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Chapter 477: The Unrivaled Father Who Knows Destiny (2)

"Such a painful life of being chained by a thick iron chain during the day, and being free only at night. His life will never be his again."

—Park Young-hee, "The Hunting Dog"

[Tl/N: A South Korean poet , novelist , literary critic , and pro-Japanese collaborator. He wrote the book ‘Hunting dog’ in 1925.]

* * *

Hugo le Baskerville.

The head of the Iron Blooded Sword clan Baskerville, stood there.

His body, transformed into a Death Knight, was covered in pitch-black armor forged in the flames of hell, and his once blood-red aura had turned entirely black.

The life held as collateral drained away like the receding tide.

His skin turned pale and bluish, and his eyes, as if life and death had swapped places, reversed their colors.

It was a contract where life was exchanged for power.

In the final fierce battle, Hugo pushed his mana beyond its limits and crossed the threshold of the 9th Style, which he had only glimpsed from afar for a long time.

BOOM!

The flames erupting from the Gate of Destruction clashed with the aura emanating from the Death Knight.

Even the legendary sword, Balmug, began to melt under the rebounding damage.

That Balmug.

The once sharp and sturdy sword.

A blade honed colder and sharper than anything in the world.

Slowly. Hotly. It melted and crumbled.

Vikir watched this and involuntarily asked,

"…Why?"

The voice, like metal slowly melting in a furnace, was heavy and hot.

Despite the weight of his tone, the slight tremor in his voice was more noticeable.

For the first time, he asked a question not out of obligation but out of genuine curiosity, seeking an answer.

Was it misguided fatherly love? A false sense of responsibility? Petty guilt? A belated attempt at atonement?

What could it be? What drove him to make this choice?

……

Hugo did not look back at Vikir\'s question, which left much unsaid.

As always, he stared straight ahead and quietly moved forward.

His broad back slowly faded into the blinding light.

Suddenly, Vikir felt a faint, distant voice whisper at the edge of his hearing.

"I don’t know either."

…Was there something in this world that even he didn’t know? Vikir wondered unconsciously.

And for a moment, with an odd sense of disbelief and unfamiliarity, he stared at Hugo’s retreating figure.

Despite living through multiple lives and being older now than his father was… Why? Why couldn\'t he understand him? Why couldn\'t he grasp his father\'s feelings?

The back moving further away was broad and strong.

It wavered, dark and unclear, like something sinking beneath the surface of molten lava.

And then.

Flash!

The view cleared.

What he saw was a black sky and a red dimensional gate.

The first impact from the Gate of Destruction had dissipated.

The one who blocked it was the supreme leader of the Iron Blooded Sword clan, Baskerville, and the master of all hunting dogs.

…And the truth, that even he had spent his entire life chained by thick iron.

Hugo le Baskerville. Aged 64. He burned white on the battlefield, blazing gloriously to his end.

There were no words to describe it but it was a fitting end for a Baskerville.

Even Orca and Marquis Sade were left speechless by Hugo’s battle and sacrifice.

“…That was truly the Baskerville 9th Style. Could such a feat really be possible?”

"I can\'t believe it. The old Cane Corso... he wasn’t just a senile fool?"

The atmosphere was undeniably overwhelming, filled with a solemn and heroic grandeur.

Hugo\'s final act of defiance left everyone in the stronghold with heavy hearts, clenching their teeth in silent grief.

In the end, the fort of Tochka survived. And so did Vikir.

"......"

Vikir gazed at the white ashes carried by the wind.

White, completely burnt ashes. The remnants of complete combustion, where everything had been consumed by fire.

He couldn\'t be sure if this was what Hugo had left behind, but Vikir felt that somehow, it was.

...However.

Hugo’s sacrifice didn’t bring an end to the entire situation.

RUMBLE!

The Gate of Destruction, summoned at the cost of Phlorosya’s life, still stood tall in the sky.

Though the firestorm that had erupted when the gate first opened had died down, the torrential ‘Storm of dreadful calamity’ that followed remained.

Before long, small, bright red droplets began to fall from the enormous gate.

Patter, pat-pat, drip.

They were sparks—tiny embers like those that fly when metal strikes metal.

And soon, these embers fell in droves, in countless numbers.

"It\'s raining fire!"

Someone among the refugees shouted.

They were right.

The countless drops of fire raining from the sky began to burn everything they touched on the ground.

The scorching shower, tracing fiery lines as it fell, left no one brave enough to challenge it.

The inevitable end.

It was clear that the end was beginning here in Tochka, casting its long shadow.

Screams erupted from all around.

Refugees gathered on the walls lowered their heads, fleeing to the safety of the stone fortress to escape the rain of fire.

Anything flammable—tents, wooden poles, anything at all—became fuel for the flames.

The ground was already starting to steam with red heat.

"...It\'s over. There\'s nothing we can do about this."

"Hehehe... See? We were destined to burn after all."

Orca and Sade, looking up at the falling fiery raindrops, spoke with despair in their voices.

Just then.

A young girl, Shammua, standing next to Tudor, wiped a raindrop off her face with her hand.

“Huh?”

Her expression showed no pain or despair.

Only surprise and a strange delight.

“This is water!”

At Shammua’s words, Tudor and Bianca turned their heads.

“No, it’s fire! You have to run! Get under the stone wall now!”

“Quick, take cover!”

But Shammua remained confused.

“No, really, brother and sister! This is water!”

As she spoke, Shammua wiped the raindrop from her face and extended her hand forward.

The moist droplets on her hand were unmistakably just ordinary rain.

“What?”

“Huh?”

“What is this?”

One by one, those who had been fleeing into the castle began to raise their heads.

The fiery raindrops still fell from the Gate of Destruction.

But before anyone realized it, more and more ordinary raindrops began to fall, cutting through the fiery ones.

Sizzle, hiss.

The fire and water droplets collided midair, transforming into white steam.

The fiery red flames that had been rising from the ground began to lose their intensity.

Before long, the rain falling from the sky grew heavier.

Whoooosh!

It was all water.

“Rain! It’s real rain!”

“W-Water! It’s water!”

“Water droplets are falling!”

People stared at the sky, their eyes wide with disbelief.

The Gate of Destruction loomed above, cloaked in dense, dark clouds.

Whiiiiish!

A fierce wind from the southeast pushed the black clouds towards them.

Rooooar...

The rain, now turning into a downpour, formed powerful streams at the base of Tochka\'s steep fortress walls.

A sudden, torrential monsoon poured down like madness, strong enough to overwhelm the rain of fire falling from the Gate of Destruction.

Camus, Aiyen, Dolores, Sinclaire, and Kirko watched the unexpected and tremendous downpour in awe.

“I’ve never seen rain like this before.”

“Not even in the rainforests, where it pours heavily.”

“Unbelievable timing…”

“Our water problems are solved!”

“The climate here on the surface is truly unpredictable.”

Everyone else was left speechless by the sheer volume of rainfall.

There was likely not a single refugee in Tochka who had ever witnessed such a downpour.

...*Crackle! Hissss!*

The once burning-hot Gate of Destruction began to cool.

Even the firestorm it had unleashed was subdued by the immense rain.

The ground, which had just begun to catch fire, was swept clean by the flood.

"Everyone, back into the fortress!" commanded Major Orca.

Tochka, a fortress built on a solid rock plateau, was in no danger of erosion.

Its elevated position meant there was no risk of flooding.

The terrain, composed of large rocks and sand between them, drained water quickly.

“A fortress that can withstand any monsoon. A place where neither fire nor water can harm it... like a mythical ark…” Dolores murmured to herself.

Then, suddenly, something clicked in her mind.

‘Only here will fire and water be avoided, and only here will true salvation be found.’

That was the false myth she had crafted and spread.

And the one who had long ago instructed her to create that myth.

‘A great flood will come soon, so prepare an ark.’

‘Hold on. I can only tell you to endure.’

‘Wait a little longer, and everything will resolve naturally. I promise.’

That figure had long established their base in Tochka.

The one who had borne everything alone, waiting and promising salvation even as the water supply dwindled and demons ran rampant.

Vikir.

He stood at the front of the fortress, gazing at the Gate of Destruction.

Sizzle, hissss...

Most of the startingraindrops never made it close to the Gate of Destruction, evaporating before they could reach it. However, the rain that followed pushed through the heat, advancing steadily.

The Gate, which had been heated to extreme temperatures by Phlorosya\'s mana, began to cool rapidly under the relentless downpour.

Vikir turned his head.

In the southeastern sky, a constellation of stars appeared—seven stars commonly known as the Wayfinder\'s Stars. A special constellation that could only be seen from certain directions, it had guided countless travelers throughout history.

Yet now, the constellation had eight stars.

Boom!

Amid the heavy rain, Vikir stared quietly at the unusually bright eighth star.

“…Poseidon.”

The trials and struggles he had endured in Nouvellebag were finally paying off.

A firestorm was on the horizon—150 days of monsoon of burning flames.

But the simultaneous downpour, a 150-day flood, had begun to extinguish the fires. The torrential rain would cool the furnace that powered the Gate of Destruction, effectively marking the end of the war.

The Gate, now cooling rapidly, stopped functioning.

Mana dissipated, and the summoning circle that had formed the Gate grew faint.

The era of destruction would not come.

Vikir looked down at the battlefield, which was now littered with the corpses of poisoned humans washed away by the rain, and the plains below had turned into a sea.

Then, at last, he gave his final command.

"Tudor."

Tudor, hearing Vikir\'s call, raised his spear in response.

As if waiting for this moment, Vikir immediately spoke.

"We need the Invincible fleet from the Donquixote clan."

Everyone present had the same thought.

Their destination: the Imperial Capital. The symbol of the Empire where the Emperor resided.

A place where everyone enjoyed their youth and prime of their lives.

…And where the final foe awaited.

The first corpse.

The last demon hid there.