The Emperor Has Returned

Chapter 202 – Establishment of Negotiation (2)

As soon as Pavan saw Hela trying to swallow Anya’s flesh, he rushed toward her with a shocked expression, but the flesh had already been swallowed by Hela by the time he managed to get to her.

“Oh my goodness, you crazy grandma!”

“Watch your manners, punk.”

Hela was planning to force herself to vomit the flesh if Anya’s condition remained unchanged despite her swallowing that piece of flesh.

Hela swung her fist at Pavan, but missed miserably as she stumbled and fell to the ground.

Pieces of flesh and blood clots instantly poured out of Hela’s mouth and her nose. Hela felt dizzy and felt as if a herd of ants were crawling all over her.

“Why the fuck would you swallow that!”

The sound of Pavan shouting at her buzzed and rang in her head. Hela felt like she was going to lose consciousness at any moment, but examined Anya’s condition one last time.

It was unknown as to whether it was because Hela had swallowed those red letters or not, but Anya certainly seemed to be much more comfortable than before.

Anya’s seizures had died down and the black fog was no longer being emitted from her body. Above all, the red letters had not only stopped increasing, but they even began to shrink one by one. Hela didn’t know what this meant but figured that it must be a positive sign.

“Keuk!”

However at the same time, Hela clutched her stomach in pain and collapsed to the ground. Hela recalled Dismas telling her that Anya would turn into a Cainheryar of Nigrato, since she once accepted Nigrato’s essence into her body.

‘But what would happen to me?’

Hela had never once believed in or accepted any god even until this time. If the red letters she swallowed were a medium that triggered one’s transformation into a Cinaheryar, she could not know what she would turn into—although Dismas’ other words did come to her mind.

‘I would probably turn into a failure like the one he had mentioned.’

She couldn’t tell what she would look like or what pain she would go through once she turned into the failure that was mentioned by Dismas. So, Hela thought that she had to finish her work before she lost consciousness due to the pain or something even worse happened to her.

Hela grabbed Pavan by his collar as soon as she came to such a conclusion.

“Take… Anya… now!”

“Master, now is not the time to worry about that girl. You need to…”

“Listen to me when I speak, you punk!”

Hela held Pavan by the collar and slammed her head into his head.

Pavan clasped his forehead and looked at Hela with frustrated eyes.

For a moment, Pavan felt like he had returned to the time when he was five years old—the time when Hela picked him up on the battlefield. Pavan gritted his teeth as he knew that he couldn’t choose to not obey her.

Pavan hastily rushed toward Anya, but did not forget to leave some words for Hela at the same time.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can, so don’t die until I come back!”

Pavan immediately dragged Anya out of the tent.

Meanwhile, Hela grinned at the sight.

“That bastard hasn’t changed a bit. He always tries to have the last word every single time…”

Then came a burst of intense pain. Hela didn’t know how long she would be able to hold out. She tried her best to hold onto her consciousness, but she had a feeling that she would not be able to last long.

At that moment, the pieces of meat still scattered everywhere on the ground came into Hela’s sight as she realized that she had not yet figured out their identity. She knew that those pieces of meat were serving as a medium to catalyze one’s transformation into a Cainheryar, but Anya seemed relatively more stable when she was in contact with those pieces of meat.

Hela came to the conclusion that it would be better to find out what Dismas was up to rather than simply dying of pain. She slowly crawled toward the pieces of meat and bit off the metal glove on her hand with her teeth. Then she slowly used her bare hand to touch the piece of meat.

In that moment, an overwhelming number of hallucinations flooded her brain.

***

Pavan managed to take Anya out of the tent. There was no power holding her back anymore, but she was still in quite a dangerous state. The dragon was still hovering in the sky, yet Pavan didn’t know where he could take her to keep her safe.

It would only be a matter of time before they once again fell into danger if they ended up being surrounded by the knights from the Order of Surtr. Pavan was growing more and more anxious.

“Damn it! Hey! Anyone! Is there no one here who serves the real emperor?”

Pavan shouted, thinking that he would kill any enemies that approached him or leave Anya to the allies that approached him.

When Pavan shouted once again, someone wearing red armor charged toward him from beyond the smoke.

Seeing this, Pavan clicked his tongue and prepared to place Anya down on the floor for the upcoming battle.

But the area behind the knight from the Order of Surtr suddenly brightened for a moment and then a fierce fire engulfed him in the blink of an eye.

Pavan flinched in the heat as he saw the knight from the Order of Surtr instantly bursting into flames and collapsing to the ground into a ball of black ash.

“Pavan? Is that you?”

It was Horhell and his dragon that approached Pavan as soon as the flames died down. Of course, Pavan who had been taught not only by Hela, but also Horhell did not get along well with him. In fact, their relationship couldn’t be defined as being simply ‘bad.’ There was once a time when Pavan chained the ankle of Horhell’s dragon and left a hole in Horhell’s side to make him suffer. It wouldn’t be so strange if Horhell came to kill Pavan one day.

“Is that Anya with you?”

But instead of attacking Pavan, Horhell asked as he scattered the blood of the knight from the Order of Surtr from his sword. Fortunately, Horhell didn’t seem to have any ill feelings toward Pavan for now.

At the same time, Horhell quickly saw through Pavan’s thoughts.

“We’ll talk about what you did to me later. Let’s just focus on what we have to do now,” Horhell said.

“I seem to have a tense relationship with all of you for some reason,” Pavan replied with a sigh.

“Well, you brought that on yourself.”

Pavan handed Anya over to Horhell, who carefully placed her on Orca’s back.

Then Horhell found Pavan immediately turning around and running.

“Where are you going?”

“To rescue master!”

Pavan ran forward before listening to Horhell’s answer, hoping that he wasn’t too late. He passed through the tents in an instant and found a knight of the Order of Surtr on his way. But before the knight from the Order of Surtr could even see him, Pavan had already drawn his sword to cut the knight’s arms.

The reason why Pavan did not cut his fatal area was not for humanitarian reasons. Rather, it was the other way around. Pavan smacked him on the back of his head to knock him out, and then dragged him into the tent where they found Anya earlier.

Pavan, who rushed into the tent, grew perplexed when he couldn’t find Hela anywhere. But he was soon able to find Hela near the pillar where Anya had been tied.

Pavan’s face brightened upon finding her, but soon hardened when he noticed that Hela was trembling, with her hands touching the pieces of meat.

“Master!”

Pavan roared as he threw the knight from the Order of Surtr he had dragged to the ground and ran toward Hela.

He tried to remove the pieces of flesh attached to her with his sword just like she did for Anya earlier, but he flinched as soon as he brought his sword near Hela.

Hela’s only hand was already buried in the pieces of meat all the way up to her elbow. Meanwhile, Hela was whispering something with her eyes rolled backward.

“Master! Come to your senses!”

Pavan grabbed Hela and shook her to try and wake her up, but there was no response.

Pavan bit his lips tightly. He held his sword perpendicular to Hela’s arm, then he instantly thrust it with all his might.

“Keugh!”

Blood burst out and Hela’s eyes rolled to the back of her head.

Pavan broke into a cold sweat, but didn’t hesitate to cut the pieces of meat to try and save Hela’s arm; however, he couldn’t find the hand inside the pieces of flesh at all—the flesh and muscles had already been tangled up with the pieces of meat.

Then Pavan heard Hela whispering with difficulty.

“Pavan.”

“Did you walk all the way here by yourself, master? Why do you keep trying to kill yourself like this? If you wanted to screw me up so bad, why didn’t you just feed me the chunk of meat instead of eating it yourself?”

“What are you talking about, you bastard… it’s not suicide, but it’s called efficiency. More than that… you need to tell HIs Majesty about the identity of these pieces of meat. This is…”

“You should make that report yourself, master! The only duty I was given was to protect you!”

Hela’s expression became distorted.

“You never listen at once, do you?”

Pavan was forced to make a difficult choice, since it was impossible to separate the pieces of meat from Hela without harming her.

Finally, Pavan held the sword perpendicular to the remainder of Hela’s arm and asked.

“Master. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but it seems like I will have to cut off the rest of your arm as well. But it’s not your first time, so I’m sure you’ll be able to hold out just fine. Right?”

“There’s no one who can screw me up as good as you do.”

“You’re old enough to be in a nursing home anyway. I’ll get you a good errand boy who will listen to you at once unlike me.”

“Get out of here, punk. What are you going to do next if you cut off my arm? You’ve seen what happened to Anya. Removing the pieces of meat doesn’t stop the process. It will just make me suffer in pain and lead me to an even slower death.”

“Then what do you want me to do?!” Pavan screamed and exhaled a rough breath.

Hela frowned and looked at Pavan.

“What, why are you… now you’re sad that I’m going to die?”

“...I’d be lying if I said that I’ve never wanted you to die before. I’m just afraid that His Majesty will hold me accountable for your death. I’m in charge of your security, after all.”

“How responsible of you,” Hela pulled up the corners of her mouth while looking fiercely at Pavan. “I’m glad that I at least didn’t fail completely in educating about being disciplined.”

“Stop it. I’m past the age where I would become happy at being praised by my master. I’m the Captain of the Order of the Capital even if you don't compliment me. It is no exaggeration to say that I hold the most authority, right next to the Regent.”

Pavan stared intently at Hela. There was only one thing he could do now. He nervously bit his lips and finally opened his mouth with difficulty.

“Master. There is one solution I’ve come up with.”

“No.”

“At least hear me out, will you?”

“Aren’t you going to say bullshit like ‘I’ll open your stomach to cut out the flesh with the red letters engraved on it and swallow it?’ Do you have any suggestions other than that?”

“Your evaluation of my humanitarianism has changed significantly after I left you. I have no idea how you came up with such a terrible idea, but you’re right. My plan is to grab out that terrible problem from inside your stomach. I’m glad I didn’t come up with that terrible idea on my own, and that it was thanks to your teaching,” Pavan shook his head.

Cold sweat formed on his forehead before he opened his mouth again.

“But the last part is different. Why would I swallow that?”

Then Pavan pointed toward a direction—there was a knight from the Order of Surtr on the ground with all his limbs amputated.

Hela clicked her tongue and smiled as if she was dumbfounded at the sight.

“You’re such a fucking psycho, Pavan.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, master.”

Pavan turned Hela’s body over and tore her clothes to reveal her skin. All sorts of terrible scars were visible on her wrinkled skin, but Pavan carefully wiped the blood from his sword and placed it against her skin without being surprised.

But when Pavan’s sword neared her skin as he hesitated to cut her, Hela opened her mouth.

“Hey, if you’re not confident in what you’re doing… listen to the identity of the pieces of meat first, just in case.”

“...Yes, master. I’ll listen.”

Hela smiled and whispered in Pavan’s ear about the hallucinations she saw, as well as the identity of the pieces of meat.

Pavan’s eyes widened upon hearing Hela’s words, but he did not have the time to think too deeply about it or stay startled.

“Do it,” Hela gave a short order.

Then, Pavan’s sword split through Hela’s skin.

***

A strong beam of light was shot toward the sky as a dragon soared into the sky.

Juan, who was fiercely clashing against Dismas, quickly bounced back upon seeing the green light coloring the sky.

Orca was now heading toward the east over the wall created by the giant slaves, meaning that Anya’s rescue was successful.

“I see that the creation of the Cainheryay has failed,” Dismas muttered as he looked in a completely different direction from where Orca flew toward—it was toward the tent with its ceiling completely collapsed.

Juan was relieved when the energy of Nigrato, which had been growing little by little, subsided, but for some reason, he still felt uneasy and uncomfortable.

The battle with Dismas had been going on for a long time, but they weren’t making any significant progress. Juan thought that drawing out the power of the crown could be a quick way to settle this battle, but that also meant that Dismas would then summon the power of gods using Spirit Calling.

Juan clicked his tongue as he figured that it would be difficult to take responsibility for the safety of the people who still remained here if two such powerful forces collided.

Meanwhile, Dismas slowly turned his head to look at Juan, but there was no expression on his face.

“The creation of the Cainheryar has failed and I also failed to get rid of you. But I think I’ve dragged this long enough to buy me some time.”

‘Buy some time?’

Juan suddenly had an ominous feeling about Dismas’ words.

At the same time, Dismas held the bleeding hammer with both his hands and lifted it up high into the sky.

Then he quietly muttered while looking at Entalucia who was hovering high in the sky.

“Fall.”