The Creator's Transgression

At the sound of Ureas's scream, Ferda thought.

‘Olivia, you mean?’

Ferda had never once thought of Olivia that way.

Thus, he had assumed Olivia felt the same.

Olivia had been favored by every man, along with just as many lecherous gazes.

For Ferda, the very idea of her loving someone was incomprehensible.

-Even that admired Grand Duke Golt! Alexander! And even me! That girl is so desirable to us, so why don’t you want her too?!

Ureas continued.

“……”

-If desire was created, then surely it is only natural for it to fall into the hands of those who pursue it! How can the heavens be so heartless?!

His lamenting cry lasted only a moment before his eyes once again burned with hatred.

-I’ll kill you, and Olivia will be mine. This castle will be mine too, and everything else will be mine……!

Ferda was certain.

‘He’s been exposed to Trauma.’

Trauma was a form of brainwashing that turned the regrets humans harbored into joy, but Ferda knew what Gokma had said.

He had said the Trauma at the place Ferda visited was special.

If that special quality was what amplified such delusions of persecution, then it made sense.

Ferda reached a conclusion.

Now that he had changed like this, Olivia could no longer control him.

There was only one fate left for something that had become an uncontrollable tool.

‘Eliminate him.’

At the same time, a question arose.

Could I take this guy down?

Looking at his black body, one might think he had undergone demonification, but the flames engulfing his body were no ordinary thing.

Ferda had never heard of a demon like that.

Had he truly become his true form, as he claimed?

If so, this was an unknown entity to Ferda, and there was no guarantee that he could defeat the unknown in a fight.

‘If push comes to shove, I can use my last resort.’

Ferda was a mage.

A mage always kept a last resort capable of turning the tables close at hand.

It was then.

A chill swept in from behind Ferda.

But since it was not aimed at his body, he remained still.

What flew in from behind him was an arrow imbued with silver light.

-Kraaagh!!

The arrow had been fired from a bow with enough draw strength to drive the monstrous Ureas backward.

Ferda turned his head toward the direction from which the arrow had come.

There stood knights bearing the Empire’s insignia, with their commander standing tall among them.

The man carrying a massive greatsword on his back was Oldin Rooster.

He approached.

Then he glanced at Ferda, walked straight past him, and politely greeted Ureas.

“Good day, Prince Ureas.”

-Rooster……! You knew who I was and attacked me anyway?!

As Ureas expressed his fury, the flames grew even more intense.

That left no room for Rooster to claim he had mistaken Ureas for a demon.

“Grand Duke Golt asked me to relay these words.”

Count Rooster said as he drew his greatsword.

“There is no malice. Everything is for the Empire.”

-Roosteeeer!!!

“Attack them all!”

And so they began an all-out attack on Ureas.

Now that he was no longer the focus of their attention, Ferda subtly stepped back.

‘So this was his plan all along.’

Attacking the Heinkel Kingdom had merely been an excuse to gather in one place.

He had intended to eliminate Ureas amid the confusion in the inner castle.

He could choose when to do so himself.

Although he had managed to divert Ureas’s attention, Ferda felt uneasy for some reason.

Even if they shared a common enemy, was this man truly his ally?

Keeping that in mind, Ferda supported Count Rooster.

Regardless, Ureas had to be eliminated here.

* * *

The audience chamber in the deepest part of the inner castle.

“Everything is proceeding as intended.”

King Heinkel, who had been watching the entire situation, spoke.

“Although King Hudret received Odograsado’s protection and managed to escape…… it has turned out even better. My revenge can now be realized.”

“I am truly pleased that everything has gone according to plan.”

Gokma said as he lightly patted King Heinkel on the shoulder.

“Since I have done this much for you, I trust that you will do something for me in return.”

“Of course. Even if my revenge fails, I will sacrifice myself for you first.”

“Those are pleasing words.”

Gokma then tried to leave.

King Heinkel belatedly asked a question.

“May I ask one question?”

“Please do.”

“Ureas…… what is that man?”

Ureas Arken.

He was King Heinkel’s target of revenge, and the man he had wanted to kill most after Hudret.

Unlike Hudret, Gokma had not left him alone.

“You said that Ureas was an excellent horse, did you not?”

“That is correct.”

“At first…… I wondered whether you intended to turn him into a demon and use him.”

Ureas’s form was vividly captured in King Heinkel’s field of vision.

As he fought Count Rooster’s army, the more his rage grew, the more twisted his appearance became.

King Heinkel knew how Ureas had changed so drastically.

When Ureas entered the inner castle, all he had done was cast a minor illusion spell on him.

Ureas had readily fallen for that illusion.

The place he had been led to was Trauma.

Linne had said that it was a room containing an enhanced version of Trauma, one on an entirely different level from the others.

Ureas had been exposed to Trauma’s hypnosis in that room.

That was all.

His appearance had changed afterward.

“Does Trauma turn people into demons?”

“Let me ask you this. Do you think what Ureas has become is a demon?”

King Heinkel recalled what he had felt and shook his head.

“No. He was different from the demons being created here.”

“Yes. As you surmised, he is not a demon.”

“Then what on earth…….”

Gokma spoke.

“The Arken Empire has a great secret. It is only natural for an empire as large as that one to have many secrets. One of them is a secret pact made with the dragons.”

“A secret pact……?”

“All the monsters that tried to attack the Empire this time were killed. At the hands of Silverwind’s descendant and Storeus. You know that, correct?”

“Yes. I know.”

“Why did the great dragons suddenly interfere in human affairs? They are a race that almost never intervenes. For creatures so sensitive to the passage of time, making promises with humans would be nothing more than a trivial amusement.”

Upon reflection, it was certainly strange.

Silverwind was only interested in things happening in the far north.

Storeus was fickle, and helping someone was as unusual as a thunderbolt striking from a clear sky.

One thing was certain: they could not be hired as troubleshooters even with all the money in the world.

“Because it is not a promise, but a chain.”

“What kind of chain is it?”

Gokma answered with a smile.

“I suppose you could call it the transgression committed by the Creator against his creations.”

“So that is connected to Ureas’s current appearance.”

“Yes.”

Even just listening, King Heinkel could feel that something was seriously wrong.

King Heinkel focused on Ureas’s appearance.

“I see. I understand.”

Then he understood what Gokma meant.

At first, he had thought it was simply a relationship between parent and child, but the more he watched Ureas’s form twist, the more fitting the words Creator and creation became.

“The Arken Empire’s propaganda often refers to it as Golden Blood, does it not?”

“That is correct.”

Golden Blood.

Gokma repeated the words and let out a derisive laugh.

“How ironic. They do not even know that the bodies of those who stand in the most exalted positions contain the very blood they consider lowly and despise.”

* * *

The army led by Count Rooster launched an unrelenting assault to kill Ureas.

Ureas was unquestionably being driven onto the defensive.

Whenever he tried to move, his movements were blocked, and his limbs were severed time and again by Count Rooster’s greatsword.

-Aaaagh! Aaaagh!!

His agonized screams did not cease.

-I’ll kill you! Every last one of you! I’ll kill every last one of you!!

A curse uttered without letting despair break him.

And astonishingly, the more he uttered that curse, the more Count Rooster’s army was driven onto the defensive.

A heart pierced more than a thousand times.

Limbs severed dozens of times over.

As he was cut, slashed, and regenerated over and over, his form gradually moved farther from that of a human and was molded into a particular shape.

“What on earth is that…….”

The archers and mages voiced their fear as they watched him.

It was a form they could readily recognize.

Even Ferda had initially thought he had merely become one of the demons.

‘A dragon……?’

His changing form, like a creature shedding its skin, resembled a dragon.

The quarter of his face that remained was ground away, and its shape became a long snout with lizardlike eyes.

Wings sprouted from his back, and bright-red lava dripped from him.

‘No. That’s not it…….’

He certainly looked like a dragon, but he was not a dragon.

Ureas’s form was crude, an insult to any dragon who saw it.

‘Profanation.’

Ferda fixated on that word.

Yes, this was a form that profaned dragons.

Once he thought of it that way, all the pieces fell into place, and Ferda was able to identify it.

‘Amon.’

Amon, the demon of flame and destruction among the seven great demons of Hell.

He despised the dragons who reigned over the surface world and turned all his minions into forms resembling dragons to profane them.

Because he profaned dragons, he was a demon no dragon could ever forgive, whether guardian or evil.

‘Strange.’

Ferda wondered why he had not realized it sooner.

He should have noticed from the grotesque shape of the horns and the lava pouring out of him.

But there was a reason he had not.

‘There’s no smell of sulfur.’

Anyone who used the magic of Hell would have been touched by a demon’s hand, and anyone touched by a demon’s hand would carry a faint scent of sulfur.

Yet even though Ureas had taken on Amon’s form, he did not have that scent.

It was an incongruous feeling, like a freshly caught fish that did not smell fishy.

So that was what it was.

‘But what’s even stranger…….’

It was Count Rooster.

Judging by his reaction, he seemed to have anticipated that Ureas would one day become like this.

Even Ferda himself had not known, so how had Count Rooster known?

‘No, he probably didn’t know either.’

There was no doubt that Grand Duke Golt knew all the circumstances.

If Ferda wanted to question anyone about this, it would have to be Grand Duke Golt.

“Do not stop! The Empire stands behind you!”

Those who had thought some part of Prince Ureas might still remain within him decided not to think about it anymore.

They only wished for the damned demon to die quickly.

Ureas’s resistance grew increasingly fierce.

After holy power repeatedly corroded him, the battle finally came to an end.

Count Rooster drove a holy relic into Ureas’s chest, ending it.

The flames that had been blazing fiercely gradually weakened into embers, and his movements stiffened along with them.

-Aah…….

Ureas muttered mournfully.

-Everything was supposed to fall into these hands…… these hands…… Why……

He raised his arms, with bone and muscle exposed, toward the heavens.

-Ah…… Olivia……!

Those were Ureas’s final words.

Ureas’s body turned to stone, shattered, and became dust.

Just like the end of every demon.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief as they watched the nightmare that had been Ureas disappear.

Ferda tried to breathe a sigh of relief along with the soldiers.

It was then.

Ferda instinctively sensed a chill.

Count Rooster, who had fought Ureas at the very front, subtly turned his head.

His eyes were directed at Ferda.

No, not at Ferda, but at the mage standing beside him.

“Bind!”

The mage who received the order attempted to bind Ferda’s body with restraint magic without a moment’s hesitation.

But the magic did not reach Ferda.

Since he had never considered them allies in the first place, he easily broke free.

An allied mage had attacked Regent Ferda.

The soldiers did not stop to think and immediately leveled their weapons at Ferda.

Ferda asked,

“What did Grand Duke Golt tell you to say?”

“Unfortunately, he said nothing concerning Regent Ferda. The mission we received was to eliminate the calamity that would throw the Empire into chaos. The target was Ureas alone.”

“You just confessed to instigating the murder of a member of the imperial family. Do you think you can return to the Empire?”

“Of course not. We came here today to bury our bones. The Grand Duke wanted victory, and that victory will end with our deaths.”

“Then why drag me into this instead of simply burning me to death?”

“Isn’t the reason obvious?”

Count Rooster rested the hilt of his greatsword on his shoulder and looked at Ferda.

Ferda could feel it.

When killing Ureas, Rooster had been purely businesslike, but now he was emotional.

“Because you are the Grand Duke’s enemy.”

No sooner had one act of malice ended than another confronted him.

“I will conclude my final act of loyalty by slitting your throat, Regent.”

Ferda calculated inwardly.

How could he make it back alive?

Seeing that their eyes showed no fatigue despite their fierce battle with Ureas, Ferda thought his only hope was to take a few of them along as traveling companions.

It was then.

Rumble—.

The entire ground shook violently.

This was a space created by King Heinkel’s magic.

The sudden earthquake meant that this space was collapsing, and that someone had reached the source of the magic and destroyed it.

The space compressed.

But the anomaly was not limited to the space.

Something began to writhe in the ashes into which Ureas had crumbled.

At the same time, a thick smell of sulfur began to spread.

“H-how!?”

“It should have been reduced to ashes……?”

However, the flames were not red; they had a fluorescent green hue.

Those ominous flames belonged to Gamigin.

A certain phrase flashed through the minds of everyone standing there.

When humans are at their most desperate, a demon comes.

It was exactly like Ureas’s current situation.

His obsession with life and his rage.

Even as his body crumbled, he clung to life until he transcended death and manifested once more.