Chapter 220
A black lotus floated above the city.
The headless old man sat in ditation on it, cradling a goat head in his arms.
The old man's na was Belrsasal, the Demon King who called himself Ignorance.
In front of the Demon King stood a man holding a sword.
His eyes were jade-colored and his lips were firmly shut.
He had swung his double-edged sword several tis, but it did not reach the Demon King.
Belrsasal showed a smile that even held pity.
“Foolish.”
The goat head spoke.
“Truly foolish, Athus.”
Instead of answering, I put my hand into my chest.
A white mask, like one would use in a play, was pulled out.
When I put it on, the mask squird as if alive and spewed jade-colored flas.
My head soon turned into a single jade light orb.
This mask is an Ancient Weapon.
The remains of the ‘Breath of Light’ writhed, transmitting the power of the Ancient God.
Athus, clad in jade-colored flas, leapt toward the Demon King with even greater strength and speed than before.
“Sad, O last Aretion.”
Belrsasal quietly raised his hand.
He blocked my sword with a gentle touch, as if calming a child's tantrum.
The jade-colored flas blazed, but they quickly died down upon touching the Demon King's body.
……. I frowned. I am a born swordsman. Except for Obro Denoebang, I had never seen a talent greater than my own. If I set my mind to cut sothing, I could cut it. Whether the opponent was one of the Ten Great Generals of the Empire, the sea, or an Ancient God, my double-edged sword was always chillingly sharp.
But Belrsasal was different.
The mage who reached the seven stars, his very existence had transford, he had climbed to a high place that even I, Athus, could not guess, so I had no idea how I should cut him.
Belrsasal, who had blocked my double-edged sword with a single finger, muttered.
“How foolish, to tear off and wear the face of the god you served.”
The Demon King fumbled at the empty air.
The fumbling gesture beca a hand seal and shook the world.
“To the foolish, I bestow fear.”
The six-star magic, Bestowal of Ultimate Fear.
“Realize and know. All things are impermanent, so it is right to fear.”
Even though it was a lightly clenched hand, it seed to threaten the world.
A black ripple began from the Demon King's hand seal. The black ripple strips bare the surface of the world and reveals the depths.
It is vain, vain and all is vain.
Everything is vain, and so am I.
The black ripple swept through the city once.
High bell towers and sturdy castle walls collapsed in an instant.
This black ripple had the power to hasten the collapse that would soday co.
Such a ripple again, then twice more…… without stopping, continuously…….
“…….”
I rushed forward, as if to embrace the black ripple.
I could not avoid it, knowing that if an ordinary person was exposed to that black ripple, they would collapse in an instant and lose their life.
As I tried to block the ripple alone, my very marrow ached. Blood flowed from my nose.
My mouth was already stained red from the blood that had surged backward from my organs.
“You get hurt by people. This, too, is foolishness.”
Belrsasal raised his other hand, the one not creating the ripple, and pointed to my double-edged sword.
“A sword is a thing that wounds. It is not a thing that protects. It is foolish to try and protect while holding a thing that wounds.”
“…It was not sothing I chose.”
“That is why life is pitiful. Fear-Realization! Realize and know fear, pitiful one!”
Belrsasal's two hands crossed and took a complex form. No, his hands were, before I knew it, six. Six hands, six shapes.
“The Demon King bestows another realization. Imprison all things within the eyelids.”
The seven-star magic, ‘Blindfold’.
“What is not seen is the sa as what is not.”
The six hands covered the goat's eyes.
The goat also gently shut its eyes.
At a glance, nothing had changed. I leapt, facing the black ripple.
My double-edged sword tried to split the goat head, but could not.
“……?”
The sensation was strange.
It did not pass through.
It was not pushed away, unable to reach. It was not blocked, either.
I swung the sword as I willed.
The sword definitely reached the goat head, and I even felt the tactile sensation.
The familiar feel of splitting flesh was clear, but Belrsasal was not damaged at all.
A result that could not be explained by laws.
A power that seed to ignore causality.
The seven-star magic was already close to an Ars of the soul. I do not stop, and swing my sword.
Each and every strike is heavy and swift.
Enough to tear the clouds in the far distance to shreds.
“Foolish.”
But Belrsasal is calm.
He is just sitting in ditation, with the severed head's eyes covered.
The sword blade reaches him, but cannot cut. I definitely cut, but he was not cut.
The Demon King, with his eyes covered, continues to speak of foolishness.
“All things are trapped within the eyelids. The Demon King has closed his eyes, so do you still not know that the entire world has beco nothing?”
“…That is sophistry.”
“The essence of the self is a contradiction.”
The seven-star magic, ‘Blindfold’, is the power to impose subjectivity onto reality.
He closed his eyes and threw a tantrum that there was nothing.
Because he refused communication with the world, I could not reach him.
No matter how sharp or powerful the attack, it could not overco Belrsasal's refusal.
I continued to swing my sword.
I was that kind of man.
I was accustod to endlessly repeating tasks that seed vain.
I had lived a life where receiving the results of my sweat imdiately felt awkward.
In one mont, there are dozens of sword strikes.
“You still cannot stop, young Aretion. What to do with that endless foolishness.”
Belrsasal intoned.
“But there is no end to the Demon King's bestownt. I shall bestow the impermanence overflowing from within my eyelids.”
The seven-star magic, ‘Avidya’.
Lightlessness overflowed.
“O foolish one, beco darkness and be at peace.”
It was a dreadful darkness.
It could not be described with anything.
It is not black. It is not ink.
It is not twilight, either, and certainly not abyss.
Only that it was not bright, only that there was not even a single speck of light, was clear.
That is why it is Avidya.
The darkness that overflowed from the goat's eyes quickly painted over the entire world.
No, it pulled it into itself and sank it deep.
Things that have sunk do not rise again.
It is that kind of darkness.
Dark, and dark, and in the midst of more darkness, even sound suffocates, so the world quietly lost its light.
It was the sa for , Athus.
The jade-colored flas could not use their strength in front of the darkness.
My speed of being captured was only slightly slower than others; I was, inescapably, being crushed by the darkness.
The darkness poured from the front.
It assaulted from the side.
It choked from behind.
It overflowed from above and below, and even from within. It tried to lt down into just a mass of darkness.
‘…….’
In the midst of lting into the darkness, I saw many things.
The ti I led Obro Denoebang to the Underworld, the ti I faced Nana Nereyades, the ti I brought down Brass Arm Onseu Om and the Del Conti family, the ti I pledged to serve Shion on Arete Island, the ti I chased Shion escaping the Empire, the ti I won against Imperial Consort Marina in the Succession War……. They were all scenes from my life that had passed.
‘…Ah…….’
I also recalled many nas.
One na that suddenly ca to mind was Ubias Uterbeum.
My old subordinate, cut down by my own hand.
I also thought of the Breath of Light and the nas of my parents, whose faces are now blurry.
Bukenos, Nana Nereyades, …Ferbias. Friends from my school days.
Shion Pollinglight, my master and above all, the na, yearned for, sacrificed for , I had waited all this ti for her to smile at once again, and for that reason aching, for that reason heart-wrenching, the na…….
“…Shadi.”
The darkness swallowed Athus.
***
Avidya painted over the world.
It crushed Athus's heart with despair.
The space between my eyebrows ached like mad. Jade sparks flew.
A new fire descended from sowhere and burned my eyes.
“Athus.”
Even though I was in the darkness that suffocated even sound, there was a voice that called .
“Open your eyes, Athus Aretion.”
“……?”
I felt bewildered and pushed away the darkness with my eyelids.
The darkness that was so thick, where had it gone; it was all jade-colored.
My heart was at peace.
The Demon King was not seen.
Schizen's capital Föhn, Shion and Aida, the other Demon Kings, none were seen, and it was just jade-colored.
Athus was there, and Athus was there again.
“…Who are you?”
“You should already know.”
“…If so, are you ?”
“Correct. I, too, am Athus.”
Athus looked at Athus.
I sensed that the one who had called to this jade-colored space was another .
“Do you know , young Athus?”
Athus looked at the other .
He looked older than .
He looked at least ten years older, looked more tired from more pain, looked stronger from deeper sorrow, and above all, he was in the armor of the Cordis Empire.
Because of that, Athus realized the other man's identity.
“…I know you. You are the that Shion originally knew.”
“That is right. I am the Athus that Shion t in his first life.”
The older Athus quietly intoned.
“I, Athus Aretion, 2nd seat of the Ten Great Generals of the Cordis Empire, the Two-Crossing Grand General. The closest confidant of His Imperial Majesty Ferbias, the nesis of the West's hero Shion Pollinglight. The warmonger called the diviner, and…….”
His face was thick with fatigue and sorrow.
“…the foolish one who failed to protect Shadi Shandor.”
“…That is true for as well.”
Athus spoke to Athus.
The younger to the older, the second life to the first life.
“From where and how are you speaking?”
“I cannot explain. And you would not know even if I explained.”
The older Athus shook his head.
“However, a rift has ford.”
He had spent a long ti with the regressor Shion.
Belrsasal, unlike in the life before regression, had beco a seven-star mage, a Man-God calling himself a Demon King.
On top of that, Athus originally had an intuition that pierced the world, so the existence before regression and the one after regression could et.
“My second self, I have failed. Because Shion Pollinglight failed, the entire world ended up failing.”
“…What does that an?”
“Shion Pollinglight does not know. He is mistaken about what he is, and what he has shouldered. Therefore, you must know more.”
There was no ti for the young Athus to retort.
The older Athus strode over and grabbed the young 's head.
Then, he shoved his hand into the space between my eyebrows.
“Realize it, Athus! My young self who has been granted another chance with Shion! You do not only have hatred. Shion's hatred cannot be your hatred! Realize your hatred once again!”
A maddening pain dug in.
The older Athus roared.
He shed tears.
Drip, drip, like blood, red tears flowed down his cheeks.
Lantation, grief, and misery.
It was a face that resembled the Hunchback inside Shion.
“Do not let your fla be extinguished! If you wish, it will be so!”
The jade light blazes.
“You still have a part to play!”
***
“…….”
The inside of Avidya is silent.
At the center of the darkness is the Demon King.
There was the black lotus, the legs crossed in ditation, the severed neck, and the goat head with its eyes covered.
In the closed world he himself had created, Belrsasal just savored the endless foolishness.
In this darkness, he was just alone.
“…….”
“…….”
There were two who were silent.
One was the Demon King, and one was Athus.
Athus, who had disappeared into the darkness, reappeared.
Before Belrsasal even realized, Athus had lit a new fla.
“I have realized.”
The jade-colored fla swallowed the darkness.
“I have realized very clearly that I had not realized.”
…What. Belrsasal, bewildered, let out a groan.
But the world refused his voice.
Belrsasal is babbling sothing, but it cannot be heard.
Just Athus's muttering beca a fla and liberated the crushed world once again.
“That's right. It was like that. This was not the Face of Light. It was my face.”
What are you talking about? How did you break Avidya? The Demon King's questions are erased once again.
“If so, this is a sword. I am an existence that wields a sword, so if it is to be held in my hand, it is definitely a sword.”
Athus quietly removed the Face of Light and held it in his hand. At that, it beca a sword.
“Ah, I also know. I was always incomplete. I had to obtain this sword. But I had never obtained it. But now, I have.”
The sword.
This double-edged sword, which I hate to the bone, but cannot push away and feel fondness for.
The inscription engraved on it.
The gift from Ferbias, whom I ca to hate for his betrayal, but had cherished so dearly for a long, long ti.
This, too, was .
I had denied it even though I could not, so my soul had no choice but to be distorted.
“So now, my soul is complete.”
The Ars of Athus Aretion, who had always been a single sword, ‘Vairocana’.
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