Chapter 226

“Mother.”

Dale spoke softly, and his mother Elena smiled quietly.

“Speak, Dale.”

“……”

Dale remained silent, glancing briefly at Elena’s father beside her. How much of her truth did this man know? Had he been an accomplice from the start? He couldn’t tell.

But to use the ‘Eye of Truth’, he had no choice but to deploy the Shadow Lord’s avatar. At least, it wasn’t something he could proudly display before the current Black Count.

“May we speak privately for a moment?”

“Let’s talk in my office.”

That’s why Dale spoke up, and as always, her father, the Duke of Saxony, replied.

“Yes, Father.”

Without correcting himself, Dale simply nodded.

The Third War of the Roses had ended, and the heir to the Red Mage Tower had fallen at the hands of the Black Prince. It meant only one thing.

War.

In the Saxon Duke’s office, Dale spoke of what they had gained in the Third War of the Roses. His wife, Charlotte, had become the Grand Duchess of Lancaster and, through the Shadow Heart, had obtained the Book of Cold Ashes.

“A war unlike any we’ve seen before is about to begin.”

“I suppose so.”

To Dale’s words, the Duke of Saxony responded with surprising calmness. As if he had known this would happen.

“Are you not surprised?”

“Since you have claimed the title of Shadow Lord, it was only a matter of time.”

“……”

“When you were young, you said the empire’s justice was flawed. But none of us were ever just to begin with. It’s merely a struggle for survival, spinning round and round like a hamster wheel, all for the sake of grasping power.”

The Black Ball spoke. What stood before him was no longer a child, and thus there was no longer any truth he needed to protect as a father.

“The victor will survive, and the defeated will die. Ultimately, what you said as a child was right. Struggle is unavoidable, and since it cannot be avoided, we should have prepared for battle from the very beginning.”

“Father…”

“I only wish for you to remember this one thing.”

“What is it?”

“What you must fight for.”

said the Duke of Saxony.

“As the Shadow Lord, I need not fight for the belief that I will drive the Empire of Fire and Light from this land.”

“I fight only for what I must protect.”

Dale answered. As the heir to the House of Saxony.

“And they are also what my father must protect.”

“Do not forget that fact until the very end.”

“I will remember.”

Dale silently bowed his head and turned away. Watching his son’s receding back, the Duke of Saxony remained in quiet silence.

It was an incredibly complex and profoundly lonely silence.

“Brother!”

As he stepped out of the office, young Riza greeted him with a bright smile. Dale smiled back and ruffled her hair.

“Just coming from talking with your father?”

At the same time, the woman beside Liza spoke, and Dale quietly swallowed.

Liza, oblivious to the tension, chattered away happily, recounting the blue magic spells she had learned. The spells her teacher, Sepia, had taught her. Dale listened intently to his little sister’s stories, one by one, offering her sincere praise.

Nothing had changed. The goal to bring down the empire remained unchanged.

“Rize, Sepia will be waiting soon.”

“Yes, Mother!”

Then, Dale’s mother Elena spoke. Only then did Rize seem to realize, hurrying away toward the courtyard where Sepia was waiting.

At last, the emotion vanished from Dale’s expression.

“May I speak with you for a moment?”

Elena nodded. After nodding, she began walking silently. Dale followed her in silence as well.

“Everywhere and nowhere.”

As they walked away from her father and sister, Elena, who was walking ahead, spoke.

“That is the essence of our Blue Tower.”

“How much of the truth does Father know?”

“I don’t know.”

Elena smiled meaningfully.

“He is a wise and perceptive man. He may know, or he may not. I can only hope I deceived him skillfully enough.”

“What purpose did you have in approaching my father?”

“Indeed, there were many purposes.”

Elena replied.

“But while acting on those purposes, many things I believed to be clear inevitably became blurred.”

“Have you finally developed some family affection now?”

“You speak as if it were someone else’s affair.”

Elena, the Blue Mage Tower Master, flashed a faint smile.

Upon hearing those words, Dale’s expression froze.

A hollow emptiness overwhelmed him, as if the ground beneath his feet had suddenly collapsed.

The Blue Mage Tower Lord possessed the power to manipulate minds at will. Just as she could gather the sorceresses’ minds into one place, and alter a person’s memories and truth, turning them into blue puppets unaware of their own condition.

─ Finally, the puzzle pieces fell into place.

The Stone of Past Lives, the Hero of Another World, reincarnation, and the House of Saxony.

“Isn’t that right, Dale?”

“Was it your doing?”

“It was also your decision.”

The blue-clad figure spoke. The warrior from another world quietly swallowed.

The things the Duke of Saxony had told him to guard just moments before now faded into an unknown haze.

“It was a ridiculous family game from the start.”

“Yes.”

Elena smiled bitterly.

“It had to be.”

“……”

“Everyone hides skeletons in their closet, and you discovered mine too soon.”

Dale fell silent.

“But just as your purpose to bring down the empire remains unchanged, my purpose to serve the Shadow Lord will not change either.”

“Was that your purpose?”

“To devote my entire being to the victory of the shadows—what purpose could there be for me as the Shadow’s Standard-Bearer other than that?”

“Father told me, as Shadow Lord, not to fight for beliefs.”

“That’s just like him.”

Elena burst into laughter, seemingly delighted.

“In countless ages, I’ve seen all manner of mages. Those sickeningly repulsive creatures who, to grasp their desired ends, willingly become monsters without hesitation.”

“Like you, I suppose.”

At Dale’s sneer, Elena smiled bitterly.

“But he was the first wizard I’d ever met who didn’t seem like a wizard at all.”

“Father…”

After a silence, Dale continued in a faintly trembling voice.

“He was far too noble and pitiable a man to be exploited by con artists like us, knowing nothing of his own worth.”

“Yes. That’s precisely why his plight is so pitiful and sorrowful I can scarcely bear it.”

Elena smiled as if she truly sympathized.

He had resolved to exploit everything he could. That was why he had volunteered to be the eldest son of the Saxon ducal house and used that man, and Elena was no different.

“Nothing will change.”

Dale said.

“We’re already accomplices on the same boat.”

“…….”

“I will bring down the empire for my father and Lise, and you too must bring down the Golden Empire for the victory of the Shadows.”

From the start, their goals were the same. Bringing down the empire would mean victory for the shadows, and victory for the shadows would mean victory for the House of Saxony.

“……Dale.”

Even so, Elena hesitated, her words trailing off. But Dale did not wait for her to finish.

“War is approaching. And in this war, the Blue Mage Tower will demand everything you have.”

“For you, I will gladly give everything I have.”

“As a knight loyal to the Shadow Lord, it is the duty I must fulfill.”

With those words, Dale turned away. Or rather, he tried to turn away.

“…When I gave birth to you.”

Elena spoke softly.

“And every day as I watched you grow, I grew so afraid of the day that would come. For you cannot deceive the true ruler forever.”

“Is that so?”

“Even if it was just a ridiculous family game, I was truly happy to be your mother.”

“As a plan devised to give birth to the Shadow Lord of the Future, it was truly plausible. I, too, had no reason to refuse.”

Dale said coldly.

“But far too many have become puppets dancing to our purpose. It was so in the past, and it is so now. Neither I nor you have any right to claim the happiness of a family. But…”

Dale continued.

“For Father and Lizzie, I don’t want to shatter this ridiculous facade.”

“Yes, that is your decision.”

Elena smiled.

“As for me, I can only be grateful.”

The egg is the world of the bird. He who seeks to be born must destroy a world.

“We, the Blue, swear allegiance to the Shadow Lord, willingly offering all we possess in devotion.”

Even if what Dale sought to destroy was her own world, a mother would affirm it. Because she was his mother.

Even if it had been a ridiculous family game, nothing would have changed.

After all, Elena was Dale’s mother.

It was a truth closer to falsehood than falsehood itself.

Lady Scarlet smiled through her pain. The Marquis of Yuris held her hand and smiled quietly.

“You endured it well, my dear sister.”

Her belly was no longer swollen. And the demon’s seed conceived within her womb finally revealed itself there.

The repulsive infant wailed on the cold marble floor of the Crimson Tower.

That day, through the ritual of the cult, the demon of evolution Lady Scarlet had conceived within her womb.

To live is to struggle. The victor survives; the defeated cannot.

And for those defeated in life’s struggle, unable to survive, the victor who strips them of everything and devours them is no different from evil itself.

In that regard, what Lady Scarlet gave birth to was the struggle for life, and furthermore, the pinnacle of evil reigning at the top of the food chain.

Angra Mainyu.

The baby burst into tears, and Lady Scarlet quietly gazed at the child, smiling.

“Ah, what an utterly adorable child.”

The Crimson Mage Tower venerates the ideology of power. In that regard, this being was the most suitable successor, perfectly aligned with their tower’s ideology.

“It’s so pitiful that Lei died without ever seeing her younger sibling.”

Scarlet muttered bitterly. Though conceived through her, this being was no different from Ray.

A child of falsehood.

Yet the bond between those not connected by blood was a lie closer to truth than any family.