Chapter 156
'Bahamut?'
Zeke, who was listening to Claudia's words within Siegfried's body, was startled.
She was speaking in dragon language, not as Claudia Lubern, but as the Ruler of Sunset, Bahamut.
"I, Bahamut, shall bestow a new name upon Siegfried and make a soul contract with him."
Woooong!
Bahamut held onto Siegfried and continued.
"His new name shall be Terakan. According to the ancient pact, our souls shall be bound as one, and this shall be sealed in the name of the great Elder Dragon."
Bahamut shouted to Siegfried,
"Answer me! Accept the contract!"
However, Siegfried was on the verge of death due to the power of the Holy Grail.
Bahamut shouted urgently,
"Quickly!"
Perhaps due to her strong will, Siegfried, facing death, barely managed to nod.
Woooong!
Chains of souls emerged from Bahamut and Siegfried's hearts and connected.
Zeke, within Siegfried's consciousness, could see this clearly.
Then, a message appeared before Zeke's eyes.
['Dragon's Contract' is engraved on the user's soul.]
[The Draker bloodline power 'Warrior's Blood' awakens.]
[A portion of the 'Brilliant Light' power absorbed from the 'Elf King's Cup Containing Brilliant Light' is activated.]
[The skill 'Complete Recovery' is granted through the power.]
[Awakened talents combine.]
[A new class is formed through the rare combination of talents.]
[Acquired unique class 'Immortal'.]
Seeing the message, Zeke realized that his assumption was correct.
'Terakan Draker was indeed an Immortal class.'
Zeke acquired the unique class Immortal through the combination of the Ancient Dragon's Blessing, the Healer class talent, and the Draker bloodline power.
Unlike him, Terakan Draker acquired the Immortal class through the power of the Elf King contained in the Holy Grail and the contract with Bahamut.
Woooong!
The power of the Holy Grail finally activated properly, and Siegfried's body fully recovered in no time.
Siegfried opened his eyes.
Claudia looked at him and said,
"A-are you alright? Zeke?"
Siegfried looked at Claudia and slowly opened his mouth.
"I... I'm not dead?"
"Yes, you're not dead."
Siegfried slowly got up.
Completely rising, he placed his hand on his heart and said,
"What happened?"
Claudia's expression darkened at Siegfried's words.
"Actually, there's something I didn't tell you."
Seeing her serious expression, Siegfried said in a casual tone,
"That you're a dragon?"
Claudia was surprised.
"H-how did you...? Were you conscious when we made the contract?"
Siegfried chuckled at those words.
"You always say you want to kill all humans and that they're disgusting, and you talk about things that happened hundreds of years ago as if they happened yesterday. How could I not be suspicious?"
Claudia had an embarrassed expression at Siegfried's words.
"T-then you knew I was a dragon and still traveled with me?"
"I had a hunch. Dragons have long since disappeared. And leaving you alone felt like leaving a clueless child by the water, so I was a bit worried."
"What? You had such disrespectful thoughts about me, a great dragon?"
Claudia's grumbling expression suddenly darkened again.
"Zeke, no, it's Terakan now. A contract with a dragon actually comes with a huge price. So you have to decide very carefully..."
"I know how a contract with a dragon works. That your soul and mine are bound as one through the contract. And that you can't return to your dragon form while the contract lasts."
Claudia silently nodded at Siegfried's words, holding the broken sun emblem.
"The Dragon Clan can no longer intervene in the physical world. But I couldn't stand still because I knew the fate that awaited us in the future. So, to change that future, I placed a restriction on myself, transformed into a human, and came down here."
"So that's what you meant by changing fate by destroying the relic."
"That's right. The prophecy said that a human who gains the power of immortality will bring chaos to the world."
"You thought that if you destroyed the Holy Grail that could grant the power of immortality, the prophecy itself wouldn't come true."
"Yes. That's why I took the Holy Grail, which had been safely stored for hundreds of years, from the ark, and in the end, I used that Holy Grail to save you from death."
Siegfried gave a wry smile at those words.
"The one who gained the power of immortality. Do you think I will bring chaos to the world?"
Claudia shook her head.
"I don't know. Prophecies are always uncertain."
She looked at Siegfried and said,
"Terakan, I have something to tell you."
She looked at Siegfried, now called Terakan, and said,
"There was a prophecy. A prophecy about a terrible future."
Claudia's eyes wavered.
She slowly opened her mouth.
"The Demon King will be resurrected. I saw that future. To stop it..."
Zeke listened to Claudia's words within Terakan's body.
It was then.
Crackle!
The vision he was seeing through Terakan's eyes became blurry as if there was noise.
'Damn it, just a little more...!'
Without being able to hear Claudia's words properly, the vision Zeke borrowed from Terakan turned completely black.
And he felt as if someone was pulling his body.
Whoosh!
He went back through the sea of memories at an incredible speed.
"Ugh!"
Passing through countless memory fragments, Zeke quickly rose to the shining surface.
And his vision was filled with light again.
***
"Ah."
When he opened his eyes, Zeke was holding the Holy Grail inside the ark.
He had returned to reality after looking into the memories of Terakan and Bahamut associated with the Holy Grail.
Through the past memories, Zeke learned something that even the Hermit of the Story didn't know.
"Claudia Lubern was Bahamut."
Terakan Draker's lover and the one bound to him by a soul contract.
But in another past memory, Zeke clearly saw Terakan Draker stabbing the cursed Bahamut with his sword.
Zeke, recalling Bahamut's Heart within his body, looked at the sword made from his fangs.
"Did the cursed Dragon leave his own heart and fangs behind and die?"
It seemed unlikely that it was just a coincidence that Zeke himself was an Immortal class like Terakan Draker and possessed the heart and fangs of Bahamut, who was his contracted dragon.
Zeke thought for a moment and took out the watch left by his mother, Laura Agamemnon.
His mother, who resembled Claudia Lubern, was an Irregular with the power of prophecy.
'Did my mother know that I would become an Immortal class and inherit Terakan Draker's legacy?'
Zeke, who had lived a miserable life and gained a new life by returning through an Elder Dragon artifact he obtained by chance, shook his head as he put the watch away.
"It's not like I'll get any answers by dwelling on it. I might find out something if I go to the Temple of Chronos in Aten and receive the power."
Although he was reluctant to go to Aten, which was Nirvana's territory, he felt he had to visit once to solve the mystery.
Zeke stored the Holy Grail in his inventory and tried to leave the ark.
But just then, a message window popped up before Zeke's eyes.
[1 Admin Record Video Available]
[Recorder: Terakan Draker]
Just like at the Zoin Clan's temple, a record video of Terakan Draker remained.
Zeke played the video.
Then, a crystal in the control room emitted light, displaying a large screen.
Someone appeared on the screen.
A middle-aged man with gray hair and a full beard.
The man with hollow eyes seemed utterly devoid of life.
Zeke recognized him instantly.
"Terakan Draker."
Zeke felt Terakan Draker in the video bore a resemblance to his father, Arthur Draker.
Soon, the man turned his gaze to the screen and opened his mouth.
"I am already too weary."
He felt completely different from the Terakan Draker he saw in the Holy Grail's memory.
It was as if someone had forcibly extended the life of a person who had already reached their end; Terakan Draker seemed exhausted from simply living.
He slowly began to speak.
"Her last request was for me to leave the Holy Grail here after everything was over. Yes... this is the end."
Terakan in the video hung his head low, staring blankly with unfocused eyes.
Then, at some point, he slowly rose from his seat.
Simultaneously, Terakan brought his face close to the screen.
Zeke could glimpse a hint of madness in Terakan's dark, abyssal eyes.
Terakan muttered, gazing into the distance.
"If only I had that... Yes, if only I had that, I could find her again. If I go to that place beyond the Dark Sea..."
"The Dark Sea?"
Terakan, who had been muttering, suddenly turned his head and stared intently at the video.
It was as if he were looking at Zeke, who was watching the video, across time.
Terakan spoke to Zeke.
"If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes back into you."
Then, his pupils gradually changed.
Terakan, whose eyes had turned golden, slowly murmured.
"Perhaps I have also... become a monster..."
Ping!
The video ended there.
Zeke recalled Terakan Draker's changed eyes at the end.
"Dragon eyes?"
Like Zeke's left eye, Terakan Draker also had golden dragon eyes.
Zeke's dragon eyes manifested after receiving the title of Dragonkin, but he couldn't figure out how Terakan's had appeared.
"Gazing at monsters for too long, one becomes a monster themselves."
Zeke pondered Terakan Draker's words, focusing on "Dark Sea."
"Wait, the Dark Sea? Could Terakan Draker have gone there?"
The Eastern Empire lies east across the Central Sea from the Central Continent.
Communication had been cut off for a while after the Eastern Empire's invasion war 20 years ago.
Recently, however, exchanges have increased through the Dorta Republic and Nirvana's Aten.
Still, the Eastern Empire, ruled by the Sultan, remained a mystery to the people of the Central Continent.
Even more unknown than the Eastern Empire was the Dark Sea, located beyond the western sea of the Central Continent.
This place was not just an unknown world but an area no one could approach.
Zeke had heard about the Dark Sea from his former mentor, the Hermit of the Forest.
And his mentor had said to him,
"The Dark Sea is, as its name suggests, a place where anything can happen. Going there is sheer recklessness."
Zeke had never heard his mentor, a member of the High Table, speak like that while staying in the Forest of the Forgotten.
Since the mentor, a High Table member, spoke of it like that, Zeke had never even considered going there.
But Terakan Draker seems to have tried to cross the Dark Sea to "somewhere" to revive Bahamut.
"What could be beyond the Dark Sea?"
Frankly, Zeke didn't care much about what Terakan Draker did in the Dark Sea.
The key was whether it was important to him.
"It's unsettling to be constantly involved with Terakan Draker since becoming his heir, but I can just take what I need."
Anyway, thanks to the "Terakan Draker's Heir" title, he had inherited most of the Dragonslayer's legacy.
Zeke decided to think positively and was about to leave the ark, thinking he had obtained everything he could from there.
But then, a message appeared before his eyes again.
[Activating the ark's automatic portal.]
[Forcibly moving the inheritor to the designated coordinates.]
Zeke had a dumbfounded expression as he saw the message.
"Forced transfer? W-wait..."
Before Zeke could finish speaking, the portal activated.
Woooong!
The giant crystal sphere attached to the ceiling of the helm emitted light, and Zeke's body was enveloped in an aura of light.
"Ugh!"
The helm was filled with light.
When the light subsided, Zeke was gone from the helm.
***
Whoosh!
When Zeke opened his eyes, he saw a white snowy field.
'This is...?'
Sharp, blade-like peaks stretched endlessly.
Zeke realized where he was.
"The Ice Mountains?"
It was the Valley of the Ice Dragon, the deepest part of the Ice Mountains.
Zeke, recognizing the Valley of the Ice Dragon, was flustered.
'Why am I here?'
This was none other than the place where Zeke discovered the Elder Dragon's relic, was chased by the Hounds, and was killed.
Whoosh!
Suddenly, a blizzard started.
The weather in the north was always fickle.
Zeke, examining his surroundings amidst the swirling snowflakes, found something.
'What's that?'
A flag with a giant wolf emblem.
It was the symbol of the Northern Duke.