WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
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Chapter 192: Velatus
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The fear Velatus felt came from many sources.
The being before her was someone Velatus had arranged to be reincarnated by offering several hundred years of her remaining Lifespan to the outer gods.
A human once called the Sword Demon five hundred years ago. A human who had died after being defeated by Ruin Alastor. Yet that insignificant, weak human had been preserved in Ruin's memories.
Velatus had reincarnated him as a gift for Ruin, who had succeeded in Ascension and departed for the distant sky. But Velatus had intended to deliver that gift herself.
She had never intended to prepare a gift for Ruin and then die. What Velatus truly wanted was to have Ruin.
If that beautiful man refused to look at Velatus and saw only that worthless, feeble human called the Sword Demon, then she only had to become one with that being.
She had prepared every method. It was a contract achieved by offering most of the Dragon Queen's remaining Lifespan.
When the time came, the Sword Demon's soul would be reincarnated into this world, bearing a resemblance to Ruin. Velatus had acquired the knowledge needed to endure until that unknown day arrived. She had even learned how to abandon her body when it perished from old age and become one with him.
Everything had happened according to the contract.
Yet the most important part had not.
That human she had reincarnated at the cost of her Lifespan was rejecting Velatus. No, he was going beyond rejection. He was trying to kill her.
"I asked what you are!"
Velatus screamed again.
A powerful sense of wrongness came from the throat producing that scream. Her instincts told her that her throat was about to be cut, and she twisted her body. She sensed the danger first. Her response had not been late.
Yet her throat still stung.
Fwish!
Fenris grazed her neck, leaving a thin line of blood.
"Kyle Alastor."
Kyle whispered in a ragged voice. Velatus's expression twisted at the surname Alastor.
"That is the bloodline I arranged!"
Velatus cried out, waving her hand.
Rumble!
A red torrent swept toward Kyle.
"That red hair! Those golden eyes! The blood of Ruin flowing through your body! All of it was arranged by me!"
Velatus had red hair and golden eyes.
It had not always been that way. The human body Velatus had fashioned out of necessity had not originally possessed red hair and golden eyes. Her current form bore those features because they were Ruin's colors.
That was why she had placed the Sword Demon's reincarnation within Ruin's bloodline. It would make it easier for him to reach the Ascension Platform, and when Ruin looked back, Velatus would be able to observe him at once.
"Everything you possess was gained through my sacrifice!"
"Really?"
The blood-red torrent was cut apart. Kyle burst out from the scattering red, drenched in blood.
"Everything I have, was it really all arranged by you?"
Velatus's eyes wavered at that question. Her gaze settled on the necklace around Kyle's neck.
The necklace he had supposedly received from an Apostle of a sky god in the Secret Realm.
It disgusted her, but it did not seem strange. Ruin's descendants remained in the Sword Tower, burdened with protecting the world's boundary. If a prodigy had been born into such a family, it was possible that a sky god had noticed him.
But was that truly all?
Velatus had no choice but to think about things she had not arranged. Otherwise, she could not understand that human's strength.
How could such an absurd power exist within that young body? The power he wielded differed from an ordinary Spirit Root. He was someone who had died after losing to Ruin at the height of his life. Even if reincarnation had granted him a second life, this power was beyond reason.
'The Spirit Root and the Spirit.'
Velatus's eyes began shaking more violently.
The power dwelling within that human. The Spirits Velatus had used as vessels for misfortune.
Rumble...
Thunder began to roar through the center of the red sky. Velatus's trembling eyes turned toward the sky, where lightning churned.
Neither snake nor dragon. A being born as a Spirit, but no longer truly a Spirit, was gathering lightning.
Every time she saw it, Velatus felt rage intense enough to make her sick.
That Spirit had been born in the Sword Tower. It was a being born from Velatus. The Fragment dwelling inside it was a piece of Velatus's own soul, which she had cut away.
That human, the Spirit, and the Fragment. All of them were beings born through Velatus.
Yet every one of them defied her will and tried to kill their creator.
Why? Why? Why?
Why was this happening?
"I never wanted this..."
Velatus's face turned pale.
It was the outer gods who had taught her how to reincarnate the Sword Demon at the cost of her Lifespan, how to survive until the time of reincarnation, and how to seize the reincarnated body.
How to cross into the East and isolate an entire continent. How to capture the divine spirits of this land and use them as vessels for misfortune. How to prolong her life by devouring dragons and Eastern dragons. How to create Dragonkin and make humans into sacrifices.
All of it was knowledge she had obtained from the outer gods.
"Ah."
A trembling voice slipped from her quivering lips.
"Ah... Aaaah...!"
There had been no lie. The Sword Demon had reincarnated after several centuries. Velatus had shut herself away in the East, destroyed civilizations, bound divine spirits, devoured dragons and Eastern dragons, and managed to endure until now.
If she had succeeded in transferring her heart, everything would have proceeded according to Velatus's arrangement.
But if she failed, who stood to gain?
When dragons and Eastern dragons died, they became Apostles of the sky gods.
The dragons and Eastern dragons devoured by Velatus had been unable to become Apostles of the sky gods. Instead, they had been used to prolong her Lifespan.
The divine spirits of the East were ancient Spirits closely tied to the sky gods. If they were bound, rotted, and corrupted, the power of the sky gods would naturally weaken as well.
::Hahaha::
Laughter came from afar.
::Idiot::
It was a mocking laugh that only Velatus could hear.
"Aaaaagh!"
Velatus clutched her head and screamed. She was not foolish enough to fail to understand what that mockery meant.
Everything she had done had ultimately been for the outer gods trying to cross from beyond into this world. What Velatus had believed to be her own arrangement had truly been the arrangement of the outer gods.
"Ah! Aaaaaaagh!"
All Velatus could do after realizing everything was let out a desperate cry. Her eyes even spilled tears from the piercing sense of betrayal and sorrow.
"What's wrong with her all of a sudden?"
Kyle could only stare blankly at Velatus as she suddenly grabbed her head and screamed. She was shocked on her own, screamed on her own, and started crying on her own.
Kyle had no desire to understand why the hell Velatus was carrying on like this.
He merely thought that perhaps fear had broken her mind. He had seen countless people tremble before death, cry, scream, and even wet themselves. Even Her Ladyship the Dragon Queen, who had endlessly boasted of her own greatness and superiority, was ultimately no different from the common crowd desperately struggling because she did not want to die.
That was probably all it was.
And Kyle had never shown mercy to people like that, even in his past life. There were more than enough reasons to kill Velatus immediately, and Kyle himself was filled with Killing Intent. There was no need to discuss mercy.
This would only end once Velatus was dead.
Kyle moved to carry out the conclusion he had reached long ago.
"Ah... Ah, aah..."
Velatus's voice changed as she sobbed, tears falling from her eyes.
"Aah... Aha... Ahahaha, hahaha!"
What had changed?
Even if the outer gods' intentions had been added to that human's reincarnation, that human was still the reincarnation of the Sword Demon Ruin remembered. Velatus was still alive.
Then nothing had changed.
If he refused to become one with her, she could force him. He was simply struggling too much. She only had to seize him, pour dragon blood into him, and force a heart into his chest.
"I..."
The tears stopped, and Velatus's eyes filled with madness.
"I must meet Ruin again."
Velatus did not consider how Ruin would receive any of this. If she had truly cared about Ruin's feelings, she never would have reduced the East to this state.
This arrogant dragon was still self-centered.
Thump.
A heartbeat shook the world.
Velatus abandoned her plan to conserve as much strength as possible so she could capture Kyle. His body already held enough power. With a vessel and potential like that, strength could be built again as much as needed.
::All of it::
Dragon Speech resounded.
::Return to me::
The barrier collapsed.
The red barrier she had spread to imprison Kyle and prevent his escape dissolved into blood and returned to Velatus. The severance from the world vanished, revealing the scenery of the Sand Sea.
Dozens of dragons and Eastern dragons had been driving Katarina and the members back outside the barrier. Their forms, fashioned from ash, lost shape all at once and crumbled.
The fallen ash turned red and became blood. Dozens of streams of blood then flew toward Velatus.
"This is..."
Katarina followed the flow with ragged breaths. Streaks of blood slashed through the sky, converging on one point: Velatus.
That was not all.
Rumble!
The entire Sand Sea began convulsing. Pillars of blood erupted from all across the dark-red dunes.
The dragon blood that had bound the divine spirits of the East. The Dragonkin Velatus had created and scattered through the land. All that blood was returning to Velatus.
Soon, a massive sphere of blood formed above her.
It was like drinking seawater to quench thirst.
The dragon blood Velatus had scattered throughout the East was her dead blood. It was the misfortune she had stored in vessels.
Even that, Velatus reclaimed.
The reason was simple. She could not afford to choose her means if she wanted to capture that human. Velatus had been driven into such desperate straits.
::My blood shall become a spear::
Velatus spoke Dragon Speech. The blood swirling around her transformed into a massive spear.
::And pierce through::
Fwoosh!
A spear as enormous as a spire shot forward. Kyle, who had withdrawn so he would not be caught in the blood torrent, immediately kicked off the ground.
::Scatter!::
Jor and Fragment spoke Dragon Speech at the same time.
But only the tip of the spear scattered. They could not disperse the entire colossal spear.
Fragment ground their teeth and invoked magic.
Crackle!
The lightning surrounding Jor turned into a huge spear and rushed forward.
The lightning spear flew past Kyle and collided with the blood spear. The lightning spear shattered uselessly. Lightning energy scattered in every direction.
Kyle leaped into it.
Sword Draw resumed.
The lightning energy that had scattered and was about to vanish was drawn toward the swords. Hundreds, thousands of sword dances led by Kyle traced a single path.
Kraaaash!
The blood spear was ground away by Sword Draw.
At its center, Kyle swung Baal.
Baal still traced a different sword path from Fenris. Baal lamented, but its power was undiminished. Annihilation erased the remnants of blood.
Velatus did not retreat. She boldly rushed in.
By reclaiming her dead blood, Velatus had shortened the time she could remain active even further. At that very moment, her body was beginning to collapse from within.
Before this body collapses, capture him. Feed him pure blood. Force the heart into him.
Velatus was obsessed with that alone. There was no other choice but to cling to it.
::My blood shall become armor of omnipotence::
::You cannot defeat me::
Blood poured from the sphere above Velatus's head. As Dragon Speech had declared, the blood became armor and covered her entire body.
Her human form twisted.
Blood-red wings exploded outward from her back. Dragon scales covered her body, and a thick tail burst forth.
It was as though the parts of humans and dragons made for battle had been extracted and combined. Velatus's horns burned gold, and her madness-filled golden eyes fixed on Kyle.
::I shall capture you::
Dragon Speech declared.
::I will break you, tear you apart, and trample you. I will make you my vessel while you still live::
Velatus charged.
Her speed surpassed Kyle's perception, but Kyle swung Fenris through instinct alone.
Kwoooong!
The sky shook from the collision.
He could neither block it nor deflect it. He had only barely endured without being thrown away.
His palms split open, and every bone and organ in his body screamed.
::Break::
The blood-red tail swept through the air and lashed toward him. Sword Draw met it and ground at it, but the mass it failed to destroy reached Kyle.
Kyle hurriedly caught the tail with Baal.
Crunch!
The instant the tail touched Baal's blade, it was cut apart. He had managed to sever it, but the impact slammed Kyle into the ground.
Crack!
Several ribs broke inside him. Kyle's body bounced like a ball and rolled across the desert.
"Sir Kyle!"
Lucia screamed and tried to run toward him.
Kyle coughed up blood and shouted.
"Don't come!"
He stopped his rolling body by driving a sword into the ground. Kyle sprang to his feet and shouted again.
"That's an order! Don't interfere!"
Lucia froze at his words. She flinched, unable to decide what to do.
The wounded members all turned their eyes toward Kyle.
Katarina hesitated.
Kyle had asked her to handle what came afterward if something happened to him. He had said it was his own matter, and that he had a duty to take responsibility.
But this was not someone else's matter. It was her family's.
That... monster. That red monster that had stained the skies of the Sand Sea with blood did not seem like something Kyle could possibly handle alone.
If someone had to die here to let everyone else escape...
'It has to be me.'
That was the duty she had to bear as an elder of the family. She could throw away her life without hesitation to save her nephew, who had so much life ahead of him and possessed such outrageous talent.
It would be for Alastor as well.
[Absolutely not.]
Kyle's voice transmission echoed in Katarina's mind as she prepared herself to step forward.
[Do not interfere. If you do, I will kill myself.]
"W-What...?"
Katarina could only stop with a stunned expression. She had resolved to throw her life away for her nephew, but that brazen nephew was now threatening her with the very life she was determined to save.
"Absolutely."
Kyle said it once more aloud.
At that moment, a waterfall of blood descended from the sky, waves of blood surged in from both sides, and Velatus's transformed, sharp claws came down from the front.
Sword Draw flickered.
It ground away every attack pouring toward him. Baal cut the claws in front of him. Through the opening that created, Kyle drove Fenris in.
It was not enough.
Kyle was clearly being pushed back.
More attacks poured forth than Sword Draw could grind away. More blood rose than Baal could erase. Fenris, which he had driven in, was knocked back. He took one step forward, then had no choice but to retreat two.
No matter how much he cut, it did not end.
His broken ribs pierced his lungs with every breath. The arms swinging Baal and Fenris felt heavy. At some point, his left leg had been broken and now dragged behind him. Blood poured from his mouth between his lips.
More blood was pooling inside him than spilling out.
"Ha."
Yet even so.
"Haha...!"
Kyle laughed.
Even in this overwhelming, desperate situation, Kyle smiled brightly.
What was there to despair over?
This was not despair, nor was it anything close to it. What filled Kyle's chest in the heart of that storm of blood was exhilaration.
'More.'
Slash.
The sword stroke he swung while being pushed back was better than the sword stroke he had swung just before.
Slash.
His body was uncomfortable because of his broken ribs. Yet the path he forced out by twisting himself was better than the one he could have made while whole.
Even at this moment, Kyle's sword was advancing.
The fiercer the fight became, the more he was driven back, the more his body broke apart.
The closer death came, the more his sword improved.
This hell was allowing him to take, with every exchange, a step of progress that would have taken a lifetime in comfort. Beyond the unity of man and sword that had become second nature, the better sword he had been certain of was renewing itself in Kyle's hands at this very moment.
'Yes.'
Kyle coughed up blood and understood as he smiled.
'That's how I've always been.'
Elegantly. Gracefully. Refined.
Training with the sword in that way had never suited his nature.
Raikal had been born on the battlefield in his past life and had lived his entire life on battlefields. Raikal had come to be called the Sword Demon because he wandered battlefields without ever stopping his fights. Because he swung his sword in every battle, time and time again.
'I love this.'
He loved the moment his life crossed the line of death. He loved the moment when the smallest mistake decided life and death.
A slight tremble in a blade's tip. A tremble in the heart. Stillness at the blade's tip, impulse, resolve, determination.
He loved seizing life through all those things.
In this moment, it truly felt as though there were only him and his enemy in the world. Their names, backgrounds, reasons for swinging a sword, and grand or noble ideals were all utterly unimportant now.
The only thing that mattered in this moment, the only thing that decided life and death, was which sword was superior.
'Ah, I see.'
Kyle...
'Is that why, Ruin?'
Kyle understood Ruin Alastor.
A man who bore the expectations of the entire world.
Demon King Astaros. Dragon Queen Velatus. The many powerful enemies he had met after the Sword Demon's death. The sky gods and outer gods beyond the heavens.
As Ruin advanced toward such absurd beings, why had he remembered his battle with the Sword Demon, who had been so much weaker, for his entire life?
'You liked this feeling too.'
The moment when there were only you and I in the world. The moment when ideals and duties were petty, meaningless, and useless. The moment when only swordsman and swordsman, sword and sword, existed.
The moment when neither ideals nor duties mattered, and all one wanted was for the next sword stroke to be better than the last.
'You probably didn't feel this way when you fought me.'
Kyle took a step forward.
'But I felt this way back then.'
As he watched the Sword Demon being driven back, cut, slashed, pierced, and collapsing, yet smiling ruefully as he died...
What had Ruin felt?
'That's why you regretted my death.'
Because he had killed, with his own hand, the only person who could make him truly free.
"You fucking bastard."
Kyle muttered with a crooked smile.
Ruin had been far too strong back then and must have regretted his battle with the Sword Demon, but Kyle was different.
No matter who his opponent was, Kyle could enjoy himself just fine on his own.
"Why are you smiling?!"
Velatus screamed as she brought down her claws.
Kyle did not avoid them. He slipped in.
Slash.
One claw was severed at the same moment Kyle's back was ripped open in a long gash. An attack from behind had pierced through Sword Draw's net of swords.
He did not care.
It was not fatal. If he responded perfectly to that attack, he would lose his opening to get closer. Kyle made the pain in his back into a foundation for his next strike.
He moved farther in.
Beyond this hell was somewhere different from where he stood now. That certainty drove his broken body onward.
'Why?'
Why was he not falling?
Velatus's eyes shook violently.
That human was drenched in blood. Few places on his body remained whole. His organs were damaged, his bones were broken. His torn side revealed bright-red organs whenever he moved. His left leg hung loosely, dragging behind him as though it could come off at any moment.
The wrist and fingers gripping his sword were no different.
Yet that human did not stop.
He dragged his broken leg as he strode closer. His arms were little more than rags, so why did his sword keep becoming sharper? Velatus could not understand it at all.
'Why is he smiling?'
Velatus had faced death for three hundred years. She knew well how frightening death was, and how painful a body became when it faced death.
Death was empty.
No matter how great or noble one had been in life, it was meaningless after death. Once someone died, who they had been in life vanished.
Could it be that he did not fear death because he had reincarnated? That was absurd. He had already died once, so he should know better than anyone how horrific it was to sink into death.
'Then why are you smiling?'
Velatus's time was reaching its end.
That frightening, empty death, the death she had fled from for three hundred years, was right before her. If this continued any longer, Velatus would die first.
In her desperation, Velatus flew upward.
The sphere of blood hanging in the air had shrunk to about half its former size. Velatus focused all her intent and spoke Dragon Speech.
::Fire!::
Rumble!
The sphere of blood transformed into a dragon's head. Bright-red breath poured from its wide-open mouth.
Red light that erased the world.
Facing it, Kyle led with his left hand.
Baal.
The sword that had lamented and choked back tears throughout the battle quietly trembled.
Kyle sensed it, and Baal sensed it too.
This swing would be different from before.
He did not think.
He did not think about how Ruin had swung, the angle of the path, or how his shoulders, wrists, waist, and legs needed to move. He was conscious of nothing.
His broken body could not reproduce that perfect sword path in the first place. He only needed to do the best he could for the situation before him.
There was nothing special to focus on. In truth, there was nothing left to focus on.
Every sword he had swung through this hell existed inside Kyle.
So he only needed to swing.
Slaaaash!
The breath split vertically.
It was the bold single slash Baal loved most.
The slash continued forward, cutting the dragon's head that had spewed the breath in half from its open mouth to the back of its head. The enormous split head collapsed to both sides, and the dragon blood was annihilated.
The path opened.
Kyle advanced in rapture.
And he reached it.
One step was all it took to arrive.
Velatus's eyes saw Kyle.
Her instincts screamed.
She would die. Now, she would die.
The thing she had fled from for three hundred years was right before her. Velatus desperately spoke Dragon Speech.
::My, my royal body shall not be cut...::
"Every time," Kyle whispered.
"Do you have to declare it like that?"
Dragon Speech was great. It was the True Declaration spoken by a dragon. A law forced upon the world.
But it always had to be declared.
Again and again, in every moment, Velatus had to recite her greatness to the world and convince it.
Kyle's sword did not need to do that.
It simply showed what a sword could do.
::I Pierce::
::I Cut::
Baal went for Velatus's chest.
Fenris went for Velatus's neck.
Her Dragon Speech could not be completed. Even if it had been, her defense would not have come into being.
Simply put, in that moment, Velatus could not convince Kyle's sword of her greatness.
'Ah.'
As she watched the swords closing in, Velatus thought.
'Why...'
Time moved very slowly.
Baal's tip pierced the armor and dragon scales, reaching her flesh. Fenris's blade cut through the blood-red current and reached her skin.
Within that final instant, Velatus pondered the path that would kill her.
'I didn't recognize it...'
This path was Ruin's sword.
The one she had seen atop the hill centuries ago. The sword that had made Velatus obsessed. The sword of a man more beautiful than everything in her treasury, a man she believed she had to possess.
She had stayed around him for decades. She had watched Ruin swing his sword countless times. She had watched his daily training, every sword stroke, every sword he swung except on the last night before his Ascension.
When she thought of Ruin, she could naturally picture how he swung his sword.
So why had she failed to recognize it now?
The answer was cruelly simple.
It was because Ruin was not the one swinging the sword that would kill Velatus.
The sword of Ruin that Velatus had seen was the sword held by Ruin.
Velatus had always watched Ruin.
Hair like rubies. Golden eyes. A body like a sculpture. The sight of that beautiful being in motion.
To Velatus, Ruin's sword had only been part of the radiance given off by the jewel called Ruin. She had never once looked into the sword itself, its path, or what it contained.
Dragons.
Velatus had never tried to understand why jewels shone and were beautiful.
Footnotes:
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