Chapter 192

Chapter 192
## Chapter: 192
Chapter Title: I Am the Legion

After finally tearing through her restrictive shell and stepping into the light of the world, Hana reached a state of ultimate spiritual clarity.

Her intellect was fully ignited as she rose to the status of a Dragon God, evolving into a being of flawed-less perfection.

However, such transcendence demands a toll.

The weight of the Dragon God’s karma crashed down upon her, bringing the heavy obligations and duties of a “protector.”

Submit to this role and safeguard the planet.

That is the “destiny” carved for you, the power proclaimed.

“I am the sovereign of the Demon Blood Clan.”

But the Blade Queen fought against that predestined path.

Long before she ascended as a Dragon God, she reigned as the solitary monarch of the Demon Blood Clan.

Their ultimate ruler.

“The title granted to me by the Lord God is Hana. It represents the inception of all reality and total uniqueness.”

……Hana.

The first digit, the wellspring of existence.

Lord God Randolph must have harbored a deep intent when he christened her Hana.

The Blade Queen delved into that significance and truth, and before long, she grasped the realization.

“I am the legion.”

She was the collective, and the collective was her.

She stood alone as the peerless entity that functioned as both the many and the one.

The karma of a Dragon God could not strip away her fundamental nature.

Rather, it merely highlighted what she already was.

As this enlightenment took hold, transformations began to surge through the Demon Blood Clan as well.

-Praise be to Sovereign Hana!

-Advance! Become entities worthy of our monarch!

-We are the manifestation of the one and the many!

-Integrate! Bind our thoughts, fuse everything into a single whole!

-Exceed! Break your chains and go beyond!

Drastically.

At a velocity that bypassed any natural progression, the Demon Blood Clan shifted.

In both vessel and spirit.

Observing the metamorphosis of her swarm, Blade Queen Hana eventually prostrated herself before her Lord God.

“I shall go forth to sentence the idiots who oppose the Lord God.”

She could interpret his desires without the need for speech.

Lord God Randolph.

She and her swarm recognized no deity other than Randolph.

Those who stood against him were the enemies of the legion.

Following this, she departed for the front lines by herself.

She intended to stall Isera until the total evolution of her swarm was finalized.

“So this is my inaugural opponent.”

The Blade Queen felt a wave of genuine let-down.

Isera was also a commander of a vast force.

Yet that force was nothing more than a collection of Isera’s disposable tools.

They utilized the term legion, but it was a hollow label.

No different from automatons created from their master’s lack of wisdom.

No matter the quantity of puppets, one does not define them as a “legion.”

-Metamorphosis finalized!

-Requesting the order to advance!

-Seeking more substance!

-Seeking superior traits!

The Demon Blood Clan craved further growth.

To absorb more powerful genetic blueprints and be reborn as higher lifeforms.

Consequently, the Blade Queen gave the signal for her swarm to move out.

“I am the legion.”

She would demonstrate to these dolls the authentic definition of a “legion.”

The Seventh Lord Basara looked out into the emptiness in silence.

The finished leyline remained hidden, but she had watched the “Dragon God” exit through it just a moment prior.

“Hmm. A very strange creature.”

A fresh Dragon God.

It was following a path entirely distinct from any Dragon God she had encountered in the past.

A sensation that was impossible to describe.

She couldn’t quite label the feeling.

This was a massive development for Basara.

“An entity I cannot categorize.”

Had she ever faced such a mystery before?

It wasn’t a matter of overwhelming strength that made her skin crawl.

Nor did the being seem fragile.

Still, she had the impression it would be impossible to defeat.

A deep-seated visceral reaction radiated from that “Dragon God.”

……Yes, a feeling of horror.

Specifically, it was “disgust.”

Similar to how a human might flinch away from a crawling insect.

A human isn’t physically weaker than a bug, but the repulsion makes them recoil.

To Basara, that “Dragon God” evoked the same response.

A being she had no interest in fighting.

“Is that Dragon God a product of Wilhelm?”

If it was, he had built something truly bizarre.

Of all the Dragon Gods that had ever walked the earth, this one was the most atypical.

It surely possessed the most eccentric biology and vulnerability.

“A Dragon God shows itself, yet Wilhelm’s true form stays out of sight. That must be linked to the Dragon God’s weak point.”

She felt a pang of regret for not locating Wilhelm’s physical body, but the excursion wasn’t a total loss.

Basara had deciphered the situation.

The Dragon God and Wilhelm’s true body within that leyline.

The two were tied together by a massive thread of fate.

Would her sibling Isera be able to grasp this reality?

Should she provide a hint before things went too far?

Basara let out a small grin.

“Little sister. You’re going to perish again if you aren’t careful.”

……If she couldn’t see it for herself, her demise was once again certain.

A Dragon God is defined as a solitary entity.

A lonely sentinel of the cosmos.

It carries no allies, possesses no army.

A state of total impartiality.

It must commit itself exclusively to the world’s balance.

“Is that truly what a Dragon God is?”

Because of this, Isera was plagued by skepticism.

The nascent Blade Dragon God kept her own army.

The Demon Blood Clan.

That tainted lineage.

“But…… can the Demon Blood Clan actually take to the air?”

The most famous creature of the Demon Blood Clan was the ruler of Paysalmer, the Desert Queen.

That beast had controlled the city for eons by shedding its skin over and over.

But as far as she was aware, while the Demon Blood Clan had wing-like limbs, they were incapable of flight.

They were effectively massive maws rather than wings.

Yet now, the Demon Blood Clan took to the heavens, having remodeled those “massive maws.”

Their physical blueprints had been subtly altered.

Fine-tuned for buoyancy and aerial movement.

……Those are the vulnerability!

Ah.

Only in that moment did Isera have her epiphany.

The Blade Dragon God’s soft spot!

It was that very “legion.”

She identified herself as the legion and commanded one—a scenario never before seen for a Dragon God.

It was the ultimate sign that the army itself was her Achilles’ heel.

“Wipe them all out, and she will perish as well.”

The realization hit her, and a grin stretched across Isera’s face.

She was finally slipping up, revealing her flank.

“Agnis. Destroy those pests.”

Fire Spirit King Agnis.

The absolute master of the spirit plane, Isera’s weapon that could pierce anything.

Even though it was significantly depowered in the physical world, it was still a titan capable of bringing down Dragon God Lucaria.

How much had she paid in blood to secure a contract with Agnis?

It would incinerate such Demon Blood garbage in a heartbeat.

“Agnis……? What is wrong with you?”

But in defiance of her command, Agnis stood still with arms folded, refusing to move.

Isera scowled and barked the order again, but Agnis paid her no mind.

Its eyes were locked onto a single point.

“Reaper.”

The Reaper.

The entity that controlled space and warps at its whim.

Most likely the one who had shut down the gateways as well.

Agnis stared intensely at the Reaper.

……This is infuriating.

Her own tool was ignoring her.

For the first time since their pact began.

What was that Reaper supposed to be?

As if it were some long-lost relative?

Spirits didn’t have families, obviously.

“Tch.”

Isera clicked her tongue and dismissed the thought.

It didn’t matter.

She could trample the Demon Blood filth with her own “legion” even without Agnis’s help.

No matter their scale or coordination, they were still just the Demon Blood Clan.

Tainted and pathetic.

Mere low-level lifeforms whose very beginnings were a mystery.

By comparison, what of the demon race?

Manifested from pure mana, a unified force dedicated solely to protecting the Demon King.

Until now, she hadn’t focused on it because of Dragon God Lucaria and that annoying woman, but large-scale warfare was the one area where Isera felt most dominant.

“Legion. Eradicate those vermin.”

She would grind them into nothingness.

I quietly monitored the leyline.

Hana had now reached her full potential as a Dragon God.

She had set out for the war zone alongside her kin.

“To think the Dragon God’s vulnerability is me.”

The weakness of Hana the Dragon God was none other than myself.

I slowly thought back to the specifics of a Dragon God’s weakness.

《’Dragon God – Worshipper’ sustains harm only when ‘Randolph’ is struck. She is immune to all other forms of assault.》

She only takes damage if I am the one being targeted.

It wasn’t that her body mirrored my wounds.

Technically, only an attack directed at me could cause Hana harm.

“Basically, as long as I remain tucked away here, Hana is invincible.”

The perfected leyline was invisible to the outside world.

It required complex steps just to step inside the hidden space.

Unless Isera managed to find and strike this leyline, Hana was effectively immortal.

At this stage, I felt a flicker of interest.

Could Isera actually figure out where Hana’s weakness lay?

“Basara might, given her freakish instincts.”

If the foe were Basara, she might have sensed the truth.

Her ability to detect peril was, in some ways, even sharper than the “White King.”

Her incredible talent for breaking down anything in front of her was unmatched.

What Basara deconstructed and assimilated wasn’t just her enemy’s moves.

She could claim the enemy’s entire being as her own.

But Isera lacked that quality.

……Therefore, Isera could never hope to best Hana.

Not in a million years.

Isera felt as though she were trapped in a nightmare.

It couldn’t be happening.

“Those freaks…… they aren’t normal Demon Blood Clan.”

The clash of armies she had been so certain of winning was falling apart.

The battle was playing out in a way she never envisioned.

The Demon Blood Clan in the sky suddenly started to detonate.

Boom! Boom! Bwoom!

Blowing themselves up on impact, spraying torrents of blood everywhere.

The resulting blood mist was incredibly caustic, dissolving the flesh and skin of her demons.

It was impossible to parry.

It was a literal suicide attack, powered by their very life force.

The enemies were killing themselves just to deal a blow.

And that damage was hitting Isera directly.

“This…… this is turning dangerous.”

Her gut feeling screamed at her.

Genuinely life-threatening.

This was on a completely different level from standard attacks that caused physical wounds.

Those weren’t “suicide strikes” in the true sense of the word.

But this was the real thing.

Her one, true vulnerability!

“Not just a few. Over a hundred thousand suicide units controlled by a Dragon God?!”

What kind of Dragon God operated like this?

Aren’t Dragon Gods supposed to be protectors?

Yet she used her own people as living bombs.

And they threw their lives away without even a second of doubt.

“Attacks where they surrender their lives of their own free will are the only things that can fatally wound me!”

Simply blowing up because they were told to meant nothing.

They had to embrace the “sacrifice” themselves for the damage to count.

She had assumed they were just following a ruler’s script, not truly offering themselves up.

Sizzle!

But…… the moment the blood of the detonated Demon Blood Clan splattered on her, holes burned into Isera’s skin, leaving scars that refused to close.

Even Miron’s high-speed healing failed to kick in.

Seeing this, Isera fell into a state of terror.

“What…… what am I supposed to do?”

Escape was not an option.

Every path was sealed, and warping was blocked.

Isera’s frame shook with a slight tremor.

This freakish Dragon God was nothing like the ones she had fought before.

I am the legion, she had said.

The Dragon God herself was the army.

One and all, all and one!

Only now grasping the weight of those words, Isera’s pupils contracted in fear.

“Like this…… I’m going to die!”

……Because this road led straight to her own grave.