Chapter 289

Side Story 22

Thud!

With a sound that seemed to tear the heavens apart, cannonballs poured forth simultaneously from the artillery batteries lining the city walls.

“Bring down that monster! Do not let it reach His Majesty the Emperor!”

The fortress, a crucial stronghold of the Ninth Empire connecting to the imperial capital and simultaneously hailed as its last bastion, was desperately unleashing a barrage of fire.

Once dubbed the ‘Fortress of Destruction’ for its absurdly large arsenal of artillery, it stood as an invincible stronghold that even the revolutionary army dared not challenge lightly.

Boom, thud!

Endless cannonballs and black powder rained down upon the loathsome colossus. Shells slammed into its legs, and the magic-enhanced gunpowder ignited, triggering secondary explosions.

“Its core is collapsing! Our attack is working!”

“Fire! Ignite the gunpowder in the cannonballs! Breaking through here is the same as clearing the path to His Imperial Majesty!”

That’s why they were desperately shouting, clinging to hope by any means necessary, desperately trying to give meaning to their fight.

Even though the true enemy they faced wasn’t some golem fused from flesh and bone and cold steel.

As if defeating that monster would somehow be their victory.

But it was precisely then.

CRASH!

“Huh…?”

One of the artillerymen manning the cannons along the ramparts saw something writhing its way up the castle walls.

“Tentacles…?”

And soon, it could see that those tentacles were stems extending all the way from beneath the feet of that repulsive monster.

The moment he realized it, a tentacle plunged toward the artilleryman’s throat.

“Gah, choke…!”

It wasn’t a death in any recognizable form. The tentacle plunged into the artilleryman’s body and took root. Then, like thousands of worms writhing, his flesh swelled grotesquely, swelling and swelling. And after swelling as much as it could, it simply exploded.

His insides exploded, and what looked like thousands of earthworm-like things began to scatter, writhing rapidly. But they weren’t earthworms.

They were young tentacles.

Parasitic tentacles that burrowed into the host’s body, took root, and rapidly multiplied.

A biological weapon beyond comprehension, defying all common sense in this world.

“Wh-what the hell are these things?!”

“Aaah! S-save me!”

A single infected individual spawned thousands of parasitic tentacles, which began devouring the soldiers within the castle one by one. Swinging swords against the tentacles now was futile. Before long, thousands of tentacles had tangled and fused together, growing so enormous they obscured the sky.

The bombardment ceased, and the repulsive colossus had reached the very front of the fortress. Then, Dale silently lowered his head to observe the scene before him.

Before long, the entire fortress, the pride of the empire, was enveloped by an endless swarm of proliferating tentacles. The people were no different.

The tentacles coiled around the fortress, reborn like living creatures, neither dead nor alive, becoming part of the fortress and the tentacles themselves.

Black, tar-like mucus dripped down along their features.

And toward the fortress, something repulsive stretched out its arms. Tentacles sprouted endlessly from the colossus’s body, fusing with the tentacles already coiled around the fortress… and began to swallow the entire fortress whole.

The outer walls, the inner walls, and even the countless bastions and cannons lined up along them.

Not people or cold weapons, but literally a fortress.

The capital of the Ninth Empire.

Before it, a repulsive thing composed of flesh and blood and bone, and swords and shields and armor, revealed itself.

But that was not all.

There stood a monstrous colossus, devouring and fusing even the fortresses and strongholds blocking its path, voraciously consuming everything in the world. And clustered across the colossus’s form were masses of bloated, swollen human bodies.

The victims, stitched together like tentacles and fused into the colossus’s flesh. Their screams echoed like a harmonious chorus. Black tar flowed endlessly from their features.

Tentacles writhing along the colossus’s body were barely holding its form together, patching together the castle, fortress, flesh, bones, and armor like ragged cloth.

A monster that had multiplied dozens of times over its original form now stood there, literally devouring the world.

The Empire’s Predator.

“What… what on earth is that thing?!”

We don’t know either! As we said, it’s a monster that voraciously devours anything blocking its path…

No matter how much the scouts reported and described its grotesqueness, witnessing it firsthand was an entirely different matter.

This was a world where black powder weapons like cannons and muskets were becoming widespread as the era progressed. Yet, the barrage of cannon fire and all manner of bombardment directed at it proved utterly meaningless.

Kwoong!

Rather, it was the ‘repulsive colossus’ firing the cannons. Tentacles tore through the colossus’s flesh, writhing as they pulled out the gun carriages and cannons, unleashing a barrage of fire as if the destroyed fortress itself were unleashing a hail of shells.

And needless to say, it was obvious where that creature had swallowed the cannons from.

“You want us to stop that thing…? Ha, ha ha… What a joke.”

For Marquis Rosette, the commander of the garrison desperately tasked with defending the capital, there was no other choice. He couldn’t even manage a hollow laugh.

The utterly incompetent emperor who reigns as Shadow Lord over the Ninth Empire fled long ago. Yet he issued an absurd order demanding desperate sacrifices to defend the imperial capital—and this is the result of that command.

“I shall issue an order to all troops under my command.”

Therefore, the Marquis of Rosette declared.

“From this moment, abandon this capital and flee, all of you.”

“But, but Your Excellency! His Majesty, the Emperor…”

“The Emperor? He can go to hell.”

Marquis Rosette muttered as if it were someone else’s affair, and the soldiers’ expressions turned somber.

“From this moment on, I shall lead my knights back to my domain and join the revolutionary forces. However, I will not force this decision upon all the nobles of the Imperial Court. Inform all the nobles under my command of this fact!”

Having said this, the Marquis of Rosette turned his back on the knights following him without a moment’s hesitation.

Immediately afterward, the tentacle stems crawling up to the very base of the castle walls ceased their movement.

Thud!

When the loathsome giant finally reached the empire’s capital, it was a ghost town where not even a single fly could be found. No, it wasn’t entirely devoid of people. It was filled with citizens who, having nowhere to flee and no means to escape, simply waited stoically for death.

Yet nowhere were knights gripping swords, nobles, or any sign of those who should have resisted.

When the empire was first founded, this city too must have shone gloriously. Just as all nine empires once did. But nowhere could any trace of past glory be found.

“An emperor who abandoned the empire and fled…”

Upon the giant’s shoulder, the man muttered indifferently.

Swoosh!

Immediately afterward, the tentacles holding the colossus’s flesh together like rags snapped loose. The moment the forced sutures gave way, the colossus’s body collapsed in a heap.

Flesh, blood, and bone covered the surrounding land, and several castles and fortresses, which had been greedily devouring it, collapsed with a crash.

The mass of humans there could finally find rest.

The emperor abandoned his empire and fled. And toward the imperial capital of the empire, now bereft of its rightful guardian, Dale crossed his path.

Neither towering city walls nor drawbridges could stand in Dale’s way.

The moment he stepped into the empty void, tendrils surged from beneath his feet, tangling and twisting to reveal a path. Treading upon the path the tendrils endlessly wove and spun, Dale moved beyond the imperial capital.

The terror and cries of those unable to flee, those who could not escape, echoed from all around. Yet Dale paid them no heed as he continued walking.

Toward the faded and crumbling imperial capital of the Ninth Empire.

He walked alone, impassively, his footsteps echoing along the marble tiles in the stillness.

It was profoundly desolate and quiet.

The Empire of Solitude.

Dale crossed the black marble tiles and raised his head toward the throne at the end.

“……”

And at the unexpected presence there, the shadow beneath the hood momentarily held a look of puzzlement.

A man sat upon the pitch-black throne.

Who would have thought that within the Ninth Empire, a being with the will to oppose him still remained. And with such audacity, he sat upon the throne reserved for the Emperor.

“Didn’t they say the emperor abandoned the empire and fled?”

“That’s right.”

The man answered. His voice sounded very familiar.

──It was the knight clad in crimson and white armor, wrapped in red and white.

“Wrapped in red and white, are you loyal to the Shadow Lord?”

“The Shadow Lord?”

At those words, the knight burst out laughing in disbelief.

“How could that fool dare to claim the title of King of Truth and Shadow, or even the Shadow Empire?”

“I suppose so. Then what is your true identity, speaking thus?”

“A demon.”

“……”

“And I am the son of my mother, Lady Scarlet.”

At that name, Dale gasped.

“Besides Ray Yuris, were there any other children of the Yuris siblings?”

“Ah, the Marquis of Yuris, the Crimson Count, is not my father. My mother conceived me alone.”

Only then did Dale understand.

Long ago, during the era of the Fourth Empire, the cult had conducted experiments to summon a ‘demon’ to this land. And among them, there was one demon who alone succeeded, who survived until the very end—the last demon, whose existence even Dale had forgotten.

The demon of evolution, the ultimate lifeform.

“When my mother gave birth to me, I appeared as a warrior.”

“……So that was the true form I fought against.”

“But before you, I was ultimately defeated. Yet the ultimate being is never defined by the strength of an individual.”

There was a knight clad in crimson-and-white armor.

“The value of a life’s existence lies in perpetuating its genetic material. As the ultimate being, it is to preserve and sustain the ‘information’ that must never be severed within history.”

And the knight shed his armor. Beneath it was a face that looked incredibly familiar.

Mikhail Lancaster, Apostle of Fire and Light.

“I need not become king, nor rule the world. Merely to exist without annihilation—that is my sole reason for being.”

“Then why did you reveal yourself before me?”

Dale asked back, unable to comprehend.

“Do you not understand that this is an act of courting death?”

“But I have a mission to fulfill, separate from the functions of life itself.”

The demon of evolution, the son of Lady Scarlet, and simultaneously the being bearing Michael Lancaster’s skin drew his sword.

“Revenge for my mother.”

It was a reason utterly unbecoming of a demon, truly human to the core.