The Emperor Has Returned

Juan spun the short sword in his hand, then clashed with the knights of the Order of Lindwurm again as if he refused to give Celine the time to come up with an alternative plan.

Another knight was slashed in an instant in the wake of Juan’s short sword. No hesitation could be seen from Juan when he moved his hand to swing his short sword.

Inadvertently, Celine realized the fact that Juan was closely looking at the faces of the knights of the Order of Lindwurm while attacking them. For a moment, it occurred to Celine that Juan might have a personal history with the knights. Celine wondered how such a young man even knew the knights of the Order of Lindwurm that had been active many years ago, but soon considered that he might not be human—it was indeed a possibility.

‘Then I know exactly what to do.’

Celine touched the ground with her hand.

Meanwhile, Juan was stabbing the throat of the knight in front of him and twisting his short sword. The burning heat from the red-hot short sword scorched the wound to paralyze the knight. Being unable to move his limbs, the knight’s body squeaked and toppled to the ground. It was a much easier way to kill the knights rather than simply cutting them.

Juan breathed out a long sigh. He was fortunate that Celine didn’t know how to properly move and command the Order of Lindwurm. If Gerard Gain was the one leading them, it would have been difficult for Juan to deal with them in his current condition. Furthermore, looking closely at his opponents’ faces before cutting them was making the movement of his short sword slow down.

Juan remembered the face of every single knight from the Order of Lindwurm. The knight he had just cut was called Conrad. Even though Juan knew that it couldn’t be, he was constantly searching for someone.

‘What if Gerard is in here.’

As the Order of Lindwurm was Gerard Gain’s knight order, it wouldn’t be so strange if he was in the dungeon along with the other knights of the Order of Lindwurm. Juan didn’t want to look for Gerard Gain among the beheaded heads of the knights—he wanted to at least look Gerard in his eyes and listen to his excuses before he decided what to do with Gerard.

Juan could feel someone approaching him from behind. When he was just about to swing his short sword to cut a wound on the back of the opponent’s neck, Juan froze in his tracks.

The knight who approached Juan from behind opened his mouth and whispered.

“Father.”

The one behind Juan was Gerard Gain. Gerard still had his bright and radiant blond hair along with a face that looked quite similar to Juan.

All of Juan’s children were adopted, since Juan didn’t want to have a biological child. Although they weren’t blood-related, all of Juan’s adopted children had tight bonds and were as close as blood relatives.

However, Gerard Gain had been different—everyone had been suspicious that he might actually be the biological child of Juan and there had been constant rumors surrounding him. Gerard Gain was publicly known to be an adopted child as well, but he looked unnaturally similar to Juan—the only difference was that he had blonde hair instead of black. It was hard for people to believe that he wasn’t Juan’s biological child. Everyone was convinced that he was Juan’s biological child, but no one had the guts to ask Juan about it upfront.

Unlike ‘that night,’ Gerard Gain didn’t appear to be frightened or in pain. He looked just like he used to look during his brightest and bravest of times that Juan remembered.

“Father,” Gerard whispered once again.

Juan stared at him in silence.

“Why did you abandon them, father? Weren’t they also your people?”

This was the first time Gerard Gain had questioned him about his actions. Until today, Gerard had never questioned anything about Juan. When Gerad questioned him, Juan felt a tiny crack in the bond between him and Gerard—the bond he had believed to be unbreakable.

Gerard Gain drew out his sword and slowly approached Juan. As he got closer, Juan could see his eyes filled with sorrow and his face which was full of resentment toward Juan.

Juan reached his hand out toward Gerad’s face. Even in the moments just before Gerard’s sword pierced Juan’s stomach back then, Juan was stroking Gerard’s cheek.

“I just can’t forgive you,” Juan said.

Juan shoved his hand into Gerard’s mouth and grabbed Gerard’s lower jaw before twisting his arm. With a grotesque sound, Gerard’s head was smashed against the ground and scattered into pieces. Gerard’s face disappeared along with a horrible sound—the only thing left of him was some blood-soaked blonde hair.

Juan turned his head away without even sparing a glance at the body.

Celine looked at Juan with perplexed eyes while holding a mushroom that glowed in the dark.

“What… but how…?”

Celine had just tried to use some spores from the Crack on Juan. Small invisible spores from the Crack entered one’s head through their ears and nose, and then directly took root in their brain and planted hallucinations of the most painful moments of their lives. No matter how strong one’s mental strength was, they couldn’t withstand the hallucination which directly manipulated their nerves—that was the limit of a living being after all.

Juan approached Celine step by step in a calm manner.

Celine felt a burning heat as well as a sudden chill as if she had been trapped in the middle of the glacier. All the tentacles at the places that Juan stepped on were burned by the heat.

“You showed me something that you should never have,” Juan said.

Just one thought crossed Celine’s mind.

‘I screwed with the wrong person!’

Celine didn’t know what Juan saw or felt, but she could clearly see that she had touched a nerve of some sort—a nerve that had been buried deep in his mind.

“E-everyone, s-stop him! Now!”

Celine commanded the Order of Lindwurm, scattering her power through the tentacles at the same time. Although it was true that Juan was powerful, Celine still believed that he wouldn’t be strong enough to withstand the entire Order of Lindwurm.

The Order of Lindwurm was the strongest in the eastern territory, and they were the knights who fought alongside someone who killed Gods. Celine despised the Order of Lindwurm, but being able to control them after she became a priest of the Thornbush Priest Organization was the best gift she ever got.

However, her belief and faith were being shaken now.

Paradoxically, the moment Celine gave up on controlling the Order of Lindwurm for a short second, the knights of the Order of Lindwurm’s simultaneous attack on Juan shook the entire dungeon. The elaborate joint attack executed by the knights of the Order of Lindwurm was a powerful blow which Celine had never seen before. Celine had a premonition of victory.

The joint attack of the Order of Lindwurm was so powerful that even Swallan, who had been watching the whole scene, turned pale.

At that moment, a grotesque sound of something being broken was heard by everyone. Upon hearing the sound, Celine’s face stiffened.

The knights of the Order of Lindwurm slowly began to be pushed back little by little.

Crack! Crack!

The sound of the stone pavement breaking echoed throughout the dungeon. The knights from the Order of Lindwurm moved as if they were being dragged by someone’s hand. WIth a sharp sound, the knights’ weapons broke into pieces.

A man in ink-colored armor walked out amidst the rain of broken weapon pieces. A flame was burning from underneath the visor, but the ink colored armor didn’t reflect any light whatsoever and looked extremely bizarre. On top of that, the armor shook and dropped the pieces of the broken weapons embedded on its body to the ground, almost as if it was alive.

The texture of the armor looked extremely familiar to Celine—it was the cloak that Juan had been wearing and was transformed into the shape of an armor. Celine felt overwhelmed with fear just by looking at Juan silently approaching her with the dark armor on.

‘I’m feeling fear? Me, who serves the Crack and controls the emperor’s knights?’

The things she had witnessed inside the Crack was much more bizarre and overwhelming. Celine recalled feeling a frantic fear in a feast of incongruity and asymmetry. However, Juan’s appearance instilled a different kind of fear than the one she felt from the Crack—it was none other than awe.

“G-go away!”

Celine desperately mobilized the entire Order of Lindwurm and all the tentacles to cling to Juan. The weight of the armor worn by the knights of the Order of Lindwurm alone must be a few tons. Along with that, tentacles even thicker than Juan’s arms surrounded his body like the tree vines.

However, Juan’s speed didn’t slow down at all. The tentacles were torn off with a rustling sound, while the knights’ hands that grabbed at Juan’s armor were burnt red. The spikes on Juan’s boots stuck into the ground and slowly pushed his body forward.

Celine had a feeling that she needed to escape immediately. However, her feet refused to move—it was absolutely meaningless to find a place to escape when the sky was collapsing.

Juan slowly reached out his hand to grab Celine’s head. He heard Swallan shouting something at him, but Juan didn’t hesitate even for a second.

In a blink of an eye, Juan smashed Celine’s head like an egg.

***

Juan stared at Celine’s smashed head as well as the brain fluid flowing down his hand for a long time. Soon after, cursed out loud even without realizing it.

“Fuck!”

Juan thought that Celine’s death was too fast and easy.

‘I shouldn't have given the bitch who showed such a sight to me such an easy way out.’

Juan’s breath underneath the visor was getting hotter and hotter as his head was burning up. The moment he saw Gerard Gain’s face, Juan felt something snap within himself; however, it was unknown whether it was because he saw Gerard’s face, or because Celine dared to use Gerard’s face to try and deceive Juan.

Whatever the reason was, Juan couldn’t hold himself back from killing Celine as soon as he saw Gerard’s face.

Juan looked down at Celine’s body for a while, then turned around. Insulting a corpse was not Juan’s cup of tea—he preferred insulting one as much as possible while they were still alive.

The ink-colored armor surrounding his body slowly melted away and returned to its original form as a cloak.

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Before anyone knew it, Swallan approached him. She was looking at Juan with a surprised face.

“That was amazing, Mr. Ten thousand gold pieces… What the heck is that armor? I’ve never seen such a thing before.”

Juan hadn’t been hiding the existence of the armor in particular. He had attempted to mold his mana into the form of an armor in the past as a test, but he had to quit due to the heavy consumption of mana.

However, the situation he was in just now was one that he couldn’t withstand without using his mana. If he fully used his mana without sparing it, Juan was confident enough to say that no one was a match for him unless it was either a god or Barth Baltic. Of course, Juan had not met an enemy strong enough for him to use his mana without constraints ever since fighting against Nigrato.

After finishing his first experiment, Juan had wanted to give a name to the armor. He didn’t think that simply calling it ‘the essence of Nigrato’ was right, especially after Ras had created it at the cost of his life. There was one adequate name which Juan had thought of—Umbra. Juan decided to call his ink-colored armor Umbra.

After naming the armor in his head, Juan looked toward Celine in a disgusted manner. Swallan followed Juan’s gaze, and her expression soon turned complicated.

“Is she finally dead for good?” Swallan asked.

“I wish she could come back to life.”

Swallan looked at Juan as if his words were unexpected. But Juan didn’t have any good intentions with his words. In fact, it was the other way around.

“There’s still so much I wanted to ask her about…” Swallan muttered.

“I agree,” Juan nodded at Swallan’s words.

Juan vowed that no matter how angry he got in the future, he would never give his enemies an easy and comfortable death. Juan also had a lot of questions left for Celine: how Celine came to control the Order of Lindwurm, if she knew anything about Gerard Gain’s whereabouts, and what this space was made for.

But now, all these questions would remain a mystery.

Furthermore, there was one thing that bothered Juan the most. Juan looked around at the knights from the Order of Lindwurm standing blankly as well as the bodies that were scattered on the ground.

“What are you looking for?” Swallan asked.

“The knights of the Order of Lindwurm. The numbers don’t add up. If they were wiped out by internal conflict and their dead bodies were used by the Crack as a force, just like Lord Mark had said, then all of them should be here. But it looks like not even half of them are here.”

Juan had an unpleasant feeling.

At that moment, the knights from the Order of Lindwurm as well as the elves connected to the tentacles rattled and made a movement.

Swallan stared at the elves with a pale expression.

Everyone connected to the tentacles convulsed as if they were having a seizure, and they simultaneously looked toward Juan at one point.

All of them spoke in unison as if they had one mouth.

“The emperor.”