Chapter 49
Dangerous. Dangerous. Dangerous.
The magical beast exchanging blows with the woman tilted its head at the cry of its kin.
When it first encountered the woman, its black blood had been silent; but as time passed, it urged the beast more and more urgently to flee at once.
It could not make sense of it at all.
‘Why?’
Was it saying it had to run?
While firing beams of light at the woman as she slipped away like a rat, the magical beast fell into thought.
The woman was undeniably strong, but it, too, was growing stronger.
Moreover, it was a high-ranking magical beast endowed with reason from birth.
Retreating from a battle it could win given enough time would sully the honor of the noble high-ranking species.
That woman. That woman. That woman!
When the magical beast did not retreat, the cry of its kin grew more frantic.
‘How noisy.’
The magical beast frowned without realizing it.
It wanted to forcibly silence the voice, but could not, which frustrated it.
Screeech—.
Snap.
While it hesitated for a moment at the nerve-grating voice, the woman tore off its right arm this time.
For a while now, the woman had been tearing the magical beast's body apart as though she were ripping paper.
“Tch.”
A stream of black blood trickled from the corner of the magical beast’s mouth.
The demonic energy stored in the cocoon and the power it had taken from the mage let it keep regenerating, but that did not make the pain of having its limbs torn off disappear.
You’re going to die. You’re going to die. You’re going to die. You’re going to die too.
“Shut up already!”
As the noise compounded the pain, the magical beast’s patience snapped, and it squeezed the cocoon with all its strength in a fit of irritation.
With a wet, sloshing sound, the mage’s vitality and power seeped from the cocoon into its body and transformed into demonic energy.
Soon, demonic energy began to churn like bubbling foam around the severed right shoulder.
At this rate, its arm would grow back in less than a minute.
As the pain of its severed limbs gradually subsided, a cruel smile bloomed once more across the magical beast’s face.
“I am infinite.”
The magical beast looked mockingly at the woman holding its discarded arm.
“…Really?”
The woman who had thrown the arm aside asked the magical beast.
“I thought you were impressive, but it seems that even with that vaunted ability, there are things you can’t see.”
No sooner had the woman finished speaking than an agony it had never felt before shot through the magical beast’s right arm.
“Aaaaargh!”
Letting out a heartrending scream, the magical beast clutched its right shoulder with its left hand and collapsed.
“What is this….”
Bewilderment spread across the magical beast’s face.
The wound not only refused to regenerate; demonic energy was continuously leaking through it, causing even the unharmed parts to crumble into black smoke.
To make matters worse, no more power was being transmitted from the cocoon.
Something had clearly gone terribly wrong.
When it looked back, a huge tree root that had sprouted from the wall was pulling the mage out of the cocoon and carrying them away.
‘I have to eat the mage. Right now.’
Baring its beastly teeth, the magical beast sprang to its feet and ran toward the cocoon.
It would have been best to put the mage inside the cocoon and absorb them slowly, but it could also absorb the mage’s power by tearing them apart and eating them directly.
It was less efficient, but if it devoured every last hair, it should be able to obtain enough demonic energy to restore its body.
However, the closer it got to the cocoon, the heavier its body became.
Looking down, it saw countless red threads binding its limbs.
“Damn it!”
As the magical beast thrashed about trying to break the red threads, a frigid voice came from behind it.
“Looks like even that vaunted regeneration of yours is over now.”
Even after losing the mage who had been its only hope, it could not retreat like this.
The magical beast racked its brains again and again to find a way to win.
It belonged to a noble, high-ranking species, after all.
“But didn’t your kind tell you to run?”
But when the woman’s voice from behind it and
You’re going to die too now. So in the end, you’re dying too.
the voice of its kin screaming inside it overlapped, the magical beast sensed death.
“Let’s just die already.”
It did not even have time to feel the pain.
On realizing its foolishness, the last thing the magical beast saw was a purple heart beating faintly atop a white hand.
*
The spot where Blanc brought the branch down was the upper part of the cocoon in which Fulcare slept.
The branch, which looked as though it might snap at any moment, devoured Blanc’s mana at an incredible speed and put down its first root.
At the same time, Pesna began to resist.
Just as Vieta and Fulcare had wandered through nightmares, Blanc, too, had to face a nightmare he had tried desperately to forget.
“Sister, please don’t do this.”
“Roen, why are you here? Where on earth is Gabin?”
His twisted reunion with his half-sister Avril, the imperial consort’s eldest daughter, and their unsettling parting.
“From today onward, you are no longer my son.”
The scene of the imperial consort driving a cursed dagger into his heart with those heartless words.
“For the sake of the Crown Prince, never return.”
The emperor ordering him into exile as he departed for the Kingdom of Madak to recuperate.
Other minor nightmares shook Blanc’s body and mind.
A headache pounded, nausea rose, and his unsettled emotions lurched between sorrow and anger.
Even so, Blanc did not let go of the branch until the very end.
He was the only one who could save his friend now.
After he overcame the same nightmare six times, the white flowers of Pesna filling the field withered yellow and fell one by one.
In contrast, the withered branch fed on demonic energy and Blanc’s mana, growing into a massive tree that sprouted fresh green leaves.
In place of the ominous white petals, green leaves and small golden orbs filled the air.
The majestic tree moved for the sake of the master who had nurtured it.
It drove its roots forcefully into the ground, pierced the cocoon filled with demonic energy, and rescued the mage sleeping inside.
Thank goodness.
Blanc, who had been staring into empty air, smiled faintly.
A blue magic circle floated within his violet eyes.
Blanc was watching Fulcare rise toward the surface, encased in sturdy tree roots.
Though only faintly visible, Vieta also seemed unharmed.
This was all thanks to the Guardian Tree willingly sharing its sight with its master, whose vision was impaired.
As Fulcare rose to the surface, Blanc collapsed where he stood and lost consciousness.
It was the aftereffect of expending too much mana too quickly.
Not a single Pesna could be seen anywhere across the verdant field.
***
“My lord! My lord! Right now, in that area!”
When aide Anatole hurried to the marquis’s office, the dazed marquis was looking out the window through a magnifying glass.
The marquis was not the only one.
Marlene, who had remained at the guard post, and Eli, the girl taking a sacrifice to the magical beast in accordance with their contract, were among them.
Everyone in Ahan City was staring at the same place with expressions of disbelief.
A refreshing breeze, as though it had blown in from the deep mountains, enveloped Ahan City, while a towering pillar of blue light shot up from the sealed-off beach in the north.
“He really did it.”
After gazing at the pillar of light for a long while, the marquis muttered.
That frail prince had clearly resolved Ahan’s Ghost.
And by a method the marquis himself would never have dared attempt.
“Will you take a look? There’s something interesting.”
Anatole took the magnifying glass from the marquis and used it to observe the pillar of light.
To the naked eye, it looked like a simple pillar of light, but a vast tree stood within it.
The moment Anatole saw the tree occupying the summit of the sealed-off cliff, gooseflesh broke out all over his body.
“What on earth is that tree?”
“The Guardian Tree. Now that things have turned out this way, there’s nothing more I can do.”
The marquis approached his desk and began burning the documents he had been examining in the candle flame.
“My lord!”
Anatole hurriedly tried to stop the marquis.
The documents were papers Anatole had brought that morning under the order to investigate those around the prince.
They also contained information on the maid the marquis had ordered him to investigate thoroughly.
At first, he had not thought much of her, but the more he investigated, the more suspicious the maid seemed.
Aside from being a war orphan from the outskirts and working as a fixer in the capital, he could find no information about her. It almost felt as if she had deliberately erased her past.
For the sake of Ahan Territory, Anatole had prepared and submitted a report with particular care.
Yet the marquis was now burning the entire document.
“Now, does it matter who is on the Crown Prince’s side? The Crown Prince has already taken control of everything in Ahan.”
After all, the marquis had been Ahan’s protagonist in the past, the present, and the future.
It was a statement Anatole could not understand at all.
On top of that, the term used for Roen had changed from prince to Crown Prince.
“What do you mean?”
“What else could I mean….”
The marquis laughed as he brushed the pile of ashes on the desk aside with his hand.
“It means that the moment we rebel against the Crown Prince, that Guardian Tree will strangle us.”
The marquis’s face as he said this somehow looked relieved.