Chapter 223
One man stood in heaven; his every action changed the world. The people feared him and thus avoided him. He was forced to walk in the shadows, and he was always alone.
However, one day, his solitary and dark life changed.
‘Help me!’
For the first time, someone asked for his help. Two words were all it took. He asked no questions and abandoned his lofty perch to return to the real world.
The world he knew was gone. Laughter had been lost to desperate screams and despair; the long-standing peace was shattered. The first attempt on his life was by people aiming to claim his position.
A hundred monsters would die with every swing of his crimson spear, and not even the members of the war tribe could stand up to his blows.
They cowered before him like he was a god. Their morale—already like that of common thieves—plummeted. His existence alone ended a thousand years of war.
After the war, he was no longer alone. He even had, for the first time, someone he could call a friend. It felt good. He thought that he would never be lonely again.
However, it turned out that everything was just an illusion.
His associates became frightened of him. His ‘friend’ trampled all over him with a smile. Thousands upon thousands of enemies beset him on all sides, whittling down his strength. He killed and killed, but he could not bring himself to kill the ones he called friends.
It was the first lesson life had taught him.
“I don’t resent you, but for disobeying God… I shall take your wings away.”
After achieving their goals, the beings stopped moving entirely. There were no more reasons for them to live on anyway.
Eventually, a swordsman clad in white sliced him from head to toe. His beautiful wings were sliced and torn apart as blood incessantly flowed out of his body.
After that, there was darkness. Fragmented memories kept on coming back to him, and the shattered scenes depicted a pure white space filled with laughter and a place where a blood moon was floating in the sky.
This was the end of his story. The faceless humanoid being disappeared, and he let nothing else but a burning crimson spear.
If neither hell nor heaven would accept him, then there was only one place where he could go.
***
“Ah!” Joshua sharply inhaled as the memories flooded in. With a stiff look, he muttered to himself, “Magic Spear Arts Level 6…”
He still had no idea of the man’s identity in his memories. However, his memories turned out to be pretty useful, even though it was strange.
When he used Moon’s Domain, the Overlord Symbol appeared on him. However, when he used Defying Heaven, the memories of the man flooded him like a deluge.
Joshua quickly made a theory, and if he was right, then…
The Magic Spear Arts was the way forward. Upon reaching Magic Spear Arts Level 3, one would be a genuine Superhuman by then, so what was beyond Level 6? It was something that Joshua wasn’t even particularly privy about.
However, he knew that he would know everything when upon reaching Magic Spear Arts Level 8, which was a tier called ‘God’s Might’.
“For now, let’s get out of there.”
Joshua emerged from his thoughts as his eyes snapped open.
The space he was standing in was already broken beyond repair, and he simply had to thrust his spear with all his strength to shatter it.
***
Crack!
There was a noise reminiscent of glass being shattered as the space finally collapsed.
[Hybrid, what is this?]
Crevasse’s quiet, startled voice echoed in his head.
Was Joshua even human? Crevasse had no choice but to wonder if Joshua was even human because of his features. Joshua still looked largely human, but his eyes were pitch-black, and there was a horn sticking out of his forehead.
He also gained a definitive feature that set made him look incredibly different from a human being, and it was his large wings that had spread dramatically behind him. In addition, the wings were even on fire.
The heat of the flaming wings was so strong it could instantly incinerate anything. A swarm of lights danced through the hair and toward Joshua’s hair, bleaching it white.
The dragon’s question was this: why was this happening?
[Ugh…]
Crevasse’s enormous body, floating in the air, shivered. The skies seemed to tremble along with his massive body.
[What?]
Crevasse’s eyesight was crystal clear, so he could see it—he could see a spear streak through the air, filling the space behind it with a veil of bright red.
It was so beautiful that the dragon was momentarily enthralled, but even more shocking was the fact that he actually got scared of the spear.
The spear fell right on top of his head. It was awful. It was no mere cut but a terrible, tragic pain. Nothing Crevasse had ever felt before could have prepared him for this. It was painful beyond physical pain. It was a pain that assaulted his mind directly.
Crevasse had used instant death magic exclusive to dragons. It was an incredibly powerful magic, so the backlash was incredibly strong as well if it ever failed to kill its target.
After all, the dragon’s instant death magic was more of a psychic magic that killed a target from the inside by depriving them of every reason to live. The backlash from magic like that could definitely threaten even dragons.
Crevasse never had to worry about the backlash. In fact, the instant death magic had never failed him throughout his long life of more than three thousand years. But for the first time in the 3,071 years, 5 months, and 23 days of his life, he failed.
Joshua slowly lowered himself to the ground, locking eyes with the dragon as he descended.
Crevasse couldn’t remain afloat either. he collapsed to the earth like a drunkard before barely managing to gracefully plant his feet on the firm ground. By that point, Joshua had already returned to his normal appearance.
[W-who are you?! W-what did you do?!]
Crevasse’s booming voice reverberated as he struggled to speak amidst the skull-splitting pain.
Joshua took a deep breath. He was tired, but he tried his best to hide it.
“I didn’t mean any harm. However, you tried to kill me, so why should I answer your question?”
[You…]
.
Even among his own people, Crevasse was known for his anger. Up until now, he would have crushed those daring enough to say such words to him, but he couldn’t do that.
Aside from the still-growing pain, he had become afraid of the human in front of him.
“I'll get what I deserve.”
[What?]
“I deserve a reward for myself after surviving all that.” Joshua stood steadfast in front of a literal dragon. “I will take Ash and the blooming Sanders with me.”
Shiver!
‘Oh, no…!’ Ash hiding behind a tree trembled when he heard Joshua’s words. He looked like he was struck by lightning as he stood there in a daze. It couldn’t be helped because he recalled what he heard earlier.
Crevasse saw Ash’s anxiety and smirked.
“Hah!” Ash looked up at the dragon and clenched his fists while gulping down a nervous chuckle.?‘Do you really think that he’s just going to sit around and let you walk all over him like that?’
[You'll never make it out of this place alive.]
A tremendous amount of mana pervaded the air. A mental setback he had suffered in the past forced him to sleep for the past five hundred years. Now that he was awake, he would no longer remain still.
“I’ll make you a deal.”
Stop.
The tremendous mana was so massive that it started creating rifts in space itself, but when Crevasse heard Joshua’s words. His mana abruptly calmed down, and the rifts in space disappeared.
[A deal?]
“I know that the humans’ intrusion isn’t the only reason you’re angry.”
Joshua thought back to what happened at Rebrecca’s Castle. Crevasse peered into Joshua’s eyes and was startled by what he found.
[You saw it, too. Humans crossed the line between the realm of possibility and reason. I don't care if they kill and get killed, but I will never allow them to turn their own kind into 'ghouls'.]
Startling revelations continued to spill from Crevasse’s mouth…
[It was forbidden, and it should have been impossible to even try without using the power of the demons. I will hold the emperor of this country responsible.]
However, there were a few important facts that hadn’t been revealed to the world. It had to be known that even if Marquis Crombell didn’t break the rules, Crevasse still would have awakened.
Right now, it looked like Crevasse had awakened to do his job as the Guardian of Middle Earth, but it wasn’t the case at all. Joshua knew the truth because he was the one who carefully hid the information from the imperial family.
‘Even his own people treat Crevasse like a member of a different race. When the Imperial Family struck a deal with him, it may have been the first time humans and dragons have conversed since the hatchling incident.’
Crevasse was the only known dragon in Avalon at the time, so the Imperial Family definitely had to coax him for his cooperation.
‘Keep it secret and stay out of their business. In exchange…’?thought Joshua with narrowed eyes.
Evil Dragon Crevasse was a black dragon. Their mana was pure demonic power, which made them perfect for studying demons.
Demons were rare. A creature as long-lived as a dragon might never see a demon in its lifetime, but Joshua could still remember that a demon contractor of the highest level affiliated with the Imperial Family was still alive…
In his past life, the demon contractor was probably why the Imperial Family struck a deal with Evil Dragon Crevasse.
‘And I’m here to stop that from happening…’?Joshua smirked. If everything went according to plan, then he could become a Dragon Knight rather than the first Dragon Slayer.
It was time for him to cheat once more to acquire his second servant.
This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶