Chapter 216

Matheos was the priest closest to the gods in the world, able to feel the voice of souls.

“Ahhhh!”

“No!”

“Please, just that child.”

The desperate cries echoing from all around endlessly resonated in his mind.

“Ah.”

A drop of green dye fell into clear water, turning it green; a drop of red dye fell, turning it red; and another drop of black dye fell.

Swoosh!

Matheos’s heart became as black as those strands of hair.

Meeting Valencius and Argos taught him that the world was tangled in complexity.

The innocent heart of a young seminarian who simply wanted to save and help people shattered like glass.

Matheos turned his head to look at Valencius.

Flare!

“Grahhhh!”

The empire’s most notorious bandit stood majestically against the backdrop of the burning city and the giant alien.

His face was hidden by a black helmet dripping with golden liquor, and he maintained a wild and cruel demeanor, but the saint’s superhuman senses detected trembling breaths from within the helmet.

“Why?”

Even Valencius was on the verge of tears.

Matheos slightly turned his head to regard not Valencius but the alien.

An alien resembling a head with eight legs.

Matheos understood that even before the rise of the alien and the ancient beings, the intelligences of this world had been at odds.

Yet, perhaps it was not their fault that this world became such a hellish place.

Matheos recalled the feelings he once had.

He just wanted to save and help.

If this world was in such a state because of that alien, he had no idea what would happen if it were to be killed.

Just as the saint gathered his resolve and attempted to walk towards the center of the inferno, a gloved hand grabbed his sleeve.

“Saint. Everything is ruined. Please evacuate.”

Valencius said as he raised his veil.

Matheos wanted to sew that mouth shut.

“What nonsense, no, what absurdity is this!”

* * *

I fought against the magical realms across the empire for 40 years and witnessed every form of alien.

And as that alien resembling a whale spewed forth rotten, giant seagull-like entities from its massive mouth, I instinctively realized.

This is bad.

Seeing that the blue knights had endured the bombardment, I knew we had to breach the subcutaneous layer if we were to inflict damage.

Even if we somehow dodged the psychic waves and the aliens to penetrate the skin and fat layer, below that was only armor-like muscle.

I couldn’t even imagine how large a weapon would be needed to aim for vital spots like joints or internal organs.

It was rare to find individual aliens over 100 meters in size.

Last year, the dragon I faced in Purioaito’s magical realm was about 45 meters, and even that was quite massive.

The sky jellyfish I saw in the same place, not counting the lengths of its tentacles, had a body about 20 meters.

If only 100,000 small or medium aliens had poured out, it would have been easier to respond.

One strike from a high-grade magic tool could have melted them all away.

However, that alien was a behemoth I hadn’t even seen before my return, and we lacked the power to vaporize it right now.

Of course, if I gathered all the great lords of the empire, including Cariosa and Seberik, we might have a chance.

But I had already seen an alien with an even greater maw poking its head out of the magical realm.

The thought that there might be more emerging after we barely brought one down drained any fight from me.

The alien opened its mouth once more.

A large carnivorous bird resembling a rotten seagull flew up in a swarm again.

It seemed I would have to use Marcus’s airship for a different purpose than originally planned.

So I grabbed Matheos’s sleeve and spoke to Lady Trentia.

“Lady. Listen closely to what I’m about to say! You need to listen very carefully.”

Click, as Lady Trentia sliced through one infiltrator and raised her veil.

Her crimson eyes burned with determination.

“Yes. Your Highness! Just give the command!”

But what was needed now wasn’t determination.

“Go with Rudi to guard Lady Sorelazie and head to the special zone of the Ivory Tower. Gestarte wouldn’t abandon his apprentice twice.”

“What kind of absurd command is that!”

Lady Trentia was shocked, and Matheos looked back at me.

The blood-red eyes and pitch-black eyes trembled simultaneously.

I felt as if my body was being pierced, but I took a breath and conveyed the cruel message.

“As long as His Majesty the Emperor returns, I will go that way too. I’ll evacuate the knights and their families, the high-ranking clergy, and the great nobles to Nibelungen and establish a temporary capital in the central province. Solentalouon must be reclaimed.”

Lady Trentia seemed speechless, while Matheos and Sererassie opened their mouths in shock.

“Do you think that makes any sense?”

“Duke Valencius! Are you out of your mind?”

Rarely, they both agreed.

“If we flee, everyone here will die!”

“The scriptures say there is no heaven for the one who flees! This is your city, too!”

I stared past Sererassie’s eyes toward the alien beyond the inferno.

“Grahhh!”

Thanks to the efforts of the blue knights, it had yet to move but appeared unharmed.

Bang!

I didn’t know for sure, but the magic tool that was about to explode would cost tens if not hundreds of gold coins.

“Kiieek!”

The wyvern that just fell was worth more hundreds of gold coins as well.

No matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t picture a victory.

So I spun a nonsensical excuse.

“I’m not saying we should give up the capital! … I just want to set up a defense line a bit further back and engage in a stable fight.”

* * *

Matheos clenched his fist, intending to punch Valencius down.

At that moment, a high-ranking priest grabbed his arm tightly.

“Saint.”

“Let go of this!”

“Have you forgotten the words of His Majesty Argos?”

“!”

“Martyrdom has not been permitted for you, Saint. For the sake of the church and the people, you must survive.”

“Your Majesty taught us that a meaningless life is still life!”

Both Valencius and the priest trembled simultaneously.

But the priest ultimately did not release his grip.

Lady Trentia glanced between the alien, Sererassie, and Valencius.

“……”

She favored simplicity and wished to live simply.

To share drink with good people, to take down bad people, while being loyal to the imperial court.

But the world she saw beside Valencius was anything but simple.

The lives of the citizens of the capital, the gathering of the central knights, the great nobles present in the capital, the political situation that was one step away from an oath of loyalty, and the emperor who had disappeared into the magical realm.

Perhaps Valencius himself might not even know the best course of action right now.

Lady Trentia recognized that Sererassie was no ordinary mage.

“If you marry me, you could either be the Emperor’s husband or the Emperor themselves.”

She recalled what she had personally said back in Purioaito.

Lady Trentia gazed into Valencius’s eyes.

His yellow eyes were fixed solely on the magical realm from beginning to end.

She realized that if there was even a slight chance the emperor wouldn’t return, Valencius intended to die here.

When the two largest cogs in the machine of the empire disappeared, he had designated a gear that could somehow fill that space.

“Princess Sererassie.”

Lady Trentia sighed deeply and looked at Sererassie.

“It is your duty to survive and restore the imperial family.”

“You-!”

Sererassie shot a glare at Lady Trentia.

The wizard of silver storms trembled in betrayal, while the noble knight stoically accepted her gaze.

“How could you say such a thing?”

“Your Highness!”

“The one with the brighter worth and better governance is Valencius. Why do you want to lead me to flee instead of taking him along?”

Sererassie struggled and rebelled, while Lady Trentia hesitated, and Valencius joined in with Lady Trentia.

“I have no prestige left, and my reputation is ruined! Even if I live, I can’t rally the survivors! You still have a heroic image; you’re the only one who can if not you.”

His imposing figure, clad in black armor, was intimidating, but Sererassie struck the ground with her staff in rebuttal.

“Be quiet! Before I am royalty, I am a mage! The heroic image and all the rumors were created by you! Why am I the one saying to save people? It started because I wanted to flee the unfulfilled dream, and you’re saying it’s absurd, while you solve the problem with some devastating yet brilliant idea?”

“No, the world! How do you catch that big one? We’ve already shot several high-grade magic tools, and it didn’t work! Even if we summoned the elders of the Ivory Tower, we might not defeat it!”

“T-That’s!”

Sererassie knew better.

The power of high-grade magic tools was as terrifying as their price.

It was simply more expensive to hire a mage capable of casting spells of similar power, and the sheer force of those spells could literally shake the heavens and earth.

In other words, even the mages of the Ivory Tower would struggle to wield stronger magic than those magic tools and would likely only be able to stall for time while flying on brooms.

“To catch that thing, we would need to create a spell specifically to deal with it!”

Typically, it would involve analyzing its blood or organizations, then adjusting the necromancy spells to the properties of the entity.

“No matter how good the Ivory Tower is, it would take at least a few days. I’ll stall the knights as much as I can, so you go to the Ivory Tower and prepare. You’ll be more helpful in the laboratory than on the frontline. You’re not a warlock but a mage.”

Valencius stated firmly.

Sererassie lowered her head.

The wide-brimmed hat cast a deep shadow on her delicate face.

“Am I not enough?”

“What?”

“I have many developments since the oath of loyalty started. I’ve practiced one-target lightning spells with my apprentices and warlocks, and my casting speed has improved since Cariosa.”

“No, Sister.”

“I can hold off the infiltrators and aliens. If thickness is a problem, we could set fire to that fat layer and turn it into a living candle, couldn’t we?”

Valencius reflexively grabbed his nape, realizing then that he was clad in armor.

“Seriously… this is incomprehensible!”

That was almost a compliment for the mage, Sererassie.

“You created that heroic image for me. If I show a will to resist until the end, I can rally the survivors whether we succeed or fail in the subjugation, right?”

“!”

“You presented this disaster; what do you think the opinion on the imperial family will be? How will those great lords use it? It can’t be depicted as a betrayal by the imperial family; it must be camouflaged as Valencius’s personal corruption again, am I right? So I cannot flee.”

Sererassie’s blue eyes remained endlessly clear.

They were the eyes of a mage who pursued truth and lived only for truth.

But her yellow eyes were strangely reminiscent of Valencius’s.

Valencius involuntarily let out a gasp.

It felt like a groan.

Having lived confidently knowing he was unmatched in judgment, he felt an unfamiliar sensation of being blindsided in the field of malice.

He looked up at the pale turquoise magical realm glowing in the sky.

His trembling body became more at ease.

Surely, Jeilliris believed in him and would have jumped into the magical realm without a moment’s hesitation.

“…Alright.”

“Valen!”

“You go up to the imperial palace and prepare the high-grade magic. I’ll evacuate the people and rush in at the right moment. Let’s do something, whether piercing an eye or breaking through the palate after being swallowed, let’s try anything.”