Chapter 522 - 522: The Past Resurfaces (Part 2)

The moment Ankh heard that name, he froze again.

Belserion…

Why did it sound so familiar?

Irene Belserion?

Before he could think any further, the Ankhseram within the memory finally spoke.

His voice sounded remarkably similar to Ankh's current one, except almost all emotion had been stripped from it.

"Was it worth it?"

Young Irene gave him a bitter smile.

"The dragons want to devour us, and the gods want to wipe us out. If humanity wants to survive, someone has to pay the price."

She touched the crimson dragon scales spreading across her face, her eyes dull with exhaustion.

"Do I look like a monster now?"

"Dragon Force is gradually transforming you into a dragon. That does not make you a monster."

Ankhseram's answer was so flat and mechanical that he might as well have been an emotionless machine.

Somehow, Irene still managed a faint smile.

"At least humanity finally has the power to fight back against dragons."

"You hate the people who betrayed you. You resent the child inside you. You regret creating Dragon Slayer Magic for humanity."

Ankhseram continued in that same brutally straightforward tone.

"You are angry, grieving, and in pain."

"I can feel all of it."

The fragile smile on Irene's face vanished.

Her entire body began trembling.

She wrapped her arms around herself, and the emotions she had been desperately suppressing finally broke loose.

Her once-beautiful face twisted with rage and despair as she screamed, cried, and cursed everything that had happened to her, as though determined to spit every bit of suffering fate had forced upon her back into the world.

Then, like someone who had completely lost her mind, Irene began clawing at the dragon scales appearing across her body.

She tore them out with her bare hands.

Blood sprayed from the gruesome wounds, but she ignored it and continued ripping into herself in a frenzy.

Ankhseram quietly walked over.

Without saying a word, he released a gentle silver-white light that rapidly healed every injury she inflicted upon herself.

And so the absurd cycle continued.

Irene tore herself apart.

Ankhseram healed her.

She tore herself apart again.

He healed her again.

It should have been a horrifying sight, yet the sheer stubbornness of both sides somehow made the scene almost ridiculous.

Only when Irene finally collapsed to her knees, completely drained of strength, did the miserable little battle come to an end.

She stared blankly at the crimson dragon claws that had replaced her hands and began crying again.

Then, apparently out of sheer frustration, she lunged at Ankhseram and tried to bite him.

It accomplished absolutely nothing.

Ankhseram simply planted one hand on top of her head and held her at arm's length like an adult restraining a tantrum-throwing child.

After Irene had cried herself dry and exhausted every last bit of energy trying to attack him, she finally slumped there with a lifeless expression.

"Belserion…"

Her voice came without warning.

"You're not actually a dragon, are you?"

Ankhseram looked at her.

"You can control human life and death. Your power feels a lot like that god who helped the dragons…"

"Yes."

His answer was immediate.

"Belserion is merely a new name my disciple gave me."

"My true name is Ankhseram."

"I took the form of a dragon because it allowed me to interact with a wider variety of beings more easily."

A faint spark returned to Irene's eyes.

"Your disciple?"

She sounded weak but suddenly interested.

"So… my senior?"

Ankhseram fell silent for a moment before nodding.

"He was a very gentle human."

There was still almost no emotion in his voice.

"I was very fond of him."

Irene stared at him.

"You really need to stop using words like 'fond' so casually…"

She sighed like a daughter trying to teach her hopelessly outdated father how normal people spoke.

"Then why aren't you with him anymore? You like living around humans, don't you?"

After spending so many years beside Belserion—or rather, Ankhseram—Irene understood him better than almost anyone.

Their relationship had long since become something between teacher and student, father and daughter, and close companions.

She was certain this god was nothing like the deity who had sided with the dragons.

Ankhseram loved humanity with a strange mixture of compassion and fairness.

He was even willing to accept the uglier parts of human nature.

Someone personally chosen as his disciple must have been an exceptionally kind person as well.

Ankhseram remained silent for a long time.

Then he finally answered.

"He fell into despair."

"And he left me."

Irene looked up in surprise.

"What made him despair?"

"He prayed to me for power."

"But what answered him was not the power he had desperately wished for."

His voice still carried no obvious sadness.

Irene heard it anyway.

"Then why didn't you just give him what he wanted?"

"That power was chosen by the fundamental law itself. It reflected the purest obsession buried within his heart."

"It was not mine to decide."

Irene stared at him for a moment.

"You talk like that and still wonder why he stopped speaking to you?"

She turned her head away in exasperation.

A moment later, however, she looked back.

"What are you going to do now?"

Ankhseram gazed toward the distant horizon.

The setting sun painted the world in brilliant shades of red and gold.

For once, even his normally flat voice carried a trace of anticipation.

"The time is almost here."

"I will soon become human."

"What?!"

Irene shot upright.

"How soon?!"

"Approximately four hundred years."

Irene stared at him.

"…You call that soon?"

Her brows furrowed with concern.

"Won't it be dangerous?"

"My disciple once told me something."

Ankhseram looked toward the sunset.

"If you claim to love humanity, then you must love humanity as a whole."

"You must understand what humans truly are—the good and the ugly alike."

"And if, after seeing all of it, you can still love what deserves love and hate what deserves hatred…"

"Then you may finally call yourself human."

Irene immediately understood what he meant.

He wanted to experience humanity firsthand.

Not merely kindness, friendship, and gratitude, but betrayal, cruelty, selfishness, hatred, and every other ugly corner of mortal life.

"Why would you put yourself through all that?!"

Irene's temper flared.

She pointed angrily at him.

"Why should you care about those ungrateful bastards at all? We could find somewhere no one can ever reach us and just live however we want!"

"Wouldn't that be better than deliberately making yourself suffer?"

Ankhseram listened with the patience of an impossibly calm father.

Then, as though she had never interrupted him at all, he continued,

"So I may have to leave you for a while, Irene."

Those were the words she had truly been afraid of hearing.

Irene's eyes immediately reddened.

She clenched her teeth.

"You're going to abandon me too?"

"Humanity did not abandon you."

Ankhseram's voice suddenly sounded unusually gentle.

"And neither will I."

He walked toward the miserable-looking Irene and raised both hands.

Two different powers appeared above his palms.

One white.

One black.

Irene's eyes were immediately drawn toward them.

"Consider this your graduation gift."

"I am the God of Life and Death."

"What kind of power do you wish to possess?"

Hatred immediately surged through Irene's eyes.

"Death."

Her answer came through clenched teeth.

"I want the power of death."

"Enough power to kill every one of those humans!"

Ankhseram said nothing.

The black and white lights above his palms flickered faintly.

Then—the warm white light moved.

It flowed directly into Irene's body.

Life Divine Power.

Irene stared blankly at the gentle white radiance gathering in her palm.

As that power spread throughout her body, the dragon scales covering her skin rapidly receded before her eyes, revealing smooth human skin once again.

Ankhseram raised one hand and gently rested it on her head.

"It seems the Law of Life prefers you."

"No! I wanted—"

"It does not make mistakes."

Ankhseram calmly interrupted her.

He looked directly into Irene's eyes.

"This is your true obsession, Irene."

"Just like your senior…"

His hand remained gently on her head.

"What you truly want…"

"is to live."