Chapter 9

Blood seeped from the cut inside his mouth, spreading a bitter, metallic taste. Haze's arm grasped at nothing, and the family he had reached out to, who had been there, had vanished due to multiple attack spells. His right arm was riddled with numerous lacerations, but compared to the fatal attack his younger brother had endured, they were mere scratches.

"What are you thinking? Do you want to die, Haze!?"

Haze rejected the friend who had rushed to his aid. He felt it would be better to have swallowed the vomit of livestock. Suppressing the rising acidity, he shouted the name of the culprit who had carved countless wounds into the earth.

"Rii-Teiaaaa!!"

"Huh, ah"

His bloodshot eyes scanned the area, finding the former adventurer who had defected to Liberio. As he approached, the girl's shoulders trembled with agitation. Haze, about to grab her by the collar, was blocked by a man. It was obvious who it was—another former adventurer, Lefty.

"Move aside, Lefty!! Don't protect her just because she's your woman!"

"Calm down, Haze. Besides, I was the one who gave the order."

Though he said it, it didn't matter to Haze whether Lefty had protected Reitia. He was still in conversation with his brother. Worm, though stubborn, was fundamentally a reasonable and conscientious person. There might still have been a way to reconcile.

"I was still talking to my brother, why!! He was trying to calm down, trying to sort out his emotions and stand up! Why did you attack him?"

"Because of that. If he regained his composure and looked around, there was a risk he would figure it out. Captain Haze, you don't know what your brother was like on the battlefield. If we let him escape, the damage would be immense. If we lose one of our pillars, the casualties in Haiselk will be reduced in the end."

"All you talk about is excuses—speak the truth, isn't this personal revenge because your hometown was taken over by your brothers?"

Haze interrogated the two former adventurers, but Reitia only bowed her head. As for Lefty, who was originally expressionless, his face remained unchanged.

"Do you intend to kill each other? Calm down, you have a family, don't you?"

Lefty tried to restrain Haze, who clenched his teeth so hard they might shatter and kicked the ground in a fit of impulse.

"Yeah, they were there just a moment ago. Yeah, damn it. Are you satisfied, making me abandon my family for their sake!!"

While Haze was raging, the scattered Liberio soldiers were busy with vigilance and collecting the bodies. They were thirty elite soldiers chosen from the homeland in case the negotiations failed, tasked with killing his brother. Without a secure route for advancing to the outskirts of the capital, and considering the difficulty of crossing the border with a large force, the Foreign Minister, who had been burned, had selected them to kill his brother.

"Any casualties?"

"None. The诱导火 of the Netherworld was quite ineffective."

"Even the ghost fire user is just a human in front of his brother, huh?"

Among the group were even those who had directly engaged in combat with his brother. Haze silenced the chattering soldier with a glare but suddenly felt dizzy, his vision narrowing. His feet felt as if they were standing in quicksand, unsteady. How did it come to this? Was it because he hadn't shown enough consideration for his brother, or perhaps he hadn't been trusted as a brother in the first place? Haze took short, rapid breaths, but the soldiers searching the area suddenly became noisy, uttering a phrase he couldn't ignore.

"There's a body... hey, it's still alive!?"

"Finish him off quickly—"

Haze, drawing his sword silently, said firmly.

"Stop, I'll drag him back to Liberio even if I have to. Where are the healing mages? Treat the wounds—"

The atmosphere around him instantly turned cold. Among the frozen soldiers, one man stepped forward. It was Howard, one of the Liberio soldiers who had saved Haze at the border. A member of the squadron Haze commanded, who had been involved in the reduction of the demon territory and had saved each other's lives many times.

"Haze, I understand your feelings, but no matter how much he's your brother, we can't help him. It would be a violation of orders. Besides, take a good look."

He directed Haze's gaze to his brother, who had been thrown to the ground. The sturdy armor had saved him from immediate death, but his condition was pitiful. His body was evenly marked by the Wind Fangs, and his life was seeping into the earth. His limbs were unnaturally twisted like withered branches, and none of them were intact. His chest, which swelled irregularly, suggested that his heart and lungs were not functioning properly.

"I'm sorry, but you need to prepare yourself. It's a fatal wound. There's no way he can survive."

Haze knew this without Howard saying it. His experience as a soldier on the battlefield warned him that his brother had no chance of survival. Lefty's voice calling his name was like a final push.

"…Haze"

"Ah, I know. I know!! Brother, what… why, why did this happen?"

Holding his brother's gaze, Haze's spine froze. Just as the war had changed Haze, it had also changed Worm. The golden eyes, which he had no memory of, were dark and murky.

"You betrayed me, didn't you?"

Those words accurately described the situation. The result of plotting against his own brother was the tragic scene before him.

"I love you, Worm… go to sleep."

Haze quietly thrust his sword. Whether his brother lacked the strength to fight back or simply didn't want to, he spat out a large clot of blood and his breathing stopped. Haze had seen countless bodies, but he was not accustomed to the body of a blood-related brother he had killed, and he was tormented by unbearable psychological stress.

With this, all his blood-related brothers were dead. One he couldn't protect, and one he had killed. His stomach convulsed, and unable to hold back the rising nausea, he vomited acid away from the body. Haze sat down on the blood-soaked ground, his legs trembling like a fawn, unable to find purchase. His vision swayed and wouldn't stabilize. Howard, unable to bear it, rushed to his side.

"Haze, I know it's hard, but we need to move. There's this much commotion. The Haiselk patrol will be here soon."

"Stop, I don't need support. I can stand."

He couldn't be a victim. His brother had done nothing wrong. Haze stood up and looked down at his brother, who was growing cold. This was reality. There was no trace of the face that had laughed together at their reunion.

"I'll take the evidence. Stay back. Haze."

A friend soldier with a helmet and an axe approached at a quick pace. The thoroughness was nauseating. It was clear what was about to happen. Haze, who had not responded to Lefty, was about to leave the scene when he noticed something fall from his brother's hand. It was the grotesque mask of a demon, as mentioned in the preliminary report. What had his brother been thinking, wearing this strange mask on the battlefield?

"Mask of a demon?"

It was ugly but a keepsake nonetheless. As Haze reached to pick it up, the mask, which should not have moved, began to vibrate, and a shrill sound shook the abandoned village. Haze, covering his ears, watched as the mask split in two. Flesh oozed out from the broken parts and stretched in countless directions. Soldiers who were caught were pinned to the ground and crushed, screaming. Haze, jumping back in a moment of instinct, was stunned by the scene before him.

"Damn it, three of them were swallowed!!"

"Keep your distance, don't get close."

"That's not in the intel. What's going on!?"

Blood spurted and overflowed, creating a sea of red. The flesh, expanding and contracting, gathered in one place, the center where Worm had been. Blood droplets fell, and the earth turned crimson. What emerged was not his brother's corpse. It had long, deep blue hair like the depths of the sea, golden eyes reminiscent of a reptile, and a height that towered over Haze by two heads. The female demon, wrapped in ominous ghost fire, had emerged from the earth.

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How much time had passed since her body was destroyed by the accursed yin-yang practitioner and the warrior like a demon? Trapped in the hateful mask along with her ashes, she endured days of boredom and suffocation. Even after she escaped into the human world during a great fire, those who wore her could not offer the necessary sacrifices and died in battle. In the end, only a handful of people had been allowed to wear her, and she was picky about her wearers.

Sometimes covered in dust, sometimes buried in the earth, the mask had passed through many hands. After two catastrophic human wars, she found herself in a chaotic land fittingly called a crucible of chaos. She had enjoyed herself immensely during the unification war, but it still wasn't enough. The mask waited, and finally found a man worthy of wearing her. This man from the same hometown met her expectations, offering blood and flesh. Unlike those who could only kill, he fought while struggling with conflict and anguish, which was endearing.

Now, this man was about to be exposed as a corpse due to the treachery of his kin. Would there ever be another man with the same physical and mental strength? Most importantly, the demon was picky. Even if she was a laissez-faire demon, she would rather cooperate than be buried for a century or two and end up in the hands of someone she didn't like.

The mask trembled. Whether it was a tombstone in a fortress or the intestines of a hideous giant snake, she had helped. But this was crossing a line. The man had to offer sacrifices until the demon fully manifested in the world. Most of all, the idea of brothers killing each other out of love and hate was endearing.

The sacrifices offered were insufficient, but if the man, who had taken in the eyes of his kin, could serve as a vessel, it would be possible for a time. The mask decided to consume the accumulated sacrifices. The mask, trembling as if in ecstasy, split in two, and a sea of blood overflowed. The surrounding air grew hot, and the expanding flesh enveloped the man.

The demon, using the man as a vessel, was born into the world. This time, the gender of the Ashen Child was female. The great demon who had reduced people, cities, and even countries to ashes had manifested. She trembled with joy as the world flowed through her senses. Inhaling the air into her lungs and exhaling it as a voice, the great demon roared at the foolish adversaries.