Trash of the Count's Family Vol 2. Chapter 382: It Must Not Have Been Enough (7)
It was not looking good.
“Your Majesty!”
“What is this—? Why is the royal consort—!”
King Tamahi shouted again at the royals and guards trying to approach.
“Get back! Do not come any closer!”
She had clearly heard what Alberu had said.
‘He’s about to blow.’
Duke Hinpa’s condition was truly dire.
The gray spear in his hand vanished.
Grrrrr—Grrrrr—
Instead, with a bizarre sound, gray force covered his body and gave off gray smoke like a volcano on the verge of erupting.
Along with that, the gray force churned like lava.
Through it, Duke Hinpa’s face was dimly visible.
“Aaaahhh—!”
He was in agony.
“Ha—”
For a moment, many emotions passed through King Tamahi.
Duke Hinpa. There had never been love or intimacy in her relationship with him.
Outside of official occasions, they had lived without even holding hands.
Even so—
“Aaagh—!”
It seemed some affection had still formed.
She had thought that because he was an enemy, she would one day have to kill him. Still, after all the years of seeing his face, Tamahi could not help but feel bitter at the sight of him suffering like that.
At least it was not sorrow. That was fortunate.
Rather, Tamahi’s mind remained cold.
“Everyone, get off the island!”
She raised her voice with internal energy.
“Prepare a barrier outside the lake!”
Her voice reached the warriors waiting outside the lake.
“Cha Run!”
“Yes!”
Martial Arts Master Cha Run quickly led the royal bloodline members away.
“Your Majesty, you must take cover at once!”
That gray force was no ordinary thing.
Cha Run knew Tamahi could not handle it and urged her to flee immediately, but—
“I will be the last to leave.”
She shook her head at his words.
With an expression that said he had no choice, Cha Run first evacuated the royals.
“Aaaahhh—!”
Even then, Guide Hinpa kept screaming, filled with pain.
‘It is not his body that hurts.’
There was a reason King Tamahi felt pity for him.
‘His mind is collapsing.’
Hinpa.
It seemed he was feeling a despair of the heart that went beyond physical pain.
‘And over there—’
Her gaze turned toward Cale and Alberu, who stood facing Hinpa.
“Khk—”
Dark red blood burst from Cale’s mouth once again.
“Want me to pat your back?”
Cale looked at Alberu when he said that from beside him, and receiving that look, Alberu said seriously,
“I’m not joking.”
He supported Cale and pulled him upright.
Grrrggghhh—!
The bizarre sound surrounding Hinpa was growing louder.
And through the gray force covering Hinpa’s body, Alberu saw a faint silhouette.
‘Eyes.’
Choi Han had said that when he encountered the God of Chaos, eyes had appeared.
The moment those eyes became clear, Hinpa would die—
‘At that rate, he’ll explode in just a few minutes.’
So they had to hurry.
He spoke to Cale.
“Magic works here.”
Magic could be used on the island.
Which meant—
“I’ll try to block it. Don’t overdo it. Run. As far as you can.”
It meant there was something Alberu could do.
He told Cale that, then shifted his gaze to King Tamahi.
He intended to leave Cale to her.
‘Let’s reduce the damage as much as possible.’
It would be impossible to completely stop Hinpa.
But it should be possible to lessen it to some extent while evacuating people.
Splash, splash—
He heard the sound of people fleeing across the lake.
“Ah—, my God—!”
It was then.
Alberu paused.
Grrrrrrk——
At the center of the gray force where the strange sounds were gathering—
only Hinpa’s face was exposed.
Tears of gray streamed down his face as he cried out.
“My God— why have you abandoned me—?!”
He was not afraid of death.
He was only—
“Was my faith lacking?”
wronged.
“Why! Why—?!”
His gaze turned to Cale.
Cale, barely standing, blood pouring from him.
He had definitely used a power that held chaos within it.
And not only that—it was an immense force that had tightened around Hinpa in an instant.
It was not the Saint’s power either.
And yet he could even use that power the Saint had wielded in the beginning.
All of it pointed to only one meaning.
“Why would you bestow new chaos upon someone like that......?!”
That person before his eyes.
The God of Chaos had not only granted that bastard the Saint’s power, but had even created and bestowed a new power on him.
A power that someone like Hinpa—who had occupied an important position in his own way and dedicated his life to chaos—could never dare covet!
That kind of power!
He had given that power to some bastard he had never seen before.
“Why! Why?!”
He could not accept it.
In the voice spilling from his mouth was not fear for a life about to end, but something deeper—despair, terror, and sorrow.
Have I—
been abandoned by God?
He could not bring himself to say those words aloud.
So he only poured out words of resentment as he was swept up in this chaos.
“Why—”
At that moment.
“Because it was lacking.”
Hinpa, his vision blurred with gray tears, heard an indifferent voice.
“Khmm.”
Even while coughing up blood, the voice speaking with difficulty was small yet firm.
In his blurred vision, Hinpa saw the root of everything—Cale, the one who had brought him confusion and despair.
Cale said,
“Your faith.”
Your faith must have been lacking.
After saying that, Cale slightly curled the corner of his mouth.
Even though he was a mess from blood, he smiled.
It looked almost like a sneer.
‘You damned bastards.’
Primordial Night.
As he engraved the road to the holy land of chaos into his mind, Cale had seen related scenes.
There was one scene he had seen in Hinpa’s memories.
The holy land.
Primordial Night.
That place was a graveyard.
A graveyard without a single trace of mourning.
It was simply an execution ground created for chaos.
In a way, it was like a battlefield.
Countless lives had disappeared there.
The Guide had not simply brought believers there.
Hinpa had shoved countless people, countless lives, into that chaos.
Cale’s indifferent eyes turned toward Guide Hinpa.
To the one who believed in the God of Chaos while at the same time fearing he may have been abandoned, Cale offered the cruelest words possible.
“Your faith was lacking.”
Your faith was lacking.
“Cough.”
He spat up blood again.
It was a little better now.
It had never really hurt in the first place.
Grrrrk——
“No! My faith was not lacking!”
At the center of Hinpa’s howling—
Grrrgggh, grrrgh—!
The gray force vibrated violently.
That thing was about to blow.
Cale straightened his body.
Of course, with a bit of support from Alberu.
“No, it wasn’t, it wasn’t—!”
Toward the howling Hinpa, Cale continued.
Your faith was lacking.
“And even without believing, I gained power.”
Hinpa’s howl stopped.
“...What?”
This time, Hinpa’s voice trembled with fear and chaos.
He could not even bring himself to repeat what he had just heard.
But Cale continued what he had to say.
“The God of Chaos, that crazy bastard. I really hate him.”
“......!”
What appeared on Hinpa’s face now was neither despair nor fear.
He looked like someone hearing something impossible for the first time—someone utterly incapable of understanding it.
It was, in every sense, chaos.
And at the very moment Hinpa’s chaos reached its peak—
Grrrrrrgh—!
The bizarre sound stopped.
The people who had been fleeing also hesitated and stopped moving for a moment when the sound vanished.
Everyone’s gaze turned toward Hinpa, who had gone still.
Ssshhh—
Only the sound of water remained, while everything else fell silent.
And the people saw it.
An eye.
Within the gray smoke that had completely swallowed Hinpa, a single eye appeared.
It was something that could not be described—something one could only recognize as an eye.
Yet it was clearly looking at them.
Everyone there thought the same thing.
That eye was looking ‘directly at me.’
And their bodies froze.
Blink.
The eye blinked once.
Though the moment was fleeting, the people felt bound by that gaze, forced to watch the scene in extreme slowness.
They could not move.
The aura of chaos was on an entirely different level from what Bishop Serisa had shown.
The people were entranced by that eye.
But not everyone was.
Blink.
The eye blinked once more.
And just as it was about to blink a third time—
“Get a hold of yourselves!”
Someone broke the silence.
Alberu Crossman.
“Duck!”
The moment he shouted—
“!”
“......!”
Their bodies moved before they knew it.
They did not know why.
They only suddenly felt warmth spread through their bodies.
Only then did they realize just how cold their bodies had become.
Like warm breath brushing the backs of their hands, they felt warmth.
They had no chance to realize that it was the warmth of sunlight.
Even Alberu did not know.
“Duck!”
But at Alberu’s second shout—
Blink—
At the moment the eye blinked a third time,
the people were able to break free of the enchantment.
And they understood what they needed to do.
There was no time to run.
So instinctively, they lowered their bodies and covered their faces with their arms.
They curled themselves up as tightly as possible.
Even then, in the fragments of their vision, they saw one final scene.
Alberu.
From his hand stretched a radiant light of mana, clear as sunlight.
A magical barrier that enclosed the exploding Hinpa.
And one more thing.
From the hand of Cale standing beside him stretched a brilliant silver line.
At the end of that line bloomed a shield and gigantic silver wings.
Unlike the ominous chaos,
the light that warmed the heart just by looking at it and the silver that seemed to carry a cool, clean scent—
the two lights settled into place in perfect harmony, each complementing the other.
Two lights blooming within chaos.
It looked like new sprouts pushing up through mud.
Like hope.
The people could not continue staring blankly at that light.
KWAHHHHH—!
A massive explosion erupted, enough to drown out even Hinpa’s scream, and the people curled their bodies up as tightly as they could.
“Mm.”
Alberu let out a ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) groan.
He had tried copying Raon.
He made several layers of shields.
Drip.
Blood ran down from the corner of his mouth.
‘Ha.’
As expected, was his magic still not even on the level of Rosalyn’s, let alone Raon’s?
Every time a shield shattered, Alberu felt his insides twist.
“Khk—”
He could not even suppress the groan that slipped out.
Even so, he endured.
He formed another shield.
And when it broke, he formed another.
How many times had he repeated that?
Crack.
Even as several top-grade magic stones shattered, Alberu did not stop.
Because he also wanted to know his own limit.
And—
‘That lunatic!’
Cale Henituse.
That bastard was standing straight even with blood smeared around his mouth, enduring the aftermath of an explosion even worse than what Alberu was taking.
Alberu’s shields broke easily.
Because of that, the shield outside them had to bear even more of the blast.
‘When did he get that strong?’
Alberu had been there the very first moment Cale spread that shield.
Compared to then—
‘This is insane.’
Cale truly had grown stronger.
Compared to when they caught the White Star, he had grown by several times over with ease.
“Mm.”
But Alberu had no time to dwell on that.
He had no room to spare.
How much time passed like that?
It could not have been more than a few minutes.
Drip.
By the time the blood running from the corner of Alberu’s mouth had turned dark red—
“Haa—”
He let out a deep breath.
“......”
He turned his head to the side.
Cale was holding his exhausted shoulder.
And still, Cale Henituse’s shield shone brilliantly.
“Whew—”
Alberu exhaled deeply.
His insides churned as if his mana had been exhausted from suddenly overusing it.
If it had been him—
‘I couldn’t have handled Hinpa.’
But Cale Henituse had dealt with him with ease.
He had coughed up blood, yes—
‘But he’s the kind of bastard trying to stand against the God of Chaos in the end.’
A man like that being toyed with by someone like Hinpa—who was neither the Saint nor even bishop-level—would make no sense.
Even though Alberu knew that.
‘Then what about me?’
The question came to him.
“Mm.”
But the dizziness, as if he were seasick, kept him from continuing the thought.
He only stood there as if nothing were wrong.
‘Even this, I probably can’t hide from Cale Henituse—’
So that irreverent look in his eyes while he stared at him—
‘!’
Alberu could not finish the thought.
‘What is this?’
He felt a strange sensation he could not understand.
His whole body was growing warm.
Without realizing it, he raised his head toward the source of that sensation.
‘...The sun—’
Light poured down on him.
He had never once thought the sun felt warm.
Rather, as a quarter Dark Elf, he had spent far longer turning away from the sun.
And now he faced the sun fully—
yet the fact that its light felt warm—
‘How strange.’
It was an incredibly strange feeling.
“......”
And the churn in his stomach began to settle.
Kuuuuung—!
Even while the ground shook and trembled from the aftermath of the explosion, the sunlight shining on Alberu remained unchanged.
Then again, the sun had always been the same.
‘Something—’
It felt as though something was just within his grasp.
But Alberu also felt that the time was not yet right.
He turned his gaze away from the sun.
Ssshhh—
Only the sound of water could be heard.
And where Hinpa had stood, neither gray smoke nor anything else remained.
Only the brilliant wings and shield stood there intact.
Suddenly, Alberu remembered the first time he had seen that shield.
He thought:
just as when they first met, Cale Henituse had not changed either.
“Not bad.”
And that irreverent, arrogant attitude too.
Truly, exactly the same.
“Ha, haha—”
For some reason, laughter spilled out of Alberu.
Ssshhh—
Across the Lake of Tranquility, a peaceful laugh spread softly.
“......”
“......”
And the expressions on the faces of the Lan royal family as they looked at Alberu and Cale were utterly vacant.