Chapter 388
Joshua’s eyes turned cold. Aden von Agnus was the power behind the scenes in the Avalon Empire; in contrast to Emperor Marcus, he truly was above everyone else—not only that, he was one of the five strongest fighters in the entire continent.
“Why are you hesitating? Are you not going to attack me first?” Aden asked because Joshua hadn’t moved an inch. The father took the first step forward. “Then I’ll start.”
Joshua’s eyes widened.
Aden’s greatsword was over three meters long—as long as a spear. The bigger and longer a weapon was, the less freely it could move. However, Joshua’s opponent defied common sense. Aden appeared next to Joshua and swung his black greatsword at Joshua’s waist without creating a single sound.
“…Ugh!” Joshua groaned as his spear and Aden’s greatsword clashed fiercely in the air. Aden had swung his sword so hard that the impact made Joshua’s palms numb.
Of course, Aden didn’t miss Joshua’s state. The initial attack had been aimed at the upper right part of Joshua’s waist, but using the recoil from the collision, Aden turned halfway and swung his greatsword toward the opposite side of Joshua’s waist.
“Hup!” Joshua inhaled sharply. When he was fighting with a master fighter, he should move unnoticeably and neatly. Joshua held his spear up and swung it against the greatsword flying toward him. Joshua used one of the strongest martial arts techniques in the continent: the Magic Spear Art Level 4, Scarlet Dragon Ascension.
Like a transcending dragon, Joshua’s extraordinary mana split the ground, his red spear soaring up into the sky. It was literally the ascension of a scarlet dragon. The “dragon” collided with the greatsword.
A barrage of explosions rattled the air. Water would boil slower than they moved. Within mere moments, Joshua and Aden exchanged at least two hundred attacks. Strong against strong. Power against power. Instead of trying to avoid or deflect the incoming attacks, the two combatants attempted to nullify each other’s attack with a stronger attack to lose a battle but win the war with the strike.
An explosion that was incomparably bigger than before shook the ground. In contrast to Joshua, who remained still as a sculpture, Aden was pushed far back. The impact of their collision left visible scars on the marble floor.
“You’ve gotten quite strong.” Aden’s stolid expression finally gave way to a pleased smile during their intense combat.
“You’re weaker than I expected.”
“…Hah.” Aden chuckled. “That is how you address your father? You’re still cocky as hell.”
“I never thought of you as my father.”
.
“I’m sure you didn’t. By the way, this reminds me of that day three years ago. I never expected you to show up at the Great Plain of Kraden.”
“I also didn’t know you would team up with the other two empires and resort to such a cheap trick.”
Aden smiled enigmatically. “…If a dragon hadn’t appeared from the Tower of Trials, where you ran off to, then I wouldn’t have joined forces with the Demon Spirit.”
Joshua’s eyes widened. Although he had already expected it, it felt different when he heard it with his own ears.
“You and the Emperor are the same. At least his goal was clear—he wanted revenge…”
“I do have a goal, but wouldn’t it be better to make the great Demon Spirit do my bidding instead of Berber, the black mage who signed a contract with Asmodeus?” Aden lightly remarked.
“I’m sure your goal isn’t to drown the continent in blood,” Joshua snapped back.
“He and I shared the same interests. Even if he’s the Demon Spirit, I can just use him.”
“That is very irresponsible. If anything goes wrong, all the people in the continent will suffer.”
“Do I have to care about that?” Aden tilted his head.
Yes, Aden von Agnus was the man who could do anything for his goal. Under the pretext of revenge, he had bedded a woman he didn’t love by force and treated his son like a disposable tool.
“Besides, there is another reason.” He rested his greatsword on his shoulder. “Do you know how this Empire was founded?”
Was Aden talking about Rigveda’s Withdrawal? That was the incident where the Royal Family of Kunir, the ancestors of Aden and Joshua, were betrayed by the Britten Family and lost the country to them.
“Do you think I could have known that those wretched Brittens have dragon blood?”
“Dragons…?” Joshua blankly repeated.
“The Britten ancestors that overthrew our ancestors so long ago are the descendants of a dragon.”
“…Am I supposed to believe that?” Joshua skeptically asked.
“Why do you think the Evil Dragon Crevasse went especially amok in this country?”
Once Aden mentioned Crevasse, whom Joshua was also familiar with, Joshua became quiet.
“For his entertainment, Crevasse polymorphed and pretended to be a human, and in the end fathered a human child. But it has been so long that it’s safe to assume that the Brittens are completely human… Still, I believe the dragon blood didn’t disappear into thin air.”
“In other words, the first emperor of the Avalon Empire, the very person who slew the last king of the Kunir Kingdom, was a half-dragon?” Joshua summarized.
“To be exact, his father was a half-dragon, so he was technically a quarter-dragon.”
Joshua shook his head. “You don’t even know if a dragon would become a variable in your plan, but you’re working together with the Demon Spirit to eliminate the possibility…? You’re absolutely mad…”
“No, dragons aren’t the variable. It’s you, Joshua. You brought that evil dragon into the palace yourself, didn’t you?”
Aden was talking about how Joshua appeared in the skies above the palace with Crevasse.
“As you already know, dragons are bystanders, so they rarely show up among humans. Can’t you tell that if you think about how they still remained silent when you controlled the undead? Dragons believe necromancy is a sort of magic. However, a dragon can still interfere in human affairs, so I’m just preparing for the possibility… Can you understand my reasons now?” Aden asked.
He was truly thorough.
“I found out this later, but thanks to Crevasse’s rampage, the current Dragon Lord banned dragons from interfering in human affairs, no matter what happens. You didn’t get to meet the evil dragon, did you? Of course, he was placed under probation for a thousand years as the punishment for that incident.”
“Did… the Demon Spirit tell you that too?”
“You two seem pretty close. Dragons don’t care that the Demon Spirit ended up in the Human Realm after he was sealed. They care more about the promises they made than they do about justifiable causes.” Aden raised his sword and pointed up ahead. “Over the past centuries, the Brittens have continued to slaughter each other again and again, but the surname of the Avalon emperors has remained ‘Britten,’ even today. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
An enormous mana blade was gradually created on top of Aden’s black greatsword.
“Keep in mind that I have the princess right now,” Aden added.
Joshua stopped raising his spear and flinched.
“The Demon Spirit told me another interesting piece of information. My son is actually Lucifer, the strongest battle ghost in both Angel and Demon Realms… So how would I be able to defeat such a supernatural being? Therefore, I also made a deal with the Demon Spirit. Of course, I didn’t give him my soul. The Eyes of Truth was the Angel Spirit’s power, so I just gave him the child who has her power.”
“Wait…!” Joshua’s eyes turned beyond the council chamber.
“That is my deal with the Demon Spirit. I didn’t need to give up my soul, which is the most useful one, but I gained power in return for that filthy purebred Britten. I’m benefiting a lot from this deal, aren’t I?”
“You… really are crazy. Why are you going that far? You have enough power already!” Joshua shouted.
“Didn’t I tell you that it’s because of you? I want this country, so I’ll get rid of anyone who gets in my way—even if it’s my son.”
The air around them changed.
“This is…?” Joshua mumbled.
“It’s impossible to use both demonic and divine power, but there is always an exception like you.”
They didn’t need to talk any further. Joshau infused an enormous amount of his mana into his spear.
“The Demon Spirit came to a realization because of you.”
The situation took an immediate and surprising turn. Aden released two polar opposite powers at once; one was pitch-black demonic power, and the other was divine power, the most sacred power in the world.
“He told me that it might not work for gods, but humans can easily embrace any kind of power,” Marcus explained. “So I’m also able to use those powers to some level.”
“You…”
“I now have the power of the Eyes of Truth and the Sin… I’ve truly become the Dark God, but at the same time, I’m also the White God, Heimdall.”
Exactly half of his pitch-black hair turned white like frost. It would usually look pathetic, like wizened gray hair, but Aden was an exception. Even in Joshua’s eyes, the contrast of Aden’s black and white hair gave off a mystical vibe.
The two men began to walk toward each other. In both of Joshua’s current and previous lives, he had never imagined going up against such an opponent as Aden von Agnus, who had embraced both the Demon and Angel Spirits’ powers at once.
Joshua tightened the grip on his spear. No, it wasn’t out of nervousness at all! Joshua had not been using his full power either.
At that moment, Joshua released a colossal amount of two different powers. These two men would go down in history, and no one would ever be able to reach their level again.
“…But do you know what?” Joshua asked.
Aden gave him a bemused look.
“Out of courtesy for my biological father, I’ve been not moving more than two steps at a time.”
His father flinched. Joshua was telling the truth: he was standing near the throne, where Marcus had perished, when they began, and he was still standing there.
“No matter what kind of scheme you use, you won’t be able to take the seat behind me with your current ability—I won’t allow it.”
“…Arrogant.”
Father and son hurtled toward each other.
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