Bear School Astartes

After that head-on clash with Elderidge, his [Spiritual Vision] had made a great leap forward; in Lann’s eyes now, Shalivan’s Magic might as well be turned off.

”Over there, toss a [Moon Dust].”

Rong Buqiu bounced up on the Qilin’s head: ”Copy, nya!”

By dispersing those pricey processed silver threads into the air, you got a bomb that could crack invisibility, and it worked on a wide range of Invisibility Magic.

Didn’t matter if you bent light or messed with people’s perception—once someone passed through that dust of silver threads, they’d pick up glaring traces.

Lann didn’t understand the principle behind Shalivan’s Magic, but [Moon Dust] still did its job.

A tall figure was outlined by the silver’s reflected light, bolting off in the direction opposite to the decoy body.

”Silver Knights! Block him!”

With Gwendolin present, the Silver Knights would at least obey commands.

Three Silver Knights immediately stepped forward, golden lightning crackling to life on their sword-edges and spear-blades as they charged at the Shalivan whose outline flickered with silver light.

And Lann still didn’t look that way.

His ears quivered slightly; he heard the ringing stomp of armored boots at the mouth of the alley.

So he raised his left hand again, in Princess You’Er Xia’s direction!

”Bang!”

After an explosive report, the projectile froze in midair beside You’Er Xia, hanging in the empty air.

Before the real Shalivan, who had just started to appear while trying to block the shot with his sword, could fully manifest, only his upper body had emerged.

A finely crafted yet imposing cross-spear tore through the air, stabbing into that patch of empty space just a split second behind the Demon Hunter’s round.

But clearly, the throwing spear of the [Lion Knight] was in a totally different league from a single supersonic bullet.

The cross-spear that could pierce the scales of a legendary Ancient Dragon effortlessly nailed the Dark Moon Pope Shalivan, whose towering frame far exceeded that of ordinary men, flinging him off like a rag doll.

He went skidding through the air for dozens of meters, until with a harsh crack, the dragon-slaying spear pinned him to a wall.

From the moment before, Shalivan had already realized that simply running wouldn’t save his life.

He had ambition, brains, and the drive to act—no matter what, a man like that would never sit and wait for death.

Rather than flee like some stray cur, it was better to seize the moment when the Silver Knights were drawn away by the second decoy, break through to Princess You’Er Xia’s side, and take a hostage!

But unfortunately for him, what he thought of, Lann had already anticipated.

Under [Spiritual Vision], Lann had seen from the start that he’d sent out two decoy bodies while his real self moved in another direction.

And so things came to this: this man of boundless ambition, who had once studied at the Losric Great Library and later rose step by step to become Pope of the Dark Moon Sect—

Who then planned, in the coming age of the deep sea, to continue ruling over deities as a ”Servant of the Gods,” a powerful Mage whose ambition knew no end—

Ended up nailed by a dragon-slaying spear to an utterly ordinary brick wall in Ilyushil, bleeding out, head bowed.

Thus, on this lonely, ethereal snowy night, the curtain finally fell on the betrayal and chaos of New Divine Capital Yirushi.

-----------------

Though Ilyushil was locked in perpetual snowy night because of Gwendolin, the city had once been home to quite a few residents.

Most of them were slender and finely featured, with skin like fine white sand, utterly bloodless.

Outside, this look was called the ”Moon Capital noble face.”

The features of those who inherited a touch of Divine Race blood.

But now, across all of Ilyushil, aside from the crackling of fire splitting buildings apart, the beating of dragon wings, the ringing stomp of Warriors’ boots on stone... there was nothing.

Lann took Gwendolin from his arms and set him down on a chair.

He forced himself to sit there, insisting on seeing Shalivan’s corpse burned to ash with his own eyes before he could rest easy.

A single betrayal was enough to scar someone for life.

You’Er Xia knelt formally at her brother’s side, subtly bracing Gwendolin’s body, which was shaky from exhaustion.

Most of the Soul Bodies Lann had summoned had dissipated the moment the battle ended; apparently this technique took quite a toll on the original body and wasn’t something you could spam casually.

That made it even clearer to Lann what kind of trust it was, for these friends to entrust him with their Summoning Badges.

Leonard, Kirk, and Hazel had come because of Rosalie, to fulfill a promise—but Lann would remember their kindness.

So-called ”connections” were built up bit by bit, in the back-and-forth of me helping you and you helping me.

Ideally, by the end you couldn’t even tell who owed whom anymore—that’s when you could call it ”close friends.”

”Thy message, I have received.”

The frail Shadow Sun sat in the chair, barely maintaining his dignity as he spoke to Leonard, who was kneeling on one knee before him.

But with his cherry-like lips heaving for breath, it was hard to call him ”majestic” in any way.

”Now, at the end of all this, not only has elder brother come in person, I can even hear news of elder sister. My heart is much at ease.”

His slender arm pressed to his chest, his whole person radiating a delicate, fragile grace.

”For elder sister to be forced to remain in the Profound Church is indeed beneath her station. You, as Knights under my sister’s command, must make haste to arrange matters and bring the Divine Beings you serve here.”

”Though Ilyushil has suffered disaster, and Yanorlund has likewise been... destroyed, as long as we can reunite as a family, we shall ask for nothing more.”

Amid this chaos and misery, the news of Rosalie brought a rare hint of relief to Gwendolin’s lips.

In these difficult days, good news is especially rare.

”I will convey your words to Rosalie in full.”

Leonard maintained his one-knee kneeling posture, head lowered as he spoke.

”The Goddess is still treating the two Divine Sons. If the process goes smoothly, I will make arrangements for the transfer.”

”Please await good news.”

When he finished, Leonard lowered his head a little further, a gesture of farewell.

Then the white Soul Body turned into a wisp of blue smoke and dispersed into nothing.

”There’s something very wrong with your arm.” Only after Leonard left did Lann, who had been standing to the side, step up to Gwendolin’s chair and speak.

The Demon Hunter pointed at the Dark Moon God’s arm. That arm was so thin you could almost trace the shape of the bones, and the fingers had turned into sharp claws.

Facing Gwendolin’s puzzled expression, Lann spoke softly.

”I don’t know whether Shalivan has been in contact with the already-mad Ausloes, or if he got his hands on the dragon transformation experiments from somewhere else.”

”But without a doubt, I’ve seen this clawed form on both Ausloes and Othello.”

”You didn’t suddenly fall gravely ill; you were harmed by the product of the dragon transformation experiments.”

Ausloes pursued dragonification, but his path was different from the Nameless King’s Path of the Ancient Dragon.

He sought the immortality of the Scaleless White Dragon Sith, while the Nameless King and his followers pursued the path of ordinary Immortal Ancient Dragons.

Compared to the usual Immortal Ancient Dragons, the intellect of the Scaleless White Dragon was as twisted and deranged as the creature itself.

Gwendolin’s slender claws clenched the arms of the chair, his lips pressing together.

He had considered that he’d been harmed by Shalivan, but he hadn’t expected the thing that hurt him to come from Ausloes’s research.

That was the King of Losric, the strongest of the Divine Race since King Gwen!

But Lann patted Gwendolin’s shoulder with his palm.

”But there’s no need to worry.”

The Demon Hunter spoke in an easy tone.

”Rosalie is researching the knowledge to cure dragon transformation. I gave her a good item. With that as a reference, I believe she’s close to success.”

”When she comes to Ilyushil, she’ll cure your condition.”

Gwendolin, who had been sitting in the chair looking up at Lann, froze for a moment, then revealed a smile that was tinged with something between nostalgia and bitterness.

”Is that so... I never thought that after so many changes, I would still need my elder sister to treat me.”

His slender yet gentle claws lightly rested on Lann’s hand upon his shoulder.

”I give thee my thanks, Lann. Thou hast helped us too much; thou hast almost reversed the entire situation.”

”No, it’s nothing.”

The Demon Hunter inconspicuously drew his hand back, and at the same time cast a somewhat doubtful look at Gwendolin’s delicate figure once more.

Compared to gratitude, he was actually more curious... was the Dark Moon God really You’Er Xia’s ”elder brother”?

Just then, the sky suddenly filled with the sound of raging wind howling.

A flying dragon of not particularly large size, covered head to toe in feathers, slowly descended.

Before the dragon’s feet could touch the ground, something plummeted straight down and smashed into the earth.

It rolled off to the side with a clatter.

It was a skull wearing an archbishop’s white mitre, with a still-sparking gash at the corner of one eye socket.

Peering in through the gash, one could vaguely see the viscous ”darkness” inside, boiling and entwining.

This was Elderidge’s ”cinder.”

The Nameless King leapt down from the Stormdrake’s head.

The war boots of his armor had long since vanished over the course of more than ten thousand years of harsh cultivation, yet that black-steel-like body still rang with a metallic clang upon the ground, like iron boots striking stone.

Every step was like a blood-smeared iron boot stamping on the earth.

Golden lightning and the inexhaustible storm seemed to have become as constant to him as breathing, present at every moment.

Even just walking, the surging winds around him blew his dry white hair upward, streaming in midair.

”Bro–Brother!”

Gwendolin struggled, trying to stand.

But the Nameless King, who was looking down at him, suddenly bent his waist and pressed a hand to the Shadow Sun’s shoulder.

As he pushed him back into the chair, he also, softly as an illusion, patted him in reassurance.

Then, without a word, he only tilted his head to glance at Lann standing nearby.

Whether it was an illusion or not, Lann felt that this fellow was sizing him up a little.

With no further emotion shown—after tens of thousands of years of austere training—even as King Gwyn’s firstborn, once the Dragon-Hunting War God of the Divine Race, his ability to express feelings had already atrophied.

Silent, he returned to the Stormdrake’s head, while Ongstein mounted a huge flying dragon.

Amid the rush of air currents and the beating of wings, they left Ilyushil and once more ascended to Archdragon Peak, continuing the Path of the Ancient Dragon.