The Wastrel Prince Becomes Ruthless

Chapter 133

Chapter 133

Somewhere along the riverbank of the vast river that served as the lifeline of the Great Jungle and cut straight through the jungle. On a riverbank not far from the battlefield, Yuwon encountered Ipalim.

“An amusing thing to say. You claim I should not have come here? I set foot in the Great Jungle to find Your Highness, yet did not Your Highness also come seeking me, as if to prove it? The one who truly should not have come here is not me, but Your Highness.”

At Ipalim’s confident remark, Yuwon merely let out a faint chuckle. Then, in a low voice, Yuwon provoked him.

“You’ve become quite a pathetic sight since last we met. Where did you leave one of your arms?”

At Yuwon’s taunt, Ipalim responded with a provocation of his own.

“Ah, this… A bothersome raven and lion kept pestering me, so I killed them and tossed them aside as travel money. They did not look like much, but they were no ordinary fellows, so this is a cheap price, all things considered.”

The raven and the lion. It was a reference to Marcellus, once the leader of the Shadow Raven, and Yulaios Aphahiel, who had been called the Black Lion in life. At the blatant provocation, a surge of fury flared up deep in Yuwon’s chest.

‘I expected as much the moment I saw his arm severed. It’s nothing to be surprised about… There’s no need to get agitated.’

Yuwon reined in his anger and responded calmly to the provocation. He did not waver.

“…I see. I suppose so. If not those two, who else could have cut off your arm?”

As if surprised by Yuwon’s reaction, Ipalim twitched his eyebrows.

“…Impressive. I thought you would lose your mind and fly into a rage the moment their names were mentioned. I momentarily forgot. That you were the next emperor candidate chosen by His Late Majesty.”

For some reason, Ipalim’s words seemed amusing to Yuwon, and a quiet scoff curved his lips.

“Next emperor candidate… Yes. I suppose so. You cannot bring yourself to acknowledge with that mouth of yours that I am the Emperor of Aphahiel.”

“…That is not something I can simply let slide. Who exactly do you claim is the Emperor? The imperial throne of the Empire is currently vacant. To prevent the resulting chaos, my lord, Lord Gion, is acting in that role for the time being.”

Coming from the mouths of those who had stabbed the throne in the back and usurped it, the words were shameless beyond measure.

“No. I am the Emperor of the Empire. The imperial throne may have been vacant for a time, but the Empire has never lost its Emperor. From the day His Late Majesty passed away until today, it has always been me.”

Yuwon’s tone as he called himself Emperor could not have been calmer. It was only natural. He was merely stating the truth as it was.

“The Emperor of Aphahiel, you say? Someone who fled all the way to this distant Great Jungle just to survive? That is nonsense. An Emperor does not flee like that.”

“The Emperor you know, the one you desire, may be such a person. But you are wrong, Ipalim. I am different from them.”

“You will not be able to claim the throne with just a few words like that. I will not simply stand by and watch.”

Though neither of them had yet drawn a blade, between the two already hung a murderous intent so thick it seemed ready to cut, settling like a pale fog.

“…Yes, I suppose so. Let me tell you something interesting.”

“Starting as the mad White Dog and surpassing all my brothers to earn Father’s recognition—what do you think I learned along the way?”

“…What is that supposed to mean all of a sudden?”

It had never been a question asked to hear an answer. Yuwon asked, and then answered it himself.

“Avoid battles you cannot win. Endure, bide your time, gather strength, and when you can win, repay what you were given—no, repay it severalfold.”

Yuwon was saying that today was that moment, the moment when he could win. There was no way Ipalim could fail to understand that meaning, and his brow furrowed.

“You mean… You came here prepared to defeat me? Ha, haha. Just because my arm is like this, you underestimate me too much—”

“Do I look like the kind of person who underestimates his enemy?”

Each word Yuwon spat out made Ipalim’s guts turn cold.

“…!”

At that moment, Ipalim felt a fear he had long forgotten. Of course, he was not someone who would let fear make him botch things. Even so, the murderous intent pouring out of Yuwon was sharp enough to unsettle him.

‘How can a human emit such ferocious killing intent…!’

“I am not someone soft enough to let go of prey that comes to me on its own feet. I said it before—you should not have come here. Yet you came crawling here anyway. For that reason, today you die here. Ipalim.”

“I see… But I, too, have no intention of escorting Your Highness gently back to the Empire. To report the completion of a kill mission, a head should suffice. You will have to die.”

At Ipalim’s bold declaration of intent to kill him, Yuwon answered with a chilling smile.

“Back when I was in the Imperial Palace, if it were me then, I would not have been able to survive by my own power when you tried to kill me. In fact… that was the case. But now, it is different. I will never again entrust my fate to another’s hands. I failed once. No, perhaps I failed over and over again. At one time, I thought I had come this far by my own hands, by this power, but I realized it was all my misunderstanding. This time is different. I am sick and tired of that.”

Two eyes, coldly blue like a winter sea, chased their enemy.

“The one who dies here is not me, but you. Ipalim.”

Srrk—

As if no more words were needed, Yuwon drew out the twin daggers he carried close to his body. From the start, Ipalim was not an opponent to test the waters with. Yuwon intended to go all out from the opening.

‘He is stronger than anyone I have faced so far. Though I have mastered instinctive sense, if we compare purely the realm of the sword without it, he is one level above me. Today, I am prepared to die.’

Yuwon stirred the internal energy within his dantian and sent power flowing through every meridian in his body. The power of the poison core slumbering within his heart could not be left out either.

‘Come. Help me.’

At Yuwon’s call, the Black Serpent coiled within his heart lent him its power. Along the paths his internal energy traveled, virulent poisonous energy flowed like a raging river, adding strength to Yuwon.

Goosebumps broke out all over Yuwon’s body. On the eve of a battle that risked his life, every single cell tensed, every strand of muscle fiber drawn taut.

His breathing grew calmer than usual, and in time with that breath, his heartbeat naturally slowed.

Thump—! Thump—! Thump—!

As if his heart were beating right beside his ears, the pulsation could be felt through his eardrums. Having drawn out his full power from the start, Yuwon leveled his blade at Ipalim.

“Die.”

The two men, fully prepared to kill, leapt at the same time and aimed their blades at one another. At last, the life-and-death duel between Yuwon and Ipalim began.

Swaeek—!

The longsword of Ipalim, now reduced to a one-armed man, rang with a sharp tearing sound as it aimed for Yuwon’s throat.

‘Fast!’

Truly the skill of someone who had slain Emperor Yulaios and Marcellus. Coldly speaking, it was not a level Yuwon should dare to face. The speed was such that even with his eyes, it was difficult for Yuwon to track the attack.

‘But… that is not all I have.’

Yuwon abandoned trying to follow the sword’s path with his eyes early on. Instead, he fully unleashed the ‘instinctive sense’ he had gained in the Great Jungle and moved to respond.

‘I cannot see it, but I can feel it with instinctive sense.’

Instinctive sense. A realm of intuition beyond verbal description. Yuwon struck his blade toward where danger was felt.

‘Here!’

Boom—!

The judgment guided by instinctive sense was perfectly accurate. The dagger Yuwon held in a reverse grip in his right hand cleanly blocked the enemy’s sword path, something neither eyes nor ears could track.

Boom! Kwa-gwang—!

A duel between two who had long surpassed human limits. Each time Yuwon’s and Ipalim’s blades collided, the mana wrapped around them burst violently, roaring thunderously and sending ripples through the riverbank.

Once. Twice. Three times. In a single second, their blades clashed several times, producing a ferocious exchange. As the battle continued, Yuwon grew confident of victory, while Ipalim sank into bewilderment.

‘How can this greenhorn block my attacks…!’

Ipalim had stood shoulder to shoulder with transcendent beings on the level of the Emperor, Marquis Bradman, and Marcellus. No, perhaps he stood half a step, or even a full step, ahead of them—a peerless swordsman of the age.

Ipalim was certain that, now, there were not even five people left in the world who could so much as stand against his sword, let alone defeat him. And yet today, Yuwon was fully blocking that very sword.

‘Ugh!’

Yuwon’s counterattack. Having focused solely on defense, Yuwon now began to strike back. Twin daggers wrapped in sharp sword energy worked in tandem, tracing dazzling trajectories as they thrust toward Ipalim’s vital points.

‘He’s even counterattacking now!’

This was not the battle Ipalim had envisioned. He had planned to cleanly sever Yuwon’s head within a minute and rejoin the main force where the commotion was, but Yuwon was a far stronger opponent than expected.

‘What in the world is this nonsense…! Such attainment at that age—how could this possibly be a realm a human can reach…!’

Even so, Yuwon’s counterattacks continued to grow sharper, as if honing a blade. It felt as though he were growing by the second. This rising unease, bolstered by Yuwon’s presence as the King of the River, began to tighten around Ipalim’s breath.

‘This will not do. After all the effort and sacrifice it took me to reach this point, to be bested by a brat whose blood has barely dried…!’

In this world, where the depth of martial learning was shallow compared to the Central Martial World, the supreme realm Ipalim had achieved was something that appeared perhaps once in a hundred years. Knowing this better than anyone, Ipalim wavered greatly. That a mere Fifth Prince who had only just shed the air of a fledgling could stand against his sword shook his composure to the core. That was Ipalim’s fatal mistake. To lose composure while staking everything on a single blade and walking the edge of its tip meant—

Thud—!

—to lose one’s life.

“Kuh—!”

As if it were a lie, Yuwon’s dagger pierced straight through Ipalim’s heart.

“Ah… Gion… my lord….”

‘As I have been indebted to you until now, I entrust my family to you in the future as w—.’

Ipalim’s consciousness, already teetering on the brink, faded away. Soon, his breath ceased and his heart stopped. His body had endured Yuwon’s poison until the very end in a desperate bid to survive, but the moment his consciousness was lost, it lost its purpose.

Sss—

The extreme poison dwelling within Yuwon began to melt Ipalim away. Ipalim’s corpse soon lost its form, oxidizing into a mere handful of powder, into poisonous residue.

Yuwon, who had defeated the River Serpent and become the new King of the River. Into that river of Yuwon’s flowed a handful of poison that had once been Ipalim. Such was the end of the man who had pierced the heart of Aphahiel.

The river did not acknowledge that death. It simply flowed on, according to the natural order.

Ipalim, who had begun as the honorable shadow of Aphahiel and chose of his own will to become the hunting dog of a band of traitors. In the end, he met a hunting dog’s end, just as his choice dictated.

The victor, Yuwon, stood silently and watched as the stream bearing Ipalim drifted away at a leisurely pace.

“…It’s over.”

Splash—

Exhausted after the bloody battle, Yuwon’s body finally gave way, water splashing up along the riverbank as he collapsed.