บท 489: Running Hounds (2)
The blood of the Imperial Family, who possess astrology, astronomy, and other abilities to foretell the future.
The first crown prince, Jack, is the one who inherited the abilities of the founding Emperor, whose ability to see the future led to the beginning of the empire.
Andras is currently using Jack's body as a host to maximize the abilities in his bloodline.
[Keulleog!]
Pieces of crushed internal organs and black dead blood are gushing out from under the lower jaw, which has fallen all the way to the chest.
The cracks all over his body burned brightly.
Tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk...
His body was slowly, gradually, in real-time, crumbling like ash from a burned-out volcano.
However.
[...I see!]
All the while, Andras continued to emit angry streams of mana from his eyes like dark clouds.
The flow of mana gathers in one place, creating red blood veins.
The veins converged again, forming the shape of a giant eyeball.
The eyeball floated high in the air, casting an eerie glare down at the ground.
In a situation where the life of the body had reached its peak, this one evil demon was squeezing out all the vitality that was depleted and showing off his foresight that had risen to an unprecedented limit.
[...See! see! Your future!]
And then, with a foresight so accurate that even the demon shuddered, it flowed out of the crown prince's body.
A swamp of blood and gore, a mountain of bones, an atmosphere drained of mana, and a massive mushroom cloud rising over the distant horizon.
It was a common sight in the Age of Destruction, one that had been seen many times before in the Hell Tree.
This is what Vikir's mental image of the world was like floating in the residual thoughts of Amdusias.
However. what was about to unfold was certainly unlike anything Vikir had ever seen before.
...An endless, barren desert.
...A massive tower towering in the middle of the desert.
...An old man in black walks lonely and alone toward the tower.
Each vision pierces Vikir's mind, fragmented and disjointed.
They are unfamiliar memories that Vikir has never experienced firsthand.
But they were also memories he'd experienced many times before, often indirectly.
'...I'm sure it was when I faced Amdusias in the Hell Tree when Piggy's blood closed the Hell Tree, and when I faced Cimeries.'
A world in flames, the Age of Destruction.
A moment of apocalypse, when the ground melted and the breath of all living things burned away.
But the future that Andras's blood was showing him now was a much later landscape.
[See! You look old as time goes by! your shadow all alone!]
Of course, what Andras sees is what Vikir sees as well.
A desolate desert that stretched for miles and miles. An old man pacing in solitude with nothing around him.
He coughed dryly as his long, gray beard and black fringe of hair blew in the dry wind.
There is no one, nothing, in sight as the old man traverses the vast desert.
A few images flashed past him, but they were too fleeting to be sure.
[See it! See it clearly! You say you value your relationships with those around you now, but in the end, you are alone! You're all alone in your old age, wandering around alone and rooted nowhere!]
Only Andras burst out laughing.
In the meantime, the landscape continued to move quickly.
The old man crossed the desert.
The old man, bravely wading through strong winds and quick quicksand, looked solitary and lonely.
[See! You are being chased! You are fleeing from those who are pursuing you!]
His long beards blowing in the sandstorm.
The old man pauses for a moment, noticing something towering above the endless desert horizon.
It was a tower. A single tower, jutting out like a sword.
Andras's blood-red eyes flashed.
[A life where you have to run away from pursuit until the end of your life! Words that reflect on loneliness and solitude! But those who pursue you will find you! And in the end, you will reach where you are! You cannot run away from them! Forever! Forever! Hahaha- I see it, the furious looks of those who pursue you, your miserable future, bound and shackled to them forever!]
It naturally made Vikir recall the trauma of his previous life.
Memories of running away while falsely accused.
How he was eventually caught by the hounds of the Baskerville family and left covered in blood.
Being dragged to the guillotine, leaving a trail of blood on the ground.
Eventually, his throat was cut.
Cold sweat trickles down Vikir's face.
Eventually, Andras predicted Vikir's end.
[In the end, there will be five bodies!]
Five Body Divisions. The terrible punishment that began to become popular during the Warring States Period by the emperor of the Demonic Suzerainty.
Vikir himself was once nearly subjected to this before being sentenced to the guillotine, so naturally, he can't help but get a shiver down his spine.
"...."
The Hound gritted his teeth.
His breath caught in his throat. His lungs were constricting with cold sweat, and his mind was becoming foggy.
'Cradle' and 'Grave'.
...The time between these two places, at either end of the timeline of life, is life.
What kind of life was it?
And again, 'grave' and 'cradle'.
Vikir recalled the middle link of memory that connected the end of the first life to the beginning of the second.
Vikir.
He struggled.
He had always struggled.
An illegitimate son, the child of a concubine.
Hence the Van middle name.
He wasn't even born with a family name, like La or Le, which his siblings were given, so he had to work a hundred times harder than everyone else.
But it didn't end well for him.
After crossing so many lines of fire, luck finally turned against him.
He was falsely accused of being a demon spy and executed.
The Hound thought intensely.
'I want to live.'
'I want to live again.'
...And a miracle happened.
eung-ae-
The flutter of a butterfly's wings from a previous life. A small, insignificant change.
And the end of that change changed the world dramatically.
...Of course, the hound didn't do it alone.
Many, many faces have worked to bring him this far.
Even at this very moment, when he thinks of them fighting bloody battles with monsters outside the Imperial Palace, he can't just sit here and break out in a cold sweat.
"Demon Kills."
Despite the string of dire prophecies about his graying hair, Vikir was undaunted.
For the sake of his colleagues, he can't afford to wallow in sentimentality.
A single praying mantis cannot stop the gigantic wheel of cause and effect.
But even so, he must resist the reality at hand as best he can.
That was a much better choice than being swayed by the demon's tricks.
But Andras smiles from ear to ear.
And with a final flick of his tongue at Vikir, he said.
[Think carefully, all you see in your words is a 'grave'! Only the terrible fate of having your body and mind cut into five pieces awaits you! If you change your mind even now, you can change this future!]
The demon does not stop playing tricks on humans until the last moment.
…huug!
At the same time, a thick darkness rose from Andras's entire body.
All the illusions that Vikir had ever seen, including Nymphet, were blooming there.
The comrades he had failed to save, the friends he had sent on their way, and the countless dead he had mourned stared back at him.
As before, he raised his tongue like a dagger and aimed forward.
However.
… Flash!
The red light emanating from Vikir's eyes saw right through all of these illusions.
A void of nothingness.
A being like the dark nothingness that forms the abyss of magic.
Vikir realized with a startling realization.
In the end, Andras is empty.
Nothing (Nevermore).
He was nothing more than The Raven, visiting a frail and weary body in the dead of night.
"...."
Suddenly, Vikir was about to say the words he had always repeated dogmatically, 'Demon Kills'.
The emotions that were boiling inside of him now would not be resolved by the words alone.
The hatred of the demons that had accumulated over the course of his two lives, the self-pity he felt for himself, the regret he felt for what he hadn't accomplished and what he couldn't do, the regret and guilt he felt for the relationships he had lost, and the complicated thoughts he had about his father, Hugo.
The frustration, sense of isolation, resentment, and anger about all of these things swell greatly with each inhalation.
…Pakang!
Vikir drew his sword at full length.
He slashed straight through the visions in front of him, forcing all of those old, stale emotions he'd been storing up in his lungs to come out of his bloodied throat.
[...!?]
Andras's eyes widen to tears.
jjeoeog-
Vikir's sword fell like a bolt of lightning.
A final leap to slice through nothingness. The will of man.
Just before the head of the last enemy, the last demon falls off from the body and flies away.
The hound, who had been biting and killing demons all his life, opened his mouth with a sigh of relief.
"Fuck you."
It was his personal feelings revealed for the first time.
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