The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 479

Azadin opened his eyes, tormented by a terrible hunger.

The light was blinding.

But he realized it wasn’t real sunlight, just a pale white glow.

Perhaps it was because he had been in the dark for so long. It felt less like waking up from sleep and more like waking up from a faint.

“Ah.”

“Your Majesty!”

He heard people cheering.

“You’re awake.”

Azadin’s eyes felt stuck shut. He tried to rub them, but his hands felt incredibly heavy.

“Ugh… I’m thirsty and hungry.”

“Yes, what are you all doing! Prepare the gruel immediately!”

Soon, servants brought gruel.

Azadin squinted, his face contorted against the brightness, and looked around.

“Where am I?”

“The underground of Asendar, the elven city.”

There were glowing crystals and mushrooms emitting light between the stone walls built in the style of the ancient elves.

It seemed to be the underground of Asendar.

“Asendar… I shouldn’t still be here. How long was I unconscious?”

“It’s been two days.”

“Really? Luckily, it wasn’t too long. That’s a relief.”

Azadin moistened his lips with water to prevent them from cracking and carefully tried the gruel.

He couldn’t taste it.

He didn’t know if it was his poor condition or the gruel itself, but from the smell, it seemed like a lot of things were mixed in.

‘Well, it’s for the king, so they must have brought good ingredients. Is this proof that my body is broken?’

Azadin took a few small bites and then put the bowl down. He had no appetite at all.

He got up.

“Your Majesty, you should rest a little more.”

Despite the people around him trying to stop him, Azadin took a deep breath and circulated his mana.

-Snap.

A sound like something breaking echoed, and drops of blood splattered around Azadin.

The skin near his collarbone had torn, causing blood to spray.

His skin, not even a blood vessel, had torn on its own, causing blood to splatter. Azadin realized that the mana flowing through his body was not normal.

“What? Why is so much blood coming out?”

Azadin immediately tracked his mana.

A considerable amount of the power of miracles was being activated.

Besides warding off the cold with the Light of Kingship, he could feel many powers of the Divine Kings flowing through him and into the world.

“Let’s finish eating first and then talk.”

Azadin reached for the gruel again, forcing it down his throat, and looked around.

Azadin’s vassals were waiting for him to finish his meal.

“So, what happened after I collapsed?”

“The Northern Emperor formally requested the King’s Church to recognize you as Emperor. And he forced the Holy Knights of the King’s Church in Asendar to pledge allegiance to you.”

“Really?”

“Yes. As a result, the Holy Knights and priests of Asendar have recovered their divine magic.”

It was truly amazing. Due to Cohen Lionheart’s coercion, the Holy Knights and priests of Asendar swore allegiance to Azadin.

In fact, even without coercion, the Holy Knights and priests in Asendar had witnessed Azadin performing miracles against the Nether’s touch [a dark, corrupting force].

So, many priests had begun to follow Azadin sincerely, and surprisingly, divine magic began to manifest in them.

Before, only those of good lineage could properly use divine magic, even among the priests and Holy Knights of the King’s Church. But now, those with sincere faith, regardless of lineage, could use divine magic.

It was truly a king’s miracle.

“This makes it even clearer who the true king is.”

As Zion Etar said this, Zibeck continued.

“In other words, those priests and Holy Knights in Banreung, Arangi, and Butuma who cannot use divine magic must have harbored disloyal thoughts. If those who have already received His Majesty’s grace cannot use divine magic, doesn’t that mean they are disloyal? They must be punished.”

“No, let’s not do that. There aren’t many priests from the King’s Church in our army anyway. More importantly, that happened? That’s a big problem.”

“What? A big problem?”

“My body is in worse condition because the Holy Knights are using divine magic. I’m the medium for divine magic, which is like having millions of people cross a small stone bridge at once. It’s good that people can use divine magic, but it also means that the burden on me, the medium, is increasing.”

At that moment, the stone door in the elven style, which was Azadin’s residence, opened, and Cohen and the Holy Knights arrived.

*********

“Oh, Emperor. I heard you’ve awakened. Are you feeling alright?”

Cohen seemed genuinely happy to see Azadin awake.

Just a short while ago, he was willing to do anything to defeat Azadin, but now he was acting like this. Everyone who saw it was dumbfounded.

However, Azadin calmly accepted Cohen’s words.

“Cohen, you seem well. Are you sitting on the throne of Asendar?”

“Yes. I am working hard to evacuate people to atone for my past impudence. To that end, I am drawing power from the throne to protect people.”

The Northern Emperor was sitting on the throne of Asendar, using the maximum output he could draw to protect the roads leading to Asendar and the northern sea routes connecting Asendar, Karasar, and Tarasar, helping people evacuate.

“The knights of Asendar have also pledged allegiance to Your Majesty and are using the power of miracles, so no one will doubt that you are the legitimate agent of Yaegas [the name of the gods]. There are still some disloyal people who refuse the gospel, but it’s only a matter of time for them as well.”

The other vassals who were listening felt a mix of emotions as they watched the Northern Emperor rejoice.

‘That bastard. He’s really taking advantage of this.’

‘He’s tormenting Azadin while only looking out for his own interests.’

In the past, the Northern Emperor would throw away the uneducated and poor among his own people to starve or freeze to death.

But now, he was freely using Azadin’s miraculous power, increasing Azadin’s burden, and working hard to rescue refugees.

He claimed to have changed his ways.

But no one believed him.

“Haa… That’s not what I wanted.”

“Haha, you are too humble. Many people say they dislike worldly riches and fame, but it seems only Your Majesty truly sees them as pebbles on the road.”

“It’s not that. This is truly not what I want. If we do this, even if we survive this battle, the same thing will happen again.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you think the Nether gods came to this land? Because we crave miracles. Which side has more power, the Yaegas gods or the Nether gods?”

Azadin’s question was blasphemous just by saying it.

The King’s Church forbade any questioning of the Yaegas gods.

But everyone knew, even without saying it. The Yaegas gods had limits to their power, but the Nether’s envoys had no such limits.

If you were to compare the two simply by the total amount of miracles, the Nether gods were absolutely superior.

“The desire for miracles is what brought the Nether gods to this land in the first place. Selling miracles to reassure people might be effective in the short term, but it will ultimately lead to another destruction.”

“But now is the time to hope for even short-term effects. A porter’s A-frame is his livelihood, but if he’s about to freeze to death, he has to burn it for firewood to survive.”

“I know. So, I won’t say too much. Ugh.”

Azadin turned his head, grabbed a water container, and vomited everything he had eaten.

“Are you alright?”

“People are praying in my name and using divine magic. In Tarasar and Karasar too. Hmm, I need to activate it while sitting on the throne there.”

Even in the underground of Asendar, the old elven city, Azadin could feel people praying and drawing divine magic from far away in Tarasar and Karasar.

Thanks to Cohen’s zealous preaching of Azadin’s miracles, many Holy Knights in Karasar and Tarasar had begun to use divine magic in Azadin’s name.

Of course, if you suddenly told people that Azadin, who had been their enemy and a target of contempt until just recently, was now the true divine king and even the emperor, they would all be dumbfounded.

However, the cold had become extreme.

A cold wave, incomparable to anything before, suddenly swept over the two kingdoms of Karasar and Tarasar, and people witnessed a terrible monster in the far western sky and the descent of light that defeated it.

In the midst of this, some Holy Knights who were friendly to Azadin were able to use divine magic.

Many had despised Azadin, a member of the Herald Clan, but some, who liked old-fashioned knightly tales, highly praised Azadin for completing the Errantry Quest of the Rescue Knights [a traditional quest for knights to prove their worth].

If a knight had completed the Errantry Quest, could they not be trusted?

Especially among the rigid Holy Knights, there was a tendency to view anyone who completed the Errantry Quest as a noble knight, even if they were a member of the Herald Clan.

Divine magic was revived around these people.

And that became Azadin’s burden.

As he became the bridge connecting the Yaegas gods and the mortal realm, immense divine power passed through Azadin’s body, and each time, Azadin was engulfed in a pain that felt like he was burning.

“Yes, then, should we, uh, cut off the connection?”

Cohen asked.

If Azadin’s growing fame was a burden to him, then what he had done was against his will.

Cohen, realizing this, asked in surprise, but Azadin shook his head.

“They must be using divine magic because it’s necessary. If I don’t respond to their call at this time, that would also be a problem. I have to endure it somehow.”

Zibeck, Ismail, Niselda, and the other vassals of Azadin who were watching glared at Cohen with cold eyes.

He would endure it somehow.

Azadin had always kept his pain to himself, but now he wasn’t hiding it.

It wasn’t that he could hide it anymore, but Cohen, who had created this situation, was not liked.

It was good that Cohen was trying to make Azadin the emperor and spreading his achievements, but as a result, Azadin’s consumption was accelerating even more.

Cohen was doing it with pure intentions, but others who remembered his usual scheming could not help but suspect, ‘That bastard is trying to kill Azadin and take his place.’