8. Lukra>
It had been ten years since he had fallen into Apental. If that was when Ragaofe had first seen him, then it certainly had not been a short time. But upon hearing Sian’s words, Ragaofe shook his head.
Back then, rumors had spread quite widely among the upper classes, so word of him could have reached Ragaofe’s ears. Now that he thought about it, there were quite a few points in time that came to mind. With the intelligence network of Ragaofe’s organization, Heranter, all such matters would have reached Ragaofe’s ears.
But Ragaofe continued to shake his head.
At the unexpected answer, a strange sound escaped Sian’s mouth. Since the blessing ceremony… he did not even properly remember that time.
Seeing his reaction, Ragaofe smiled and continued.
“It was to measure that ratio of human-species blood to monkey blood you mentioned before.”
At that, Ragaofe grinned and said,
Ragaofe nodded.
As if unpleasant memories from the past had resurfaced, Steel made a displeased expression. Ragaofe made a strange hand gesture as if to calm her, then looked at Sian and spoke.
Considering her younger brother’s bizarre strength, even 200 or 300 would not have been strange, but wasn’t a percentage supposed to end at 100 in the first place? So she thought it must have been around 100.
But Ragaofe shook his head.
At the absurd number, Steel asked back in surprise.
Sian, finding the sudden emergence of a secret birth story fascinating, asked as well. Ragaofe smiled and answered.
Steel asked back at this fact she was hearing for the first time. Ragaofe shook his head and replied,
Steel pressed him, seeming curious.“…
What…….”
“Mm? What do you mean?”
“No. They definitely said that when a Divine Blood dies, everyone bound to their seal dies as well. Then why is Ragaofe still alive?”
“Now that you mention it, that is true.”
Until now, he had never seriously thought about Ragaofe’s lifespan. From what he had heard, those who received a seal lived eternally. But if that was the case, it meant Ragaofe had lied.
Either Lorval was not the last Divine Blood, or even if a Divine Blood died, their subordinates did not die.
When Sian looked at Ragaofe, Ragaofe smiled and said,Sian looked at Ragaofe, whose expression was exceedingly calm as he said this, with a strange expression.
Steel asked with a confused expression. Both were unfamiliar concepts to her, so from Steel’s perspective they had sounded like the same thing, but apparently they were not.
When Sian asked with a doubtful expression, Ragaofe smiled and said,
After handing over to Lorval all the materials necessary to become an alpha, Ragaofe had intended to enter the Forbidden Land, but he had not held particularly high expectations. To begin with, he did not have much of his lifespan remaining. In the outside world, more than a thousand years had passed, but for him, who had been inside Aksarum, only about a hundred and fifty years had passed. However, because he had devoted himself to research, he had only achieved the Baron realm, and considering the years he had spent before entering Aksarum and the years he had spent after leaving it while searching for Duke Lorval, he did not have much lifespan left. In truth, he himself could feel that he did not have much life remaining. Ten years at most.
It would have been good if he could have gone after receiving Duke Lorval’s seal, but at the time, Duke Lorval was using the full power of his seal to govern the Swarm, Murakan, and the dukes. Thus Ragaofe went down with the heart of an explorer. Since he did not have much lifespan left anyway, he simply thought he would take a look at the Forbidden Land before dying. The pretext was, of course, procuring insufficient research materials, but how could he possibly obtain materials and come back from within that place guarded by the masters of the Forbidden Land? At the time, they were not yet alphas, but to Ragaofe himself, an alpha and a Beta 4 were all the same. And so he went down intending to make that place his grave.
But as he descended, he was abducted unexpectedly.
Unknown beings. These beings forcibly dragged Ragaofe, who had been traveling along a path the previous exploration party had used, one that was not affected by the Mountain of Extremes, into the mountain. Strangely, their power allowed him to endure to some extent even inside the Mountain of Extremes. And one among them, who seemed to hold a high position, read Ragaofe’s memories and then let out words as if sighing. Only later did he learn that this being was one who held the rank of priest. They were clearly using a different language, so it should have been normal for him not to understand, but the one sentence the priest uttered lodged itself vividly in Ragaofe’s mind through a spirit wave.
The Lukra, the great race who dwelled in the Mountain of Extremes and produced the endlessly mighty alpha, Gran-Ra.
They had not lived in the Mountain of Extremes from the beginning. Nor had they been powerful from the start. No, rather, they had belonged to an exceedingly weak category. Because of the two characteristics they possessed.
But the damage was far too great. A crisis of death meant, quite literally, that one might die. There were many who survived, but there were also many who died, and so they gradually became an elite few, but their numbers continued to dwindle.
As they grew stronger and wandered the continent, their tribe discovered a truly wondrous land.
A land that became more dangerous the stronger one was.
A place where the mighty flesh that made me strong attacked me.
This land, which other living beings avoided to the utmost, was like a blessing to the Lukra.
After finding the Divine Land, they did not wander elsewhere, but remained within it and trained endlessly. At first, the weak began their training in the lower reaches. Then, when they felt they were truly about to die, they descended a little and stayed somewhere less dangerous, while those who had taken a step forward gradually made their way toward the summit. The closer they climbed to the top, the harsher that mysterious mountain became, but that only tempered the Rukra into even stronger beings.
Humans named it the Mountain of Extremes, but they named it a blessed land, the Divine Land. Ever since finding this land, their power had steadily grown. In the process, their race adapted completely to the Mountain of Extremes, to the point that they developed the drawback of actually growing weaker when they went outside, but that much was something they could fully endure. After all, it was a problem that would be solved entirely if they raised their realm without leaving.
But there was a problem. Their warriors, who continued to break through walls and advance toward the summit until they finally reached it, attained what humans called the realm of Alpha. The problem was that, once they became Alphas, not even the summit of the Divine Land posed a deadly threat to them.
From then on, they began to go out and hunt. The mighty Alphas of other races. If they died fighting them, then they died; those who survived became stronger still. Later, when the human races came to the eastern continent, they looked down on it because there were no powerful races there, but that was the result of all the Alphas of the eastern continent having been swept away by the warriors who lived within the Mountain of Extremes.
Though the process was by no means easy, and the number of Alphas among the Rukra race diminished even further, that continuous process eventually produced a miraculous being.
The strongest one. A supremely great existence, like a god, who ruled over the eastern continent where the Mountain of Extremes stood, wielding a golden blade forged by grinding down and crushing countless Alphas.
Grang-ra struck down the king of the giant race that had ruled the eastern continent and gained strength akin to that of a god, but he realized that a problem had arisen. After the Alpha of the giant race, there was no longer any strong being capable of provoking him. One had to face the crisis of death in order to become stronger, yet there was no one who could drive him into such a crisis.
No, to be precise, there was one. The ruler of those who lived in the firmament, who had little interest in the land.
The ruler of the Drakun, who lived above the clouds and dominated the skies. The omniscient and omnipotent one. The ruler of supernatural powers.
But Aksarai realized that fighting Grang-ra would only lead to mutual destruction, and so he avoided Grang-ra and refused to fight him. If Aksarai chose to flee, there was no real way to catch him. The firmament was their domain, after all. Disappointed, Grang-ra returned to the Divine Land and fell asleep. And the few remaining Rukra Alphas also followed Grang-ra into slumber.
A thousand years passed after that. During that time, while Grang-ra slept, the Rukra continued to train steadily within the Mountain of Extremes. And over those years, on the western continent, the human races prospered, led by Broxian, a miraculous human who had grown strong through a process similar to that of the Rukra.
When a priest happened to see an expedition of the human races enter, he grew curious about the outside world and read their minds. For Lord Grang-ra had forbidden them from leaving the Divine Land while still in the weak state of Beta.
But he learned an unexpected fact. Far to the west, there was a mighty Alpha coiled in place, one who could rival Grang-ra. The priest conveyed this story to Grang-ra, and Grang-ra awakened from his sleep in excitement. Then he launched himself into the air and flew to the Divine Kingdom in a single stride.
Broxian, too, was bewildered at first, but he was not at all the sort to avoid a fight that came to him, so he grew excited and traded blows.
But an unexpected variable appeared.
Aksarai, who saw the two Alpha bastards who had been madly pestering him from below trading blows, had no intention of letting this chance pass. One of them was a bastard who had chased him like a madman, saying he would fight him and break through his wall, and the other was a bastard who had even floated a strange island and tried to claw his way up into the void. From Aksarai’s perspective, these ground-ant-like bastards, who tried to bite him whenever they saw an opening, were exceedingly irritating, but each one was as strong as he was, so he had thought it best to avoid mad dogs and had stayed away. Now that the two of them were fighting each other, he had descended to settle matters once and for all. And if one of those two became stronger in the midst of it, even the advantage of the firmament as his home ground would no longer work. He had to kill them now, no matter what.
Grang-ra’s priest was able to know the conclusion of that battle. For Lord Grang-ra had transmitted what he saw at the very end.
The three beings, absurdly powerful beyond reason, fought one another and in the end all died together.
Their god was dead, but after confirming that the other Alphas had died as well, the Rukra first focused on increasing their own strength. Their great god who had protected them was dead, so now they had to protect themselves with their own power. And those
Since each side’s god had died, their positions were the same. The human races were excluded from this fierce struggle. They had been all but annihilated. They were far too laughable to be included.
Another thousand years passed after that. A tedious stalemate continued. To begin with, the difference in combat strength within each side’s territory was too great. Within the Divine Land, things were comfortable for their race, who had adapted to it, but for other races, entering that place alone was enough to put their lives at risk. And the firmament where the Drakun bastards lived was also a place where those who had not adapted to its immense gravity would find it difficult to display their true strength. Thus, they could only be wary of one another, unable to invade.
Then one day, the priest of the Rukra race felt drawn to a human passing outside the Mountain of Extremes. Their god was dead, but ironically, the position of priest still remained. After all, he had been a priest because he served their god with the peculiar ability he possessed, not because he had received power from that god and become a priest.
Following that pull, the priest kidnapped that human, Ragaofe, read his memories, and let out a sigh.
A conduit of Aksarai had appeared again.
Aksarai, the ruler of all supernatural powers and the possessor of omniscient authority. The priests had in fact confirmed his death through Grang-ra’s eyes, and they had proof that he had died. His body and soul had been torn apart, and all the supernatural powers he possessed had spread throughout the world and taken root in the various races.
As Aksarai died, he shook the world, and his powers spread even to the various races. Of course, they could not be compared to the Drakun race, who could handle countless kinds of supernatural powers from birth as naturally as breathing, but beings capable of using at least one kind of supernatural power appeared among each race. Such a being had appeared even among them, the Rukra race, so there was no clearer proof than that Aksarai had been torn apart.
Originally, before that, the various supernatural powers had been entirely under Aksarai’s control, powers permitted only to Aksarai and the Drakun beneath him. If Aksarai had been alive and well, it would have been utterly impossible for other species to use supernatural powers.
But when he read the memories, he discovered that a conduit of Aksarai had come into being. Unlike other supernatural powers, a conduit of Aksarai was a supernatural power close to authority, one that could only be used by receiving a portion of the soul fragments of Aksarai, who possessed omniscient authority. They were beings permitted to borrow Aksarai’s authority of omniscience and his countless supernatural powers. Only a very small number of Drakun had been granted that permission, but before Aksarai died, before he fought the Sun God and the War God, he had retrieved all those fragments, so not a single conduit had remained. Yet one had been born again.
Most likely, one of the larger fragments of his torn soul had been flung into someone. But the priest had not sighed because he feared Aksarai’s conduit. Their combat strength was certainly formidable, but they themselves were no easy opponents either.
What mattered was that, if that conduit of Aksarai were allowed to continue growing stronger, he would use the authority of omniscience to become stronger and stronger, and eventually his body would be taken over by Aksarai. Aksarai had not shared fragments of his soul out of overflowing love for his kin, accepting the reduction of his own power. It had been insurance in case he suffered a grievous wound. A conduit of Aksarai would continually learn how to become stronger. Thus, if he followed that path and one day became an Alpha, and if he continued to grow stronger, then in that process Aksarai would be reborn. An Alpha who had just been born could not reject Aksarai’s mental strength, and since he would have grown stronger through Aksarai’s abilities, his body would be even easier to seize.
But after examining the memories a little further, the Rukra priest realized that the situation was not that serious.
Because it was a fragment that had come into being on its own as Aksarai died, it did not seem to be a proper conduit. Normally, it should have been subordinate to Aksarai, yet it appeared to possess free will. If it were being properly controlled, there was no way it would be like that. And from what he heard, the authority possessed by one called Lorval was also extremely crude compared to that of Aksarai’s original conduits.
The proof was that the one called Lorval was still only a Beta. If he had been a proper conduit of Aksarai, he would have clawed his way upward by any means necessary. That was what conduits were: beings who found the path to growing stronger based on the authority of omniscience.
Moreover, after reading Ragaofe’s memories, the priest knew that Ragaofe’s plan to use Murakan and Akra to create an Alpha would fail. This man was underestimating Alphas far too much from behind a desk. The individual called Murakan would not develop any further.
The one called Lorval was no threat for now. But the Rukra priest fell into thought. What came after that was uncertain.
Outside, those beast bastards were evolving into new beings. The strange beasts living beyond had apparently judged that now, with Aksarai, Grang-ra, and Broxian, the Alpha of the human race, all dead, was their opportunity. They had hurriedly made preparations and entered evolution, and now their evolution was nearly complete. Once those bastards were born, three new Alphas would likely be added. If the Rukra tried to go out and clean them up, the Drakun would immediately descend from above the skies. Though those bastards seemed not to exist, they were watching them precisely from above the clouds. In a way, they were trapped here.
If they fought inside, they would win without fail. If they climbed into the sky and fought, they would lose without fail. If they fought outside, it would be even, but who would deliberately choose an even fight? The best fight was one you were certain you could win before it even began. The Rukra enjoyed battle, but they had no intention of dying like dogs. Those bastards’ goal was not battle, but extermination. If the Rukra slipped and were pushed back, they would all be swept away.
Thus, the strange stalemate in which those bastards did not come down and they themselves could not go out had continued even a thousand years after the war of the gods ended. And according to the priest’s thoughts, this standoff would continue in the future as well. If those beast bastards evolved into Alphas, the two-way struggle would become a three-way struggle, creating an even more stable balance.
But if Aksarai succeeded in rising again, that would be an entirely different story. He possessed legendary strength, having mutually annihilated with the great Sun God. The moment he was revived, that bastard would come down to sweep them away. He would also fear leaving them alone and allowing someone like Grang-ra to be born again.
Fortunately, the Drakun bastards seemed entirely unaware that Aksarai was being reborn. If they knew that a conduit of Aksarai had appeared again, there was no way they would leave something so dangerous unattended. In a sense, it was fortunate that all of those bastards’ attention was focused on them.
But conduits of Aksarai would continue to appear in the future. The one called Lorval was not the problem. But if conduits continued to be born, and if a conduit were to be born among the Drakun, the current balance would collapse in an instant.
In the end, they could only win by destroying the Drakun and continuously uprooting the conduits of Aksarai from now on. The problem was that they could not break the current stalemate.
Must we go out…….>A situation in which the worst decision had to be made. In such a situation, the human who had brought this information appeared before the priest’s eyes.
A man named Ragaofe.
Having read all his memories, the priest knew exactly what purpose Ragaofe had as well. The pitiable human race, whose once-brilliant civilization had been blown away in its entirety and whom even the Drakun no longer cared about. The Drakun had not bothered to exterminate humanity. They were already as good as extinct, and the Drakun knew that someone like the War God would be difficult to see born again.
To begin with, once one came to depend on civilization, society, and groups, individuals became extremely weak, and the possibility of an alpha being born—something that could only arise when individuals were trained to their very limits—decreased. Compared to the Rukra and the Drakun, who placed the individual above all else and trained them to the extreme, the human race had far too much of that tendency. Even after inheriting that great blood, the divine blood, the characteristic that manifested was merely domination. The Drakun had no leisure to concern themselves with a race that possessed such a useless trait.
The Drakun set aside their vigilance toward the human race and focused their attention on the Rukra.
Ragaofe was dreaming of a resurgence among that pitiable human race.
The War God. A man who sought to reproduce that great possibility.
And after pondering for a moment, the priest of the Rukra looked at Ragaofe and opened his mouth.
Looking at Ragaofe, the priest opened his mouth again.
Why are you telling me such a thing? Surely you are not saying we should form an alliance and go strike the Drakun?>At that, the priest shook his head.
Surely…….>
Ha…….>
What do you……?>
You mean the land of beasts?>
Watching that sight, the priest opened his mouth again.
Thus, Ragaofe set two goals. First, while eternal life was guaranteed to him, he would design a new alpha project that he could return to his continent and graft onto the human race. At the same time, he would find a method to break through those beasts and return to his own land. Though he would have to have the blessing undone when he returned, he still had ten years left. As long as he had results, grafting it onto humans would not be difficult.
To satisfy both of those goals, Ragaofe spent his time endlessly using the monkeys living there as subjects, infusing them with his blood to create kin and searching for a way to return home.
There was plenty of time. After all, eternal life was guaranteed to him. As Ragaofe continued his research with that thought, he witnessed the birth of a miracle he had never expected.
Among the monkeys, a being with the potential to become their god.