Let the Whales Fight, This Shrimp is Leaving! - Chapter 76

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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 76
A towering structure stood at the center of the vast grounds.
The most easily accessible chamber within that building: the Emperor’s Audience Chamber.
[Was the freedom you craved as sweet as you dreamed?]
The Emperor of the Adorif Empire, Drabion II, was there.
Except he was not, truly, the Emperor.
He was merely something wearing the Emperor’s face—not human, but something else entirely.
Sariel at last stood before the traitor he had sought.
The Angel Liberiel.
Freer and more joyful than any of his kind, the one who understood human emotion better than all others.
And the fool who had yearned so desperately to dwell among humans.
The apostate who, in longing for freedom, had placed it above the Creator himself.
“Sariel. It has been a long time.”
The Emperor smiled cruelly.
His golden eyes glinted, and the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth deepened with the weight of ages.
Sariel’s expression, by contrast, did not flicker.
The Angel had come to execute one who had once been both comrade and friend—his face was nothing but the cold visage of an executioner.
[This chaos ends now.]
Sariel gazed upon him, grown so accustomed to his human mimicry, and opened the book.
A tremendous sword erupted from within.
[Now I can finally extinguish you.]
“Still so rigid. You would do well to cultivate a touch more ease, a bit more flexibility.”
[I cannot slay a human who yet lives, so show yourself. Do you not see that your flight has reached its end?]
“Ha!”
At Sariel’s words, the Emperor’s head snapped back.
He laughed with his mouth wide open, teeth and crimson tongue fully bared.
What delight seized him so.
His laughter rang through the vast chamber, resounding off its walls.
“You could simply dispose of me and have done with it!”
Chuckle, chuckle.
He swallowed the laughter that still clung to him with visible effort, wiping at the tears that had gathered at the corners of his eyes.
“Yet still you bind yourself to that useless Divine Law, limiting yourself! Still, Sariel?”
[All laws exist to preserve Order.]
Sariel’s gaze grew stern.
[You have brought grave chaos upon that Order. You have no grounds to protest your own annihilation.]
“Ha! Ha! Ha! You are so faithful even to the law that demands you obey the law itself!”
The Emperor mocked Sariel as though he were a fool.
“And who decreed this law?”
[Do not attempt to sway me with unnecessary words. I will not hear them in any case.]
“Did not our great Progenitor declare it to be righteous?”
[Liberiel.]
“Then why did He create those wicked Demons to stand against us, only to torment us so?”
[Do not doubt Him.]
“Why can Angels not slay humans? Why is our love deemed a sin?”
Tears streamed down the Emperor’s face as he shouted.
“How can it be such a grievous sin to cherish a life so fragile it crumbles at a single blink of the eye?”
[Have you never considered yourself a fool?]
“We too are His creations. Then how is it such a terrible transgression to imitate His beloved creation and to hunger for His love?”
[We were not born for love.]
Sariel’s voice remained measured.
[We are sentries guarding the Divine Law, pillars upholding His Order, laborers fulfilling our assigned Mission.]
His blue eyes remained devoid of all emotion.
Yet the Emperor’s golden gaze, streaked with tears, swirled with a tempest of feeling.
The Angel closest to humanity, who yearned for Freedom.
The Angel who had loved humans and dwelt willingly in their midst.
The Angel who had endured the greatest despair.
The Angel who understood the poignancy of the ephemeral.
And thus became a sinner never to be forgiven, unable to comprehend the Creator’s will.
“Do you know that the Demon was born from your very nature?”
The wise one who dared to covet the world’s secrets.
“The only creation in which He projected Himself was mankind.”
The heretic forced to renounce all that was given.
“He stripped humans of their emotions and lusts to fashion us, so that we might enact His will.”
Betrayal flickered in the golden eyes.
“The dregs of those stolen feelings clumped together, and from them the Demon spawned.”
Rage twisted his features.
“We are all one and the same, yet you presume yourself so exceptional as to harbor such arrogance?”
[I am not exceptional.]
Sariel answered without hesitation.
[I merely fulfill my assigned duty with faithfulness.]
“Sariel!”
[You know this well.]
Sariel—created to guide those who would commit sin, and to punish those who strayed from the path.
“Is that truly enough? They robbed you of the human heart you should have had, and yet you are content?”
[No emotion is required to perform what must be done.]
For Sariel, such sentiment was merely an unnecessary burden.
[Look at you now. You have reclaimed those sordid emotions, and now you suffer for it, do you not?]
The Emperor’s composure cracked, and he rose abruptly from his throne.
As he reached toward empty air, light gathered in his withered hand.
The air twisted violently, and everything around warped in a sickening dance.
Sariel stood unmoved amid the chaos that was about to unfold, and once more made his purpose known.
[Criminal, Liberiel. For placing Freedom above the Creator, for sowing chaos in Order, and for coveting human emotion, I now pronounce upon you Divine Punishment.]
“Try it, if you dare!”
The Emperor drew his blade roughly across his own forearm.
Drip, drip. Crimson blood ran thick and sluggish down the silver sword.
The golden radiance, once pristine above all else, was fouled in an instant.
[You have chosen damnation of your own accord.]
An Angel had wounded a human form.
Now he would never again rise to the Heavens on those brilliant Wings upon his back.
“Your rigidity blinds you to the power that human emotion possesses.”
The Emperor smiled with bitter satisfaction.
The naked blade, stained with blood, gleamed a deep red.
[First, I shall sever the emblem He granted you.]
Sariel shot forward in a straight line toward the Emperor’s two pairs of pristine white Wings.
Clang—clang—clang—clang!
The blades of two Angels met.
The impact shook the building, and the earth trembled beneath them.
“Y-Your Majesty! An earthquake! You must evacuate!”
Then, a single loyal Human Servant burst into the Audience Chamber and witnessed the scene unfold.
An Emperor with a crimson blade in hand, and an Angel with pristine white Wings striking down upon him.
The Human, having glimpsed something too magnificent to be real, stood frozen in place.
“Look, you see?”
The Emperor’s mouth twisted into a leering grin.
His blade, having thrown Sariel back, pierced the empty air and found its mark in the frozen Human’s heart.
[……!]
“This is Freedom.”
For the first time, disturbance rippled through Sariel’s otherwise perfect composure.
An Angel had harmed a human.
Such a thing was possible.
“Freedom means taking what you crave without restraint, casting out what you despise without mercy, and needing no forgiveness for either. Do you understand now?”
The Emperor’s blade grew even more crimson.
As Sariel watched it darken to black, he realized with sudden clarity:
‘This has already exceeded our bounds.’
“Who would dare punish me?”
I sit in a position of supreme power, ruling over humans.
[You have chosen the flimsy throne of mortals. How foolish.]
“Then prove it. Prove that I have chosen unwisely!”
The Emperor erupted in wild laughter and began to slash his blade toward Sariel.
* * *
I gazed into Beval’s crimson eyes and whispered.
“Do that for me too.”
I had steeled myself to witness my mother’s death once more.
No matter how painful, it would be better than this—I had resolved to face the truth of that day unflinchingly.
[So you wish to discover whom you must take vengeance upon?]
“Yes.”
[The moment you borrow my power, your soul will become truly bound to me.]
“That’s fine.”
[Oh, is it?]
Beval smiled wickedly.
Then, abruptly, he shrugged.
[But I can’t do it now.]
“Why not?”
[Don’t you see my condition? I need time to recover my strength. And right now it’s too bright.]
Beval, having refused my request, sprawled out flat on the floor.
[I’ll do it later. Could you turn off the light?]
‘A truly useless Demon.’
I glared at Beval with all my might, then deliberately opened the curtains wide.
Behind me, Beval let out a cry of anguish.

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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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