Translator: CinderTL
Huff... huff...
Roland slowly descended from mid-air, landing on one knee as his chest heaved with ragged breaths.
The cost of unleashing Dragon Breath far exceeded his expectations.
A crushing wave of exhaustion swept through him, as if every ounce of his strength had been utterly drained by the devastating thunderbolt.
And his right arm...
The arm that had just wielded the thunderbolt now throbbed with excruciating pain.
His entire forearm, down to his palm, was charred black. The dense silver dragon scales that had once covered it were peeling off in large, curled fragments, revealing the severely burned, almost carbonized flesh beneath.
At the blackened edges, raw flesh oozed, and faint arcs of electricity still crackled stubbornly across the wound's surface, emitting faint popping sounds.
He tried to flex his fingers, but the attempt only triggered a searing, tearing pain and a numbing sensation.
His entire arm had temporarily lost all feeling, as if it no longer belonged to him.
The air reeked of burnt flesh and the faintly metallic tang of his own Dragon Blood.
He lowered his gaze to survey his "masterpiece."
Below, the earth looked as if it had been crushed by an invisible giant's fist, leaving behind a massive, scorched crater nearly a hundred meters in diameter.
The soil and rock within the crater had been completely transformed into a crystalline, glass-like substance that still radiated intense heat and wisps of white smoke.
Along the edge of the crater, twisted fragments of rock, fused together as if by immense heat, formed grotesque, flowing shapes, bearing witness to the terrifying energy unleashed in that instant.
The air reeked of a pungent mix of ozone and sulfur, with the acrid stench of burnt flesh lingering. Occasionally, faint electrical arcs crackled across the scorched earth, emitting soft, crackling sounds.
The once-dense swarm of purgatory bats, which had frantically tried to escape, had vanished without a trace.
Not even remnants remained—not a single ash. They had been utterly annihilated by the pure thunderbolt's power, erased from existence itself.
Only at the crater's center, a small, pale flame flickered weakly, threatening to extinguish at any moment, swaying like a candle in the wind.
It was the last ember of Malcolm's unyielding resentment, lingering after his destruction.
Looking around, Roland noticed that even the distant sounds of battle on the fairground seemed to have paused briefly, stunned by this sudden, divine-like calamity.
Silence enveloped the region that had just endured such devastating destruction.
Roland gritted his teeth, bracing his weight on his still-intact left hand against his knee as he struggled to stand.
The wound on his right arm looked gruesome, but he could sense that it hadn't struck a fatal blow.
The potent vitality granted by his dragon bloodline was already battling the lingering thunderbolt's energy, slowly but steadily repairing his body.
It would just take time...
And the inevitable pain.
Enduring the waves of searing pain and numbness radiating from his right arm, Roland summoned his Job Panel deep within his consciousness, his gaze darting anxiously across the status bar.
When he saw that the Gaze from the Abyss trait, which had clung to him like a bone-deep infection, had vanished without a trace, the tension that had gripped him finally eased. He exhaled a long, blood-tinged breath of relief.
The disappearance of the trait meant the source of the curse had been completely severed.
Malcolm, the cunning devil from the nine hells, was truly dead, his very essence reduced to ashes by the dragon breath.
Yet the joy of victory was short-lived, quickly replaced by a cold, analytical review.
He lowered his gaze to his charred and shattered right arm, its dragon scales peeled away, and recalled the perilous battle.
Malcolm's speed, his impossible-to-defend-against barbed chains, and his array of bizarre spell-like abilities all testified to his formidable power in his prime.
If he hadn't been weakened by his prolonged battle with Monen, his strength already significantly diminished...
Roland calmly assessed the situation in his mind.
I would never have defeated him so "easily."
He knew very well that his ability to seize that fleeting opportunity and decisively turn the tide with his dragon breath was largely due to Malcolm already being at the end of his rope.
Had he faced a high-rank devil in peak condition, the outcome of today's battle would have been far from certain.
Just as his mind began to settle, a familiar tremor surged from the depths of his bloodline.
The plunder trait had been triggered.
He immediately cast a wary glance toward the center of the scorched earth below.
There, amidst the charred remains, flickered the pale embers representing Malcolm's final vestige of existence.
The flame, which should have naturally dissipated, seemed to be enveloped and molded by an invisible hand, slowly rising from the blackened crater floor.
It no longer radiated the oppressive aura of the nine hells, but was instead encased in a thin yet resilient invisible force field.
Within this field, the pale flames strangely solidified and contracted, ultimately transforming into an irregular crystal roughly the size of a fingernail, its surface a deep crimson hue with solidified flames swirling slowly across its surface.
Roland's gaze sharpened. Ignoring the searing pain in his right arm, his sharp eyes scanned the surrounding sky and earth like a hawk, his senses rippling outward like concentric circles.
Confirming the immediate absence of danger, Roland hesitated no longer.
With a light tap of his left foot against the ground, he soared into the air once more, leaping toward the floating crimson crystal.
Just as he approached within a few steps, preparing to examine this "most precious possession" of the Nine Hells Devil more closely, another anomaly occurred.
As if sensing his proximity, the dark crimson crystal suddenly flashed with a brilliant light.
Then, as if imbued with life, the entire crystal transformed into a viscous, flowing stream of dark crimson light, surging toward Roland's chest with astonishing speed and purpose.
Alarm bells blared in Roland's mind. He instinctively tried to dodge, but the stream of light moved with unimaginable swiftness, leaving him no time to react effectively.
Whoosh!
With a faint, almost imperceptible sound, the dark crimson light pierced through his chest without resistance, vanishing instantly.
There was no anticipated impact, no pain from an energy surge, not even the slightest sensation of a foreign object.
It simply merged into his body as silently as a drop of water merging into the sea.
Apart from a soundless, resentful scream that seemed to echo from the depths of his soul—a scream originating from the distant Nine Hells—the fusion left no discernible trace.
Roland abruptly lowered his head, staring at his undamaged chest. He instinctively touched his chest.
Beneath his skin, everything felt normal.
Before Roland could fully process his thoughts, several lines of concise, icy text suddenly materialized in his vision:
Detected foreign high-purity energy source.
Identified as: Nine Hells Flames (origin fragment).
Detected host's trait: Furnace Heart.
Attempting fusion...
"Nine Hells Flames?"
Just as Roland was puzzling over this sudden information, another anomaly occurred.
From the scorched crater, at the exact spot where Malcolm's origin had been completely annihilated, faint specks of light emerged as if breaking free from a cage.
Most of them, radiating a sense of liberation, silently dispersed into the world.
However, one cluster of light was different.
More condensed than the others, it emanated a cold, viscous malice.
Instead of fleeing, this cluster surged toward Roland.
The light twisted violently, flickering between stretching into a blurred, grotesque human face and contracting into a hateful gaze that seemed to pin Roland in place.
The venomous resentment and hatred contained within were so intense they nearly materialized into a tangible curse.
An ordinary person would likely have had their mind corroded by this pure malice.
But Roland merely frowned slightly, observing it with detached composure.
He could clearly sense that this fragment of soul, brimming with hatred, was both emotionally overwhelming and utterly fragile.
Like rootless duckweed, it had lost all its foundations of strength and could do nothing but emit futile malice.
Roland stared at the distorted halo, where a vague, malevolent human face flickered. Though the features shifted constantly, the lines of the brows, eyes, and faintly discernible features...
"Wait, is that Arno?"
He murmured instinctively, his voice tinged with disbelief.
The once-illustrious duke had been reduced to this—a wisp of vengeful, fragmented soul?
The moment the words left his lips, Roland's ear twitched almost imperceptibly.
A faint, nearly wind-masked sound of footsteps, mingled with the scraping of some heavy object being dragged across the ground, drifted from the shadows of the nearby ruins.
The sound was faint, but it couldn't escape Roland's increasingly acute senses, honed by his growing strength.
He whirled around, his gaze sharp as lightning, piercing the darkness toward the source of the noise.
After a moment, a figure slowly emerged from the shadows of the shattered walls.
It was Monen.
But the Old King's condition was clearly far from good.
(End of the Chapter)
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