Chapter 1228: 215. Wrath (I)

The hollow fell silent.

The lingering aftermath of the rampaging magic gradually faded away, and even the dust settled onto the ground with the passage of time.

In the darkness, only two silhouettes, one dragon and one man, silently faced each other. One was enormous, the other tiny; one was majestic, the other calm. The extreme contrast lent the scene an inexplicable sense of strangeness.

But the strange atmosphere was soon broken.

Boom!

The hollow shook violently once again. The enormous dragon skeleton spread its skeletal wings, stirring up a fierce gale, while the radiance of the crown blazed brightly once more, driving away the darkness around it that dared to offend its presence.

“Muen Campbell!”

On the forehead of the dragon skeleton, the pale face was furious and deranged, and the entire dragon skeleton became frenzied along with it. Its long tail swept about, smashing one enormous boulder after another. Magical arrays once again surrounded its body, locking onto the tiny figure who seemed to have already lost the ability to move.

Death, destruction, despair.

For that tiny figure, this seemed to be the inevitable conclusion.

But...

Crack.

The crisp sound of something breaking was not loud, yet it still clearly drowned out all the fluctuations caused by the gathering magic.

Above the pale face, the crown stained with flesh and blood... began to crack.

“No...”

The dragon skeleton struggled, attacking wildly in every direction like a headless fly. The magical arrays could no longer be maintained and collapsed into a hazy field of scattered light.

The pale face let out a shrill, furious roar, trying to deny this outcome.

“No... No, this is wrong... This is wrong! How could I...”

Crack. Crack.

But the outcome could no longer be changed.

The crown shattered completely, losing all its radiance before falling into the dust.

“This is wrong...”

Without the support of its final power, the dragon skeleton also stopped all movement. Then, like a puppet whose strings had been cut, its enormous body collapsed heavily to the ground.

Bone struck bone and piled together in disorder. After Harris’s frenzied expenditure of power, the curse of time finally revealed itself once more. The dragon bones completely lost their luster, becoming decayed bones that looked as though they might crumble into ash at any moment.

The skull happened to roll to a stop directly in front of the “tiny” figure.

“Looks like... I won.”

Muen finally moved.

Blood ran down his cheeks, his neck, and the hem of his clothes. Although the second stage of the battle had not been an intense clash of flesh and blood, he had almost become a man completely drenched in blood.

He had won.

But it had been a bitter victory.

He had still underestimated how terrifying a crown could be. Harris’s final counterattack had genuinely come close to turning the tables on him.

Fortunately, he had already experienced a confrontation with Miss Dragon inside a mental world. Fortunately, he also possessed the jade beads Miss Dragon had rewarded him with earlier. Otherwise, the outcome of this battle truly would have been difficult to determine.

“I’ll count this as interest that damned dragon paid in advance. I’m not going to go easy on her because of it.”

Black flames stirred, wiping away the blood. Muen placed another jade bead into his mouth, repairing the mental space that was on the verge of shattering while suppressing the agitation caused by the Black Sun.

He could not collapse in this condition, or the trouble would be enormous.

He raised his head and wiped both hands across his eyes. Only then did the pupils that had been completely covered in pitch-black darkness return to their original deep-blue color.

“Looks like your plan is still going to fail in the end.”

After finally recovering a little mobility, Muen walked over to the dragon skull, bent down, and tore the pale face from it.

This time, it went smoothly, without the slightest resistance.

“Any last words?”

“This is wrong... This is wrong...”

The pale face had completely lost all vitality. Only its lips continued moving weakly. “We haven’t lost. We still haven’t lost...”

“Looks like you were the one who became an idiot first.”

The destruction of the crown meant that Harris’s consciousness had also been completely shattered. What was repeating those words now was merely his final obsession.

“You got off easy.”

Black flames swayed as Muen prepared to devour him completely. However, at that moment, the pale face suddenly began struggling. A final trace of clarity and madness appeared in its eyes as it roared at Muen:

“We haven’t lost... Nothing is over yet! Muen Campbell! I’ll be waiting for you in hell! Waiting for you...”

“Your beautiful dream has already shattered, yet you’re still screaming this fucking nonsense. Don’t you realize how awful you sound?”

Muen could not be bothered to listen to the bastard’s shouting. He crushed the face in one hand, while the black flames leaped and swiftly reduced it to nothingness.

Muen closed his eyes and carefully sensed what remained. He still obtained no useful information from the fragments of Harris’s soul. It was the same collection of images as before. However, among those flashing images, Muen accurately caught a few fragmented references to the “Wrath of Hatred.”

They were exactly the same as what Muen had seen on the wall earlier, only far more fragmented. Had he not seen that mural, he definitely would not have been able to understand what those images within the soul represented.

“Then there shouldn’t be any problem.”

After confirming it once again, Muen exhaled deeply and used Illumination to light up his surroundings.

The hollow was now in complete ruins. The ancient relics and murals had all been reduced to dust by the magical bombardment, which Muen found somewhat regrettable. This appeared to be a ruin even older than the era from a thousand years ago, and it possessed considerable research value.

But there was no time to care about that now.

History was certainly important, but the figure before him was even more important.

“Next time, I’ll have to squeeze every bit of ancient knowledge I can out of that damned dragon. Otherwise, how could she possibly repay me for working this hard to help her?”

The light illuminated the shattered dragon skeleton, and a relaxed smile finally appeared at the corner of Muen’s mouth.

According to the explanation on the mural, the creation of the Wrath of Hatred required a dragon’s remains to serve as the foundation of the array. Now that the remains had been completely destroyed, it meant that the array could no longer continue operating.

From this moment onward, the souls within New Tars would no longer be transformed into the poison of resentment.

Although he had still failed to completely save the city, at the very least... it was not the worst possible outcome.

“I wonder how things are going over there.”

Muen retrieved Elizabeth, which he had thrown away earlier. As he soothed the living spirits within the twin blades, he climbed out through the opening he had previously created.

Morton... and all those polluted residents of New Tars... there was certainly no way to save them.

The only remaining question was how many of the civilians who had not actively prayed Miss Dragon would be able to rescue.

“Judging by how fast that damned dragon moves, saving half the city shouldn’t be a problem.”

The fiery-red figure with the terrible temper once again appeared in Muen’s mind. He could not help laughing mockingly at himself. Indeed, no matter how much he slandered her, there was one thing he had to admit—she made people feel secure, at least she made him feel secure.

“All I need to do now is go back and mock her mercilessly. Then I’ll make her promise that the next time she carries me through the air, she isn’t allowed to grab me with those stinking claws. At the very least, I deserve a first-class seat on her back!”

Muen thought about it with resentment and excitement. Following the path he had taken before, he successfully returned to the surface, then looked expectantly in the direction of the city.

“...Huh?”

Muen froze where he stood, his eyes gradually widening.

Because what greeted him was not a certain damned dragon ashamed of her earlier behavior, nor was it the half of the city’s population who should have been rescued.

Instead... it was a shattered, deathly silent, sinister city.

Every flower had withered. The once beautiful city, filled with an ancient and rustic charm, now resembled a young woman who had just been brutally ravaged, lying in complete ruins.

Muen could no longer sense the slightest beauty here. Only the wind blew past, carrying such a concentrated stench of blood that it almost seemed tangible, making him nearly vomit.

This was a horrifying sight he had never once imagined.

“What happened?”

Muen’s pupils contracted violently. He saw shadows wandering throughout the city. Those shadows were certainly not normal humans, because no human would tear open their own abdomen and allow their mutated organs to become limbs supporting their movements.

The Pollution was still present?

It had not been eliminated?

Hamreign had failed?

“How did the situation deteriorate this badly? Where’s that damned dragon? Where did that damned dragon go?”

Muen searched everywhere, but found nothing, until...

He heard the sound of wind howling above his head.

Muen stiffly raised his head.

That dragon... the black dragon he had been searching for... she was there. She was still there.

She circled through the sky, her wings dividing light and shadow. Looking up at her with all his strength, her majesty and solemnity appeared the same as ever. She was like a shadow bringing calamity, and even the mere silhouette of her passing overhead was enough to shake the soul.

There was no doubt. That was Miss Dragon. That was Hamreign.

Yet for a moment, Muen could barely recognize her.

“Miss Dragon?”

Muen called out softly without thinking. Naturally, there was no response.

Hamreign continued hovering at the highest point of the sky. Crimson lightning flashed continuously with every beat of her wings, and cold light reflected from scales as hard as steel.

But Muen could clearly sense that something about her current posture was wrong.

She was dancing.

That enormous dragon body was dancing.

An enormous magical array was gradually taking shape at the highest point of the sky in accordance with her dance. The crimson lightning began to solidify, becoming a spear of destruction gripped tightly within her dragon claw.

It was a familiar dance.

Muen had seen her dance before, whether it was the dance around the campfire not long ago or the dance of destruction within the Abyss.

Both had possessed breathtaking beauty.

But now, the enormous dragon body twisted and leaped. Her head sometimes rose, then lowered. Her wings folded and spread, and her tail swung chaotically along with her body.

There was... no beauty whatsoever.

She was so uncoordinated that rather than calling it a dance, it looked more like a drowning person struggling in agony at the center of a vast ocean.

“Why...”

Muen could not understand.

“Why is she still like this? There shouldn’t be any more Wrath of Hatred. Why is she still...”

The Wrath of Hatred should not have disappeared only at the moment Harris died. The transformation of the poison should already have stopped when Harris began using the dragon body to fight him.

According to Muen’s estimation, the poison that had already been transformed might weaken Hamreign, but it absolutely should not... have caused her this much pain.

She was a calamity. She was the Dragon of Death and Doom. She was the strongest living creature beneath the sky. Logically speaking, even a deadly poison specifically designed to target dragons should not have reduced her to this state in such a short period of time.

Yet the truth was directly before him.

The Pollution within the city had gone completely out of control.

And Hamreign seemed not to have forgotten her duty even now. In agony, she flew into the sky, intending to bring the city its final destruction.

She danced without the slightest trace of beauty. The gradually gathering torrent of destruction looked more like a final desperate strike delivered at the point of complete despair.

She struggled and wailed in the sky.

“How did this happen?”

Muen clutched his head and began thinking with all his strength. He realized that he might have made some mistake without even knowing it, and that mistake had caused the situation to deteriorate to this extent.

But... what was it?

Could it be that the transformation of the Wrath of Hatred had not completely stopped?

No. He had checked. There had been no other dragon remains inside that hollow, which meant that from the moment Harris died, the conditions required for the transformation had completely disappeared.

Could the entire mechanism have been false? Could the Wrath of Hatred require some entirely different method to destroy it?

That was not right either. Those survivors had no reason to lie about something like this. After all, if they were capable of concealing the truth, there would have been no need to painstakingly construct such a ruin merely to deceive an insignificant Fifth-Rank martial artist like him.

The core of this story remained Miss Dragon, Hamreign, who was struggling painfully in the sky.

But...

Why?

Why had this story developed into this?

He had already tried so hard. He had already done everything he could. He wanted to help her. He did not want her to fight alone... but where... where had things gone wrong?

What exactly was the survivors’ true plan?

Muen could not find the answer.

Nor did he have any more time to search for it.

The spear of destruction pierced through heaven and earth, and the world fell into deathly silence.

At the final moment, Muen instinctively raised his head once more and looked toward the dragon in the sky.

“Huh?”

To his surprise, he discovered that two tears of blood were slowly running down from either side of that ferocious dragon head.

“Damned dragon... are you crying?”

A sense of contradiction.

That familiar sense of contradiction once again surged through Muen’s heart. At that moment, he seemed to grasp something...

But it was already too late.

Blazing light and heat swallowed the city.

Muen stood at the edge of the city and was swallowed by the aftermath as well.

His vision plunged into complete darkness...

...

...

Splash.

Ripples spread across the surface.

Muen instinctively lowered his head, only to discover that what had nearly reached his waist was not water.

It was blood.

Bright-red blood.

He could not smell the stench of blood because his senses had already gone completely numb. Muen looked around and discovered that the entire world had turned crimson.

“Here again?”

That familiar dream.

Muen had entered that dream once again.

However, compared with the previous time, the world within this dream had undergone an enormous change.

The land had disappeared.

Every piece of land where he could run, stand, or temporarily seek shelter had disappeared.

Between heaven and earth, throughout the entire world, blood filled everything, stretching boundlessly into the distance.

“What the hell is this?”

Muen punched the sea of blood.

But inside this dream, all of his power seemed to have disappeared. No matter how powerful he was outside, here he could only stir up a wave that was not particularly large.

Ripples spread outward.

Gurgle. Gurgle.

A pale hand suddenly emerged from the sea of blood and tightly seized Muen’s arm.

Muen lowered his head and saw that familiar half-face.

“You again!”

Muen was furious. He immediately punched her once more... but it was useless.

Aside from making that half-face even more rotten and hideous, it had no effect whatsoever. The pale hand continued gripping him as tightly as an iron clamp.

“...Why?”

She spoke, asking the question she had continued asking ever since the first dream.

“How the fuck am I supposed to know why?”

Muen struggled desperately to break free, but he could not escape the half-faced woman’s entanglement at all. In fact, the more he struggled, the more tightly he could feel her wrapping herself around him.

“How the hell did I get tangled up with a ghostly thing like you? Why do you keep clinging to me like this?”

Muen was furious, but anger was useless at this moment, so he could only plead, “Let go of me, all right? I have something more important to do right now. It’s urgent. If I really did offend you, then I apologize to you right now. Please let me go!”

“...Why?”

It was completely useless.

The half-faced woman continued holding Muen and continued wrapping herself around him.

Muen gritted his teeth and tried to drag her along as he searched for a way out of this place...

But after taking only one step, he could no longer move.

Because he felt one hand... two hands... three hands... many hands suddenly seize him, firmly locking him in place.

“What?”

Muen’s gaze passed over the half-face, and his heart contracted violently.

At that moment, behind the half-faced woman, one blurred shadow after another began emerging from the sea of blood. Muen could not count how many there were. He could only feel that they had completely filled his entire field of vision.

They were the figures of those mutilated bodies.

Most of them were torn and ruined, barely retaining anything resembling a human form. Yet even so, they continued trying to approach Muen, trying to seize him.

“...Why?”

“...Why?”

“...Why?”

They continued asking that inexplicable question. Their voices gathered into a sea as well, almost piercing Muen’s eardrums.

“I already told you, I have no idea what the ‘why’ you keep talking about is supposed to mean!”

Muen struggled with all his strength, but the more he struggled, the tighter those hands gripped him.

They began sinking into the sea of blood, dragging Muen down with them... into the sea of blood.

“Let go of me, let go of me, let go... gurgle...”

Muen was powerless to resist. His entire body was instantly submerged in the sea of blood.

A bone-piercing cold swallowed him at once. He stretched out his hand with all his strength, trying to reach the final trace of light that existed beyond the sea of blood.

But how could he possibly grasp something intangible?

He sank deeper and deeper, dragged by countless corpses toward the abyss...

The world was completely dark.

...

...

“Go fuck yourself!”

Muen sprang upright and instinctively threw a punch.

But what he struck was not one of those mutilated corpses. It was an ordinary wall.

Dust fell in streams, covering Muen’s face. Only then did he escape from that impossibly realistic dream and realize that he had completely awakened.

“I...”

Muen stared blankly at his own hands, opening and closing them. The tangible sensation in his palms gradually calmed his violently pounding heart.

He had thought he was going to drown in that sea of blood.

That dream had been far too real.

“You’re awake.”

An unfamiliar voice sounded.

“Who?”

Muen turned around warily and instinctively tried to draw Elizabeth, only to grasp empty air. The unfamiliar discomfort around his wrists made him finally notice the shackles hidden beneath his sleeves, sealing all the battle aura and magical power within his body.

“Could you not do something so frightening? I am your savior, after all.”

In the dim candlelight, the person waved Muen’s storage ring, which had originally belonged to him, and the corner of her mouth lifted slightly.

Muen stared at her in a daze.

She was a woman who appeared to be around thirty or forty years old. She was fairly attractive, and the faint wrinkles around her eyes did nothing to diminish her beauty. What was surprising, however, was that her skin was extremely pale and delicate, like that of a newborn infant, completely inconsistent with the age suggested by her appearance.

Also inconsistent with her outward age were those eyes, eyes filled with the weight of countless years.

Muen did not recognize the woman, but he recognized those eyes.

“Grandma Meg... No, Priscilla!”

“Long time no see, kid. Is Marcie doing well?”

Priscilla put down the storage ring and turned around to prepare coffee. Milk, sugar cubes, flavoring—after a few simple stirs, an especially rich aroma filled the room.

“You saved me?”

Muen found it difficult to believe. He hurriedly felt all over his body...

Fortunately, none of his arms or legs were missing, and no one had removed his kidneys.

No, that was precisely what made this even more dangerous. Priscilla had inexplicably saved him. Could it be that she intended to...

“I asked whether Marcie is doing well.” Priscilla glanced at him coldly from the corner of her eye.

“You have the right to ask?” Muen replied without the slightest courtesy.

“Why wouldn’t I? I’m her grandmother.”

“Her grandmother died a long time ago!”

“Yes. Her grandmother died a long time ago... and that is why I raised her with my own hands, isn’t it?” Priscilla smiled.

“...”

Muen fell silent, unable to refute her.

After taking several deep breaths, he said, “She’s doing well.”

“Is that so?”

“She inherited your... or rather, her grandmother’s work. She decided that one day she would fill all of Annabawei with green trees. But if she found out that you were still alive, and learned about all the bullshit you’ve done, she would probably use all the strength she normally spends planting trees to beat you with a shovel.”

“That sounds nice. She was always good at swinging a shovel when she was little. She simply had a habit of tripping over herself whenever she swung it, and cried several times because of it.”

Priscilla turned around again, drinking her coffee while writing and drawing on a sheet of paper.

The atmosphere fell into an eerie silence. Facing Priscilla now... facing one of the chief culprits behind all of this, Muen should have had a stomach full of questions. Yet now that the moment had arrived, he did not know where to begin.

“You saw it?” Priscilla asked first.

“Saw what?”

“That scene. Big Sister Dragon wailing in despair while destroying the city.”

Priscilla stroked her cheek and raised her gaze slightly. There was clearly nothing in front of her, yet she seemed to be truly looking at that scene. A fanatical excitement appeared on her face.

“It was beautiful, wasn’t it? After planning for so long, our plan finally succeeded, and the carefully prepared poison produced the result it was supposed to. So what if she was an invincible dragon? In the end, didn’t she still become our prey?”

“...How exactly did you do it?”

Anger appeared on Muen’s face. He struggled with all his strength, but the shackles sealed him so thoroughly that he could not summon even the slightest bit of extra strength.

“How exactly did you poison Miss Dragon? I clearly destroyed those dragon remains, so why did the Wrath of Hatred still take effect?”

“The Wrath of Hatred?”

Priscilla paused slightly. “Ah, that. You really are impressive, kid. You actually found that place. But Harris was useless too. He had taken possession of such a powerful dragon body, yet he still lost to a brat like you. He really was a piece of trash.”

“Answer my question!”

“Question? What question is there? Isn’t the question that has left you racking your brain actually very simple?”

Priscilla turned her head, and the mockery in her smile grew even stronger. “The place you found was merely one of our discarded plans.”

“What?”

Muen froze, thinking that he had heard incorrectly. “Say that again.”

“I said it was merely a discarded plan, and Harris merely happened to be hiding there. So even if you defeated him and destroyed the dragon remains, what could it possibly change?”

Priscilla spread both hands. “Naturally, it could change nothing.”

“You mean... the Wrath of Hatred was fake?”

Muen’s eyes widened. Had the guess he had made earlier actually come true?

Had he been played from beginning to end?

“No, it was real.”

Unexpectedly, Priscilla denied that interpretation. “The Wrath of Hatred, that terrifying poison which once affected the balance of the war between humanity and the dragons, truly existed. Its transformation conditions were also exactly as you learned: it required dragon remains and human souls filled with resentment. Even the city was originally established for that purpose, although at the time, the city was not yet called New Tars.”

“Then why...”

“Because it could not be done.”

“What do you mean, it could not be done?”

“I mean exactly what I said.”

Priscilla slowly continued:

“A very long time ago, we discovered that place. We discovered those underground ruins. At first, we were very happy. We believed we had found a method that could change our situation and allow us to completely defeat Big Sister Dragon. But as our research deepened, we discovered an extremely serious problem.”

“Even the Wrath of Hatred could not kill Big Sister Dragon.”

“...You have to be joking.” The corner of Muen’s mouth twitched.

“It is difficult to believe, isn’t it? But that is the truth.”

Priscilla clasped her hands together, both terrified and enraptured. “The Wrath of Hatred is extremely powerful, but Big Sister Dragon... she is even more powerful.”

She was a calamity.

She was the Dragon of Death and Doom.

She was the strongest living creature beneath the sky.

She was also the strongest dragon in all of history.

In this world, no poison existed that could break her, defeat her, or take her life.

“None.”

Priscilla shook her head. “We searched for eight hundred years. Such a thing simply does not exist.”

“The poison... does not exist?”

Muen’s body swayed slightly.

Scenes from the past surfaced in his mind. At that time, he had argued with Miss Dragon because her hands were trembling, believing she had merely been stubbornly pretending that nothing was wrong.

But if no poison capable of harming her had ever existed, and if she had been telling the truth at the time...

Then why had she been trembling?

The scene from earlier was the same. If she had not been poisoned at all, why had she become like that?

“No. If that is the case, then what exactly were you relying on to hunt Miss Dragon? You said it was poison! And what exactly was the weakness you kept talking about?”

Muen stared fixedly at Priscilla, almost growling.

“The poison I mentioned... I’ll explain that to you later. As for her weakness, it is very simple. It is this.”

Priscilla tapped her own chest.

“Her heart.”

“Her... heart?”

Muen’s eyes widened, and he suddenly realized something.

“That’s right. It is an answer that is difficult to imagine, isn’t it? For eight hundred years, probably no one ever thought in that direction. After all, she was so powerful, so powerful that people could only fear her and ignore everything else. That is why, throughout those entire eight hundred years, only I... discovered her weakness.”

Priscilla smiled, then burst into loud laughter, laughing until tears almost flowed from her eyes.

Yet the other half of her face was filled with indescribable sorrow.

“Can you guess why, even though we hated her so much, we still continued calling her Big Sister Dragon?”

“The reason is very simple...”

“A calamity. The Dragon of Death and Doom. The strongest living creature beneath the sky. She could not even be killed by the Wrath of Hatred. Yet her only weakness was neither poison nor some overwhelmingly powerful existence.”

“It was merely... the gentle heart that seemed to have been abandoned in the Tars of eight hundred years ago, but in truth had always remained there.”