Chapter 715: Meteor (3)
In the time it took to drink a cup of tea, they exchanged more clashes than I could count.
Both Meteor Dragon’s side and the Blood Cult took heavy damage, but if I had to pick the side with the advantage, it was obviously the former.
The Blood Demon was glaring at his opponent with bloodshot eyes.
Then his body gave a slight tremor.
“Cough—!”
He vomited up what looked like an entire bowlful of blood.
As if he had been watching for exactly that moment, the Chief Protector stopped directing the sword formation and shot up into the air in a hurry.
Then, standing beside the Blood Demon, he spoke in an earnest voice.
“Supreme One, your condition is extremely grave. Please withdraw for now and plan for what comes after.”
“What comes after... I do not see it that way.”
Crimson force aura flared from his body again.
At the same time, blood streamed from all seven of his orifices, but he went on as if it meant nothing.
“The hard road is the road to life. Only the one who pours everything into today earns the right to see tomorrow.”
“But—”
“You will say no more on this matter.”
“...As you command.”
The cult leader’s orders were absolute, so the Chief Protector withdrew reluctantly.
Meanwhile, the Blood Demon kept pushing his aura higher.
The crimson force aura grew even more vivid, and a baleful pressure far beyond anything from earlier spread through the battlefield.
He was preparing his final trump card.
“...”
Meteor Dragon noticed the same thing and raised one hand above her head.
The clusters of stars that had embroidered the sky began to gather, whirl, and compress.
WHOOOOOO—!
The two stared at each other like that for a while.
Then, as if they had agreed on it in advance, they unleashed what they had prepared at the exact same moment.
Everything turned scarlet and was swallowed by a blinding radiance.
FLAAASH—!
The next moment, we were back in the reception room.
So that was the end of the foresight.
Of course, the result wasn’t hard to guess.
“Mutual ruin?” I asked.
“It looked that way.”
The Blood Demon was driven back, and nearly all of his subordinate masters and combat forces were wiped out, but the dragons were left with wounds no less severe.
What came after that was equally obvious.
“You’ll have to recover, so you’ll enter your sleep cycle.”
“There is no other way.”
Only then did I think I understood why Meteor Dragon had looked so lonely.
And why, before she started explaining, she had said that if it wasn’t now, there might never be another chance.
A dragon’s sleep cycle lasted decades at a minimum, centuries at the high end, and considering the exhaustion and injuries from that battle, it could very well be longer.
If we reached EX-rank in the end, we would far outlive normal human lifespans, so it wasn’t impossible that we would see them again while still alive.
But that didn’t change the fact that an absurdly long time would have to pass first.
Seo Ye-in asked:
“Grandma... won’t see you?”
“It seems I will have to be away for a very long time.”
“Godfather and Godmother too?”
At that, Sky-Healing Dragon Jupiter and Neptune silently nodded.
A shadow fell across Seo Ye-in’s face.
“No...”
“I’m sorry. For now, this is the best we can do.”
Then Meteor Dragon turned back to me and said in a tone of certainty:
“The cult leader will return someday, no matter what. Stronger than before.”
“He might even break past the wall.”
By all accounts, he had already fought countless S-ranks in life-and-death battles.
And he was destined to fight someone stronger than himself in Meteor Dragon as well.
If he managed to fully digest all the insight gained from that—
There was a very real chance he could reach EX-rank, and even if he failed, he would still be hard to match among the S-ranks.
“And when that day comes,” Meteor Dragon said, “I do not think we will be here. Humans move through time faster than dragons do.”
Whether the Blood Demon spent his time recovering or breaking through the wall, however long it took, it would still only be a matter of years at most.
The dragons, meanwhile, would still be deep in their sleep cycle.
So I said:
“Then stopping him will fall to those who remain.”
“Yes. If it’s you, you can do it.”
Meteor Dragon entrusted the future to us in a calm voice.
She already looked like someone who had accepted the future she had foreseen.
Seo Ye-in, on the other hand, looked at me with gloomy eyes.
“I want keep seeing Grandma.”
“Well, we only just properly met her today.”
“I want help.”
“I’m obviously not going to sit still.”
What was about to happen was directly tied to the main quest.
And the deeper I got involved and the more results I made, the better the reward would probably be.
Just as important was the mental care of the people tied to me by [Bond].
If Seo Ye-in had to spend decades apart from her family—and the people who were basically family to her—just imagining how depressed she would get was enough.
At last, I spoke to Meteor Dragon.
“There’s something I’d like to ask.”
“Go ahead.”
“In the ‘foresight,’ if I remember correctly, neither we nor the Chairman were there. I assume you have an idea why.”
Seo Ye-in’s reaction alone made it obvious.
We intended to help more actively than anyone else.
We had even told them a long time ago that we were coming to Hyeseong, so it wasn’t as if they couldn’t have known.
And yet, on that battlefield, there had only been dragons.
Meteor Dragon answered:
“Every so often, beings like you appear. Beings with limitless possibility, too great to be read or divined. You likely understand what I mean better than anyone.”
“Because fate is something you carve out yourself.”
That had always been my thought whenever the topic of the future or foresight came up.
Part of me wondered whether it was because I had entered the world of a game, making me something of an external existence.
Or maybe it was both.
Meteor Dragon continued her explanation.
“As for why he was absent, that seems to be for another reason. The cult leader, I suspect, does not want his duel interfered with.”
If the Chairman joined the battle too, our side would have five S-ranks.
That would completely shatter the balance with the Blood Cult side.
And he’s a gunner, on top of that.
Rather than taking part in a direct contest, he would support from long range with sniper fire.
From a martial artist’s perspective, that would be nothing but an annoyance.
No wonder he’d want to separate them.
As part of that plan, they had targeted the ruins to secure hostages and reduce Hyeseong’s strength.
It had failed spectacularly, but there were still other options left.
“They could attack Hyeseong directly.”
“That would be the surest method.”
No matter how transparent the intention was, if a Blood Cult combat force entered Hyeseong, Hyeseong would still have to make major preparations.
The mentality on each side was also completely different.
The attackers only needed to fulfill the cult leader’s long-cherished wish, even if they all died doing it.
The defenders, on the other hand, had to keep casualties as low as possible.
That made it much harder for the Chairman to leave his post.
A lonely look crossed Meteor Dragon’s face again.
“Do not worry about us. I want you to protect Hyeseong together with him. If it is you, I believe you can achieve a better outcome.”
“...”
Silence hung in the room for a while.
All the while, Seo Ye-in kept tugging lightly at my sleeve.
Her eyes seemed to be saying, Grandma. Help.
I took her hand to reassure her, then looked back at Meteor Dragon.
“There’s something I’d like to try. Would you hear me out?”
“If it is a proposal from a sovereign, it is certainly worth hearing.”
So I explained the plan I had come up with on the spot.
At that, both Neptune and Sky-Healing Dragon Jupiter spoke up, surprise flickering in their eyes.
“So there was a move like that!”
“They called you the Little Sovereign, and I see why. One surprise after another. Makes me wonder how much more you’ve still kept hidden.”
Meteor Dragon, too, replied with a faintly surprised look.
“It does seem possible. Though it will depend on how the cult leader responds.”
“You never really know a person’s heart.”
Just like Dang Gyu-young could be peacefully fooling around with me one moment and suddenly start biting me the next, the cult leader reacting in an unexpected way was entirely possible.
Still, I had my own grounds for confidence.
“If what I saw in the foresight was accurate, he looked like the blindly obsessive, overreaching type.”
“He is the sort who will do anything for his objective.”
“And that much already shows in everything he’s done so far. I think it’s worth trying.”
“...”
Meteor Dragon closed her eyes and fell silent for a while.
It looked like she was considering every possible variable.
Then, slowly nodding, she said:
“It may be worth trying to carve out a new future. But I would like to set a condition.”
“Please, go ahead.”
First, Meteor Dragon looked at her granddaughter.
“Ye-in, go to Hyeseong and stay with your grandfather.”
“I want help too.”
“No. In a battle against opponents of that level, there won’t be enough room to protect you.”
Her tone was far firmer than before.
If Seo Ye-in joined the battle, she could unleash tremendous firepower with her super finisher and the like.
But that was only the beginning.
If A+ and S-ranks deliberately targeted her, there was a real risk they could break through even if I and the dragons tried to shield her, and that would be fatal to the flow of the battle.
Meteor Dragon looked at me again.
“You are no exception. If the operation fails, you must leave the battlefield immediately.”
“I understand.”
From the beginning, the whole reason they were stepping forward to fight was to entrust the future to us.
If we got taken down instead, all of it would become meaningless.
They were trying to eliminate even the slightest chance of that.
Since I accepted the condition without resistance, Meteor Dragon added one more request.
“If we do end up leaving, please take good care of Ye-in. I think having you by her side will be a great comfort.”
“Of course.”
That more or less wrapped up the discussion of the plan.
Seo Ye-in’s face still clearly said, I want help too, but Meteor Dragon had no intention of allowing it this time.
She shook her head, then changed the subject as though to make clear the matter was closed.
“You said you brought the meteoric iron alloy. Let me see it.”
Dark Dragon Lord and Sky-Healing Dragon Jupiter were both S-rank, and both had at least some expertise in item crafting, but when it came to [Starmascus(??)], they had all reacted the same way.
They couldn’t handle it themselves, so I was supposed to bring it to Meteor Dragon.
Judging by the circumstances, they had already discussed it among themselves, so I obediently took out the ingot and handed it over.
Meteor Dragon examined it carefully for quite a long time.
“...”
“What do you think?”
“It really does resonate with me well. You wanted [Consecration], yes?”
“Yes. Can you do it?”
“Of course I can. But I’m sorry. Right now, I have no room to divert my strength elsewhere.”
If even fighting the cult leader as things stood did not guarantee victory, then if she were to pour a great deal of power into [Consecration]—
Not only would her odds drop further, but in the worst case, defeat itself could become a real possibility.
But then Meteor Dragon added:
“If your plan succeeds, then let’s discuss it again.”
******
While Hyeseong New City sank under the same stillness and tension that came before a storm,
we spent a few very ordinary days.
I trained with Seo Ye-in while helping her keep her condition stable, wandered around the city a bit,
and mercilessly crushed Father Seo in minigames—half-dragon, respectable at minigames, still crushed.
I figured that evening would go about the same way.
But Father Seo acted a little differently than usual.
Instead of pulling out a minigame the moment he arrived, he simply stared at me in silence.
With Dark Dragon Lord there beside him too, I had a pretty good guess what this was about.
“You finished it?”
“It took some work.”
In his hand was a pocket watch gleaming with golden light.