Blink, blink—
Bia, who had been staring at me for a moment with only her eyes blinking, asked as if to confirm whether she had heard me correctly.
“You… eat dragons?”
“Yeah.”
Just a moment ago, she had been acting like a madwoman obsessed with fighting, and now even she was flustered. Was eating dragons really that shocking?
“But dragons are your kin, are they not?”
“Ah.”
Only now did I understand why she was so shocked.
It made sense, since the way we looked at each other was different.
“You don’t know much about dragon ecology, do you?”
“Of course not. I am not a dragon.”
“Right. You’re not a dragon. So, to put it simply.”
Dragons are an arrogant race that remains faithful to their desires, and most dragons are no different.
Would such dragons have any attachment to their own kind?
It would be safe to say they have none at all.
As for me, I don’t belong to that majority, so I do have some attachment to my kin, but not to the point that it extends to those whose names I only know and have never even met.
In the distant past, I think I did have a stronger attachment to my kind, but every time I went to meet them simply because dragons were so few in the world, those bastards picked fights with me. That attachment has long since disappeared.
Then I ended up in a rather serious quarrel with one dragon, and before I knew it, I had already killed him.
And from the corpse of the dead dragon, I felt a strange pull.
To be precise, from the area around the heart.
As if possessed, I split open the dragon’s chest, pulled out its heart, and swallowed it in one bite.
The heart, in which all of a dragon’s power was condensed, brought the pleasure of growth to me, who had not grown even after eating the roots of Yggdrasil that supported the Nine Worlds.
Even more, if Yggdrasil’s roots had merely filled my vessel until then, consuming a dragon’s heart went beyond that and expanded the vessel itself.
After polishing off the heart in an instant and completing my growth, I went around for a while killing dragons who picked fights with me, and perhaps because of that, I even ended up with the bizarre nickname of the dragon that kills dragons.
Mm, thinking about it after so long is making my mouth water.
After hearing the reason I had tried to obtain information on dragons, Bia looked at me as if she were looking at a lunatic.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“No, I just thought you had an unusually good personality for a dragon, but I suppose I was mistaken…”
“What are you talking about? For a dragon, I’m extremely normal.”
I meant it.
Compared to the personalities of the dragons I had met so far, mine was good enough to be in the top one percent among them.
But Bia shook her head as if she did not agree at all.
It felt unfair, but knowing that no further explanation would get through to her, I gave up on persuading her.
Instead, after confirming that she had recovered enough to move without issue, I prepared to leave the Gate.
“I’ll be going now.”
“Already? I would like to talk a little more… Well, it is not as if this is the only opportunity. Once I finish recovering, can you fight me again?”
“Focus on recovering first. And if you plan to challenge me again, come back stronger.”
“Hehe, telling this goddess of violence to come back stronger. How long has it been since I was treated like this? Very well. Next time, I shall hone my skills even further before challenging you.”
Leaving Bia behind as she waved me off, I headed toward the Gate’s exit.
And when I passed through the wavering Gate, the sight I saw was not as bad as the aftermath of Bia’s fight with me, but it was still a scene of chaos, with things overturned here and there.
“What the hell? What happened now?”
***
Rewinding time a little, to around when Nidhogg and Bia began their fight.
With the Gate fluctuations happening one after another, it would have been normal for the outside of the Gate to be thrown into chaos. However, the three who had come out of the Gate happened to explain what had occurred inside quite well, calming the bewildered Association members and Awakeners. The three then rested in a temporary tent prepared by the Association while waiting nearby until the fight taking place inside the Gate ended.
And at a place a little distance away from the area around the Gate where they were resting.
There appeared unidentified black-clad figures, dressed in black and even covering their faces with masks.
At the head of exactly ten black-clad figures stood a man in a white mask.
He spoke to the other black-clad figures in a commanding tone.
“You already heard before we departed, but I will confirm it once more. This Gate is presumed to be a Gate containing the legacy of the Titans. Before the greedy Association and those Awakener bastards seize Their legacy, we must recover it first. I permit the use of force. Kill all witnesses, enter the Gate, and obtain the legacy. Understood?”
At the white-masked man’s command, the black-clad figures all nodded in unison.
Once the order was given, the black-clad figures simultaneously rushed toward the Gate.
And when they drew close to the Awakeners resting around the Gate, black energy surged and wriggled out from their bodies.
That energy was similar to the power that had once been eating away at Baek Yeon.
The viscous energy gathered together and flew quickly toward the place where the Awakeners had gathered, then collided.
Kwaaaang!!
Flames imbued with black mana rose up everywhere.
It would not have been strange if someone had died.
However, the Awakeners gathered here were not ordinary people either. They were Awakeners who had traveled through numerous Gates and experienced all manner of hardship.
By the time the black mana spheres came flying, they had already grabbed their equipment and thrown themselves aside, and now stood facing the black-clad figures.
“Who are you bastards?”
“……”
Even at the question from a muscular man who was quite a veteran among Awakeners, the black-clad figures kept their mouths shut and gave no answer.
Instead, they created weapons made of black mana and rushed at different Awakeners.
The moment a black-clad figure and an Awakener clashed, the Awakener holding a shield was pushed backward despite his overwhelming physical strength.
“What kind of strength is this?!”
“……”
The black-clad figure, still giving no answer, swung his weapon again with indifference. The Awakener instantly realized that there was no answer if he simply kept blocking, so he dodged the attack and retreated.
Another Awakener who had been gathering mana behind him muttered in a sickened tone.
“Ha, where the hell did those freaks pop out from…”
“These aren’t attacks you can block many times. Aim for an opening within three exchanges.”
“Yessir. Leave it to me.”
After saying that, the Awakener charged back at the black-clad figure with his enormous shield, and their weapons collided.
Kooong!!
At the monstrous strength that was hard to believe came from a body not even two meters tall, the Awakener with the shield braced himself with all his might, putting so much strength into his lower body that it felt like it might burst. The black-clad figure, whose attack had been blocked, struck down even harder than before.
Kwaang!!
“Kuhup!”
The tremendous strength was one thing, but upon contact with the black mana used by the black-clad figures, the Awakener’s ordinary mana was easily crushed. He instinctively sensed that it would be hard to endure even three exchanges.
“Still not ready?!”
“It’s done!”
Rumble—! Bang!
At the same time as the reply that preparations were complete, the sky roared, and a single bolt of lightning fell from the clear sky.
The clothes of the black-clad figure struck directly by the lightning were torn apart, revealing his body.
Blackened inverted eyes and black tattoos carved all over his body.
“Kraaaaaaap!”
The black-clad figure, who should have been roasted crisp after taking a lightning bolt head-on, spewed black mana from his entire body. The red burn marks vanished, and his condition returned to normal.
“He recovered from that? What a damn monster.”
“Shit. What do we do?”
“What else? We keep going as far as we can.”
The moment they steeled themselves to die if necessary—
Kwaaaang!!
Something fell from the sky at tremendous speed and crushed the black-clad figure.
When the dust kicked up from the impact scattered, the one standing there was none other than Baek Yeon.
Holding her spear in a reverse grip, she had driven it into the black-clad figure’s head.
“Baek Yeon?!”
“W-wow… I thought it was another new monster.”
The Awakener who had dropped the lightning let out a breath, clutching his chest, which had tightened at the sight of horns and a tail clearly visible through the dust.
But his relief lasted only a moment. At Baek Yeon’s sharp glare, having taken issue with the word “monster,” he quickly shrank back.
After glaring at the Awakener for a moment, Baek Yeon opened her mouth.
“Their weakness is the head.”
“You know who these bastards are?”
“I heard they’re called ‘fiends.’”
“Fiends, huh. A needlessly bloody name. But just now, one took lightning to the whole body and was perfectly fine.”
“That much is not enough. You have to completely crush their heads, as I did.”
“…Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
After revealing the weakness of the black-clad figures, whose identity was now known to be fiends, Baek Yeon ran off to kill the fiends attacking the other Awakeners.
While Baek Yeon dealt with the fiends one by one, Shin Sua was efficiently blocking their attacks by making use of the Valkyrie armor.
Once the two entered the battlefield like that, the atmosphere changed in an instant.
The Awakeners, who had been gradually pushed back and suffering casualties because they were facing fiends for the first time and did not know how to properly deal with them, began taking down the fiends one by one according to the two’s advice.
And when six of the fiends had been dealt with—
The white-masked man appeared before the fiends.
“Haa… No matter how incomplete they may be, what disgrace is this? I have no face to show Him.”
At the sudden appearance of a new enemy, everyone stopped in place and watched him.
He held his mask and shook his head, then stretched his hand toward the Awakeners.
“If I do not at least take your heads, I truly will have no face to show Him.”
Mana similar to what the black-clad figures had used until just now flowed out along his hand.
However, the mana used by the white-masked man was several times superior in both quality and quantity.
Just before the mana, spreading like black ink, swallowed everyone whole—
Along with a bright light, the Valkyrie Linnea appeared, wearing the same armor as the one Shin Sua used.
“Everyone, step back.”
As she folded her wings made of light and descended to the ground, her voice contained none of its usual playfulness.
Keeping her sharp eyes, visible through the gaps in her armor, fixed on the man without looking away for even a moment, Linnea spoke in a cold voice.
“You seem a little different, but you were here as well, were you? Lackeys of destruction.”