novelraw Chapter 205 : Chapter 205
Chapter 205 : Chapter 205
Chapter 205. The Decisive Battle
There were two men.
One man was blessed by the world from the moment he was born.
In addition to his natural talent, all the light of the world, including wealth and honor, poured down on him.
If his life were drawn as a line, it would be a straight line that soared endlessly.
A life that only went up.
Conversely, the other man started from the very bottom of the world.
He was given nothing, only the instinct to survive.
His life was a line stained with endless curves.
The two could never understand each other.
No, they did not even think of understanding.
But at this moment, it was different.
At least one of them acknowledged the other’s life.
‘I realized it while living a different life. If we had met on a different path, not this one, we might have been good friends. But not now.’
The person standing before Evan was the greatest rival of his life.
At the same time, he was the man, Robern, whom he had acknowledged once as a fellow sword wielder.
‘This is my final farewell to you, who dedicated your life to the sword. Perhaps the subject of that farewell is me.’
The only weapon left in his hand was a single sword.
Of course, if he wanted to, he could have retreated from the battlefield and picked up another weapon, or caught his breath.
But Evan did not.
Even if the probability of facing death was higher, he decided to face him head-on with a sword.
A choice that might seem like bravado to some, and perhaps romantic to others.
But Evan was different.
He chose the sword because he was confident that he would win.
‘I could never surpass you with a sword. Still, I will face you with a sword. Just once, I want to defeat you properly.’
The situation was the worst.
His whole body was covered in wounds, and the Qi he had continuously poured out was running low.
The power borrowed from the wolf god had also already disappeared.
Moreover, the sword, which he must have held thousands of times in his life, felt unusually unfamiliar today.
In summary, this was the worst condition of Evan’s life.
But one thing.
His heart was lighter than ever.
His head was as clear as a transparent sky, and his eyes were so sharp that he would not miss even an ant crawling on the ground.
“Robern, you were close to perfect when it came to the sword. But I suddenly had this thought. Does perfection even exist?”
“…”
“We will know the answer now. Both you and I.”
The preparations were complete.
The first to step forward was Robern.
—Tat!
His footsteps were as light as a feather, but the weight coming from his arm seemed as heavy and solid as a rock.
Conversely, Evan’s footsteps were slow and heavy.
But his gaze did not waver.
There was no way back for either of them.
—Swish!
Robern’s sword came down with the force to split even lightning.
That blow was his signature move, the ultimate overhead slash that had taken countless lives.
A perfected move that no one had ever blocked.
“Heup!”
Evan swung his sword upwards.
The moment the swords clashed, a thunderous explosion shook the battlefield.
Everyone expected Evan to be torn to pieces on the spot.
But the sword did not break.
He did not simply block it, but he tilted it upwards and deflected the trajectory of the opponent’s blade by a paper’s breadth.
That momentary technique broke the balance, and Robern’s chest was opened, revealing a vulnerability.
‘Emperor, if you had a fatal mistake, it was overlooking my existence…’
Evan’s sword soared upwards, and he strongly pushed the hilt to thrust the sword.
‘Instead of the old Robern who might have become a sword god, you revived this young shell.’
The tip of the sword pierced Robern’s heart.
The flow of that moment was close to perfect.
‘It’s over.’
Evan did not know, but it was the state that Robern had reached in his later years.
—Thud.
The young Robern coughed up blood and knelt.
Even though his soul was empty, it seemed he had instinctively accepted his defeat with the sword.
That shock left him with no will to raise his sword any longer.
Evan pulled out the sword and offered his final comfort.
“If you were the real Robern and not a shell, the one who fell would probably have been me. Go, my greatest rival in life.”
Evan raised his sword and cut off Robern’s head.
“I will send the Emperor who used you to the very end soon.”
The man called the Sword Saint finally met his death.
At the same time, the battlefield fell into silence, and,
—Kakang!
The weapons of the imperial army all fell to the ground at once.
As if by agreement.
The war was over.
But Evan’s eyes were still burning.
His gaze was directed towards the imperial capital, where the Emperor was.
‘Now all that’s left is… you.’
The war was over, but Evan’s fight was not yet finished.
***
The imperial capital fell into chaos.
When the news that Robern and his knight order had been annihilated was delivered, the imperial palace and its surroundings were in a state of emergency.
Having been defeated in what was effectively an all-out war, all that remained was the allied forces’ invasion of the capital.
“Stop them!”
The forces deployed on the ramparts tried to stop the allied forces, but they were helpless against the overwhelming momentum.
In the first place, they had used up the forces guarding the capital, so they did not have enough numbers to cover the vast capital, and the majority of the soldiers had already lost their will to fight at the sight of the approaching allied forces’ might.
On the other hand, the morale of the allied forces was at its highest since the war began.
There was no one to obstruct them anymore, and the end of the war they had so longed for was just around the corner, so it was natural.
Moreover, at the forefront of the allied forces were the Seven Stars Harashin and Ron.
From the perspective of their allies, there had never been a more reassuring moment.
“Don’t let the Emperor escape!”
“Everyone move aside! I have to get the price of my broken spear from these imperial bastards!”
The high ramparts could not stop the momentum of the allied forces, and the allied forces broke through the castle gates and headed straight for the imperial palace in the center of the capital where the Emperor was.
“Surround the imperial palace!”
Following Harashin’s command, the allied forces surrounded the imperial palace in layers, and the remaining troops broke through the main gate of the imperial palace.
—Kwazik!
There were still elite troops inside, but the news that Robern had been defeated had completely crushed their morale.
In the end, the captain of the guard, who saw the allied forces with his own eyes, threw down his weapon and chose to surrender.
“We surrender.”
If the Emperor had known, he would have been horrified, but what other choice was there?
The captain of the guard had no intention of sacrificing all his subordinates to protect that one person.
In the first place, his loyalty to the Emperor was not that deep, so there was no reason to hesitate in his decision.
“Bind them! The rest, follow me!”
“Where is the Emperor!”
Harashin and Ron led the charge and began to search every corner of the imperial palace, and the other soldiers did the same.
They searched so thoroughly that not even a single mouse could escape.
However, the Emperor was not hiding anywhere but was simply cowering in his luxurious imperial bedroom.
The soldier who first discovered this shouted loudly.
“The Emperor is here!”
At that shout, everyone rushed over, and Harashin, Ron, and Evan also arrived.
In front of them, a soldier was roughly grabbing the Emperor’s hair and dragging him out.
“Let go! I said let go!”
At the Emperor’s ugly struggle, Ron and Harashin clicked their tongues.
Evan passed between them and walked forward without a word.
—Jeobeokjeobeok.
When Harashin nodded, the soldier roughly threw the Emperor’s hair and stepped back.
Unlike his attire, which was lavishly decorated with gold embroidery, his hair was a messy tangle.
That appearance was like, a shabby figure that seemed to have been molded into the human form of the current Empire.
The form that was only glamorous on the outside but rotten on the inside.
“Keuk… I have lost. I will surrender.”
The Emperor admitted defeat and begged for mercy.
But he did not yet know who stood before him.
“I’ll ask one thing. Tarkin, what was it that you sought to obtain by even taking your son’s body?”
“Wh-what nonsense…”
“Don't even think of deceiving me. I came here knowing that you performed the Soul-Separation Technique.”
The Emperor smiled awkwardly and mumbled, but his expression could not hide the truth.
Disgusted by his hypocrisy, Evan roughly grabbed his neck.
“Keoheok! Save me, please!”
“Are you satisfied to have survived like this after driving everyone around you into agony? While defiling the body of your loyal subject!”
“Kek! Kek!”
“Others may not have, but at least Robern followed you sincerely. But you used him like that until the very end?”
When Evan mentioned Robern, the Emperor’s eyes wavered.
And finally, he began to suspect who the man before him was.
“You… who the hell are you…?”
Evan opened his mouth coldly.
“Mikhail Reverk.”
The Emperor heard a completely unexpected name.
At that moment, his face hardened.
“H-how do you know that name…”
“You don’t need to know. I just came to avenge him.”
The Emperor trembled in fear and knelt.
The monarch of the Empire who had boasted such dignity was now pitifully begging for his life.
“Spare me. Please… I will give you everything I have. If you ask me to beg for forgiveness, I will!”
“Hahaha.”
Evan sneered.
The word forgiveness and this man were the most mismatched combination in the world.
The fact that such a vile human had shackled him for his entire life fueled his anger even more.
‘My life, which was toyed with by such a human, is pitifully pathetic.’
His desire for revenge boiled over, and Evan slowly drew his sword.
“Please! Spare me! Please… Keoheok!”
The blade entered his abdomen very slowly.
The Emperor swallowed a scream and cried out in agony.
“Go to hell. If you go there, the god of that place will not leave you alone, you who have defied the natural order.”
The sword slowly went deeper, and Evan relaxed his grip.
The cold metal remained inside the Emperor’s body, inflicting pain until his last moment.
“Keureureu…!”
The Emperor flailed his hands in the air, struggling to live until the very end.
But there was no longer a single flicker of hesitation in Evan’s eyes.
‘It’s over.’
Evan turned his back.
He no longer needed to look at the worst of his ill-fated connections.
Evan nodded towards Harashin, who seemed to be waiting for him, and he, who had been watching from behind, walked past Evan and approached the struggling Emperor.
“Keo, keoheok!”
Soon, the gruesome sound of bones breaking and flesh tearing was heard.
After some time, when it became quiet, Harashin emerged with the blood-soaked head of the Emperor.
“Let’s all go. I have no intention of monopolizing this glory. O heroes who saved the continent.”
A moment later, the gates of the imperial palace swung wide open.
Harashin held up the gruesome trophy in his hand high.
“Today, the Empire has fallen by our hands!”
At the shout that shook heaven and earth, the entire allied army responded with a cheer.
“Uwaaaaa!!!!”
That shout was not just a cheer of victory.
It was a cry of the soul that erupted, mixed with the relief that the war was over, the sense of liberation from long suffering, and the sadness for the comrades who had departed first.
Evan watched everything silently from behind.
And he let out a long, very long breath.
“Huu.”
With this, Evan’s long journey had finally reached its destination.