Chapter 264

What the Drowning Master had overlaid was the deepest place in the world.

And from within that abyss, Barbarossa the Drowning King spoke.

“Behold, King of Conquerors.”

Bubbles flowed from his mouth with every word, yet his voice remained clear and distinct.

And Dale, too, was no longer the greenhorn he had been when they first met. Primordial darkness enveloped him, and his world was shrouded in water where the pressure could crush flesh and bone, where even breathing was impossible.

“Here, at the very bottom of this world, they will finally awaken from their slumber.”

The Drowning Master spoke. At the same moment, Dale could feel it too. In the darkness where not a single ray of light penetrated, those beings were faintly stirring.

How could he forget?

The monsters that had once destroyed this planet’s ancient world.

They have not yet awakened. But when they rise from slumber once more, this world will meet the same end.

“From the very beginning, they were the rulers of this star. And they are merely reclaiming what is rightfully theirs.”

“……”

“You are the vermin of this planet. Merciless invaders who trample the earth and wreak destruction according to your own will. Every time you build your foundations upon this land, the planet groans. And yet, you are madmen who kill one another, staining the earth with your blood. That is who you are.”

“I never thought I’d hear that from the mouth of a mad pirate.”

Dale sneered in utter disbelief.

“The time has come.”

At that very moment, the drowned pirate Barbarossa spoke. Simultaneously, the writhing beings in the darkness began to scream from the depths of the world.

A chill ran down his spine. At the same moment, Dale reached for his sword, but the Drowning Pirate’s hand was faster.

The world beneath their feet shifted.

The place where the two stood was now the fortress of the Dead Sea Archipelago.

“This is a just war. A holy crusade to reclaim what was stolen from us by you vile invaders.”

Squish!

The drowned man Barbarossa shattered the obsidian box held in his hand. Simultaneously, the box broke apart and the pulsating heart within burst forth.

The heart spurted blood as it was crushed, and the Drowning King raised his head.

What stood there could no longer be called human.

The man once called Barbarossa the Drowning King had vanished, replaced by a monstrous entity that now overshadowed him.

“…Who are you?”

The man laughed.

“Ah, I remember you. Conqueror’s Sovereign.”

Simultaneously, a chillingly low voice flowed out.

A man who looked like a wet rat was there. At the same time, wet tentacles were sprouting one by one from various parts of his body.

“And hunter of our kin.”

“……!”

A humanoid monster. A ruler possessing high intelligence and strength, commanding a horde of monsters. And he could sense it instinctively. That this particular monster was exceptionally unique and alien, possessing power befitting its nature.

“The king of monsters……”

“A monster?”

At Dale’s mutter, the King of Monsters laughed.

“So that’s what you call us, I see.”

A beast of the strangest kind. That was their name.

“But the name we use for ourselves, and the name we use for you lot, is a bit different.”

“……What is your name?”

“We are humans.”

“……!”

At those words, Dale’s expression froze.

“And do you know what we call you?”

“Well…”

“One day, a meteorite crashed into this planet, and the entire world was engulfed in a storm of annihilation. The end of the world came. And we fled to escape the apocalypse, plunging into an endless slumber in the deepest depths of the world.”

The one who claimed to be both the king of monsters and the king of humans spoke.

“Meanwhile, the ‘invaders’ parasitizing the meteor have taken root on this earth. Just as they’ve done before, they destroyed several stars, imposed their existence upon them, sucked the life out of the stars completely, and then ultimately acted the same as the swarms of alien locusts inhabiting them.”

“You mean us humans…?”

“Humans? Don’t make me laugh.”

At last, the entity borrowing the form of the drowned man revealed emotion.

“You lot are the true monsters.”

A creature of utter strangeness. Dale did not respond to the man’s words.

Before long, the man who had looked like a waterlogged rat was nowhere to be seen. Countless tentacles sprouted from his body, forming a carapace-like shell, and finally, the creature Dale knew revealed itself.

“Across this entire universe, there won’t be another pair of parasites as disgusting as you two.”

The king of monsters, who also claimed to be the ‘true human,’ spoke.

“I will fight to protect our human domain from the monsters.”

“We cannot let that happen.”

“I suppose so, monarch of the conquerors. And you, the strongest ‘human hunter’.”

“……”

At that utterly ironic title, Dale chuckled.

What is truth and what is falsehood? In a world where truth becomes falsehood and falsehood becomes truth, nothing could be known anymore.

“I am still human.”

Yet nothing changed.

He recalled his promise to Shub. The resolve to remain human until the very end.

“Even if we have no justice, nothing changes.”

Dale said.

“Because survival knows no good or evil.”

“Do you truly believe that?”

The king of monsters and the king of humans burst out laughing.

“Is it truly not evil for the powerful to seize and trample the foundations of those without power? Can you call it not evil when you see your own people crushed and groaning under your destruction? Do you truly believe that both the takers and the taken can escape the realm of good and evil?”

“Even if it is evil, nothing changes.”

“I suppose so, King of Conquerors. You are no different.”

“What do you mean?”

“The empire of monsters you defined as evil and destroyed. They too spoke the same words as you.”

“……!”

“Those with power are justice itself, and the powerful can take everything from those without. How is your claim now any different from theirs?”

The empire he believed to be evil and overthrew, and their cause.

Ironically, what Dale now proclaimed here was not vastly different from their own claims.

The king of conquerors, who revered the justice of power and resolved to fight for survival, was there.

“…Was that the real truth?”

The Lord of Truth and Shadow smiled bitterly.

Yet nothing changed.

The King of Men, the King of Monsters, and the King of Conquerors gripped his sword anew.

Behind him, Shub’s maniacal laughter echoed.

“At last, you reveal your true forms.”

In defiance, the King of Monsters and King of Humans spat out a taunt.

“Monsters are really bad!”

A child couldn’t hold back and shouted during the story. The pouring sunlight was blindingly bright.

“Why are you trampling and trying to take our human home?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

At those words, Liza, the Blue Mage Tower Master and younger sister of the Shadow Lord, smiled.

“Still, my brother, the King of Humans, willingly faced those beings to protect us.”

History belongs to the victors. Truth, it seemed, mattered little. For history and truth are always rewritten to suit the victors’ tastes.

“He chose to fight to protect us against the wicked conquerors who sought to trample our planet and our home.”

There, only the victors remained.

Moreover, upon the victors’ land, only one empire existed.

And the empire had no other name.

It was the sole nation on this terrestrial continent, and thus it was not a common noun.

The title ‘Fourth Empire’ is used only for convenience, to distinguish it from empires that perished in the past.

Everything he had believed in as justice had crumbled to dust. From the very beginning, the Shadow Lord was not the savior of the righteous.

The empire’s justice of power: the strong take all, the weak lose everything. Therefore, there is only one justice in this world.

The strong survive.

No world was any different. The world of the past was so, the world of the present is so, and even the world of the future will be so.

The Shadow Lord was simply the most powerful and formidable among them.

That’s why he could claim to be the champion of justice. Because he had the power. That was all. There was no particular reason the Shadow Lord could claim to be the champion of justice—not moral purity or anything like that. It was simply because he had the power.

It didn’t even make him laugh.

Still, nothing had changed.

“I will fight to protect what I must protect.”

Dale said.

“Even if it means taking everything you have.”

At those words, the king of the monsters burst into laughter.

Simultaneously, the earth trembled violently as if an earthquake were raging.

Amidst a storm that seemed poised to swallow the entire Four Seas Archipelago, the fortress crumbled.

Above the fallen fortress, the outside world finally revealed itself.

It was a scene that felt like the end of the world had arrived.

Countless ‘real humans’ were slaughtering the inhabitants of the archipelago.

To Dale, it looked no different from the ancient scenes of monsters devouring people.

Justice was of no concern. Even if it were evil, he cared not.

The seven circles and the shadow circle accelerated again and again.

Facing the utterly brutal truth before him, it raged fiercely, as if about to burst.

As always, it wasn’t some plausible epiphany. But after fitting the final piece of truth into place, there was no hesitation in Dale.

Crack!

His heart throbbed as if it would burst.

─ I am with you.

At that very moment, an intangible hand stroked the back of Dale’s neck.

“Noah…”

The goddess of love, kindness, and compassion had placed her hand upon his arm.

─ I’m here too, brother!

Young Shuv laughed beside Dale, as if refusing to be outdone.

Literally, two goddesses were there. Blessing the conqueror’s sovereign, the mana in the air and the primordial darkness enveloped Dale’s heart and his shadow.

The power of the two goddesses was finally taking root within Dale.

Light and darkness, gold and shadow, truth and falsehood. To Dale, these things no longer mattered. The Shadow Lord, and simultaneously the embodiment of the ugliness of gold.

The Black Gold Lord finally raised his head.

With eight accelerating circles within his heart, and eight shadow circles alongside them.

This was not a battle to protect the world.

──The battle to seize the world had begun.