Trash of the Count’s Family - Chapter 245

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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 52. I Will Stop It

Lightning. Rain. Wind.
Nature possessed many forces that sought to shatter the earth, yet the earth never broke. Whether reduced to dust or transformed into mud, the ground remained resilient enough to support all existence upon it.

That earth moved.
It was unlike an earthquake.
Yet everyone sensed something was wrong with the ground.

Rak was the first to feel it. The boy closest to Kale Heniatus. He felt a shallow tremor beneath his feet.

It differed from the violent vibrations of earth struck by lightning. Shallow, infinitesimal—the ground emitted a sound.

Rak’s gaze turned toward the source of that tremor.
The vibration originated from beneath Kale Heniatus’s feet, where he stood.

Soon Rak’s bloodshot eyes widened dramatically.

“Ugh!”

Kale Heniatus’s body wavered. His feet, planted upon the faintly trembling ground, shook slightly.

“M-My lord!”

Rak reached out in alarm. But his hand could not reach Kale Heniatus, who bent forward at the waist and swayed.
Rak moved his hand again through empty air, attempting to grasp Kale Heniatus’s shoulder.
That was the moment.

Crash!

The sound of a shield being struck.
That sound, which should have come from the sky, reached them from far too close.
Goosebumps erupted across Rak’s skin in an instant. His gaze snapped toward the source of the sound.

“Ahhh! H-Hurry!”
“Th-The shield shattered!”

…Shattered?
The shield doesn’t break. I recalled how Vice-Captain Hilsman had laughed about that famous saying during a video call with Rak.

The Canyon of Death. Winter nights there were so windswept that it seemed as though human cries echoed through the darkness all night long.
When I occasionally communicated via video call with Vice-Captain Hilsman for reports from that place, the stories of Kale Heniatus’s group’s victories set my heart racing.

What remained most vivid in my memory was the story of the shield. The unbreakable shield. Every time I heard that tale, my heart would swell with warmth.

But that shield had shattered?

My gaze lifted skyward.

CRACK!

A bolt of lightning plunged toward the earth. The footsteps of those moving through the teleportation magic circles quickened. The battlefield lay shrouded in screams and shouts.

And where the lightning had pierced through.
A fragment of the silver shield had shattered.

BOOM! CRASH! CRASH!

The shield spread across where hundreds of lightning bolts descended.
Cracks were spreading across the silver shield. Soon, it would break completely.

That reality consumed my thoughts entirely.

CRASH!

I lifted my head.
Directly overhead. The moment I looked up, I could see lightning breaking through the silver shield above me.

Crackle—
Hairline fractures began spreading across the shield.

“Mage Battalion, deploy your shields!”
“Archie, Paseton. Evacuate the people!”

Rosalind and Witira’s urgent cries. Even as they shouted, the ground trembled with increasing intensity. My heart began pounding harder and harder.
At that moment.

Crack!

The shield shattered directly above my head.
Rak saw the brilliant light pouring through the broken shield.
My heart pounded wildly.

If that lightning strikes, then—

Two figures flashed through Rak’s mind in an instant.

What I had to do.
Watch Kale Heniatus’s back.
Hold Raon.
Those two things.
Were those really what I had to do?

The heart that had been racing between fear and terror began to beat differently in that moment. Even so, lightning descended toward Rak, Kale Heniatus, and Raon.

Rak moved in the direction his heart was pulling him. It was instinct.
But there was someone who moved even more by instinct than Rak. With a soft tap, Rak saw a figure stepping on his shoulder and launching into the air.
Rak’s mouth fell open.

“Brother!”

Choi Han’s blade, wrapped in black aura, collided with the lightning.

Lightning infused with the essence of light.
The incomplete darkness that clashed with the lightning shattered in an instant.

“Ugh!”

Choi Han was sent flying back by the overwhelming force that destroyed his aura.

‘Such power!’

The rampaging Dragon Hybrid’s power far exceeded Choi Han’s darkness. He could not dispel the lightning.
But he found relief in this. Even as he was sent flying, he twisted the direction of the lightning.

Boom!

Lightning struck the empty ground. Yet Choi Han couldn’t simply watch the sight unfold in peace.

Crack, crack, crack.
The shield shattered in multiple places. Lightning bolts pierced through the gaps. He tightened his grip on his sword once more. Kale Heniatus remained hunched over, unable to straighten up.

‘He must be suffering.’

All the recoil from the shield’s destruction would transfer to Kale. Choi Han moved his body again. Another bolt of lightning descended through the broken shield toward where Kale and the children were. Choi Han swung his black aura toward that lightning once more.
If he couldn’t destroy it, he had to at least change its direction.

Boom!

The black aura shattered and a thunderous sound erupted. Choi Han’s body was sent flying backward as he deflected one bolt’s trajectory.
That was when it happened.

“How much longer do you think you can keep blocking?”

Ah.
In an instant, Choi Han saw lightning streaking past him and plunging toward the ground. The Dragon Hybrid’s eerie laughter. The heat brushing past his side.
Choi Han twisted his flying body once more. He had to change that bolt’s direction. He continued to conjure his black aura.

“Rak!”

He saw his younger brother frozen stiff at the sight of the lightning.

“Run!”

Choi Han shouted with desperation.

But in that moment, Choi Han’s pupils dilated.
Rak hadn’t run.

Rak wasn’t frozen because of the lightning.
He couldn’t move because he was watching his brother. The sight of his older brother fighting without hesitation against the lightning struck Rak’s heart with violent force.
Choi Han’s sword began to shatter the red heart that had been buried beneath fear and dread.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

A heart pounding as if it might shatter.
The blood surging from that heart was the blood of a wolf.
Bestial instinct hammered against Rak’s body with increasing ferocity.

And finally, the moment I saw the Dragon Hybrid’s laughing face beyond the shattered shield and the lightning bolt crashing down toward me.

Boom!

The wolf’s heart shattered the shackles of fear and terror.
Simultaneously, something crystallized in the mind of the human Rak.

‘What I must do!’

The boy no longer needed orders—his own will awakened from the depths of slumber, telling him what he must do.
What I must do.

‘Protect them!’

I saw Choi Han and Merry’s wyverns.
I saw the lightning.

But I turned my back to the lightning. My body moved in an instant, catching the crouching Kale Heniatus. And I shielded Raon and Kale Heniatus from the lightning with my own form.

My family must not be hurt.

The wolf’s instinct aligned with human thought.
That was the moment.

The body of the one who abandoned himself and chose us began to change.

“Kraaagh!”

Like the earth vibrating with ever-increasing intensity, Rak’s interior began to resonate.

What I must do.
What I must do!

The boy’s withered frame, repeating only those words, began to transform.
Choi Han saw it clearly. The approaching Kale Heniatus and his group unconsciously widened their eyes. The lips of Choi Han, who understood Rak’s condition, parted.

“…Berserk!”

His withered frame began to swell at a rapid pace.
His body transformed at a speed incomparably faster than his first berserker state.
He grew taller, and muscles bloomed across his once-skeletal form. Simultaneously, sharp claws sprouted from his hands and feet.

The Blue Werewolf Tribe’s fur turned dark blue when they entered their berserk state. When Rak first transformed, his fur had been that same dark blue hue.
But as Rak’s frame now exceeded even the size of a berserk Tiger Tribe warrior—

“What—”

The shaman Gashan gasped in astonishment at the sheer magnitude, and then let out an exclamation upon witnessing the color of the fur spreading across Rak’s body.

It was not dark blue fur.

It gleamed.
Rak’s gray hair began to shine ever brighter, as if shedding its dullness. Silver strands grew forth, and silver fur started to blanket his entire body.

And simultaneously, a cerulean light mingled within the silver.

The Blue Werewolf Tribe.
As if casting off the darkness of night and greeting the dawn, a bluish-silver radiance now settled upon him.

Because I shed my shackles, Rak could now transform into this new form.

Yet he paid no attention to his own appearance.
Rak hunched his now-massive frame, even larger than the Tiger Tribe warrior.

Lightning would strike soon.
He pressed himself flat against the earth, crouching low to shield himself from the bolt. And with his body, he concealed the Black Dragon and Kale Heniatus, both wrapped in blankets.

The bloodshot in Rak’s eyes faded, returning to their natural color. His massive, sharpened claws dug into the ground.
To keep himself from fleeing.

Within those eyes, now restored to their true hue, a faint joy gleamed.

I found it.
I have finally found what I must do.

Rak watched as Kale Heniatus, who had been bowing his head, slowly lifted it, and a faint smile crossed Rak’s face.

All he had ever seen and learned was this.
The Blue Werewolf Tribe, the tribal elders dying to protect the children, and the Tribal Chief who was also his uncle, telling him to hide.
Choi Han and Rosalind who saved me, and then Kale Heniatus whom I met afterward. All I had witnessed alongside them was this.

That’s why Rak smiled at Kale Heniatus, who was looking at me with a grimace.

“Young Master, it’s fine.”

Lightning and such.

Confidence bloomed within me. Certainty took root.
I am strong.
And I can do this.

“Rak-”

I saw Kale Heniatus’s contorted face. At the same time, I saw his body caked with blood. It was almost amusing—how he thought nothing of his own sacrifice, yet reacted like this to another’s.

“It’s fine-”
“No.”

At Kale Heniatus’s irritated voice, Rak faltered. Despite his ferocious expression, the innocent eyes of a boy wavered.
At the same moment, his heightened senses detected a change.

“…Huh?”

A tremendous force different from the lightning surged from behind.
The instant he realized it.

Rak could see Kale Heniatus holding Raon’s bundle in one arm while pushing Rak’s face aside with the other. A flat voice reached his ears.

“Move out of the way.”
“…What?”

With slurred words, Kale Heniatus’s hand shoved Rak’s cheek to the side. In that instant, Rak heard a massive explosion directly overhead.

Kwaaaang!

Rak saw the explosion because his head was turned. His mouth opened, but this time for a different reason.
Thud. Thud. Something fell from the sky, touched his enlarged body, and crashed to the ground.

“…A stone?”

What fell to the ground was indeed a stone.
Rak witnessed a colossal stone spear colliding with lightning.
The lightning exploded in midair together with the stone spear.

“Kids really do grow fast, don’t they?”

Rak saw Kale Heniatus rubbing his head and rising to his feet. At that sight, Rak recalled the moment when the ground had begun to tremble.

When the barrier weakened.
From that moment on, the earth, the very ground itself, had begun to shake.

‘Could it be?’

The reason the earth trembled?
But Rak couldn’t pose that question to Kale Heniatus.

Rumble, rumble, rumble—

A sound different from the explosion—one that seized the footsteps of the people—echoed forth. All eyes turned urgently toward its source. And they were forced to witness an unbelievable sight.

The ground heaved.
Or more precisely, a portion of the collapsed Canyon of Death heaved upward.
The cliff that had crumbled, now buried beneath countless fragments of debris.

And one by one, massive objects began to rise from that place.

“…This is—”

The lightning bolts of the rampaging Dragon Hybrid paused momentarily. The bloodshot eyes of the one in frenzy took in the sight before them.

Lightning bolts that covered the sky.
Colossal entities moving toward those lightning bolts.

Like meteors shot from the earth toward the sky.
The earth, the stones—dozens, hundreds of them began forming spears. The sharp tips of those spears were aimed precisely at the lightning bolts.

“Puhahaha! Such power, power you’ve been hiding! Huh?”

The Dragon Hybrid laughed like he was spewing blood, then fixed his gaze on one person. The spears centered around that one person, targeting the lightning.
Like a knight protecting that person, stone spears erupted from the ground.

The Dragon Hybrid’s face, directed toward that person—Kale Heniatus—twisted and grew increasingly ferocious with bulging veins.

The group stopped in their tracks, looking at Kale. Rak too stared at Kale, unable to speak.
But there was one more person here who couldn’t speak.

‘…What is this?’

Kale Heniatus.
I felt my healed insides and my hungry stomach, unable to say anything.

…Jjangdol is too strong?
…Is this even allowed?

I was bewildered.
But the corners of my mouth began to twitch upward.

Wheeze, wheeze.
I felt Raon’s body temperature, hotter than before. The growth pains seemed to intensify more and more. I looked at this Raon and that Dragon Hybrid bastard who had been ranting about killing us.

At that moment, the earth’s tremor stopped.

I felt my expanded vessel. The moment I used Jjangdol’s power, my body’s vessel grew larger. And one more thing—I felt something in my arms growing hotter like Raon.

At that moment, Jjangdol’s voice rang in my head.

-Do not sacrifice.

Uuuung.
I felt the object vibrating in my arms and looked at the Dragon Hybrid. That madman staring at me and laughing.

“…Kill who, exactly?”

Instinctively, I rolled my feet.

Boom!
The moment my foot struck the ground, a tremendous resonance rippled across the earth.

“Rise.”

Stone spears began to move.
Hundreds of earthen spears created by the ground pointed toward the sky.

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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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