Chapter 37
As he tore through the Godfather's lungs, Dominic considered his own condition.
Dominic could not defeat a dragon in his current state.
Dominic had once reached a distant realm, but he was now an old man trapped in the shell of the Third Tier.
His technique had touched the heavens, but his body had never reached that height. Dominic was the ash left after the fire had burned away.
‘Cutting down a Tier Seven dragon with Dominic’s body is physically impossible.’
The one fortunate thing was that the Black Dragon, a species notorious for letting its guard down, had polymorphed.
Dragons reaching the Sixth and Seventh Tiers owed much of that to their innate racial advantages.
Thus, it was fair to assume that a polymorphed dragon lost roughly one and a half tiers.
Accordingly, there was only one way for Dominic to defeat the Godfather.
Kill him before he returned to his dragon form.
Having assigned himself a mission, Dominic drove his sword between the Godfather's third and fourth ribs.
Even in human form, dragon bone was still dragon bone, so he could not break it, but even a dragon's internal organs were not equally hard.
The sensation of severed muscle traveled up from the tip of his sword.
Cough.
The Godfather spat out a mouthful of blood.
Even with one of his hearts torn apart, his eyes had not lost their fighting spirit.
Overworking his remaining heart, he covered his regenerated right arm in scales and aimed for Dominic's head.
Dominic ducked beneath the attack and used the sturdy dragon rib as a fulcrum to bend his sword downward.
Ting.
The sword embedded between the ribs broke.
With part of it left in the heart.
Only then did the Godfather realize Dominic's intention.
“Cowardly···”
“For an old body like this to survive in a harsh world, one must be cowardly.”
The place where Dominic had left the blade behind corresponded to the reverse scale when the dragon transformed.
When a dragon became human, the reverse scale disappeared as well, so it did not die instantly.
However, if a foreign object occupied the spot where the reverse scale should be, the scale would be destroyed the moment the dragon returned to its true form.
That was why older dragons were always warned to be careful when enjoying their amusements in polymorph form.
“Looks like no elder ever warned you to be careful while enjoying your amusements?”
Provoked by Dominic, the Godfather ground his teeth and began raising scales over both hands.
At that moment, Dominic, now gripping a sword in each hand, swung them in an X.
A sharp silver afterimage appeared a moment later, and a red line was drawn across the elbows where scales had not yet formed.
Thud.
The dragon's forearms fell to the ground.
“For a young dragon, you certainly lack combat experience. Reality isn't fair enough to wait for you to bring out your true strength.”
Despite Dominic's repeated taunts, the Godfather could not refute him.
As Dominic had said, the Godfather was young among dragons, and his race had been wiped out before he could learn all of the wisdom of dragonkind.
Meanwhile, the blood streaming from both arms came to a stop.
Dragon blood was still dragon blood, and its regenerative power was exceptional.
Seeing new flesh already budding from the arms, Dominic continued his flurry of attacks.
Clang!
The Godfather did not simply allow himself to be attacked.
Just before the old butler's sword struck, he formed scales over the target area and blocked the attack.
The old butler's sword struck the scales with a shower of sparks and bounced away.
Thanks to his innate visual acuity and the modest skills he had accumulated over the past several hundred years, he managed to respond more or less adequately.
But despite the Godfather's efforts, he suffered far more fatal wounds than he managed to prevent.
It was a terrible matchup.
Had it been a swift sword style that overwhelmed him with sheer speed, his reflexes might have been enough to respond.
But no matter how good one's reflexes were, one could not respond to something one had not seen.
The old man's right-hand sword aimed for his flank.
Just before the sword struck, he formed scales over it, and a sharp pain raced through his thigh.
While his attention was fixed on the right-hand sword, the left-hand sword claimed a piece of his thigh.
His dragon bone kept it from being severed, but his aorta was struck.
To make matters worse, he had completely lost his mobility.
Without giving the Godfather even time to think of a countermeasure, the next attack targeted his neck.
When he formed scales over it, his trapezius was cut instead.
The Godfather sacrificed both legs and completely covered his right arm in scales.
‘Now I've taken away his means of attack···’
“Giving up your legs? Have you never trained in martial arts while in human form?”
Seeing through the Godfather's thoughts, Dominic took his eye.
His vision was swallowed by darkness.
While his eye regenerated, his Achilles tendon and the back of his knee were severed.
The Godfather's legs gave way, and he pitched forward.
Grinding his teeth, he tore open his own chest with his scaled right arm.
Enduring the pain, he forced out the cold metal lodged where his reverse scale had been.
‘Done!’
At that moment, a sword pierced his heart again through his shoulder.
“Good attempt.”
Dominic once again broke the sword using the dragon bone as a brace.
The Godfather ground his teeth and racked his brain for a way out of the situation.
‘I need time.’
He did not have enough time to cover his entire body in scales or remove the fragments of sword from his heart.
Wanting to buy even a little time, the Godfather shouted at Dominic.
“Why would someone as strong as you help an elf like that get revenge!”
Dominic's attack stopped at the shout.
‘Done!’
The Godfather inwardly exulted.
He regenerated his eye first and captured the old butler's expression in his field of vision.
Through his blurry vision, clogged with blood, the white-haired old man answered with fury.
“You lizards seem desperate to get at my reverse scale.”
- “Why are you lizards so desperate to get at my reverse scale?”
The old man's words dredged up a memory from the Godfather's past.
*
In the past, there had been a Black Dragon who roamed throughout the Empire in pursuit of reaching the Eighth Tier.
He was a dragon so talented and beloved that he was recognized as the heir before he had even left the ranks of the young dragons.
With the ambition of making his clan great burning in his heart, the heir followed a powerful presence until he reached a village.
An elf at the beginning of the Seventh Tier lived in that village.
As a matter of course, the heir demanded a sacrifice from the village.
That was the beginning of the tragedy.
The heir lost one of his wings in that village as the price of his arrogance.
The clan's elders and its head set out for the village to avenge their beloved heir.
Then, wishing to make an example of it, they held a feast of dragons there.
At the feast held in the burning village, the heir looked upon the elders who had avenged him with respect and admiration.
It was then that the heir's father, the clan's leader, and the mightiest dragon of them all spotted a young man.
A moderately strong young man who stood before a burning house with his head bowed as he gazed at a corpse whose upper body had vanished.
Still hungry, the clan head approached the young man from behind and opened his mouth wide.
Everyone in the clan expected blood to burst from the clan head's mouth like a crushed tomato.
But what unfolded next was a scene in which the young man suddenly vanished, only to spear the clan head through his right eye.
- “Clan head!”
The spear pierced the clan head's eye, avoided the bone, and churned through his brain.
Thud.
The huge body collapsed.
Only then did everyone realize that the clan head had met an absurd end.
Fear, an emotion proud dragons should never feel, spread through them like a plague.
- “I am an honorable Black Dragon’s- Keh!”
- “You young dragons, run… noooo!!!”
From that moment on, the relationship between hunter and prey was reversed.
The young man reduced the dragons one by one as though he were simply doing a job.
The heir, hiding beneath the elders' corpses amid that hellscape, remembered the conversation between the young man and the last elder clearly.
- “Why!! Why would someone like you be in a place like this…!!!”
- “Why are you lizards so desperate to get at my reverse scale?”
*
“Gasp!”
Returning to reality from the memories that had flashed past like a revolving lantern, the heir drew a ragged breath.
His torn heart began beating violently.
He grew dizzy, and his hands trembled.
- “Keidra! Rudra! Alidra! Answer me!”
- “My eyes… I can’t see…”
- “Ancestors! Protect us- Urk!!”
The city—or rather, the village—is burning.
His children—or rather, the elders—were screaming.
The nightmare rose before his eyes.
The wound he had believed himself to have overcome began to tear open.
“No···”
The Godfather knew this feeling.
“No···!”
But he could never accept it.
“No!!!”
He had vowed never to repeat the nightmare of that day.
He had vowed to himself again and again that he would never flee in terror.
The Godfather summoned every ounce of his strength and covered his entire body in scales.
Like a child who believed wrapping himself tightly in a blanket would keep him from having a nightmare.
“I am! I am of the Clan of Pitch-Black Wings···!”
At that moment, a sword pierced through his open mouth and into his internal organs.
There were no scales inside his mouth.
The sword tore through his innards without resistance.
At the cold sensation of something piercing through his organs, the Godfather's body shuddered.
The strength left his legs, and his knees were forced to the ground once more.
Dominic pinned the Godfather's neck in place with his sword and looked down at him with cold eyes.
“I have waited for this moment to reclaim the honor you sullied.”
The kind and courteous old man was nowhere to be seen.
All that stood there was a grim swordsman seeking to reclaim his trampled honor.
“I don't care that you copied my face. Even if you borrowed my name to uphold chivalry, I would have forgiven you.”
Dominic released the sword lodged in the Godfather's mouth and drew a new one.
“But you chose insult instead of chivalry.”
The Godfather's pupils trembled.
He wanted to offer some kind of explanation, but the sword in his mouth prevented him.
Watching the Godfather move his throat as he tried to speak, Dominic said,
“You've got tenacious vitality. I've killed plenty of scaled creatures, but this is my first time killing one in human form. Then, Godfather···”
How would you like to die?
***
Crack.
The Godfather's joint broke.
Scales only strengthened the skin.
There was nothing he could do about his joints bending and his ligaments tearing.
As the blinding pain subsided, his consciousness gradually faded.
The past flashed before him once more like a revolving lantern.
Having lost his clan, the heir assumed human form in order to survive.
Ironically, his polymorphed form was the face of the man who had destroyed his clan.
The heir tried to change that hateful face.
But no matter what other appearance he attempted, the man was always the one staring back at him from the mirror.
In the end, the heir gave up and wandered throughout the marquisate with that face.
During that time, the heir discovered sword statues scattered throughout the marquisate.
They were statues symbolizing the nameless swordsman said to have helped countless people, handed down like figures from a folktale.
Sword. Swordsman. The hateful being who had annihilated his clan.
The heir destroyed those hateful statues whenever he saw them.
No one ever said that the swordsman who had destroyed his clan was the subject of those statues.
But no one else could have annihilated his clan, and only that explanation made sense.
Thus, while wandering and destroying statues, he happened upon a grave.
When the heir saw the swordsman who had by then become a skeleton in that grave, he despaired.
The one who had annihilated his clan had already escaped through death, making revenge forever impossible.
Then, as the heir knelt in despair, he saw his own face reflected in a puddle.
- “This face···”
From that day on, the heir changed his goal.
He decided to destroy everything the swordsman had left behind.
What happened afterward was just as he had told Jane.
He made a name for himself as a swordsman.
He was betrayed by the people and sold to the marquis.
Using that as a pretext, he formed the mafia alliance and thoroughly destroyed every trace of the swordsman that remained throughout the marquisate.
Having completed his revenge, the heir realized that he had come to regard the members of the vast alliance as his family.
- ‘This is family.’
Afterward, he discarded the name Padro and became the Godfather.
His revenge complete, he now wanted to protect the things precious to him.
- “She may be a foolish daughter, but I love her.”
He took back the foolish Camilla, who had failed to recognize the father who had once saved her and wandered among the resistance.
He fed blood to his eldest son and daughter, then gradually built up his power with them at the forefront.
Watching his children gradually grow was a truly happy time.
Truly··· happy···
.
.
.
“Father!!”
At his eldest daughter's cry, the Godfather's consciousness, which had been gradually sinking, surfaced once more.
When he came to his senses, he saw the old butler looking down at him and his eldest daughter rushing toward him from behind the old butler in an attempt to save him.
“Agh!!”
- No!
The Godfather's protest failed to reach his daughter.
Without taking his eyes off the Godfather, Dominic reversed his grip on the sword and stabbed backward.
She saw the sword aimed at her stomach and did not defend herself.
But the sword pierced straight through her navel, between her scales.
“Like father, like daughter.”
The eldest daughter, impaled through the stomach, clenched her teeth and swung her claws.
Only then did Dominic turn toward her and drive the sword even deeper, as though hammering in a nail.
“Guhk!”
“Did you really think this lizard loved you sincerely? You know far too little about their habits. This family game is ultimately just another form of treasure hoarding for dragonkind.”
Camilla denied it and met the Godfather's eyes.
Her father, with a sword lodged in his mouth, squeezed his eyes shut and nodded.
As though all of this were nothing more than a family game.
But the lie he had told because he wanted his eldest daughter to flee instead produced the opposite result.
“I know better than anyone that your love isn't a lie!”
Camilla clenched her teeth and rose to her feet.
“I saw it clearly! It wasn't some legendary swordsman who saved me that day—it was you!”
The spirit of a tiger filled Camilla's body.
It was the secret art of the beastmen: spirit possession.
The Godfather let out a scream.
Activating spirit possession while manifesting dragon scales carried a high risk of being swallowed by the beast within.
But the Godfather soon realized that his concern had been unfounded.
Like a scene from a movie, she retained her reason.
As though this were the power of love.
Hope kindled in the eyes of both father and daughter.
And Dominic hated those eyes.
“Tsk.”
Swish.
A silver arc passed before her uncovered eye, the one place not covered by scales.
A moment later, a red line ran across her eye, and blood spurted out.
“Aaaah!!”
The Godfather let out a scream.
Dominic hooked the foot of the one-eyed woman and knocked her down.
She fell to the ground and sobbed as she groped blindly at the earth.
“Dad, I can't see. Where are you···”
“Ag!”
The father with his mouth sealed and the daughter without an eye searched desperately for each other.
Dominic trampled on the back of his crawling daughter and seized her chin.
The Godfather realized what Dominic was about to do.
“Aaaah!”
- Don't!
Dominic gave the Godfather a cold answer.
“The citizens this woman sawed apart were someone’s children too.”
Crack.
Her neck twisted, and soon she could no longer move.
She did not move again.
Blood pooled in the Godfather's eyes.
‘This is··· karma···?”
Was this karma—having one's family cruelly taken away twice by a single man?
Then why was that man not receiving the same karma?
‘I can't accept this···! I must not accept it!!!’
The Godfather, a sword lodged in his neck, let out a roar and clenched his teeth.
His teeth closed together, destroying the sword.
But the pain in his neck was nothing compared to the agony constricting his heart.
He abandoned reason and returned to his dragon form.
He no longer cared about his reverse scale.
Even if the reverse scale were destroyed, he would at least take that man down···!
But Dominic continued his attack as though he would not permit even that transformation.
He cut out his eyes, split his navel, severed his tongue, and stabbed into the base of his wing.
In the end, the Godfather ran out of strength, withdrew his scales, and fell to his knees.
“Why··· Why···”
“Why is that proud dragon shedding tears?”
“Why are you taking this so far!”
“That’s what I should be asking. After dredging up a past I had barely managed to put behind me, did you think you would be free of responsibility?”
Only then did the Godfather look into the old man's eyes.
The old man he had thought was nothing more than burned-out ash was also looking down at him with bloodshot eyes.
“Everyone has a past they don't want others to see. Are you satisfied now?”
Casting aside the last scrap of courtesy, the old butler shouted until his throat seemed ready to tear.
Confronted with that rage, the Godfather soon let out a hollow laugh.
“Ridiculous···”
“What?”
“In the end, you won't become a winner either. Don't you think revenge is terribly futile?”
Dominic's forehead bulged with veins as he tightened his grip on the sword.
Dominic raised the sword like an executioner and spoke to the Godfather.
“I'd sooner set the ashes ablaze than forgive you.”
Dominic, raising the sword while ‘trusting Jane,’ brought it down toward the Godfather's neck.
Clang!
As though answering that faith, the protagonist blocked the final boss's sword.