Book 4: Chapter 54 |
More than twenty years ago, Leon was still playing dragon-slaying games with other kids at the Karsmode Orphanage.
Somewhat ironically, because young Leon was naturally much stronger and taller than children his age, he usually ended up playing the role of the dragon.
Who would have thought that he’d grow up to become a dragon slayer—and marry a dragon, no less.
Back to the point.
Leon showed the traits and talent of a top student from a very young age. After finishing games with his friends, he would often run off alone to the orphanage library to read.
Back then, the library subscribed to the Empire’s daily newspapers.
He didn’t remember every single piece of news, but he clearly remembered which important figures had died.
For example, the dejected old man locked in the cell before him—Foel Rast. Leon remembered very clearly that more than twenty years ago, this man’s death notice had been printed in the papers.
Not only that, the Empire had even held a grand memorial for this seemingly illustrious official.
Yet here he was, more than twenty years later—alive and breathing.
“We tried using memory-probe magic to figure out what was going on,” Nacho said. “But strangely enough, every time we attempted to cast a probing spell on him, a mysterious force inside his body resisted it. We never managed to extract any useful information.”
“A mysterious force?” Leon asked. “Something like a consciousness barrier?”
After Constantine won his first resurrection bout, he had attacked the Red Dragon Temple. Although he ultimately failed and was taken away by the Ironwing Dragon King, Fer, Fer had planted a consciousness barrier in Constantine’s mind on the road back to the Empire.
Because of that, when the Empire’s mages later rebuilt Constantine’s body for the second time, their mind-control spells no longer worked on him.
That had been a key factor in Constantine’s eventual escape from the Empire.
And such a consciousness barrier could also resist memory-probe magic.
But Nacho shook his head, his expression grave.
“It’s not a consciousness barrier. Sensory-type mages say it’s a kind of magic they’ve never seen before. It doesn’t feel like an actively used ability—more like something… passive.”
“Passive?” Leon echoed.
“Yes. And it doesn’t just counter probing magic. Any magical energy that enters Foel’s body simply disappears.”
Nacho continued, “The strangest part is that we discovered Foel once practiced magic himself. But now, his magical circuits are basically all dead. He has no magic power left at all.”
In the magical system of the Samel Continent, anyone who wanted to practice magic first had to cultivate magical circuits within their body.
And there were only two ways for those circuits to die.
One was being overloaded and destroyed by excessive magic.
The other was the opposite—having all one’s magic forcibly drained away.
But as far as Leon knew, Foel had been a civil official when he served as the Dragon-Slaying Army’s chief administrator. He never needed to fight, just sit in an office and bark orders. He shouldn’t have encountered enemies at all.
So what had destroyed his magical circuits?
Combining all the information Nacho had provided, Leon frowned in thought.
“Capable of resisting probing magic… all magic entering his body disappears… a mage whose circuits are dead… and someone who should have died twenty years ago, yet is still alive.”
Leon clicked his tongue softly.
He felt like he was close to something, but the idea was like a thin, illusory thread—barely visible to the eye, impossible to grasp.
After a moment, Leon spoke.
“Let me talk to him directly. Maybe I’ll notice something new.”
Nacho nodded. “All right.”
He took out a key and opened the cell door.
Leon stepped forward, then turned back to the others. “I’ll handle this alone. Wait here.”
“Yes, Captain.”
With that, Leon entered the cell and closed the door behind him.
He wasn’t worried about a hundred-year-old man suddenly exploding with power and attacking him.
And even if the old man tried, Leon wouldn’t mind being accused of “beating up an elderly person.”
Hearing footsteps, Foel slowly lifted his head and looked at the man before him.
Those murky eyes narrowed slightly as he studied Leon with caution.
He let out a low hiss, as if rummaging through that rusted brain of his for memories.
After a moment, a cold sneer crossed his aged face.
“Karsmode… so it’s you.”
“When you ‘died,’ I was only three or four years old,” Leon replied calmly. “A child that young shouldn’t have been memorable enough for a famous imperial official to recognize on sight.”
As he spoke, Leon crouched down to meet the old man’s gaze. His voice was low, cold, and faintly aggressive.
“So you didn’t just crawl out of a grave recently. You’ve been hiding somewhere all these years, watching everything, haven’t you?”
Foel met Leon’s dark, murderous eyes.
This gaze…It’s different from the people who interrogated me these past days.
Those black pupils were calm as still water—but beneath the surface lurked a terrifying surge.
Foel had seen plenty in his long life and usually never faltered under interrogation.
Yet the man before him stirred genuine fear in his heart.
“Even if I have,” Foel said stiffly, “what of it?”
Though shaken internally, he maintained an appearance of composure. He had no intention of losing the first round.
“I won’t tell you anything, Karsmode,” Foel continued. “I was once the chief administrator of the Dragon-Slaying Army—your superior. I outranked you. If you’d been born in my era, I could have signed a single order and had you sent to the logistics corps to feed horses for the rest of your life.”
His pride was forced, brittle, ready to shatter at a touch.
Leon could hear it clearly—this old man was already at his limit.
But Leon didn’t expose him right away.
“Feeding horses doesn’t sound so bad,” Leon said lightly. “No risking your life slaying dragons. Easy pay.”
After a brief pause, he added, “Though if possible, I’d rather not feed horses.”
Foel scoffed. “I thought you were truly carefree. In the end, you still don’t want to be a stablehand.”
“No, no,” Leon replied. “What I mean is—horses won’t do. Could we switch to feeding donkeys instead?”
“……”
Foel froze for two seconds, then blew his beard and roared in rage.
“You idiot! Are you mocking me?! Come on, kill me now if you dare! I won’t say a damn thing anyway!”
“Let me make this clear—if I still had my former status and power, you wouldn’t even be worthy of speaking to me!”
“You dragon slayers are nothing but brainless dogs, forever trampled beneath people like us!”
“Bastard!”
“……”
Classic high offense, low defense—two sentences from Leon were enough to send the old man into a red-hot meltdown.
He ranted furiously, but the core message was simple: I was great, I was the greatest, and you were nothing.
People always reveal their weaknesses when enraged.
From Foel’s outburst, Leon became even more certain—this man valued power and status above all else.
Which made things easy.
“Besides killing me, what else can you do to me? Hahahaha—”
Leon, who had been silent for a while, finally spoke again, unhurried.
“Nothing much.”
“Because an old man as useless as you wouldn’t threaten me even if you lived another fifty years.”
“So tell me—what was the point of living this long? You only enjoyed glory and wealth for a handful of years.”
“You thought changing your name and hiding would let you live out your days in peace. And yet here you are.”
“Tut, tut… it seems time really does erode everything.”
“Including your power—”
“And your once untouchable status.”
Foel’s already-crumbling pride shattered completely under Leon’s words.
“Nonsense! I— I’ll live for a long time yet!”
His rage muddled his thoughts.
“Fifty more years? I tell you—even if you turn to dust, I’ll still live for hundreds more!”
Leon raised an eyebrow.
He had finally caught hold of that once-intangible thread.
“Oh… then you really are long-lived.”
“Just like a Dragon King.”
…
Footnotes:
- xue baSlang for an academically gifted overachiever; a “top student” type.
- lao dengInternet slang for an old man, often used mockingly or dismissively.
- hong wenSlang meaning to become overheated with rage; to lose emotional control.
- bao fangColloquial term meaning to have one’s emotional defenses collapse and react explosively.
- qiang nu zhi moAn idiom describing someone at the end of their strength—appearing fierce but actually powerless.