Chapter 159: I’ll Never Give My Heart (1)

Franken, Keter’s teacher who taught him medicine, loved to ramble about unusual case studies. Some of them were both gruesome and fascinating.

“There are frequent reports of decapitated corpses moving and attacking on battlefields. People dismiss them as ghost stories, but they’re true. If a person was stubborn enough in life, their body could still move even after being beheaded.”

And indeed, Franken was right. How else could Jeffrey, after being decapitated, still form sword aura and slice off the Homunculus’s left arm?

Whoosh! Thud!

The sight of headless Jeffrey pressing the living weapon back with sword aura was grotesque, to say the least.

“He fights better without a head, doesn’t he? Don’t you think, Mr. Spy?”

“Is he an Undead?”

“I’ve seen him eat and poop, so I don’t think he’s an Undead.”

“...You brought someone like that without knowing what he was?”

“I thought he was confident in his skill. I didn’t know he would fight like that. Ugh, look at that. His head’s growing back.”

Foam bubbled from the cleanly severed stump, and in the blink of an eye, a new head sprouted.

Great. There goes my appetite. Good thing I already had lunch.

When Kai blew a short whistle, the Homunculus stepped back. Jeffrey didn’t pursue, instead regathering his stance.

“How long am I going to keep calling you Hanson and referring to your weapon as the living weapon? It’s such a boring name. If you’re going to erase the evidence anyway, isn’t it okay to at least tell us your name?”

“Fine. My name is Kai, and the thing you keep calling a living weapon is a Homunculus.”

“I do admire the conviction in your voice when you say you’re going to kill me. Very charming.”

𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

While they had a brief conversation, both Jeffery and the Homunculus had already recovered. The Homunculus’ severed arm reattached like magnets, and Jeffrey’s severed head foamed over and regenerated.

That’s a monstrous recovery.

No, it surpassed simple recovery—this was true biological regeneration.

I’ve got troll blood in me too, but I can’t heal that fast. And certainly not grow a whole new head. Wait, if a new head grows, isn’t that technically a different person? Jeffrey. This terrifying bastard. He’s forcing me to have philosophical debates with myself.

“Kai, do you think that guy over there is still the same Jeffrey we knew, or someone else entirely?”

“Don’t talk to me like we’re friends. You’re next after Jeffrey.”

Snap!

Kai snapped his fingers, as if signaling the end of the break. Then, another boy with sky-blue hair appeared.

The world really is wide, and full of fascinating toys. Homunculi, huh... Even after reincarnating, this is the first I’ve heard of something like them.

Chimeras had intelligence but were full of malice and emptiness. Golems had no intelligence, but their controllers could simulate it. Homunculi seemed to combine the strengths of both—they appeared to have some intellect, were easy to control, and had humanoid bodies with golem-tier durability.

“How much does it cost to make? About five million gold?”

Keter had a million questions, but Kai kept his mouth shut and simply pointed to Jeffrey. Two blue-haired boys, cloaked in sword aura, charged at Jeffrey. Their movement suggested they even understood the concept of teamwork.

“No matter how strong Jeffrey’s regeneration is, can he still heal after being torn to pieces? If not, we can just bury him or burn him.”

Keter had met and killed regenerators before. They were not immortal but just harder to kill.

“They die just like the rest of us. They just take a little longer to do it.”

Boom! Kaboom!

Three Grandmasters clashed, shaking the heavens and the ground. Jeffrey’s sharp, efficient swordsmanship danced across the field, clashing with the Homunculi’s deadly hand-swords.

“This won’t be over quickly. They’ve got similar levels of regeneration. The Homunculus’ weak point is probably the magic core in its heart, right? Man... the empire really is impressive. They managed to compress a Grandmaster-level magic core to the size of a heart.”

Alchemy wasn’t Keter’s specialty, but he understood the concept well enough to know how insane that was.

“That’s like compressing a windmill into the size of a pinky.”

“...Don’t compare a magic core fusion reactor to a windmill. It’s practically a sun held in human hands.”

They say little strokes fell great oaks, but you’re like a twig. But even that’s charming.

“A magic core fusion reactor... That’s too long. Let’s just call it a core from now on.”

“If you’re going to be friendly, be friendly. If it’s going to be business, keep it like that. Don’t go back and forth,” Kai replied, crossing his arms in thought as he watched the battle between the Homunculi and Jeffrey.

“This is official business, so I should probably stick with the latter. That means I won our bet, right, Mr. Spy?”

“I don’t recall making a bet with you.”

“You said Homunculi could kill Eslow, and I said they couldn’t.”

“We never had that conversation. And even if we did, it doesn’t mean I lost.”

“Even after seeing that?”

Keter pointed to Jeffrey, holding his own against two Homunculi.

“The fact that the Homunculi can’t kill Jeffrey is due to his unexpected regeneration. It has nothing to do with Eslow.”

“So logical, huh? Then I’ll have to counter you logically too. And that is...”

Keter paused for a moment. He remembered when he wondered who to bring instead of Eslow to lure Kai out. He figured if he went alone, Kai wouldn’t show. But the truth was that he didn’t have to think much about it at all. Henya was too weak, and none of the palace’s other captains would’ve listened to him. The only fool who would blindly follow his plan was none other than Jeffrey.

That didn’t mean he trusted him. Keter knew Jeffery was about a Grandmaster, but he didn’t expect him to defeat Kai’s prized Homunculi. However, here they were.

After watching Jeffery for a few days, Keter started to feel something familiar about him. At first, he thought maybe he was just wearing the same cologne as Eslow. That was how much Jeffrey reminded Keter of Eslow.

There’s only one explanation.

Eslow’s authority was the ability to turn living beings into weapons. If he could grant those weapons to others, Jeffrey, being his most loyal knight, would be the most likely recipient. Knowing Eslow, he would give something truly exceptional or just nothing at all.

He would least give a weapon capable of fighting a seven-star Prime.

If Jeffrey received a weapon forged from authority, it was entirely possible that a six-star Grandmaster could fight on par with a seven-star Prime. It was ridiculous and unfair, but that was exactly what made it a true authority—the kind of ability that made others think it was so broken that it shouldn’t exist.

Jeffrey definitely had Eslow’s sword, a weapon forged by authority and filled with immense power. Of course, it was just a theory, but there had to be a good reason he revealed himself so boldly to someone who claimed they were going to kill Eslow.

I haven’t seen the power of that sword for myself, but I don’t need to eat it to know whether it’s jelly or slime.

“Right now!”

The space in front of Jeffrey distorted. It was a sign of a weapon being summoned from subspace.

Slash!

The Homunculus’s arm and the sword Jeffrey pulled from thin air collided. At the same time, something round flew up into the sky.

And there was only one thing on the human body that was round: a head.

Thud.

This time, it wasn’t Jeffery’s head that rolled across the ground. It was that of the Homunculus, the expressionless boy.

* * *

The sword that tore through the air at Jeffrey’s gesture was a rusted iron blade. Its edge was so dull that it resembled a blunt club more than a sword. But once it was imbued with sword aura, it became the sharpest weapon in the world.

The Homunculus was known to resist sword aura. Its vital points, especially the neck and chest, were layered with reinforced armor. According to the empire’s arcane engineers, unless hit by three to four consecutive strikes or sawed through with sword aura, those areas couldn’t be cut in one blow.

Then why... did it go down in one strike?

Kai hadn’t missed a single moment. He had seen everything, from the moment Jeffrey drew his iron sword to the instant the Homunculus’s arm and neck were severed simultaneously. The Homunculus had fiercely resisted, expanding its aura armor to a ten-meter radius, but it was all useless. The Aura Armor, the orichalcum body—none of it mattered.

Don’t tell me... that sword was made by Eslow’s authority.

As a member of the Imperial Intelligence Division, Kai certainly knew of Eslow’s authority and had analyzed it thoroughly. But among all the reports, there was no mention of something like this.

There was no information about a weapon created by Eslow possessing power beyond that of an artifact. Or... did we simply fail to notice?

Even witnessing Eslow using his authority was considered incredible intelligence. But to evaluate the true power of a weapon forged by it, one would need to either observe Eslow in battle or fight him directly. In the entirety of history, clashes between two Primes were extremely rare. And once such a battle began, no Prime ever left witnesses behind. Either way, the conclusion was clear: Eslow’s power was far beyond what the empire predicted.

Of course, Kai had never fully trusted the intel provided by the empire. He had estimated Eslow’s actual power to be at least four times stronger than reported. That was why he had originally planned to request six Homunculi, but upped the number to eight, believing this would ensure Eslow’s death without fail.

But now, that plan was less than garbage.

“Jeffrey merely received one weapon created by Eslow’s authority. And even that gave him power on this level. If Eslow himself were to act...”

“Forget defeating him. The Homunculi could serve as nothing more than a delay tactic.”

“....”

Keter finished the thought as if he were part of Kai’s team. Kai turned to look at him.

“How were you so sure the Homunculi wouldn’t be able to beat Eslow? That doesn’t make any sense. Even if you had intel on Eslow’s full power, you only learned about the Homunculi today. You probably only knew one of those pieces of information, so how could you know everything and lure me here?”

It was practically an accusation. But Keter answered without hesitation, “Just a hunch.”

“You... are you one of Eslow’s subordinates?”

“That’s harsh considering I’m your lifesaver. If not for me, what would have happened to all your fancy, expensive Homunculi?”

Keter didn’t say more. He left Kai to imagine the rest. And Kai, exactly as Keter intended, couldn’t help but imagine it. Humans were incapable of not imagining the things they were told not to imagine.

There’s no winning this. The empire’s intel is wrong—no, it’s just outdated.

According to the empire’s experimental results, at least five Homunculi were required to subdue a seven-star entity. But here and now, Jeffrey, who was granted his authority, was holding his own against two. Maybe he wasn’t fully a seven-star, but he was good enough to battle one. And this was just one sword. If Eslow wielded dozens, even hundreds of such weapons, what kind of monster would that make him?

Eight Homunculi won’t even come close to being enough. We would need at least twenty to have a real shot.

Kai revised his internal estimate of Eslow, from a seven-star to an eight-star threat. And that meant one thing: no matter what they tried now, killing Eslow now was impossible. The empire had only created thirty Homunculi as prototypes. Of those, Kai had waited five years just to get eight. How many more years would he have to wait to get twelve more?

And in that time, Eslow will only grow stronger. In the end... this mission has failed—no, not quite.

While he wouldn’t succeed in killing Eslow and earning merit for the empire, he had acquired precious information that the Four Lords of the Lillian Kingdom were far stronger than the empire’s Primes. He would have called it a failure if he had lost all the Homunculi to learn that, but so far, he had lost nothing.

Crackle!!

Just as Kai felt some relief, Jeffrey’s sword pierced Homunculus' abdomen, the precise location of its core. Kai narrowed his eyes. He had just lost one Homunculus, worth six million gold in production cost alone. Now, he had to bring back results to justify the loss.

If I capture Jeffrey and bring back the sword Eslow gave him for analysis, the cost will be worth it.

Jeffrey wasn’t using his own power. He only matched seven-star levels because of Eslow’s weapon. If Kai and the two remaining Homunculi joined forces, they could capture Jeffrey.

As Kai began to raise his hand to give the signal to the two standby Homunculi, Keter, who had been silently watching, grabbed Kai’s wrist.