Contrary to Jamie’s expectations, Hawks woke up sooner than expected.
He looked up at the ceiling of the room. His last memory was the sight of a huge light attacking him.
And he seemed to have hastily countered, but seeing that he was unconscious… he must have failed.
He lost to a human.
To a race he thought was weak.
However, it didn’t feel humiliating.
“Your expression looks more peaceful than I thought?”
“Right.”
Isis was sitting at the table sipping her tea.
Hawks tried to get up but then frowned and lay back. He didn’t realize it since he was lying down, but when he moved, his body ached.
“Don’t even think about moving for a while. The doctor said your whole body is hurting.”
“… I lost.”
“You lost to a human who you thought was weak. Tragic. So how are you feeling?”
“Not as humiliated as I thought.”
At that, Isis was shocked.
She thought Hawks wouldn’t accept the defeat easily.
“I thought you would say Jamie Welton is unique but humans are a weak race.”
“That is true.”
“Ah.”
Isis drank the tea with an expression which said there was nothing to talk about.
Hawks looked at the ceiling without a word and spoke after thinking.
“He didn’t break my beak. I thought he would break it.”
“Right? Why didn’t he break it? If it were me, I would have broken it.”
“You already broke it a lot of times.”
“True.”
When Hawks trained under Isis, it wasn’t just a day or two that he suffered under her. When it was excessive, his wings or beak were always damaged by this woman.
“It has been a while since you cried out you were going to be strong.”
“Because I didn’t want the title of an underdog.”
“Uh~”
Hawks closed his eyes. He remembered that day.
The black dragon. It was unknown why it suddenly attacked their race’s village.
Hawks was the leader of their race, and led the men to stop the dragon but it was a terrible defeat.
All his men died there, and he himself was on the verge of dying.
But the dragon didn’t kill him.
He slapped him on the head and said,
-Weak things fall apart with struggle. And join the trash like race, be it human, dwarf or elf. When you see a dragon like me, you need to bow your head and act like a slave.
Humiliation he suffered because of being weak, that was something he couldn’t bear.
On the one hand, he felt pathetic.
He suffered due to being weak. If he wasn’t weak, this wouldn’t have happened. If he had been strong, he could have protected everyone.
-The weak should act like one.
The unknown black dragon smiled and said that.
The weak become weaker and the strong become stronger.
The words which lived in Hawks’ mind.
Can the strong abuse the weak?
Should the weak accept the harassment from the strong with a smile?
It made no sense.
Hawks tried to get the dragon to kill him, but the dragon smiled and said,
-This is the ‘right of the strong’.
And Hawks couldn’t deny it. Because it was the strong who have the right to let people live.
If one becomes strong, they can enjoy it.
But is that the right thing?
No.
And he agreed with it.
The strong have their own task and the weak have their own tasks. But that doesn’t mean one should force themselves on the other.
Because the strong exist, the weak too exist, and because the weak exist, the strong can exist.
If that balance is broken, the logic of the world will turn into chaos.
The world is flowing with black dragons. A strong power is needed to stop that one.
And his present self is weak.
‘Then I will just become strong! I will become the strong one who protects the weak from such humiliation!’
Hawks could see the path he had to take after meeting with that crazy black dragon, and eventually pursued the same thing, but in a different way.
The world was trapped in ‘dualistic thinking’ and consisted only of strong and weak. Hawks didn’t realize that this was a twisted thought.
After that, he saw Isis cut down the black dragon.
Later, he heard that she was trying to bring his race into Frontier, but came to know of that black dragon messing around, so she cut it off.
Isis was strong and acted for the weak.
Whether that made sense or not. Hawks asked her to train him and the man gifted in learning absorbed everything she was teaching.
And now…
‘I lost.’
In the hands of people he thought were weak.
And he didn’t know until he lost.
Humans and weak races similar to humans, he only thought of them as objects to be protected. He thought it was the humans’ task to help the strong and make things move smoothly for them.
Well, even now his opinion hadn’t changed much.
“Humans are weak. Dwarves don’t like traveling around and other than their talent for making things, they are not as powerful as elves. But you know…”
Isis leaned her chin on her hand in silence.
“They are struggling too. To be precise, on average, the Birdman race isn’t as strong as the three major races, but it is true that there are many humans. There are monsters born that rival us in numerous numbers.”
“Jamie Welton.”
“Not just him. Han, Jin, Beryl. There are countless powerful people who represent the human world. What about dwarves? Even though they are not born with force, they have technical skills to narrow the strength. So are they weak? Then elves? They aren’t born with the strength of high elves, but there are kids like Sharan.”
To the unanswering Hawks, Isis continued,
“I said it before. You are under the curse.”
“Curse of strength?”
“The stimulation you got from the black lizard then is tormenting you. Wake up Hawks. The world is not a binary one made of just strong and weak.”
Isis stood up immediately.
Hawks will need some alone time and as she walked out, she left one last word.
“With this valuable defeat, I hope you will have an understanding too. Rest up.”
Hawks turned his head to see Isis who left.
“Valuable defeat…”
Somehow, his heart felt relieved.
He didn’t know why he wasn’t upset.
“Master!”
“Lord!”
Venna and Behemoth rushed at the same time. But Jamie was a little tired so he passed the two of them and headed to bed.
He took off his robe and lay flat on the bed.
“Maybe he is too tired?”
“Seems like it.”
Jamie was the type of person who would normally have pushed them or hit them.
Venna walked over to the bed and the Behemoth was on her head.
“Are you tired?”
Jamie waved his hand, being too lazy to answer.
Venna and Behemoth looked at each other. It wasn’t the Jamie they knew.
Behemoth whispered in Venna’s ear.
“You seem tired. We will come tomorrow.”
“Yes!”
“Don’t try to speak like me!”
It was a voice which was like a whisper, but Jamie didn’t respond. The two shrugged and headed for the door.
Then waved to Jamie, who was closing his eyes.
“Master, I will be back tomorrow!”
“Lord, me too!”
So the two left Jamie’s dorm. Jamie, who was alone, opened his eyes.
He was looking up at the ceiling, thinking about his fight with Hawks.
In the Lake of Unconscious, Jamie saw Black and from that point, a power awakened.
When he opened his eyes, he felt like he moved to a higher realm. Now he had reached the peak level of 9th class, and not just half of it.
The problem wasn’t that.
‘Black’.
Black didn’t answer.
“You didn’t wake up?”
There was a clue that he gave to Jamie during the fight, but Black was still in deep slumber.
It was nice to see it after a long time, and when the time comes, Black will come again.
“This power is… right.”
13th holy power.
The power created by Jormungand using Jamie’s black mana.
And Jormungand spoke about how the 13th holy power is different from others.
It wasn’t wrong.
The power awakened from starlight is similar to the 13th holy power, but it existed without ‘belief’.
He thought maybe this was what Jormungand wanted to create.
“The polar opposites work out in the end.”
Black Mana born in the shadow world ruled by the Dark Spirit King.
As Jamie assumed, the world of shadows was a space different from darkness. When the power created reached the peak, it turned to light.
And now it was like a holy power.
What did that mean?
‘The primordial darkness and the identity of 12 Gods.’
Black mana was a power created for the sake of taking down Gods.
He made it himself but didn’t think it would be strong against holy power.
Perhaps…
Just maybe…
‘Isn’t the contrast of 12 Gods the primordial darkness?’
This was the realm of speculation.
However, black mana turned to starlight similar to the holy power used by the 12 Gods.
And it didn’t require faith.
But this didn’t make sense. The extreme is not to say that they didn’t match, but they aren’t natural enemies.
Why did black mana have the power of holy power?
Why did black mana that reached the peak become similar to holy power?
‘Why did they even imprison me in the darkness?’
No…
‘From their point of view… because the primordial darkness is the most dangerous place?’
So, the most dangerous enemy, Diablo Volfir, was sealed there.
This is because, by nature, living things consider the dangerous places to be right for their enemies.
It isn’t impossible if the primordial darkness was a natural enemy to the Gods.
But why put their enemy there?
‘I don’t know that.’
Jamie got up from the bed and walked to the window.
‘They left the windows open.’
He put his arm through the window and looked at the sky.
The sky was clear because of the fight and the stars were shining brighter.
There were 12 Gods in the sky.
If he could figure out the relationship with primordial darkness and the Gods, he could kill them.
‘I failed in my previous life, but…’
Jamie mumbled, recalling as he looked at his hand.
“In this lifetime, I will definitely bring you down.”
A world where huge pillars of light fell like a waterfall.
A world where the aurora was spread out in the sky, and a huge lake was floating in the aurora.
At the centre of the huge temple-like being which was on dozens of columns arranged in a rectangular shape was a beautiful fountain, placed around the temple, with a beautiful garden built around it. And there was a man being managed by the fairies flying around.
“Free.”
The man was living comfortably on the sofa and voicing his boredom.
“Nothing fun. There is nothing fun in the world. I’ve been repeating the world for tens of thousands of years, but nothing fun has come.”
The man looked bored.
This was expected.
It had already been tens of thousands of years since he sat on this throne.
There were times when it felt like there was a crisis, but those moments now felt like fleeting moments.
Even that being was now in the place of primordial darkness, so was there anything to fear in this world?
However, the situation was that those who were like family were now enemies.
“Look. What is that woman up to?”
At that moment, a fairy approached him and said,
“It is said that a new apostle has appeared and is recovering the lost regions.”
“I see. Then my apostle?”
“You didn’t make one.”
“I did. What about my sword?”
“Just leaving the southern lands.”
“Pathetic.”
Despite all the not-so-good news, the man didn’t react.
If anything, he could be called emotionless.
“Is the war going to start soon?”
“Are you talking about ‘the war’?”
“The situation is that my servants are having a hard time, so I need to cheer them up. Because this is also a task of ‘God’.”
“The people will repay you with more faith, my God Zenith.”
At that, Zenith nodded.
“If we do this, the Sun God will be stimulated a little.”
He was being sarcastic.
The God of War and Peace commanded this fairy.
“I am bored but it all went well. Pyro. Let’s start with that wench. Let the revelation of ‘Holy War’ be given.”
“Yes.”
The temple wasn’t far.
