674. [STAGE 40] Blackening (3)
One day ago.
The Hero Expedition, defeated by the Night Bringer, retreats.
Right after the meeting between the Night Bringer and Ash, who had polymorphed into human form, was over.
Pooh…!
The Night Bringer’s holly sword pierced Ash’s chest for the second time.
If the first sword was simply stabbed to inflict physical pain, this second sword stabbed Ash’s spiritual core and shattered his soul.
“ah…!”
In despair, Ash trembled all over.
The Night Bringer reached out and gently grabbed Ash’s neck. The Night Bringer leisurely watched the moment when the small spark of life in his grasp went out.
It was then. A faint smile crossed the dying Ash’s lips.
[Hmm?]
Right after the Night Bringer was puzzled because he couldn’t understand the meaning of that smile
[…?!]
Suddenly, a murderous attack came from behind.
The Night Bringer glanced back. Then he saw arrows and magic rain pouring down on him.
The Night Bringer easily blocked all attacks by enclosing a magic shield. And I looked at the newly appeared forces.
chuck! chuck! chuck!
Those who appear in an orderly manner and aim their weapons at the Night Bringer are…
[Hooh, aren’t they the court clowns and their circus troupe?]
The Crown.
And the Eternals under his command – the Nightcrawler unit.
All wearing white smiling masks, they calmly surrounded the Night Bringer.
Standing with his back to the cliff, the Night Bringer laughed softly.
[Do you dare to rebel against me, a clown?]
“Treason sounds strange.”
Crown tilted her head.
“You were never my king.”
[The scepter of your kingdom is now in my hand.]
“So you came to take it away right now.”
Crown snorted, swung his flute and prepared his men for an attack.
“What is the meaning of our conversation… Prepare to die. Black Dragon.”
[I don’t understand, clown. You know very well that you cannot stand against me.]
“Then don’t you know that we are cursed with eternal life? If you have nothing to lose, you can swing your sword at least once to regain the throne.”
The Nightcrawler forces are ready to attack, and the Nightbringers are ready to fight back.
In any case, the Night Bringer was not the type to avoid life and death at stake, and was also the type to show minimal courtesy in the struggle against all who opposed her.
“Get rid of it!”
As the Crown commanded the flute to rise forward, the Night Crawler troops rushed forward with their white masks flashing at once.
The Night Bringer scattered darkness and crushed them one by one. Even as the Eternals were annihilated in an instant, they ran desperately to reach the Night Bringer.
Right at this time.
“….”
“..”
There were two old men climbing up from the side of the cliff.
It was a swordsman and a spearman.
The two old men, each holding a knife and a broken spear in their mouths, came up silently and charged at the Night Bringer.
“Ibo show dragon head! listen up! This bridge is-”
“This is the courtyard where we do business!”
He didn’t know that there would be a surprise attack from the side of the cliff, so the Night Bringer allowed the attack as it was.
The two monsters were mighty strongmen who could not be pushed back at all compared to other heroes on earth.
Once allowed to ambush and approach, the swords and spears of the two monsters tore the polymorphed human body of the Night Bringer to pieces.
Of course, the Night Bringer immediately regenerated this kind of wound – but
the arm was cut off in an instant, and the ash in the arm was thrown into the air.
[…!]
Immediately regenerating his arm, the Night Bringer reached out to grab Ash.
His hand grabbed the flag that was hanging from Ash’s flagpole and
groaned…!
The grip was so strong that the flag was ripped apart and ripped out of his hand.
Ash’s body, pushed into the air, fell down a thousand-way cliff and disappeared into the darkness.
[…]
Looking down at the cliff where Ash fell and disappeared, the Night Bringer laughed.
[You’re annoying, bugs that don’t die…]
“I’ll stop bothering you, so please kill me!”
“Even if you search for it anyway, you will be resurrected again!”
The Sword Ghost and the Spear Ghost, who had shouted and attacked, burst into pieces in the next instant, unable to avoid the barrage of magical power that poured out.
The remaining Nightcrawler troops were also annihilated in an instant, swept away by the darkness emitted by the Nightbringer.
“Anyway, what’s good about this decrepit country…”
Crown, who was still alive until the end, was also crushed to death.
“Everyone… is making a fuss to become a king…”
Kwadeuk-!
The crown shattered as it was hit by the darkness that the Night Bringer wielded.
The blood and corpses of the dead Sword Demons, Spears, and Night Crawlers all turned into black mist and disappeared.
Cursed with eternal life, the Eternals of this country always disappeared in this way.
Confirming that there were no more obstacles left, the Night Bringer looked down the far-off cliff again.
[…Hmm.]
It broke the soul anyway.
Ash was mortified. There was no way he could survive.
However, the Night Bringer was not a careless person.
[Still, in case you don’t know…]
Sting!
When the Night Bringer lightly snapped his fingers, two of the heads supporting him appeared in the air on his left and right
…
He opened his mouth and poured black salt on the cliff under the bridge.
Enormous black flames burned everything under the bridge. After pouring out black salt for a long time, the satisfied Nightbringer retracted the flames.
At this rate, the flames should have reached the bottom of the floor. The body would not have left ashes.
Turning around, the Night Bringer suddenly realized that Ash’s banner remained in his hand.
[It’s better to burn this on the ground.]
There’s no better declaration of war than burning the enemy’s captain’s equipment.
He grabbed the flag as it was and strode towards the front gate of the Lake Kingdom. Now it was time to invade the royal family.
A long time after the Night Bringer left.
At the bottom of the precipice that is still burning with black flames –
Kwadeuk!
A soot-covered hand rose.
“Heh heh heh heh…!”
The one who climbed up was… the mermaid king, King Poseidon.
He suffered terrible burns all over his body even though he raised all the powers of the tribal gods and opened a water shield.
However, Ashman in his arms was protected.
‘Prince Ash is…’
King Poseidon looked at Ash.
The soul was broken, but the body was still living in a state of suspended animation. Of course, this was just temporarily stopped by magic, and it wouldn’t last long.
‘I have to hurry.’
The X-Carnival, which fell off the cliff with Ash in the chaos, was also in his hands.
King Poseidon infused the demonic sword with the magic of a tribal god, causing the demonic sword to vomit the contents it swallowed just before. The contents, which could not be immediately digested even as an X-Carnival
,
formed on the blade and scattered on the floor.
Dragon blood.
It was blood drawn directly from the heart of the Night Bringer’s chest. Even though Night Bringer was polymorphed at the time of stabbing the sword, this blood was real.
“Huh! Huh!”
After extracting all the dragon blood from the Excarnival, he randomly inserted the demonic sword into the ground.
King Poseidon put his trident on the floor. Then, the dragon blood drawn directly from the chest of the Night Bringer changed into round water droplets and floated into the air.
King Poseidon put this dragon blood directly into Ash’s chest wound.
pounding!
Ash’s body, which had been stiff as if it had been stuffed with his eyes closed, trembled once.
“yet…!”
King Poseidon gritted his teeth and continued the next process. He slammed the trident into the floor again.
Subsequently, a huge amount of blood was scattered throughout the battlefield – the other blood of the Night Bringer, which the Hero Expedition had poured out, also coalesced into a huge droplet and floated into the air.
King Poseidon put Ash’s body into the dragon’s blood in the form of a giant water drop.
“…”
I’m done here.
But I couldn’t do the rest of the surgery here. If the black dragon returned or another monster came, even if it was just one chance, everything would be gone.
Time was running out, and in the end there was only one option.
King Poseidon stood on the edge of a cliff and looked down. He could see the darkness below still blazing with black flames.
“after.”
As always in life, it was do or die.
Taking a deep breath, he once again summoned a barrier made of water with the power of the tribal god and fell down with Ash.
***
Current.
under the cliff. bottom village.
In this place where no monsters know the existence, King Poseidon continued to perform Ash’s surgery.
The revived sword ghost and window ghost were busy extinguishing the black flame that had been attached to the entire village, and they were finally able to put out all the lights when they helped Crown, who joined them belatedly.
And they ended up waiting together for the surgery to be over.
“Anyway, we’re cooperating like this because there’s something promised by that prince.”
The Sword Demon looked at the crown and asked.
“Why are you helping?”
Before the Heroic Expedition is dispatched.
Ash came to the Lake Kingdom in advance with King Poseidon and asked them for help.
The bottom village is connected to the dry drainage in the District 1 dungeon, but the waterways are so complicated that I haven’t been able to find the way.
However, when a great flood approached, the canals were filled with water, and King Poseidon, who could read the flow of water, found a way.
Ash, who visited the bottom village again, did not pay the promised gold coin. Instead, he suggested something completely different.
Because they couldn’t refuse the offer, the sword demon, the spear, and the bottom village decided to cooperate with Ash again.
But what about the crown?
Why are you helping Ash?
Crown took the word curtly.
“…it’s none of your business. robbery.”
Chang-gwi became furious at the title robbery.
“No, but I’m a citizen of the country my father ruled over. Isn’t it too much to treat robbers, Prince? Well, I had to do a bit of robbery!”
“…”
“Of course, he was not a citizen, but a non-citizen who was under it. Still, since the world has come to this point, shouldn’t we be friends with each other, who have memories of when the kingdom was fine?”
The Sword Demon and the Spear Demon laughed and put Crown on their shoulders from both sides. Crown was disgusted and pushed them both away.
“…I also received a promise from Ash.”
However, he responded surprisingly calmly.
Crown himself was not quite sure why the answer came. Perhaps he was moved by the title he hadn’t heard in a long time.
The Sword Demon and the Spear Demon tilted their heads.
“promise?”
“okay.”
Crown raised a complicated gaze from behind the mask.
At the end of that line of sight was Ash, buried in the raging dragon blood.
“A promise to save my sister….”
“The prince’s sister? Then what about our princess?”
“okay.”
Crown laughed.
“I think I know. A way to save my sister.”
“…”
“I think it’s an obvious lie… but I thought that he wouldn’t know. Even now, when everything is the end… No, because it is the last time, there is nothing more to lose anyway.”
It doesn’t matter if it’s a vain hope.
Whether the world perishes to the black dragon or not.
Because it will all be over soon anyway.
Before that, I just hope that there is at least a little salvation for my little sister.
“So I decided to help. That’s all.”
“Hoooh…”
The sword ghost and the spear ghost spewed strange exclamations and turned their heads.
When Crown saw that way, someone staggered out of the shabby house of the Sword Demon and the Window Ghost.
“Ugh… where is this…?”
With gray hair that drags down to the floor, and an old iron sword behind her back… She
was an unknown merchant and dethroned princess of the Lake Kingdom.
“I must have been hit by the Night Bringer and fell off the cliff…”
“Hi, our princess woke up too!”
The sword ghost and the spear ghost smirked and ran to the unknown. Moomin looked at the two in bewilderment.
“It’s been a while, Princess! How have you been?”
“Dark Demon? window? Oh, then this is right…”
“Draw, draw! This is the bottom town where we live!”
“This is how I kept my promise to meet the princess once! I didn’t expect you to jump from above!”
These were all survivors of the Lake Kingdom living in Hell under the Lake. Having been entangled for hundreds of years, they had no choice but to meet each other.
After expressing gratitude to the sword ghost and spear ghost who saved him from falling from above, Moo-myeong looked at the crown standing behind him with surprised eyes.
“Older brother… no Crown?”
“Are you conscious? unknown.”
“Why is the Crown here…?”
“Because that guy brought us together.”
Crown gestured in the direction of Ash, and the nameless who looked in that direction widened her blue-green eyes.
“ash? Could this forbidden art… become a dragon…?!”
“This is what Ash did. And now it looks like it’s almost over.”
as soon as the horse runs out.
Shoot aaaaaa…!
The orb of black blood that Ash had been locked in lost its shape and fell to the floor. King Poseidon, who performed the operation, collapsed on the floor exhausted.
And in the spilled dragon blood staining the floor black…
Tak.
Ash, whose entire body was soaked in black blood, stepped onto the ground.
“…”
The place was quiet.
Not only Nameless and the Crown, but also the Sword Demon and the Window Ghost were tensed and silent.
And at the end of the ominous silence…
“Haaa…”
Ash let out a long breath and swept back his black blood-soaked hair.
The eyes that slowly open through the wet, tangled black hair are undoubtedly a perfect golden color.
It was also a dragon eye with a pupil that was torn vertically and elongated, which was unique to the dragon.
“…what.”
Ash looked around with a tired gaze, looked down at his body, slowly opened and closed his fists, and let out a ridiculous laugh.
“Looks like I’ve been around for quite some time. Do something like this.”
“…?”
“Anyway, did you steal the blood of the black dragon? Why the hell did you do something like this… Oh no? If you inherit the red dragon, the dragon lady will… Aha. indeed.”
It’s like evaluating someone else’s work, not your own work.
Ash, who was muttering to himself and grasping the situation, staggered forward and then casually sat down on the floor next to him and leaned his back against the collapsed stone wall.
Then, looking around with a more decadent and haggard look than before, he gestured.
“cigarette.”
Among those who were in a daze, the Sword Demon asked in bewilderment.
“uh? what?”
“Tobacco. strength inspiration. Do you have any cigarettes?”
“There is… but.”
“Then bring it quickly… because I think I’m going to die. hurry.”
The Sword Demon was bewildered, but went into his house and brought a cigarette. It was one of the things that came to the bottom of the village and died.
“What is this? It’s all rotten… Damn it. You look just like me.”
Ash calmly put the cigarette in his mouth and skillfully created black flame with his fingertips to light it.
“Whoa…”
The old, rotten cigarette managed to burn and smoke. It was only after he let out a long puff of smoke through his dry lips that Ash finally took on a slightly peaceful expression.
“Looks like I’m going to live… No, damn it. I’m still tired…”
For some reason, I was overwhelmed.
Anonymous stuttered and asked, looking at Ash, who looked the same as before but was completely different.
“Who the hell are you.”
“hmm?”
“You are not Ash. Who the hell are you?”
“Is Ash right?”
With one corner of his mouth slightly twisted up, with a sneer that is beyond dangerous, his golden eyes narrowly bent…
“Without a doubt, I am ‘Bonhatter’.”
A worn-out save slot that has been fought through countless regressions-
‘real’ Ash said so.
