Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 225

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 225.
Choose the Dawn (37)
Yurichi heard the young boy’s voice and Blado’s scream, struggling to still his trembling legs as he thought: everyone living at the Jineman Family’s manor by this lakeside must have gone completely mad.
Since he had not lost his mind, he would hide here and wait. Until that fight ended. Until one of them died and he obtained what he desired.
Uncle Blado’s voice echoed in his ears….
Five years ago, the man who had driven his father, his elder brother, and himself to this place now writhed in agony, clutching a child. Had his cousin, whom he had known only to exist, finally perished?
Boris saw the monster looming over him. This creature was three times larger than the one he and Isolet had killed on the Island. It would be that much stronger as well.
Moreover, in Boris’s memory, this monster possessed a voice. That was why he had spoken before it—he had believed it could understand.
The moment of hesitation soon ended.
The monster, as if acknowledging the gleaming blade before it as a worthy opponent, spread its enormous wings wide. The mist fluttered as though it were the very air itself….
Boris crouched low, preparing for the assault. It would be a lie to say he was not afraid. He had come to face his greatest enemy from memory, the nightmare of his childhood.
His heart raced beyond measure. The hand gripping his blade trembled faintly…. Yet at the same time, he was exhilarated. He had endured countless trials without breaking, coming this far to wash away the humiliation, the sin, the hatred that had haunted him for so long!
Unlike Boris’s tension, the Winterer, the white winter blade, felt nothing of the sort. Boris sensed it—how desperately this blade, unused for so long, craved blood now.
But that was the will of those possessed by the blade…. The Winterer itself held no will of its own. He must not be dominated by the hunger for blood. As the Winter Blacksmith had said, he had to see clearly what he truly desired.
Boris charged forward.
Clang!
Talons flew at him from above, below, left, right, and straight ahead.
He had only a single blade. If he gave even one opening to those claws, it would be over. He already knew what pain worse than death felt like.
Would Yefnen wish the same fate upon his younger brother? Never in a thousand years!
He struck two to the sides, knocking them away, then swept upward against the one diving from above and stepped back. The one coming from below suddenly surged up, grazing past his chest.
Rotten water and mud splattered up from his feet to his chest. Then he twisted his blade to the left and thrust it upward, shattering the talon flying at him from the front.
Boom!
An explosive sound erupted. There was no time to catch his breath. Again, a talon flew at his face, nearly crushing Boris’s head.
He barely jerked his head back and spun a half-turn, his back to the monster, piercing through the talon and knocking it away. Feeling the creature surge forward again from behind, he used the slippery mud to pivot his body swiftly.
He evaded one and half-severed another. In that brief moment, his breath came ragged.
Fragments of shattered talons scattered at his feet, trampled beneath him. Stepping on them, breaking them further, retreating, running—Boris thought of Isolet. How fortunate she was not here.
Had he told Isolet of the monster’s existence, there would have been no stopping her from coming. The last hope to heal Nauplion’s cursed wound…. Had she known of such a thing, Isolet would never have backed down.
Of course, he harbored no certainty of victory without her aid. He simply fought. Because he desired something.
The vengeance Yefnen had told him not to pursue—the monster did not belong to that. The true enemy that had destroyed the Jineman Family and consumed everyone from Yenichka to Yefnen. And he was the only one who could fight for them.
Screech!
“Ha!”
A blue light, too pale to be white, scattered outward. The blade that had weathered winter with him, the Winterer—was it trying to surge ahead of Boris?
Death stood one step before him. Should he stumble even slightly, it would seize and devour him. Death watched him from mere inches away.
After shattering a dozen or more talons in succession, sweat poured from his entire body like rain.
The talons struck with several times the force of the creature he had killed on the Island, each collision with his blade sending shocks through his arms and shoulders. He could parry and break them, but he could not close the distance. Moreover, the monster still seemed to be in a probing phase.
Even as this continued, the Winterer burned ever more fiercely.
Everything the blade touched was cut, shattered, even reduced to powder. If only he possessed slightly greater skill to sever even this phantom in a single stroke!
“How long will you keep doing the same thing? If you’re going to kill me, come closer! Try to kill me in one blow!”
The moment he cried out while shattering yet another talon.
Boris realized a familiar voice was ringing in his mind. It was a voice he thought he had forgotten, yet in this moment it came alive more vividly than any memory.
‘At last, I’ve returned.’
‘At last, I’ve returned wielding that blade.’
Boris roared in defiance.
“Yes, to cut you down and restore everything to its beginning!”
Then an unexpected voice pierced through my mind.
‘I told you. You would return to this place.’
What?
Boris clenched his teeth until they threatened to shatter, glaring at the monster’s burning eyes.
I knew there existed a memory I had failed to recover within the tragedy of five years past. When I confronted the monster on The Island, fragments of memory had returned, revealing to me that I possessed ‘lost memories’.
It was a voice. About the Winterer, speaking with absolute certainty.
‘That blade, is it? Do you not know that whoever wields it must endure an endless night of murder?’
“A night of murder….”
‘Winterer’ meant one who endures winter. Yet the monster spoke of enduring ‘a night of murder’.
Did this mean the monster knew of the Winterer, and even knew the fact that it had wrought countless massacres?
‘A night of murder. The night of murder that draws near to you.’
‘Come now and prove that you are a murderer.’
‘Like so many humans before you, neither will you be able to wash the blood from your hands.’
Then, a completely different voice reached Boris’s ears.
‘Kekeke, kekekeke…. How amusing. Fallen monster Golmodap, surely you do not claim ignorance of me?’
‘Surely you do not claim ignorance of me?’
‘Surely you do not claim ignorance of me?’
‘Kahaha, knowing me so well, why can you not become a true murderer and devour this child?’
‘Devour this child?’
‘Devour this child?’
Two distinct voices. Souls trapped within the Winterer.
For months now, those imprisoned within the Winterer had begun to clamor, each with their own voice. I had been striving to build the strength to endure it. This was precisely when Lucian had witnessed my form at the Sword Training Ground in the dead of night.
Countless voices began to giggle and speak all at once.
‘Listen here, I too should be known. I, Ozoter, King of Ginse. Did you not see me when your wings were still white?’
‘When your wings were still white?’
‘When your wings were still white?’
‘Whose malice runs deeper? Shall we wager on it? I was the master of wagers in life. The only thing I ever lost across my entire existence was my own life…. Krahahahaha!’
‘Was my own life…. Krahahahaha!’
‘Was my own life…. Krahahahaha!’
Boris gripped the blade tightly, which resonated with dozens of overlapping voices, and screamed.
“Begone, you who have no substance! Do not interfere in my battle!”
Still the voices did not fade. Yet Boris paid them no heed and drove forward, slashing.
The monster unleashed a dozen or more serrated claws. Boris entered a state of transcendence, pulling, thrusting, and swinging the blade.
I could feel the Winterer thirsting for blood so fiercely that I could fight with my eyes closed, and it even sought to wield my own body. Yet I could not yield to that impulse.
To do so would be to emerge victorious only to become the defeated in the end. Defeated not by the enemy, but by myself.
The massive claws continued to deliver relentless impacts against my wrists and arms, resonating and scraping deep into the bone. I evaded the slashing strikes that came at my face and parried those that came beneath my shoulders, cutting them down. Each time the blade met a new claw, a sharp crack echoed out.
Yurichi watched the Young Boy’s combat and realized he had been completely mistaken all along. A mere child wielding a famous blade? What nonsense!
Look at that form. The Young Boy had grown into a warrior who wielded his sword with unparalleled mastery. Who across the entire Continent could wield that blade and fight with such brilliance?
Yurichi, whose specialty lay in ambush tactics, admitted to himself that he could never match the Young Boy’s skill against a monster. Yet it mattered not. He would wait.
No matter how exceptional the Young Boy was, he would inevitably fall to the monster. Until then, Yurichi would remain hidden, and once the monster vanished, he would simply retrieve the blade. But so absorbed was he in the battle between monster and child that he failed to notice he had inadvertently exposed himself.
“This cannot be the end. Yenichka, my beloved Yenichka, where are you now? Where are you going?”
Blado cradled the motionless young girl, murmuring softly. He shed no tears, uttered no cries of despair—he merely spoke gently to his daughter in his embrace, as if soothing her.
Soon Blado rose, still holding his daughter. As though blind to the fierce battle unfolding beside him, he walked slowly to escape that place. But when he reached the rotting trees ahead, he suddenly stopped.
His expression twisted.
Though Blado’s yellow eyes pierced into the darkness and found nothing, malice boiled across his face as he stepped back several paces and lowered his daughter to the ground. Drawing his blade, he spoke in a strangled voice.
“So, you came to take Yenichka away?”
At those words, Yurichi snapped to attention. When he turned, Blado Jineman stood before him, blade already drawn.
His face was strange—as though he were trying to laugh and weep simultaneously, burning with hatred yet begging for forgiveness all at once.
His eyes did not even focus on Yurichi. His tone differed entirely from his usual manner.
“Is that so? Then we must settle this. Let us see once more who prevails.”
Though no one had spoken, Blado replied as though answering someone, and suddenly thrust his blade forward.
Yurichi recoiled in shock, then a thought struck him: Was this man seeing ghosts?
“I have always wanted to settle this. Since childhood, and even now….”
The growling voice from deep within his throat ceased, and Blado rushed at Yurichi, swinging his blade wildly.
“Hey, wait! Blado Jineman! What are you doing!”
Whether he dodged or tried to speak, it was useless. Blado could not hear a word Yurichi said. He merely answered to words only he could hear.
“Have you lost your mind?”
Yurichi’s speed allowed him to evade most of Blado’s strikes. But when no amount of explanation would suffice, rage welled up within him—he decided he would have to kill this man.
He considered striking him down with his flail in one swift blow, but Yurichi reconsidered. With such glaring openings in Blado’s stance, he seemed as though he would be dispatched easily.
Indeed, Blado seemed half-conscious; though his blade moved swiftly, he continued to slash and thrust at entirely wrong angles.
“Do not blame me. You brought this upon yourself.”
Yurichi crouched and waited, then as Blado rushed forward, he sidestepped slightly. In the same motion, he drew a short blade from within his sleeve and thrust it low.
His calculation proved true—Blado received a mortal wound to his sword arm. Then Blado suddenly cried out.
“Stop wasting your effort! I will not die as easily as my Elder Brother! I will not lose to someone I have already killed once!”
His yellow eyes blazed. Yurichi watched in horror as Blado continued to swing his blade as though he felt no wound to his arm. Caught off guard, he had no time to react.
Blado’s blade, the dark-edged Hagrun, struck Yurichi’s right shoulder. Blood erupted, staining his clothes crimson.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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