Chapter 904: Wings of Revelation
Elaine didn’t see Knight again until the next morning, when they were preparing to head out for the Regional Capital, and when they finally crossed paths, he acted as though their conversation from the night before had never taken place.
The group of six moved quickly, and before noon, they reached the gates of the Regional Capital.
The guards, already familiar with the appearances of the Hero Candidates and expecting their return, rang the bells without delay to announce the completion of their Trials.
The bells rang five times, signalling that all five Hero Candidates had returned alive and well, and almost immediately, the atmosphere of the capital turned festive.
The return of the Hero Candidates at the end of their Trials was always a reason to celebrate.
A festival was scheduled to follow directly after the conferment of their Hero titles, with every event planned close together.
Their arrival marked Day Zero, the conferment was set for Day One, and the festival would begin on Day Two.
Once the festival concluded, they were to depart for the Continental Capital to report to the Infernal Devil Lords who ruled the planet.
Residing in the Regional Capital were the Former Heroes of the continent, the predecessors of the five Candidates Elaine had been travelling with, and they were the ones responsible for passing on the mantle and Title of Hero to the next generation, beginning the new Hero cycle.
With the Hero Candidates’ return, they were quickly ushered into a parade through the city streets, making their way toward the city centre, where the conferment ceremony would be held so they could be formally welcomed back by their predecessors.
Elaine slipped away from the parade, moving to the roof of one of the many tall buildings lining the central streets, overlooking the procession with her cosmic energy detector in hand.
The device beeped without pause, the green bar on its display completely filled, confirming her suspicion that the Regional Capital had been built atop an energy hotspot.
She’d located a point where several of the planet’s energy veins intersected beneath the surface, one of the locations Arthur had told her she could use to summon him.
That realisation brought with it a problem, though, as she questioned whether she could really summon Arthur in the middle of this city.
"I’ve no idea how much of a commotion the summoning might cause, and there’s a chance I could get distracted during the process and cause it to fail. A failed spell usually leads to backlash, and that wouldn’t be good for me."
Elaine mulled this over in silence as she sat on the rooftop, questioning whether she should really set out for the other Strong Magic Regions she’d identified.
But what if those regions weren’t true energy hotspots and were merely areas with dense energy concentration instead, like the two they’d passed on their way to the Regional Capital? What if all the genuine hotspots already had Regional Capitals built on top of them?
"That’d make things far more troublesome," she muttered to herself before sighing again.
"Still, I won’t know whether those Strong Magic Regions are real energy hotspots unless I go and confirm it myself. I guess this is where my journey with the Hero Candidates ends."
She said this while watching them move through the city toward the Regional Capital’s main administrative building.
Sensing her gaze, Archer, Mage, and Knight looked up, with Mage waving at her and earning a small return wave from Elaine.
By the time the soldiers surrounding the Hero Candidates looked toward the direction Mage had been waving, Elaine was already gone from the rooftop.
She dropped back down to the street, stored the cosmic energy detector in her spatial ring, and started walking toward the city gates.
However, just as the gates came into view, she stopped, heaved a deep sigh, and turned back around.
"Fine, I’ll stay until they receive their titles."
She might not have wanted to admit it, but over the three weeks they’d travelled together, she’d grown somewhat comfortable with the Hero Candidates.
At the very least, she decided she’d stay long enough to watch them finally receive the rewards for their efforts.
◇ ◇ ◇
By the time the celebrations and events of Day Zero wrapped up, the sun was already dipping toward the horizon.
Knight and the other Hero Candidates slipped away to enjoy themselves privately, heading to a tavern hidden in an obscure corner of the city to drink wine and join in the revelry.
As for locating Elaine, it wasn’t difficult, since she wasn’t making any real effort to hide her presence, and the number of Level 800+ existences within the city was low compared to those at the lower Levels.
That number hadn’t changed since the Hero Candidates returned to the city, so identifying the additional presence was simple, especially given that they were already familiar with Elaine’s energy signature.
Mage ended up dragging her along to join them in the celebration, and what followed was a long night of drinking, capped by the eventual reveal that the hooded figures drinking in a corner of the tavern were the Hero Candidates themselves, once Archer and Lancer drank too much and pulled their hoods back.
It was an enjoyable night, but like everything else, it eventually reached its end.
Dawn arrived the following day, and after Mage used her magic to deal with Archer’s and Lancer’s hangovers, the group gathered themselves and headed toward the city centre for the conferment ceremony.
When Elaine had seen the predecessors of the Hero Candidates the day before, they’d all been Transcendents, but on closer observation now, she noticed their power had dropped to the Sovereign Realm.
When she asked Knight about it, he explained that it was one of the side effects tied to holding a Hero title.
Passing down the title required a considerable amount of magic power, though most of it was absorbed into the title itself to enhance its effects, and because of that, each new generation of heroes gained slightly greater benefits than the one before, as the skills granted by the Hero Title always grew stronger through the consistent power sacrifice made by the previous generation at the end of their cycle.
Well, that was what they were told, but in reality, about 60% of that power loss came from the repercussions of forcefully holding onto the Hero title when the planet was trying to reclaim it.
Anyway, the conferment ceremony began with a great deal of fanfare, followed by speeches from both the outgoing Heroes and the new ones.
At last, the conferment itself began, starting with the leaders of the two generations.
The former Knight and the Knight Elaine knew stepped forward first, with the predecessor removing the mantle he wore and passing it on to Knight.
The crowd erupted into cheers as it happened, and Knight rose, turning to face them while waving with a bright smile.
With his reception of the mantle, the power of the Hero title vested itself in him, causing his strength to rise explosively as the power his predecessor lost with the title transferred to him, pushing his Level to 900.
The joy on his face grew as he took a step into the Realm of Transcendence, but it vanished just as quickly when he suddenly frowned, his waving hand moving to his forehead as he was hit with a sudden migraine.
Elaine’s expression changed almost immediately into a faint frown as she saw his life signal begin to flicker erratically.
Knight’s companions noticed something was wrong, and so did their predecessors, but before anyone could even speak a word of worry, an immense burst of infernal magic power erupted from Knight’s body.
The powerful shockwave that came with the massive release of energy from Knight’s body sent everyone nearby flying back with tremendous force, as none of them had been prepared for it.
The Regional Capital’s Mayor, the high-ranking soldiers and Generals of the region’s army, the nobles seated closest to the stage, and the other Hero Candidates were all thrown back by the sudden eruption of power.
What followed was a loud, agonised scream from Knight as he dropped to his knees, clutching his head with both hands.
A change had been triggered within his body by the massive influx of power that came with receiving the Hero title, along with the connection to the planet that the title established.
For the first time since the Hero Cycles had begun, the planet itself willingly poured its power into a chosen Hero.
Those watching couldn’t understand what was happening, but the previous Heroes had their eyes widen in shock, as they’d held the Hero titles for years, had met the Infernal Devil Lords who ruled the planet, and had learned the secrets and origins of the Hero Cycles.
They could tell exactly what was happening. The planet was willingly granting Knight the skills that came with being a Hero.
It was willingly granting him the true abilities associated with the title, stripping away the modifications the Infernal Devils had imposed upon it.
These included resistance to World Enemy attacks, increased damage against World Enemies, and, most importantly, the ability to detect World Enemies.
Knight’s head didn’t hurt only because of the power pouring into him, but also due to the torrent of information the planet was forcing into his mind.
Worse still, the moment he tried to raise his gaze and look ahead, everything he saw was red, as his Hero title screamed at him that everyone in front of him was a World Enemy.
"Impossible! The planet can never truly do this to an infernal devil! It shouldn’t be able to!"
The previous Knight exclaimed this out in shock, allowing crucial information to slip in the heat of the moment.
Fortunately, the only ones close enough to hear him were his companions, the Hero Candidates, and Elaine, who’d been seated nearby for the ceremony.
It went without saying that they were confused by what they heard, since the Hero Candidates and Elaine didn’t understand the meaning behind his words.
Even so, what he said was true.
The planet would never willingly grant power to an infernal devil because infernal devils were the cause of its suffering, greedily and ignorantly trapping the energy it was trying to expel as it became overloaded.
To the planet ’Choth’, Infernal Devils were the true World Enemies, and because of that, it’d never willingly grant them the Hero title. In fact, at the end of every Hero cycle, once every ten years, it always tried to reclaim what had been taken from it by force.
So why was Knight now receiving the true abilities of the Hero title, along with knowledge about the reality behind the Hero Cycles?
The answer to that question revealed itself almost immediately.
As Knight screamed at the top of his lungs, he clawed at the horns along the sides of his head, scraping away layers of bone.
Moments later, he tore at his armour in agony, and when it finally broke apart, something burst free from his shoulder blades, ripping through his clothing as it unfurled into the open air.
A massive pair of wings emerged, their wingspan stretching to more than twice his height.
The wings were leathery and white like his hair, marked with faint black lines, and they were neither bat-like nor the reversed wings commonly seen on infernal devils.
On closer inspection, one could see that the black lines along the wings and the bones throughout their structure were scales rather than simple membrane or skin.
The tail extending from his lower back was covered with patches of black scales, and similar patterns ran along his neck, arms, and horns, though the horns themselves weren’t scaled.
At the sight of this, the former Heroes stared in shock, fully aware of what it meant.
Among all the races on the planet, there was only one whose members possessed both wings and scales, and whose members the planet would willingly grant power to.
It was the same race the planet had been trying to use for centuries to overthrow the rule of the Infernal Devils.
"Dragon..."
The former Knight muttered the word, and the former Archer immediately shook his head in disbelief.
"No, no, no, that doesn’t make sense! How could an infernal devil suddenly become a dragon?! His parents were both devils! We checked him. I checked him! He was an infernal devil up until this morning!"
The former Mage shook her head right after, her expression dark as she understood what had just happened.
"...he didn’t suddenly become a dragon. He likely always had dragon blood within him, and the planet forcefully awakened it when the Hero title was passed on. Damn it!"
She cursed and quickly raised a veil of magic to hide the scene from civilians and distant onlookers, but at the same moment, another wave of energy erupted from Knight’s body, breaking her spell apart, and the backlash left her vomiting blood.
Knight screamed again as information kept flooding into his mind, his scream warping into a roar that was nothing an infernal devil could ever produce, but something that unmistakably belonged to a dragon.
Then his eyes glazed over, and he collapsed to the ground, completely unconscious.
