Chapter 1237: 224. Wrath (X)

“Enough......”

Hamreign suddenly closed her eyes.

Within the magnificent hall, the story in the play was still continuing. Classical music was played by some insubstantial shadows, while puppets moved by strings hopped and skipped around her.

“Big Sister Dragon.”

“Big Sister Dragon.”

“Big Sister Dragon Big Sister Dragon Big Sister Dragon Big Sister Dragon Big Sister Dragon......”

The puppets let out affectionate calls and enthusiastically rushed toward Hamreign to embrace her......However, along with the spreading black mist and the roaring thunder, those puppets fell to the ground one after another, their heads splitting open, their limbs breaking apart, miserably turning into piles of fragments.

Blood flowed outward along those hollow limbs and quickly submerged the ground beneath her feet.

“Big Sister Dragon......”

The broken puppets were still calling out. Revolting filth squirmed within their shattered limbs, only to be immediately annihilated into nothingness by thunder.

“Enough.” Hamreign covered her ears.

This was only a play.

In the eyes of the countless “spectators” below the stage, in the eyes of the “covetous ones” hiding within the shadows, this was only a simple play.

Hamreign......that strongest dragon in the world, was dancing along with the play, acting out the story that belonged to her according to the script that had already been completely written.

But to Hamreign, all of this seemed like a reenactment of the past......

She seemed to have completely sunk deep into a dream of the past. The puppets were no longer puppets, but living, breathing people one after another, and those cities were no longer merely backgrounds made from wooden frames and painted scrawls, but cities that truly existed.

When she opened her eyes, she could see those familiar faces that she had still been unable to forget even after hundreds of years, staring at her sorrowfully. When she slightly turned her ear, she could hear those painful and despairing cries. Just as she wanted to say something, the scene changed......blood had already flowed into rivers, and corpses and bones had piled into mountains.

Everything was so real, everything was so cruel. Her consciousness traveled through ruin after ruin, but after she came back to her senses, only the warmth of blood still remained in her palms.

“Big Sister Dragon Big Sister Dragon Big Sister Dragon......” The gentle and affectionate calls continued.

But the gentler and more pleasant they were, the more violently......her heart ached.

Her wound began a thousand years ago, split open eight hundred years ago, and then, in the false Tars not long ago......completely festered.

“Enough, all of you get away from me!”

She finally could no longer endure it and roared toward this empty hall.

The surging wrath spread outward. The might of the calamity was enough to shake heaven and earth, yet it was unable to shake......this death-row hall deep within her heart, constructed from the countless corpses she was unable to forget.

The only thing that answered her was her own echo.

Because those sitting in the audience seats and staring at her were only mutilated corpses.

“Heh......”

She suddenly laughed miserably:

“As expected, from beginning to end, I still cannot rewrite anything.”

A very, very long time ago, at the edge of the world’s destruction, there was someone......there was the most important member of her family, who, when leaving her, asked her to take good care of this world.

She tried hard to do it.

For the sake of that responsibility, she exhausted all of her strength.

But......

Tars......

Aflant......

Weima......

Koska......

One place after another required her to destroy it. All the effort she made could not rewrite any outcome. In this world ravaged by Evil Gods, she could only be like a foolish and incompetent doctor, using her own blade to crudely cut away those ruptured pieces of rotten flesh.

But those were not merely pieces of rotten flesh.

Those were living cities, those were living people......They had done nothing wrong, and they died in hatred.

With only the slightest thought, those places destroyed by her appeared before her eyes one after another. Those faces filled with fear and anger flashed one after another like a slide show.

They could not be dispersed.

“I cannot endure it.”

The strongest dragon’s body trembled slightly.

A thousand years, to her, was very long, and also very short.

But it was already enough for her to confirm one thing:

Those futile cycles of death, that constantly accumulating pain and despair......

“【They are meaningless, right.】”

“This voice......”

Hamreign’s body suddenly stiffened. A trace of light flashed within the golden pupils that had already completely dimmed. She turned her head and looked behind her......toward the place covered by darkness.

“Is it ▌▌▌▌? Is it you?”

She spoke and said a name, but the moment those words left her mouth, they were distorted by some strange power, and what came out was only chaotic noise.

It was as though......that name could not appear in the world.

“【You have always been looking for me, haven’t you?】”

The figure within the darkness smiled slightly: “【There are already not many people in this world who can recognize me.】”

“It is you......It really is you......”

Hamreign took two steps forward, seemingly completely drawn in by the figure: “But......why are you here?”

“【I came to apologize to you.】”

“Apologize?”

“【I am very sorry for saying those things to you back then. I am also very sorry for making you do that kind of meaningless thing all this time. Therefore......】”

Within the darkness, a hand reached out:

“【Come to me......put down all those pointless responsibilities and come to me.】”

“Put them down......”

Hamreign murmured.

Put them down......What kind of words those were.

Many, many times before, she had wanted to put them down, but......

“Is it really all right? I always feel......”

Hamreign hesitated somewhat. She felt that she had forgotten something. She wanted to think, to remember......but that gentle voice pulled her back here again.

“【What would be wrong with it? Haven’t you already noticed? What you have done is meaningless. Since you are unable to save them, why add more pain to yourself? You are only giving up on something impossible to complete. No one will blame you.】”

The figure within the darkness became even gentler: “【Neither will I.】”

“......”

Hamreign’s body trembled slightly. She tilted her head, wanting to see clearly the face within the darkness, but she could not see it clearly at all.

The darkness gradually extended. At some unknown point, a faint layer of shadow covered her fair jade-like feet......yet she remained completely unaware.

She only felt......that the voice coming from within the darkness was becoming more and more real, becoming more and more......something she wanted to approach.

“Evil dragon! Go die!”

At some unknown point, the mutilated figures in the audience seats unexpectedly came back to life. They roared at Hamreign, hurling endless abuse, venting the hatred that still existed even after their deaths.

That hatred was like a tsunami, beating against her back.

“That’s right......”

Hamreign closed her eyes and said softly:

“There is no need to continue doing meaningless things.”

She was tired.

Very, very tired.

She no longer wanted to continue doing that kind of thing.

“【Come here......come here......】” The figure within the darkness continued calling gently.

And Hamreign finally moved her feet and walked toward that pure darkness.

Within the darkness......it was very cold, cold enough to make a person’s soul tremble, but compared to the loneliness she had experienced for more than a thousand years, compared to the hatred and fury she had suffered for a thousand years, this little bit of coldness counted for nothing at all.

Therefore, she did not feel that strangeness, nor did she notice that, the instant she took a step, the hatred of those mutilated figures in the audience seats behind her suddenly vanished, and every one of them revealed excited and ferocious faces.

Exactly identical faces.

“Big Sister Dragon......”

Only that half of a small face was sorrowful, shedding tears.

“【You came......】”

The world grew darker and darker. Within the enormous hall, all light began to go out.

As Hamreign’s hand was about to touch the hand reaching out from within the darkness, this play that had been performed for an unknown amount of time was finally about to come to an end.

It seemed that everything had already been decided.

And within that final ending.

She would ultimately become His......

“I do not approve.”

Boom!

Suddenly, the doors of the hall were violently pushed open, raising countless glowing motes, while that dazzling light, in an utterly unreasonable manner, directly and violently poured into this place that imprisoned the heart.

The stage was illuminated.

The darkness was forced back into a corner, with nowhere to hide.

Hamreign’s movement also stopped. She subconsciously turned around to look.

——The blond figure stood there with his back to the light, at the very center where her gaze......and the gazes of countless “spectators” converged.

He was like a knight who had slaughtered his way here, his entire body stained with the aura of blood. Even though so many corpses were staring at him, his expression did not change in the slightest. He only quietly met her gaze and once again spoke those overbearing and impolite words.

“Miss Dragon......I do not approve.”

“【......Did I ask for your approval?】”

Hamreign did not answer. Instead, the figure within the darkness roared furiously: “【Muen Campbell! What qualifications do you have to appear here? What qualifications do you have to disapprove?】”

“Qualifications? Perhaps I do not have any. After all, not long ago, I was just kicked out of the ranks of her companions by this fellow.”

Muen walked forward step by step, passing through those “spectators” and walking toward the stage: “But I have never cared about qualifications or anything like that. After all, I am only an ordinary yellow-haired villain bold enough to defy the heavens. I casually touch Miss Dragon’s hand and casually hug her leg. What is there that I would not dare to do?”

“【Shut up! Do you know what you are trying to do? Could it be that you still want to force all those responsibilities onto her? She is clearly already in so much pain!】”

Several traces of earnestness unexpectedly appeared within the figure’s strange and awkward words: “【You should have seen it. All of this was her own choice! I did not force her——】”

“The one who should shut up......is you! Love God!”

Muen suddenly accelerated. Even though this was a fabricated mental world, his speed was unbelievably fast. In an instant, he arrived on the stage, arrived beside Hamreign, and then......

He drove a fist into the darkness.

“Responsibilities, what kind of bullshit responsibilities? Stop deceiving people here. For Miss Dragon, what is important......has never been that kind of thing!”

An even more miserable roar came from within the darkness. The Love God seemed to have never expected that Muen would actually be able to attack Him, and for a moment He was directly forced back.

And Muen also took advantage of this opportunity to grab Hamreign’s hand.

That fair, slender, familiar hand.

Just like the several times before, when he had gripped it tightly.

“Miss Dragon, remember. Did you really do those things because of some so-called responsibility? If you make this choice, that is when you will truly regret it.”

“......”

The light within Hamreign’s eyes flickered slightly.

Responsibility?

Responsibility?

That’s right. At the beginning, she had indeed continued fighting because of that so-called responsibility. That was why, such a long time ago, she had been so indifferent, so lonely......

But......

“Big Sister Dragon......Welcome to Tars!”

The spinning little pinwheel was gently placed into her palm by Muen. Along with the familiar voice, the emotions she had already abandoned, and even killed, once again rose within her heart.

That’s right.

It was not merely because of some so-called responsibility.

She could have stopped......

She could have chosen not to do that......

She could have chosen not to kill anyone......

No one could force her to make a choice, and no one could bind her with the so-called word “responsibility,” because she was the strongest dragon in the world.

But......

She still did it.

She killed her new family, destroyed her new home, completely killed that gentle version of herself, and buried her in the past.

This was only because......

“What you did was not because of some promise or some responsibility, but because......”

Muen half-crouched and gently rested his forehead against the back of Hamreign’s hand, murmuring softly: “Miss Dragon, you have always......loved this world beyond compare.”

Calamity.

Dragon of Death and Doom.

The strongest creature beneath the sky.

All of her titles were ominous.

Hated by everyone.

Feared by everyone.

Spat upon by everyone.

Whether in stories or within people’s hearts, she was the incarnation of evil, she was the representation of destruction. Wherever she passed, disaster would certainly descend......

But......

Who could possibly know? Someone like her still loved the quiet villages beneath the morning light, was still intoxicated by the passionate dances before the bonfire, still loved......those weak and pitiable......humans.

It was not merely because of her gentle nature. It was precisely because these constantly accumulating feelings existed that she suffered so much.

That dream, everything that happened in Tars, made Muen understand this point.

——She had never been some aloof Dragon of Death and Doom, standing apart from the mortal world.

She was the Dragon of Wrath.

She was the Gentle Dragon.

She was......the Dragon of the Mortal World.