Chapter 235 - Noblesse-Class

The golden scale pierced his skin, drawing red blood. But only for a moment. The foreign object soon settled into his palm, and golden light poured from within it.

The light spread from his hand like a guiding beacon, illuminating his surroundings. No, it was so intense that piercing them would have been a better description.

The moment that brilliant light lit the way ahead, something astonishing happened. The corridor stretching into endless darkness began to tremble. The unnecessarily long stretches of tile compressed, the darkness thinned, and the castle returned to its original size.

“Now that is a dragon’s power.”

King Heodret chuckled and asked the mage, “What about now? Have we entered yet another space?”

“No, Your Majesty. The castle’s true form has been revealed!”

The scouting mage’s face brightened.

“And... I’m certain of it. I can clearly sense where the spatial distortion magic originates!”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. If we attack that location, the castle will return to normal.”

King Heodret stroked his chin, then said, “Why don’t we leave it alone?”

“What do you mean, Your Majesty?”

“I mean we should go elsewhere first, leaving the source of the spell intact.”

“But that would leave the others trapped in the distorted space.”

“How frustrating. You ought to be able to take a hint.”

“Oh.”

This was a joint operation, but it was also a race to claim the prize. Why free the others while he held the advantage?

“Let’s move. We can slit the king of Heinkel’s throat while we have the time.”

“Yes, Your Majesty!”

King Heodret took the lead once more and marched on.

* * *

Meanwhile, Ferda had left the bedchamber and was wandering through Heinkel’s domain as well. He had once risen to the rank of Great Mage, but now he was, of course, merely a 5th Circle mage. His abilities alone were not enough to get him out.

That did not mean escape was impossible. The space had been vastly expanded, but it was not infinite. It had to end somewhere.

‘At least a week... to get out?’

Finishing his calculations, Ferda reached a conclusion.

‘I’d be better off hoping someone else breaks it.’

He would not be the only one trapped here, and troops from numerous kingdoms would be coming in anyway. The problem was what would happen if too many of them thought the same way he did.

It was like a poker table full of beginners, all bluffing outrageously and simply hoping no one called.

Ferda continued down the silent corridor. Fanatics, Demons, ghouls, beastlike demonic creatures... All manner of groups tried to attack him, but he eliminated every one. Fighting alone was all too familiar.

‘I’m wearing myself down.’

When he finally stood before the king of Heinkel, would he be able to give it everything he had? The question fed his unease.

Then something entered his field of vision. Unlike the demonic creatures that had charged at him, it moved terribly slowly. Something was struggling to crawl toward him.

It was a middle-aged man he had seen at the coalition’s meeting. The king of some kingdom.

“S-save me... Help me... Hurry...”

He wore splendid armor, but his mouth was full of scarlet blood. He struggled to cling to the last tiny scrap of hope, yet even now he could not forget his royal authority.

“Don’t just stare... Do... something... I can’t feel my feet...!”

He apparently had no idea why: his entire lower body was gone.

The only mercy Ferda could offer him was death. But he did not even have time for that. A sword came flying down the corridor and buried itself in the man’s upper body, killing him outright.

It was an exquisite sword, bearing a design similar to the one on the dead king’s back.

‘Don’t tell me...’

Ferda raised his head and looked down the corridor. Fortunately, this had not been the tragedy of a knight murdering his own king. Instead, he saw the aftermath of a one-sided slaughter wrought by some being.

Around twenty knights lay dead. Chosen to guard their king, they had to have been among their kingdom’s finest. The thing that had wiped out those elite fighters was a veritable monstrous beast. Judging by the aura it radiated, it was unquestionably at least a Noblesse-class Demon.

At that thought, Ferda immediately began preparing a spell. He needed enough firepower to bring it down in a single blow, and that required advance preparation.

His eyes, capable of seeing through the darkness, examined its form. The moment a particular detail registered, he could not contain his astonishment.

“Second Prince?”

The Second Prince, Ureas Arken. Even as he addressed him, Ferda wondered whether it really was Ureas.

Horns had sprouted haphazardly across his face, covering it like roots bursting through the skin. Only a quarter of his features remained. His skin had turned black, and his eyes reflected an eerie white light like those of a beast at night.

Ureas had always been a large man, but he had swollen further, now towering two meters and fifty centimeters tall. His golden armor hung in tatters.

‘Demon conversion?’

But unlike other Demons, his eyes were not red.

‘A curse, then?’

What sort of curse could leave someone looking like that? Ferda tried to consider the possibilities, but there was no time.

“Ferda...”

Ureas’s eyes pierced the darkness, fixed squarely on him. He unleashed the emotions boiling up from within.

“FERDAAA!!”

With a beastlike howl, he hurled himself at Ferda. He shot forward like an arrow loosed from a powerful bow, slashing precisely at Ferda’s waist. Half of Ferda’s body went flying.

SPLAT!

It sounded like a glob of paint hurled against a wall. The wall that should have been covered in blood and flesh was instead splashed with what looked like black paint.

Then the black stain darted away. As surely as humans were bound by gravity, the shadow sought out its master.

Ferda did not let the opportunity slip by.

“Lightning Spear.”

A 4th-tier emission spell. Red lightning shot straight toward Ureas.

CRACK!

The red lightning tore through demonic skin and blasted Ureas’s shoulder away. Clutching the wound, he howled.

“Aaaargh!! Ferda! You bastard!! How dare you attack me!!”

He looked up, baring sharp, beastlike teeth. He had not lost his reason and gone berserk. He was simply as stupid as ever.

“Second Prince, are you still in there?”

Ferda first tried talking to him. Ureas bellowed in response.

“You will wash away the sacrilege of attacking me with your blood!”

“Calm yourself, Second Prince. We still have a common enemy.”

“Shut up! Do you think I’ll listen to you? You fiend, trying to steal everything from me!!”

A scream of hatred lashing out blindly. Unwilling to endure any more of it, Ferda chanted a soothing spell and fired it into Ureas’s head.

‘That’s strange.’

The spell he had used calmed hot tempers and restored a narrowed perspective to normal. He felt it penetrate Ureas’s head and was certain it should have worked. Yet he could see no reason in Ureas’s eyes.

Why?

And the surprises did not end there. As Ureas stood panting in rage, his blasted-off left arm was regenerating.

‘Most Demons couldn’t even heal that...’

Had Ureas become a Noblesse-class Demon, or something higher? Using that black blood?

The last result he had seen from laboratory director Linne’s sample was an unstable Bouncer. He could hardly believe it had evolved so far since then.

“Second Prince, get ahold of yourself. You are the Second Prince of the Arken Empire, a man who could reign as its next emperor. You must not let the Demons take your mi—”

“Shut up, you inferior piece of trash!”

Ureas’s roar drowned him out.

“I should have killed you the moment I saw you. The moment my sister started looking at you! I should have smashed you to fucking pieces! I curse myself for being too stupid to do it!”

His rage would not abate. Ferda quickly assessed the situation. Words would not work, so force was the only option left. He could cut off Ureas’s limbs to incapacitate him, or squeeze his heart until he was half-dead.

Ferda began preparing a magic circle. Having already suffered a devastating hit, Ureas had no intention of letting him attack again. Naturally, he charged at Ferda.

But his body pitched forward, and he fell flat on the floor.

“What?! What is stopping me?!”

Beneath his feet lay a shadow deeper than the darkness. It held tremendous power; even the strengthened Ureas could not easily shake it off. Ferda’s shadow deepened further and engulfed him like a slime.

“Damn it! Damn it!! FERDAAA!!!”

The spell Ferda was preparing was Lightning Cluster, a firepower-focused spell that fired a powerful cluster of lightning to shred the target’s entire body. Even a seasoned mage would struggle to counter it. Ureas might not survive.

That did not matter. Holding back against an opponent of this caliber would put Ferda himself in danger.

That was when he sensed something strange as he prepared his spell. The masses of shadow enveloping Ureas retained every sensation, as though they were parts of Ferda’s own body. Through them, he felt an unusual heat emanating from Ureas.

Before he could even finish wondering whether he was imagining it, a searing sensation engulfed him, so intense he felt he might melt.

“Urgh...!”

Ferda quickly severed the mental connection.

But his incantation continued. At last, the magic circle condensed in his hand and took shape.

“Lightning Cluster.”

At first, it flew forward much like the Lightning Spears he had cast before. But as it approached its target, its outer surface opened like a flower, spreading into dozens of strands of lightning.

The cluster tore straight through the mass of shadow, ravaging every part of the form within. It was an indiscriminate attack that spared neither head nor heart, leaving Ureas’s survival to the heavens.

Yet now, even that seemed an arrogant assumption. The searing heat Ferda had felt through his shadow told him as much. The Ureas inside had become something beyond his imagination.

Just then, scarlet light seeped from the mass of shadow. It heated the mass until it glowed red-hot. Then Ureas tore it apart and burst out.

“AAAAH!!!”

The roar seemed to rip the air apart. At the sight of his form, Ferda was appalled.

Ureas had always relied on sheer physical force, using mana only in the form of a knight’s aura. And when his body had transformed completely, that aura had vanished. Yet now he was using magic.

His once-empty eyes blazed, and flames surged from the joints of his body. Their light was so intense that every shadow Ferda had extended lost its power.

“Shadows...! So it was shadows, Ferda! You were a Dark Mage! A filthy Dark Mage! Hahahaha!!”

Ureas burst into exaggerated laughter, as though he had caught Ferda red-handed.

“All that pretending to be noble and admirable, and in the end you’re just another fallen human!”

“I don’t know what you’re so proud of, shouting like that. Not when you’ve succumbed to the Demons’ temptation.”

Ferda’s words dripped with disgust. Ureas, however, remained utterly shameless.

“The Demons’ temptation? Do you think I would fall for such a crude illusion?”

“Can you look at your own face and still say that?”

“My face?”

Ureas ran a hand over his face, from his chin up to the grotesque horns. He seemed to know what he looked like.

“Isn’t it noble?”

Joy spread over the quarter of his face that remained.

“You’re proud of that hideous appearance?”

“You think it’s hideous? No, this is the natural form of one who rules!”

Nonsense delivered with absolute confidence.

“Now that I think about it, it was truly strange. It was strange that we looked like other humans. We who look down upon tens of millions—how can we be mere humans beneath the heavens?!”

His voice brimmed with agitation. He shouted in a voice that made it impossible to tell whether he was exulting or sobbing.

“The Arken bloodline is the golden bloodline! Gold flows through our bodies! Look!”

He finally began mutilating himself. He tore open his chest and spilled out what lay within. A human body would have bled, but what poured from him was scarlet lava. It did not cool, radiating ferocious heat.

“I have the right to rule! The right to conquer! The right to love Olivia!! A mere human drunk on dark magic has no right to be loved by her!”

THUD! THUD!

His stamping feet made a menacing sound. Ferda remembered what Olivia had told him: Ureas saw her as a projection of his mother. But this went far beyond that.

His madness was enough to make even Ferda, who had little to do with the matter, feel sorry for Olivia. Still, if it all stemmed from that misconception, perhaps there was a way to resolve this. He cautiously reached for a way through.

“You’re deeply delusional, Second Prince. I have never once wanted to take the princess into my arms. If you wish, I can swear to it here and now.”

Ferda could give her up. They had never been lovers to begin with, and she would have no feelings for him either.

“Even if that’s how you feel, do you think Olivia feels the same?”

“What do you mean?”

“How can you not know? Olivia loves you!”

What kind of bullshit was he spouting now?

“Second Prince, get ahold of yourself. What you saw meant nothing.”

“No! It wasn’t an illusion! It was the absolute truth!”

“It was a hallucination created by a creature called a Trauma. It merely forces you to think things you ordinarily wouldn’t. Open your eyes.”

“I told you, I’m not imagining it! Then why does my sister have your handkerchief?!”

“That’s ridiculous...”

Ferda could not continue. A memory suddenly surfaced: during a private meeting with Olivia, she had spilled her tea, and he had given her his handkerchief.

While Ferda stood speechless, Ureas shrieked in a fit.

“Why?! Why does she smile when she looks at that lowly handkerchief of yours?!”