Chapter 203. Fall (1)
Although Azadin and Karcen had left their places, Manza-Zadek still had many guards.
The regular army of Bruma guarded the royal castle in three shifts, and warriors from each province, Cellswords, entrusted their safety to the Golden King.
Shamans persecuted by the King’s Church, blood mages, necromancers, all flocked to the Golden King’s court, and the Golden King received them as guests, so his palace became a fortress no assassin dared to intrude upon.
But today, the ones who came to assault him were different.
***
Inside the throne room of the royal castle, before Manza-Zadek, whose massive body like a walrus guarded the throne, a middle-aged man flew in like a bird and landed lightly.
Outside the window, storm winds and rain raged, yet not a single drop touched the man. At his side were black-masked shadows holding long umbrellas to serve him.
The middle-aged man had graying hair, tinged with ash, and from his eyes radiated a faint golden light.
“Who dares trespass upon the Golden King’s royal presence?!”
The royal guards who defended the throne shouted at the intruders, but… instead of an answer, corpses and a torrent of blood poured down from the window.
The cold bodies belonged to the guards who had been defending the castle. Shockingly, the Herald Clan had silently slain the majority of the royal guards.
After the wave of blood and corpses fell, more than ten shadows descended into the throne room.
They wore bird-shaped masks upon their faces, and each carried a quiver on their back, marking them unmistakably as the Herald Clan.
The first man to land declared,
“I am Hatir, son of Emperor Yaeslat, rightful heir to the Eight Thrones. I have come to claim my right.”
“Rightful?”
Hearing this, Manza-Zadek let out a bitter smile.
“The teaching of the King’s Church is that the Emperor is not the rightful ruler of the throne. And, isn’t it more important first to prove that you are truly the Emperor’s child?”
“Are you insulting my birth?”
“We must begin there, must we not? But very well, let us drop unnecessary insults. You are indeed the Emperor’s child.”
Manza-Zadek already knew Hatir’s identity, so he did not deny his bloodline.
“But are you not a bastard?”
“How dare you! You mock me again.”
“No, a bastard is simply a bastard. And in the end, isn’t true legitimacy decided when one sits upon the throne? Yes, the king’s virtue, that light.”
So saying, Manza-Zadek pointed to his throne. Hatir’s eyes sharpened.
“Then are you saying you would give me the chance to sit upon it?”
“If you sit here, and truly can protect this world with the light of the king’s virtue, I will gladly yield my throne.”
“Your Majesty!”
The vassals were horrified. If he let him sit, and the king’s virtue truly recognized him as king, then… the royal house of Yaegas never allows anyone else upon the throne.
For the rightful king, the throne itself gives judgment.
So say the Yaegas Divine Clan, yet the power structure of the human world is not arranged so. Until now, no one who might challenge the king’s authority was allowed near the throne.
And now, was Manza-Zadek telling this man to sit?
Of course, not really.
“But one who brings the Nagas, summons storms, and calls forth the reapers of the nether with magic, cannot be the rightful king.”
Manza-Zadek picked up the royal scepter standing beside the throne.
It looked less like a scepter than a great beam of timber, yet in the obese hands of Manza-Zadek, it appeared a simple staff of command.
With elephantine arms, he gripped the scepter, inhaled deeply, and his body swelled further, veins bulging through his flesh.
“What will you do, if you seize the throne?”
“Nothing more than reclaiming the rights denied to us who were persecuted.”
“Such a lowly spirit you have, to spare no thought for those who suffer from your actions.”
“And you, did you ever think of the suffering of our clan?”
“At the very least, I did. That is why one who once served you came into my ranks, did he not?”
Indeed, it was because Manza-Zadek freed them from the curse of service and promised them a future, that men like Karcen left the Herald Clan to become crows of the Golden King.
But Hatir only sneered.
“You claim righteousness with the help of traitors to our clan?”
“Were they not traitors, then all would be thinking like you. There is no value in further argument, is there not?”
“Yes, that is so. Manza-Zadek, yield the throne.”
“You will have to step over my corpse first.”
Manza-Zadek swung the scepter. The massive staff tore through the air like a storm, aimed straight at Hatir.
But Hatir unfolded Beauty of Nature, the twilight. Dizzying shadow illusions danced, elegantly slipping past every strike of Manza-Zadek.
And when he clapped his hands, in that instant, jet-black steel arrows rained from all directions toward Manza-Zadek. Astonishingly, Hatir did not strike himself, but commanded the Herald Clan to attack.
“Hrup!”
Manza-Zadek swung the scepter to bat away the incoming arrows and cast holy magic to raise a barrier, yet…
—Crack!
That huge timber-like scepter broke from mere arrows. The black arrows, flying from all sides, pierced through the barrier with ease, sinking into his flesh.
“Y-Your Majesty!”
“H-How dare you!”
The guards drew their swords, but none could last even a single exchange against the Herald Clan’s blades before they fell.
“What a dull fellow. To sweep away one such as I, a divine king of Yaegas, like this… is it not far too lacking in grace?”
Manza-Zadek did not even pull out the arrows lodged in his body, only slumped beside the throne.
If he pulled them out, he would bleed to death.
Perhaps because of his great bulk, only small trickles of blood seeped from the wounds.
Yet these arrows were the Black Steel Arrows, cursed, so even left embedded in his flesh, he would soon die.
Manza-Zadek, sensing the approach of death, let out a hollow laugh.
Surprisingly, his heart was at peace.
When he had once struggled so desperately to preach the joys of the flesh to the ancestral gods of Yaegas, no matter how deeply his body was steeped in pleasure, he had found the torment unbearable…
But now, though he had done all he could, and fallen because his strength did not suffice, he found himself refreshed.
“The arrows lodged in your body, each is a Black Steel Arrow worth a thousand gold. To have so many loosed upon you alone, is a kind of courtesy.”
So spoke Chief Hatir, and before his chest he gathered mana, forming ominous letters. They were letters of the nether tongue, dark and evil, so dreadful that simply seeing them left the mind reeling, and none dared to gaze upon them.
Manza-Zadek, who already disregarded life and death, clicked his tongue at the sight of those sinister nether runes.
“And you call yourself the child of the Emperor, doing such things….”
Manza-Zadek was aghast, but by then, there was no one left who could stop Hatir.
Hatir ascended the throne.
The throne of Bruma had been crafted of massive ebony, sturdy enough to hold even an elephant, so that Manza-Zadek might sit upon it. But when Hatir raised his hand inscribed with nether runes high above his head and brought it down, the ebony shattered as if packed with explosives, and the quartz throne beneath was revealed.
As the power of the nether tongue Hatir had woven seeped into the quartz throne, it began to shine.
“Ah….”
The light flickered. The throne’s own radiance was being devoured by darkness, dwindling away.
***
The king’s virtue of the Golden King, Manza-Zadek, was in truth unusually strong, even among kings.
It was only thanks to the Golden King’s divine aura that people could live at all here in Bruma, at the very heart of the Naga Empire.
But now that aura was gone.
In its place, the evil energy of the nether poured forth from the quartz throne.
“What reason do you have, to do such a thing?”
Manza-Zadek looked with pure curiosity upon Hatir, who had seized the throne and was corrupting it with wicked power.
“With your talent and ability, you could have claimed the throne rightfully, and made Bruma your own. Though this land is plagued with disease, even if you had only occupied it, it would have brought you great gain. Why destroy it? Was the wealth and glory of Bruma so worthless to you?”
For since Hatir had defiled the throne with nether magic, Bruma could no longer be protected by the light of the king’s virtue. Already tormented by endemic disease, soon it would become a land unfit for human life.
Why, then, commit such ruin?
Then Hatir spoke.
“At first, I… dreamed that if I ever claimed the throne, I would rule with benevolence, and make this land into a paradise. I was prepared even to embrace reverse discrimination. For unless I cherished and loved the people of Hubris more than my own kin, they would never accept me, a son of Aragasa.”
“Yes. If a conqueror desires unity with the conquered, he must grant them better conditions than before, treat them so well that it feels to his own kin like reverse discrimination.”
“That is precisely the problem.”
Hatir, seated on the throne, crossed his legs.
“The population of Aragasa is too small. We came with only five immigrant fleets to this land. Already, through mingling with the natives, our hair, skin, race, have been assimilated. If, in addition, we burden ourselves with reverse discrimination for the sake of smooth rule, then all the Aragasa here will vanish completely.”
“So that is why you bound them with the curse of service?”
“Yes. Constraints are what forge bonds. Had I not imposed such constraints, long ago they would have abandoned the name Aragasa, forsaken their pride, and merged into the Hubris people, until our race was gone.”
Even before the Herald Clan listening there, Hatir boldly confessed that he himself was the one who maintained the curse of service.
“And do you not pity those who suffer from your nationalism?”
“It is what must be done to survive. When you slaughter cattle or swine, you may feel sorry, but in the end, they must be butchered, must they not?”
Hatir, having already chosen, answered without a trace of hesitation.
Hearing those words, Manza-Zadek, wounded, gasped for breath. The Black Steel Arrows embedded in his body spread their curse through his veins. Like venom burning his blood, it gnawed at his nerves.
Yet still he rose.
“It seems, you are one I cannot possibly forgive.”
“Do not waste yourself, Golden King. Truthfully, I rather like you. Among the divine kings of Yaegas, you are the one with some sense of shame. So I would prefer to send you off without pain, yet must you hasten your death?”
“Yes. At the very least… I must buy some time.”
“Futile gestures….”
Hatir sneered at Manza-Zadek, drawing a dagger atop the throne.
But at that moment, a black arrow shot toward his temple. A Black Steel Arrow, aimed straight at Chief Hatir.
‘Ugh!? So this was it!’
Only then did Hatir realize why the battered, broken Manza-Zadek had suddenly risen to challenge him—but it was already too late.
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