The Last Place Hero’s Return - Chapter 259

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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 259. Find the Traitor (3)
An alley in Valhalla City.
“Tsk.”
I narrowed my eyes as I watched Kalid Han twirl his blade with casual ease.
‘So even a Master-rank fighter is still a Master, no matter their standing.’
I’d thought I was concealing my presence well enough while tailing him, yet he’d detected me so effortlessly.
A sigh escaped me.
I exhaled softly and adjusted my grip on the dagger in my hand.
‘There’s no avoiding it now.’
With my cover blown, I had no choice but to engage in direct combat.
“Kekeke! Excellent! Now that’s what I like to see!”
Kalid Han grinned wickedly as he gripped his blade—forged from stone fragments.
“Well then!”
A thunderous boom.
He stomped the ground with brutal force.
“Let’s dance together with all our might!”
Kalid Han charged forward.
The speed was impossible to believe from someone who, moments ago, had been drunk and retching—utterly devastating.
His stone-forged blade became a streak of light, cleaving through the space between us.
-Clang!
I raised my dagger to block the strike.
The impact was so dizzying that I could scarcely believe it came from a weapon made of scattered stone fragments—the shock rippled through my arm and shook my entire body.
Grrrrgh, boom!
Pushed back by Kalid Han’s overwhelming force, my body skidded backward and slammed against the stone wall.
“Ugh.”
I grimaced, my teeth clenching.
I slowly drew upon the power of the Primordial Flame.
Sizzzzzzle!
The sound of burning flesh mingled with a savage surge of mana.
‘I can’t unleash the Ashfire outward.’
Containing the Ashfire within my body made it difficult to harness even half its true power, but there was no alternative.
Given that I needed to conceal my identity, the Ashfire was far too conspicuous a force to reveal.
“Heh, why so lost in thought?”
Kalid Han closed the distance rapidly, swinging his blade with ferocity.
Without hesitation, I extended my hand toward the vicious arc of his sword.
Berald Combat Arts.
Blade Breaker.
Crrrunch!
My mana-infused hand caught and shattered the descending blade as if snatching it from the air.
Stone fragments scattered and dispersed in all directions.
I drove my shoulder into Kalid Han while forcing my body through the scattering stone fragments.
Thud!
“Ugh!”
Kalid Han bounced backward like a pebble.
Mid-flight, he spun his body gracefully and landed with ease.
“Interesting.”
Kalid Han’s eyes sparkled with intrigue.
“So you’re not following the Master’s footsteps for nothing, are you?”
He nodded with satisfaction and slowly raised his hand.
“Well then, let’s see if you can block this!”
Whoooosh!
Kalid Han’s stigma blazed with a deep emerald light.
Hundreds of flower petals materialized in the air.
Each petal was a blade of aura—a sword strike given form.
“Scatter!”
He clenched his fist at the void and swept his arm downward as if wielding an invisible blade.
Hundreds of petals poured down like a blizzard.
A technique similar to the ‘Full Bloom’ that Lanez had demonstrated before.
Of course, in terms of pure destructive power alone, the snow flowers Lanez created were far more formidable.
‘He’s controlling all of them individually?’
I gasped inwardly as I watched the hundreds of petals cascade down.
At first glance, they seemed to rain down indiscriminately, but each petal moved with subtle precision to cut off my escape routes.
Controlling even a single aura blade from a distance was difficult enough—yet he had fractured it into hundreds of pieces and commanded each one perfectly.
‘Falling Blossom Sword.’
This was the moment I understood why Kalid Han, despite bearing the title of Mercenary—the profession most despised by Heroes—had earned the epithet ‘Master’.
‘I can’t block this without using Ash Fire.’
That’s fine.
If I can’t block it, then I’ll simply take the hits.
“Hah!”
I planted my feet forward into the onslaught of hundreds of falling petals.
Where the petals grazed my flesh, long wounds opened and blood gushed forth.
With just a single step, my entire body was lacerated by the petals, drenched in blood.
But.
‘Just as I thought.’
I smiled wickedly as I watched the petals shred my body.
‘He has no intention of killing me.’
Before each petal could strike a vital point, it curved away on its own.
‘Not that it matters even if he did intend to.’
I charged forward into the cascading petals.
“What—!”
I never expected him to charge so recklessly.
Kalid Han stumbled backward, his expression flustered.
“Hah!”
I pursued him as he retreated, driving my body into his and swinging the reverse-gripped dagger in a vicious arc.
“Where do you think you’re going!”
Kalid Han stomped his foot roughly against the ground.
The flower petals scattered across the floor suddenly surged upward in unison, lashing against my body.
Puffburburbung!
The petals erupted in small explosions the instant they made contact with me.
My body was sent flying dozens of meters into the air by the blast.
And then, the fall.
Boom!
I crashed to the ground in a bloody heap, tumbling violently across the stone.
“Ugh… Do you have a death wish, friend?”
Kalid Han looked down at me sprawled on the ground, his expression one of utter disbelief.
As if I had spare lives to throw away—charging headlong into a torrent of sword energy with nothing but my bare body.
It was madness equivalent to sprinting at full speed across a tightrope stretched between two cliffs.
“….”
I clamped my jaw shut and struggled to my feet, swaying.
Even if Kalid Han had deliberately avoided my vital points, the price of breaking through the cascading petals of sword energy head-on was steep.
Blood streamed ceaselessly from the lacerations covering my entire body.
The injuries were grave enough that resurrection magic activating immediately would have been unsurprising.
‘But it worked.’
Though it was only a light graze, I had succeeded in staining Camelia’s dagger with Kalid Han’s blood.
Uuuuung!
The magical runes inscribed on the blade activated, sensing the contact with blood.
And.
The true purpose of this assault—the color of the blade—
‘…It hasn’t changed?’
The dagger that was supposed to shift to a blue glow in response to the Eternal Cult Leader’s power remained its original pristine silver.
In other words.
‘Kalid Han… hasn’t received the Eternal Cult Leader’s power.’
I stared down at the silver-gleaming dagger, my eyes narrowing.
“Hmm. So that was your goal after all? Getting my blood on that dagger?”
Kalid Han watched me stare at the blade and let out a soft chuckle.
“So? Did you find the answer you were looking for?”
“….”
“Tsk tsk. Judging by that look in your eyes, it seems you didn’t.”
Kalid Han shrugged his shoulders and burst into laughter.
“By the way, are you alright?”
Kalid Han raised his hand, pointing at my face.
“That mask looks like it’s about to shatter.”
Crack.
Had the attack grazed the mask when I pierced through the gaps between the sword flower’s petals earlier?
The moment Kalid Han finished speaking, the white half-mask I’d been wearing split in two and clattered to the floor.
‘Thank goodness I took precautions.’
As I watched the mask tumble across the ground, I exhaled a silent sigh of relief.
“Hmm? You said your name was Dale, didn’t you? Is your face always like that?”
“…!”
I spun around to face Kalid Han, my eyes wide with shock.
“…How did you recognize me?”
The disguise Juliet Kang had applied was so flawless that even I could barely recognize myself.
“Hmm. To be honest, I suspected it was you from the moment you put on that mask. At first glance, I confused you with someone else, but still.”
“….”
“Tsk tsk. Curious how I figured it out?”
Kalid Han grinned and tapped the bridge of his nose.
“Scent.”
“…Scent?”
“Yes. You have a very distinctive… hmm, how should I put it… yes. You smell like old wood.”
“….”
Old wood scent?
I frowned and brought my collar to my nose, but all I could smell was the metallic stench of blood.
“Hahahaha! It’s not a literal smell—more of a feeling, really. Don’t worry about it.”
“…Ugh.”
Not only had I failed to identify the traitor, but my identity was now exposed.
‘This is a disaster.’
Failure.
A complete, utter failure with no excuses to offer.
“From the way you moved… tsk tsk, I can roughly guess who orchestrated this.”
“….”
I was seriously considering whether I should kill him and silence him.
“Don’t look at an old man like that with such murderous eyes. I can guess why you suddenly attacked me in the dead of night.”
“…You can guess?”
“You wanted to find the Eternal Cult Leader’s lackey, didn’t you?”
“Ha.”
A hollow laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
“So the act of being a drunkard was all just a deception.”
I never expected everything to unravel so completely.
“Tsk tsk! No, I really am a drunkard. I was just lucky, that’s all.”
“Lucky, you say?”
“Yes. Your purpose and mine align perfectly, after all.”
“…What?”
What in the world was he talking about?
“I’ve been pursuing him as well. The Eternal Cult Leader.”
“….”
Pursuing the Eternal Cult Leader?
Kalid Han was?
“Shall we discuss this further?”
“…Yes, let’s.”
I sensed I needed to hear more details about this.
“Well, let me see… Tsk, all the bars have closed down.”
Kalid Han stepped out of the alley and clicked his tongue while glancing around.
“This isn’t a conversation to have while drinking.”
“Tch tch. No, quite the opposite. This is exactly the kind of conversation that requires alcohol. Ah, wait here for a moment.”
Kalid Han entered a nearby convenience store that operated twenty-four hours and returned with two bottles of liquor.
“Come now, let’s have a drink.”
Kalid Han uncorked a bottle and handed it to me.
I exhaled a short sigh and accepted the bottle from him.
Clink.
After lightly clinking our bottles together, Kalid Han gulped down the liquor like a castaway discovering an oasis in the desert.
“Ahh, excellent!”
“Let’s finish what you were saying. Why are you pursuing the Eternal Cult Leader, Kalid Han?”
“Tch tch. Don’t be so impatient.”
Kalid wiped the liquor from his lips with his sleeve and released a deep sigh.
“Your suspicions and the Empress’s are half right and half wrong.”
“What do you mean…”
“I’m not his puppet, but I’m not entirely unconnected to him either.”
“Have you met the Eternal Cult Leader before?”
“Met him? Tch tch. If you ask whether I’ve met him, then yes, I have.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“He came to the orphanage where I lived as a child.”
“…What?”
He came to the orphanage?
“…Claiming to be my father.”
“…!”
Wait.
What did he just say?
If that’s the case….
“Tch tch. That’s right.”
Kalid Han drained the remaining liquor from the bottle in one long gulp.
“I am the son of the Eternal Cult Leader.”

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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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