Chapter 290

Side Story 23

“Revenge for my mother.”

The demon wearing Mikhail’s mask spoke, and Dale quietly smiled bitterly.

“You have every right to do so.”

Just as Dale had once been, it was only natural that karma would return. Just as the world never changed, the chain of vengeance would never break, merely continuing to link tail to tail.

Michael Lancaster, clad in crimson and white armor, rose from the throne. Watching him, Dale asked again.

“Why are you wearing Michael Lancaster’s skin?”

“I have witnessed countless histories, from before you brought down the Third Reich to the present day.”

“……”

“Just as my brother remembers history through the Book of Blood, I record my own history based on the information etched into the genes of living beings.”

Mikhail Lancaster spoke.

The disappearance of the Fourth Empire and Dale did not mean everyone from that era vanished. And after immeasurable ages had passed, arriving at this very place, the ghosts of the past once again revealed themselves before Dale.

“Humans are beings incapable of learning anything from history.”

“Ah, unfortunately, I am not human.”

Mikhail Lancaster, and the Devil of Evolution laughed.

“Human history is the history of possibility. The possibility of making their seeds bloom upon barren land, the possibility of fighting back without surrender before the coming apocalypse—the struggle for life itself is the beauty of life and humanity. Just as you did upon this earth, O King of Men and King of Monsters.”

“……”

“And I chronicled the history of life all the way to the Ninth Empire, awaiting the day of vengeance that would come. Holding my breath in silence, waiting for the moment, I desperately sought the answer to become the ‘ultimate lifeform’ capable of reaching you.”

Mikhail Lancaster said.

“You asked why I appear as Mikhail.”

“Yes, you did.”

“The hero from another world was strong. Yet he could not surpass the original you.”

“……”

“That is why I turned my gaze toward human history. The history of possibilities—Michael Lancaster is the answer.”

I remember the power he displayed before Dale as the ‘Apostle of Fire and Light’. As he said, Michael Lancaster was a formidable foe who grew more threatening than anything else to Dale in those days.

“Mikhail Lancaster held potential. Throughout the history of life, he alone possessed the potential to stand against you—the one who has transformed from the Shadow Lord into the Black Gold Lord.”

That is why I uprooted him early. Yet the root that should have been uprooted had been resurrected here once more.

Fortunately, my brother had recorded his existence within the annals of blood. Thus, I could recall and reconstruct Mikhail’s life data, enabling me to mimic Mikhail Lancaster.

“You speak of Ray Yuris’s ‘Book of Blood’.”

“Ray Yuris, and Mikhail Lancaster. Even you, the world’s greatest, feared they would grow into the worst threats in the future, and they truly had that potential. That’s why you didn’t hesitate to take them down.”

“That was when I was still inexperienced.”

The history of blood and life.

We were all equally inexperienced. And regrettably, my name is no longer Michael Lancaster.

The demon wrapped in crimson and white armor spoke.

“Then what is it?”

“Mikhail Yuris. That is my name.”

“So you and Ray Yuris are on good terms now?”

“I have borne the name of Mikhail, and since the day your existence vanished into history, I have honed this sword. Pursuing the limits of the potential dwelling within this child, I have trained relentlessly across immeasurable eons. While you and your empire lay frozen in the ice of absolute zero, severed from the world.”

‘Mikhail Yuris’ spoke. At his words, Dale coldly retorted.

“…So from the very beginning, the Ninth Empire and the Revolutionary Army were nothing but puppets for your own show?”

“From the very beginning, we brothers have been waiting for you to awaken. And we waited not for one who fled the world, but for you to recognize yourself as the Black Gold’s sovereign, as you once did.”

“So that’s why I faced Rize and helped revive the old empire?”

“From the very beginning, the one I had to defeat was the ‘Black Prince’ and the Shadow Lord, and ultimately, the Lord of Black Gold. Not a coward who turned his back on the world and fled.”

“……”

“And the one before me is undoubtedly the ‘Black Prince’ and Saxon’s Dale. I have waited for this moment at last.”

“……Your speech is rather long-winded.”

After hearing those words, Dale waved his hand dismissively as if losing interest.

“Nothing will change. How could the ghosts of my past possibly affect who I am now?”

As if returning all meaning in the world to nothingness, the god of meaninglessness spoke.

“As I said, humans are creatures of possibility.”

At that very moment, crimson and white aura began swirling violently at Mikhail Yuris’s feet.

“In an age where magic is dying, you could still wield an aura avatar?”

“Did you say magic is dying out?”

Mikhail Yuris responded with a cold sneer.

“Regrettably, the magic of this world is not dying.”

The mana in the air grows faint, the Magic Tower loses its color, and the knights’ auras no longer shine as brilliantly as they once did. This was an age where magic was dying, and that’s what I thought.

“……!”

As an Apostle of Fire and Light, an absurdly bright light exploded, as if confronting the sun’s corona.

“Surely not…”

Like the sun illuminating this world, flames of destruction rivaling the sun’s heat began to envelop Mikhail Yuris’s body.

An aura of such absurd intensity that even in Dale’s world, it was beyond easy imagination.

“Day after day, without fail, I greedily devoured the mana of this world, repeatedly accumulating it as aura within my own body. Just as my brother did. Even as countless empires rose and fell over immeasurable ages.”

“…….”

“While my brother, Ray Yuris, consumed the colors and magic power of every remaining magic tower in this world, I consumed the swords and aura of every knight left in the world.”

The endless hunger and longing possessed by the vampire clan, the Yuris family, manifested there in the form of a ‘sword’.

And likely, Ray Yuris too, had satisfied that hunger and longing in the form of ‘magic’.

The vision he had shown before Dale, that ominous foreboding, had proven accurate.

“Meanwhile, the people of the world began to mistakenly believe that magic was dying out on its own.”

Ironically, the one who claimed to be of the vampire clan was clad in the armor of the dawn that illuminated the twilight.

The demon of evolution.

Throughout the history of life, the ultimate being capable of defeating the Black Gold Monarch was sought, and finally, its form revealed itself.

Possessing the potential to defeat the ‘Black Prince’, it inhabited Michael’s body, pursuing the ultimate potential he must reach.

Therefore, just as the ‘Black Prince’ of Dale’s inexperienced days is no longer the same, so too is Michael.

Mikhail Yuris, Lord of Fire and Light.

Against him, the Lord of Black Gold, the Lord of Gold and Shadow, Dale, stretched out his arm.

Nothing had changed.

Black tentacles writhed beneath his feet, unfurling a lake of shadows. Darkness descended upon the world.

Yet within that darkness, the Knight of Dawn shone brilliantly. Glowing like blood, occasionally blazing pure white, scattering the light of dawn.

Jet-black tentacles surged forward, and the aura of dawn enveloping Mikhail Yuris swallowed the darkness.

“Huh.”

At that sight, Dale finally smiled with interest.

In this world, for the first time, there was a worthy opponent who could match him. That fact began to ignite an inexplicable flame within Dale’s heart.

“Without even a promise, I’ve waited for this day to fight you.”

“Then I suppose I should oblige your entertainment.”

Dale replied coldly.

Simultaneously, the skeletal forms of knights, composed entirely of darkness, rose from the lake of shadows.

Abyss Knights.

Knights formed of the darkness of the Abyss surged forward in unison, and Dale stretched out his arm. A bitter cold swept from his fingertips, scattering bullets of ice.

He couldn’t even remember when he last projected a modifier onto his magic before scattering it. Yet, before Mikhail Yuris, Dale willingly clung to his old fighting style.

Was it the proper courtesy due an old rival? Or merely a fleeting diversion? Dale himself couldn’t tell.

An ice bolt imbued with the chill of the apocalypse was fired, and the Sword of Dawn held in Mikhail’s hand parried it.

It was not the ancient warrior’s beloved blade, the Peacemaker.

“Have you acquired a new sword?”

“Indeed, many trials were endured to forge this blade.”

Mikhail then adjusted his grip on the sword hilt, displaying the gleaming edge along the blade. And one could tell the magic imbued within that sword was far from ordinary.

“What is this sword’s name?”

“Lucifer.”

The specter of the past—the era of Surado, when Dale had once faced and overcome countless formidable foes beyond measure. A mighty warrior from that very time now stood before him once more.

Simultaneously, Mikhail Yuris stomped the ground. The Dawn Sword ‘Morning Star’ in his hand swung out, and against it, Dale scattered primordial darkness to manifest the ‘Jet-Black Sword’.

“Does that sword have a name too?”

“Despair.”

Dale answered. Before the Morning Star of Hope, he spoke flatly, as if denying its light.

I too know much about potential. The darkness given to me by the ancient Mother of Darkness is proof of that.

In the beginning, there was darkness. Not light. There was darkness that could become anything, and it was by shaping that very darkness that the world was born.

Therefore, darkness is the very first possibility.

To call humans creatures of possibility is ultimately no different than saying they are creatures of darkness.

There was a demon of hope, wielding the Sword of the Morning Star, pursuing the sole possibility against an opponent utterly beyond defeat.

And the king of men gripped the jet-black sword once more to confront that demon. The apostle of despair, shrouded in primordial darkness that could become anything, denying all meaning and possibility.

The Morning Star of Hope and the Sword of Despair clashed.