A dragon? No one could have ever expected it.

Regardless of rank or affiliation, everyone who heard Nex’s words widened their eyes, doubting their own ears. Even Leon fell speechless. It was the only natural reaction.

Even though centuries had passed since their last appearance, the entire continent still remembered the existence of that transcendent race. Drakes and wyverns were categorized as dragonkins, but compared to an actual dragon, they were more distant than a goblin was to an ogre.

An adult dragon’s body ranged anywhere from fifty to a hundred meters, and their physical capabilities were absurd. Their magic was even more so. Humanity’s current magical system was widely believed to have originated from dragons themselves.

The Breath they unleashed from their dragonhearts—brimming with inexhaustible power—was said to level mountains, tear open the sky, and once aided ancient divine beings in slaying countless invaders from beyond the world.

The Archbishop of the Evil Order is a dragon...?

As if responding to Leon’s stunned thought, El-Cid spoke.

—Well, I kinda saw it coming. I just couldn’t be certain since I’ve never seen him directly.

You’ve never seen a dragon? 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

—No, I mean I’ve never seen the Archbishop. I met plenty of dragons in my time. Their pride is so high that I had to smack them a few times, but they eventually learned to behave.

Newly reached adults aside, an Ancient Dragon was a being even Grandmasters treated with caution. But before Rodrick, all were equal.

Even the Demon King—whom the entire world had to unite to defeat—failed to leave a single scratch on him. What use was transcendental pride before such a being?

Imagining that scene made Leon blank out for a moment, then he snapped back and replayed Nex’s words.

The Archbishop of the Evil Order... is a dragon.

The Archbishop was a legendary figure in the opposite sense of Rodrick. He was an enemy of the entire world.

The Nine Hell Bishops were similar, but because they were continually hunted and replaced, none had accumulated notoriety like the Archbishop. Even within the Holy Church, countless debates had been held regarding the Archbishop’s identity, but dragons had never once entered the discussion.

I heard that dragons were fundamentally beings of harmony and goodness. How could one fall so deeply into corruption? Leon asked.

—If what Nex said is true, then this dragon would be the first in history to do that. Transcendent races have such elevated natures that deviating from them is difficult. Why do dragons, who should be detached from worldly desire, love gold and jewels and live in remote lairs? Instinct. Pure instinct.

El-Cid continued, sharing knowledge of dragons nearly lost to this era.

—To the point—dragons are born with an innate ability of “Attunement”.

Having an innate ability was one of the defining traits of transcendent species. It was different from the elves’ affinity for magic or the dwarves’ craftsmanship and was more like the Asura’s ability to tear space, or the Gandharva’s capacity to move freely through sky and water. These were abilities impossible for other races to replicate.

A dragon’s innate power was Attunement.

—Dragons can directly interfere with the natural laws of this world. They can rewrite ecological structures, control weather patterns, shift geological activity, and so on. An Ancient Dragon could turn a desert into a meadow or delay a volcanic eruption.

In other words, Dragons possessed power that had taken half a step into divinity. This was why dragons had long been revered as divine envoys or guardian gods of lands and nations.

They played the central role in restoring the world after it was devastated by invasions from other dimensions. Calming distortions in Demon Realms and sealing dimensional rifts had also been their duty.

Only after hearing all this did Leon finally understand.

Ah...!

—You get it now?

If a dragon could close Demon Realms that the goddess herself struggled with, then of course, a dragon could also open them.

Even the exolaw Morse used at the cost of the Death King had only managed to open a portal for moments. Only a dragon’s innate power, Attunement, could manipulate Demon Realms directly. This was also why Rodrick had once suspected the Archbishop was a dragon.

While Leon was conversing with El-Cid, Nex, lying collapsed on the ground, let out a faint, almost amused breath.

He said, “That’s all I know. Whether you believe it or not is up to you. The rest... you’ll have to find out yourselves.”

Leon didn’t reply. He only nodded. Then, he stepped aside, giving Lyon space to approach.

The two remaining members of the Clyde royal family faced each other. Their origins, their paths, their endings—there was not a single point where their fates overlapped.

Seeing Lyon’s impassive expression, Nex smirked crookedly.

“I can tell by just one look at your face, brother. You and I are indeed both sons of that damned rapist.”

“A rapist, huh...” Lyon muttered.

“Will you deny it? I don’t know if the late emperor treated you kindly, but to me, he was trash. Just a man calling himself noble while violating a lowborn woman.”

“I have no intention of denying that.”

“What...?”

Nex froze. He stared into Lyon’s eyes—eyes without a flicker of agitation, calm as a still lake. The blood boiling in his chest cooled.

Lyon looked down at the brother he had never truly considered a brother, someone who had grown up in a world completely opposite his own.

“I did not come for petty revenge. As a member of the Clyde royal family, it is my duty to cleanse the sins of my house and restore peace to this land.”

He spoke not as the fugitive who once fled Nex’s purges and hid in the Academy but as a man who now stood on equal footing with kings.

It wasn’t that he lacked anger, nor that he lacked resentment. He simply was not ruled by them.

“I won’t pretend I hold no grudge. You killed my father, my brothers, and my subordinates. If I followed my heart, I’d gouge out your tongue and eyes right now.”

“If you want to, go ahead. Ectoplasm barely has a nervous system, so I wouldn’t feel a thing,” Nex chuckled darkly.

Lyon, however, only snorted softly and shook his head.

“What point is there in torturing someone who can’t feel pain? Besides, I refuse to become like you. You fell so deeply into hatred to the point of no return and became the Mad Emperor. I won’t follow that example.”

This time, Nex had no words. So, Lyon continued.

“Brother... I will become Emperor.”

He turned toward the ruined capital behind him as he declared it.

Calelum. The most majestic and splendid city on the continent only years ago, now in total ruin—and yet he proclaimed he would overcome this catastrophe.

“Even if the Empire falls and I become merely a king of a nation, I will never become someone who destroys everything as you did. History will record the Mad Emperor as the Empire’s greatest criminal. And future generations will call you someone who inherited your father’s blood rather than talk about how monstrous the father who murdered your mother was.”

“Is that your revenge?”

“It is your just punishment. You chose the path of the perpetrator, not the victim. Now you face its end.”

“Nonsense! I regret nothing!” Nex spat out the words, as if defending himself. “Trapped in that desolate palace, there was no other way! No one protected me, no one loved me—my mother died at that beast’s hands! All I did was fight against the fate forced onto me!”

“Then who should the countless people killed by your ‘fight’ blame?”

“That...”

Nex faltered. Lyon pressed forward mercilessly.

“No matter how tragic your childhood was, taking the hand of the Evil Order was your choice. It’s time to accept the consequence.”

“...”

“I won’t resent you anymore. Nor will I forgive you. As a ruler, I’ll simply deliver the appropriate judgment to a criminal.”

With that, Lyon drew the sword at his waist. The blade slid free with a clean shring, slicing through the cold night air.

The killing intent that spread with that sound reached all the way to Nex’s exposed throat.

“Criminal Nex Imperium Gladius Pon Clyde. I will now recite your crimes.”

With the blade resting against Nex’s neck, Lyon spoke in a low voice—calm, steady, formal—as he listed his brother’s offenses.

There were far too many.

Even if he applied every punishment recorded in the imperial law code, there would still be sins left unaddressed. Lyon’s voice echoed through the ruins of the White Peak Palace for several long minutes, and the Aura gathered along his blade grew clearer and sharper.

But eventually, he reached the end.

“For these crimes, I will now pronounce your sentence.” Lyon declared, “Execution by beheading. Do you object?”

“...”

Nex didn’t answer at first. He simply looked up at the night sky that looked the same as when he was a child. If there was one thing that had changed...

“I see...” he muttered as he lowered his eyes, then slowly opened them again, looking up at the blade pointed at his throat.

The young man holding that sword had sharp, unmistakable features. A face so similar to his own—one that was painfully alike to the late emperor that Nex had hated when he saw it in the mirror. But now, for the first time, he looked at Lyon with everything finally set down.

“Do as you wish.”

With no apology, no pleading, Nex smiled faintly, almost mockingly. He had been born from hatred and resentment. His younger brother, on the other hand, had been raised with love and honor. He had always believed he would never be able to accept such a person—not even at death’s door.

Only at the very end did he realize that it had all been a mistaken assumption.

I thought I had no more blood ties after my mother was murdered... but perhaps not. If not for our monstrous father, who deserved to die a hundred times over, maybe we could have been decent brothers.

That was Nex’s final thought as he closed his eyes.

From beyond the darkness behind his eyelids came the soft hiss of a blade cutting through the wind. Then, following a sharp, slicing sound, his severed head hit the ground and rolled.

Ectoplasm was merely a spirit shaped like a body, so there was no blood. Even the idea of vital points didn’t fully apply, though damage still mattered.

Already on the brink of collapse, Nex’s form began to break apart from the moment his head was severed. From the tips of his toes to the fallen head on the ground, his ectoplasmic body fragmented.

In less than ten seconds, there was nothing left of what had once been Nex.

Without speaking a word, Lyon looked down at his sword—clean, unstained by a single drop—then turned away, his expression unreadable even to himself.

Is this... truly the end? he asked himself.

Could there have been a better outcome? Lyon had no way of knowing. He could only bear the reality that had been placed before him and walk forward.

Just as Nex, trapped in the side palace, had once chosen the best path he believed he had, so too had Lyon made his own choice, step by step.

In the end, Nex died, and he lived.

This is enough. It has to be enough.

There had never been a path where the two half-brothers could accept one another. If tragedy was the only possible conclusion, then letting the wicked fall and punishing the guilty was the only rightful ending.

He had to believe in the conclusion he chose. He had no choice but to believe it because the path Lyon would walk from this moment on allowed no room to show weakness to anyone.

Lyon Imperium Gladius Pon Clyde. That was the name the new Emperor of the Clyde Empire must now claim.