675. [STAGE 40] The Forgotten Season
“To put it simply, I put an agent on top of it like wrapping paper instead of my soul that had already tasted it…”
Ash explained his situation as he smoked a chain-smoker.
“That agent is the Ash you all knew.”
“…”
“But the spirit core was pierced by that bastard, the Night Bringer, and the soul was shattered, and the outer wrapping paper… even the proxy was torn.”
Ash swung the hand holding the cigarette wide. Cloudy smoke as thick as people’s hearts spread round the surroundings.
“My soul is in a state of powder anyway, so if I put it back together like this, how can I survive right now…
” Even the spiritual core was meticulously tuned.
A normal being would die from the shock applied to the spiritual body the moment the spiritual core was split, but Ash’s soul itself was weathered by enormous fatigue.
Even if the spirit core was shocked, it would only disperse as if it had already been broken, but the existence did not reach extinction. It was an unexpected advantage brought by the endless return.
“But even if the souls on the inside are put together like a puzzle, what about the torn outer wrapping paper? There is no way back.”
Ash clicked his tongue and put the cigarette in his mouth again.
The unknown who was listening stuttered.
“Then the Ash we knew… is dead?”
“For now, it is. At least for me, I don’t know how to restore an agent who’s already been torn to shreds.”
“….”
“But… I literally don’t know. You may have prepared another way. It has to be.”
Ash moaned, dragging the cigarette he had smoked to the end and rubbing it on the floor.
“Above all, if he doesn’t come back, I’m in trouble. If this continues, I will soon break.”
“It’s broken…?”
“I told you. My soul is in a state of dust. It can hold its shape for now, but it will collapse soon.”
Ash looked around at the people around him with tired eyes dripping from his eyes.
“I can recognize all of you now, but after a day you won’t be able to tell who is who. You’ll forget how to fight, how to capture, how to blink your eyelids, how to breathe, and so on.”
“….”
“Oh anyway, Ader, where did this bastard go? I won’t help you at times like this…”
Crown asked Ash, who was talking a lot.
“What about other agents?”
“huh?”
“In the meantime, you have been putting a lot of proxy figures on your body. What if you rewrite one of them?”
Ash laughed. After all, it was a question worthy of one of the few people who knew that this world repeats itself.
“Good idea, but… no. In the first place, there is no ‘meaning’ if it’s not him.”
“…meaning?”
“This is the last chance to challenge this world. So I decided after a meeting with the director.”
Most of the people gathered here couldn’t understand Ash’s words.
Everyone noticed that the next sentence was embarrassing.
“The one with the most ‘good wishes’ among the remaining candidates will be the last player… to put it over my soul.”
Crown stuttered.
“A good… wish? Is that your selection criteria as a player?”
“okay.”
Ash put his next cigarette in his mouth as if he wasn’t getting tired of it. But it didn’t light the fire.
“During countless cycles, those fighting destruction, including me, pursued ‘efficiency’. I changed lives, chose people to die, and chose a world to cut off.”
“…”
“But it still failed. No matter how hard he struggled, the world was eventually destroyed. That’s why I came to raise the belated question only at the end.”
A bitter smile crossed Ash’s lips.
“Maybe we’ve come the other way? Maybe what we need to clear all of this… isn’t it some ‘inefficiency’ we haven’t even looked at?”
“…”
“So that’s him. The most insignificant, simple, for someone completely different from himself… That guy with such an ineffective wish. I put forward as the final challenger to save this world.”
Ash slowly raised his head and surveyed the distant ground above his head – beyond the darkness.
“And now the result. This is the world built by his insignificant and crooked good will.”
“…”
“Looking at it, it seems that the monster is not able to defeat the black dragon, let alone the final offensive, but we entrusted the world to its goodness anyway. Then the end of the world must also be met through his hands.”
Ash lit a cigarette belatedly and let out the smoke.
“So it would be difficult if he died like this… There is no answer to this. How did they collect all the wrapping paper that had already been torn and blown away by the wind? Does wrapping paper have one function?”
“…”
“Maybe this is the end of that stupid goodness. haha.”
It was then.
“It’s a story I can’t understand, Prince Ash.”
King Poseidon came staggering.
His whole body was covered in burns, and he looked decades old, as if he had used up all his life’s energy from a recent operation. King Poseidon vomited in a desperate tone.
“Now that you’re a dragon, how is it? Can you beat the Night Bringer?”
“Um…”
Ash opened his right hand and raised it in black flame from the little finger to the thumb in turn.
It was amazingly natural control.
“There have been several times in the past that Fernandez’s bastard transformed me into a dragon. Thanks to that, I can use my strength quite skillfully, but…”
Right after that, Ash laughed.
“Do you think it will be a bit difficult?”
“what…?”
“In the episode where I beat the Night Bringer, at least one of Larc or Fernandez was by my side.”
Ash calmly called the names of his two older brothers who had already died.
“If you have both, it’s almost certain, and if you have only one of them, it’s a bit difficult, but there is a possibility. But now both are gone.”
“…”
“Lark and Fernandez are dead, and even my father has lost his power as a transcendental being… This is difficult.”
Ash, who sneaked a peek into the memories of this episode and grasped the current situation, giggled.
King Poseidon looked blankly at Ash with a pale face.
“Well, don’t despair so much. In the first place, if you cooperate with the guardians of the empire, even if the black dragon wins, in the end… it would perish during the monster’s last great offensive.”
Even in the most ideal rounds.
Even if all four guardians of the Empire fought together, developed their talents to the limit, and concentrated the will of all mankind with the highest efficiency along the extremely polished and optimized route – they were defeated
.
So I started looking for another way.
Being with the 4 guardians of the empire was the most ‘efficient’ way, but in order to find other possibilities, I dared to come down a rough road, and at the end of the road, I was driven into danger.
‘But I’ve started.’
Ash continued to look at his memories and looked at the paving stone that ‘that guy’ had placed in this episode. As if looking at a chess match that has stopped in full swing.
It’s hard to fully guess the intention… ‘That guy’ continued to spread several numbers.
And in order to continue the numbers, he threw himself as the King in front of the enemy to save the Pawn, the Knight, the Bishop, the Rook, and the Queen
.
“…”
This was the herpes of those who were still determined to fight.
Except the King is shattered.
‘If it was chess, it would have ended here…’
This world is not a game.
Maybe ‘that guy’ is the moment when the information about the game he has lost its meaning. The moment I realized that I couldn’t win by looking at this world as if I was playing a game.
He himself may have broken the rules. The most basic rule of the game that there must be a king….
but for what?
‘I hope this number is not just a last-ditch effort, friend. And I hope you have it ready.’
Ash closed his eyes and opened them slowly.
‘A way to break the rule that once you fall outside the chessboard, you can’t come back.’
Ash shouted vigorously, flicking the extinguished cigarette with his fingertips and throwing it away.
“good. The Night Bringer will try to stop me. Anyway, I’ll be able to run amok for the next day or so.”
Ash raised the corners of his mouth and smiled dangerously.
phone? Night? bishop? look? queen? king?
Something to know, he is now a dragon.
And the dragon wins chess.
“Anyway, as long as the son of the black dragon didn’t cross halfway to the crossroads, there is hope. The more he advances, the more he assimilates into the night of the world and becomes stronger.”
“….”
“So where is the black dragon now? How many hours has passed since he started his invasion?”
Ash’s mouth, which had been talking energetically, slowly hardened.
It was because he noticed belatedly that the complexion of the people who saw him was dark and hardened.
Ash moistened his dry lips with the tip of his tongue, biting his lower lip and laughing. But those precarious golden eyes weren’t smiling at all.
“…Couldn’t it have already passed the halfway point?”
***
36 hours after the landing of the Black Dragon.
In the forest, well over half the distance from the Black Lake to the Crossroads.
oh oh oh…!
The Night Bringer, preparing for the fourth breath, had grown even larger.
In the endless night, his power also increased endlessly. The output of the rushing breath also increased even more.
“He prepares his breath…!”
“Notify Crossroads!”
A soldier from the observation team hurriedly passed through the teleport gate with an observation report that the black dragon was preparing a breath.
“Heh heh heh heh! That urgent message!”
The soldier who was fully exposed to the Black Dragon’s morale shuddered as if in convulsions and cried out with tears pouring out.
“Urgent news-! The Black Dragon is preparing its fourth breath-!”
News quickly spread throughout the city.
The kings hurriedly evacuated to the air-raid shelters prepared underground, and all the defense measures prepared so far were urgently deployed.
“…”
Leaving the noisy city behind.
Dusk Bringer stood alone on top of the castle wall.
A cold wind blew through the pouring snow and tousled her long black hair.
‘…original is it still supposed to be autumn?’
The world was cold, covered by an unexpected winter.
All the sky was dark, but it was even darker in the south .
To Dusk Bringer, the whole dark sky looked like an enemy.
“Haah ….”
After a long breath, the breath was frozen white. Dusk Bringer suddenly felt cold in the increasingly frozen world.
she still believed
because i promised
that Ash will return.
I hope I can see that warm smile again.
If you smile once, this winter night will brighten up at once.
So…
“I have to protect it.”
A home for the child to return to.
That child’s city…
“I have to protect it.”
So hold on.
Let’s bury ourselves in this blizzard for a while until the child returns.
Dusk Bringer’s reddish amber eyes looked straight ahead.
In an instant, there was a flash of lightning in the dark southern sky.
And the next moment-
Quaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
The breath came in.
During the past 12 hours installed in the field south of the Cross Road, all the defenses prepared by mankind have been activated, but they have all been destroyed.
Artifacts were shattered, magic circles were extinguished, and all the barriers built in a row were penetrated.
It seemed that nothing in the world could stop the evil dragon’s breath that honestly pushed straight ahead.
And-
“Whoa…”
Dusk Bringer gathered his breath.
Close your eyes, gather all your strength into your small body, and
flash!
Dusk Bringer opened his eyes with a dazzling flash, and his appearance had changed before he knew it.
Long horns sprouted from its head, and wings and a tail grew from its back. Red scales sprouted all over the body.
Dragon Blood Runaway –
Dusk Bringer, who set fire to his own blood, roared as it was and vomited his breath at Night Bringer’s breath.
Zeng-!
Black and red flames collided in the air above the southern field.
In an instant, all the snow that had been pouring from the sky evaporated and disappeared.
Tuhak…!
Terrible light and heat poured out from the point of impact, devastating everything around it.
The snow-covered southern field of the Crossroads burned black at once, and the red-hot iron plate melted and the stone walls crumbled one after another in the southern castle wall that was swept away by the range.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
Dusk Bringer let out a desperate scream and continued to fight back.
However, the point of collision between the two breaths was gradually being pushed back.
Toward the crossroads. Slowly and surely.
