Chapter 1229: 216. Wrath (II)

“A gentle... heart?”

Muen rolled the words around in his mind. Paired with the name Hamreign, they sounded so unfamiliar that they almost felt wrong.

His first instinct was to deny it. After all, that irritable, quick-tempered, overbearing woman—the one who had never once shown him any gentleness throughout their entire journey—how could someone like her possibly possess a gentle heart?

And yet he could not deny it.

Because that sense of contradiction had surfaced in his heart once again.

He did not know when it had begun. Perhaps when they left Annabawei, or perhaps during that dance together. In any case, from some point onward, he had always vaguely sensed an inexplicable contradiction within Miss Dragon.

But he had never been able to put his finger on what exactly was contradictory.

Only now, after Priscilla spoke the words gentle heart, did Muen finally realize...

Perhaps the source of that contradiction was that although she appeared irritable and quick-tempered, although she appeared overbearing and arbitrary, she would always, without realizing it... do certain gentle things.

Like the rain when they left Annabawei. Like drinking together with everyone at the bonfire celebration. Like the way she appeared irritable toward him, yet in truth gradually relaxed her boundaries and indulged him more and more...

A person who was truly vile in temperament, cold, and heartless would never behave that way.

“Do you understand now? Or should I say you have finally realized it? That is the dragon’s true nature.”

Priscilla rubbed her face, slowly kneading away the sorrow on one side before raising the corner of her mouth and replacing it with mockery.

“It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? She is clearly so powerful, yet she possesses a weakness comparable to that of a three-year-old child... And precisely because of that, no one believed me at first. Clarence, the others—every one of them thought I was talking nonsense. If the Goddess of Light had not suddenly delivered an oracle later, they would still have stubbornly continued using that plan that could never possibly succeed.”

“But that is the truth.”

“...”

As Priscilla spoke, Muen took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

That fiery-red figure appeared in his mind once more.

She was still the same: cold, arrogant, standing apart from the world as though she had detached herself from it entirely. Her face was also shrouded in a mist that no one could see through.

But gradually, her presence changed. She was no longer cold, arrogant, and standing apart from the world, but rather... lonely. A loneliness no one could reach.

She lived alone in this world. As a calamity, as the dragon burdened with the name “Death and Doom,” nearly everyone in the world hated her, feared her, and treated her as an omen of disaster.

She cleansed Pollution from this world, yet could only wander along its edges. Even the place where she lived... the Forest of Death and Doom, was regarded by the world as forbidden ground.

She was clearly so powerful—so powerful that others could scheme for eight hundred years and still fail to find a way to defeat her. She was clearly so decisive—so decisive that no matter how cruel the Pollution before her might be, she would always choose the most direct and reliable method of dealing with it at the very first moment.

But...

Even the strongest dragon in the world—beneath that face shrouded in mist—would she cry too?

“If Miss Dragon truly is that gentle...” Muen placed a hand against his chest. “So gentle that it could even be called a ‘weakness.’”

Then what exactly had she experienced throughout that long span of time to become what she was now?

What kind of cruelty must a gentle person endure before becoming so decisive in killing?

And after she had killed so decisively, what kinds of scars would remain within her heart...

“Wait...”

Muen suddenly realized something.

“That dream!”

That inexplicable dream he had experienced again and again.

The dream in which the entire world was filled with blood, corpses, and mutilated figures.

All this time, he had believed that some outside influence had caused him to have that dream.

But now that he thought about it...

“That wasn’t my dream.”

Muen lowered his head and looked at his slightly trembling hand.

“That was Miss Dragon’s dream!”

Thinking carefully, when had he first had that dream?

It had been when he was afflicted by the Wrath of Hatred and Miss Dragon used her own, far denser dragon blood to remove the poison from him.

Perhaps that was when a connection had formed between them, causing him to repeatedly dream a dream that did not belong to him.

And the person who was gradually dragged to the bottom of the sea of blood by countless cruel, cold corpses...

Was actually Miss Dragon herself within her dream.

“So all you did was deliberately make her suffer?”

Muen suddenly exploded in fury and tried to smash his fist into Priscilla’s ugly, mocking face... only to be forcibly suppressed by the shackles.

But he continued struggling, the shackles clanging violently.

“Answer me, Priscilla! You did all of this and slaughtered so many innocent people—was it all just to make Miss Dragon suffer? Has your desire for revenge really become this twisted and perverse?”

It was not simply about defeating someone or killing someone. It was only about disgusting them and making them suffer. This ending suddenly made Muen extremely angry—not only for Miss Dragon, but also for those pitiful people who had died within this plan.

They had not even known what purpose their lives would serve in the end.

How tragic.

“Heh.”

Priscilla merely gave a cold laugh.

“At the beginning, that may indeed have been my goal.”

“At the beginning?”

“Back in Annabawei, remember? I said I wanted Big Sister Dragon to carry the poison I had painstakingly brewed for her and continue suffering forever.”

“...”

Muen frowned and tried to remember.

She did seem to have said something like that back then.

“But after that, once I returned here, my objective... or rather, our objective, changed.”

“What changed?”

Priscilla did not answer directly. Instead, she asked:

“Can you guess why Clarence and the others deliberately built a city like this? A New Tars almost identical to the Tars of eight hundred years ago?”

“Wasn’t it to disgust Miss Dragon even more?”

“That explanation... is not wrong. But if you examine it more deeply...”

Priscilla raised her hand and held up the sheet of paper she had been sketching on for Muen to see.

It was a simple drawing.

It had been drawn very roughly, yet it still captured the spirit of the scene. In the picture, a familiar fiery-red figure stood in the center while many people around her held hands, singing and dancing in a circle.

Muen had seen this scene before.

At the bonfire feast, the enthusiastic Notata people had surrounded her in exactly that manner, singing and dancing.

And when Muen first arrived in New Tars, the play he watched had also shown small puppets symbolizing the residents of Tars singing and dancing around the dragon who descended from the sky.

But whether it was the real celebration or the performance in the play, those scenes that even Muen had found beautiful still did not seem as... beautiful as Priscilla’s drawing.

Everyone in that simple picture was smiling, smiling incomparably brightly, including the fiery-red figure at the very center.

Although that smile consisted of only a few simple lines and did not even reveal the person’s true face, Muen could still sense within it... the most genuine emotion.

Had Miss Dragon once been like this?

Had she once smiled that way too?

“Tars is her wound. Or rather, her most painful wound.”

Priscilla casually tossed the paper aside, as though indicating that all of it had already become an unchangeable past.

“It is the thing she has buried deepest, the thing she least wishes to face, and likely one of the very few things in this world capable of breaking through the defenses around her heart. Therefore, if we wanted to defeat her, what could make her expose an opening more easily than forcing her to experience the most painful event in her heart all over again?”

“Despicable!”

Muen took a deep breath, desperately wishing he could curse Priscilla’s entire family.

Oh, right. He had forgotten. This bastard no longer had any family left to curse.

Fucking scum.

“But even if she exposes an opening, so what?” Muen continued. “You said it yourself before. Miss Dragon is invincible. Even if her mind is wounded again, she still isn’t someone you can defeat.”

“All we need is for her to expose an opening.”

“What?”

“I said... all we need is for that already scarred heart of hers to expose an opening. That is enough.”

Priscilla’s smile became strange. Then ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) she brought her hands together and slowly assumed an incomparably devout posture of prayer right in front of Muen.

“After all, the work that follows... is not something insignificant rats like us are capable of completing. Naturally, there is another, greater existence who will bring this hunt to its perfect conclusion.”

“A greater existence...”

Muen’s heart contracted sharply.

He began to remember something that, beneath this unending chain of blows, he had almost forgotten.

That was right. Throughout this journey with Miss Dragon, the most troublesome enemy they had faced had never been these disgusting rats.

It was Pollution...

And behind the Pollution incidents, the so-called Goddess of Light who remained hidden.

“The Withering King? Could all of this... No, that isn’t right.”

Muen shook his head forcefully, driving the thought from his mind.

From beginning to end, the only reason he had suspected the culprit was the Withering King came from the so-called “blessing” of the goddess that Priscilla had released during her first attempt.

That had indeed been the Withering King’s power.

But after that, the Withering King’s power had barely appeared again. Its usefulness had not even matched his Illumination.

That had been true both when the Pollution erupted and when the survivors were brutally beaten.

That did not resemble the Withering King’s style at all.

“Wait. You just said... that so-called goddess suddenly delivered an oracle?”

Muen looked at Priscilla and asked doubtfully, “Had she never done so before?”

“Hmph. Why would the Goddess casually communicate with mortals like us? It must have been our unwavering efforts that finally moved her, causing her to bestow her blessing upon us...”

Priscilla prayed with even greater intoxication, fully convinced of the Goddess’s grace.

But looking at her like this, an extremely absurd suspicion suddenly appeared in Muen’s mind.

What if...

The Goddess of Light Priscilla and the others had worshiped at the beginning, and the being who later answered them... were not the same existence?

They only believed them to be the same existence. Yet even they themselves did not know that their faith had long since been intercepted by some unknown being.

“Then... who exactly is the being they now regard as their goddess?”

Muen hurriedly cleared away his distracting thoughts and forced himself to think.

Keywords: skilled at attacking the heart. Soul seeds. Disgusting methods.

Then, once he combined all those factors, the answer naturally became...

...

...

Blood rose over her fingertips.

Hamreign stretched out her hand with all her strength, trying to grasp something, but caught only empty air.

The world grew darker and darker, while her body became heavier and heavier.

One pale, rotting, ice-cold hand after another tightly seized her and dragged her downward.

She turned her head and saw half of a shattered face staring at her with hatred. Behind that face were countless other faces filled with the same hatred.

There were even many new faces among them...

The people of New Tars who had just died by her hand.

“...Why?”

They questioned her.

“...Why did you kill us? What did we do wrong?”

“I’m sorry. I had no choice.”

Hamreign spoke in a low voice.

“I’m sorry...”

She was the strongest dragon in the world, yet at this moment, she could not break free from those decaying, ruined hands. They dragged her down into the darkness, deeper and deeper.

...Deeper and deeper, as though she would continue sinking forever.

And within the depths of that darkness, a statue of a goddess wearing an expression of compassion appeared at some unknown moment.

[Hee.]

A hideous eye suddenly opened upon the goddess statue and stared at Hamreign...

Greedy and delighted.