Margrave’s Bastard Son was The Emperor - Chapter 387

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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 387
Fire. A Foolish Choice
Eldetr had no time to order his subordinates to protect Eriponi before he reflexively swung his blade. Was it because he was a Mage Knight? How had he failed to sense the approaching presence at all?
Clang!
Barsabe deflected Eldetr’s sword with an arrow lodged in her side, and in that same instant, the blade she held crumbled like sand and vanished.
It seemed Eldetr wasn’t the only one shocked. Barsabe’s pupils dilated and her body grew sluggish, yet she clenched her teeth and attempted to leap down the hillside once more.
“Seize her!”
The broken bowstring must have grazed Eriponi’s cheek. The King cried out while clutching his wounded face, and Eldetr and his soldiers pursued Barsabe down the slope.
Barsabe’s blade was a unique weapon she had manifested with her own mana. But having taken a direct hit from an Idgal arrow, her mana had been neutralized.
Barsabe tumbled down and snatched a sword from a corpse’s grip.
“Damn it.”
Clang! Clang!
Without access to her mana, what value did she hold in this battle? Barsabe pulled the arrow from her side with her own hands and watched blood fountain forth like a spring. How was she any different from the scattered corpses around her?
Eldetr, who had caught up swiftly, seized her by the nape of the neck, his teal hair whipping in the wind.
“An Imperial Guard Mage Knight, I see.”
“Let go of me!”
Thud! Smack!
Barsabe drove her knee upward toward Eldetr’s solar plexus, but all she struck was hard armor. He forced her to her knees and subdued her firmly.
He knew the neutralization from Idgal was temporary. Taking her prisoner would be more advantageous than killing her for what lay ahead.
Wounding the King’s face was a crime deserving death, yet Eldetr twisted her shoulder back and muttered.
“Your punishment will be administered separately later.”
He intended to dislocate her shoulder.
Barsabe’s spine chilled even as she squeezed her eyes shut. Pain would come—so she would not be startled, but accept it. She would not tarnish the honor of the Imperial Guards with clumsy screams.
The moment she clenched her lower lip.
Whoosh!
An axe flew as if to sever Eldetr’s neck.
He barely twisted his head, and by surrendering some of his hair, he avoided death.
Barsabe lifted her gaze from her prone position. It was Maxim Tweller, whom she had seen a few times before and who was now the new Minister of Imperial Defense for the Bariel Empire. He stood on the opposite hillside with his subordinates, chewing on a cigarette.
“I take one walk around the dead lands and everything falls to chaos.”
“Bariel reinforcements!”
Maxim identified Barsabe’s allegiance at a glance. And he noted the wound at her side and the damaged bow of Eriponi as well.
As Maxim nodded, his subordinates simultaneously charged down to rescue Barsabe.
Whoosh!
Barsabe seized the opportunity. She severed the Achilles tendon of the Ruswena soldier holding her, then staggered toward the Bariel soldiers.
A chaotic battlefield where friend and foe could not be distinguished. Barsabe simply cut and cut again to survive, rushing toward Maxim.
With her at the center, soldiers from both Bariel and Ruswena collided with full force as they charged.
Tap tap tap!
“Don’t let her escape!”
“A Mage Knight! Bring me the Mage Knight!”
“Ahhhhh!”
“Move! Damn it, Ian!”
Had my magical power been stripped away, leaving me with the stamina of an ordinary mortal? Barsabe wiped cold sweat from her brow as she pushed through the crowd.
Eldetr reaching for her hair. And Maxim’s subordinate, who had seized her hand just barely before him. Barsabe was pulled along and mounted the horse, leaning against the soldier’s back while clutching her side. On the opposite hill, Eriponi watched her with eyes burning with fury.
Barsabe met that gaze without flinching, returning it with equal intensity. Soon, a faint smile played at the corners of her lips.
While Eriponi and Ruswena were preoccupied with her, what was unfolding in the sky above?
Whoooosh!
A wave of scorching flames rippled across the heavens. Even Eriponi, standing quite far away, had to shield her face with her sleeve.
Ian and the Mage Disciples following him were clashing at full force against Ruswena’s mages. Judging by the state of the battle, it was less a clash and more a one-sided onslaught.
“Ugh!”
The Elder and Ruswena’s mages faced them behind a thin protective barrier. The hastily constructed shield barely held against the assault.
Everyone was gripped by near-panic tension, fearing that even a single misstep would shatter the barrier. Truthfully, the sense that their opponent was holding back sent waves of defeat rippling through their hearts.
Swoosh.
Ian lightly brushed away Ruswena’s protective barrier with his fingertips. Even the ice of an early spring pond would be harder than this.
He smiled gently and gradually increased his pressure. Cracks spread like shattering glass along the point where Ian pressed.
“Mages are those close to the divine. Though we find ourselves opposed due to different nations, I confess I take no pleasure in your deaths. Are we not bound together by a special power?”
“Grandmother!”
Blood began to flow from the Elder’s nose and ears. She had expended far too much magical power for her aged body. When the young boy cried out in alarm, Ruswena’s mages scolded him harshly.
“Zaira! Focus your concentration!”
Ian’s gaze shifted from the Elder to the child. The boy’s eyes were reddened, his cheeks flushed with tears.
“…If you surrender now, I will spare your lives.”
“What should we do?!”
“Don’t speak—just keep your focus on the barrier!”
“This land belongs to neither Bariel nor Ruswena, but to Cliffford. You may not know this, but the more power we exert, the more we stimulate the fissures in the Gaia continent.”
The Elder’s brow furrowed. Yet whether this was due to unfamiliar information or exhaustion, none could say. Perhaps both.
“Burgos seeks to redistribute the northern fissure southward. Should Cliffford be overrun with monsters, not only Bariel but nearby Ruswena will suffer the consequences. This is your last chance. Surrender and live, or resist and I will destroy this. Magic, time—prolonging this serves no one.”
Ian pressed down on the barrier once more. The cracks spread wider and louder. The Elder felt the heat seeping through the gaps, her mind turning white.
‘Fissures? The King gave no such warning.’
And more importantly, was there any evidence that fissures existed beneath Cliffford’s earth? Beyond this man’s words?
The Elder glanced back at her whimpering grandson, then steadied her breath.
“Ian Hielo. I will not thank you for your mercy. This is a battlefield, I am a citizen of Ruswena, and the King holds our lives in his hands.”
They had families. If they knelt to Bariel here, those left behind in Ruswena would kneel before the god of death.
The Elder’s hand moved to her inner pocket as if seized by resolve.
“Foolish—!”
Boom! Boom!
Ian shattered the barrier completely in his fury. Those barely holding it were thrown backward by the scorching wind, and those fighting on the ground below were pressed flat once more, trembling in terror.
“Ian!”
“Grandmother!”
Ian’s Flame Spirit unleashed its wrath. Fierce and brilliant, a fury of unfathomable depth and power.
Yet there was something sorrowful in the attack—a silent and minimal compassion for those who had made an unwise choice.
Crash!
The mages on Ruswena’s side all braced themselves, waiting for the searing pain to come.
But strangely, no heat reached them. The boy cautiously opened his eyes and discovered his grandmother standing with limbs hanging limp, muttering something under her breath.
“Kill the Elder! Now!”
As the Mage Disciples stood frozen in confusion, I shouted. And then I understood. The Elder had offered her blood to the magic, and to face an opponent I could not overcome alone, she had invoked a forbidden spell.
‘Eternal Curse.’
Magic that defied the natural order, the despair of mages falling into the abyss.
Boom! Crash! Bang!
But just as with Wesley, the ordinary mages’ attacks could not reach the Elder. Like a tiny spark shot into the cosmos, their assaults vanished into darkness.
I clenched my teeth and mobilized every ounce of my power to incinerate the Elder. Before this progressed further, before she could gain the strength she truly desired, I had to eliminate her.
“Ian!”
The Flame Spirit bent its massive form to seize the Elder.
But it was not easy. While approach was possible, unlike with Wesley, the difference in power was overwhelming.
Wesley’s rage had been focused on breaking the mana seal stone and confronting Prince Gail, but what the Elder sought was the kind of overwhelming power that could bring victory in war. She was one who would knowingly plunge into such depths of the abyss for that.
My standoff with the Elder remained deadlocked.
“Ian! Wait, Ian!”
“Do not interfere with Ian!”
“But—!”
Fractures appeared even among the Mage Disciples.
Some tried to stop me as I continued bleeding out, while others tried to stop those who would stop me. Even with the amplifiers consumed, they proved useless now, and the Mage Disciples were experiencing despair in its rawest form.
Everyone was soaked. Some in sweat, some in tears, and some in blood.
“Damn it!”
Akorelra frantically rummaged through her pockets, hoping to find more amplifiers.
There was no hope in this situation. If Bariel, if the Imperial Palace could only help….
“We too….”
Someone murmured.
“Shouldn’t we also use a forbidden spell?”
If I was struggling this much, shouldn’t someone from the Mage Disciples make a sacrifice as well? If they’re going this far, shouldn’t we respond in kind? Was our role simply to stand behind me and watch?
Noticing that everyone’s thoughts were spiraling into chaos, I wiped the blood from my hand and shouted.
“One foolish choice is already enough!”
That Elder, who despite my warning about Cliffford’s fracture, threw herself into hell with her own foolishness.
“Do you not trust me?!”
I clenched my teeth.
Any further magical stimulation would only be poison to everyone. And I would not allow the Mage Disciples of Bariel, those who followed me, to fall into hell.
Naum was enough. Surviving through someone’s sacrifice, enduring through evasion rather than true victory—that was something to end with Naum.
I recalled the faces of the Mage Disciples who had surrounded me and smiled, and I shouted again.
“What did I say before?!”
Crash! Bang!
The Flame Spirit blazed fiercely. The Elder’s fingertips trembled, and soon the body housing the forbidden magic regained its senses and lifted its head.
The Elder was weeping. Whether those were genuine emotions rising from within, I could not say.
“You are my back.”
Ian coughed violently and spat blood.
Akorelra cursed under her breath and drew closer to Ian. She couldn’t touch the forbidden magic, but she could touch Ian—after all, she had always been his support.
“Zenjaaaaang!”
Zing! Zing!
Akorelra poured all of her mana into Ian. The Mage Disciples who witnessed this surged forward in unison, their golden eyes gleaming brilliantly.
A faint smile crossed Ian’s blood-stained face. It was warm. He felt as though the scorching heat of the Flame Spirit itself was being added to his strength.
“Lord Ian! We stand behind you!”
“Yes! If you wish to retreat, throw yourself back!”
“Even if you don’t wish to retreat, just say the word! We will endure!”
“We can hold the line!”
“Hrraaaagh!”
Boom! Crash!
In answer for Ian, the Flame Spirit ignited its entire body and hurled itself at the Elder.
The Elder swept his hands through the inferno pouring down upon him as if parting a curtain, and the world blazed once more with tremendous light.

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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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