Chapter 184
Like every other dragon, Iorga was famous for her cruelty, to the point of being called cold-blooded.
Erika Iorga, the Blue-Eyed Tower Master, had that nature as well, but among the dragonspawn, she was the most understanding and highly respected for resolving matters wisely.
That was why few people ever got to see her magic in action.
The elves were experiencing one of those rare occasions.
Five streams of water were sweeping away the elves like a river swollen by midsummer rain.
“Take cover, everyone!”
“Rune of Protection!”
“Use Runes of Interference to break apart their forms!”
Hundreds of elite soldiers had gathered, but there was no elf here capable of stopping Iorga, the leader of the dragonspawn, after she had abandoned all reason.
Even their sophisticated command structure, which operated through shared minds, afforded no opening for attack.
With one wrong move leaving them liable to become nothing more than pebbles in a riverbed, their only option was to defend themselves.
“Amazing……”
Lize, who had been watching, gazed upward with eyes filled with wonder.
“That is the power of the one known as the expedition’s wise one—the one who defeated the Demon King……”
Ferda also looked up at Erika, following Lize’s gaze.
“Hohoho! What happened to that spirit from a moment ago? Why are you hiding like rats!?”
“Try blocking this too!!”
“What a splendid sight! More! Struggle harder!! It wouldn’t be fun if you fell already!?”
‘Wisdom?’
No matter how he looked at her, she was no different from a witch, and her actions now were pure savagery.
‘Still, she hasn’t lost her reason entirely.’
Ferda knew the power that had pierced through the monster’s head.
Although Erika was capable of wielding such murderous streams of water, she was currently adjusting their strength to merely knock her opponents unconscious.
“We should move.”
“Yes, yes?”
“We must escape while she is rampaging like that.”
“Ah, yes!”
She had ultimately stopped holding back so that they could escape.
Lize tightened her grip on the strap of her bag and ran ahead.
“Stop the escaped prisoners!”
“That human was trying to assassinate the Grand Chieftain!”
Apparently, Ferda took priority over Erika.
A murderous aura so fierce that even his status as Valdrova’s fiancé had been pushed aside was directed at Ferda.
Ferda fought back as well.
“Lightning Bolt.”
Water and electricity naturally made a good combination in magic.
Even if it missed its target, its influence would travel along the wet ground.
“Gghh!”
“Grrrgh!”
He lightly sent a current through the ground, electrocuting the archers and preventing them from moving.
However, Ferda as he was now could not stop all the agile elves.
‘I should worry about my own safety before fighting back with attacks.’
Ferda changed tactics and began chanting another spell.
“Static Force.”
A lightning-type defensive spell.
Ferda’s hair floated upward toward the sky.
A sphere made of static electricity formed in his hand, and it flew about, shooting down and knocking aside every arrow that came toward him.
It was a defensive spell that automatically pushed away everything from all directions, but it consumed an equally tremendous amount of mana.
“Call for reinforcements!”
As soldiers fell and time was bought, more and more soldiers continued to fill the World Tree.
Just as the attacks were becoming difficult to block, they finally reached the landing where the sky carriage was waiting.
“This way!”
When Lize placed her hand against the entrance, a corridor leading outside the World Tree formed.
“Regent!”
The rampaging Erika called out.
“Those pointy-eared bastards are crawling in from behind like cockroaches!?”
“Is that so?”
“I’ll hold them off, so go out first!”
“……Understood.”
Ferda decided to take it as his imagination that she sounded as if she intended to go enjoy herself a little longer rather than hold them off.
Lize ran ahead.
Everything seemed to be proceeding smoothly.
“Now all we have to do is go out through this corridor, ngh……!”
However, nothing ever went so smoothly.
An elf was blocking the path they needed to take.
“……Elder.”
The High Elf Elder who had been commanding the others had anticipated Lize’s route and was blocking it alone.
His face was twisted into an ugly expression.
“You finally went and did something foolish……”
The finger he pointed at Lize trembled violently.
“I should have known from the moment the Grand Chieftain didn’t cast you out…… In the end, you’ve become a calamity for us all! You rootless thing!”
Lize bit her lip, wounded by the Elder’s harsh words.
“Do you know what you’re doing? You’re betraying your own kind. Betraying Mother, betraying your own kind, and betraying the other tribes that depend on us! You’re doing exactly what the Dark Elves do!”
“Th-this isn’t betrayal.”
“Are you saying it’s right to carry out the Grand Chieftain’s orders to the point of idiocy? If he told you to die, would you die!?”
“That……”
Lize could not answer.
Seeing her like that, the Elder gave a derisive snort.
“That is why you can never become one with us.”
Having said that, he turned his gaze toward Ferda.
“You’re Regent Ferda, I presume?”
“I don’t recall exchanging names with you.”
“Hmph, yes, Valdrova’s fiancé. I would prefer it if you did not make today’s events any worse.”
He gestured toward Lize with his chin.
“Hand over that girl and the object. Then no one will hold you responsible for what happened today, and we will let you leave this place.”
“R-Regent……”
Lize squeezed her eyes shut.
Her face seemed to say that she would not resent him, no matter what choice he made.
Ferda looked down at Lize and said,
“I understand.”
Lize’s eyes widened.
She looked utterly betrayed, clearly never having expected him to truly hand her over.
“Then I shall hand her over.”
Ferda grabbed Lize by the shoulder.
“Be sure to catch her.”
Then he raised his other, empty hand.
The blackened hand regained its original color, and a magic circle formed.
* * *
High Elf Elder Cypress hated humans.
He believed that the mysterious power known as magic should not be used by humans.
He thought it was something only long-lived races like the elves, who lived for countless years, should possess.
In that sense, a man named Ferda was the most irritating human of all to Cypress.
A human mage.
And a dragon’s fiancé at that.
He found it distasteful that a short-lived race, incapable of accumulating merit over many long years, possessed a status so far beyond its station.
And now such a man had caused an incident in elven territory and was trying to flee.
To make matters worse, what Cypress read in Ferda’s eyes was hostility.
A challenge to authority that should never have been shown to a High Elf Elder.
Everything that angered him instead made him calm.
Every one of Ferda’s actions was nothing more than a laughable gesture to him.
The mana circulating through Ferda’s body was insignificant compared to his own.
If he attacked, he was powerful enough to send Ferda straight back and demonstrate the difference in their ranks.
And the man before him did not deviate from Cypress’s expectations.
He pretended to hand Lize over while ridiculously employing human magic.
“Lightning Spear.”
Crackle!
Light flickered in Ferda’s hand.
‘Pathetic.’
The Grand Chieftain deftly drew a Rune of Protection.
Judging by the scale of the mana, it was a spell his own rune could repel with ease.
That was what he thought when it happened.
The magic circle that had formed in Ferda’s right hand disappeared.
‘A mistake?’
A common mistake that only an insignificant short-lived race could make.
But it did not seem that way.
Even though the magic had disappeared, his eyes remained fixed precisely on the target without the slightest trace of confusion.
His eyes were like a bottomless lake into which one might fall.
They saw straight through him.
‘A feint.’
The moment Ferda realized what was happening, he immediately brought out the move he had kept hidden.
The hand that had pulled Lize backward came forward.
In that hand was a staff Cypress had never seen before, and light began to trace itself around it.
The magic circle condensed and manifested as magic.
Even if a magic circle formed, there was no cause for concern.
Even when using a magical tool, if the wielder was fundamentally low-ranking, the spell’s power was bound to have its limits.
This was a level of power that a Rune of Protection could block with ease.
In fact, Cypress’s calculation was perfectly accurate.
However, after Ferda took out that staff, the magic circle was anything but ordinary.
Although he was a High Elf unfamiliar with human magic, he quickly realized what he was seeing.
It was not a magic circle made merely of lines and dots; it also contained the written symbols known as runes.
Among them were several runes Cypress recognized.
‘The magical power gathering in that magic circle…… isn’t that human’s.’
The mana was on an entirely different level of depth from anything that could have been forged from the power within his body.
‘Then that means…….’
As soon as he understood, Cypress furrowed his brow.
“It’s the Grand Chieftain’s mana……”
Inside Mother’s Heart, Threads flew through the sky.
Ferda had stolen those Threads and waited for a moment like this.
As one question was answered, another arose.
No matter how potent someone’s mana was, who could possibly wield magic from such a high realm?
It was impossible even for an elf, just as a fish could not live on land.
‘I must not let my guard down.’
Without lowering his guard, Cypress drew as many Runes of Protection as possible and layered them together.
He focused every protective measure solely on blocking the magic that was about to erupt in every direction.
The yellow barrier that rose up darkened, eventually becoming a deep amber shell.
He was confident that it could block anything that emerged from that magic circle.
But Cypress’s calculations went astray once again.
Bzzzt.
He heard the sound of air being sucked inward, along with the faint crackle of a spark.
As the light began to flicker, the Elder could not hide his astonishment.
“What is that……?!”
The light was not the blue he had seen moments ago, but a deep red.
The Elder had seen that light once before.
There was only one person who could wield lightning of that color.
A traitor who had broken the Oath of Pure Blood, freely entered into a relationship with a human, and taught him magic.
Several months after that traitor was executed, a woman appeared before the World Tree.
She came dressed in black mourning clothes.
She was small and unimpressive, but the black makeup blurred by her tears made her look like a terrifying vengeful spirit.
The girl, consumed by hatred, said,
-I swore we would be together for life, until the heavens tore us apart, yet the heavens are so heartless toward a woman.
The girl who had come bearing hatred and rage raised her hand toward the sky.
-Since the heavens will not punish you, I shall punish you myself.
It was red lightning that defied the natural order.
The lightning stretched toward the sky and shattered the World Tree.
“Fury of Storm.”
This time, the lightning flew toward the Elder’s chest.
The previously relaxed Elder twisted his body violently.
Crash!
The barrier made from densely layered Runes of Protection shattered like thin glass.
A barrier strong enough to easily withstand a sixth-tier discharge spell had been utterly destroyed.
“Gghh……!?”
The Elder had barely survived.
He felt a strange emptiness in his body, accompanied by a dull ache.
When he looked down at the spot, all that remained of his twisted left arm was a gaping hole.
All that was left for him was the pain of losing his arm.
“Th-this……!”
Even more painful was the humiliation of having been attacked.
“You insignificant short-lived—!”
He began venting his rage like someone whose greatest taboo had been touched, but his words abruptly choked off.
Ferda bound the elf Elder’s body in shadow without leaving him the slightest opening.
He completely cut off the source of the Elder’s magic, preventing him from casting spells.
For an ordinary human mage, covering the mouth and sealing the hand gestures would have been enough, but elves were different.
Ferda knew how to restrain them.
“Frenzy.”
He injected a mental spell directly into the Elder’s head.
“Guhh!”
Boiling vitality and violent impulses enveloped the Elder’s body.
Ordinary people could ease the pain by releasing them, but High Elves dared not do so.
The minds of the High Elves were connected as one.
Because they were connected, contamination in one individual could contaminate everyone.
Elven society was extremely cruel in that regard, and the Elder was no exception.
For that reason, the Elder immediately sat down and focused his mind.
Unable to create a spell to dispel his frenzy himself, he controlled his emotions as much as possible to prevent himself from becoming contaminated.
Cypress glared at Ferda, cold sweat running down his face.
‘How does this brat know even this……?’
The flaw created by having a single shared mind was something no human had ever understood.
The nineteen years Ferda had lived were an absurdly short span of time.
The humans who had researched those who challenged the authority of the World Tree had lived for more than twice as long as he had.
Not a single person had ever bewildered him so thoroughly with a single attack.
Ferda looked down at Cypress and asked,
“How does it feel to be defeated by a stupid short-lived species, Elder?”
The Elder, now filled with venom, answered,
“The fact that I was defeated does not change the fact that you are an idiot.”
“It seems even elves sometimes grow old without growing wiser.”
“You fool……! Becoming a dragon’s fiancé is the same as climbing into a dragon’s maw, and you dare spout such nonsense without even knowing that!?”
Ferda gave a derisive snort.
“I already know that Valdrova had a first fiancé.”
“I’m not talking about the Red Dragon!”
Ferda’s hand, which had been about to wave him off, stopped.
“Who else tried to marry her besides Valdrova?”
It was impossible.
Marriage existed to fill the flaws that each partner lacked.
An immortal’s very existence was perfect.
That was why immortals did not take partners; they simply reigned over everything.
“Naturally you humans don’t know. Long before your time, there was a dragon’s fiancé among the High Elves.”
He gestured with his chin toward the far end of the long corridor.
“It was Iorga, the Tower Master rampaging in there. Do you know what became of her?”
Ferda did not ask.
Cypress answered without waiting.
“She ate her fiancé.”
The story continues off the page
The Last Dance Before Midnight
A masked dragon asks the lanternwright for one slow dance