empire into the abyss to kill the approaching enemies.

The emperor had gone mad. With everything he possessed being consumed by the flames of war, he chose to charge forward without looking back.

Even if the path ahead was filled with pools of blood, he did not hesitate.

‘Is there no future left for this land?’

Tairan had been uneasy from the moment they decided to provoke the labyrinth city.

The current emperor was obsessed with the labyrinth. After causing a great tragedy where nobles died one after another by disturbing the city that would have willingly paid tribute if left alone, he now declared war on the labyrinth city the moment he gained strength.

Even if they had gained the ability to mass-produce platinum plates through clone manufacturing, even if they had created Heavenly God Soldiers using the essence of angels-

To Tairan, waging war against adventurers who had honed their strength against the labyrinth’s monsters was an incomprehensible act.

‘Even the Heavenly God Soldiers would have been torn apart by Moira. Yet he started this war and brought about this disaster.’

Tairan was bound to the empire. His ancestors had received great favors from the imperial family, and so he, too, had sworn loyalty to the empire.

But it seemed even that was nearing its end.

“They shall never set foot in the imperial capital.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

Tairan answered the emperor thoughtlessly.

Since he couldn’t escape this sinking ship, he thought it best to fight quietly and die here if that was his fate.

Above all, Tairan already knew the enemy was just one. The true enemy hidden among the rebelling legion commanders and Imperial soldiers.

‘They said they saw one adventurer.’

The entire labyrinth city hadn’t joined this war. The enemy was just one. That one had orchestrated this entire situation, using some means to control the Imperial Army.

Killing that one would end the war.

‘The emperor is mad, and the mad emperor seeks to awaken the Ancients. Before that, I will kill him and end the war.’

Tairan picked up his sword.

Before the Ancients sleeping inside the massive capsules retrieved from the ruins could awaken, he had to finish this.

The emperor intended to awaken seven Ancients to sweep away the approaching enemies. But the problem was how to return the awakened Ancients to their capsules after the enemies were dead.

‘It’s impossible. The current empire has no means to handle the Ancients.’

All the artifacts retrieved from the ruins were ultimately technologies developed and created by the Ancients. In short, the empire’s biotechnology and magic engineering couldn’t put the Ancients back to sleep, meaning the moment they were awakened, the empire would fall into their hands.

Tairan sensed that if they awoke, an enormous number of casualties would follow. The Ancients were lifeforms entirely different from modern humans.

Their language was different, their appearance, culture, and habits were all completely dissimilar. They were a race with few commonalities, and from their perspective, humans would be nothing more than livestock or beasts.

Moreover, the Ancient Tairan had once faced was terrifyingly strong, requiring immense effort to kill.

Even he, who was called the Sword King and could fight Moira on equal footing, couldn’t guarantee victory, and it had taken him and comrades of similar strength working together to barely take down a single Ancient. Awakening seven of them would push the situation beyond complexity-into outright catastrophe.

‘Before the emperor grows even more insane. I must act.’

After arming himself, Tairan headed for the battlefield.

Beyond the imperial capital, the heart of the empire, the sky was stained black.

When legion commanders succeeded in demon king transformation, the sky would darken. They were likely fighting something.

‘The wreckage of airships…’

Dozens of airships that had once cut through the sky now lay crashed and burning.

Half-monstrous humans were impaled on trees, and something unknown was hatching from their corpses.

The sight of artificial lifeforms created by the empire’s technology crushed like trash along the roadside made it hard to tell whether this was reality or someone’s nightmare.

“What could possibly cause people to be destroyed like this?”

He, too, had fought in countless battlefields for a long time. Thus, he had lived close to death and witnessed many forms of demise.

But this battlefield was especially bizarre.

From the atmosphere to the corpses of the dead. Everything was abnormal, each more horrifying than the last.

Tairan began to think he might not survive and escape this place.

“Guhhh…”

“Are you alive?!”

“P-please… help…”

As Tairan rushed toward the battlefield where explosions echoed, he found one survivor still clinging to life.

An Imperial soldier with half his body covered in scales.

“What in the world happened here?”

“M-magic… when the magic… swept through… everything… changed…”

“Everything changed? What do you-”

“The sky turned yellow… spikes and scales grew from people’s bodies… the platinum plate soldiers… gouged out their eyes… Gahhh…!”

Green slugs poured from the soldier’s mouth.

He vomited them out before finally succumbing to death.

“What the hell…”

Tairan looked up at the blackened sky.

This was no longer a human battlefield.

Perhaps the emperor’s judgment was correct.

Awakening all seven Ancients might indeed be the best course of action.