The Emperor Has Returned

Chapter 242 – The Things That Began to Gather (4)

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Gerard mumbled briefly and then shifted the spear in his hand.

At that moment, a flame rose from the tip of the spear at a strange angle. Bekelt, who had been quietly watching the scene, stood up as if he couldn’t stand such a sight.

“Your Majesty Gerard!”

Only after Bekelt shouted Gerard’s name did Gerard turn his head. Bekelt flinched the moment he met Gerard’s gaze. However, there was nothing but indifference in Gerard’s eyes. He wasn’t paying attention to anyone except for Sina; it was almost as if everyone else was just a part of the background.

“Who are you?” Gerard asked.

Bekelt was even more perplexed upon hearing Gerard’s question. Although they had been apart for a long time, the time they had spent together before that hadn’t been short. Bekelt recalled that when Gerard used to be the Captain of the Order of Lindwurm, he used to be able to recognize everyone just by sensing their presence. Thus, he had only expected him to be better at recognizing people now that he had become much stronger than he was in the past.

At that moment, Gerard nodded and mumbled.

“Ah… I know who you are… Right, you are Bekelt, the Deputy of the Order of Lindwurm. My apologies. I think it’s getting harder and harder for me to distinguish between people as time goes by.”

‘What does he mean that it’s getting harder to distinguish between people?’

Bekelt couldn’t understand what Gerard was talking about. Fortunately, he was at least able to avoid the humiliation of having to introduce himself to Gerard in front of all of his subordinates.

Yet, that didn’t make the situation any better.

Gerard’s head was only slightly turned toward Bekelt instead of directly facing him.

“Your Majesty, we have all come running at once to swear an oath of allegiance to you. But why are you ignoring our loyalty for such an arrogant woman? Who even is she?” Bekelt asked.

At that moment, Gerard briefly motioned with the tip of his spear. A cracking sound rang out and Bekelt’s helmet split in half and fell to the ground.

The members of Aruntal gasped in shock as soon as the helmet was removed from Bekelt’s head, while the Priests from the Thornbush Priest Organization just smiled; it was as if they already knew it.

The top of Bekelt’s head, which was revealed when the helmet fell off, was composed of tentacles. Only the area from his lower jaw remained somewhat human.

“It’s not like I was confused for no reason. You seem to have changed a lot compared to the olden days, Bekelt. And Sina Solvane is not some arrogant woman—she is a guest that I invited myself. You better be careful not to talk so recklessly next time.”

Bekelt silently picked up the pieces of the helmet from the ground and put them back on; it almost looked like he was forcing his head into the helmet.

Gerard then turned toward Aruntal and the Priests who were watching in silence.

“I accept all of your oaths of allegiance.”

The Priests from the Thornbush Priest Organization, the Order of Lindwurm, and members of Aruntal all expected Gerard to follow with a speech and blessings. However, Gerard only stumbled again as he walked up to the cliff and continued working on the creation of chaos.

That was all.

That was the only sentence that Gerard said to those who came from all over the universe, as well as the people that had thrown away all their lifetime achievements just to swear their loyalty to him.

There was no one who openly showed their agitation, since all the people who gathered here were elite among elites. However, there was no one who was not perplexed by the unexpected situation.

Bekelt, in particular, was perplexed and felt speechless. It wasn’t like he had expected a heartwarming reunion where Gerard would hug him in tears, but he thought that he would at least have the chance to reminisce about the past.

While everyone was feeling perplexed, Gerard simply ignored them all and simply concentrated on his work.

However, that did not continue for long.

“Gerard Gain!”

A loud voice echoed throughout the center of the chaos and suddenly burst out of the sky.

***

Ten people had appeared in the sky.

They all seemed to be of different ages, genders, and had different appearances, but they all had the same voice and each of them was holding a cane of the same shape.

The knights of the Order of Lindwurm immediately drew their swords, while the Priests of the Thornbush Priest Organization began to mutter a spell as if they were singing. The members of Aruntal also began to prepare for the worst-case scenario.

But among all of them, only Imil from Aruntal gritted his teeth and glared at those who had suddenly appeared in the sky.

“Dane Dormund, you son of a bitch! How dare you show yourself before His Majesty once again when you have betrayed him!”

At that moment, the young boy standing at the very front swung his cane. Before Imil could even do anything about it, the floating island that all of them were standing on instantly split in half and scattered away like a spider web.

While the broken island didn’t crash, due to being seized by a strange force, it almost ended up losing its balance and collapsing.

It was Lenly who caught Imil and stopped him from almost falling into the chaos. Lenly glared fiercely at Dane, then quickly turned around and searched for the Dragon Citadel, but he saw that the Dragon Citadel had already fallen with the other broken fragments of the islands. The same was true of the Order of Lindwurm.

Dane had blocked everyone from them with just a single spell.

At that moment, Bekelt blew into a whistle that was hanging around his neck. The echo of the whistle was accompanied by a loud cracking sound as the Dragon Citadel fractured.

Then, something that looked like flesh flowed out from the fissures of the Dragon Citadel and ran down to where the Order of Lindwurm was.

Meanwhile, the Thornbush Priest Organization did not sit still either. As they sang, something huge soared from the Crack on the ground. What climbed up the rocks and walls were an indefinite amount of creatures with an appearance that no one could understand or describe.

The creatures recklessly approached and tried to attack Dane, who was still floating in the air. One of the Danes tried to strike a creature with his cane, but too many of them were attacking him at once.

One of the Danes was instantly caught and lost his lower body to a creature’s jaws, but another Dane shook it off with the cane. The monster of the Crack was thrown somewhere onto the huge cliff, and slowly, the other monsters also met a similar end.

Bloodstains were left here and there on the cliffs that made the entrance of the Crack. Some of the Priests could not hide their astonishment when they saw the powerful monsters of the Crack being turned into mincemeat in just an instant. Only Black Aldebaran clicked her tongue; it was as if she had expected that this would happen.

“The Magician!”

Bekelt, who had managed to climb up to the very top of the Dragon Citadel before anyone even knew it, stood right at the forefront, almost like a ship’s ram bow, and approached Dane. Cold air instantly spread all over the place.

Dane frowned at this sight and swung his cane, but Bekelt just swung his left hand with his eyes wide open.

Splat!

Bekelt’s arm split in half, but although his flesh was torn apart, no blood came out of his wound. The powerful force that entered Bekelt from his fingertips passed all the way up his shoulders and stopped right when it reached his head. Tentacles could be seen wriggling inside the wound, but it then closed in an instant.

“These parasites within me devour magic! Your magic won’t work on me!” Bekelt shouted.

Then, Bekelt directly charged toward Dane as if he was planning on directly running into him.

But the Dragon Citadel couldn’t reach Dane at all.

As soon as Dane turned his cane, the Dragon Citadel faltered and changed course, moving in the wrong direction. Only after spinning around in the air for a long time did Bekelt realize that he was being deceived by Dane’s spatial distortion magic. By the time he figured it out, however, he was already on the verge of slamming into a floating rock island.

Bekelt quickly blew the whistle once more when he saw the rock in front of him. At the same time, the Dragon Citadel passed through the rock, almost as if it was passing through fog. There was no collision, but it was a frightening moment, since the citadel could have almost shattered into pieces.

The Thornbush Prist Organization, the Order of Lindwurm, and Aruntal all could not believe that Dane had instantly blocked all of their attacks with just a single cane.

Dane looked down at them with an annoyed look on his face.

“Fuck off, you puny bastards. I need to talk to your leader,” Dane said.

It was Black Aldebaran who answered Dane.

“Puny? Us? Dane Dormund—no, maybe I should call you ‘Unreachable Star.’ That name must be more familiar to you. You almost act like you’re the ruler of the world after getting the title of the Star with our help.”

“Black Aldebaran.” Dane smiled bitterly. “I haven’t forgotten what I owe you for helping me obtain the title of Unreachable Star. But didn’t we cooperate only because we both wanted something from each other from the very beginning? And didn’t your lover end up getting the title of ‘Unfilled Star’ with my help?”

Lenly couldn’t understand the conversation between Black Aldebaran and Dane. However, he could tell that the two of them seemed to know each other. Lenly figured that Black Aldebaran had cooperated with Dane to help him obtain the extraordinary power and magic that he currently had.

Black Aldebaran gritted her teeth and glared at Dane.

“Now is the time for the Stars to get back to their place! Do not get in the way! No matter how strong the power granted to you by the Star is, you won’t be able to hold out if I attack you with all my might!” Black Aldebaran shouted.

“You will have to call in other Stars if you want to stop me. On the other hand, I can ruin this messed up party before they get here, you know,” Dane answered.

Then, he took a deep breath and shouted again,

“Gerard Gain! Gerard Gain! Gerard Gain!”

The loud voice shook the world; it was almost as the axis of the world was twisting with his roars.

Lenly could not help but doubt his own ears—the roar that came out of Dane’s mouth was not a singular voice. It was the roar of hundreds or maybe even thousands of voices, including women, men, elderly people, and children.

Gerard, who hadn’t even bothered to look back despite all the fuss, finally turned his head. There was a clear look of displeasure on his face.

“There are a lot of visitors today.”

***

Not only was there not enough oxygen to breathe in, but the wind was also way too strong.

Juan left the barracks for a moment and climbed the peak of a high mountain. He could feel a strange energy from the North. The further North he went, the stronger the energy became.

At that moment, Juan felt a sharp, alien energy in the midst of all this.

‘Dane Dormund… He still had more power hidden away even now?’

Juan knew that Dane used the power of a different world, but this was the first time that Dane exerted it as actively and passionately as he was now.

Juan thought that he was close enough to the sun as he climbed the mountain peak, but his breath froze and his limbs were starting to get numb. The sky was still far away from him despite his thought that he was getting closer.

The peak that was so high that it allowed one to overlook the entire world was not a place that humans were allowed to reach.

Juan let out a long breath and his white breath fluttered like a scarf. The environment was so unbearable that he even needed to use mana constantly in order to sustain his life.

The Wall of Nulvin, the destination where the Northern Army and Juan were headed, could be seen from atop the mountain peak.

It was the first time that Juan had seen the Wall of Nulvin.

However, the wall appeared distorted into a huge circle and it was clear that it was not its original form. There was something rising above it that looked like a black bubble, and inside the black bubble were mountains and clouds that could be seen faintly.

‘That must be Gerard’s area… or the area beyond the Crack.’

The bubble had already reached so high up that it was almost out of the atmosphere.

Juan sat down on the highest peak of the Northern mountain range that had yet to be named.

[Gerard Gain!]

He could faintly hear Dane’s voice through the wind. His voice echoed throughout the North.

‘No, perhaps it can be heard from all over the empire.’

It was not that Dane’s voice was loud, but that his alter egos hidden throughout the empire were shouting all at once. This was a voice that Gerard could not ignore.

Juan did not know where Dane’s primary essence was hidden or how many alter egos Dane had created until now.

He had a feeling that the only reason he was still alive was that Dane had been careless or had gone easy on him.

But even though such a powerful magician was confronting Gerard, Juan didn’t think for a second that Dane would be able to win.

“Anyway. I have no idea how to pass through all that.”

Monsters were crawling up around the wall of Nulvin and through the giant circular opening of the Crack. It was as if Gerard’s construction had awakened them from their hibernation.

Grotesque monsters began to march toward the world while blackening the white snow all over the mountains.

A huge war, the likes of which even Juan had never experienced, was approaching.

Juan had fought wars all his life. He was not the type to reject invitations—especially to a war where he didn’t have to go easy on the opponent at all.