Chapter 91
At that moment, red magic surged like a storm from behind Hendrick. The red magic that suddenly rushed forward like an ambush flew like an arrow toward Revenant, sharp as a well-forged blade.
Carl and Sian, who had been facing Revenant, also jumped back when they nearly touched that ominously murderous energy.
Wide-eyed, Revenant swung her sword to cut through the bomb-like magic flying toward her. Even with a sword stripped of the dead red dragon’s magic, she easily sliced through the magical force.
Though she escaped the collision with the magic, all color drained from Revenant’s face.
“…This is….”
Carl and Sian also stared at the shocked Revenant with dumbfounded expressions.
That vivid red energy.
It was unmistakably Dragon King Elena’s pain-filled magic that she had been using as her ultimate weapon to corner Carl and Sian just moments ago.
“Elena?”
As surprised as the attacked Revenant, Sian looked back. Behind Hendrick’s figure, standing with imperial dignity before the lined-up soldiers, a gaunt man in white medical robes slowly walked forward.
“…Father!”
Carl cried out in shock upon recognizing the man with bloodshot red eyes. The Emperor? Sian also blinked as she looked at the man with his sickly face.
“There’s a reason why living dragon bones have only circulated in small quantities until now, foolish hunter.”
The Emperor spoke. Though his face showed severe illness as if he might collapse at any moment, his voice was remarkably firm.
Emperor? No. Sian soon recognized the true identity of whatever was wearing the Emperor’s shell.
“Elena…”
Carl murmured in a choked voice, having realized the same thing.
“Magic imbued with the pain of death clings to bones carved from living dragons… However.”
Revenant sensed danger and bit her lip hard.
“When dead magic gathers massively in one place, the consciousness of the dead dragon lingering in that magic can be revived.”
The Emperor added, his red eyes flashing fiercely with killing intent.
“Impossible!”
Revenant, backing away with a pale face, screamed as she drew a short dagger with her left hand. Unlike the longsword that had become just an ordinary weapon after completely losing its magic, the small dagger still surged with the dead dragon’s energy.
Everyone could tell this was the weapon she had used before obtaining the Dragon King’s bones. Carl and Sian found themselves having to raise their lowered swords again.
“You think to fool me with such a clumsy act? I’ve killed and stripped the bones from more than ten dragons! From the mere age of fifteen until now, I’ve slaughtered so many dragons, yet never once heard such a thing!”
“I too never thought in life that I would become such an example.”
Elena, using the Emperor’s body, spoke kindly, but her red eyes were filled with unprecedented killing intent toward Revenant who refused to surrender and drew another dagger containing death magic.
Revenant swallowed dryly and pointed the dagger tip at the Emperor. After a moment of extreme confusion at the resurrection of Elena whom she had killed, she soon regained composure and gave a hollow laugh.
Whether the old dagger she had brought as a precaution gave her comfort, or she had lost her reason in extreme crisis, was unclear.
“…Well, fine. How hard can it be to kill a dragon I’ve already killed once?”
It was a markedly different reaction from the Marquis who had been captured without resistance, trembling. Hendrick narrowed his eyes while inwardly suppressing a sneer.
“If gathered magic drew in the will, then simply scattering it should suffice.”
“Krrrr,” the three dragons lowered their stances, growling as they sensed Revenant’s fighting spirit.
But Revenant ignored the growling dragons and charged toward Hendrick, gripping a longsword in one hand and a dagger in the other. More precisely, she was aiming not at Hendrick but at the Emperor standing behind him.
The Emperor’s red eyes flashed with an eerie light as if burning.
“You court death!”
It happened in an instant.
Though Carl and Sian had also taken firm defensive stances with their swords, there was no time to act. Revenant, who had lowered her stance and kicked off the ground, first swung her sword at Hendrick who blocked her path to the Emperor. Almost simultaneously, red magic surged from the Emperor.
CLANG! Hendrick barely blocked Revenant’s longsword with his own, sending sharp sparks flying. The massive red energy that had surged from the Emperor took the form of a dragon in the air.
Everyone in the maze garden widened their eyes simultaneously, as if rehearsed, at the unbelievable sight.
Sian clicked her tongue belatedly and tried to rush forward at the collision between Elena, who had taken dragon form purely from magic without substance, and Revenant. But Carl stopped her.
“Wait, Lady Sian.”
“What?”
Attacking Hendrick was merely meant to clear an obstacle. When Revenant swung the dagger still containing dead dragon’s magic at the Emperor, red sparks exploded like a blast without physical contact.
“Elena was the one who died having her bones cruelly carved out. Let her have her revenge.”
As the blast’s aftershock whipped their hair like a storm, Carl’s face was rather solemn.
Sian, who had frowned at first, not understanding Carl’s intention, saw Revenant who seemed to have been thrown back by the magical explosion’s recoil. As if showing off her reputation as the foremost among dragon hunters, she somehow managed to find her balance in mid-air and land on her feet.
Revenant’s clothes were torn in various places as if cut by sharp swords as she ground her teeth.
Elena’s red wings flickered like flames in the air. The appearance of those burning wings was ineffably mystical, as if a god had descended.
“If Elena appears to be losing, we can step in then.”
Adjusting his grip on his sword, Carl watched the standoff between the magic-only dragon and Revenant with sharp eyes. Though it wasn’t easy to accept, Sian soon nodded.
With three dragons and their masters, plus soldiers all allied against her, Revenant, though a skilled dragon hunter, was still merely human – no different from a mouse in a trap.
Sian too lowered her raised sword along with Carl.
Elena, flapping her wings in the air, once again gathered magic and attacked Revenant. She swung her longsword and dagger without dodging, as if seeking death.
The mass of magic flying head-on scattered into spark-like fragments upon hitting the blade, but the remaining wind sharp enough to shred Revenant’s body swept past her arms, legs, and hair.
Red hair touched by the wind was cut and fluttered away, and blood sprayed through torn clothes.
Though Revenant’s whole face twisted as if wanting to scream, no sound came out. Covered in blood in an instant, she only glared at the insubstantial red dragon with bloodshot eyes.
Sian quickly accepted Carl’s words that Elena was in the midst of desperate revenge.
Though it seemed easy enough to take the her life, now reduced to rags in an instant, Elena was deliberately avoiding killing her quickly. All the marks left on the unyielding woman’s body were shallow wounds avoiding vital points.
…Well, her grudge must run deep.
