Side story 22
* * *
thud!
With a sound that seemed to tear the heavens and earth apart, cannonballs poured out simultaneously from the battery positions lined up along the wall.
“Defeat that monster! Don’t open the way to His Majesty the Emperor!”
The fortress, which was the key strategic point of the Ninth Empire leading to the Yellow Sea and also known as the last bastion, was desperately pouring out fire.
It was once called the ‘Fortress of Destruction’ because it possessed an absurd number of cannons, and so it was an invincible fortress that not even the revolutionary army could easily overtake.
Kwung, thump!
An endless stream of cannonballs and black gunpowder rained down on the abominable giant. The cannonballs rained down on the giant’s two legs, and the gunpowder forged with magical techniques ignited, causing a secondary explosion.
“The bastard’s center is collapsing! The attacks are working!”
“Fire! Ignite the gunpowder in the cannonball! If this hole is breached, it will open the way for His Majesty the Emperor!”
That’s why they were desperately shouting, desperately holding on to hope, desperately giving meaning to their fight.
Even though the real opponent they had to face was not a golem that was a fusion of flesh and bone and cold weapons.
As if defeating that monster would be their victory.
But that was just then.
Choaack!
“uh……?”
One of the cannonmen in the battery lined up along the wall saw something climbing up the rampart and wriggling.
“tentacle……?”
And soon I realized that the tentacle was a stalk extending from the feet of that disgusting monster.
To his horror, a tentacle plunged down into the cannonman’s throat.
“Cough, ugh… … !”
It was not an easy death. The tentacles plunged into the cannonman’s body and took root. Then, as if thousands of earthworms were writhing, his body swelled and swelled in a strange way. And after expanding as much as it could, it exploded.
My body exploded and thousands of things that looked like earthworms began to quickly wriggle and scatter. But they weren’t earthworms.
It was a young tentacle.
Parasitic tentacles that burrow into the host’s body, take root, and multiply rapidly.
An incomprehensible biological weapon that defies common sense in this world.
“Hey, what the heck are these!”
“Ahhhh! Sa, save me!”
One infected person gave birth to thousands of parasitic tentacles, which began to devour the soldiers in the castle one by one. It was no use swinging a sword at the tentacles belatedly. Before I knew it, thousands of tentacles had entangled and fused together, growing so large that they covered the sky.
The bombardment ceased, and the abominable giant was right in front of the fortress. Then Dale silently lowered his head and looked at the scenery there.
Before long, the entire fortress that the empire was proud of was engulfed in an endlessly proliferating swarm of tentacles. The people were no exception.
It was reborn as a living creature with tentacles wrapping around the fortress, unable to live or die, reborn as a part of the fortress and the tentacles.
A black, tar-like mucus poured down along the facial features.
And towards the fortress, the abomination stretched out its arms. Endless tentacles sprouted from the giant’s body, fusing with the tentacles that wrapped around the fortress… … and began to devour the fortress whole.
The castle walls, the inner ramparts, and the countless rows of batteries and cannons.
Not people or cold weapons, but literally a castle.
* * *
The capital of the 9th Empire.
Before him appeared an abomination made of flesh and blood and bones, and swords and shields and armor.
But that wasn’t all.
There was a disgusting giant that devoured and merged even the fortresses and citadels that blocked its path, and greedily devoured all things in the world. And in various places of the giant, there were huge, swollen masses of humans.
The victims were fused into the giant’s body, their cries echoing like a harmony. Black tar flowed endlessly from their facial features.
The tentacles that wriggle along the giant’s body barely hold its form together, roughly stitching together its castles, fortresses, bones, and armor like rags.
There was a monster there that had grown dozens of times larger than when it first appeared, literally devouring the world.
Predator of the Empire.
“Hey, what the hell is that!”
“We don’t know either! Just like I said, there’s a monster that greedily devours everything that stands in its way… … ”
No matter how many times the scouts reported and described the strangeness, witnessing it firsthand was a completely different matter.
As time progressed, the world became more widespread with the existence of black gunpowder such as cannons and muskets. However, the cannon fire and all the bombardment directed at these beings were meaningless.
Kuung!
Rather, it was the ‘Abominable Giant’ that was firing the cannon. The tentacles were writhing around in the giant’s body, pulling out the cannon and the cannon, and it was spewing out fire like a fortress of destruction had been firing cannonballs.
And it goes without saying where that being picked up the cannon.
“You want us to stop that… … ? Ha, haha… … This is f*cking annoying.”
As Marquis Rosette, the commander of the garrison who had to desperately defend the capital, there was no other way. He couldn’t even laugh in vain.
The incompetent emperor who rules the Ninth Empire while calling himself the Shadow Lord has already fled. Nevertheless, he gave an absurd order to desperately protect the capital of the Empire with his life, and this is the end of that order.
“I will issue orders to all my troops.”
That is why the Marquis de Rosette said:
“From now on, everyone must abandon this capital and flee.”
“Ha, Haona, Your Majesty! Your Majesty… … ”
“The emperor, go eat some shit.”
The Marquis of Rosette muttered as if it were someone else’s business, and the soldiers’ expressions became thoughtful.
“From now on, I will lead my knights back to the territory and join the revolutionary army. However, I will not force my decision on all the imperial nobles. Make sure all the nobles under your command are informed of this fact!”
After saying so, the Marquis of Rosette turned his back on the knights following him without a moment’s hesitation.
Immediately afterwards, the tentacle stem that had crawled up to the very bottom of the castle walls stopped moving.
* * *
thud!
When the abominable giant finally reached the capital of the empire, it was a ghost town without a single fly to be found. No, it wasn’t that there were no people. They were just people who had nowhere to run or no way to escape, waiting for death indifferently.
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But there was no sign of knights or nobles holding swords, or of those who should have resisted.
When the empire was first established, this city must have shone with glory, as all nine empires did. But nowhere was there a trace of its former glory.
“The emperor who abandoned the empire and ran away… … .”
On the giant’s shoulder, the man muttered blandly.
Choaack!
Immediately afterwards, the tentacles that had been stitching the giant’s body together like rags were released. As soon as the forcibly sewn-up sutures were released, the giant’s body came crashing down.
Flesh, blood, and bones covered the land, and several castles and fortresses collapsed, devouring everything they had.
The mass of humans there were finally able to rest.
* * *
The Emperor had abandoned the Empire and fled. And Dale strode toward the Imperial Capital, where the one who should have protected it had disappeared.
Neither towering walls nor drawbridges could block Dale’s path.
As he took a step into the empty space, tentacles rose up along his feet, tangling and growing, revealing a path. And as he stepped onto the path created by the endless tangle of tentacles, Dale stepped beyond the zodiac.
The cries and cries of those who could not escape and could not escape could be heard from all over. Nevertheless, Dale also continued walking without paying any attention.
Towards the faded and fallen imperial palace of the Ninth Empire.
I walked alone and blandly, the sound of my footsteps echoing along the marble tiles in the silence.
Very lonely and quiet.
The Empire of Solitude.
Dale looked across the black marble tiles toward the throne at the end of it.
“… … .”
And at the unexpected presence there, the shadow under the hood was momentarily puzzled.
A man sat on a pitch-black throne.
There still remains in the Ninth Empire a being with the will to oppose him. And he even sits on the throne reserved for the Emperor, so shamelessly.
“Didn’t the emperor run away and abandon the empire?”
“Yes, it was.”
The man answered. The voice sounded very familiar.
──It was a knight clad in red and white armor.
“Wearing red and white, are you loyal to the Shadow Lord?”
“The Shadow Lord?”
The knight burst into laughter at those words, dumbfounded.
“How dare that fool claim to be the King of Truth and Shadows, and the Empire of Shadows?”
“I guess so. Then what is your true identity that makes you say that?”
“It’s the devil.”
“… … .”
“And the son of my mother, Lady Scarlett.”
At that name, Dale held his breath.
“Aside from Ray Yuris, were there any other children of the Yuris siblings?”
“Oh, Marquis Yuris the Bloody is not my father. My mother conceived me alone.”
Only then could Dale understand.
Back in the days of the Fourth Empire, a group of people had conducted experiments to bring down a ‘demon’ on this land. And among them, there was only one who succeeded and survived until the end, and even Dale forgot the existence of that last demon.
The demon of evolution, the ultimate creature.
“When my mother gave birth to me, I looked like a warrior.”
“… … That was my true identity that fought against me.”
“But I was ultimately defeated before you. But the ultimate creature is never in the strength of an individual.”
There was a knight armed with red and white armor.
“The value of life is to continue its genetic material. As the ultimate living organism, it preserves and continues the ‘information’ that is never cut off throughout history.”
And the knight took off his armor. Inside the armor, there was a very familiar face.
Michael Lancaster, Apostle of Fire and Light.
“I don’t need to be a king, I don’t need to rule the world. Just existing without being destroyed is the only reason I exist.”
“Then why did you show yourself in front of me?”
Dale asked back, not understanding.
“Don’t you understand that this is an act that will soon lead to death?”
“But I have a mission to fulfill that is separate from the function of life.”
The Demon of Evolution, the son of Lady Scarlett, and simultaneously a being with the skin of Mikhail Lancaster, drew his sword.
“Mother’s revenge.”
It was a truly human reason, not befitting a devil.
