Trash of the Count’s Family - Chapter 198

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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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Guardian Knight Clophe Seka was exasperated.
Before him stood a dragon of black bone, guarding Heniatus Castle, with a black Sword Master mounted upon its back.

‘Now even a Sword Master!’

Was there truly such a mad fiefdom in existence?
Not a single emblem of the Roan Kingdom’s Royal Family—only beings that signified allegiance to House Heniatus. Clophe’s expression hardened.

That was when it happened.

“Commander.”

A subordinate knight approached Clophe, who stood in standoff.
It was the same knight who had approached him when the skeleton horde appeared. He alone could approach Clophe and speak to him.

“What is it?”

Clophe answered curtly, his gaze fixed on Choi Han. The knight’s mouth, uncovered by his helmet, opened then. His voice was brimming with pure conviction.

“It seems the walls one must overcome are always highest before those destined to become legends.”

Clophe’s expression shifted subtly. Fear and desire flickered across his face in tandem. The Guardian Knight issued an order to the knight.

“Concentrate all efforts on destroying the shield.”
“Yes, understood.”

The Helmeted Knight withdrew, and Clophe raised his sword high. A pristine white aura surged endlessly upward. The white aura was longer and more radiant than the black aura.

Aura was the identity of a Sword Master.
A power that mirrored its master’s nature. Thus the Guardian Knight trusted his own strength more than that black one’s.

That was the moment.

A low rumble.

The White Wyvern cried out. Choi Han spoke through the sound of its call.

“Come.”

Yes!

“How arrogant you are!”

White light converged into a point and surged forward. The Black Dragon began to move as well.

It was a sound that shook heaven and earth.
Black light and white light collided, and a sound piercing enough to tear eardrums echoed out.

Roooaarrr!

The White Wyvern’s talons raked across the dead dragon’s bones. Those fangs were sharp enough to shatter the dragon’s wing bones.

Yet it was futile.

Screeeech!

The talons could not sever the bones.
The wing bones did not break.

An existence that stood above all beings in this world.
The Whale Tribe, rulers of the sea, and the bears and lions who dreamed of dominating the land, were called foreign races, yet only dragons were called simply “dragons.”

It was not merely a matter of size or strength.

A being of a different tier.

The White Wyvern shrieked.
One talon shattered, and blood spilled forth. A mutation, the White Wyvern born as a being of a different tier even among wyverns. It had believed it could destroy this dead dragon, reduced to mere bones and devoid of life. If a living dragon was beyond reach, then it would shatter a dead one.
That wyvern believed it could destroy a dead dragon with nothing but bones remaining, devoid of life. If a living Dragon was difficult, then it would break even a dead one.

However, a dragon that resembles nature itself—there is no monster capable of breaking its bones.

Beings beneath the hierarchy. It wasn’t just wyverns.

Choi Han’s sword easily blocked the white aura. Choi Han observed Clophe Seka’s face.

Boom!

The White Wyvern refused to yield, slamming its body against bone with a shriek. The two swordsmen clashed once more.

Whoosh—

Sinister.
The white aura coiled like a serpent, striking with vicious intent.
The black aura remained rigid.
It severed the neck of the writhing white aura in a single stroke.

“You’ve got some skill, I’ll grant you that!”

Clophe still trusted in his longer, more radiant aura, speaking to Choi Han with a mocking tone. Yet Choi Han’s expression remained unmoved.
At that unchanging face, Clophe furrowed his brow and cried out.

“Even a legend-to-be needs obstacles like you to overcome!”

A twitch.
Choi Han’s eyebrows twisted.
The Black Dragon and White Wyvern separated slightly after one collision.

Just as a twisted smile formed at the corner of Clophe’s mouth in response to Choi Han’s expression change.

“I was going to handle this quietly since it was annoying, but you’re spouting nonsense.”
“…What?”

The Guardian Knight was momentarily at a loss for words at the tone that seemed to look down upon him. Yet Choi Han found the man before him equally arrogant.

Choi Han’s black aura gradually lost its luminescence. It became darker still, transforming into a lightless darkness.

An aura reflects the person who wields it.
Lightless darkness.
That was the very essence of darkness itself, the essence that Choi Han had forged within the Dark Forest. And thanks to someone, he had come to acknowledge and accept that essence as his own.

His aura continued to lose its light.

I could not tolerate the words of one who did not understand. A legend-to-be? I opened my mouth, directing my darkness toward Clophe.
Choi Han pointed the darkness at Clophe and opened his mouth.

“The legend is not you. It has an owner.”

A legend.
A new history.
History I would create in this land—my second home, where my second family dwells.
That history had a different owner. Only that person deserved such a title.

“What?”

Clophe Seka asked in disbelief. Yet a chill crept down the back of his neck. Choi Han’s blade now held only the faintest glimmer of light.
This was his current limit. When he later achieved complete darkness, he would walk a new path of the sword.

Choi Han spoke of the future he would forge.

“And the path to that legend—I will carve it myself.”

The path toward the seat where that person would sit.
He would forge that path.
It was Choi Han’s vow.

Only Merry heard this exchange between the two.
The necromancer who commanded dragons—a being of a different caliber—had grown deathly pale.

Dragon bones take on different colors according to their nature. Thus, handling them was no simple matter, and Merry’s power fell short. Yet what stained the white crown, the place where ancient power had vanished, was Merry’s dead mana.
She had succeeded.

Now, only she touched the black bone dragon. Thus, she became the dragon’s ears and heard every word of their conversation.

Choi Han’s voice came through clearly.

‘The path to that legend—I will carve it myself.’

Merry’s gaze turned forward.
There stood Kale Heniatus with his shield raised. His voice came through in a small mutter.

“Why are they just standing there without fighting?”

A voice so quiet others could not hear. Yet Merry caught it. Though she found his tone rather careless, she could see him clearly standing before her transparent form.

A back drenched in sweat.
Shoulders trembling faintly.
The one suffering most right now was Kale Heniatus. He was always like this.

Kale had to maintain the pretense of holding a shield for so long, and the posture of extending both arms forward was grueling.
It felt exactly like spreading his wings, and because of that, his arms—which had lost muscle compared to before—merely quivered weakly.

Yet Merry, watching that faint trembling, recalled words Kale had spoken to her three days ago when he left his shield at the Lord’s Castle.

‘Do not leave our side.’
‘From the moment you exert yourself for our territory, those who target you will only increase.’

Merry had already made her resolve.
For those who had shown her a beautiful world beyond the underground—not the darkness—she could do at least this much. Concealing her existence and hiding were her specialty, after all.

Yet as she heard Kale’s following words, her thoughts shifted considerably.

‘But you need not worry.’
‘You are not an existence that must hide.’
‘I shall let you live as you wish.’

Kale’s words resonated far too loudly within her heart. Merry’s two hands, covered in black veins, began to move once more.

Whiiiiish—

A fierce winter wind swept across the land.
Merry’s black robe billowed. Her hood seemed about to be torn away by the gust. Yet Merry did not press it down with her hand.

She had something more important to do first.

No one could see her in this transparent state.
Yet one person sensed it.

Choi Han looked down beneath his feet.

Black lights began to gather upon the Dragon’s black bones. Dead mana.
Merry’s power.

The black light that had filled only the pupils began to spread gradually across the Dragon’s entire body, then concentrated where the Dragon’s heart should have been.

Choi Han immediately understood from her appearance.
And he felt Merry’s intention.

You share the same resolve as I do.

You walk the same path I walk.
In moments like these, Choi Han realized he was not alone. If that were the case, there was nothing to fear.

Choi Han extended his hand. The Black Dragon moved in perfect synchronization, becoming an extension of his very limbs.
Swordsman and Dragon.
The two moved as one.

A low rumble.

The sound was muted.

A piercing shriek!
The Dragon’s fangs sank deep into the White Wyvern’s neck.

A sharp crack. The white aura severed in an instant. Clophe’s eyes widened. Darkness without light consumed his vision.

A shrill cry!

Blood erupted from the White Wyvern’s neck. Through the crimson spray, the Black Dragon’s claws drove deeper. The Dragon’s foreleg seized the Wyvern’s throat.

Choi Han gripped the Dragon’s spine.

“Rise, Merry.”

Merry responded to his command.
Fluttering. Where only black bone had existed, a web of black light and dead mana wove together, forming wings anew.

Merry’s eyes filled with black veins. Yet she did not falter.
She was ascending.
She was breaking through her limits.

Her hand seized an invisible throat.

Grrrrrr!
The White Wyvern’s neck darkened as if stained by shadow.

“Kugh!”

Clophe gripped the reins tightly, steadying himself. His white aura surged toward the Dragon’s front claws. But the Dragon began to beat its wings.

Rising.

The Dragon seized the White Wyvern’s neck and climbed higher, endlessly higher.
Atop that Dragon’s head sat Choi Han.

A single word escaped the Knight’s lips upon the City Wall.

“…Dragon Knight.”

The very utterance sent a tremor through the Knight’s heart. A title whose weight could not be compared to some mere Wyvern Knight.
His gaze fixed skyward. The outcome of this battle would be decided by their clash.

That was when it happened.

Crash!

A tremendous sound erupted, and the Knight’s eyes widened.
Kale, who had been watching, found his jaw dropping involuntarily.

The peak of Stone Mountain crumbled.
The Dragon had slammed the White Wyvern into the mountain.

-Of course the Dragon is strong! A Wyvern is nothing but wood and bone compared to it! But I, Raon Mir, am even more magnificent than that Dragon!

Kale let out a hollow laugh, using Raon’s excited voice as a soundtrack.

‘…I can’t let it die.’

Kale gazed at Stone Mountain with a slightly anxious heart, reluctant to lose his fortune.

Crunch, crunch!
Blood dripped from the White Wyvern’s mouth. Yet it could only thrash helplessly, unable to rise. The Dragon’s skeletal foot—the being that had hurled it down—pressed upon the Wyvern’s head, pinning it as it looked down upon its prey.

“Ugh…!”

Clophe was still unharmed. The moment he was thrown, he had separated from the White Wyvern and landed safely.
But he was bleeding continuously.

A cutting sound.

He had been slashed.
The white aura had slashed him again.
No matter how much he tried to coil around like a serpent, the white aura could not cut through Choi Han’s black blade.

The moment Clophe’s feet touched the ground, the entity that had been pursuing him arrived.

“Now I see it—your blade is the White Serpent. It suits you better than the Wyvern.”

At Choi Han’s calm words, Clophe’s body trembled.
The White Serpent.
The true symbol of the Seka Family, known as the Guardian House—the white serpent. Those serpent-like beings possessed the qualifications of a Guardian Knight.

“You, you insignificant wretch daring to challenge me, a Guardian Knight…!”

Clophe’s blade rushed toward Choi Han once more. But Choi Han uttered a single word.

“Tedious.”

That was the end of it.
Clophe saw the approaching darkness once again. The White Serpent was consumed by the larger darkness.

Clang—!
Clophe’s blade fell.

“My, my arm…! Cough!”

Clophe’s right shoulder no longer had an arm attached to it. Like the White Wyvern cast atop the mountain peak, his neck was now seized by the dark entity.
His breath was cut off. The pain in his arm was nothing compared to his inability to breathe. In that moment, a cold voice reached his ears.

“Stop the Wyverns.”

It was Choi Han’s command.
He retrieved the flute from Clophe’s arms and urged him forward with a sharp glance.
All that remained was to complete Kale’s mission and return.

The White Wyvern and the Helmeted Knight—both captured alive. Neither had been killed.

“Gasp… gasp!”

The Helmeted Knight’s desperate gasps echoed through the air.
Choi Han’s expression shifted.

The Helmeted Knight was shaking his head violently.
Suffocating, weeping, he thrashed his head from side to side.

A question suddenly seized Choi Han’s mind.

How—how could someone like that white bastard control a wyvern?
Aura was identity itself.
A white aura user could not command a wyvern.

Choi Han’s head snapped around. He immediately mounted the Black Dragon and spoke to Merry.

“We have to go back!”

There was more.
This wasn’t everything.

The Black Dragon surged into the air. In that instant, he saw it.

A whistle.
Someone was whistling—a soundless whistle.

The Helmeted Knight. The only one who ever spoke to Clophe Seka.

Screeeech!

Beneath the dragon’s claws, the wyvern convulsed violently. Veins bulged across its body as it twisted in agony—a creature that had abandoned all fear, all thought of death. Even without strength to move, it clawed desperately at the ground.

“Damn it…!”

Choi Han and the Black Dragon began their charge toward the Helmeted Knight.
But the Helmeted Knight moved first.

Wyverns poured down like a shield.

Crash! Bang!

The wyverns’ claws, limbs, and wings shattered.
Yet the wyverns did not stop. They thrashed about like madness itself, tearing at the shield.

Crimson blood streamed down the silver shield.

-Human, these wyverns have lost their minds! How adorable!

Kale Heniatus could not hear Raon’s voice.

…The one commanding the wyverns is not a Guardian Knight?

He was a Guardian Knight in the Birth of a Hero.
Kale Heniatus realized there was a truth not yet revealed in Volume Five, and that existence had now appeared.

The Helmeted Knight.
I had never seen him before.

That knight rode the wyvern and approached Kale Heniatus.
But the knight’s hands held neither sword nor anything else.

That was when it happened.

-Human, something is strange. I sense the power of nature.

What?
The power of nature?

…Ancient power?

Kale Heniatus could see a sword materializing in the Helmeted Knight’s hand. The moment he saw it, he understood.

That is a sword.
An ancient power taking the form of a blade.

The sword I had never seen before grew longer and more massive by the moment.
It had become like a spear.

In that instant.

Thump.

Kale Heniatus’s heart began to race.
The voice of the Glutton Goddess reached my ears.

-You block it.

The shield began to shrink.

“What is this…!”

Kale Heniatus could not finish his words properly. My entire body convulsed and churned violently. It was not pain. Yet my breath grew ragged.
The ancient powers surged and roiled.

The patterns inscribed across my body burned with searing intensity.

Throughout it all, the shield continued to shrink.
The silver wings vanished as well.

It grew smaller and smaller, becoming a tiny shield. Yet with Raon’s shield in place, the White Wyvern could not break through.

Then, Kale Heniatus saw the Helmeted Knight grinning wickedly.

“Try to block this.”

The Helmeted Knight slowly hurled the sword.
The massive blade that had become a spear shot toward Kale Heniatus.

-…Human, something’s wrong with that! Strengthen the shield!

Raon layered shield upon shield, tripling and quadrupling them endlessly.
Yet something felt wrong.

That black blade—magic seemed powerless against it.

Calamity.
A word denoting nature’s most aggressive forces.
Storms, volcanoes, tidal waves.

Calamity.

Gazing upon that blade, the word crystallized in my mind.
An entity woven from nature’s destructive essence.
The six-year-old dragon grasped it instinctively.

Magic alone could not stop it.

Only a dragon could withstand such a thing.
Only dragon’s breath, or the dragon’s body itself.
The most unyielding natural force of a higher order.

Mere seconds after the blade was hurled.
In that fleeting moment, Raon’s gaze locked onto Kale Heniatus.
The dragon’s body surged forward of its own accord.

Then it came.
Kale Heniatus’s voice pierced through.

“Damn it!”

That roar snapped Raon back to clarity. I cried out.

-Merry! Summon the Dragon!

The Black Dragon reinforced the shields.
Five layers, six layers.
A dragon not yet capable of breathing fire, not yet evolved to its first growth stage, began pushing toward its absolute limit.

Crack.
Yet the moment the colossal blade made contact, the calamity shattered one shield effortlessly. Before such destructive natural force, shields were merely playthings crafted from nature’s mana.
One, two. The shields vanished without a sound.

I just needed to endure.
I just needed to hold on until Merry’s dragon arrived.

Raon filled the torn gap with a new shield.
Then, Kale Heniatus’s voice reached him.

“Stop.”

Raon halted.
The dragon turned to look at Kale Heniatus.

That was the moment.

Boom!

The people could do nothing against the deafening roar and blinding light that erupted.
The last thing they saw was a dragon of black bone descending upon the colossal blade.
When their vision returned, the dragon’s bone shattered, creating cracks along the blade.
Yet the ancient, lifeless bone of the dragon was insufficient. It could not eliminate the sword.

Raon’s eyes perceived it clearly.
Six years old, inexperienced and young, the dragon recognized the danger. Raon’s body moved.

“Heh, hehe—”

Then came the sound of Kale Heniatus’s laughter.
Raon turned his head. He saw Kale Heniatus, vomiting an enormous amount of blood, laughing with a hollow sound. Blood streamed from his mouth, nose, ears—everywhere.
A voice echoed within Kale Heniatus’s mind.

-That’s my sword, isn’t it?

The master of the dominating aura.
His voice resounded.

-A dragon-slaying blade.

Kale Heniatus realized it in that moment.

Dragon Slayer.
That black sword in the helmet—it was the very blade that had slain the Dragon, killing it a second time as its bones shattered.
And the crown stolen from the Northern Region.
A crown that bore an uncanny resemblance to the white crown that had vanished while devouring the ‘aura of dominion’.
The crown resting in my embrace, the one that thirsted for dragon’s blood.

Sword and crown. They were a pair.
So that’s why it was there.

One more thing.
He grasped it like an instinct.
The World Tree, which could glimpse the future, however faintly.
One of the three things it had spoken of. Words conveyed alongside Raon’s parents and the water of judgment.

‘The one who gathers ancient power possesses a total of three ancient powers.’

It was that bastard in the helmet.

“…Damn it.”

Kale Heniatus clenched his fists.
His entire body trembled.

“Raon, don’t move!”

Kale Heniatus shouted to the invisible young dragon and focused on the voice in his mind.

-Are you planning to sacrifice yourself?

No!
I will never take a loss.

Kale Heniatus ignored Jjangdol’s words.
Instead, he listened to the voice of the greedy one who devoured everything just like him.
The Glutton Goddess.
Her voice reached him.

-This is enough.

The emblem on Kale Heniatus’s chest transformed.
Overlaid upon the silver shield first inscribed there, the vitality of a heart now gleamed—the crimson heart’s emblem had become silver.

The shield had devoured the first talent.

Kale Heniatus poured forth the shield’s power.

Calamity.
And the vitality of a heart—the regenerative force possessed by those who yearned to live.
The strength by which humanity endured calamity was survivorship, that primal desire itself.

Crash!

Cracked though it was, the colossal blade’s edge still collided with the impossibly small shield.

A radiance incomparable to anything before engulfed the Heniatus Territory.
Before the light consumed his vision, Kale Heniatus glimpsed Choi Han’s demonic visage as he materialized behind the Helmeted Knight, felt Raon’s foreleg bracing his back, and heard the Glutton Goddess’s voice.

-Well done.

Kale Heniatus understood at once.

I had held.

Survival, the force to live.
It was ultimately the strength by which humanity had endured and persisted against nature itself.

The shield had not shattered.

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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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