The Lord Who Levels Up by Devouring - Chapter 360

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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 360. Each in Their Own Position (1)
Adrian’s casual remark.
It grated against Aurec’s pride.
And it had struck home.
“You’re saying I alone am not enough?”
“Then try.”
Adrian replied.
Aurec swallowed a hollow laugh.
Of course, Aurec was well aware that Adrian possessed considerable skill.
Dragon Slayer.
What further explanation was needed?
But a Dragon Slayer was still just a Dragon Slayer.
“How arrogant.”
His arrogance was utterly boundless.
Like a dragon itself.
There was no need to continue the conversation.
Actions would prove what words could not.
Crackle and roar—!!
Space warped with a deafening boom.
Convergence of Extremes.
A technique that drew all surrounding objects and entities toward a single designated coordinate, compressing them toward zero.
Anything caught within would be crushed and compressed.
Defense became meaningless.
For it was space itself that was being warped.
But Aurec did not target Adrian.
The target of Convergence of Extremes.
This time, it was Aurec himself.
Aurec hurled his own body toward the designated coordinate.
Distance compressed to the limit of zero.
Aurec’s form moved at speeds approaching spatial teleportation.
Or rather, he was already there.
The tip of Aurec’s staff had already pierced through Adrian’s heart.
Yet the sensation felt at his fingertips.
…was not flesh.
Unyielding resistance—no penetration.
Pop!
Adrian distorted in empty air.
‘…An illusion?’
Aurec’s eyes narrowed.
A thrust compressed to zero distance by Convergence of Extremes.
The speed was beyond imagination.
‘But he countered?’
I couldn’t accept it.
Yet the truth remained unchanged.
Adrian had countered.
Now came Adrian’s counterattack.
Aurec unfurled his senses.
‘Behind!’
But it was too late to respond.
The moment I reacted to the killing intent surging from behind, it struck.
Aurec expanded his ultimate power into the surrounding space.
The ultimate approached endlessly.
Yet it could never be reached.
By extending that concept into space, an invincible domain was created within the designated radius where nothing could touch him.
In other words, Adrian’s attack could never reach Aurec—.
—Crack.
A sound of something splitting.
It froze Aurec’s thoughts.
This wasn’t the space splitting—it was the concept itself fracturing.
And with that, something brushed against Aurec’s senses.
‘…It touched?’
The end of the ultimate had touched.
The infinite’s end, which should not exist, had been forcibly terminated into finitude.
‘How is that even—.’
Before the thought could finish.
Adrian’s voice reached me.
“I told you, you alone aren’t enough.”
Boom!!
Aurec’s body was hurled backward.
* * *
Lucas walked forward, one measured step after another.
The path back to the Royal Palace.
Commotion echoed from behind, but I paid it no mind.
I had neither the leisure nor the time to spare attention.
Lucas gazed at the parchment held in his hand.
Its weight was light.
Merely the weight of a single parchment.
Yet what lay within it bore the weight of an entire kingdom.
Shouldering that immense burden, Lucas moved his steps toward the Royal Palace.
And so I arrived at the Royal Palace.
The Royal Guard soldiers saluted in unison as they caught sight of Lucas.
Ranks standing in perfect formation.
Lucas approached them and asked.
“His Highness Leon… no, the suspect?”
“He is being held in the Underground Dungeon.”
Lucas tucked the parchment deep into his breast pocket.
“Ensure no one approaches him without permission. I will go down myself.”
The Royal Guard soldiers moved in unison.
Lucas made his way toward the Underground Dungeon.
Cold footsteps echoing.
The Underground Dungeon where traitors were imprisoned lay in the deepest, darkest corner of the Royal Palace.
With each step down the staircase, the air grew more humid.
The stench of mold and blood seeping between the walls assaulted my nostrils.
I did not slow my pace.
Lucas Arsente.
My family, the Arsent Family, was a house of knights.
And as the firstborn son of the Arsent Family, I bore the weight of countless expectations and scrutiny.
But those expectations did not last long.
-Ha, how can someone so talentless be called the heir…
I lacked talent.
My swordsmanship was ordinary.
Even my tactical instincts held nothing remarkable.
So the Arsent Family shed blood over the succession of titles.
My uncle staged a rebellion.
My cousin sought my life.
A tempest of blood swept through.
Many perished.
Most were innocent souls with no connection to the succession whatsoever.
I remembered them all.
A boy weeping before the burnt stables.
A maidservant leaning against the wall, her breath stolen away.
A nursemaid who held me beneath a crumbling pillar and closed her eyes for the last time.
In that moment, I understood something.
When absolute power trembles, the cost is always paid by the weak.
Blood flows not from above, but from below.
If a single house could suffer such devastation.
What would happen if the Kingdom’s absolute power were to falter?
So I took up the sword.
A resolve that such tragedy would never repeat itself.
With that singular vow, I rose to become Commander of the Royal Guard.
That was precisely why I could not forgive him.
A traitor who had shaken absolute power and plunged the entire Kingdom into chaos.
The end of the staircase.
The final corridor.
I reached the deepest dungeon.
Leon was inside.
He was not bound in chains, yet his appearance was far from respectable.
At the sound of my footsteps, Leon lifted his head.
“…Who is it?”
His voice was hollow.
Yet he had not lost his dignity.
I fell silent for a moment before speaking with grave weight.
“It is Lucas.”
“….”
This time, Leon fell silent.
Then he opened his mouth with heavy deliberation.
“You come with full knowledge, it seems.”
I did not answer.
But within my garments lay parchment.
Within it were clear circumstances and evidence that Leon had assassinated The King.
“…Why did you do this?”
It was a weighty question.
After a long silence, Leon slowly spoke.
“Do not listen.”
Leon did not stop speaking.
“Do not attempt to understand, nor seek to be convinced. I merely did what I had to do.”
“What you had to do was assassinate The King!!”
I cried out.
I had tried to contain it, but the emotion burst forth.
And Leon remained silent.
“The question thrown before us is the same. How can we set right a Kingdom that crumbles?”
“….”
“Only our answers differ, Lucas.”
Leon continued with unwavering resolve.
“My actions were grounded in justice. Even now, I do not believe I was wrong.”
“Then why—!”
“Yet those who speak of a just Kingdom create the most merciless one.”
His words fell with bitter weight.
Leon’s gaze turned toward me.
“Lucas, do what you must do.”
“….”
“I am a traitor who murdered His Majesty the King. And the fate of a traitor is always predetermined, is it not?”
With those words, Leon fell silent.
Golden eyes.
Within them lay neither regret nor hesitation.
Lucas stood motionless in that place, watching Leon in silence for a long moment.
* * *
The Capital, Battenberg’s Inner City.
A district where those who held the Kingdom’s politics and economy primarily resided.
Among the luxurious mansions spaced at wide intervals, masked figures gathered one by one like shadows.
And after a brief moment.
“The Commander of the Royal Guard has made his decision.”
One masked figure spoke.
“The official procedure will commence shortly.”
“A trial?”
“It is a verdict in all but name.”
“The Commander of the Royal Guard will designate the culprit?”
“Indeed. And once the charge of regicide is attached, the designated one will be executed.”
“Leon is finished.”
A brief silence.
Another masked figure spoke last.
“It is not yet finished.”
“…?”
“No one knows whether the Commander of the Royal Guard will designate Leon.”
“But the circumstances and evidence are clear?”
“Because those clear circumstances and evidence exist only with the Commander.”
Yet another masked figure added quietly.
“Therefore, we cannot allow the Commander to choose freely.”
“You mean we must force him to choose?”
“As we always have.”
By shaking public sentiment.
By spreading rumors throughout the streets.
“The entire Kingdom must be made certain that Leon is the murderer.”
All the masked figures nodded in agreement.
And at that very moment.
Whoooosh!
Instantly, every masked figure in the room lifted their head in unison.
“…An emergency summons.”
“Who is the sender?”
“Encryption level Black. …It is the Director.”
“What did you say?”
Tension crackled between the masked figures.
One of them spoke in a low voice.
“All Special Operations Bureau personnel, move out.”
“What about the Royal Guard Commander?”
A moment of silence.
“…The emergency summons takes precedence.”
None of the masked figures objected.
* * *
The Royal Palace’s grand hall was packed with countless people.
High-ranking nobles and palace ministers.
And merchants, minstrels, scholars, and more.
All manner of people had gathered.
An unprecedented tragedy—the assassination of The King.
They had come to witness the moment when its truth would be revealed.
In the heavy silence, no one dared speak easily.
Royal Guard members lined up in perfect formation.
Soon, upon the gilded dais.
Lucas, Commander of the Royal Guard, appeared.
All eyes turned toward him.
“I will now report the official investigation results regarding The King’s assassination.”
Lucas withdrew a parchment from his breast.
“This investigation was conducted by mobilizing all investigative resources both within and outside the Kingdom, and based on the evidence and testimonies secured, we have arrived at our final conclusion.”
Lucas lowered his gaze calmly.
Then he read the first line of the parchment.
“First, on the day of the incident, we confirmed that a deadly poison was used against The King. According to medical records and toxicological analysis, the poison has been identified as Seirun’s Blood.”
A low murmur rippled through the crowd.
Seirun’s Blood.
A lethal toxin with a fatal dose of mere milligrams.
“Second, this poison was withdrawn from the Royal Pharmacy within the palace, and the withdrawal order bears the Crown Prince’s seal.”
Chaos erupted instantly.
But it was quelled by the cold gaze of the Royal Guard.
And then came the circumstantial evidence that followed.
Lucas read through every single detail without omission.
And thus, at last, he reached the decisive sentence.
“All of this evidence and circumstance points to one undeniable truth.”
Lucas drew a breath.
In the hushed tension.
Lucas did not speak hastily.
The truth was… I knew it too.
It was common knowledge that The King’s condition was abnormal.
What would have happened if The King had continued to rule as he was?
Would things have been better than they are now?
Or would we have faced an even more catastrophic collapse?
There was no way to know.
No one could prove a future that had never come to pass.
Leon had simply made his choice.
And bearing the price of that choice, he now sat in the Underground Dungeon.
“In the name of the Royal Guard, protectors of the Kingdom’s justice─.”
Justice.
Such a beautiful word.
Yet its cost had always fallen upon the weak.
Those who spoke of justice were noble.
But beneath their shadow.
Blood had always flowed from below, never from above.
-Those who speak of a just kingdom create the most merciless kingdom of all.
Leon’s words were not wrong.
And yet Leon still spoke of justice.
It was all the same.
Leon, Blake, Walter.
All of them wielded their blades equally.
Only the form of the blade differed.
But….
-When the form of the blade differs, so too do the wounds it leaves behind.
Adrian’s words were not wrong either.
The wounds left by Leon’s blade bled from above.
Then was Leon’s choice righteous?
It was not.
Yet Leon did not pass the burden of justice onto the weak—he bore it himself.
“I will reveal the truth behind The King’s assassination.”
Lucas closed his eyes.
In this very moment.
Countless choices pressed down with their weight.
What was Lucas choosing now, and what did he seek to protect through that choice?
The throne? His convictions?
Or his authority?
Justice, conscience, justification, pragmatism.
Or perhaps… the truth itself?
“The culprit behind The King’s assassination is….”
Truth is always singular.
Thus, truth begets only a single outcome.
Even if that outcome is tragic, truth remains singular—it cannot speak of other possibilities.
Falsehood, however, is different.
It reshapes truth into countless forms, spawning innumerable endings in its wake.
Most of them, certainly, lead to catastrophe.
Yet some masquerade as hope.
At times, they paint a future more plausible than truth itself.
Lucas.
Heir to the Arsente Family.
And yet merely a dullard at heart.
Born into a knight’s house, yet less knightly than anyone—a boy who never belonged.
To that weeping child, tears streaming down his face, the nursemaid spoke these words.
-Lucas, you are a genius!
Those words carved themselves deep into the boy’s heart.
-Really…?
-Of course! A genius surpassing all others.
-Then I can become a knight…?
-Without question! Lucas will become the finest knight in our Kingdom, protecting it with steadfast honor!
He did not know then.
But he knows now.
That what she told him that day was a lie.
She concealed the truth of his mediocrity.
And spoke instead the falsehood of his genius.
Yet young Lucas believed that lie as truth.
-So you must never give up. You must work hard.
And so he lived.
Not as a dullard, but as a genius.
To this very place.
He could become Commander of the Royal Guard.
Not truth, but falsehood.
The fruit born of its infinite possibility.
“The culprit is….”
The Royal Guard.
The Kingdom’s final shield.
Knights who protect the throne in every moment.
Thus, the Commander of the Royal Guard must always stand before the King.
But the place where Lucas now wishes to stand—
“The culprit is….”
At that moment.
Looking upon the boy weeping before the burnt stable.
Watching the maid slumped against the wall, her breath stolen away.
Cradling the governess who had wrapped herself beneath the collapsed pillar, her eyes finally closed.
The position of knight that Lucas had sworn to in the depths of his heart was—
—Never again, never a second time would I allow the innocent to shed blood….
Before the weak.
A place where the innocent could be protected.
Even if that position and place demanded that Lucas deny every conviction and principle he held entirely.
Even if he had to conceal the truth.
And lean upon lies.
If those lies could unfold a possibility that led to an ending where the innocent were saved.
“Baron Segretus.”
This place was surely—
“He is the perpetrator of His Majesty the King’s assassination.”
The position of knight where Lucas must stand.

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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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