Awakening the Great Bloodline Chapter 152

Chapter 152: The Gatekeeper

The Outskirts of the Capital

Dawn broke thinly. A narrow band of silver spread along the horizon's edge. The camp's braziers had cooled through the night, exposing black ash beneath—and before them, carriages adorned with silk banners and pennants ca rolling in one after another.

Envoys from each noble house lined up, leading the way with chests of gold and silver, gleaming suits of armor and weapons, and won concealed behind curtains.

"I have co bearing a marriage proposal on behalf of my house."

"I bring tribute…… No, a modest token of goodwill."

Vice-captain Marik leaned against the tent post to receive them. Snow that had fallen through the night lay piled on his shoulders.

"You have all traveled far. Regrettably, Calix has already vacated this place."

"Vacated? To where?"

The envoy asked in bewildernt.

"Is this not the perfect ti to forge alliances and build strength? If it is possible to reach him……"

"That is precisely why we remain."

Royce stepped forward from behind and cut the words short.

"The gifts will be catalogued and kept in storage. Delivering them directly to him personally is sothing I cannot guarantee. Your goodwill will not be forgotten. The gold and arms will find their purpose in the hands of the soldiers."

"But—"

"The order of etings will be decided by Calix himself."

At the firm reply, sighs passed through the visitors. It took no more than a word or two for expectation to sink into disappointnt, and disappointnt into lingering regret. Yet not a single one dared raise their voice.

An elder statesman of a count's house spoke as the representative.

"The wise do not let the mont pass them by. Please see to it that the ssage is not delivered too late."

"I will bear that in mind."

The implication was plain—the empire's power was converging upon one man, and they urged him not to miss the current. Royce answered briefly, then raised a hand to clear the path for the envoys to depart.

Before long, the carts unloaded their cargo and slipped away without ceremony. The daughters of minor houses turned back without ever having stepped outside their carriages. Had Volga witnessed this scene, he would have laughed with great delight and said, 'I knew it would co to this'.

Once the envoys had gone, the encampnt sank back into the sounds of its daily rhythm. Marik entered the tent and checked the ledgers.

The surplus of supplies and the number of warhorses, and the count of Mana Stones, and the matter of distributing these among the newly recruited—there was no shortage of work to be finished before Calix's return.

The vacancy was being filled, quietly, by the hands of those who remained.

So that they could advance again at any mont.

***

Fifteen days later.

In the long shadow of the mountain range, hooves glided across a frozen river. The tallic tang and the reek of blood carried on the wind faded gradually. In their place, a faint dry scent of pine bark settled in. The sound of snow splitting, shards of light fracturing across the ice—it all stained the view.

"Must be because a mage lives here. It does feel different sohow."

"……Yeah, it's beautiful."

At Volga's words, Calix drew in the cold air and looked straight ahead.

Before they knew it, the group had entered the forest. A place of deeper silence. The ground was blanketed in fine snow that glead like sheet ice.

Between the leaves, the light of the sky reflected directly downward, making the ground beneath their feet look like another sky. Each ti a footprint was pressed in, thin clouds fractured and spread into delicate cracks. Even the shadows had co to a standstill, and a thin frost sparkled along every tree trunk. A passing breeze drew silver lodies through the air.

How to put it—

It was as though they had stepped inside soone's landscape painting.

Then, at so mont, the shape of the forest changed sharply. The further they rode with their horses' heads turned northeast, the deeper the silence grew. Animal tracks ended abruptly at a certain point, and at night, sounds unlike any cry heard before rang out.

"It isn't an animal's sound. The mana of the forest is stirring."

"……No wonder we passed through so easily. There's an unsettling feeling to it—similar to the Storm Forest."

"Hadiya?"

"These are constellations I've never seen before. The sky roads shouldn't change, so it's definitely strange."

Strange occurrences were stacking up. Instead of the laws of nature, an intent to obstruct soone could be glimpsed. Zahira addressed the mage at the very rear.

"Yelayen, is this going to be all right?"

"……For now. He is not one who refuses etings. Perhaps afterward he may drive one out, but that is another matter."

"Sohow…… That sounds like saying he has a disagreeable nature."

"That too is correct!"

Yelayen let out a hearty laugh wholly at odds with the atmosphere.

Volga and Gregor and the rest of the Mountain Rabbits were tense, yet their expressions were not dark. The group was composed only of younger mbers including Calix; veterans like Royce were absent. Even so, a confidence different from before seeped through them.

Experience had accumulated, and with it, they had grown stronger.

It was precisely then.

The mont they rounded a massive boulder, every footstep stopped. Deep within the forest, figures holding the form of humans were frozen in place.

"……They're The Corrupted."

The instant hands moved in silence to draw swords, Gregor leapt down from his horse and strode forward. Rather than calling upon his instincts as a warrior, he reached out with a playful flick and tap—gave one a prod.

Fussss.

The Corrupted crumbled to dust in an instant. The axe embedded with Rite-Stone, the plundered belt, even the tal gauntlets—all turned to granules and scattered.

There was not a trace of blood.

It was as though everything that should have been there had been removed entirely.

"Right then. Now I'm a bit scared."

Volga rubbed down his forearm as he surveyed the surroundings.

By then, Calix had dropped to one knee and scooped up a handful of sand. The granules were unusually light. Lighter even than grain dried in the sun. Nothing but hollow husks from which water and warmth, fat and drops of blood had all been drawn out.

"It seems so force was at work. Life…… Was forcibly reaped."

He was unsettled by an inexplicable familiarity. It was a force he recognized. The granules in his palm clung together, then separated and dissolved.

They had not vanished forever. Cycling as soil, as forest, aligned to the order that governed this space.

Chaos rotates according to soone's will. It hollows out its subject from the inside and reduces the body of a living creature to fine powder.

Calix then followed the flow of mana visible within his sight.

"Even now, it's watching."

"……Us?"

"Yes."

Faint concentric circles rippled through the empty air. To the northeast, beneath a shaded slope, everything had its origin. He dusted off the sand and rose to his feet.

Unlike the Storm Forest, this was a place governed by a living mage.

Just then, Yelayen added words of his own. This ti, it was a clear warning.

"The Gatekeeper has lived in solitude for a long ti. He draws no line between good and evil, and he wields a power like yours. If you wish to speak with him, you must first appear in his eyes as one worthy of it."

***

Beneath the snowfall wreathing the valley, those that had stiffened revealed themselves. The Corrupted that had set foot in the mountain range were not dozens, nor hundreds.

They were thousands.

Those frozen mid-charge, those with hands raised in terror, those that had been crawling on all fours. Without even a na, they had simply turned a single shade of grey. The invaders, hardened like stone statues, were lined along the mountain slope all the way to the ridge.

"……How did The Corrupted even get through Kohtan?"

Volga muttered, but Calix did not answer. His gaze had settled on the point where sky and earth t. The direction of the mana flowed toward a single place.

Then, it appeared.

The sll ca first. Like moss inside ancient rock—damp, but not unpleasant. Next ca sound. A low, dry friction, like sand being dragged through the gaps between stones. Last ca form.

A silhouette too long to be human, yet too upright to be called a beast. The spine resembled the bark of a dead tree, and a pair of horns extending from the shoulders were the color of frost.

Padaduk.

Hooves instead of boots pressed down on the snow's surface. Each ti, the surrounding snow and sand lay down in silence, then quietly rose back up.

No words were needed—it was known by instinct.

A powerful being that ruled the mountain range. One who had long guarded this threshold.

The Gatekeeper.

As the distance gradually closed and they reflected in each other's eyes, his gaze was not clouded. Instead it was dry. As much as the years had drained from it.

Those eyes swept Calix once. Then swept slowly across the entire group once more. Only twice, but that was enough.

Who had grown up how, and where they had t, and which battlefields they had passed through—all of it was read.

"You are a twisted path."

His first words were less a language than a rule of his own making. His voice rang out from all directions simultaneously.

"You walk beneath an inverted sky and shift your own footsteps to answer yourself. That kind."

He looked only at Calix.

"I have seen your heart."

The Gatekeeper spoke.

"Mud and whips, a young skeleton called by number, the ti you seized life while stealing breath, the days soaked in the blood of others."

The dry eyes wavered, just slightly.

"And also the things you loved. The feel of a familiar sword in your hand, the mont another's breathing falls out of rhythm. You, growing faster and faster."

Calix's lips stirred. He tried to reply, if only briefly, but was not granted permission. Not Yelayen, not he, nor anyone in the group could resist that current.

"You called that strength. But that is the fruit of malice, sweetened to tempt. It is sweet because it is unripe."

His spine went cold. The Neural Accelerator could not even emit a warning tone, and the core of his heart had stiffened rigid and gave no reaction whatsoever.

That was what perfected chaos was.

"To kill less, to save more. Fine words."

Now, the other's voice sank low.

"But your saving reaches only within the boundary of your sword. Those pushed beyond it—you have forgotten them. The fear that raised you, the silence you are indebted to, the price of the choices you made—whose burden are those?"

The end of his words was neither cold nor heated. And yet within them resided an emotion of indeterminate nature. Solid as rock, aged as sand.

He pressed deeper still.

"Look. That which clings to the back of your neck."

The Gatekeeper's gaze rose slowly from Calix's chest to his neck.

"A seed of tal that enjoys speed. That seed had an original owner. The most powerful among humans. You too know that na."

Breath returned belatedly, and a stiffened tongue moved. He had been granted permission to speak. Even so, the best he could manage was to force out two syllables of a na.

"Ashapel…… Raimund."

Correct. The first user of the Neural Accelerator and the na of the founding patriarch of House Ashapel. Yet upon the other's face, a deeper emotion stirred.

Behind the cold expression, disdain and contempt passed through in succession.

"That na died long ago. He has beco sothing new. Not human, but sothing beyond human."

This was a conversation between only two.

The Gatekeeper asked again. This ti, it was an unmistakable question.

"Do you know who he is."

Calix, his face drained white, gave a single nod. It was a story he had never once heard, and yet he had seen it in a dream.

Without receiving the answer, he sensed instinctively that his own thought was correct. Then the word rolled off the tip of his tongue.

A na he had long been hearing, but had never once spoken aloud himself.

The Gatekeeper's eyes did not blink for even a mont.

"……De Generitum."

The true identity of the avatar of evil, the fallen lord.