Chapter 237: Chaos (3)
“Looks like you came a little sooner than I expected.”
Urkubar muttered in a low voice.
He lightly gripped the wrist that had just been struck by Junongren, as if it were throbbing.
“My hand stings. Should a youngster really treat an old man like this?”
“…I will not apologize, Elder.”
Junongren spat the words out as if chewing them to pieces.
“I was the one who suffered far more filthily than this.”
Her body was indeed covered in wounds.
It seemed she had healed the major injuries that would have hindered her movements, but the countless small cuts and bruises that marked her entire body still remained vivid.
“So you came running the moment your restraints were undone. What did I tell you? I said that if it were you, you would certainly be able to break free, did I not?”
Urkubar flicked his hand dismissively.
With that alone, his wrist returned to perfect condition as if nothing had ever happened.
“…….”
In contrast, Junongren still remained riddled with wounds.
Even as she watched him recover, she said nothing.
It meant she had exhausted her strength to the point that she did not even have the leeway to circulate her power to heal her body.
Seeing that, Urkubar clicked his tongue softly and shook his head.
“Tsk, tsk… You came without even tending to your injuries? Have I not told you time and again that there is no greater foolishness than rushing onto the battlefield without properly assessing your own capacity?”
“…I have no regrets, since ignoring your old-fashioned words allowed me to save my precious younger sister.”
As she said that, Junongren carefully lowered Menoruka to the ground from her arms.
“……Older Sister.”
At Menoruka’s call, Junongren spoke firmly.
“Step back.”
As she said that, she cast a brief glance at Third Prince Behad Amandine Bestrang, who lay collapsed on the ground with his chest pierced through.
Then she looked at the iron needle embedded in Menoruka’s chest.
And finally, she took in the tremors caused by the massive clash of magical power that could be felt from various directions.
In that brief moment, after roughly grasping the situation, she drew in a small breath.
“…What in the world are you plotting, Elder?”
“It is not something a child whose head has barely dried of blood would understand.”
“You dragged someone even younger than that child whose head has barely dried of blood into the center of this incident, and yet you say that? I find that exceedingly cowardly.”
“You’ve grown quite insolent in that short time. Your tongue has become flexible as well.”
“I’ve been beaten so much that the only part of me still intact is my tongue.”
“Hmm.”
Urkubar frowned slightly as if annoyed.
Judging by her attitude, she clearly had no intention of backing down so easily.
At his composed demeanor, Junongren’s eyes flared fiercely.
“The fact that I am still forcing myself to speak respectfully already shows that I am maintaining a fair degree of courtesy.”
“Hoho, is that so? I am truly grateful for your courtesy.”
“…Before I discard even that courtesy toward an Elder of our Lineage, I will ask you a few things. Please answer properly.”
“Go ahead and try.”
She ground her teeth as she spoke.
“What is your objective, Elder?”
“Objective?”
“Do not answer a question with a question. I am asking you—what is your objective?”
At her chilling presence, Urkubar clicked his tongue.
But inwardly, he was rejoicing.
She is stepping forward on her own to buy time.
With that thought, he decided to humor her to an extent.
“You already have some idea, do you not? It is exactly what you are thinking.”
“…The Dead do not return.”
At Junongren’s words, he replied as though they were not even worth answering.
“That is merely the thought of someone with shallow insight.”
“Then by what method do you intend to revive them? Please tell me.”
“I have no obligation to answer that to you.”
Urkubar replied incredulously.
“Who do you think you are that I must report to you in detail?”
At his reaction, Junongren clenched her teeth tightly.
She took a slow breath.
“…What kind of method is it that you deceived our Lineage and me—and even deceived Menoruka?”
“I already said I have no obligation to answer.”
“Does that method have something to do with the iron needle embedded in Menoruka’s chest?”
“Likewise, I have no obligation to answer.”
“…….”
Junongren closed her eyes and fell silent for a moment.
After a long stretch of stillness—
Boom!
She suddenly stomped the ground hard.
At the same time, a dense cloud of dust swallowed the two of us, making it impossible to see even an inch ahead.
“I will execute you here and now for betraying the Lineage!”
With those words, the immense aura that burst from her body surged toward Urkubar as if it possessed a will of its own.
“Hoh.”
Even with a body that seemed on the verge of death, such spirit.
He narrowed his eyes and sharpened his senses to their limit, bracing for the attack that would soon descend.
So she hides my sight and launches a surprise attack. How simple.
Yet precisely because it was simple, it was effective.
Though he did not wish to admit it, in pure close combat Junongren was skilled enough to contend for the top ranks within the Lineage. There was no need to face her head-on unnecessarily.
He would simply wait until she broke through the dust and approached him—then strike at that instant.
Judging by the strength she had left, at most one or two attacks would be the end.
But even a cornered rat bites the cat.
At this final stage, he had no intention whatsoever of letting his plans be ruined by a mere child of the Lineage.
Hm.
Reading the faint aura of Junongren within the dust cloud, Urkubar realized that it would be difficult to disperse this dust through ordinary means.
A little regrettable, but…
Thinking that, he secretly separated a portion of the energy he had gathered and used it to guard his surroundings.
…However, no matter how long he waited, Junongren did not attack.
…Could it be.
Just as he thought she was being unusually cautious, something occurred to him and he startled.
He hurriedly raised his energy and began to drive away the dust.
If this had been Junongren’s true aim, she could have seized that brief opening to deliver a decisive blow—but he did not hesitate in the slightest.
Soon, the dust settled.
As he had suspected, there was no attack from Junongren.
She had not fled with Menoruka.
Rather…
At some point, she had already moved to Menoruka’s side and was firmly gripping the Iron Needle embedded in her chest.
For the first time, a note of fluster broke from Urkubar’s lips.
“Y-You fool…!”
he shouted.
“Stop that at once!”
Watching his reaction, Junongren curled one corner of her mouth upward in ridicule.
Her complexion had turned deathly pale, as if pouring out her aura earlier had already drained the last of her strength, yet her eyes remained razor-sharp.
“So that’s how it is? What should I do, Luka. Pull it out? Or leave it in?”
Then Menoruka, who was holding Third Prince Behad Amandine Bestrang dearly in her arms, spoke in a quiet yet incomparably clear voice.
“…Please pull it out, Older Sister.”
“Alright. I’ll do as you wish.”
With those words, Junongren began to tighten her grip, and Urkubar hurriedly lunged toward them.
“No!”
But before he could do anything—
the Iron Needle that had been embedded in Menoruka’s body for countless years was pulled free.
And…
A colossal aura.
An aura that could be described only as colossal spread in all directions.
“Ah, ah…!”
Urkubar, who had been forced several steps backward by the aftershock, trembled violently as if unable to believe what he was witnessing.
In that moment, it felt as though his very breath had stopped.
Before his eyes, the tower he had spent long years building was collapsing.
The plan upon which he had staked everything was dissolving into nothing in an instant.
All color drained from his face.
Rage, remorse, and an overwhelming despair that surpassed them both swallowed him whole.
“…….”
Menoruka still stood there.
From her small body poured forth a massive aura that shook the surrounding air and made the earth tremble.
Junongren, who had pulled out the Iron Needle, was swept far away by the shockwave of that aura.
It was a torrent of power so immense that it could scarcely be believed to belong to a Wyrmling.
Yet the one standing at the very center of that power—
Menoruka herself—
looked utterly serene.
No, serene was not enough.
The purity and fear that had once filled her eyes were gone. In their place lay a cold, sunken stillness that resembled a silent abyss.
As though she had recovered a part of herself that she had lost long ago, she accepted it all as something only natural.
“Child.”
Urkubar barely forced his voice out.
Desperately pulling the mask of a gentle grandfather over his face, he fashioned the softest tone he could manage.
“I… I was wrong. All of this was because of this old man’s greed.”
He took a step toward her.
As quickly as possible.
He had to contain that overflowing aura back within her—if only by a single drop.
Before even a single droplet could leak out any further.
“I should have explained properly and sought your consent… I was foolish. Please forgive this old grandfather.”
“…….”
Menoruka said nothing.
She merely looked at him with cold eyes.
“Yes, how resentful you must be of this old man. I know it all. How could I not understand your feelings? But are we not family? Family sharing the same blood.”
Urkubar’s desperate voice scattered into the air.
He took another step closer and pleaded.
“This old grandfather is sorry. …Yes, you said you wished to take a human as your companion, did you not? Do as you please. Now that I think about it, children these days all unite with the partner they desire… Hoho, this old man was too old-fashioned. I failed to consider your heart.”
At that moment, Menoruka quietly opened her mouth.
“…Grandfather.”
Though she was clearly using honorifics, not a trace of respect was contained within them.
Only a chilling coldness lingered.
“The apology is not one you should offer to me.”
she said again.
At her icy voice, Urkubar’s steps halted abruptly.
“If you are to apologize, should you not first offer it to the countless lives who, without even knowing why, were turned into human sacrifices because of your obstinacy?”
“……What.”
“If not that, then at least to the child of our Lineage who had to be sacrificed for your misguided desire.”
Menoruka continued.
“…And if not even that, then should you not have apologized to the me of yesterday, who, without knowing anything, became a living altar, bearing within my body those countless lives and grudges, forced to live even after losing my memories?”
Having said that, Menoruka suddenly made a retching sound and expelled something.
It was a palm-sized crystal, resplendent as though hundreds of jewels had been melted together into one.
Like a living heart, it pulsed with a steady yet intense radiance.
“W-Wait, what… what are you….”
Urkubar asked in a voice filled with horror.
The sight before his eyes was more dreadful than any worst-case scenario he had ever imagined.
Menoruka gave a crooked smile.
It was a cold and beautiful smile so chilling that he had never seen the like.
Gently tightening her embrace around Third Prince Behad Amandine Bestrang once more, she spoke.
“…I shall follow Grandfather’s words and take a human as my companion.”
she whispered softly.
Then, without hesitation, she brought the crystal in her hand to the hole pierced through Behad’s chest.
“Therefore, I shall become this person’s heart.”
Soon, a new heart settled into Behad’s hollow chest.
Not a human heart—
but the heart of a Dragon.
Thud.
The first beat produced by the new heart filled the silent space.