Chapter 95 – Flame Crown (4)

Celine’s head had been completely destroyed, but she didn’t mind it too much—her physical body was meaningless from the moment she had decided to devote it to the Crack anyway. Celine had connected herself to dozens of bodies using the nerves, which any of the priests from the Thornbush Priest Organization could do.

However, the fear that took hold of her body for a short moment couldn’t be easily shaken off.

Fear and shock kept Celine frozen while she hid under the surface for a while to prevent her from doing anything to attract Juan’s attention. Celine recalled Juan’s burning eyes and the hand which reached out for her while covered in an ink-colored armor. She had thought that Juan was nothing compared to those from the Crack.

However, Juan was about to break Celine’s world into tiny pieces.

‘

Who the heck is he?’

Juan was not some random fool who simply wandered into the wasteland. Celine could now see why the Thornbush Priest Organization had told her to keep a close eye on him. Then, Celine inadvertently remembered how the Order of Lindwurm also instinctively felt fear toward Juan. She figured that they might know something about that bastard’s identity.

Celine searched through the minds and memories of the knights of the Order of Lindwurm to get any and all information they had on Juan. Surprisingly, there was a memory in their minds which caused the emotions felt by the knights from the Order of Lindwurm and Celine to overlap. It was a memory about something that Celine had never even thought was possible—it was the memory of the emperor.

“The emperor.”

Celine blurted out before she even realized. To be precise, everyone that was connected to her blurted it out. Celine was extremely shocked by the information she had found from the memories of the knights.

Celine looked at Juan while trying her best to deny it.

“Did you just find out now? You lack imagination,” Juan said with a relaxed face.

‘

It’s impossible. The emperor is dead already.’

“But, Gerard Gain—I’m certain that he stabbed the emperor with Elkiehl.”

“Elkiehl?”

Juan frowned upon hearing the unfamiliar name. But he soon noticed that what Celine had just mentioned was the black blade that was split like a branch—the blade which Gerard Gain had used to stab him. Juan figured that the black blade’s name must be Elkiehl.

“But there’s no way the emperor can still be alive after getting stabbed by Elkiehl… no, then what the heck is that presence… wait, so Gerard Gain didn’t take the crown with him? Then why did he run away? Where is the crown…”

Juan looked at Celine who was spouting gibberish, and then let out a long sigh as he approached her. Juan was relieved; it seemed like Gerard Gain was still alive. This meant that it no longer mattered whether Juan killed the woman in front of him or not.

Juan decided that he will kill every single one of those bodies connected to Celine while leaving only one alive to save his energy.

Juan’s hand grabbed Celine by the neck.

She blankly stared at Juan and asked.

“Where is Gerard Gain?”

“That’s exactly the question I want to ask of you.”

Juan bent the elf’s neck backward. There was no way that she would die by simply cracking her neck bone as her wounds were constantly regenerated with the help of the tentacles. However, Juan wanted to try some things he had in his mind.

Celine didn’t budge at all and just continued to speak using dozens of mouths all at once.

“I’m sure Gerard Gain killed him. I heard that the emperor was sitting on the throne as a corpse, so how…?”

“You’re not wrong. However, it’s also true that I’m unfortunately still alive. On top of that, what you showed me earlier was also similar to what actually happened. If you knew what that was, you would regret not being able to die when I smashed your head earlier. You should just kill yourself if you don’t want to suffer,” Juan said.

Then, Celine raised her face as if she had realized something.

“The crown!” Celine shouted.

Juan felt unpleasant upon seeing Celine continuously talking about strange things that he couldn’t understand. And when Juan felt unpleasant, he usually didn’t just stop at frowning—especially if his opponent was worthy of being killed. Juan thrust his fist into the face of the elf standing in front of his eyes.

“If you’re going to speak, make it logical and polite.”

“Where is the crown!? The fact that you’re still alive means that Gerard Gain failed to get the crown! Then it means you still have the crown with you!” Celine desperately shouted despite her squashed face.

“Do you not feel pain? What do I need to do to make you come to your senses, huh? Even if I wanted to torture you, I need to be able to communicate with you first,” Juan clicked his tongue.

“Lies! There’s no point in trying to hide it! The fact that you’re still alive is clear evidence itself!”

“I’ve never once lied ever since I came here, you monster. What would I need to hide from a monster like you? I’d rather ask you a question. What the hell is that crown that you’re so obsessed about?”

“I’m talking about the crown you stole, you fake emperor!”

Suddenly, pillar-like tentacles rose from the ground and charged toward Juan. Juan managed to dodge the attack by a narrow margin, but one of the nearest knights from the Order of Lindwurm standing next to Juan couldn’t. The knight was directly crushed by the weight of the tentacles.

“Gerard Gain promised to bring back the usurped crown to us from you! But he broke his promise!”

‘

The usurped crown?’

Juan couldn’t figure out what Celine was talking about. There was no emperor that existed before himself, and no existence who dared to call himself the ruler of humankind had existed either—Juan was the only emperor in history.

“Until now, we had believed that Gerard was running away from us because of his greed for the crown. But it seems like that’s not the case! Where is Gerard? Did you kill him?” Celine asked.

Juan’s lips twitched.

A huge tentacle rushed toward Juan as if it was trying to crush Juan for good this time. However, Juan didn’t move an inch to dodge the attack—he only watched the tentacle coming at him without an expression. The moment the tentacle was about to hit him, Juan swung his arm. The tentacle split in half along the trajectory of Juan’s movement. A tar-like fluid splashed on Juan’s head, but the fluid evaporated in the face of the rising heat before it could even stain Juan.

Although there was no fire, Juan was suddenly covered in a haze.

On the other hand, Celine ironically felt an intense heat from Juan’s cold expression. Faced with the heat that felt unapproachable, Celine recalled the power of the emperor.

“It seems that you are quite curious about Gerard, you monster. But what can I do?” Juan grabbed his short sword inversely. “I don’t hold a conversation with monsters, gods, ghosts, or demons by nature. If I must speak with them, I only torture or interrogate them. I will kill you in the most painful way I can, even if you intend to willingly answer all my questions.”

Celine shouted an unintelligible roar and swung her tentacles. A few of the knights from the Order of Lindwurm were swept away and crushed by the sudden movement of the tentacles.

At that moment, the door leading to the deeper area of the dungeon began to gradually open with a cracking sound. The cracking sound spread in all directions with a loud roar that shook the entire dungeon.

As Juan sensed a strong energy belonging to the Crack from beyond the door leading to the deeper area, he realized that something from beyond the door was about to squeeze itself out. It didn’t take too long for Juan to notice that the door was a pathway leading to the Crack. The pathways leading to the Crack were usually only opened for very short amounts of time, and the northern territory of the empire was the only place where the pathway to the Crack was permanently open.

It seemed that the dungeon in Durgal had been built in order to permanently connect to the Crack. Juan thought that such a goal would be quite difficult to fulfill—although the door to the deeper area was huge, it was still too small for the beings of the Crack to appear through it.

Even now, black bloody fluid was running down the tentacles stuck in the door as they tried to charge through but were torn apart.

Meanwhile, Celine crawled toward the door as if she didn’t care even if her entire body got dismembered.

As the door of the deeper area began to open, the remaining mercenaries and Swallan turned their gazes toward it all at once. Although many of them had a lot of experience in dealing with the dungeon in Durgal and had heard quite a few rumors about the deeper area, no one had seen its true nature—except for the lunatics and the dead.

Something purple in color flowed through the gap in the door. The moment everyone’s eyes turned to it, something suddenly escaped from the door and pulled the nearest mercenary. People couldn't properly see what it was that pulled the mercenary and only looked up when a scream broke out.

The thing holding the mercenary above everyone’s head was a tentacle as thick as a giant tree. The purple tentacle had a bizarre texture and crushed the mercenary’s body almost instantly, and then greedily absorbed his bloody remains with its acetabulum.

The mercenaries all burst into screams upon seeing the tentacle crush the mercenary and then try to suck out all his body fluids out of him without leaving a single drop.

Almost as if that had just been the beginning, more tentacles began to squeeze themselves out of the door. The tentacles crawled out of the huge door like water bursting out of the dam, and they were different from anything that the mercenaries had ever dealt with. The Shy’gus defeated by Juan felt like a cute puppy when compared to the gruesome tentacles in front of their eyes.

“W-we need to r-run…”

The mercenaries muttered in devastation, but no one could move a muscle Those who were capable of escaping were already long gone, and the only ones left were those who were either injured or had gone mad.

The mercenaries were looking at the dark eye through the gap in the tentacles. Those who looked into the eye went mad, while those who didn’t dare to look at the eye lowered their heads. Swallan also avoided looking at the eye.

The purple tentacles tickled the mercenaries’ cheeks, taunting them, and the mercenaries either laughed or cried, muttering unintelligible words.

Juan was the only one among the mercenaries looking directly at the eye.

“We prepared for hundreds of years to get the crown back! But you still dared to deceive us!” Celine shouted an inscrutable scream.

Upon hearing Celine mention ‘hundreds of years,’ Juan figured out that it was not her who was shouting. Juan believed that something behind Celine was shouting through her mouth.

With a loud roar that made the entire dungeon tremble, all the tentacles stretched out simultaneously and wriggled toward Juan at a close distance. The skin-like texture tickled Juan’s cheeks with murderous intention.

After Celine persistently hit the door despite wounding herself, a huge body finally came out of the door with a loud roar.

Celine’s gigantic figure ran wildly toward Juan. Her body was extremely large and groups of tentacles were still connected to her from beyond the door of the deeper area.

Juan intuitively realized that he would not be able to win against this tentacle monster in a direct confrontation. This tentacle monster was the beast living deep in the

real?

Crack. Things might have been different if Juan had his power as the emperor, but defeating such a monster with his current body was impossible.

Juan hastily splattered some of his blood in order to start a fire around him. The tentacles flinched in the face of the burning heat, but Celine disregarded the burning of her body to continue pressuring Juan.

𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Before anyone knew it, the knights from the Order of Lindwurm who had almost been completely absorbed by the tentacles surrounded Juan. The sight of the knights’ entire bodies being connected to the tentacles by the nerves to support them in holding their swords upright looked ridiculous, almost as if the tentacles were a puppeteer playing with puppets. Despite their armor glowing red due to the flames released by Juan, the knights narrowed the distance between them and Juan while firmly holding their weapons.

“How arrogant of a bastard whose birth was even a lie!” the knights all roared in Celine’s voice. “I don’t care whether you are lying or not, fake emperor! But if you still have the crown with you, it will be me, not Gerard Gain, who will get it back!”

The knights from the Order of Lindwurm surrounding Juan all began to whisper something in unison—it was a queer song that sounded like a prayer and a spell at the same time.

Feeling ominous upon hearing the song, Juan tried to wrap himself up with Umbra once again.

At that moment, an unexpected force seized him.

“I, the vagrant elf who used to be an abandoned child, will inherit the crown!”

A cry mixed with joy, remorse, fear, and desperation broke out of Celine.

Then, a burning heat Juan had never experienced before in his life rose from the middle of his forehead. Juan had never felt such heat before, even in a boiling volcano or inside a burning flame. However, for the first time in his life, he was screaming in pain from the heat that seemed intent on burning his entire brain.

Along with Juan’s scream, a crown that burned with brilliant flames appeared.