Chapter 182: Icarus Who Flew Beyond the Sun
After pulling his claws free, Leon stepped back.
The Earl also staggered backward, clutching his throat. He opened his mouth, trying to breathe, but only bloody foam continuously poured out.
So cold...
At that moment, that was the Earl's only thought.
He had imagined countless times how he would feel when death finally approached.
But when that moment truly arrived, he realized that his mind had gone completely blank.
Regret, remorse, anger...
There was nothing.
The blood in his body was nearly gone. Leon had pierced his windpipe, leaving him unable to speak or breathe. This body was beyond saving.
The War God's Second-Tier Blessing could still have sustained him in this hopeless situation and allowed him to continue fighting.
But he had already lost the will to fight.
His eyes had been splashed with Cursed Blood. The Sustained-Release Agent he had taken could not completely negate poison absorbed through the mucous membranes. His vision had almost completely vanished. Even after wiping away the blood covering his eyes, all he could see was an endless sheet of white.
But more importantly, his conviction to fight had always been built upon everything he had accumulated while alive.
Now that he knew he could no longer survive, that conviction crumbled along with it.
In the end, he could only support himself with his sword, preventing himself from collapsing immediately.
Using the Earl as cover, Leon slowly retreated while controlling the remaining poisonous mist to continue drifting forward, forcing the Earl's soldiers in the distance to retreat even farther.
His own breathing was equally ragged.
Releasing such a large volume of poisonous gas had consumed a tremendous amount of his blood.
His own blood loss was also severe.
Fortunately...
The Earl was finally dead.
At that moment, Leon suddenly saw the Earl raise his face toward him.
Whether it was a final burst of life or something else, the Earl's eyes unexpectedly became clear for a brief instant, as though he had truly seen him.
Weakly, the Earl raised one finger and pointed upward.
His lips moved, as though he wanted to say something.
But no sound came out.
Leon, however, could read his lips.
At the very edge of death, the Earl murmured a single name like someone talking in a dream.
“Icarus.”
Icarus.
The youth from the mythical tale Leon had once told the Earl.
The boy who flew into the sky using wings crafted by his father, only to fly too close to the sun out of pride. The sun melted his wings, and he plunged into the sea to his death.
In the Earl's eyes, Leon had now become that Icarus who had flown too high.
And he himself should have been the sun that destroyed Icarus's wings, making him pay the price for his arrogance.
The Earl could not understand why Leon Set—the one who had told him that very fable—had chosen to challenge the sun with the same arrogance as Icarus.
What he understood even less was why reality had ended this way.
In the end...
The sun had failed to burn away the arrogant youth's wings.
“Icarus...”
As though answering the question lingering in the Earl's heart, Leon quietly replied,
“You only need to fly higher than the sun.”
He had told the Earl the myth from his former world.
But he had never told him that, in that same world, later generations of poets had given Icarus a new symbolic meaning.
They believed Icarus represented one who challenged authority and pursued freedom, wagering even his life for it.
The Icarus who flew too high had his wings destroyed by the sun.
But if he had managed to fly just a little higher—
To soar straight into the heavens...
To rise above the sun itself...
To reach a place beyond the sun's grasp...
Then nothing would ever again be able to stop him from flying freely.
A self-mocking smile suddenly appeared on the Earl's face.
He finally understood.
He had believed Leon Set lacked ambition.
He had believed he had seen through the man long ago.
But in reality...
He had never understood him at all.
It was not that Leon lacked ambition.
His ambition had simply been so lofty that the Earl had never truly seen it.
Perhaps...
Not even Leon himself could fully see it.
He simply wanted to keep flying upward.
Once upon a time, the Earl himself had been that kind of person.
But after paying the price on that fateful day, his wings had been broken by Bernard Rogers.
From that day onward, he lost the ambition to soar beyond the sun.
No matter how much power he later acquired, he could never recover it.
He merely felt that his current position was just right.
Not so high that he would fall.
Not so low that he would be insignificant.
Yet he had never forgotten the agony of having his wings broken.
That was why he had pursued revenge against Rogers at any cost.
Wearing that self-deprecating smile...
Isaac Marstan, Earl Foyle, reached the end of his life.
As his life ended, the Sustained-Release Agent inside his body lost its effect first.
Leon immediately sensed the Cursed Blood parasitizing the Earl's body becoming active once more.
Leon silently gazed at the man who had been both his mentor and his enemy.
Before the Earl collapsed, Leon activated the Cursed Blood and petrified the body, turning him into a stone statue that remained standing upright.
At last, the poisonous mist gradually dispersed and thinned.
Beyond the mountain pass, the Earl's massive army still packed the mountain road so tightly that not even water could pass through.
The soldiers at the front held their guns with trembling hands.
Separated by such distance and the lingering poisonous mist, they could not clearly see what had happened inside.
Nor could they charge into the poisonous cloud.
Instinct alone told them that rushing inside would mean certain death.
As the mist gradually dispersed, they finally saw the battlefield.
Corpses lay scattered everywhere.
Several Demonic Wolves still wandered among them.
One person remained standing motionless with his back toward them, leaning upon a sword.
The cloak draped over the shoulder of the knight's armor made it unmistakably the Earl.
Yet he stood completely still.
There was not the slightest trace of life left in him.
Meanwhile, Leon had already withdrawn to the vicinity of the fortress, dismissed his Werewolf Transformation, and was once again surrounded protectively by his subordinates as they confronted the army outside the mountain pass.
The Earl's followers stared at one another in stunned silence.
At that moment, Leon raised his voice and declared loudly,
“The Earl is dead! Our reinforcements will arrive very soon! You still have a chance to leave peacefully... or surrender! Of course, you can also choose to attack—and die together with the Earl!!”
The Earl...
Was dead...
Those words exploded through the crowd outside the mountain pass like thunder.
Even after seeing the Earl's motionless body...
Even after hearing Leon's declaration...
Many people still couldn't process what had happened.
The Earl...
Their master.
The strongest lord in the eastern territories.
The emperor of the Underworld.
Had simply...
Died?
Fenrir...
That man had killed the Earl!!
Fear exploded within the hearts of the vast majority.
Even the Earl himself and the elite force under his command had died at Fenrir's hands.
If they continued attacking...
Did they have any chance of surviving?
After shouting those words, Leon gasped heavily as he steadied his breathing.
Behind him, Weiss manipulated her Blessing to help him recover.
On the watchtower, Rena stared nervously at the seemingly endless army stretching along the mountain road beyond the pass, silently praying.
Leon himself was equally tense.
Although everything had gone according to plan and the Earl had been killed...
The Earl's army was still here.
Even though they had already worn down the elite troops surrounding the Earl and eliminated their leader, the remaining forces still held an overwhelming numerical advantage.
Their own losses had also been severe.
Only a handful of Demonic Wolves and a single Drake hatchling remained capable of fighting.
The fortress walls had been heavily damaged.
Their own combat personnel had also suffered casualties.
As for Leon himself...
His blood loss was severe.
Although he could still fight, there was absolutely no way he could withstand a prolonged battle against thousands of well-equipped soldiers.
If the enemy charged in, victory was not impossible.
But the price...
Would undoubtedly be catastrophic.
If these people chose to retreat in the face of overwhelming odds...
That would naturally be the best possible outcome.
Outside the mountain pass, the tightly packed soldiers all wore different expressions.
The several cadres who now held command each harbored their own thoughts.
Some feared Fenrir and had no desire to charge forward only to throw away their lives.
Others had already realized that with the Earl dead, the Underworld forces were about to undergo enormous upheaval. If Fenrir were not killed today, he might one day eliminate every one of the Earl's former subordinates.
Others still cared only about avenging the Earl, yet hesitated over whether they should attack immediately or retreat first to regroup.
At the very same time...
The men stationed at the harbor discovered something.
New warships were sailing directly toward Arend Island from the distant horizon.
Looking through spyglasses, they saw Four-Pointed Star banners flying atop those ships.
The Church Navy!?
The realization struck the scouts like lightning.
Gathered here were the Earl's Underworld mercenaries and criminal cadres.
To the Church...
Every one of them was a legitimate target for arrest.
Several of the cadres were even listed on wanted posters.
Although protected by the Earl, their organizations had rarely attracted the Church's direct attention.
But the Earl had never informed them in advance that Church forces would become involved.
This was clearly an unforeseen development.
They immediately rang the harbor alarm bell, using a specific rhythm to notify everyone that Church forces had appeared.
When the bell echoed into the mining area, the mercenaries crowding the mountain pass all looked up.
Unease and fear spread among them like a ghost drifting through the ranks.
“The Church is here! Run!!”
Someone finally shouted.
The men in the mountains understood even better what encountering the Church meant now.
Without the Earl's protection...
They were nothing more than a band of Underworld mercenaries.
That single shout immediately ignited panic.
It spread with astonishing speed.
People began shoving one another as they fled toward the harbor.
“Everyone, stop! Stop right now!”
One of the cadres immediately realized something was wrong and tried to stabilize the situation.
Unfortunately, only part of the army belonged to him.
His authority simply wasn't enough to command the entire force.
“Stop for what? That guy's an Inquisitor! He must've sold out the Earl and called in Church reinforcements! If we don't run now, we're all dead!!”
Another cadre openly contradicted him.
The Earl had connections within the Church.
He had people protecting him.
But that didn't mean the Church lacked enemies of the Earl.
The disorganized army began scrambling out of the mountain pass.
Shoving...
Trampling...
They poured down the mountain road toward the harbor, desperate to board ships and escape.
Meanwhile...
Aboard one of the distant "Church Navy" vessels, Father Auden lowered his spyglass after observing the situation at the harbor.
Frowning, he turned toward one of Leon's cadres beside him.
“I say... once those people have sailed far enough away, change those flags immediately. If anyone discovers we're impersonating the Church's navy, every one of us will be facing capital crimes! Ah... that fellow really is a complete madman!”