Dragon Maken War

This was the last question.

Yuren realized this fact.

It seemed Atein really didn’t want to kill his party. If they were spared, Atein knew that they would meet again as enemies. So why was he averse to ending them right now?

If they gave up Azell to Atein, they would be spared. Why was Atein expressing his intent with such candor?

‘Why?’

Did he think it would be a shame to kill the rest of the party?

Yuren didn’t think Atein had such romanticized reasons. The party was too strong for that to be true.

It was true that they had lost, but depending on the situation, Azell’s party could have flipped the result. If Azell hadn’t been sniped in the beginning, would Reygus and Almarick have been able to defeat Azell’s party?

No. There was enough reasons to believe that Azell’s party would have won.

Yuren became sure of it after their party had fought the Dragon Demon generals. Unlike what he had worried about, their party was plenty strong enough.

There was no way Atein didn’t know this either.

‘Why does he want to leave us alive?’

Even Almarick and Reygus was agreeing with Atein’s desire. It wasn’t as if they weren’t capable of killing Kairen and Leticia. They just chose not to kill the two.

Yuren desperately churned his brain. It was a situation where a knife was pressed up against his throat, yet he kept thinking over it...

‘Shit. I have no idea. I have too little information.’

In the end, Yuren gave up on answering that question.

“...you definitely have a reason for doing this.”

“Mmm?”

“You are trying to subordinate Azell into the Great Darkness, and you are going out of your way to spare us. You have your reasons for doing this.”

“Of course.”

“Moreover, our life can be preserved if we hand over Azell to you guys. Our lives are in immediate danger, so we should take advantage of your arrogance and generosity. It would be prudent to fight another day.”

“What are you trying to say?”

Atein tilted his head in puzzlement.

Yuren let out a weak laughter as he spoke.

“I’m scared.”

Yuren ignored the question as he said what he wanted to say.

“I’m not afraid of losing my life. I might be satisfied or dissatisfied with the way I die, but I’m not afraid of death itself.”

“That is an interesting speech. So what are you afraid of?”

Atein showed interest in Yuren’s story. Almarick and Reygus showed sign of being bored, since this was another rubbish exchange between two magicians. Atein and Yuren didn’t pay any attention to them.

Yuren spoke.

“I am most afraid of finding out who I am.”

“Hmm. You want to talk about your identity? That topic came out of nowhere, and I’m not sure this is the time and place to talk about it.”

“I think you are in similar yet different situation as me. What are you afraid of, Atein? According to Azell, you were fearless.”

“I guess so.”

“What are you so afraid of? What makes you want to change this world so desperately?”

Atein flinched. The first question didn’t elicit much of a response, but Atein’s attitude changed this time.

“Maybe.......”

For a brief moment, Atein mulled over his answer before he spoke.

“...I think I’m most afraid of being the last one left.”

“Are you talking about loneliness?”

“I am.”

A truly odd atmosphere was forming. Almarick, Reygus and the rest of Azell’s party looked at the two of them with baffled expressions on their faces.

However, the two of them were serious.

“I believe that fear arises from the part of me that is part Demon. Or maybe it might be a fear all intelligent beings feel including humans.”

Atein continued to speak.

“I’m afraid of being alone. I started walking the surface of this world without needing parents. It didn’t take too long for me to realize that I was living in a different time frame than other beings.”

“Did you feel this as you watched the humans?”

“In the beginning, it was as you described. However, when others of my race started to show up, I realized that they were no different.”

It was extremely rare to find a 1st generation Dragon Demon that transcended their life expectancy. Even if they were able to transcend above their life expectancy, they eventually died in some form or fashion.

“Everyone was born later than me, yet they died faster than me. At first, I was hurt by that fact. However, I became numb to it at some point. Those that I became interested in and those that I cherished disappeared within the flow of time. I became used to it.”

As these experiences accumulated, Atein’s perspective on the world continued to broaden. He looked beyond himself. He saw the towns, cities, countries then..... He finally looked past the species called humanity to look at the entire world.

“Life is given when someone is born. It is natural to get old and weak. Death is inevitable. At times, one becomes happy or sad. In the end, it is necessary to confront it.”

For a time, Atein had wanted to keep the people he treasured by his side. He tried all kinds of methods, but in the end, he was humbled. He had to accept their deaths.

The problem was the fact that the four phases of life wasn’t limited to individuals. It also applied to communities.

Humans died when they got wounded, sick or old. It was the same with communities and civilizations that were built by humans. Nothing was eternal in this world. A country possessing illustrious history had a lifespan, and from Atein’s perspective, it would disappear one day.

As history continued to unfold, Atein saw more examples of this, and his fear grew.

“Yuren Rizester, do you know that there are many intelligent beings in this world aside from humans and Dragon Demons?”

“That... The one that immediately comes to mind are the Orcs..”

Humans were the most numerous in this world. Humans had thrived, but they weren’t the only intelligent race in this world.

Atein spoke.

“In the olden days, there used to be an intelligent race that had flourished as much as the humans. They were a race called the Arps. They might be mentioned in the legends of humanity.”

“Are you talking about the children of mother earth?”

“They were also called that, and they went extinct during the era of the Five Star Kingdom. At one time, they had occupied a large territory, and they had developed their own civilization. They went extinct thanks to my error.”

“What?”

Yuren had never even imagined such a story.

Atein had a faraway look as he spoke.

“It happened all because of the Dragon Slayer’s Ritual.”

Atein had used the Dragon Slayer’s Ritual to reset the relationship between the humans and Dragons. It had drastically changed the world. The humans had been scattered up until that point. They started to band together, and they quickly expanded their territory.

In the end, humans and the Arps clashed.

“They were called the children of mother earth, and they lived in coexistence with the Dragons. The power generated when they were in a group provided vitality to the territories of the Dragons. This was why the Dragons hadn’t assumed a hostile attitude towards them.”

On the other hand, the Arps were small and scarce in number. They were almost equal in population with humans before the Dragon Slayer’s Ritual. That was how much the Dragons had been keeping the numbers of humans in check. On the other hand, the Arps were more long lived than humans.

Once the humans started gaining power, their greed was endless. Moreover, Arps were also greedy.

“At the time, Arps were using humans as slaves. Aside from intelligence and ability to feel emotions, Arps were much stronger in battle than humans. The slavery was a natural consequence of this.”

A comparable analogy was Dragon Demons ruling over humans in a closed society. On the other hand, the Arps had been more numerous than the Dragon Demons, and they couldn’t procreate with humans. They were of completely different race from humans.

The two greedy races clashed against each other, and one was wiped out. Atein tried his best to salvage the situation, but in the end, the Arps were wiped out.

Atein brought up a different topic.

“Yuren Rizester, you knew about the true identity of the Great Darkness. That is why you guys were destroying the pillars. However, do you truly know what is within it?”

“Maybe.”

“I know why you are trying to hide information from me, but it might be more beneficial if you talked about it. Do you know about Reginor?”

“.......”

“You don’t know about him.”

“Who is he?”

“He is the last of the Arps.”

10

The race of Arps were wiped out, but a single survivor did exist. He had transcended the common sense of magic, and he had transcended the lifespan of an Arps. His name was Reginor.

“If one used this era as the standard, he has been sealed for about 1,500 years. Thankfully, you guys didn’t find him.”

“Why?”

“If you awakened him, the world would have turned into paradise.”

“What?”

Yuren couldn’t understand Atein’s words.

Atein laughed as he spoke.

“You saw what kind of transcendent beings I sealed within the Great Darkness. They all possessed power that transcended logic.”

“You did do that. However, they don’t seem so scary now....”

“You have a way to defeat them, and since they’ve been sealed for a very long time, they’ve fallen behind time. Don’t you think that’s the reason why they don’t seem so scary?”

“...I acknowledge that you have a point.”

It had been the case with the god of death Belrun. In his era, he was an archmage that had been considered a natural disaster. If half a year was given to him, Belrun would have been a natural disaster once again. There was a chance that no one could have opposed him if he had been given that time.

Atein spoke.

“The power acquired by Reginor was ‘time.’”

“Does that mean he can manipulate time to his liking?”

“That’s right.”

Reginor was the last survivor of the Arps race, and he was an archmage that controlled the power of time. He could accelerate, decelerate or stop time in a very large region. He could also assign different flow of time to different beings.

“Even without the power to manipulate time, he is a unstoppable force. The world he dreams about is....”

Originally, Reginor wanted to go back in time to his past. Even if he acquired the power to manipulate time, it was impossible to turn back time.

He spent a very long time trying to do the impossible. He became tired, and he despaired. He gave up on his life’s long wish to restore his race, and he melted into the world. He lived amongst those he had once hated, and amongst them, he was able to find those that he could love.

“Then he came to a similar conclusion as me.”

He didn’t want to be alone again.

For a very long time, Reginor had been lonely. Hate had been the only thing that had sustained him through the loneliness, but there was a limit to that method.

He had given up on his earnest wish, yet he had once again found love again. He became afraid of repeating his own tragedy.

It was akin to his race going extinct. Those that he was interested in were dying, and they were running into misfortunes. He was part of a community, and he was afraid of that community disappearing. He couldn’t stand the feeling of loss and the loneliness of being alone. He feared it.

“That was why he decided to make the world into a paradise. It would be a paradise where no one suffered from loss.”

There would be no fights in this place. There would be no hunger or sickness. Since it would be a place that had left behind mortality, no one would get old and weak.

It was the paradise everyone dreamed about. At the same time, it was agreed that such a world couldn’t exist.

“However, Reginor thought he could do it, and he had the ability to do it.”

“How?”

“Time.”

Everything occurred within the flow of time. Humans starved and became weak, because time flowed.

That was where all the problems arose.

‘The flow of time is the root of all evil.’

The correct answer was to stop time. In a world where time was perfectly still, no one would be born, yet no one would die either.

“If he stopped the perception of time in the material world, all problem would be eliminated. He’ll allow the members of his society to be connected through dreams. It would be a mental world where everyone could live a satisfied life. Forever.”

All possibilities would be killed, and only those that exist could live in eternal peace and satisfaction.

This was the paradise that Reginor had devised and wanted to bring about.