Chương 36: Chapter 35: Judgment on a Father

"Ugh..." Rivian groaned from the back. Her lips trembled. She grabbed Yuto's clothes. The Academy did not teach dark magic, but it constantly warned against the evil it represented and the risks of using it. Rivian was now face-to-face with an actual example of dark magic in practice for the first time, and it drained the blood from her face. Yuto clutched Rivian's shaky hand.

"Oh...!" she said. The trembling stopped. She could feel the warmth coming from his skin. Her heart began to race, and the color returned. She hesitated, but she didn't try to pull away. In the meantime, Yuto walked faster. He went past the laboratory's rooms and corridors, checking the walls. The crest of the lion's head and shield, the symbol of the royal family of Velkyne, remained where they had always been at multiple points along the wall, despite the darkness that engulfed them.

Yuto looked at each one and slowed down. He stopped at the eighth identical emblem—it marked the spot where Yuto had received the sword called Velkyne's Treasure in the past life. In that world, Luke Velkyne had decided that Yuto was too young to have it. He had created a secret chamber and hidden the sword there. Yuto, however, didn't even exist in this one. Would his father still have done the same thing? It was time to find out. He steeled himself.

He would not allow himself to feel shock or despair, no matter what he was about to see. He moved toward the wall, but stopped short. His eyes widened and trembled. His mental resolve was of no use, and it crumbled immediately to the fierce beating and pulsing of his heart and core. He sensed something beyond that wall. This energy... It wasn't like the evil ether of the black mages. It was actually closer to that of the spirits he'd seen in the city ruins, but not exactly the same.

No mournful ghost could produce a feeling that was as strong and despair-laden as this.

"Ah..." he said. It was such a familiar strength, and it hurt all the more because of it. An instinctive longing entered his heart, though it was twisted by resentment and madness. He knew this sensation. He could feel his father breathing beyond the wall. His father, the last king of Velkyne, haunted this chamber.

"No... No, no, no..." Yuto said, clutching his chest and leaning against the wall. It wasn't just the reactive throbbing of his core that pressed on his heart. The heavy breath that was beyond that wall, which hung in the air and drenched it with heartache, belonged to a person he knew. A king who had been torn apart by the guilt of butchering his people with his own hands, and forgotten who he even was. A poor spirit, a ghost of the past, buried in despair.

"No..." Tears flowed from Yuto's eyes, but they were the color of blood. The words he had read in the journal before he passed out came back to him like barbs in his soul. His father had been a lonely man. His beloved wife had died, after all. And they'd never had any children. Eventually, that loneliness had led him to abandon his duty as king. The Broken Star had successfully baited him, which would never have happened if he had remained level-headed and kept his wits about him.

The absurd suggestion that his people could be guided to some kind of paradise by killing them would never have appealed to him at all. It wasn't the desire to make his people happy that had made him fall for it. It was the desire to see his dead wife again, to see her in heaven, and to finally have that child they'd only dreamed of having. His father, Luke Velkyne, had put his solitude and emptiness above the safety of his people. Yuto wiped his bloody tears with unsteady hands. He pitied the man.

His heart went out to Luke, whose life had fallen apart for lack of a son. But at the same time, a cool rage rose inside of him. It wasn't the resentment of a son. The anger inside him didn't belong to Luke Velkyne's progeny. It belonged to Yuto Velkyne, the rightful heir to the throne, who had been king before he entered this life. It belonged to Velkyne's final king. Yuto had given his life for Velkyne.

He had fought and won war after war to free the people of Velkyne—and everyone in Callisto—from the tyranny of the Constellations. It was this Yuto Velkyne who was enraged by the misguided ruler—the man who, driven to insanity and broken by his loneliness, had ended the lives of his own people.

"I'm going in alone," he said. Rivian and Flokiro were shaken by the strength of the emotion that had overtaken Yuto, and by the bloody tears that coursed from his eyes. They looked at Yuto in surprise.

"Y-Yuto? What's the matter?" she asked. The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Alone?" Flokiro murmured. He stared at the royal emblem on the wall. He didn't seem to be able to sense the ghost's sobs that came from behind it.

"Wait here," Yuto said, and at that moment, his voice was cold enough to stiffen the air.

"Don't come in, regardless of what you hear," he added. Flokiro opened his mouth to speak, but he saw the grim resolve in Yuto's eyes and thought better of it. Not even Flokiro could dissuade him from whatever he was thinking. Yuto raised his hand to the mouth of the lion, at the middle of the wall. He wondered if the code was the same as before. Had his father chosen a different one in this world? There was only one way to find out. Yuto bit his lip, then said the code.

"Leia..." he said. It was Yuto's daughter's name, but also that of his grandmother. The sturdy wall suddenly rumbled and broke apart. It seemed to have worked. Out of the opening poured frigid air, carrying the madness of the ghost of the foolish king who had wiped out tens of thousands of his people, the insanity which bound the spirit to the earth and did not allow it to rest. Yuto walked into the darkness without a single backward glance. The walls closed shut as soon as he was inside.

The room was pitch-dark, but Yuto's eyes could pierce that veil. There was an altar at the center of the room, and on it was the sword—Velkyne's Treasure. But something crouched in front of the altar, a nondescript figure wearing the tattered robes of a king, with hair that had blackened with resentment. Yuto let out a sad lament. Here was the inept monarch who had destroyed Velkyne. He looked far more vivid and lifelike than the ghosts of the ruins, and he did not look very human—his mind had unraveled, after all.

Around him were dozens of arms, wrapped around him like rope or perhaps chains.

"Who... are... you?" came a bizarrely twisted voice from the darkness. It sounded like nails on a chalkboard.

"Who dares... enter my... chamber?" The ghost raised its head. The eyes glowed purple. They were the eyes of a madman, and they were not interested in really seeing who had come in. The ghost's ability to reason had been lost five years ago, on the night of the disaster. Even if he did have a shred of rational thought inside him, he couldn't have recognized Yuto. In this world, he had known no son.

"This... is my grave..." said the ghost, staggering to his feet.

"Velkyne's Treasure... cannot be allowed... to leave this room..." It sounded like he was sobbing. The many arms that wrapped around his body now came loose with a strange, creaking noise.

"Be... gone! You... rat!" The ghost closed its fist in the air. Jet-black darkness hardened into a long sword. Yuto produced his Obsidian Dagger from Void Storage and gripped it.

"Luke Velkyne," Yuto said. He fought the sadness that washed over him, grew conscious of the cold rage inside his mind.

"You terrible king... and a fool," he said. Then he said, in his own words, the message that had been scrawled on the first page of the diary.

"A fool of a king, worthy of hatred, and beyond forgiving." Void Hands sprouted into being behind his back.

"I have come to pass judgment on you." As soon as Yuto said the words, the ghost bellowed like an animal and charged. The purple arms the spirit swung about clashed in the air with the dark Void Hands Yuto controlled. The arms were hardened guilt, the result of resentment and insanity. They tried to grab Yuto's arms and legs and pin him down, but the Void Hands blocked the attempt. The ghost's blade swung right at Yuto's neck. The Obsidian Dagger clashed with it, producing sparks.

Back and forth they fought, dagger against sword. Yuto gritted his teeth as he withstood the frenzied attacks. The ghost bellowed again, his voice ripping through the air. He was like a trumpet, one whose cry contained the despair and rage that had built up inside him as well as the hatred of the people of Velkyne who had been sacrificed, and it rang out and echoed in the chamber. The purple arms that had been blocked by the Void Hands now erupted in all directions.

The marble floor tore like it was made of paper, and stone dust rained from the ceiling. Yuto instinctively shielded himself with his Void Hands, but the attack contained overwhelming violence.

"Ugh...!" A groan burst from his lips. The ghost saw that Yuto was being pushed away, and leaped forward to close the distance. Then it stabbed in a quick motion with precise aim. Yuto rapidly swung his Obsidian Dagger to counter, but it wasn't fast enough, and the sword grazed Yuto. The blade cut into Yuto's shoulder as it drove past, and blood flew. The ghost was far from done. The sword moved in unusual patterns as it pressured Yuto from all sides. This ghost was powerful.

The king had been known as the greatest swordsman in all of Velkyne while he was alive. He was now dead, only a ghost, but his skill had not diminished. In fact, the lunacy and bitterness that were inside him now only made his attacks more violent than they had ever been. The ghost suddenly blurred, and a split second later, was at Yuto's blind spot. The purple sword gleamed in the darkness and slashed at Yuto's neck. A close call. The Obsidian Dagger derailed the sword, but only just barely.

The sword carried so much weight that Yuto's arm nearly broke. The impact sent his fourteen-year-old body into the air.

"Die... Die, you lowlife!" the ghost screeched as it flung its sword to the side. Purple ether swirled around him. Yuto's face contorted. This ghost, despite its insanity, was executing a secret sword style of the Velkyne family to perfection. The hurled ether cut through the darkness and fell on Yuto. It simply wasn't an attack that he was capable of taking head-on. He gave up on his defense and focused on evasion. Void Steps removed him from the path of the attack, which would have proved deadly for him.

There was a resounding crash, and the chamber shook violently. Yuto exited Void Steps and tried to stab the ghost from the rear. It failed. The ghost hadn't even needed to turn around. It moved its sword and easily blocked the attack.

"Rat!" the ghost screamed. His head twisted at an impossible angle so that he was looking at Yuto. The purple eyes flashed, and ether collected around his weapon a second time. It exploded while the two weapons were touching. Yuto gasped. He had his Void Hands around his body at the last minute, but they hadn't been an adequate shield. He was sent flying across the floor, vomiting blood. The purple hands came after him.

"Guh!" Yuto bounded up like a coiled spring and fought back with his Void Hands. Hands clashed with hands, and Yuto channeled his ether into the dagger. It reverberated, just as the ghost's weapon had done. Yuto's ether revolved around the obsidian blade.