Chapter 207 — 언령(言靈) 혹은 언령(言令)

Chapter 207

Word-Spirit (言靈) or Word-Edict (言令)

When he brought the cave down—

Elric had wrapped the dragon in multiple layers of a mana field, stacking wards around it so the dragon wouldn’t be hurt.

The dragon was already barely breathing from massive blood loss.

The slightest shock might sever its last thread of life, so he had to move with utmost care.

And then—

While Herman and Sailor faced the Demon Kings, Elric moved back to the dragon.

Hiss!

Hiss!

Watching such a massive creature pant for breath was almost pitiful.

【Mer… bing… ger.】

Even after meeting Elric, this was all the dragon could manage to say.

“Completely gone, huh?”

The dragon had never been in good shape.

Shut in a cave for ages, it had lost its Authority, and its reason flickered in and out.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say it was devolving into a mere monster.

It had managed to hold a conversation after meeting Elric, but the battle with Leda seemed to have shattered what little sanity it had left.

“At this rate we won’t get anything out of it.”

Mephisto circled the dragon and clicked his tongue.

His conclusion was simple.

Beyond saving.

“These lizard bastards have loved shiny things since the old days. I thought maybe we could at least scavenge something that glitters. But this one looks penniless even on that front.”

For the Mephisto who’d advised Elric to learn the True Words, there was nothing to do but grumble.

And then—

“…Hm?”

Elric, who should have answered by now, said nothing.

Mephisto glanced over.

Elric, eyes narrowed, was staring at the dying dragon. The dragon’s massive pupils could no longer find focus.

[Mephi.]

“What?”

[How vast do you think a dragon’s inner world is?]

“What harebrained— You! What useless stunt are you plotting now?”

Mephisto looked exasperated.

He’d realized what Elric was thinking.

Elric was considering possessing this dying dragon!

Strictly speaking, not possession, but assimilation, synchronization, or resonance.

Either way, just as he’d possessed Nahatram’s wraith to mimic its techniques and insight, he meant to peer into the dragon’s consciousness by the same method.

To Mephisto, it was madness.

“No matter how wounded, a dragon is still a dragon. A dragon’s caliber can’t be matched by any petty lower god! And no matter how low it’s fallen, you—who can’t even sense things like Shedding or Transcendence yet—want to peek at a dragon’s cross-section?”

A dragon’s inner world is an endless ocean. Elric’s human consciousness is a mere brook by comparison.

Even as a Merbinger, he would be swept away, leaving not a trace—that was Mephisto’s belief.

But—

Elric didn’t budge.

[Remember when you and I assimilated before?]

Back on the Black Snowfields—when they wrenched out and devoured the young demon rooted deep in Chancellor Norus.

Elric had glimpsed fragments of what made up Mephisto. For a heartbeat, he’d felt Mephisto’s thoughts, senses, consciousness, and knowledge all as if they were his own.

And Mephisto, likely, had glimpsed Elric’s in turn. He’d never said what he’d seen, but Elric knew he’d stared deep—very deep—into him.

“And why bring that up now?”

Mephisto grimaced as if the memory itself offended him, but Elric continued, unfazed.

[I survived then, didn’t I?]

“That moment was a flicker. Now you mean to comb a dragon’s mind from end to end!”

[No. It’ll be fine.]

“Why, you—!”

[Did you forget? The magic crystal I carry also doubles as a Dragon Heart. I’ll make it work.]

Elric clearly believed nothing would happen to him. His hand tightened on the arcane pendant at his throat.

Mephisto frowned at him.

[Are you worried about me?]

“Worried, my ass! If you botch this, it’s obvious this king gets dragged under with you!”

“Heh. Yessir, yessir. Got it.”

“You little—!”

Was it his imagination, or did Mephisto look, for a moment, like Sean—always snapping at him with a short fuse?

Elric suspected it wasn’t his imagination.

“A Demon King worrying about a Merbinger. The world really must be ending.”

When they first tangled, both had obsessed over how to devour the other.

Somewhere along the way, with a shared goal and long cooperation, a quiet kinship had taken root.

[Anyway, I’ll be right back. Keep an eye on the outside.]

“Do as you please! You never listen to this king’s counsel anyway.”

Elric’s mouth curved faintly, then smoothed into solemnity as he knelt on one knee.

He set a hand atop the dragon’s head, which might stop breathing any moment.

“You said you waited for me a long time. Tell me what you meant by that—what this prophecy is.”

【Mer… binger…!】

With that thought—

“【Show me】.”

In that instant—

Fwoooosh!

Countless afterimages streaked past Elric’s eyes.

Meanwhile—

“Was it Usden?”

Watching Elric begin to synchronize, Mephisto murmured something to himself.

Back when he’d synchronized with Elric, someone he’d “seen” deep in Elric’s unconscious kept catching at him.

Back then, he hadn’t known who it was.

Now, after so long with Elric, he did.

“Merbinger unknown to this king… What is it you intend?”

* * *

So many afterimages whipped past Elric that he was dizzy.

His vision churned. Everything spun, and every sense turned useless.

Even his sense of space and direction warped; front, back, and sides blurred together. Nausea rose; his head swam.

Holding onto reason took everything he had.

Only now did he grasp Mephisto’s warning about being no more than a splinter of wreckage adrift on the open sea.

In the storming ocean of the dragon’s consciousness, Elric was a tiny shard that could be shattered to nothing if swept the wrong way.

—I wait. I wait.

—For him to come.

—For the promised one to come.

—I don’t know how long I have waited.

—I lost my Authority. My rank collapsed. Soon even I will vanish.

—I, once a great dragon who crossed the skies and trod the earth, am slowly forgotten.

—I wither into a mere wretch.

—Even so, I must wait…

As countless wishes and desperate prayers swirled like a vortex—

Within them—

Elric finally caught the facet he sought.

—O great Dragon King! I will go with you! Let me stand beside our comrades as they fall!

In the dragon’s nest, now in ruins—

The dragon looked up at another dragon far larger than himself.

The newcomer’s form was all too familiar to Elric. Unforgettable.

“The Gem Dragon!”

The master of the first nest Elric ever found, the being he’d met alongside Mephisto—the one who let him cure his Severed Meridian Syndrome.

The last Dragon King looked down at the much younger guardian dragon of the Borfur tribe.

Pity filled his gaze.

On the eve of the final battlefield, he pitied the descendant who would lose all his kind and remain alone in this land.

—No. You know you cannot. You must remain here and guard our children.

—Those eggs have already lost their warmth! You know they’ll never hatch! And yet you would leave me here alone…!

—No. Those children are only sleeping—for a distant future.

—My king! Even now, you say such things…!

—The Merbingers. We only need the Merbingers to return.

—If you mean the Merbingers still wandering that land, it’s too late! They’ve already lost the old covenants! They lost all the power they once held!

—They didn’t lose it. They forgot.

—What’s the difference!

—It’s different. They will take it back, someday.

The Gem Dragon’s faith was unshakable.

It made the guardian dragon’s chest tighten. Like talking to a wall. No matter how he argued, the Gem Dragon would never accept his view. That whirl of stifled emotion bled straight into Elric.

“Eggs?”

Then Elric finally noticed three eggs lying at the dragon’s feet.

To the eye, they were nothing but hard stones.

One was red, another blue, the last a shade of ash.

“Dragon eggs…”

Elric snapped to full alert.

If the Gem Dragon’s words were true—

Then this dragon had endured all these ages to guard those eggs.

Thump.

Thump.

If those three eggs were still out there…?

With that thought, Elric focused even more on their exchange.

—So wait. They are our founders. Someday they will awaken the covenants they forgot.

Leaving only those words, the Gem Dragon took flight.

The guardian dragon clenched his teeth as he watched his comrades fill the far sky and fade beyond the sun setting in the west.

He could not join their final march, but he would guard their last vow no matter what.

He still doubted the true meaning of the Gem Dragon’s words.

Even so, he could not let the last three heirs be lost.

And from then on—

The guardian dragon repeated a waiting with no promise at all.

Snow fell.

Spring came.

Summer arrived.

Autumn brushed past.

And winter returned, again and again.

In the endless turn of seasons, the guardian dragon slowly wore down. The mire of time took much from him.

His talons fell out; his teeth loosened. His eyes dimmed; the membranes of his wings frayed.

The eyes that had glimpsed the workings of the world had long since closed. The mind that had been a treasury of knowledge no longer opened cleanly; at times he lost his reason and self.

Stripped of Authority, the life of a declining race was that base.

—Why… after all this time… still no one….

Yet the guardian dragon endured and endured again.

Without the three eggs, he’d have abandoned that tedious wait long ago. True, the eggs had never warmed again and had fossilized ages past, but that last, stubborn attachment kept him bound to this land.

Then, one day—

“He” arrived.

—Are you Arowana, guardian dragon of the Borfur tribe?

A human man with his hood pulled low.

A long staff in one hand—clearly a mage.

—And you are…?

—I am—

The man slowly pushed back his hood.

Elric’s eyes flew wide.

It was a face he’d seen at the Academy—and inside the arrangements.

“Grandfather!”

—My name is

—Usden Merbinger.

The Mage Who Devoured Talent