WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 397: We Should Hear the Troubled Times' Side Too

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Crimson Duke Valdamir was an Elder who had mastered bloodcraft to its limits, honed his qi arts, and turned every year he had been given into experience. He was undoubtedly a formidable enemy.

Yet the Sanctum had always prevailed against vampires like him. Even while fighting on multiple fronts against other heretics, it had enjoyed an age of prosperity despite facing vampires who did not die and only grew wiser with every passing year.

In a way, that was only natural.

The future belonged to the Holy Maiden.

More precisely, they made better use of the future than anyone else. It meant the same thing. The Holy Maiden was the only being in the world who could see the future.

"If everyone here had simply been martyred, order would have been established."

The Steel Maiden was invincible. No matter what became of the world, no matter how powerful the vampires were, she would not suffer the slightest injury.

Put another way, everything except her could be destroyed. The Steel Maiden shone brightest on battlefields where she was surrounded on all sides. Peruel always returned alive, drenched in blood that was not her own. Even in the worst situations, she could at least foresee her own survival.

That was why the Steel Maiden only went to such battlefields. Places where it did not matter if everyone except her died.

"But how can you leave this side alone? You're making it too obvious. If you truly wanted to stop the slaughter, you should've left the Crimson Duke alone as well."

If her goal had been to save them, she would not have brought them here in the first place. The Steel Maiden could only see her own future, but that did not mean she could not make even the most basic predictions.

Even after her intentions had been exposed, the Steel Maiden was unconcerned.

"Do not delve into the Demon God. There is no treasure inside that tightly sealed box. It overflows only with the sins and tragedies curiosity brings. The Demon God you have unearthed will make humanity wretched."

"Make humanity wretched? Is there anything more wretched than death?"

"Death is wretched because life is precious. Yet the Demon God you have unearthed will destroy the value of life, faith, and souls. Like those vampires, it will tear down the boundary between life and death and reduce humans to lesser beings. This is a warning, a request, and a plea."

Peruel spoke in a tone that made it unclear who she was addressing, but I knew it was meant for me. This was the Holy Maiden's way of persuading me.

Vampires, by their very existence, reduced humans to prey. Vampires demanded human blood as predators, leaving humans as nothing more than food and livestock. They were a race that defied heaven, overcoming even death to enjoy eternal life. There was a reason the Sanctum hated vampires.

The Lightning Demon God's secret might have surpassed even bloodcraft. The secret the Lightning Thief had wanted to protect badly enough to hide the lightning itself was that dark and deep. The Sanctum, including the Steel Maiden, was wary of it.

Still, a Holy Maiden was trying to persuade me? That was novel.

I appreciated the sentiment, but the Sanctum and I stood in different places.

"Vampires are human too."

It was a statement carrying many meanings. Perhaps it was simply an obvious fact, or perhaps Tyr found it strangely moving.

To the Holy Maiden, though, it meant something else.

"...Even humanity corrupting itself is humanity's own karma. Do you affirm even that?"

It was a gentle but unmistakable refusal.

I smiled and nodded. Peruel lowered her shoulders as if overcome with grief.

At that moment, Peruel moved.

No, she had not moved.

Yet in my mind-reading, Peruel had already moved. She had foreseen her movement, and it was a future that would arrive unchanged.

The Steel Maiden charged.

She threw out a fist that could crush anything. Her bare hand pierced through my chest and stopped behind my back like the wind.

-This has not even begun, yet it is a promised future regardless of what I do.

I rejected her once, and she immediately foresaw my death. That was not persuasion. It was an ultimatum.

More importantly, could I even avoid this?

As I grumbled inwardly, Peruel finished her prophecy.

Every result was accompanied by a process leading to it. Even Valdamir's incredible movements were, when examined one by one, the product of techniques and authority woven together with meticulous precision.

A Holy Maiden's prophecy was on another level. It observed the result in advance, then forcibly connected the process. Peruel's self-prophecy had narrowed the scope of foresight to the absolute extreme, granting it power that could be called absolute. Her invincibility, which had earned her the name Steel Maiden, was only one aspect of that power.

The blessing Peruel had received was prophecy enforcement.

The Steel Prophecy pronounced my end.

The cloth wrapped around her fist tore apart strand by strand, revealing Peruel's bare hand. Prophecy was a double-edged sword. When pointed at an opponent, its edge was sharper than anything, but it also possessed the power to cut its wielder to ribbons. She had restrained her strength until now, but I was honored enough that she revealed her full power to kill me.

The future Peruel foresaw for herself would absolutely come true. Because that result had been promised, Peruel as foreseen was invincible. No obstacle could interfere with her future.

Not even time.

Peruel foresaw a movement beyond all limits. With the power of self-prophecy, she twisted reality to achieve a speed no human could ever produce.

The process vanished.

Pushing off the ground, gathering strength, propelling her body forward, cutting through the wind. Every step was omitted, and only the result Peruel had foreseen came to pass. For an instant, Peruel existed at every point she had foreseen herself occupying. Those points connected into a path painted black.

It was an absolute power even a Holy Maiden had to handle carefully. With no warning at all, only the result foreseen by the exalted Celestial God came to pass. The world altered itself to fulfill the prophecy, and the aftershock alone raised storms and thunderous roars. A miracle beyond even the concept of speed, all to kill me.

Tearing through the world, Peruel's fist pierced through my body...

Still.

No matter how lofty that power was, no matter how sacred and mighty the Demon God protecting them was, neither could act faster than Peruel's will.

The Holy Maiden was human too.

"...!"

There were many ways to deal with prophecy, but the easiest was to deceive it. A prophecy could be perfect, but the person reading it could not be.

My body collapsed in a heap. Cards marked with Eight of Spades flew everywhere like popped balloons. With Elixir, the Lord of Gold's power, I had turned the clothes touching my body and the clouds around me into cards. What Peruel thought she had destroyed was a makeshift shell of cards.

Fortunately, Peruel could only foresee her own future. Using every power available to me, I pulled myself out of the path Peruel had foreseen. My head spun and my ears felt blocked from moving too quickly, but I was alive.

Peruel shouted.

"You brought the Demon God into your body! That cursed taboo...!"

She caught on immediately. Ignoring the tingling pain in my limbs, I answered.

"You think this is enough to curse me? Please. Compared to what you've done, this is nothing. Next to your mysterious prophecy, all I used was a cheap little trick!"

Someone who could force the future to happen was calling this little trick a curse? Were curses no longer a thing?

Seven of Spades, Lightning Skein. This card could draw lightning out into thin threads and wind them up like a ball of yarn. Unlike the lightning Perru had used, these threads were too weak for attacking...

But even weakness had its uses.

I brought the lightning threads into my body. They seeped into the nerves running throughout me.

Before meeting the Demon God, it would have been a suicidal act of self-harm. Now that I had met the Lightning Thief and learned its secret, though...

I could move my body with thought alone.

...Saying it like that made it sound like nothing much.

Bodies were supposed to move through thought in the first place. Even with the Demon God's power, all I did was skip the process through which thoughts reached my body. I had read her mind and still nearly died after getting hit, so no matter how I looked at it, self-prophecy was several times more ridiculously overpowered, wasn't it?

Anyone would think so, but strangely enough, the Holy Maiden did not seem to agree. Peruel glared at me as though I were a demon.

"The Demon God you wield will one day lead all humanity to ruin. King of Humanity, remember this. Should humanity's end draw near, you too will no longer remain as you were."

"I'll keep that in mind. For now, I'm human too, so I'll protect myself first."

Peruel bit down hard on her lip. She bit so fiercely that I could see blood through her teeth. Even someone invincible could harm themselves.

She likely wanted to deal with me immediately, but now she could not.

Darkness had arrived.

Even within Cloud Waterfall, where visibility had already been poor, an alien darkness rolled in. Pitch-black darkness that made it impossible to see even an inch ahead filled my vision. It was the power vampires had gained to stand against the Sanctum, and the weight of the suffering Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka had endured.

Darkness was practically Tyr's own body. In a place untouched by light, the future could not be seen. Self-prophecy would still be possible, but it would become a tedious siege. Even if Peruel foresaw where she would be, she would be no better than someone flailing underwater if she could not see her surroundings.

"You dare run wild without knowing your place...! I will make you regret showing yourself before me!"

You revealed too much of your abilities. The Sanctum was not the only one capable of thinking up countermeasures.

Darkness swirled around Peruel. In darkness so deep that she could not even see her own limbs, Peruel spoke with a desolate expression.

"O First Holy Maiden, who blessed this servant. Is this truly as far as the time granted to this servant extends...?"

Peruel murmured amid the swamp-like darkness. Unable to envision a future where she continued fighting, she decided to retreat according to her prophecy.

That was a tremendous relief for me.

"You think you can escape?!"

No, Tyr. Just let her go. An invincible being was offering to leave on her own. Trying to grab her would only hurt our hands.

Peruel calmly found her way through the darkness that would have suffocated an ordinary person. Before leaving, she gave us one last warning.

"Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka. It would be best not to trust the King of Humanity. He may become an ally to vampires... but he will never become an ally to vampires alone."

Tyr did not even listen. She snorted.

"Play your prophecy games with your own pawns. Do you think I would be swayed by something like that?"

"...Even without prophecy, the answer is obvious to anyone who thinks for a moment. Yet when the heart is closed, even sincere advice cannot be heard."

Leaving ominous words until the very end, Peruel disappeared into the darkness. Though she could not see anything in the pitch-black void, she must have clearly seen the future in which she escaped this place. Reality seemed to twist, and before I knew it, Peruel's thoughts had vanished.

She had fled.

She could suddenly appear in the middle of enemy territory on the opposite side of the continent, then retreat without so much as a hair harmed. Some of us struggled desperately not to make enemies. Then again, one needed that kind of power to pick fights in every direction and remain safe.

"Hmph. What crafty creatures. They claim to read the future, yet all they can do is sow discord and scheme."

"Because it works. It worked again this time, didn't it? We ended up in a fight to the death with Claudia without any particular trigger."

I shrugged and looked around.

When you got down to it, the Sanctum had only recruited the Thunder Lord. Yet this much blood had been spilled. The Thunder Lord, who had led and governed Claudia until now, and hundreds of Thunder Guardians had died. Even if no one interfered any further, the cycle of grudges and debts would wind together and grow like a snowball.

At least the Lesser States now had a monarch who would receive both hatred and reverence.

"...Leave."

The monarch of the Lesser States ordered us out.

Footnotes:

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