Side story episode 24
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Kaang!
The morning star and despair clashed.
After clashing swords, Dale asked back as if he didn’t understand.
“Even if you gave all the mana in this world to yourself, you still couldn’t defeat me. Have you forgotten that?”
Mikhail, clad in the armor of dawn, silently kicked the ground and swung his sword. Once again, the morning star, wrapped in the halo of dawn, struck down on Dale’s ‘despair’.
Kaang!
Once a ‘Black Prince’, he had the potential to grow into a threat to Dale. That was Michael Lancaster.
So, for Dale now, it wasn’t a threat or anything.
He turned all of the world’s mana into his enemy, and not even his own mirror or the goddess of the world could defeat him. Even the winter of the end and the king of humans were no exception.
Nothing can bring down Dale, who has been reborn as the lord of gold, shadow, and black gold.
“That is exactly what you said.”
Mikhail Yuris smiled blandly.
“When I once took on the form of a warrior and confronted you, I was unable to defeat you even though I had all the mana in the world in my hands.”
“Then you will know that even if you swallow all the mana in this world, you will not be able to defeat me.”
“Maybe so. No, probably so.”
Yet, in the figure of Mikhail Yuris, who held the morning star, there was no sign of resignation or loss of fighting spirit.
That’s why I couldn’t understand it even more.
“Then you also know that my hanging out with you right now is nothing more than my amusement.”
The god of meaninglessness held despair and sneered.
To turn the hope of the morning star that existed before him, revenge, and everything that Mikhail Yuris had into nothingness.
“I understand that you are not a being that can be helped by the total amount of mana.”
The sword of despair swung down, and the pitch-black darkness scattered from the sword engulfed the morning star.
As Dale said, it was nothing more than a one-sided game. It was like facing an old rival again, fighting in the old ways, recalling the memories of when the ‘Black Prince’ faced Michael Lancaster.
What faced Mikhail Yuris was not the Black Prince. It was simply the ‘Black Prince’ of that time.
For a brief moment, I was confronted with memories from a past that was so distant that I could barely remember them. It was literally just a game.
If Dale wakes up from his excitement, the despair in his hands will swallow up both the morning star and hope.
“After the goddess Sistina, whom you call ‘Noah,’ fell asleep, the mana of this world… … the nanomachines stopped multiplying. Therefore, every time we used the mana that had stopped multiplying, their numbers decreased even more.”
At the end of the sword, Mikhail Yuris said.
“I said that this is not an era where magic is dying, but in a sense, that is not wrong. Since the total amount of mana is fixed, every time you use that amount of mana, the magic of the world is dying.”
“I don’t want to wake her up again.”
Dale answered coldly. He thought of his old partner who had been sleeping deep within the Fourth Empire since Dale had completed his ‘mission of the warrior’.
“So, did the two brothers join forces to monopolize the remaining mana in the world?”
Dale asked coldly, and Mikhail shook his head.
“I have no intention of using mana to do anything to you.”
Nevertheless, Mikhail Yuris smiled.
“Neither Ray nor I have any grand plans or goals for greedily devouring the mana of this world. As I said, I don’t think I can do anything to you with something like mana.”
“Then why are you devouring the world’s mana?”
“possibility.”
Mikhail answered, looking at the blade of the Morning Star.
“I swung my sword every day to the point of spitting blood, absorbing mana and processing it into aura, and I swung my sword every day without fail, looking for strong people who would let me sharpen my blade.”
At the same time, the ‘mana of the world’ that he was devouring began to stir again in his heart.
“Michael Lancaster had the potential to defeat the ‘Black Prince.’ Believing in that one tiny possibility, he practiced and practiced until he had consumed all the mana in the world.”
His sword, the Morning Star, began to shine again in the light of dawn.
“I don’t have any kind of plausible plan to take you down. I just swung my sword and swung it every single day until this moment came, breathing mana and accumulating it as aura.”
“… … A possibility. Was that really all?”
“That’s all.”
“It’s really meaningless.”
“And then I realized.”
Mikhail said.
“What are you talking about?”
“As you said, the real possibility was not in the light, but in the darkness.”
At the same time, Mikhail’s sword ‘Morning Star’ lost its light. The same was true of the armor of dawn. The light of dawn, which had just recently illuminated the dark dawn and claimed to be the light of the world, had disappeared, and darkness had descended. A pitch-black darkness, but also a darkness that held the potential to become anything.
“This is the ‘horizon of possibility’ that Michael Lancaster reached.”
There was an apostle of fire and light, wrapped in the primordial darkness.
Likewise, we hold on to the ‘morning star’ that is shrouded in darkness.
“… … Shuv, was it you again?”
At those words, Dale opened his mouth to say that he was fed up. Suddenly, a girl with goat horns appeared beside Dale, puffing out her cheeks.
─ No.
Standing before the pitch-black knight, the old mother of darkness opened her mouth as if she was happy.
─ Ah, the possibilities that humans are blossoming are so lovely.
“That is a devil in human skin.”
─ But look at that child. Just as you defeated the humans of this star and took possession of the human name, is it so strange that that being should defeat you and usurp the human name?
“… … .”
─ Is it so strange that there are demons who are closer to humans than humans, just as there are humans who are closer to demons than demons?
“No way.”
The old dark mother spoke, and Dale sneered coldly. It was so absurd that I couldn’t even laugh.
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That’s right. What was in front of me wasn’t strictly speaking ‘Dale’s race’.
And it wouldn’t be strange if that alien tried to take Dale down and take away his ‘human name’.
Mikhail Yuris, the black knight made of the darkness of possibility, rushed forward.
Kaang!
The pitch-black sword shrouded in darkness, the blade of the morning star, clashed.
As soon as we collided, I could feel it.
Only because I was dealing with the darkness of primordial times could I understand.
The constellation of possibilities he was facing, the indescribably vast mass of possibilities writhing in the darkness.
There was only one thing lurking in that darkness: the possibility of taking down Dale.
And while Dale was trapped in the ice of absolute zero, and even while he was lost and wandering, ‘Michael Lancaster’ did not give up on that possibility.
Every day, he devoted his entire existence to that possibility. He practiced without fail, accumulating auras and swinging his sword to the point where the world’s mana was depleted, devouring the existence of the strong.
“Can you feel it?”
“… … !”
Through the primordial darkness, the memories of ‘Michael Yuris’ poured in, as if the wizard of the blue tower was spying on others’ memories.
As if the emotions of the other person were running wild in the world of thoughts and flowing in.
The primordial darkness that made up Mikhail Yuris began to resonate with Dale.
──The scenery was visible.
The Black Gold Monarch, who has already defeated the Winter of the End and the true king of humans, and has realized that he is the child of his former mother.
In front of him, he felt the touch of his mother’s hand, Lady Scarlett, caressing him.
‘Ah, what a lovely child.’
That’s how the Demon of Evolution was born. A perfect life form in the hands and love of its mother.
After that, he followed his mother’s orders and disguised himself as a warrior from another world, and stood up to defeat Dale together with Sistina.
And lost.
Strictly speaking, it was the fault of the Yuris family who failed to understand the ‘ultimate creature’. The devil of evolution, the ultimate creature, was never in the strength of an individual.
“The value of life is to continue its genetic material. As the ultimate living organism, it preserves and continues the information (DNA) that is never interrupted throughout history.”
That’s why Mikhail Yuris spoke again.
“In other words, paradoxically, I was not your opponent as the ‘strength of the individual.’ That is why when I, disguised as a warrior, lost to you, that defeat was not so strange.”
Anyway, we can’t kill the ultimate creature, the demon of evolution, to that extent.
But his mother, Lady Scarlett, was not like that.
That sense of loss tormented the devil for the first time.
Yet, as the ultimate being, he lacked the strength of an individual. Although he could preserve and sustain the information of his species for eons, he could never stand against that black-gold monarch as an ‘individual’.
“Still, I couldn’t forgive you for taking my mother away.”
Mikhail Yuris said as he fixed the pitch-black star.
That is why I resolved to defeat that being in order to avenge my mother.
“It was a possibility that was so far-fetched it bordered on impossible.”
At first, it was so faint and thread-like that I could not even dare see it.
“But paradoxically, you taught me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The image of not yielding to all the despair that blocks your path and believing in your own potential until the very end.”
Ironically, that fact gave the devil hope.
So, by exploring the end of the possibilities, we finally arrive at the existence of Michael Lancaster.
A being who once cut off one of the ‘Black Prince’s’ arms, and has the potential to grow into the worst threat in the future.
Every time he struck down a strongman and took their sword, the odds grew.
The devil bet everything on that possibility. He even forgot the essence of life, and for the sake of revenge, he gave up even the ‘rational thinking’ of life and chose ‘irrationality’.
Defeating something that seems impossible to defeat.
It was an act that went against the rationality of a living organism whose primary purpose is to replicate its genes.
“How foolish.”
“That’s human.”
Mikhail Yuris, the Demon of Evolution, answers.
“And now, it’s time to prove its fruition.”
“… … .”
Mikhail Yuris charged, kicking the ground.
A being made of ‘possibility itself’ was swinging a sword solely to take down Dale.
─ Ah, how can you be so foolish and lovely!
The old dark mother was rejoicing at the sight of the ‘human’ before her.
nevertheless…….
Every time he faced the desperately flailing morning star, every time he saw the absurd struggles of possibility, an indescribable emotion arose in Dale’s mind.
And then, absentmindedly, he remembered the name of the sword in his hand.
despair.
After thinking about it, I just smiled bitterly.
