I Became the Tyrant of a Defense Game [EN]: Chapter 687

24 hours prior.

Right after Muyeong, Dusk Bringer, and Ash engaged in a final battle against the Night Bringer.

“Haa, haa, haa!”

Muyeong gasped for breath.

She had unleashed all the light remaining in her soul at the Night Bringer. It was a strike of her entire being, but the Night Bringer barely managed to twist its body to evade it.

It had only grazed him, but it left a large wound on the Night Bringer’s chest. However, it ultimately missed. The missed strike shot into the void, reaching the dark veil cast in the sky before fading away.

The moment the sword missed, Muyeong realized she no longer had any means to oppose the Night Bringer.

So, while the Night Bringer was writhing in pain from the chest wound, she quickly took Dusk Bringer and Ash and fled the scene.

“Haa, haa, hoo-oo… !”

Fortunately, the chest wound must have been critical, as the Night Bringer did not pursue them. Only after escaping deep into the darkness of the southern forest did Muyeong finally breathe a sigh of relief.

“Muyeong, sister…”

“Dusk!”

Startled by Dusk Bringer’s groan in her arms, Muyeong checked on her.

After the Dragon Blood Rampage ended, Dusk Bringer, who had returned to her human form, was trembling in pain.

Having used even the ‘Mythical Recreation,’ the final stage of the Dragon Blood Rampage, her body would gradually collapse.

Moreover, she had also taken Muyeong’s strike while holding the Night Bringer to create an opening. The wound from the light strike that had pierced Dusk Bringer’s small body was clearly visible.

If the curse of immortality had not been placed on her, she would have collapsed and died long ago. Her body was collapsing in real-time, only to be restored by the curse.

Dusk Bringer looked to her side, her face covered in cold sweat.

“I’m okay… more importantly, Ash…”

Ash, who had collapsed next to her, was also in bad shape.

He had been repeatedly battered by the Night Bringer’s attacks, and, crucially, the collapse of his ego had begun.

He was still unconscious and collapsed. He wouldn’t last long like this.

And, Muyeong as well.

“Ugh…?!”

Muyeong noticed a long, dark iron chain wrapped around her ankle. The chain stretched endlessly from the distant south… from the black lake, binding Muyeong.

Clink, clink-

It was even pulling Muyeong closer.

“Kuh… !”

Muyeong shuddered. She had managed to escape the Night Bringer and come this far, but it was meaningless.

All three of them… would soon perish anyway.

Either die, or something worse.

“For now, at least Ash…”

Dusk Bringer, with trembling hands, placed her hands on the ground and dragged her body next to Ash.

“At least this child… must be saved.”

“But, how?”

Muyeong had already heard the explanation from Ash in the village below.

That Ash’s soul was shattered. That he had been enduring by overlaying a surrogate personality on top of that soul.

But that surrogate personality had been destroyed, and there was no way to restore it. And that Ash’s soul was collapsing again.

“…There is a way to restore it.”

Dusk Bringer bit her pale lips and reached out her hand.

“The day Ash came to me to ask about ‘how to become a dragon,’ he told me, in case this happened, he told me.”

“What?”

“It’s in here.”

What Dusk Bringer picked up was… the ceremonial longsword that Ash wore at his waist, which could be transformed into a banner.

The Nightmare Slayer, [Light and Shadow], made with the twin magic cores of the White Night.

“Ash preserved his personality inside this.”

“… !”

Just as the White Night replicated itself to continuously create new doppelgangers, this equipment had the characteristic of replicating the owner’s traits and applying them twice.

And, in order to demonstrate this replication performance.

[Light and Shadow] replicates the personality of its owner and holds it within the equipment itself.

Like a shadow cast by light… the equipment itself is a doppelganger.

Muyeong’s mouth opened slightly at the explanation. Dusk Bringer nodded.

“The Ash we knew, that memory… remains inside here.”

“Can that memory be called Ash?”

Muyeong muttered hesitantly, and the answer came from elsewhere.

“Theoretically, yes… Kugh!”

The real Ash, who had been collapsed, was gasping for breath and raising his body.

With trembling hands, he put a cigarette in his mouth, but he didn’t have the mind to light it, his lips only quivering. Ash smiled weakly.

“In the first place, that guy you know is a being that had a personality replicated from the outside world overlaid on me.”

“…”

“If we can overlay the personality preserved inside that Nightmare Slayer onto me… the principle itself is the same. That guy can return. Ha, he dug a way out like this…”

The real Ash, who laughed as if dumbfounded, swept his blood-matted bangs back.

“But how do you plan to access that equipment, take out that personality, and overlay it on me?”

“That’s…”

“I don’t have the mental strength to perform such a difficult task right now. Aider, that damn guy… even if he was here, he wouldn’t be of any help, and he’s nowhere to be seen.”

Dusk Bringer, who had been swallowing her words, took a breath.

Then, as if she had made up her mind, she placed her hand on her chest with a determined expression.

“I will pass on my heart and blood to you.”

“…”

“At the moment of succession, the predecessor and successor are connected in the mental world. When the two mental worlds are connected, if we place this Nightmare Slayer as a magical bridge between them… I can search for that personality instead.”

The real Ash, who had been listening quietly, spat his cigarette on the ground and smiled with a hollow expression.

“Hey, Archduke. You know why that guy didn’t succeed you and stole the black dragon’s blood, forcing himself to gain the black dragon’s power… right?”

“…”

“It was to save you.”

The Bringer Dukedom’s dragon blood is a one-person succession.

The moment the heart, blood, power, and rights are passed on to the successor, the predecessor Bringer Duke dies. They have no choice but to die.

That day, Ash, who had heard about the laws of dragon blood succession from Dusk Bringer, gave up on inheriting the red dragon’s blood. Instead, he devised a plan to steal and use the black dragon’s blood.

Ash had laughed nonchalantly, saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be stronger if we had two dragons on our side? So let’s go this way,’ but… Dusk Bringer knew well.

For that child, the option of sacrificing Dusk Bringer did not exist from the beginning.

That’s why he chose this difficult path, and that’s why he ended up in this chaotic situation.

“…To inherit the Bringer Dukedom, one condition is required.”

Dusk Bringer took a deep breath.

Then, she uttered the same words she had heard from the previous Bringer Duke.

“A strong heart that does not give up on living as a human.”

“…”

“In the one hundred and twenty-odd years I have lived… I have never seen anyone who fits this condition more than Ash.”

Muyeong, who had been listening to the story, also nodded silently.

The reason why Muyeong had fed Ash the dragon heart of the Black Dragon Legion without hesitation was similar.

The dragon heart can raise the status of the one who consumes it, but at the same time, it corrupts them. It is common for them to be consumed by the karma entangled in that blood and become living corpses.

But Ash was the owner of an unbelievably strong mental fortitude. That’s why she trusted him and administered it, and he was able to maintain himself even after taking the dragon heart of the Black Dragon Legion.

Dusk Bringer raised her voice.

“Therefore, as the Bringer Duke, I want to make that child my successor. No, it has to be that child.”

“…”

In the end, it was a declaration of suicide, albeit expressed differently.

However, Dusk Bringer’s face was filled with the nobility of a queen responsible for a nation. So the real Ash decided to stop arguing.

Because he knew well from the long relationship of the past countless iterations.

That no one could stop the determination of a dragon lady who had already made up her mind.

“…The inside of this equipment is probably a purgatory. It’s a storage place for confining the replicated personality, so it’s a closed world where time and space are completely separated from the outside.”

The real Ash drew the ceremonial longsword and combined it with its scabbard. The Nightmare Slayer, transformed into a banner, scattered ominous and eerie light.

“Moreover, it’s equipment made with the White Night’s magic cores. No one knows what kind of nightmare might be unfolding inside.”

“…”

“Even if you successfully connect, you don’t know where the replicated personality is stored. You’ll have to search… and since you’re not the personality itself, but a complete stranger, you won’t have any clues, so it’ll be very difficult. You might have to wander around in here for a very long time.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Dusk Bringer, taking a breath, declared.

“If I can get that child back.”

If she could feel that warmth… just one more time.

If she could just return him to this world.

“He’s really loved, that guy.”

The real Ash, who chuckled, raised the banner and placed one end against his heart. Dusk Bringer placed the opposite end of the banner on her chest.

“…Dusk, my sister.”

Next to Dusk Bringer, Muyeong hesitated, not knowing what to say.

Dusk Bringer stared at Muyeong, then,

“Muyeong, sister.”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

Dusk Bringer covered her mouth and giggled like a teenage girl.

“It’s been a long time since I called someone ‘sister’.”

“…”

“It was fun. While I was with you, really.”

Muyeong’s lips, which had been blank for a moment, slowly brightened,

“…Me too, Dusk.”

She smiled radiantly, as if there was no darkness around her.

“It was the first time in my life that I called someone ‘sister’. I was happy while I was with you.”

After exchanging smiles.

Dusk Bringer looked at the real Ash.

“Now, let’s begin.”

“…I don’t have the mind to say anything, so I’ll just say one thing simply, Archduke.”

“Speak.”

Dusk Bringer gestured towards the existence in front of her, the same Ash, but one she didn’t know at all.

Then, the real Ash slightly lowered his head and showed it,

“I wish you a good journey.”

He said that.

Dusk Bringer had a surprised expression for a moment,

“…I wish you the same.”

She silently lowered her head in response.

The two took a breath at the same time.

And the next moment, Ash and Dusk Bringer gritted their teeth and took a step forward-

Thud-!

The banner pierced both of their hearts at the same time.

***

Dusk Bringer slowly opened her amber eyes.

Whioooooo…

It was a world of white, frozen solid, where snowstorms raged.

All that could be seen was snow and ice, and mountains of frost and hail that clung to the sky.

A world on a glacier, filled with a biting cold under a dark and gloomy sky.

The kingdom of nightmares, built inside the Nightmare Slayer [Light and Shadow].

“Somewhere in this world…”

Her long hair fluttered wildly in the face of the raging frost wind.

Clenching her teeth, which were chattering from the cold, Dusk Bringer gripped her shoulder, which was freezing in an instant, with her fingers and took a step forward.

“If you are there.”

Every time her bare feet touched the piled-up ice, it burned as if she had been burned. But Dusk Bringer did not stop walking.

Exhaling a hazy, frozen breath, Dusk Bringer declared.

“Wait. I will find you.”

Thus, Dusk Bringer began to wander in this frozen nightmare, where time and space were cut off from the real world.

The world trapped in an endless winter was endlessly vast. Perhaps it was expanding forever.

But Dusk Bringer did not give up. She traversed and crossed this frozen world, wandering endlessly.

She climbed every mountain and crossed every desert. She looked under every valley and dug into every cave.

Years.

Decades.

Hundreds of years.

Perhaps, thousands of years…

Dusk Bringer wandered endlessly.

To find the campfire of that child, who might be wavering somewhere in this frozen world.

No cold, no pain, no loneliness was weak compared to her will to regain that child’s warmth. Dusk Bringer never gave up for a moment and kept walking.

And at the end of that long ordeal…

***

“…Ah.”

Finally.

Dusk Bringer found it.

“That, is… ?”

On the white frozen sea.

A fortress built of solid ice stood.

Dusk Bringer instinctively knew that this was the place she had been searching for so desperately. Dusk Bringer staggered towards the ice fortress.

Screeeak-

Thud…

Pushing open the huge, tightly closed ice gate and entering the fortress.

Inside the fortress, a huge tomb covered in white snow – a burial mound – could be seen.

《…….》

And a shadow was sitting on top of that burial mound.

Wearing a wide-sleeved robe, a large ceremonial hat with small bead ornaments dangling from it, and his face covered by a large talisman attached to the hat.

A shadow that looked exactly like the Great Magic Emperor White Night.

The shadow clicked its tongue and glared at Dusk Bringer.

《You finally arrived. You tiresome thing.》

Dusk Bringer moved her frozen lips and spoke in a hoarse voice, her throat parched.

“So, the Nightmare Slayer… the master of the nightmare dwelling within.”

《…….》

“White Night, it’s you.”

Without bothering to answer, White Night’s shadow tapped the snow-covered burial mound with its fingertips.

《The personality sleeping here is mine.》

“…”

《I will devour this personality, take over the body of its owner, and be reborn as a new White Night. So don’t interfere, Half-Dragon.》

“You’re the one who’s tiresome, undead…”

With her fine, stiffened fingers, Dusk Bringer barely clenched her fist and slowly prepared for battle.

“Get out of the way. That child is too beautiful for something as vile as you to touch.”

Then White Night’s shadow laughed out loud.

《Aren’t you just as vile, Half-Dragon?》

“…You’re right. I’m just as vile.”

Dusk Bringer smiled bitterly.

“But, even if it’s a rotten and eaten body… it can at least be the firewood to keep that child’s campfire burning, can’t it?”

White Night’s shadow did not continue the conversation.

Instead, it spread its arms wide and aimed at Dusk Bringer with the ice fortress it controlled – and the entire frozen world.

The entire fortress vibrated, the ice outer walls soared into the sky, and ice spears and frost spikes poured down like a blizzard from all the land and all the sky.

In the midst of the surging winter, Dusk Bringer did not retreat and kicked off the ground.

And…

***

……

……

…A faint warmth.

Envelops my frozen body.

A small, weak, but unmistakable slight fever caresses my forehead.

I slowly opened my eyes.

A cloudy sky with falling snowflakes was visible.

I realized that my body was lying in a transparent ice coffin. That the coffin was buried in a white tomb, and that the lid of the coffin was wide open.

That someone was digging through the tomb with their bloodied bare hands, breaking the coffin, and taking me out of it… and hugging me.

“Just a moment.”

Someone who was caressing my face with careful hands, as if touching a camellia flower found in a snowy mountain, whispered in a tearful voice.

“Just for a moment… let me hold you like this…”

“…”

I slowly reached out my arms and hugged her frozen body in return.

The white frost that had formed on the Dragon Lady’s closed eyelashes melted and flowed down as clear droplets.

After a miraculous reunion in a nightmare covered in ice, we held each other like that for a long time.

It was winter.

It was warm.