REFDL 112

It felt like I was seasick on dry land. I didn’t even have time to dwell on the nausea I hadn’t felt in a long while. I abruptly turned my head around.

Screeeech!!

A roar that shook the Sea of Trees spread far and wide.

I immediately headed toward Kaelus. He kept his promise. He didn’t overexert himself, and he bought enough time for the battle here to end. The rojuta was incapacitated. The few Denos knights who guarded Valita were the same.

Valita was the only one left unscathed. He faced off against Kaelus while he held Odan hostage.

That too was over.

Once the knights and I surrounded him, Valita would have no chance.

[Right. I knew it would come to this in the end.]

The bastard knew it too.

Swish!

He made the first move. The presence in his left leg grew explosively stronger. Demonic energy, malice so thick it was visible to the naked eye, lashed out in every direction like whips. His target was the dragons.

Kyaaaak!

Grrrr!

Screeeech!

No. It wasn’t the dragons.

“Wha-what is this!”

“Why all of a sud– Agh!”

It was the vessel artifacts of the knights riding the dragons. The whips rushed toward Kaelus as well. Unlike the other dragon knights who only faced about three strands at most, dozens of strands flew toward him.

Kaelus swung his sword. The whips exploded as soon as they touched the blue light.

…It was a mistake.

The demonic energy turned into smoke and began to cling to the artifact.

Very slowly.

Little by little.

It continued until the opal lost its luster and turned completely black.

“……!!”

The vibrating bracelet unfastened itself from his wrist. Kaelus was flustered and tried to stop it somehow, but…

Snap!

The bracelet flew into Valita’s hand as if it were being sucked in. It wasn’t just a matter of his vision going dark. An indescribable despair crushed Kaelus from the head down, plunging him into a swamp.

“Ahahaha! Hahahahaha!!”

Valita seized the bracelet in both hands. He even threw Odan, whom he’d been holding hostage, aside.

Kaelus’s eyes were bloodshot as he caught the falling Odan. Then, in the next moment.

Crunch!

“……!!”

Something big pinned his body down with its claws.

Grrrr.

That was me.

“Yuram……!”

It was the Kremlis dragon.

***

“Ugh!”

Because Yuram had curled his toes inward, the pressure wasn’t severe, but Kaelus was slammed sideways into the ground and couldn’t move.

The Pensiltas too snapped their tethers with tooth and claw, dragging down the ones who had been their respective masters. The Pensiltas, with no forelegs, only hind legs, pinned their captives’ upper and lower bodies beneath their two legs.

“What’s happening! Why are you doing this!”

“Amur! Amur, wake up!”

“Ino! Look at me! Look at me!”

The panicked dragon knights called out their partner dragons’ names at the top of their lungs, but the dragons could not hear them.

Eyes with no light.

The vessels of the artifacts they each wore were also dyed the same color.

Black.

“Yuram.”

[……]

“Yuram. Please.”

Kaelus’s voice was heartbreaking. Yuram didn’t answer. His gaze didn’t even turn toward Kaelus. His still-blank eyes looked past him without focus and stared into the empty air.

“Hahahaha!”

Valita’s maniacal laughter didn’t end. He cheered for a long time, then he straightened his back and dusted off his clothes.

“The things you went through. Do you think that plan came entirely from the Second Prince’s head?”

With a victor’s smile, Valita began to walk slowly.

“No matter how stupid dragons are, would they eat those close to them without hesitation just because they’re a bit hungry? Not unless they’d lost their minds.”

Valita tapped his temple with his index finger and chuckled.

Kaelus’s movements suddenly stopped as he understood the meaning behind those words.

Valita shrugged.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t do it. It was my father’s plan, the Denos emperor’s. It seems they had a hard time with the brainwashing because they didn’t have a vessel artifact. They managed it somehow because it was a Pensilta. It would’ve been impossible if it were a Kremlis.”

He waved what he held in his hand. It was Yuram’s vessel artifact.

“Thank you. Thanks to you, a living Kremlis fell into my hands. I’ll repay this favor by cutting you into tiny pieces, Duke.”

The truth seeped in like poison.

Kaelus’s first Pensilta never betrayed him. It was all his immaturity that caused the tragedy. It was a tragedy wrought by human malice.

His mind went blank. He felt his heart crumbling from the edges, brittle and dry, and for the second time he came to understand.

Yuram had fallen into Valita’s hands.

“……!”

It was his fault this time, too. It was all because of that damn vessel, that restraint he’d insisted on having even though it was useless!

“……Aaaaaah!”

Kaelus exerted force as if he were having a seizure.

Kaelus convulsed with force.

But it was difficult, with Odan cradled in his arms.

Perhaps he could somehow draw out sword energy and score a wound on Yuram’s toes. For now…… for now, he had to somehow break through this situation.

He resolved to, but couldn’t bring himself to act.

‘…What right do I have? All of this happened because of me.’

How could he dare? How could he hurt him?

“……”

“What’s this. Did you give up already? How boring. Well, you’re holding a piece of baggage and you’re pinned down by a Kremlis dragon. It’s a wise decision, if I say so myself. Then is it my turn now?”

Valita continued to approach. He walked slowly on purpose.

“Ah, should I tell him to lower his head and breathe fire? No, is that too easy? It might be nice to crush you to death slowly… Oh, I know!”

“……”

“A ‘re-enactment’ sounds fun, too. I’ll tell him to eat that brat first, then slowly tear you apart from your unauthorized copylimbs. How about it. Wouldn’t it be nice to relive some memories?”

“……”

Ten steps away. Valita walked into the Kremlis’s shadow and called for Yuram.

“Kremlis.”

Grrrr.

The dragon growled. It was as if he were answering him.

“Ahaha!”

Valita was overjoyed.

But something happened.

The man’s body buckled to the left.

“……Huh?”

His left leg, from the mid-thigh down, had vanished.

“Aaaaaagh! Aaaaah!”

Yuram, with blood fresh on his muzzle, spat something out.

A severed human leg. Valita’s.

Kaelus, wearing a dumbfounded expression at the sudden development, watched as Yuram stepped off him, he stamped his foot toward the severed left leg, intending to grind it completely to nothing.

Thump!

The leg bounced like a fish and crawled fiercely toward Valita’s body as he writhed in pain. Its speed was almost like that of a centipede-type monster.

Yuram couldn’t stop it.

It was already too late.

He clicked his tongue and knew instinctively: something was about to happen.

Moving quickly, Yuram lifted Kaelus and Odan in his mouth and placed them in the saddle on his back. Kaelus reflexively gripped Odan and the saddle and steadied himself , at the same moment, Yuram launched into the air.

And right after that, the severed leg reached Valita.

Fwoom!

A jet black mass, neither smoke nor slime but ​Read on​somewhere between, surged up and swallowed Valita and everything around him whole.

Valita reaches upward with a face like a demon’s.
But he is quickly buried in the mass and disappears.

The viscous body consumed Valita and puffed up like bread in an oven. At some point, it stopped its proliferation and began to wriggle slowly.

Kaelus looked down at that scene, but he didn’t feel relieved. Instead, he felt more anxious because it looked like it was preparing something.

For now, they had to fall back and regroup. The dragon knight order had taken serious casualties, and above all, there was Odan.

Even if they fought again, at least Odan needed to be somewhere safe……

Squeeze!

Screech!

Kaelus gripped Yuram’s scruff with a mana-wrapped hand, wringing it as if to crush it. The force of it went beyond savage, it was terrifying.

Fwip.

He held up the fake vessel artifact. It seemed he’d managed to grab it again.

The bead was slowly returning to its original color, but black still covered the greater area.

Kaelus clenched it as if he would shatter it.

“……”

[……]

Yuram obediently gathered all four legs together in midair.

Kaelus growled sincerely, for the first time in a long while.

“……You and I will settle things when this is all over.”

Kyaa…

Slaaash!

At that moment, tentacles shot out in all directions from that mass.

They wrapped around the carcasses of the dead and undead Pensiltas, then they pulled them quickly toward the main body in the center. The viscous torso changed its shape every time it swallowed a carcass.

Thick hind legs burst forth. Six forelegs grew out.

Reptilian eyes sprouted densely across its torso, and twelve wings unfurled like a net

A tail and horns sprouted on its crown, ten hind legs grew like spikes on a mace where the tail used unauthorized copy to be, and a huge mouth gaped open on its belly.

It spoke in Valita’s voice.