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Chapter 266 - Even If The Sky Falls (1)

This meant that most of the large cities, with the exception of St. Hall, had been whipped out, or in other words, most of the foundations of the empire had collapsed.

The Aenia Empire was hardly an empire anymore. It had essentially been destroyed.

Of course, the outcome could’ve been way worse. Even though the cities and their citizens had been wiped out, those who had been entrusted with their defense, namely McDowell, Valhald, and Allen, were still alive.

However, that didn’t mean they had walked away unscathed. All of them had survived because they possessed superhuman strength and strong life force, but they were barely breathing.

As Henry looked at them in their half-dead state, he was grateful for their superhuman life force. However, he spotted some words carved into their bodies. Beneath the shattered armor, Henry could clearly see on each of them a message left behind by the apostle they had fought, scraped into their bloody flesh.

The message was straightforward.

‘In one month.’

The brief three-word message was self-explanatory. Unless the person reading it was a fool, everybody would understand that the apostles would reappear in a month, but Henry didn’t know why it was specifically one month.

He tried to come up with an explanation as to why the apostles would wait one month to come back, but he soon gave up. Instead, he went to the two other large cities, St. Hall and Musereal, and to the kingdom of Deucekain, to make sure that nothing had happened.

Henry fortunately confirmed that those territories had escaped Arthus’ wrath. However, the majority of the cities and kingdoms had been obliterated, all of their citizens were either murdered in cold blood or cruelly turned into zombies like those in Enkelmann.

As a result, ever since the ring of light had materialized back in that hospital, Henry had been busy ensuring the safety of the survivors and of the remaining territories.

Having taken care of everything, Henry could no longer endure the physical and mental exhaustion and collapsed into a deep sleep.

Henry ended up sleeping for nearly an entire day, and if he hadn’t, his body and mind would’ve crumbled as they had already been pushed to the limit.

This was the same for the Archmages who were working with Henry. They had all unrelentingly used their mana until they ran out of it, thus frying their brains and passing out. They were also sleeping off the exhaustion.

Proper rest was the only way to recover from the grueling magic labor.

After almost an entire day had passed, Henry could finally lift his eyelids, still heavy. He had barely recovered the minimum amount of stamina that would keep him going.

“...Ha.”

Henry let out a long, wary sigh as he woke up, expressing his mental and physical anguish without words.

The bright moon was high up in the sky, and as he sat up, Henry was bathing in the moonlight that seeped through the window.

Everything was silent.

Henry had slept in his temporary home in Monsieur. The largest hospital in Monsieur had already been shut down because it could no longer function due to how many people had perished.

Therefore, the patients who had survived, especially those who didn’t seem like they would turn into zombies, had been transferred to the second-largest hospital in Monsieur. Of course, the staff of the hospital made sure to take precautions against any possible contingencies.

Henry left his house and went up to the highest point of Monsieur. There, he took out a bottle of liquor from the subspace and uncorked it.

Pop-!

The cheerful pop of the liquor bottle echoed through the silent night. Henry took a chug of alcohol as he started collecting his thoughts.

‘What the hell do you want, Arthus?!’

Most of the cities Henry had worked very hard to build since his reincarnation and cherished had been wiped out in the blink of an eye.

Countless people had died, among them Vant, Harz, and Ten. Those three had just begun looking forward to their retirement and living their dream lives. However, instead of that, they had received death.

Henry felt a tremendous sense of guilt and regret. He couldn’t imagine the sorrow, the bitterness, the resentment they must’ve felt in their dying moments.

Henry brought the liquor bottle to his lips once more, the alcohol burning his esophagus as it went down.

It was disgustingly bitter, or at least it should have been. The truth was, the bitterness of the situation was far worse than that of any kind of alcohol, which was why Henry didn’t dare frown at the taste of the alcohol.

It didn’t take long for Henry to finish the bottle. After taking the last sip, Henry closed his eyes and started to meditate.

All sorts of thoughts and emotions swirled in his head, but after a few minutes, Henry managed to calm down his mind and offset the buzz of the alcohol through meditation.

Having achieved a calm state of mind, Henry could analyze the situation rationally.

‘I’ve certainly lost my way.’

Henry remembered the promise he had made to himself after he had been reincarnated. In order to take revenge for his pitiful death in his previous life, Henry had promised himself that he would no longer view gaining power as good or evil.

However, Henry now admitted to himself that after growing more confident due to constant success and managing to pave the path for a bright future, his convictions had faltered. After so much death and destruction, Henry was forced to admit how arrogant, how conceited he had been.

Through self-reflection and self-reproach, he achieved some clarity, his mind no longer clouded by the illusions of power and success.

Henry suppressed his emotions, especially his anger, and reflected on why he had started this whole thing in the first place. He recalled the thirst for vengeance that had sent him on this path.

Composed, Henry proceeded to analyze the past and the present, piece by piece.

‘Based on the information I have, Arthus has a total of nine apostles, but I’ve eliminated one of them, so that leaves eight. But there are also Dracan and Arthus, so there are ten enemies I must defeat.’

Henry thought about the most elementary aspects of this conflict, like how many enemies were left, how many territories were still standing, and how many people were available for immediate action.

After contemplating the situation for a while, a sudden thought flashed through Henry’s mind.

‘Wait... I managed to defeat one of the apostles, so how did McDowell and Valhald fail?’

After some thought, Henry realized that it didn’t make sense that McDowell and Valhald had been defeated, given that they were physically much stronger than Henry. He would’ve expected them to win, but instead, they had been brought on the brink of death and humiliated by having a message carved into them.

Henry thought this was most peculiar.

‘Was the apostle that I faced weaker than the others? No, that can’t be, since he had already defeated Hector.’

Since Henry had only met one apostle, he couldn’t compare him to the rest of the apostles, but even so, he thought it was unlikely that the apostle he had killed was the weakest one.

Henry continued pondering on it, but no matter from what angle he looked at it, he couldn’t come up with a plausible explanation.

“Damn it!” Henry cursed in frustration. Nevertheless, he decided to stop thinking about it, since he couldn’t come up with an explanation anyway, and focus on other things he could do something about.

‘I should get going and take care of the things I’m behind on.’

Part of Henry wanted to go back to bed and continue resting, but compared to those who had lost their fights, Henry was in great shape. Moreover, if Arthus’ message was real, Henry only had one month to prepare for it, so he didn’t want to waste any time.

Having organized his thoughts, Henry cast Teleportation.

***

Henry arrived at the ruined palace of Shahatra.

One couldn’t really call it a palace anymore after the battle with Grumpy.

The reason Henry came here was simple— there was someone he hadn’t been able to bring back with him because of the battle with Grumpy and because he had been in a rush to get somewhere else.

That someone was none other than Hector.

“Hector?” Henry called out quietly, feeling uneasy. He had come here hoping that Hector was still alive.

Soon, a blue spirit appeared in front of him.

“You\'re finally here.”

Henry had been worried that Hector might’ve been killed by the apostle, but fortunately, he was fine.

With a big smile, Henry congratulated Hector for managing to survive his encounter with Grumpy, but Hector could tell that Henry’s forced smile belied his anguish. Thus, he imitated Henry’s smile and greeted him warmly.

With an awkward expression, Henry asked, “Are you hurt?”

“No, but Korun’s body is completely ruined, which means I’m no longer able to take a physical form.”

“We can always get you another body. Sorry I’m late, I had a lot to take care of.”

“How’s Herarion?”

“He’s alive, but in critical condition. The priests from the Church of Peace will take care of him, so he should recover fairly quickly.”

“...That’s the best thing I\'ve heard so far.”

After asking about Herarion, Hector paused for a moment, and Henry also stood silent.

After a while, Hector broke the silence.

“Henry.”

“Yes?”

“I’m both frustrated and shocked.”

“I understand.”

“I don’t think you do. Listen, I’ve spent my entire life practicing swordsmanship, but none of my sword strikes made contact.”

“What do you mean?”

Henry understood that Hector was upset because of his defeat.

‘But Hector’s attacks didn’t get to him?’

This came off as a surprise.

“It’s just as I’ve said. Every time I swung at him the sword seemed like it touched him, but it didn’t actually make contact. Just as I can’t touch you right now,” Hector continued.

“So you’re saying that your attacks didn’t work on him?”

“No, I mean, my attacks did reach him, but it always seemed that the force of my attacks died out right before hitting him. It was like the momentum of my attacks were absorbed by something before impact, or to be more precise, it seemed like my power flowed into him.”

Hector tried his best to explain to Henry what he had felt and experienced, but no matter how much he explained, Henry couldn’t understand because his own attacks had worked on Grumpy.

‘I was able to cut through him, but Hector wasn’t?’

Henry and Hector couldn’t understand one another because their fights had gone very differently.

‘What can this be?’

This news from Hector pretty much confirmed what Henry had thought earlier—this wasn’t something to be taken lightly.

Hector stopped talking after he told Henry about the things he was frustrated with. He knew that this was all he could do for Henry at the moment.

Henry nodded and said, “Let’s talk about this again when the others wake up.”

“...Okay,” Hector agreed.

Before he teleported with Hector, Henry looked around Khan, the capital of Shahatra.

‘I hope everything is fine...’

The palace, the heart of the kingdom, was in ruins, and most of the officials who had been managing the palace were dead. This catastrophe would cripple the entire Shahatra kingdom.

However, Henry didn’t know yet how important the palace was to Shahatra’s survival. All he could do was anxiously pray to La, Shahatra’s Sun God.