Winning.
A sense of victory, an emotion they never thought the human standing before them could display.
In front of them was soone who wished to annihilate all of humanity and leave only their madness in this world—the one possibility that should never have appeared.
“Win? You think you can defeat …?”
Crash!!
Red currents of mana surged. All of it solidified into the form of a weapon, trailing behind her as she advanced, created through the intricate control of mana.
A temporary material creation made through the delicate control of mana.
“Just a single hero dares to claim victory over who is war itself?!”
Despite the soldiers being blown away by the torrent of magical power added to such a weapon, the enemy knight did not care.
Those who could only stand there stupidly due to her ability to forcibly imprint her presence were nothing more than lumps of at hindering the advance in this battle.
“You, who are nothing on your own, should have submitted to if not for these interferences!!”
The enemy knight, who drenched herself in blood, sought to press on.
But her attacks, filled with rage, lacked the cold calculation they needed.
To her, who was fixated on the mories of her childhood, there was no room for composure in a fight.
Boom!!!
And he did not miss that chance.
The enemy knight’s body was pushed back by the explosion of the thrown spear.
The rotten blood flowing from her mouth indicated that she had finally been caught off guard.
Despite her inability to command her troops, she had sustained enough damage to bleed in a re fight against a human.
“You, ugh, argh!”
The enemy knight, coughing up blood and regenerating her wounds, gripped her sword, but the man who faced her spoke in a calm voice.
“…You must have worked really hard to gain your current strength.”
“Shut your mouth….”
“Thrown into the battlefield at a young age, it’s only natural that soone like you, who survived to the end, would end up like this.”
“What do you know about , what do you…!!”
“I know everything. I’ve experienced all your mories.”
Her furious voice abruptly cut off, and along with it, the flow of power halted.
It ant that she couldn’t easily brush off his words, enough to montarily suppress her wrath.
“Experienced… my mories…?”
Yes, what he had shown so far couldn’t be rely due to receiving the stature of a dragon.
The weapons created and the techniques used were too exquisitely matched to what she had wielded.
“Ah, right. My mories….”
Above all, even in a situation where he held a slight advantage, he did not mock her.
Underneath his calm gaze lay an emotion that could be called sympathy.
This emotion could only be shown by soone who had directly experienced being the person in question and lived through that life.
“So, you’re saying, you’re like ?”
If that were truly the case, then the man before her could be said to possess two intertwined personas.
He was now Woo Hyo-sung and Tacchia Pheloi at the sa ti.
Soone who understood both the feelings of a child abandoned by her mother wandering the battlefield and the emotions upon eting her mother at the end.
“If you’ve seen my mories… then you can understand .”
He would have realized, contrasting those mories with the present.
Although currently in the position of the weak and considering themselves victims, the human race as a species was fundantally rotten.
“You also dislike the world, so you desired power and chose to have the sa mories as .”
The powerful always despise the weak, and those in power always conceal their actions from the masses, shaping the world as they please.
It was natural that humanity, manipulated by such beings, would spiral into madness, leading to inevitable ruin.
What she intended to do was hasten the end that this race would et, following their own demise, and preserve their ugly form forever.
As they wish, and as her mother wished.
“Because I hate humans. I want to sweep away all those who tornt you…!!”
“Is that really everything?”
Despite wishing for her grievances to be understood, the pity in his eyes facing her did not disappear.
“Everything, you say…”
“I asked if every human you’ve t has only ever tornted you.”
Sympathy was an emotion expressed by those who rely observed…
It teaches that the one considered an understanding ally does not walk the sa path as oneself.
Even if they had shared their mories, they were ultimately different beings.
“…The reason I’m here now is because there was soone who took over after you.”
Unlike the phantom before him, obsessed only with the past, he faced the world that moved on after her death.
The lonely master who, unable to forget the person he admired, wished to create a successor.
A veteran who wanted to create an army that could fight together, even if they couldn’t beco a replacent hero, and those who inherited their will created this mont.
“Even after you died, there were people who rembered you and connected your existence to .”
If anything remained after a person dies, there was aning, even if that life was miserable and despairing.
The hero before him was no different.
Understanding that honor and cause existed at the end, he couldn’t live seeing only the negative side of humanity.
“That’s why I’m sorry. I owe too much to too many people to join you.”
In this mont, that difference, despite sharing the sa mories, beca the decisive factor that divided them.
The monster born from lingering regrets remained shackled to the past, while the successor sought a future beyond what his predecessor had reached.
“…Ah, I see. So that’s how it is.”
The enemy knight understood it in her head but was unable to accept it in her heart. Despite her life’s mories being resurrected, only the vivid recollections of the massacres she experienced as a child stood out.
For a phantom moving through mories like these, the only thing allowed was to act according to the instincts driven by those lingering regrets until they were resolved.
“If even another part of myself cannot understand …”
The sword imbued with such determination aid at him then slowly lowered.
It began to aim at the spot where the crumbling dragon lay amidst the fierce battle.
“Wait, what are you doing?!”
“In the end, the only one who accepts is my mother!!”
By the ti he realized it, the sword had already pierced her body.
He quickly created and threw a spear, but even as half of her upper body was blown away by the impact, she did not fall.
Instead, she lifted the sword that had impaled her body, smiling through the blood.
“Ah, Mother… Mother…! Why did you leave and only show up now?!”
Now, with nothing left inside, her body felt endlessly light.
Yet, the concept of a supre being still existed in that corpse-like shell.
“Yes, because you loved … Because you loved , you rampaged. If those disgusting humans hadn’t interfered, we could have loved each other again!!!”
The heart of the dragon.
Though it was said to be so weakened that not even embers remained, the being forced into an unfulfilled oath was not allowed to die, even if its heart was stabbed.
If the vessel remained intact, it was enough to fill it with the lacking power. If the power was insufficient, it could be supplented by taking it as one’s own.
As the heart received the sinister magic responding to that will, her flesh began to swell grotesquely soon after.
“No! Tacchia…”
KWAAAHHHH!!!
By the ti it was noticed, it was already too late.
The body, rapidly expanded by the magic, reached a point where the shockwave blew away everything in its vicinity.
What was created in the end was a dragon, or rather sothing in the shape of a dragon, rising from the ground.
“Yes… There’s no need to go to war. Just like back then.”
The ashes scattered on the ground began to gather, forming bones.
The new flesh gradually sprouting over it made it seem as if a dragon was being created right then and there.
“I just need to blow everything away and start over, just like back then. Isn’t that right…?!”
For now, it was an unstable construction.
But if her obsession with her mother grew stronger, it would eventually lead to fully realizing the dragon form from the past.
With that belief, she plunged her sword into the dragon’s spine and began to infuse her vessel with power.
Countless spirits began to gather, forming the dragon’s shape, solidifying with their touch.
As the bones that ford the fra swelled and new flesh and scales began to sprout, a quiet voice echoed in his mind, watching the scene.
“Disappointing, isn’t it?”
No, it was about the conversation they had before coming here.
Now that they were completely united, there was no need for conversation, but if that girl saw this scene, she would probably repeat their earlier conversation.
‘I’m not a hero. I was just a coward who ran away from reality, wanting to live a new life.’
Just a human.
A girl who, despite inheriting the stature of a dragon and gaining stronger power, was still weak inside and held a deep love for her mother.
“…Still, you forgave Tacchia.”
Knowing her as a weak human, he didn’t spare his respect for her.
“Even though you could always turn into such a being while alive, you forgave your mother in the end.”
Despite the greatest part of her life being hatred for humans, she endured and gave her mother the chance to et him.
She spared her mother’s life from possibly committing further sins and proved through her final act of forgiveness that she too could love soone.
“That’s why I find it regrettable. If you had been given just a little more ti, you might have beco a true hero rembered by all.”
‘…Do you really think so?’
“Yes.”
Believing that allowed him to face the enormous disaster before him, gripping his spear with courage.
“That’s why I’m here, to prove that.”
By succeeding her, he would accomplish what she couldn’t.
That was the duty of one who admired heroes to protect himself and those who cared for him, ultimately becoming Tacchia Pheloi’s successor.
KWARURUNG, KUNG!!!
The first hurdle for that was the imperfectly ford dragon sweeping the mountain range and the distorted soldiers pouring down from it.
The monstrosities created by entwined past mories presented a terrifying sight, as if this place had beco a living hell.
“…Don’t be scared, Woo Hyo-sung. This is a fight that ends once you take down one target.”
No matter how mighty an army was, it had only one commander, and even a great dragon had a vulnerable spot.
The objective remained the sa on this vast battlefield.
The key was whether he could break through to it.
Whether one could reach the commander of the legion, who served as the vital point on top of that giant dragon, which itself could be considered a living fortress.
“Hey, Woo Hyo-sung~ It seems like you’ve beco incredibly strong without noticing.”
As he was gauging the opportunity, a familiar voice ca from behind.
Turning his gaze in that direction, he saw a man with a shovel slung over his shoulder approaching, dealing with the nearby forces.
“Seeing my way here, it seems like you want to go up there. Don’t you need a construction worker to open the way?”
“Ja-seong hyung? Why are you here…?”
“Save the joy of reunion and briefing for later. You know how much I hate dragging things out.”
Hero Nam Ja-seong.
Always headstrong and reckless, but with quick wits that have kept him alive so far.
“If you roughly understand, get ready. I’ll blow it away with maximum power.”
“Wait, just a mont, hyung. Don’t tell …”
“Territory Expansion!!”
KWARRUNG!!!
The shovel swung with all his might struck the ground, and in that mont, the surrounding earth began to reverse, defying physical laws.
Terrain Inversion.
The power to invert the ground one stands on in an instant, proportional to the amount of magic used.
KWAAAAHHHH!!!
When its power was unleashed to its fullest, everything within its sphere of influence flew up to the top of the mountain, making everything around appear as re dots.
A scene where people and phantoms alike appeared no different from insects.
The only thing clearly visible was the smoke dragon roaming the mountains, but even that was only for a mont.
KIEEEEK!
Soon, the inverted gravity would return to normal, causing everything to fall back down.
Sensing this, the crows made of ash scattered around started flying toward the fragnt he held.
The mories of crows gathering to feast on corpses on the battlefield awakened their hunger for the living at this mont.
KWANG!!!
For a mont, it seed inevitable to withstand such an attack.
But then, the trajectory of the rising rocks distorted, blocking the path of the crows and crushing them with their own speed.
A familiar phenonon.
The power to control objects, enabling the manipulation of several tons of mass if they lacked will.
“Ga-ram!”
“Leave the cover to !”
Hero Yi Ga-ram.
Riding together with the Terrain Inversion, she used her ability to glide on the shard, sequentially dealing with the approaching crows.
When the controlled shard landed on the dragon’s bone, Ga-ram prepared to launch the shard carrying him to that spot with her ability.
“Your target is the Red Knight, right? How fast should I make it?”
“Damn, throw it as fast as you can!!”
Any help was welco.
Imdiately after he shouted, Ga-ram threw the shard he was on with all the power she could muster, as per his request.
As the speed of the throw was accelerated by gravity, the Red Knight, recognizing the intruder’s presence, drew the sword embedded in the dragon’s back and swung it with all her might towards him.
The burst of red sword energy at the end was a powerful attack capable of annihilating a human body in an instant.
However, the shard, now beyond Ga-ram’s control, couldn’t maneuver to evade the attack, and taking it head-on would an being pushed off and falling below.
KUUNG!!
While pondering how to respond to such an attack, a third ally flew in from a shard on the side, throwing himself to block it.
Noticing him, his gaze quickly turned towards the man wearing a paper bag, who had collided with the attack and was now falling away.
RUSTLE.
Hero Im Tae-yang.
After 28 deaths, he succeeded in throwing himself to protect him, only to be thrown below the dragon.
“Mr. Tae-yang…!”
His hand reached out reflexively as soon as he recognized his presence.
But even as he fell, his fingers were pointed towards the target.
“Go.”
With his ability, even falling from this height, he could attempt to land thousands or tens of thousands of tis until he survived.
But after that ti passes, the rest was up to him.
Ti passed couldn’t be reclaid, and if parted, those who remained must move forward.
KWAAANG!!!
Accepting that will, he finally kicked off the shard, colliding with the Red Knight, who had taken a position as if replacing the dragon’s vital point.
After being pushed back, he landed and deployed a weapon made of magic, embedding it in the dragon’s spine, and glared at the Red Knight, who sought to confront him.
“…Woo Hyo-sung.”
The Red Knight, like himself, deployed nurous weapons.
But the sword in her hand gathered a vast amount of mana, expressing a killing intent towards him.
“You should not exist in this world…”
The tale of a hero who faced a dragon.
At this mont, surpassing half a century, that destiny shall be concluded by the hands of those who have inherited it.
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