Chapter 93 - Those who Seek Their Own Destiny (2)
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Yuren didn"t know the exact moment when he became a Dragon Demon king worshipper.
His earliest memory he could remember was the cold corpse of his mother. He didn"t know the exact cause, but his mother had been sick and poor. She froze to death in a back alley of a city.
Yuren was probably fated to die like his mother. However, someone had taken Yuren, who was unable to speak yet. He was sent to a training school for talented humans.
He learned how to speak in this place. He grew up being indoctrinated with the knowledge and mindset of the Dragon Demon King worshippers. At an early age, the trainers categorized the children depending on their apt.i.tude. In this process, Yuren was put on the path to becoming a magician.
When he was young, he never questioned the environment he was in. He completely believed everything the adults told him. It was truth. He was steadily becoming a fanatic.
His first kill came at 9 years old. The Dragon Demon king worshippers wanted to take root in a particular city. He had to kill an old couple, who refused to give up control over a neighbourhood.
When he thought back on it, the couple was blameless, and they had been kind to children. He had used their kindness against them. On a cold day, Yuren had disguised himself as an orphan. The couple allowed him into their home, and they had provided him warm soup. He had used this opportunity to put a strong magical poison in the couple"s meal. He had killed them.
Afterwards, he didn"t feel any emotions.
Yuren had received the teachings of the great Dragon Demon King, and anyone that didn"t follow it wasn"t considered to be "human." They were dirty trashes that propped up this false world.
However, a change occurred when he was 14 years old.
One day an unknown voice started to whisper to him in his dreams.
‘I will tell you the name of your bloodline. Yuren Rizester.’
“……mmm.”
Yuren opened his eyes. The green eyes that shown beneath the disheveled brown hair surveyed his surrounding.
His field of vision was shaking. It was disorienting. It seemed he was being moved, and he was slung over someone"s shoulder.
“I"m being carried on a woman"s shoulder.... How refreshing...”
“If you have the energy to spout such bulls.h.i.t, it seems you are fine.”
A sharp voice answered him. Someone had slung Yuren over her shoulder.
It was a woman that was smaller than Yuren. Her black hair was cut into an even bob, and she was wearing a leather armor painted black. She was a cold beauty with yellowish red eyes.
She was a Dragon Majin. There was a sculpture-like horn above her right ear, and it was give out a red light. A Dragon Stone of the same color was embedded on the back of her hand.
Yuren spoke with a tired voice.
“Leticia. I"m glad you are happy, but... This might be the last bulls.h.i.t statement I"ll be able to utter in this life.... I don"t know if....”
“I"m starting to think that might be preferable to this. You should stop speaking. You did something idiotic, yet you aren"t dead. You know you are lucky to be alive even after losing so much blood. Just shut up.”
“The child……?”
“He"s dead.”
“…….”
Yuren"s face crumpled at Leticia"s words.
He was seriously injured. He had been running away with the children. His feet were shackled since he had to protect the children. He had thrown his body in the way of a sword thrust as he had tried to save a child. He fainted after receiving a deep sword wound.
“I should have… If we left them alone, then...”
“Don"t say those words again. Shut up.”
“…….”
“Even a smart person couldn"t have predicted the outcome. We did this despite knowing we might regret it later. However, those children were heading down the road to fanaticism, and their dignity as human were being stripped away. We can"t just do nothing about it.”
The current situation had occurred, because Yuren had aimed to go after the most evil training facility run by the Dragon Demon king worshippers. Basically, it wasn"t a simple training facility that nurtured regular fighters. It was a place where children with special const.i.tution were gathered, and evil experimentation was conducted on them. This was a place where they "reared" the test subjects, so Yuren couldn"t just pa.s.s it by.
While he was doing his advance work, he became acquainted with Leticia. They decided to do a joint operation. After they conducted their advance work for a month, they had destroyed the inst.i.tution, and the children were able to escape.
However, something unexpected had happened. Pursuers showed up behind Yuren as if they had been waiting for him.
It took Yuren much effort to speak.
“Let me down…….”
“You aren"t in a condition to walk.”
“I know. However, you are....”
Yuren had picked up on the fact that Leticia was also injured. Yuran and Leticia had fought and killed over 100 Dragon Demon king worshippers to be able to get here. It would be more strange if they weren"t tired and wounded.
“I"m not in such a bad shape that I won"t be able to carry a human cub.”
“No… I don"t think you can face this enemy with me on your shoulder.... Nope....”
“…enemy?”
Leticia was startled by his words. She had enough Qi to make the Dragon Demon king worshippers shake in their boots. However, she hadn"t sensed any enemies approaching them. What did Yuren sense?
At the same time, Leticia felt someone looking down at her. She had learned the Gaze Detection technique.
‘Was the person"s gaze hidden? No. No one had been watching me until a moment ago!’
The enemies had just appeared, so it meant that they had been lying in ambush at this location. The enemies hadn"t been looking at the two of them. However, when the two entered their sensory field, they had turned their gazes towards the two.
When Leticia realized this fact, lightning struck.
Ggah-gwah-gwahng! Ggwah-gwahng!
It wasn"t just one or two thunderbolts. The forest was bright from the fire, yet the light from the thunderbolts was able to burn their retinas. Dozens of lightning fell.
It had the destructive power to take out a unit with scores of men. After a moment, two people walked out from the dispersing thunder.
“Kook. This is... Did a high ranking officer come after us?”
“That"s right, sinners. I commend you for getting out of our trap.”
A person stepped out from between the trees. A woman of the Dragon Demon race was encircled in darkness as she emitted enormous power. The heat was causing the air to flow, and it flutter the black hair of the woman.
“Niberis… A direct descendent of the Dragon Demon king…….”
“Mmmm?”
The Dragon Demon woman was Niberis. It seemed the beings in the Plains of Darkness had accepted Yuren as a serious problem. They had sent a high ranking member.
Niberis" expression hardened.
“How were you able to recognize me? You should only be a minor apprentice.”
Even amongst the Dragon Demon king worshippers, Niberis wasn"t known to many people. One didn"t know about her unless one lived in the Plains of Darkness. When she travelled outside, she had put considerable amount of energy in covering up her ident.i.ty. On her last mission, she had travelled to the Rulain kingdom to kidnap the Dragon Demon Princess Arietta with Regina. Even then she took the precaution of paralyzing the minds of the rank and file members, so they wouldn"t be able to see her appearance.
However, Yuren had gotten her ident.i.ty right as soon as he saw her. A minor member of an organization shouldn"t know about her.
Yuren laughed.
“Hahaha… Who knows? What do you think……?”
“You are almost dead, yet you have the talent to get on my nerves.”
Goo-goo-goo-goo-goo!
The darkness surrounding Niberis moved in a furious manner. It was a darkness that caused anyone that got close to it to be cursed. It was hard for anyone to breathe in this darkness. Once one was in the darkness, one died from all kinds of poisons and diseases.
“What nonsense.”
It was a cursed darkness that would make a human magician freeze from the sight of it. However, Leticia spoke in a cold voice. She swung her long spear with Yuren still on her shoulder.
Shweeeee!
When she did, a gale with deep blue chill rose up to push the darkness away. As the temperature dropped rapidly, ice started to form in the surrounding.
Niberis glared at Leticia.
“As expected of the cold-blooded queen, you have a trick or two that justifies your pretentious nickname.”
“You guys are the ones that came up with that lousy nickname.”
Amongst the Dragon Demon king worshippers, Leticia was known as the "cold-blooded queen". She had started her activities 8 years ago, and she had killed countless Dragon Demon king worshippers including a good number of Dragon Demon officers.
Niberis spoke.
“I see. Then you should consider it an honor and die.”
Numerous magical spells were initiated from within the darkness surrounding her. When it looked as if thunderbolts would end, a sharp wind flew in. When the winds fell away, fire came down like rain.
“Didn"t I tell you this is nonsensical? Did you already forget my words?”
Leticia overcame all the magical spells. She still had Yuren slung over one shoulder, yet she was moving in a surprising manner. Leticia counterattacked as she moved to regions that weren’t influenced by the magical spells.
Kwahng!
As the explosion rang out, Niberis" barrier shook. Niberis was taken aback.
‘She was able to do that at this distance?’
Niberis had put a good amount of distance between her enemies. However, her barrier had cracked as if someone had struck at point blank range at full force. Moreover, another blow accurately struck the crack before Niberis could do anything about it.
“Ooh-ook!”
Niberis had barely avoided the blow. It was terrifying. She had put a lot of effort into making her multi-layered barrier, yet a dozen consecutive attack was intricately focused on a single point. Her barrier had been pierced by the attacks.
At the same time, Niberis realized she had made a mistake.
‘It is a magical spell.’
The attack from before wasn"t from Leticia. It was a magical spell from Yuren, who looked as if he was close to death. When she realized this fact, Niberis was taken aback.
‘This makes no sense. A human did that?’
The attack that was sent a moment ago astounded Niberis. Was it really a magical spell used by a human?
“This can"t be!”
Niberis was still in doubt as she sent her magical spell. At the same time....
Puh-uhng!
An explosion rang out, and the barrier, which she had remade, shook again. As if her opponent had been waiting for her to send her magic, Yuren had sent a perfect counter attack. The construct of her magical spell was nullified before it could take shape. Moreover, a magic arrow came at her from an absolute blind spot. It threaded the needle before it impacted on Niberis.
‘A human cub has this level of skill....’
At that point, Niberis shivered instead of getting angry. This human"s applied magic was at a level that was akin to the Archmages that taught magic in the Plain of Darkness.
Niberis asked a question.
“Oh traitor Yuren. Is it as I had suspected? Is the Guardian Shadows behind your activities?”
“Maybe… If I really had something like that backing me up.... It would have been much easier for me…….”
Yuren"s laugh didn"t have much strength behind it. Until he developed a working relationship with Leticia, he had strictly moved on his own. However, from the perspective of the Dragon Demon king worshippers, they didn"t believe he worked alone.
First, he was too talented of a magician. Even Niberis was surprised by his skills.
Even if one was a genius in magic, one"s development was dependent on the knowledge one could learn. If Yuren"s foundation was solid, he could rapidly develop by learning high rank magic, but who taught it to him? If he was self-taught, he would have to fill in the gap in his knowledge through research and hard work. Of course, the progress was incredibly less efficient than learning the already well-established knowledge.
Yuren suddenly spoke.
“Leticia. Someone else...is coming here....”
“Understood.”
Leticia understood the meaning behind Yuren"s words.
Their surrounding was already crawling with Dragon Demon king worshippers that had chased after them. However, the "someone" mentioned by Yuren had enough battle capability to be a threat to the two of them.
“I"m going overtax myself a little bit. I"m guessing you are well enough to a.s.sist me?”
Hoooooooo!
After speaking those words, Leticia planted her spear into the ground. Thin ice coated the surface of the spear, and it let out a maelstrom of cold energy.
An incredible amount of magic was being gathered.
The more surprising part was the source of the magical energy. Leticia was emitting Dragon Demon Magic, and another source of magical b.u.t.ted in to cause a multiplicative effect.
It was Yuren"s magic. A magical pattern that perfectly complemented Leticia"s Dragon Demon magic was formed, and it was amplifying her power to the extreme. There were cases where a magician used support magic to amplify a warrior"s magical energy, but the effect of this amplification transcended common sense.
Leticia grinned as she pulled out her spear, and she brought it down once again.
“Awesome. Even if my body was in a normal state, I would have hard time generating this much power.”
Kwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Afterwards, a wave of cold air erupted as it was shot forward.
A white energy was shot forward, and a several dozen meters of the surrounding region was frozen in the shape of a fan.
‘Oh my……!’
Niberis had been barely able to react to it, and she was astonished. Surprisingly, her sight line was obstructed. Her barrier reacted to antagonist forces, and a thick layer of ice had formed around her barrier. It blocked her field of vision.
Moreover, a more stronger cold energy impacted on top of the first attack.
Kwah-kwah-kwah-kwah!
However, this attack had a frightening force behind the attack. Niberis" barrier shook violently as the temperature fell rapidly.
After the last wave of cold energy impacted Niberis, an ice pillar had formed where she stood.
“…no wonder she is called the cold-blooded queen.”
It took her a good amount of time for her to get out the ice pillar encasing her. When she exited it, she mumbled as she looked at her surrounding.
Everything was frozen. It was as if she was in a field of ice. A portion of the burning forest was frozen white, and one could see large ice pillars had formed intermittently.
“Miss!”
A person jumped over an ice pillar. He was an enormous man wearing black armor. It was Duran. He queried her.
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
“I"m not hurt. However, it seems I got punched. They aren"t to be underestimated. We can"t hold anything back when we meet them again.”
Niberis hadn"t underestimated Leticia in the first place. Niberis had spoke disparagingly towards her, but Leticia was acknowledged to be a strong foe by the Plain of Darkness. She had accepted this fact as she started the fight.
However, she hadn’t expected the unpredictable variable called Yuren. He was at death"s door, yet he was able to display such magic.
Niberis asked a question.
“What about the others?”
“They aren"t here yet.”
Duran was quick on the uptake, so he realized the intent behind her question.
She wasn"t the only one dispatched to catch the traitor Yuren. It meant she didn’t hold autonomy over this mission. Her compet.i.tors from various factions were all aiming for Yuren. They were fighting for the meritorious deed of killing Yuren.
This happened, because those in the Plain of Darkness couldn"t track down Yuren"s trail. Yuren was elusive. He had lead pursuers on a wild goose chase numerous times before he disappeared.
This was why the Plain of Darkness had dispatched high ranking members to each region. Moreover, if one was able to kill Yuren, it would be seen as a large meritorious deed. Niberis was at this place, because Duran had been dogged at tracking down Yuren. She had received information about Yuren first.
However, she was only slightly ahead of the others. The fact that she was tracking down Yuren would be notified to the people above her. Soon her compet.i.tors would gather here.
Niberis spoke.
“I won"t allow Laura and Kieren a chance to b.u.t.t into this affair.”
“Yes.”
Duran lowered his head.