Margrave’s Bastard Son was The Emperor - Chapter 407

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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 407
Fire. The Atan Clan
The Atan Clan.
A manifested race dwelling in the north. Based on primal morality, they are warlike and peculiar beings that sustain themselves on monsters.
It would be more accurate to call it an identity rather than a true race. It was a title bestowed upon those who awakened the instincts hidden deep within their souls.
Kwaaaang!
At the deafening roar that felt like it would tear eardrums apart, everyone threw themselves to the ground and covered their ears. The senses seemed to overload. Ears rang with a persistent hum, and all that could be seen was yellow dust like fog. And the stench of blood.
What had suddenly happened? On a battlefield where beings far beyond human limits existed, what were they even doing here? The price seemed far too steep for the sake of leaving a single line in history.
A Burgos Soldier cautiously lifted his head. Then a faintly visible silhouette came into focus. Someone stood before King Damon, blocking his path.
“Ah. Hello there.”
“….”
Zing. Zing.
A woman with an afro hairstyle. She was parrying Ian’s attack with a black blade. Golden eyes. Unmistakably a Mage. The woman’s eyes gleamed as she swung her sword at Ian.
“That fellow has quite the handsome face! Are you Bariel’s lackey? Hmm?”
Clang! Clang!
Boom! Whoooosh!
Ian raised his blade to deflect and retreated backward. As his vision cleared, soldiers near Damon swiftly wielded their Idgal spears, thrusting them repeatedly.
Simultaneously, something burst. A capture net—the kind used for trapping beasts—tore open as it descended. The capture net covering the sky glinted amber in places. It seemed to have been woven with Idgal to ensnare Ian.
I began to understand why Damon rode such a conspicuous white horse and why he had inflicted pain on Tomi to provoke him.
Ian swiftly retreated, and the Atan woman likewise rolled to the side, escaping the effective range.
“Whoa! King Damon! This is troublesome!”
“I did not expect you to intervene.”
“We made a pact of friendship, didn’t we? So shouldn’t we show consideration for each other’s sensibilities?”
As the woman rested her blade on her shoulder, wild horse-like muscles became vividly apparent. She seemed to be the current clan leader of the Atan.
“Pleased to meet you! It’s been ages since I’ve seen a Mage besides myself. My name is Efdiram. I’d like to shake hands, but the atmosphere doesn’t seem right for it.”
“Uwaaaaaa!”
“The Atan! The Atan Clan has joined us!”
“Burgos forces, advance! Forward! Don’t even think of retreating in death!”
“Those who fall back will face the King’s stern judgment!”
“Kill them! Kill them all!”
Shouts announcing the arrival of the Atan erupted from all directions. By crushing the enemy’s morale and raising their own, both sides of soldiers, who had momentarily faltered, resumed their bloody battle with Burgos’s rousing cries.
Damon seized Tomi by the hair and pressed his blade to the neck. Ian hesitated. Soldiers occasionally launched attacks targeting Ian, but the Mages in the sky would not allow it.
Boom! Boom!
“Ian, I tell you once more. Take everyone and return to Bariel as things stand now. With military authority in your hands, isn’t this the opportune moment for you? If you withdraw, I will very kindly return your Mages to you.”
Efdiram frowned, wondering what they were saying, while Ian chuckled softly.
Damon was misunderstanding. The true nature of the secret Ian harbored. He believed Ian must be a hidden member of the current royal family, and was advising him to return to Bariel with military authority in hand and swiftly bring down a mere ten-year-old Prince.
Ian laughed and awakened his mana once more, and Damon, not to be outdone, pressed his blade deeper into Tomi’s neck.
“I am serious. If this one dies, the two other Mages in the camp will die with him. Choose wisely. Mages are those bestowed by the heavens, and their numbers are precious, are they not? Hmm? Ian!”
Then, Tomi, who had collapsed in agony, regained consciousness slightly. Eyes showing only whites gradually became clearer, and soon he could recognize the Ian before him.
It was a moment when Ian’s resolve—that he could not prioritize a Mage’s life for Bariel’s sake, for the sake of war—wavered ever so slightly. It was but an instant, and Ian’s inner depths were too profound for anyone to notice, but it happened nonetheless.
Tomi, meeting Ian’s gaze, offered a slight smile. His teeth, caked with blood, gleamed brighter as his grin widened. As if to say he understood everything, Tomi’s eyebrows twitched, and then he bit his own tongue.
“I—!”
Damon quickly bit down on his own sleeve, but the blood seeping out was alarming.
Now that the King’s attention had turned toward Tomi, Ian recognized this as the opening he’d been given—and he seized it without hesitation.
Ian clenched his molars and unleashed his mana. The blade flowed with power, shining brilliantly, and his green eyes left only afterimages as he charged toward the leadership.
Crash! Bang!
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going!”
Efdiram, the chieftain of the Atan Clan, leaped up just as quickly. The way she effortlessly kept pace with Ian’s lightning-fast speed was extraordinary. The moment her blade drove toward the right side of Ian’s neck—
Clang!
“What the hell. Damn. Newbie.”
“Well. What’s this now.”
Berik blocked Efdiram’s attack.
Using that opening, Ian continued charging toward Damon, while Efdiram whistled, commanding all the Atan Clan to join the battle.
Whiiiip!
Then warriors leaped up from the base of the hill.
The Mage Knights mixed among the Clippoford ranks sensed something unusual. Nearly half of them seemed to be ordinary humans, but conversely, that meant the rest possessed an extraordinary presence. They could feel the power of warriors who had recognized themselves as Atan.
Bariel’s Mage Knights simultaneously took flight, each confronting an Atan warrior one-on-one.
Crash! Bang!
“Red head.”
“Why, curly head.”
Efdiram tilted her head in confusion while locked in combat with Berik. Her sixth sense for recognizing races was stirring. Without any sign of strain, she slowly applied more pressure to her blade. Berik’s waist began to bend gradually.
“Starting with that rough mouth of yours, I can tell at a glance you’re one of ours, aren’t you? Are you Barielian? How old?”
“Yeah. Forty-one. Damn it.”
“Look at that. Quite an unusual bastard. The way mana flows through you—you’re not a mage, but more like a Mage Knight. Where did you get this blade?”
Only then did Berik realize that his black sword and Efdiram’s black sword were similar. Hers had a slightly thinner blade, but the material was definitely identical.
Efdiram grinned wickedly and leaned her face close to Berik’s. He flinched and pulled his body back—
“You see. The fate of Atan cannot be defied.”
“What are you saying? What’s this burning nonsense you keep going on about!”
“I don’t know the circumstances, but the fact that you possess a black sword is your fate itself. We are like magnets. The material of this blade and ours.”
The black sword that summons monsters and lures them in. And the Atan who fill their bellies with the blood of the lured monsters. A cycle where everything interlocks beautifully, like the laws of nature.
“But why are you with Bariel? You look like your head’s on straight, at least, but can’t you tell right from wrong?”
“What? Your head’s even stranger! Curly head!”
“Beneath Clippoford lies a massive chasm. When it opens, the land becomes infested with monsters, you idiot.”
“Ian doesn’t want that!”
Clang! Clang!
Berik barely managed to deflect Efdiram’s attack and rolled backward.
She tilted her head in even greater confusion. While the north was overrun with monsters, it came with equally troublesome political complications tied to conflicting interests.
Hunt a few monsters and you’re told to withdraw here, withdraw there. In an already complicated world, those worried the Atan Clan might gain power often formed vigilante groups to preemptively exterminate both monsters and the Atan themselves.
If a new monster-infested zone emerged in Clippoford, the Atan Clan planned to establish themselves there first. That’s why she’d come here accepting Damon’s proposal.
“Don’t you know you’re Atan?”
“Do you know me? When have we met that you keep—!”
“Idiot, I can tell just by looking. You think the clan leader chose you for nothing? This bastard’s got some nerve. A Mage Knight who doesn’t even know where his rice bowl sits.”
“My rice bowl is in the imperial palace!”
“Ah. What, they assigned you as dedicated security for the palace? That’s not a bad gig either, but there’s a saying about sticking with your own kind. You know that, right? Sticking with your own.”
Berik unleashed a relentless barrage of attacks, yet Efdiram simply deflected them with ease.
She found his face somewhat intriguing. She’d come merely to pioneer a new monster-infested territory, yet here she was meeting the Atan Clan. It felt like encountering a fellow countryman in a foreign land.
“Because we’re the same kind, I’m sticking with Ian.”
“Ian? Who’s that? Bariel’s lackey?”
“Graaaaaah!”
When it came to combat, Berik was clever enough. Annoying and disagreeable as he was, Efdiram’s swordsmanship and strength surpassed his. It was similar to that overwhelming sensation from the one time she’d clashed with Jairot.
So what could be done? Even though she’d been told to minimize her magical power, she had no choice but to release it. Sword energy flowed around Berik, and his crimson hair whipped about in response. Efdiram lowered her stance with interest, gripping her blade anew.
“You’re top-tier, I can tell.”
“I’m not meat!”
“I mean you’d be perfect to carve up and eat! Idiot!”
“Curly-haired freak!”
“Red-headed bastard!”
“Muscleheads are never good at fighting!”
“You think I beat the clan leader for free!? Shrimp!”
Crack! Boom!
The Atan Clan members who’d been cutting down Clippoford Soldiers glanced toward Efdiram and sniffed. Here we go again, their eyes seemed to say. As a group composed of those with warlike dispositions, they’d all crossed blades with Efdiram before. And the result?
Slash!
Efdiram’s blade carved across Berik’s ribs with perfect precision. She licked the blood from her sword and smiled.
“Not bad.”
“…Ugh. Pervert.”
“You’ve never tasted monster blood? For awakening, that’s the best there is. It’s so sweet and delicious it drives you mad. The finest flavor no human could ever experience—that’s the blessing the Atan Clan received.”
Spit. Berik spat repeatedly while clutching his bleeding ribs. After that old man Jairot, this was finally a worthy sparring partner. His eyes blazed with the certainty that he’d die today.
“I like that look in your eyes.”
“Damn it, everything you say sounds perverted!”
“Come on! Let me trample you properly! That’s how the Atan Clan marks each other!”
“Yeah, go ahead. I’ll kill you and eat the meat Ian gives me!”
Ian, Ian, Ian. Why did that dimwitted-looking fool keep mentioning Ian’s name? What was Bariel’s lackey to him?
Efdiram tilted her head slightly to look toward Ian.
“Hmm.”
From all 360 degrees, swords and spears rained down, yet his movements dodged each one with perfect focus. Though Damon had retreated backward, dragging a blood-soaked mage hostage to escape Ian, the distance between them kept shrinking.
The things Ian had cleared away and sent backward were finished off by the mage in the sky, their coordination so flawless it bordered on miraculous.
At Damon’s urgent gesture, the synthetic monster moved.
“Hey, Burgos! We brought the monster carcass, remember?”
Didn’t she know? As Efdiram scratched her head, she saw Burgos dragging a monster corpse down the hillside.
Right. That was it. They’d drained all the blood to consume, but the corpse was intact enough for the sorcerers to use without issue.
Slash!
“What are you doing! Stop him now!”
“W-we’re trying to stop him-!”
“It’s just one man! What are you all doing!”
The Burgos General, frustrated, drew his sword with his own hand and stepped forward.
But Ian charged forward at a terrifying speed, his eyes frozen cold. The enemy blood drenching his pale cheeks seemed to match that same temperature.
The General cried out and rushed at Ian.
“Hyaaah!”
Shing!
Yet despite his battle cry, his neck fell in an instant. Sharp, rippling mana cleanly severed the space between his helmet and armor. I lifted his head and hurled it toward Damon.
“Damon. What I’ve sent you seems a bit insufficient as a reply for what you sent. Wait. I’ll make you just like this too.”

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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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