The Emperor Has Returned

“Keuk…!”

The light that burst out from the Flame Crown enlightened the entirety of the dungeon. The light was so strong that it penetrated everyone’s eyelids even if they closed them tight.

Juan broke out into a scream due to the pain of his head boiling due to the burning heat. Regardless, the Flame Crown continued to burn with tremendous energy and came out of the middle of Juan’s forehead. Juan couldn’t maintain a stable mental state due to the pain, but he could still feel that a huge and powerful force was being released from his forehead. The force was so powerful that it almost distorted the surrounding space.

Juan couldn’t help but be confused. This power was definitely much greater than what he was capable of in his current body. In fact, it felt on par with the power Juan used to have during his time as the emperor. Juan had no idea that he had such power within him.

Meanwhile, Celine added a few more strange words to the song as those connected to Celine were shouting. The flames which had colored everything white began to settle down soon after, despite the blazing power of the flame still remaining. As the light faded, the appearance of the crown became clearer in Celine’s eyes.

“The crown!” Celine shouted in joy.

The crown that had appeared seemed more like a tall burning flame rather than an ordinary crown. Although Juan couldn’t see the crown properly as it was still in the process of coming out of his forehead, it was an unfamiliar item to him. Juan had cut down numerous gods with legendary equipment. He was the one who had created legends and myths with his own hands, but this item was still unfamiliar to him. Juan couldn’t believe something like this had come out of his own body.

‘Revival.’

Juan intuitively realized that his revival was related to the strange power of this crown. Juan further theorized that perhaps even the birth of an ‘emperor’ was related to this crown as well.

“My king, I shall use my own hands to retrieve your crown on behalf of the Thornbush Priest Organization!” Celine shouted as she reached out to grab the flame crown.

Juan tried to stop her, but it was hard for him to even move his fingers due to the intense pain. Juan was used to many different kinds of pain because of his experiences, but the pain caused by this heat was something utterly unfamiliar to him. Not only was he suffering from pain, but the mana inside his body didn’t move at all, almost as if it was all suppressed.

“I will place the mighty crown back where it belongs!” Celine shouted once again.

Upon seeing Celine’s hand tremble as she tried to grab the crown but was unable to do so, a question came into Juan’s mind for a short moment.

‘What’s stopping her?’

Celine could grab the crown with her hands at any moment now. But for some reason, she was hesitating and didn’t easily touch the crown, as if she was afraid. And that wasn’t just an assumption—she actually was afraid of the crown.

Celine’s agitation also affected the tentacles and the Order of Lindwurm and Juan could sense the agitation in the air.

“My king!”

Celine’s fingertips that had been trembling barely managed to touch a corner of the Flame Crown.

At that moment, a tremendous heat erupted from the crown and vaporized Celine’s entire upper body in just the blink of an eye. The heat was so powerful that it burned Celine without even leaving behind a single bone fragment.

The consequence of touching the Flame Crown didn’t just end with losing her upper body. The top part of the tentacle monster was completely pierced, scattering minced meat to the ground.

“Why?! My king, why?! I have served you with all my will!”

Celine was still alive due to her connection to the knights of the Order of Lindwurm and the fact that every single tentacle was an extension of herself.

The knights of the Order of Lindwurm then kneeled down and reached for the crown with a thirsty look on their faces, but none of them dared to touch it directly.

It was only then that Juan realized—while he didn’t know the reason behind it—that Celine couldn’t touch this power called the crown. She was only able to draw it out from within Juan despite her desperate longing for it.

“Ugh, keuk…”

Juan gritted his teeth, but not due to the pain this time. As the crown continued to come out of his body, his consciousness became more and more distant. The power of the crown was stirring up Juan’s body and numbing his brain. Juan couldn’t even imagine what would happen if he lost consciousness in his current state.

“Give up the crown, you usurper!” Celine howled with frustration as she desperately tried to grab onto the crown, but couldn’t do anything about it other than circle around it.

Juan was slowly losing consciousness. The more the crown was pulled out of his body, the more Juan felt like a tremendous power was taking over his body. It was hard for Juan to even gauge the end of this force.

At the same time, Juan felt his vision growing more distant whilst flames erupted out from his eyes and mouth. Even now, barely half the crown had exited the middle of his forehead. As Juan moved his body, the force of the crown scattered unstably and flowed out of his entire body.

Celine grew even angrier upon seeing the white flames burst out of Juan’s skin.

“That crown is not something that should be in your possession! There is certainly an owner who deserves it more…”

Celine couldn’t finish her sentence when she saw Juan slowly raising himself up. Upon seeing his body covered in white flames, Celine’s body trembled as if she had realized something.

“Is that you, my king? Have you returned?” Celine carefully asked.

Juan’s burning body remained motionless with his hands and feet drooping down. The Flame Crown which was obliquely sticking out of his head was certainly incomplete, but somehow added a sense of fear. Celine was unable to do anything and only suffered from the opposing feelings of fear and desperation.

At that moment, Juan’s neck creaked and his head turned toward Celine. Celine felt as if her heart had stopped beating, even though she didn’t have a heart, while at the same time the knights of the Order of Lindwurm raised their weapons due to the fear that Celine instinctively felt.

Juan’s body moved even before the knights from the Order of Lindwurm could fully raise their weapons. With his bare hands, Juan easily burned them down in an instant. The knights were immediately turned into ashes as soon as Juan’s hand brushed past them.

Juan didn’t hesitate and ran wildly toward Celine.

Upon seeing him charging furiously at her, all Celine could do was cover her entire body with as many tentacles as possible and hide deep within them.

However, such weak attempts at defense were futile in front of Juan—Juan burned the tentacles and ripped them apart. Celine’s tentacles were helplessly dismembered and burnt.

There was nowhere Celine could escape to in the vanishing flesh of the tentacles. It was as if her entire body was being shredded. Celine screamed, and the scream of such a giant tentacle monster reverberated through the dungeon and made the entire dungeon tremble.

“But why?! Why?! My king, all I was trying to do was put the star and your position back to where it belongs!”

Celine’s cry certainly wasn’t directed at Juan, and it was unclear as to who the words were meant for—however, none of that mattered now. Celine no longer had anywhere else to escape. Juan, who was engulfed with madness, finally reached her, and Celine’s eyes flashed with bright light.

“My king…”

Celine muttered without even realizing.

“The king of kings, the mighty Qzatquizail… but why…”

Those were the final words left by Celine.

No more words were heard within the dungeon.

***

Juan was watching his own body’s actions as if he was dreaming. His body was completely out of control, and its speed and power were difficult for him to understand. Although what the body did was what Juan had also been desperately trying to do, it was useless since it couldn’t be controlled.

Theft is never good, try looking at bit.ly/3iBfjkV.

‘Juan’ was in a reckless frenzy—there was no other way to describe his current state. Even after killing Celine, Juan found the knights from the Order of Lindwurm one by one to trample them, smash them, and even went after and tore apart the prominent mercenaries with his teeth to chew and swallow them.

By all accounts, those were the actions of animals rather than humans.

However, Juan somehow felt relieved. Juan thought that maybe he had always wanted to act wildly in such a primitive manner.

The larger the flame crown over his head got and the clearer its appearance became, the more distant Juan felt from his own body. There were a few questions that popped up in Juan’s head before he completely lost his consciousness: the reason why Celine called him by the name of Qzatquizail, and what this unknown power was.

But it didn't matter now. Juan knew that he would continue to run around wildly like a beast. Juan was certain that no one in the empire, not even Barth Baltic, could stop him in his current state. Juan would continue killing, burning, and eating everything to turn the empire into hell as a beast of calamity.

Juan knew that he would soon recreate the myths that the empire had once eliminated. Juan thought that such a cycle might even be the natural path that had been prepared for Juan all along, and maybe even the purpose of his revival lay there as well.

‘No, but was the existence of the emperor even necessary in the first place? If the empire were to be destroyed and collapse like this, then wouldn’t that mean my existence was worthless from the beginning?’

The more suspicious Juan became of his existence, the closer he came to losing his consciousness.

Then, Juan saw Swallan at the end of his sight. Swallan had an arrow nocked on her bow, but she couldn’t even aim at Juan and was looking at him with an expression as if she didn’t know what to do. Juan didn’t hesitate to rush toward her.

At that moment, something that came from the door leading to the deeper area appeared between Juan and Swallan. That something suddenly jumped in between the two swung its sword exactly at Juan.

It was a man wearing a black robe with bandages all over his body—it was the stranger Juan had encountered back in Hiveden.

Crack!

The sword swung by the stranger accurately struck the flame crown that was coming out of Juan’s forehead. The flame crown wasn’t substantial physically, but Juan’s neck bent backward at the moment when the crown was struck by the sword. Juan’s body spun in the air and miserably rolled onto the stone pavement.

Juan wasn’t the only one who suffered due to this attack. The stranger’s arm was bent at a bizarre angle as he partially absorbed the shock from the sword striking the flame crown. The bandages that were wrapped around the sword instantly burned as if it had exploded.

The stranger wrapped his broken arm with his hand and approached Juan who was groaning and attempting to move his body.

With the sounds of the approaching footsteps, a black blade came before Juan’s eyes—the same blade which killed him during his time as the emperor. Upon seeing the blade that had killed him in his past life, Juan somehow felt relieved—he thought he might be more comfortable if he died.

But the blade didn’t move as Juan had expected. The black blade gently tapped the flame crown that came out of the middle of Juan’s forehead and slowly pushed it back inside Juan.

Juan’s head began to fill up with warm light and flame.

***

Swallan blankly stared at the black-robed stranger who suddenly appeared out of nowhere. She had been helplessly watching Juan's mass slaughter before the stranger appeared, and would certainly have been killed if he hadn’t shown up.

However, Swallan couldn’t be relieved by the stranger’s appearance, despite the fact that he had unintentionally saved her life. The stranger had appeared from the door leading to the deeper area, which meant he was a being that belonged to the Crack.

Swallan was wary and kept her eye on the stranger for a long time, but the stranger didn’t really seem to care about her. Swallan figured that it was only a simple coincidence that he had saved her from being killed by Juan.

The stranger touched Juan’s body as if he was examining his condition. Swallan felt anxious upon seeing the stranger’s actions, but he didn’t seem to be doing any harm to Juan. Rather, she even felt that he was pitying Juan while examining his condition.

The stranger quickly raised himself up from the ground after checking Juan, and Swallan was startled upon seeing the stranger turning around to look at her. The stranger didn’t say a single word to Swallan and only hid the black blade back into his robe. Then, he pulled down the bandages that were covering his body all the way up to his chin using his intact left arm and spoke. “Please look after him.”

Swallan flinched the moment she heard the stranger’s voice.

Regardless of Swallan’s reaction, the stranger turned around and headed to the door leading to the deeper area as if he had no intention of conversing with her more.

Not long after the stranger entered the door, the door leading to the deeper area moved on its own and was completely closed. This area of the dungeon which had been a chaotic mess until just a moment ago was soon enveloped in silence.

“Hah…” Swallan sighed.

Despite being extremely confused about everything that had happened, Swallan approached Juan.

‘He’s the emperor?’