Chapter 134

A storm of light raged around the body of Michael Lancaster, the Apostle of Fire and Light.

Magma flowed in place of blood, solidifying like lava rock, and then his entire body began to twist.

‘That is….’

The Armor of Thought is a mental armor that projects the user’s very beliefs. And its form is never bound to a single shape. Just as the avatar of ‘Lady Shadow’ Aurelia changed countless times before reaching its current form.

“Peace.”

Amidst the swirling light, Mikhail Lancaster spoke.

“From the very beginning, my sole desire has been peace. Just as the hero of another realm once desired.”

Once more, he spoke those words aloud. He gripped the hero’s beloved sword, Peacemaker, once more.

“What the hero from another world brought to this world was not peace.”

Dale spat out without a moment’s hesitation.

“Do you truly believe that?”

“Yes.”

“It’s likely nothing more than slander from the Saxon family, mere outsiders to the Empire.”

Mikhail Lancaster sneered. Yet it was Dale who felt like bursting out laughing at those words.

‘I am that hero, you damn brat.’

Swallowing the words that surged up his throat, Dale feigned composure.

Amid the swirling storm of light, Mikhail Lancaster’s ‘avatar’ was already beginning to warp. The ideology he held as the Apostle of Fire and Light, the Knight of the Sun… began to shift toward its second form.

“The hero from another world laid the unquestionable foundation for peace upon this continent. Through his power, you see.”

And upon seeing that form, Dale quietly swallowed his breath.

“As a child, I could never forget the sight of the hero serving as the empire’s champion.”

“……!”

“The Hero from Another World was, without a doubt, my idol.”

The second form of Michael Lancaster’s avatar, the armor of ideology he had built up, was never the easily recognizable form of a suit of armor.

“I wanted to be a warrior.”

Han Seong, the hero of another world, stood there. He had long since grasped the hilt of the hero’s beloved sword, Peacemaker, once more.

The Empire’s hound, the monster of peace, finally revealed its true form.

Dale’s past, his former self, was there. Seeing that form, not even a smile escaped him. The final destination of ideology that Mikhail Lancaster desired.

After seeing the hero’s form, only one certainty filled Dale’s heart.

‘He absolutely cannot be spared.’

Having sacrificed his entire life as the empire’s hound, he finally understood. That man, Mikhail Lancaster—the peace he imagined and the idol he worshipped were utterly false and twisted.

The hero from another world reclaimed his beloved sword, ‘Peacemaker’. But he was never truly a hero from another world. He was nothing more than a fanatic clad in a hero’s skin.

The Apostle of Fire and Light, the Hero of Another World, stamped his foot on the ground. It was a speed beyond imagination. An overwhelming velocity and destructive power that defied comparison to any form of the Avatar displayed until now.

But it was nothing compared to that of a warrior.

Clang!

Dale’s demon sword, Hunger, met the swing of the Peacekeeper’s blade. Simultaneously, the hero lunged toward Dale’s embrace.

‘……’

Clang!

But for Dale, countering the hero’s feint was not particularly difficult.

That wasn’t all.

Thwack!

The hero’s follow-up strike, the crystallization of the ideology Michael Lancaster had built up… was being blocked far too easily by Dale’s sword.

‘Why…!’

The greatest power Mikhail Lancaster could wield. He believed without a doubt he could never be defeated. Yet the avatar of the warrior he displayed was being blocked by Dale’s sword, utterly powerless.

Before the sword of a mere mage who didn’t even pursue swordsmanship!

It was just like back then. It was like that fight club duel where no matter how much he struggled and fought, he could never reach his opponent.

‘Why on earth…!’

Mikhail could never understand.

The truth that the belief he projected, the warrior from another world, was the true form of ‘Dale’ standing right before him.

Much less was what Michael Lancaster displayed even 100% of his power as a warrior. It was merely a cheap imitation, nothing more than mimicking and copying his form.

He likely couldn’t even imagine it. That the power he wielded when he fought as the ‘Knight of the Sun’ was the true strength that the current Dale feared. Yet, despite this, Michael Lancaster abandoned himself and cloaked himself in the ideology of another. He willingly became a counterfeit, one who didn’t even fully grasp its meaning.

“Is that truly your conviction?”

Dale parried Michael Lancaster’s sword and retorted. The jet-black demon sword ‘Hunger’ was deflecting his strike with alarming ease.

‘Why…!’

Why couldn’t he land a hit? Mikhail couldn’t comprehend it. After that defeat, abandoning his sword filled with emptiness, Mikhail Lancaster had resolved himself. To find the only way to bring down the ‘Black Prince’ of the realm.

That was the plan. Yet he couldn’t reach him.

“Why, why, why…!”

Finally, flinging aside the mask of ‘nobility’ he wore, Mikhail began to scream.

From the very beginning, his life was that of a victor. A path of triumph where success was predetermined from birth. He thought it was enough simply to walk that path.

“Is this all you’ve got?”

Dale parried Mikhail’s swinging sword and retorted coldly. That exact expression. The expression he’d worn that day, when he’d overwhelmed Mikhail in the fight club.

Following the shadow prosthetic, Dale re-gripped the jet-black sword ‘Hunger’. Furthermore, he parried each swing of Mikhail’s sword, swung as if reliving the hero’s swordplay, without so much as a glance. How on earth?

“What a truly hideous sight.”

Dale sneered coldly. His words weren’t directed at Mikhail Lancaster. It was merely a mockery aimed at the past ‘self’ standing before him. Though Mikhail could never understand its meaning.

No matter how much he struggled and flailed, Mikhail’s blade never touched Dale.

The day would never come when he realized that this was the worst possible move he could make.

That the object of his admiration, the culmination of his ideals, was nothing more than a mere imitation, a cheap knockoff of a warrior.

“The eldest son of Saxony? How dare you speak of a warrior’s ideals!”

“Did you say the ideal of a warrior?”

“Yes…!”

“Ideal, indeed. What a pleasant word to hear.”

The moment he heard those words, Dale’s mind froze solid. Simultaneously, the humiliating days of obedience he endured as the ‘Hunting Dog of the Empire’ flashed before him. Struggling to feign composure amidst hatred that threatened to paralyze his reason, Dale spoke.

“Then let me tell you the outcome that hero’s ideal brought about.”

Therefore, there was no reason for Dale to hesitate. It was at that very moment.

─ I’ve been waiting for this moment.

In Dale’s mind, the pitch-black tentacles gripping his heart whispered. What? Dale didn’t even have time to ask.

─ Trust me, I’ll never do anything you hate.

Swoosh!

Facing the hero’s sword, a mass of tentacles suddenly appeared beside Dale. It was a girl with horns like a black goat. And from the hem of her skirt, countless tentacles began to surge forth.

Not toward the hero from another world, Michael Lancaster, but toward the ‘Black Prince’ beside her.

“……!”

Dale didn’t even have time to feel bewildered.

Tentacles engulfed Dale’s head, his arms and legs, and eventually his entire body. It was never Dale’s will. It was the arbitrary tyranny displayed by his grimoire, The Book of the Black Goat, acting unilaterally.

Unilaterally entangled by Shub’s tentacles, Dale gritted his teeth in agony, unable even to breathe.

Yet at the same time, one of the tentacles coiled around him sweetly burrowed toward his ear.

─ I just wish you could face your true self a little more.

Shub whispered.

─ Even if it takes the most horrific and twisted form.

Splash!

At that very moment, the tentacles coiled around Dale burst open simultaneously. The pitch-black, dark blood within the tentacles spattered everywhere, and Dale, trapped inside, finally revealed himself.

It wasn’t the ‘Black Prince’ dressed in the Duke’s attire beneath his shadow cloak, as usual.

“……!”

The ‘Shadow Lord’ who stood against the hero of another world was there.

Black armor reminiscent of a night crow knight enveloped his body. Yet it was far from mere armor. It moved with such fluidity it seemed to form Dale’s very flesh itself, willingly becoming part of his body like a shadow prosthesis.

Over the black armor, a shadow cloak wrapped around his form like a silhouette. Even the writhing bundles of jet-black tentacles above the cloak were no exception.

The Shadow Lord, the Black Apostle. There stood a knight of pitch-black armor, as if embodying the very darkness of this world itself.

The armor of thought, the avatar.

But it was never Dale’s will that had been imposed upon it. For it was the pitch-black tentacles rooted deep within his heart.

Yet nothing changed.

Facing the surging warrior from another realm, the Shadow Lord stamped the ground. The jet-black demonic sword in his hand clashed.

‘Is this all you’ve got?’

Even before deploying the Avatar, Michael Lancaster was no match for Dale. A mere imitation of the past, a counterfeit—there was no way he could defeat the ‘Original’.

And at this very moment… Mikhail Lancaster, hailed as the closest to the continent’s Seven Swords, was no match for Dale.

Too slow. Slow to a fault. Even if he abandoned his current avatar and reverted to being a Knight of the Sun, it would make no difference.

Dale, who should have been nothing but a mage, was projecting the ‘Avatar’—the ultimate sword within his world. How could he not understand its meaning?

“Huh, Shiel.”

“……!”

Even the two Seven Swordsmen, preoccupied with their own love triangle and oblivious to the duel unfolding before them, were no exception.

The weight of the armor of thought wrapped around Dale’s body—he couldn’t possibly have been unaware of its significance.

“Prince Mikhail.”

The Shadow Lord raised his head slightly.

“Would you not consider surrendering at this point?”

As if to say there was no meaning in continuing the fight any further.

“The world is not fair. And within that unfair world, Prince Mikhail, you can never defeat me.”

“……!”

Dale spoke, and Mikhail, the ‘Hero of Another World,’ did not hesitate. At last, he thrust himself off the ground and charged. Compared to a hero’s charge, it was utterly pitiful, and before Dale, who wore the Avatar, it was literally child’s play.

‘Child’s play.’

Even if that were true, nothing would change.

The Hero of Another World, his past self, was there, being tossed about. And facing him, Dale had only one decision to make.

Swoosh!

The Shadow Lord’s single strike was unleashed. A fatal blow that even the Apostle of Fire and Light, the hero from another world, could not evade.

Mikhail Lancaster knelt on the floor, unable to rise. His injuries were beyond repair, just as before.

Blood was simply flowing.

It wasn’t blood boiling like magma. It was blood he knew all too well. Like the blood spilled by the Dale of the past on that winter night long ago, an irreversible, fatal hemorrhage.

“Why…?”

The hero of another world vanished, and finally, Mikhail Lancaster knelt there.

Mikhail Lancaster asked, as if he couldn’t understand.

“Why can’t I reach it…?”

“I did reach it.”

Dale answered.

“At least until you exist as ‘Mikhail’.”

“But the hero from another world…”

Mikhail struggled to continue.

“He was overwhelmingly stronger than someone like me, my idol who brought true peace to this empire…”

“Do you truly believe that?”

Dale countered. Mikhail nodded weakly.

Then Dale stepped closer to Mikhail.

He simply brought his lips close to his ear and whispered softly.

“The hero from another world was nothing more than a puppet dancing to the empire’s tune.”

“……!”

“From the start, things like the empire’s peace and patriotism never existed for him.”

Within the Shadow Lord’s avatar, Dale murmured indifferently, as if it were someone else’s affair.

“But ultimately, Prince Mikhail’s wish will be fulfilled.”

“My wish…?”

“As you said, I will ultimately seize this world’s ‘peace’ into my hands.”

Dale said. Mikhail’s expression froze. Their conversation ended there.

Beneath the pale, dark winter night, the Shadow Lord’s sword swung.