Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage-Chapter 573: Udara’s Acceptance and Changes I

CH573 Udara’s Acceptance and Changes I

***

When the Elder Dragon raised its head again, its gaze shifted toward Alex’s beast companions.

"[They are all good seeds]," it said suddenly.

"[In my lifetime, I was known as the Beast Emperor of this plane. I commanded many powerful beasts— mighty generals who stood beside me and faced the tribulation without wavering even once.]"

The dragon’s eyes grew slightly melancholic.

"[Our sacrifice... their sacrifice... granted this plane the hope and opportunity it now possesses. However, to achieve this, we forfeited our chance to leave good seeds behind to succeed us.]"

"[Please... allow me to remedy that.]"

Before Alex or his beast companions could react, the Elder Dragon suddenly drove its claws into its own chest.

Then it tore its heart out.

"Ba-dump! Ba-dump!!"

Miraculously, the heart continued to beat.

Each powerful thump caused the space surrounding it to distort and collapse.

The Elder Dragon squeezed the heart.

Instantly, it dematerialised, transforming into a mass of deep golden energy.

That energy then divided into three liquid droplets.

Without warning, the droplets shot toward Alex’s three beast companions.

Each drop pierced into the space between their eyes, where it remained suspended like a glowing third eye.

The bodies of the three beasts trembled slightly as veins emerged and latched onto the glowing mark, rapidly drawing the golden energy into their bodies.

Senu suddenly wobbled.

Fen and Dread soon followed.

The Elder Dragon waved one of its claws, and Alex suddenly found himself standing on the ground instead of atop Senu’s back.

"[Do not worry. They will fall into a brief slumber while the fusion completes]," the dragon reassured him.

"[Until then... allow me to send you back.]"

With another casual wave of its claw, Alex and his beast companions vanished from the space.

Once they had left, the dragon fell silent.

For a long moment, it appeared as though it were wondering whether it had made the correct decision in placing its hopes upon that human.

Eventually, it released another heavy sigh.

"[This is our final hope. If even he cannot complete the trials and gain the acknowledgement of the seven layers of Heaven and Earth —and the final layer beyond the Heavens themselves— then no one will.]"

"[And no one will be able to stop the tribulation...]"

—

Senu, Fen, and Dread suddenly found themselves back at the camp outside the Heaven-Earth Concordance Talismanic Field’s mountain formation eye.

From the looks of things, they had only been gone for an instant, as none of the Fortuna members around them seemed to notice that they had disappeared at all.

Perhaps their bodies had never left.

Perhaps only their minds had joined Alex within the trial.

Either way, the three could not care less about the details at the moment.

They were exhausted.

Using the last vestiges of their consciousness, the three beasts shuffled together into a small heap.

Then they immediately fell asleep.

The three were known to huddle together whenever they slept, so this behaviour did not attract much attention.

Well... except from a certain Orc.

The Orc merely wondered why Fen had not eaten the food he had served himself.

After a moment of hesitation, the Orc quietly ate Fen’s portion as well.

Of course, it was not because the Orc wanted to eat more. It was simply because he did not want the food to go to waste.

Of course...

-

Meanwhile, Alex’s eyes snapped open before the stele.

"I see you had an eventful trial."

A voice sounded beside him.

The mysterious old man looked at Alex with a knowing smile.

Alex immediately guessed that the old man likely sensed —or perhaps even witnessed— what had happened inside the trial space.

He had many questions.

However, he could already deduce that the old man would probably not provide a clear answer.

If any answer at all.

Alex turned back toward the stele and tried to prompt the reward list to appear.

Nothing happened.

"Greedy, aren’t we?" the old man chuckled. "You have already received a reward far greater than what was originally prepared, yet you are still searching for more?"

"Haha..." Alex laughed sheepishly.

Then, he shrugged.

Looking around, he noticed Eleanore sitting nearby, deeply engrossed in studying several scrolls.

Seeing how focused she was, Alex decided not to disturb her.

Instead, he turned his attention toward the remaining steles.

’No one else has come out yet?’ he wondered, raising an eyebrow.

However, the moment that thought crossed his mind— the eyes of two people suddenly snapped open.

One after another.

—

Clank! Clank!

The sharp sound of steel striking steel rang through the arena as two identical —yet fundamentally different— figures clashed weapons.

Udara moved swiftly, attempting to build and maintain overwhelming momentum to crush her opponent.

Yet every time her ’dance’ reached its peak, it was abruptly halted by her opponent— Her doppelganger.

The mirror image seemed to know her movements intimately, disrupting her flow with precise counters.

One might expect such interference to frustrate Udara.

In reality, however, she remained calm and simply began again.

Watching the exchange carefully would reveal something rather surprising.

Udara was not truly fighting to kill.

Instead, as the battle continued, her fighting style began to change subtly.

Her brutal, purely practical style slowly began to display traces of graceful elegance.

The sharp edges of her combat technique softened.

To an observer, it might appear as though Udara was learning her opponent’s style and integrating it into her own.

But that was not the truth.

Udara was not learning.

She was remembering.

Or perhaps more accurately— she was reclaiming a style she had abandoned long ago.

The doppelganger’s fighting style had not appeared out of nowhere.

It was the first style Udara had ever been taught.

However, the events that followed in her life had forced her to abandon it.

Just as she had been forced to abandon —or had lost— everything else from the life she once had.

When the battle had first begun, an emotion had surfaced within her that she had not expected.

Anger.

A deep, buried rage that had lain hidden within her heart for so long that even she had been unaware of it.

’If it wasn’t for that day... those people... This is the person I would have become.’

But the more she surrendered to that anger, the more she lost control of herself.

And the more she lost control— the more the doppelganger gained the upper hand.

Her mind teetered on the edge of collapse.

’Is everything I have built until now... worse than what I lost?’

’Worse than what was taken from me?’

But just as she sank into that abyss of doubt— a light appeared at the end of the darkness.

The face of the person most important to her appeared in her mind.

***