Chapter 272

Grrr… Bang!

Cledwyn crashed into the wall. The black light that oozed stickily from the groove he’d carved by slamming his sword into it spread out and instantly restored the damaged area.

“It’s cute how you struggle.”

Camille said, strolling closer.

They had already exchanged blows more than a hundred times. Even being pelted with a wad of paper a hundred times would leave an impact—let alone the strength of an Amplified giant. Anyone else would have died by now, or at least given up.

Yet Cledwyn, landing on the floor and spitting blood-tainted saliva, was still burning with fighting spirit. His eyes were even sharper than when he first stepped into this room.

“Let’s see if you can say that with your head cut off.”

Camille couldn’t understand him. She had destroyed countless people. Everyone believed in themselves at first. But once the gap in power became undeniable, they always broke.

When you reached a dead end, how could anyone be different?

Now, Camille was the only one who could escape that fate.

Only her.

And yet the Grand Duke kept striking with the desperate force of someone who still believed in hope. Camille hated that.

“Why do you keep resisting? You should know you’re useless now.”

Her question, tossed out as if she had all the time in the world, was laced with irritation. Cledwyn grinned.

“Useless? My wife threw herself in to create this situation.”

“A situation you couldn’t stop. You haven’t put a single wound on me, and your sword is about to break.”

No matter how excellent a sword was, it wasn’t built to collide with something that hard, over and over. The treasured blade that had long symbolized the Maindulante Grand Duke was visibly wearing down as it continued to crash against Camille’s body—and the walls of this room.

“I wasn’t planning on fighting you with a sword anyway.”

He knew for certain now. She wasn’t an opponent he could kill with physical means.

Yes. Like that pillar of light surrounding the Eye of Pheros.

‘That’s not the end. I have to go further.’

Why was Camille stubbornly holding out in this blood-soaked room?

How could he reach that emblem in the most effective way?

Cledwyn leveled his sword and charged.

“Didn’t I say it was useless? Keeping that up will only delay the moment you join your wife.”

Camille knocked his blade aside with the edge of her hand. Whether she was cut or stabbed didn’t matter, but she loathed the idea that something so lowly dared to touch someone as great as her—someone who had transcended the limits of humanity, a Transcender.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Cledwyn swung in rapid succession. Blows easier to deflect than to catch, not especially hard to evade. Camille finally thought he’d given up, and her eyes gleamed with madness as she considered how to make him taste the deepest despair.

“Fine. I’ve decided. Killing you here would be too easy. I’ll cut off your limbs and make you watch as your wife’s power is extracted right in front of you.”

“Is that the worst you can think of? Don’t worry. I’ll do the same to you.”

Clang!

Cledwyn’s swings grew heavier. Camille swept her arm with mounting irritation. She could block or bat aside every strike, but the blade whipping past her face with such vicious momentum made her flinch—little by little, against her will.

Then she realized she was standing with her back to the Imperial emblem.

“…You.”

Seeing that fox of a man had guided her there on purpose, Camille tried to shove him away at once.

Cledwyn was faster.

He drove his sword into the emblem.

Screeeeech!

Black light burst from the center of the Imperial emblem as if a dam had broken. Camille screamed without sound. It felt as though the organs inside her were being torn out by force—though in truth, it was only the small amount of power she’d added recently that was leaking away.

Before she could regain herself, Cledwyn stabbed again and again.

To be exact, he was stabbing the magic circle hidden behind the emblem.

Screeeeech! Screeek!

Light surged and spilled out. Within the pouring black were sections that glittered like the Milky Way, and sections so pitch-dark it was frightening to even look at. Camille’s eyes rolled back. She swung her hands wildly, determined to strike him no matter what, but the blows only tore through the air with brutal force.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Cledwyn didn’t get caught by such crude swings. He was grateful the predictions he and Nerys had made—little more than conjecture—had been right.

There were no other decorations in this room.

If the only ornament here was the Imperial Family’s emblem, then it had to mean something. It had to be an offering.

When some of the light brushed him, Cledwyn’s body felt strangely lighter. He couldn’t see his own eyes, but Camille, facing him, could.

The power of Pheros—power he should have inherited—was flowing into the true descendant of Pheros.

Camille convulsed.

It couldn’t be happening. It was right in front of her. What she’d wanted her entire life. The sweetest fruit on the tree the Imperial Family had clung to for six hundred years.

And now these intruders were ruining everything.

“Die!”

Camille thrashed as if possessed. Cledwyn poured everything he had into one final thrust.

But just before the tip could punch through the emblem and bite into the wall behind it, the blade finally gave out.

Clang!

The sword snapped.

Gasping, Camille believed victory had returned. She smiled crookedly and reached for the gnat before her to end it.

Then she saw it.

The broken blade reattached—then snapped again.

Again.

Again.

Dozens, hundreds, thousands… tens of thousands of times, right before her eyes.

It was a bizarre sight. Even Cledwyn didn’t understand what was happening. It was as though the thread of time was being undone and rewound, undone and rewound—over and over, an eerie repetition that was almost mesmerizing.

“Ah, I see. This is the power of time. The power I was meant to handle.”

Cledwyn smiled.

“As expected, I can draw out the most power while I’m in this room. You acted so invincible, but it’s not like you’ll keep a perfect body that can’t be harmed once you leave. So you waited for me here.”

Camille’s chest caved in with a terrible sense of loss.

But she couldn’t give up yet. Not all of it had flowed to him.

The magic circle behind the emblem was the central hub of every magic circle carved into this room—a command center that gathered power from the two altars and sent it to the descendants of the Bistor Empire. The accumulated force was so immense that power burst out even from such a lowly assault, yet it could restore itself, just like the other circles.

Sure enough, Cledwyn’s eyes flared—countless rays like ashen, gleaming diamonds—then slowly faded back to their original color.

“Die!”

“The princess really likes saying things twice.”

Camille hurled a punch with all her might.

What happened next was half coincidence.

Camille had trained her body to the level of basic self-defense, but she hadn’t devoted herself to martial arts. She didn’t need to. Her innate strength was protection enough.

Cledwyn, on the other hand, was a swordsman who had crossed the boundary between life and death countless times. The only reason he hadn’t been broken to pieces while facing the giant strength she possessed was because his combat sense and skill surpassed hers by far.

Knowing that the fist Camille swung carried the destructive force of a house-sized boulder dropped from the sky, Cledwyn ducked instantly.

Camille overcommitted. Her balance wavered for a split second, and she stumbled forward—tripping over Megara’s corpse.

Neither of them had spared Megara a glance. Cledwyn had never cared, and Camille no longer cared after Megara had served her purpose.

Camille was briefly thrown off, then immediately judged it didn’t matter. She could recover her footing. Even if the Grand Duke attacked in that instant, she wouldn’t die.

The problem was the direction she fell.

A bluish light erupted from the altar of Pheros.

Cledwyn knew he couldn’t touch that pillar of light. He’d already been repelled by its overwhelming resistance.

But when Camille fell and her arm brushed the altar—

The pillar of light didn’t repel her.

It passed through her.

No.

It seized her.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!”

Camille screamed in agony. Cledwyn retreated a step and watched.

Maybe that pillar of light only allowed those with Ja’an inside.

Because its original role was to seal the power of Ja’an.

Camille jerked and flailed, biting and striking at the arm caught in the light. At the same time, sparkling black power poured from the mangled Imperial emblem like a flood—endless, as though the blood of mythic giants had formed the world’s first river.

The body that had been overflowing with power only moments ago withered dry and brittle. If someone’s vitality was ripped out while they still lived, would it look like this?

Cledwyn understood.

Camille was being stripped of everything.

Perhaps in the most painful way imaginable.

By Megara, whom Camille had slaughtered so horribly.

And perhaps by Pheros, who wasn’t letting this chance pass.

“Save me! Save me! Save me, Grand Duke! Cu, cut off my arm with your sword! Sa, save… me…!”

Camille sobbed and begged when she couldn’t pull free. Cledwyn shrugged, showing her the broken sword.

“Sorry, but even if I want to, I can’t.”

Camille collapsed.

Only the arm caught in the pillar of light remained, unmoving. Black power kept pouring out. The light that had been merely gloomy until now felt like the power of Pheros that had stagnated for far too long.

There were no gray diamonds in the pillar of light anymore.

The power continued to flow without end. Cledwyn felt his body grow lighter again as he absorbed something increasingly bright and beautiful, and he stepped toward Camille—now shriveled like dry wood, barely breathing.

“Your original eye color was brown.”

Perhaps because the power of Ja’an had been stripped away, Camille’s eyes had changed. Cledwyn had never cared about other people’s eyes, but the words slipped out anyway.

Camille looked at him as if she had a thousand things to say.

Step.

Footsteps sounded at the entrance. Cledwyn turned.

Nellusion Elandria stood there.

“You were alive.”

Nerys had been right. Nellusion’s existence was truly pathetic. Cledwyn sighed, and Nellusion bent low in exaggerated satisfaction.

“Seeing those eyes, it seems all the guesses our family has made so far were correct, Your Highness the Grand Duke. Congratulations on reclaiming the power that was stolen for so long.”

“I don’t care. You… I can tell why you’re here.”

“You’re quick-witted. That’s why I’ve always hated you.”

Nellusion smiled brightly as he approached. Cledwyn weighed whether he could face him with a broken sword.

It didn’t seem impossible.

“I cut off the wizard’s head. Because he dared to touch Nerys. I learned where this place was before I killed him, but when I arrived, the door was already open. Convenient.”

Nellusion’s voice turned cold.

“I suppose you can both die here.”

He rushed in without hesitation.

Clang!

Broken blade met flawless steel.

They traded several strikes. Nellusion’s skill truly wasn’t bad.

Then, at some point, he froze mid-motion. The power of Pheros had clearly been released, but Cledwyn still didn’t understand the principle.

“Annoying.”

Cledwyn kicked Nellusion away and grabbed the rope that had been binding Megara—then used it to bind Nellusion.

Before he could finish, someone in a long robe appeared before him.

A woman with metallic eyes and hair.

Dragon Kion greeted Cledwyn with a smile.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen you since I met you in my dream, child of Pheros.”