If a god were to fail in creation, would it look like that?

It was a hideous form that seemed to be a mixture of animals, mythological monsters, and humans. The so-called "monsters" were slaughtering humans one-sidedly.

On the bloody battlefield, dozens of knights fought bravely, but they could only delay their own slaughter. Finally, some soldiers began to flee, throwing down their swords. The monsters, cunningly, targeted those soldiers first.

Amidst the chaos of war, where preserving life was difficult, change began to unfold from one side.

*Bang!*

A small explosion.

The massive monsters collapsed, coughing up green blood.

A tsunami appeared in the sea that was teeming with monsters.

A soldier stared at the man as if he were in a trance.

"That's Lord Sollent······."

The only calm in the storm of blood and gore.

The man in the center walked leisurely. His dignified footsteps were straight and graceful.

Yuriel von Sollent.

The soldiers in his path didn't need to thrust their swords or raise their shields. Before their swords could even strike, the monsters' bodies burst and crumbled away.

With the appearance of a single person, the tide of battle began to turn.

"Disgusting creatures."

In Yuriel's eyes, the monsters were burning up.

It was a story from over 30 years ago.

The Fall of the Magicians: The discovery of monsters that are immune to magic.

Yuriel was the only survivor of the Sollent family, which was at the center of the incident.

In the ruins of his manor, Yuriel saw the blood of his family and servants scattered everywhere. He witnessed their last moments, their bodies crushed and torn apart.

The young Yuriel's resolve, made as he looked upon that scene of carnage, has not changed to this day.

He vowed that if he could only kill all of those monsters, he would gladly give his life.

Thus, Yuriel's life has been marked by endless effort. Even the tempting offers of the imperial court could not sway him. He shut himself away in his tower and devoted himself to research, with only one goal in mind: to kill the monsters. He became so reclusive that he was even called a "hermit."

In the end, his natural magical talent and years of hard work paid off.

*Bang!*

With a loud bang, the head of the monster, the man-faced bird, which was spewing poison gas, disappeared. Peach-colored feathers fluttered in the air. The monster's green blood, which flew close to the ground, was blown away without a trace by the knife-like wind.

Yuriel would not even allow that dirty thing to brush against his sleeve.

Explosions rang out one after another. The magic that struck the monsters was [Dust Explosion], which created flammable particles inside their skin and ignited them.

The magic created by Yuriel, a once-in-a-lifetime genius whose level was beyond comprehension. It was his obsession to exterminate the monster that took everything from him.

A series of magic that was considered impractical because it required pinpoint accuracy on coordinates that were beyond the user's field of vision.

Yuriel felt a headache that seemed like his head was about to evaporate. It was only natural, as he had been using magic that required a tremendous amount of mana and complex formulas without rest. An average magician would fall into a state of mana poisoning and lose consciousness with just one spell.

However, Yuriel seemed to have lived for this moment alone. The speed at which he was destroying the monsters became even faster. If this continued, the monster army would be wiped out.

"The Lord is leading the charge! Advance, all troops!"

"Waaa!"

The soldiers, sensing victory, thrust their swords with all their remaining strength. Thousands had been sacrificed, but in the end, humanity had won. Or so they thought.

The sky suddenly darkened. Something was blocking the sun, floating high in the air above the battlefield. The soldiers looked up with trembling faces, their eyes filled with despair.

"T-the Sky Whale... Solcarce, how could you do this to me...?"

A giant black whale, the Sky Whale, flying through the air, its body measuring 200 meters in diameter, was floating in the sky.

Yuriel raised his hand toward the sky, but the Sky Whale remained unmoved. Smoke rose from its gray skin with a hissing sound, but that was the extent of the damage. The [Dust Explosion] that had helped him reclaim his title of Count of Sollent was useless against that massive body.

Yuriel bit his lip.

*Bang! Kwaang! Kwaang!*

Yuriel unleashed a barrage of magic he had spent his entire life learning, casting, and perfecting. The Sky Whale was engulfed in thick black smoke. Someone saw hope in the black ash falling like snow.

But Yuriel knew. If his magic had worked, it wouldn't have left such a dirty mark. His innate nature dictated that the magic he cast should have cleanly exploded the interior of the Sky Whale.

The magician's intuition was not wrong.

After the smoke cleared, the Sky Whale simply looked down at the ground as if it was annoyed.

It was a sickening feeling of having one's entire life denied. He felt nauseous.

As his mana began to run low, his body started to feel the strain. His lips trembled, and he felt dizzy, making it difficult to keep his mind.

"Even so, until my mana runs out."

Yuriel's hand was once again filled with mana. Even if he suffered from mana poisoning, even if he died right there, he would bring down that disgusting monster to the ground. As he was gathering the mana scattered in the air,

*Whoosh-!*

The Sky Whale began to suck in the air. People began to collapse, suffocating in the suddenly thin air. If that condensed air headed toward the ground, there would be no living creatures that could survive on the battlefield.

Blood dripped from his bitten lip. He didn't want to accept the reality that he had to give up, but he couldn't tolerate causing innocent casualties with his own stubbornness. He had to at least reduce the number of soldiers who would be sacrificed.

Yuriel stopped the magic he was about to shoot at the Sky Whale. Just as he was about to unfold a thin barrier into the air,

*Boom-!*

A deafening roar shook the earth.

The only one who can pierce the Sky Whale's body.

"He's alive!"

The soldiers who were backing away stopped in their tracks, and the knights who were holding on to their duty took a step forward.

People called Yuriel a genius of all time. However, the hero of this era was someone else.

"Lavida..."

"I wish I had been the one to destroy the monster... in the end."

Amidst the dust, he appeared on the battlefield, covered in the green blood of monsters. In an instant, he tore the mouth of a monster that rushed at him with his fist and looked up at the sky. After a while, he said.

"Count Sollent. A corpse is about to fall."

It was an arrogant statement to say that he had already "killed the Sky Whale," but Yuriel knew what would happen next. It was familiar to him.

Lavida, who had soared into the sky, thrust his spear at the Sky Whale.

*Kwaaaan-!*

Even if one reaches the peak of magic, could they really produce such immense power with a single strike?

Even with all his strength and exhausting his mana, he couldn't penetrate that hide. But Lavida did it with a single strike.

The fallen beast's body created a gust of wind, stirring up dust on the ground. Yuriel knew what he had to do next.

'Again...'

His task was to move the body of the Sky Whale, the giant corpse, so it wouldn't fall on the soldiers. His throat was dry. This feeling, this powerlessness that there was nothing he could do... no matter how many times he experienced it, he couldn't get used to it.

During the past three years of the 'Monster Subjugation,' Yuriel had slaughtered countless monsters, but his magic proved ineffective against high-ranking ones like the Sky Whale.

Ultimately, it was overwhelming physical strength that could kill these detestable monsters.

The gap between him and the young Count would likely only widen in the future.

With these thoughts, he pushed aside the corpse of the Sky Whale. It was the last of his mana that he had intended to use against this monster.

Still, Lavida's unique energy was scattering golden remnants across the battlefield.

"That light will burn all the monsters to ashes..."

Yuriel thought that this... this would be enough.

* * *

Five years' journey into the harsh northern wilderness.

Even the seemingly endless monster extermination had a conclusion. The monster king looked down on the humans in a place where monsters swarmed like ants.

Selerathus, who called himself the king, was a human. No, he was a demon or a god in the form of a human.

With his gesture, hundreds of bodies were torn apart, and with his breath, thousands were reduced to ashes on the spot. It was a miserable death.

In the end, only a few stood on the final battlefield.

The barbarian Aktubaar's shield blocked the attack head-on, and Celine, who became the tower lord at the age of twenty-five, blurred Selerathus's vision. Yuriel summoned a [windstorm] to create a path to Selerathus.

This process, the sacrifice of countless lives, is the will to move one step forward for one person.

A sacrifice to the gods who would take the life of that demon in their stead.

In response to the call of the believers, Lavida, who had saved his strength for this moment, stepped forward.

The earth shook with each step he took. The golden aura emitted from his spear stretched out like it was going to cut through the sky. With just one step, Lavida's spear was only one step away from piercing Selerathus' neck.

"Lavida!"

Even without Aktubaar's desperate cry, Yuriel was also watching the situation closely. A blood-red spike had been created in the air and was charging towards Lavida.

The spike would stop his steps before Lavida's spear could reach him.

Yuriel knew...

that if there was only one person who could end the monster, it was not him.

The right to walk this path, made up of countless deaths, belonged to that shining light.

There was no time to think, but he didn't care.

The five years of his journey had been etched into his instincts.

Time seemed to stand still as Yuriel's body rippled with a blue light.

It happened at the same time. The spike stabbed something instead, and Lavida's spear finally pierced Selerathus's neck.

Lavida barely had time to savor the feeling of killing Selerathus before he turned with a sense of dread.

The spike was still vibrating as it pierced Yuriel's chest.

Yuriel had used the teleportation spell [Blink], which requires a high level of concentration and calculation. In a split second, his determination made it possible.

Blood was rising in his throat, but Yuriel swallowed it back.

In this place where dirty blood was flowing, he could not show a hideous appearance.

Lavida pressed his hand to his forehead.

"······Count Sollent."

Yuriel stood tall. If it weren't for the blood flowing from his chest, you would not have known he was an injured man. His first words in the face of death were filled with stubbornness.

"What happened to the monster······?"

"It's dead."

A single word that finally declared the end of the war.

It was the goal that Yuriel had burned for his entire life.

'Even if it wasn't my hand.'

The pain was so intense that it felt like his mind would snap, but he had to laugh.

Seeing the end of that disgusting demon······ he should have felt relieved.

But it's strange.

He can't laugh. He can't smile.

A feeling he doesn't understand twists his lips.

"Count! Count Sollent!"

Celine approached on a broomstick.

As expected, her face, which was always smiling brightly, froze as soon as she saw Yuriel.

"What should I do······ What should I do, Master? This······ Ah, ah······."

Celine, who was crying like beads, rummaged through her clothes. She pulled out a secret medicine that could even revive a person who was about to die, but Yuriel shook his head.

"You know that, too. It's too late. It's just a lingering desire to see that end."

Celine, who had absorbed his teachings, knew it more than anyone else.

His heart, which could be called the core of a magician, was pierced by a spike. He was barely circulating blood with mana, but that was only for a short time. Mana was quickly running out like a bottomless poison. He would not be able to hold on for long.

Yuriel's eyes stared straight ahead. Lavida was walking towards him.

The green mist was billowing from the tip of the spear he was holding, where the blood of Selerathus had evaporated. The golden aura surrounding his body was still shining brilliantly.

Lavida, who had put down his spear, placed his hand on Yuriel's back, who was in a precarious position.

"I thought you might cry even at the moment of your death. Yuriel. You have a face like ice to the end."

Yuriel did not know what kind of face he was making now.

He only felt that his heart had been revealed for a moment.

"I······."

I thought it didn't matter who it was as long as I could stop the monster. I thought my life was worth giving up if it meant killing the monster. But those fleeting vows.

"Was I such a hideous human being?"

It wasn't entirely true. Yuriel just wanted to have that brilliant radiance that had even brought down Selerathus. He wanted to end the monster that had taken everything from him, with his own hands.

In the end, it was Lavida who achieved his wish.

Suddenly, the blood he had swallowed came up and began to flow out. The savage beast-like look on Lavida's face cracked. He frowned and rarely expressed his emotions.

"I am the head of a family and a warrior too. It was an attack made with the readiness to face death. Even if it hadn't been you..."

As he spoke, Lavida's eyebrows furrowed. He knew it too. If Yuriel hadn't bought him a moment, he would not have been able to finish it. As if he didn't want to show such a face, Lavida turned his head away.

"Do you have anything to say? You have no family, so I'll pass it on to the tower."

"I have something to say to the count."

"······Go ahead."

Even on the battlefield ten years ago when we first met, Lavida was shining. Yuriel still vividly remembered the moment when Lavida, who stood at the forefront, slaughtered the monsters.

"Even if it wasn't magic, I would have been fine with walking the path of martial arts, even if it wasn't proper for a noble."

Yuriel wanted to touch that strength, even a little.

It was a truth that he couldn't have spoken as a noble, but he thought he could be honest for once, at least at the end.

"I wish I had been the one to destroy the monster······ in the end."

Forty years ago, the fall of the magicians occurred. When my family and retainers were killed in vain before my eyes, the one who massacred the monsters was also that 'Lutentum'. The former head of Lutentum, Lavida's father, saved me from the massacre.

What has changed now from then······?

"Lavida······ I wanted to be you."

Only after he said it, did Yuriel realize.

I, Yuriel von Sollent, the sole heir to the proud Sollent and the pinnacle of magicians, was······ jealous of Lavida von Lutentus.

That foolish feeling was only surfacing now, at the brink of death.

"······I guess you're getting sentimental now that it's time to go. Is that even possible?"

Lavida just pitied Yuriel. He looked at him with sad eyes.

Is that so?

Was that brilliant light something I could never reach?

Yuriel squeezed the remaining mana and closed his eyes.

* * *

Yuriel swallowed the lump in his throat.

'I thought I was dead.'

His throat felt like it was going to belch up the blood that had come back up.

"Madam! The baby isn't crying!"

"What now? Do something!"

"Yes, yes!"

It was a strange situation.

And then, an unknown force lifted his body.

*Slap!*

With a resounding smack, his buttocks stung sharply.

Unable to hold back, Yuriel slightly vomited.

"Ugh..."

For a baby's cry, it was a rather dignified sound.  

Author's Note

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