One day ago.
After the heroic expedition was defeated by Night Bringer and retreated,
Immediately following the meeting between Night Bringer, who had polymorphed into a human form, and Ash,
Whoomp...!
Night Bringer's Royal Sword pierced Ash's chest for the second time.
If the first strike was meant merely to inflict physical pain, this second strike pierced Ash's spirit core and shattered his soul.
"Ah...!"
Dying, Ash trembled all over.
Night Bringer gently grasped Ash's throat with his hand. He leisurely watched the small flame of life being extinguished in his grip.
It was then. A faint smile flickered across Ash's lips as he neared death."Hmm?"
Puzzled by the meaning of the smile, Night Bringer wondered right before,
"...?!"
Suddenly, a killing intent overwhelmed him from behind.
Night Bringer quickly turned around, and saw a barrage of arrows and spells raining down on him.
With ease, Night Bringer surrounded himself with a magical shield, blocking all the attacks. He then surveyed the new forces that had appeared.
Click! Click! Click!
Marching in order, those pointing their weapons at Night Bringer were none other than...
"Ah, the court jester and his circus troupe."
Crown.
And his subordinates, the Eternal Life Seekers - the Night Crawler Squad.
All wearing calm white smiling masks, they encircled Night Bringer.
Backed against a cliff, Night Bringer laughed softly.
"Dare you rebel against me, jester?"
"Rebel? Odd choice of words."
Crown tilted his head in confusion.
"You were never my king."
"The royal scepter of your kingdom is now in my hands."
"And that's why I've come to take it back."
Crown snickered, whipping his flute to signal his men to prepare for attack.
"What meaning is there in our dialogue... Prepare to die, Black Dragon."
"I don't understand, jester. You should know well that you cannot stand against me."
"Yet you know too, that we are cursed with eternal life. If there's nothing to lose, why not swing a sword for the throne?"
The Night Crawler Squad finished their preparations, and Night Bringer readied himself for combat.
Nevertheless, Night Bringer was not one to avoid a life-and-death struggle and always maintained the minimum courtesy when battling all who stood against him.
"Strike him down-!"
As Crown raised his flute, the members of the Night Crawler Squad charged forward, their white masks flashing as they advanced.
Night Bringer scattered darkness, crushing each of the eternals. Even as they were annihilated, they desperately charged towards Night Bringer in an attempt to reach him.
Just then.
"..."
"..."
Two elderly people were stealthily climbing up from the side of the cliff.
The Sword Demon and the Spear Demon.
Each carrying a toothless sword and a broken spear in their mouths, they silently approached and charged at Night Bringer.
"Listen up, dragon-head! Hear this! This bridge is-"
"Our marketplace, so to speak!"
Night Bringer, caught off guard by the stealth attack from the cliffside, allowed the attack to proceed.
The two demons were formidable opponents, no less than any heroes on earth.
Once they managed an ambush and closed in, their sword and spear shredded the polymorphed human form of Night Bringer to pieces.
Of course, Night Bringer instantly regenerated from such wounds, but—
In a moment, his arm was severed, and with it, Ash was flung into the air.
"...!"
Night Bringer quickly regenerated his arm and reached out to catch Ash.
His hand clutched the flagpole that Ash was holding onto, and
Creak...!
Due to his immense strength, the flag was torn apart, and it was ripped away from his hand.
As Ash's body was pushed into the void, it fell straight down into a thousand-foot abyss, disappearing into the darkness.
"..."
Looking down into the abyss where Ash had vanished, Night Bringer chuckled.
"Such a nuisance, these undying pests..."
"Just stop bothering us, and please, just die!"
"Even if you kill us, we'll just resurrect, damn it all-!"
As the Sword Demon and Spear Demon charged, shouting, they could not escape the next burst of magic power and exploded into pieces.
The remaining Night Crawler Squad, too, was swept away by the darkness unleashed by Night Bringer, quickly annihilated.
"Really, what's so great about this decrepit country..."
Even Crown, who had clung to life until the end, was crushed to death.
"Everyone... fussing about to become king..."
Crunch-!
Struck by the darkness wielded by Night Bringer, Crown shattered into pieces.
The blood and bodies of the deceased Sword Demon, Spear Demon, and Night Crawler Squad members all turned into black mist and disappeared.
This was always how the eternals under the curse of immortality vanished in this country.
After ensuring that there were no more interferences left, Night Bringer looked down into the vast abyss once again.
"...Hmm."
He had already shattered the soul.
Ash was dead. There was no chance he could have survived.
But Night Bringer was not one to be complacent.
"Still, just in case..."
Snap!
With a flick of his finger, two of his assisting heads appeared beside him...
Whoosh!
They opened their mouths and poured black flames into the abyss below the bridge.
Tremendous black flames engulfed everything below the bridge. Satisfied after pouring out the black flames for a while, Night Bringer retracted the flames.
By now, the flames would have reached the very bottom. Not even ashes of the bodies would remain.
Turning around, Night Bringer suddenly realized he still held Ash's flag in his hand.
"It's better to burn this on the surface."
There was no better declaration of war than burning the enemy's standard.
With that, he gripped the flag tightly and strode toward the main gate of the Lake Kingdom. It was time to invade Inse.
After Night Bringer departed, a while later.
Still glowing with black flames at the bottom of the abyss cliff—
Crunch!
A blood-stained hand emerged.
"Huff, huff...!"
The one who climbed up was none other than King Poseidon of the Merfolk.
Despite drawing upon all the powers of his divine race and creating a water barrier, he had suffered terrible burns all over his body.
However, he had managed to protect Ash within his bosom.
'Prince Ash is...'
King Poseidon examined Ash.
The soul was shattered, but his body was still clinging to life in a comatose state. Of course, this was only temporarily halted by magic and wouldn't last long.
'We must hurry.'
Excannibal, which had also fallen into the abyss with Ash during the chaos, was already in his hand.
King Poseidon infused the divine magic of his race into this cursed sword, prompting it to vomit what it had swallowed just before.
Plunk, plop...
The contents Excannibal couldn't immediately digest appeared on its blade and scattered on the ground.
Dragonblood.
It was blood drawn directly from the heart of Night Bringer's chest. Even though Night Bringer had been polymorphed at the time the sword stabbed him, this blood was real.
"Huff! Huff!"
After extracting all the dragonblood from Excannibal, and carelessly stabbing the sword into the ground.
King Poseidon planted his trident on the ground. Then, the dragonblood drawn directly from Night Bringer's chest transformed into a round droplet and floated into the air.
King Poseidon inserted this droplet of dragonblood directly into the wound on Ash's chest.
Thump!
Ash's body, which had been frozen like a statue with eyes closed, suddenly shook violently.
"Not yet...!"
King Poseidon gritted his teeth and continued with the next step. He planted his trident into the ground again.
Following this, a massive amount of blood—spilled by Night Bringer and the Heroic Expedition throughout the battlefield—also gathered into a giant droplet and floated into the air.
King Poseidon placed Ash's body inside this gigantic droplet of dragonblood.
"..."
His work here was done.
However, he could not complete the surgery here. If the Black Dragon returned, or if another monster came, it would all be for naught.
Time was running out, and ultimately, there was only one option left.
King Poseidon stood at the edge of the abyss, looking down. The darkness below still blazed with black flames.
"Sigh."
As always in life, it was do or die.
Taking a deep breath, he summoned a water barrier with the divine power of his race once more, then fell into the depths with Ash.
***
Present.
Below the cliff. The Bottom Village.
In this place unknown to any monsters, King Poseidon continued performing surgery on Ash.
The resurrected Sword Demon and Spear Demon were busy extinguishing the black flames that clung to the entire village, and with Crown joining late to help, they were finally able to put out all the fires.
And so they found themselves waiting together for the surgery to finish.
"By the way, we are cooperating like this because we were promised something by that prince."
Sword Demon asked Crown.
"Why are you helping?"
Before the Heroic Expedition set out.
Ash had come to the Lake Kingdom in advance with King Poseidon to ask for their help.
The Bottom Village was connected to the dried-out drainage of Dungeon Zone 1, and the waterways were so intricately intertwined that they had not found the way until now.
But as the great flood approached, the waterways filled up, and King Poseidon, able to read the flow of water, found the way.
Thus, when Ash revisited the Bottom Village, he did not pay the promised gold. Instead, he proposed something entirely different.
Unable to refuse the proposal, Sword Demon, Spear Demon, and the Bottom Village agreed to cooperate with Ash again.
But what about Crown?
Why was he helping Ash?
Crown responded gruffly.
"It's none of your business, thief."
Spear Demon bristled at being called a thief.
"Hey, even though you ruled over our country, isn't it a bit much to treat us like thieves, Prince? Sure, we did a bit of thieving!"
"..."
"Of course, we weren't citizens but non-citizens under that regime. But given the state of the world, shouldn't those of us who remember the times when the kingdom was intact try to get along?"
Sword Demon and Spear Demon chuckled, draping their arms around Crown from both sides. Crown shuddered and pushed them both away.
"...I too received a promise from Ash."
But surprisingly, he answered calmly.
Crown himself didn't quite understand why he had responded. Perhaps, the title 'Prince,' heard after so long, had stirred something in him.
Sword Demon and Spear Demon tilted their heads.
"A promise?"
"Yes."
Crown's gaze from behind his mask was complex.
At the end of that gaze was Ash, buried in swirling dragonblood.
"A promise... to save my sister."
"The Prince's sister? You mean our Princess?"
"Yes."
Crown chuckled dryly.
"He seemed to know. A way to save my sister."
"..."
"I thought it was an obvious lie... but with him, maybe. Even now when everything is ending... no, especially because it's ending, when there's nothing left to lose."
It didn't matter if it was a vain hope.
Whether the Black Dragon brings about the end of the world or not.
After all, it's all going to end soon.
All he hoped for was a small salvation for his sister before that.
"That's why I decided to help. That's all."
"Hooo..."
Sword Demon and Spear Demon turned their heads quickly with a curious hum.
Crown also looked that way, and from the shabby house of Sword Demon and Spear Demon, someone staggered out.
"Ugh... where is this...?"
With white hair dragging to the floor and an old iron sword on her back...
It was Nameless, the merchant and dethroned princess of the Lake Kingdom.
"I definitely fell off a cliff after being attacked by Night Bringer..."
"Ah, our Princess is awake too!"
Sword Demon and Spear Demon hurriedly rushed to Nameless. She looked at them, bewildered.
"It's been a while, Princess! Have you been well?"
"Sword Demon? Spear Demon? Ah, so this place is..."
"Yes, yes! This is our Bottom Village where we live!"
"We promised to invite you sometime! Never thought you'd drop in from above like this!"
They were all survivors of the Lake Kingdom, living in the hellish depths beneath the lake, bound by centuries of intertwined destinies.
After expressing her gratitude to Sword Demon and Spear Demon for saving her from the fall, Nameless looked in surprise at Crown standing behind them.
"Brother... no, Crown?"
"Have you regained your senses, Nameless?"
"Why are you here too...?"
"Well, he's the one who gathered us here."
Crown gestured towards where Ash was, and Nameless’s teal eyes widened.
"Ash? This surgery... could it be to become a dragon...?!"
"It was all Ash's doing. And it seems it's almost over."
As soon as he spoke.
Whoosh!
The pool of black blood Ash was submerged in lost its shape and spilled onto the floor. King Poseidon, exhausted from performing the surgery, collapsed to the ground.
And from the dragonblood that stained the floor black...
Thud.
Having fought through countless regressions, his save slot worn to tatters—
That's what the 'real' Ash said.
--TL Notes--
Hope you enjoyed this chapter. If you want to support me or give me feedback, you can do it at /MattReading