I Became the First Prince: Legend of Sword's Song
chapter-317

The first martial poem (1)

It had been around for a long time.

It had acquired many names over the years.

It was a great ruler of the ancients, a mighty lord of the giants, and a cunning chieftain of the orcs.

It was a wise leader of the dwarves and a respected king of the elves.

Sometimes it was a man, sometimes it was a woman.

At the same time, that was all a lie.

It was not an ancient, a giant, an orc, a dwarf, nor an elf.

It was neither a man nor a woman.

It was nothing but a false king.

The crowds that followed it always worshiped false achievements and grandeur.

It could have whatever it wanted, however it wanted, whenever it wanted. Whenever it wanted something, it could take it.

Then, when it got bored, it destroyed what it took.

Even if that thing was a kingdom which someone had spent their entire life building.

Because that was its nature.

It was a creator of rifts, a disrupter of order.

It was a being that destroyed worlds and fed off the chaos that arose from within.

Building a world was merely a consequence of its desire to achieve a greater satisfaction.

It destroyed numerous worlds and ruined numerous things.

And it devoured just as much chaos.

Despite this, it was always suffering from hunger.

Even after destroying countless worlds and filling its belly with chaos, it was still nothing more than an imperfect being.

It repeated destruction to fill a hunger that could not be filled.

It repeated destruction to quench a thirst that could not be quenched.

And still its existence was incomplete.

While wandering around, it met a young man.

In a world where humans were nothing more than things to put into one’s mouth and bite, chew, swallow, and excrete.

In the dirtiest and smelliest orc pen in this filthy world.

The young man was raised as livestock there.

Although he was naked and looked shabby, the young man’s soul shone brightly.

It was a splendid and brilliant light that it had not seen from the wisest of the ancients, nor the mightiest of the giants, nor the longest-lived of the fairies.

It didn’t hesitate.

As always, it took a place in the corner of the young man’s body and waited for its time.

“For humanity!”

The young man broke free of the dirty pen and rose up to face the world.

So he became the leader of a small group.

It watched the scene quietly.

Altruism that did not exist in the selfish ancients.

Boldness not seen in the cautious giants.

Patience which was lacking in the hot-spirited orcs.

Flexibility, unlike the stubborn dwarfs.

A colorful life which the unchanging fairies did not experience.

Humans had all of those things.

It was amazing and wonderful to it how such a small body could be endowed with so many things.

By then it was convinced.

Humans were the closet beings to the completion that it had yet to achieve.

But there was only an innate possibility.

Compared to those who ruled the world, the young man was so weak.

The small victories and accomplishments of the young man were nothing more than insignificant things that could be trampled upon at any time.

It didn’t want to vainly lose the clue to completion.

[I will guide you.]

So it chose to become his assistant.

Of course, this was only a temporary relationship.

When the time was ripe, everything the young man had accomplished would belong to it.

Even that shining soul and strong body.

While waiting for that day, it helped the young man.

The young man won numerous victories and eventually became the leader of the largest force resisting the ruling clans.

From then on, it began to slowly eat away at the young man’s soul.

It wasn’t an easy task.

The young man’s achievements had made his soul stronger, and what it could gain from that strength was only a small and insignificant part.

But that did not stop it from devouring the young man’s body and soul.

So when the young man ended the Great War and became one of the five heroes, it finally got what it wanted.

It became king again.

A world larger and more perfect than any it had ever created or destroyed was now belonged to it.

It felt supremely full and satisfied.

It had no doubt that everything it was feeling now would last forever.

It was confident that it would never again suffer from hunger or thirst.

That was a hasty judgment.

At some point, it began to suffer from extreme boredom and lethargy.

Looking around at the prosperous cities and territories, it no longer felt satisfied

Even though it had quenched its thirst with fine wine and filled its stomach with delicacies from all over the world, its stomach still felt empty.

It was very disappointed.

It had believed that this time it would be able to fill in what was missing, but it was mistaken.

But the disappointment didn’t last long.

Its time was infinite, and it would find the answer some day.

At the same time, there was also a sense of anticipation.

This was a world closer to perfection than any other world it had ever created.

Enough to make it once think that it had reached completion.

The chaos that would flow out when this world collapses would probably be a delicacy it had never experienced before.

But it ended up unable to taste that delicacy.

It was all because of the soul of the young man it had swallowed.

[I shall be a fence for humanity.]

That single wish was so intense and vivid that it became unable to do anything.

But that wasn’t all.

It tried many times to abandon its youthful body and live as a new being.

And failed every time.

By the time it realized this, it had already become a being that could only exist in the lineage of the young man.

It had tried many times since then.

Most of its attempts had failed, but it wasn’t without any gain.

First, the will of the deceased.

It was able to slightly twist the wish to be a fence for humanity.

It narrowed the fence to the world built by the deceased instead of all of humanity, and that world now belonged to it.

It marched its soldiers straight out of the fence.

In a time when there was no concept of borders, when there were no decent fortresses or castles left, it trampled on those who were too complacent to even imagine that humans would wage war on humans.

So it appeased its emptiness by destroying everything they had accomplished.

But it was still in chains.

The complete disappearance of those shackles would only occur after the accomplishments of the deceased and the myth of liberation had collapsed.

It was only when the myth became nothing more than a tall tale would it finally regain its freedom.

If it waited, the time would come eventually, but it was too boring to just wait.

So it decided to bring the date forward a little.

That wasn’t a difficult task.

It covered the eyes and shut the mouths of the people.

That alone was enough for humans, who only lived for a few decades or a century at most, to forget the past.

Furthermore, it destroyed all records relating to the Great War.

Now all that remained was to wait for the time to come.

It waited patiently for the moment when no one remembered what had happened in the past.

When it would be free.

The wish continued for a long time without ever being broken.

But no matter how strong or tenacious it was, all was meaningless in the face of hundreds of years.

The time was ripe.

The chains that had been so tiresome were on the verge of breaking.

Freedom was just around the corner.

If it had not been for a small country established in the north, if a new myth had not been born there, it would have finally been granted freedom.

But unfortunately, the freedom that had seemed so close disappeared like it was a lie.

When a new myth was born in the north, it realized that the loose chains had tightened once again.

It was angry, and it poured all of its anger out on the small country in the north.

It repeatedly attacked the small country that held on tenaciously.

At the same time, it also tried to nip the problem in the bud so that the same thing could never happen again.

Mana Heart.

The driving force which enabled weak humans to stand up against the powerful ruling species, the power which was the source of all the myths in the world, had to be erased.

It was not an easy task. It was almost impossible.

The sharpest sword ever forged by humans was the Mana Heart.

And humans were a race that would never want to throw away the sword they wielded to be left bare-handed.

At the very least, they would need a weapon which could rival the sword.

Just then, a really good sword came into its hands.

It was an art called Mana Chain.

Of course, Mana Chain wasn’t a useful replacement for Mana Heart from the beginning.

But the possibility was there.

It supported and invested huge amounts of money into that possibility.

And the fruits of its efforts were spread throughout the world.

Humans were very fond of the new sword.

They didn’t know how sharp their original sword was, and they didn’t know that their new sword would never allow them to reach the same heights as the knights of the past.

Without hesitation, they threw away the old sword and took up the new one.

Time passed again.

Even the myths that had originated in the north had been forgotten, and relatively recently the small northern country which had resisted so tenaciously finally surrendered to its army.

It had thoroughly trampled the small northern country.

After it had let out its anger, the chains loosened again.

Enough to be broken whenever it wished.

And eventually even those loose chains disappeared.

All that was left to do was to slaughter the flock and burn the fences to the ground.

It was time to enjoy the screams of the sheep and fill its belly with their meat.

The moment it placed the lambs on the table and picked up its knife.

A young prince from the northern kingdom, which was once powerful enough to threaten its country but was now little more than a vassal state, appeared before its eyes.

Even the brilliance of a certain soul that it had encountered long ago was like a firefly before the sun when compared to that of the young prince.

It was pitiful. It was dangerous. It was cold.

It was solid. It was strong. It was hot.

It was soft. It was beautiful. It was lovely.

It was hard. It was ugly. It was scary.

It was bright. It was dark.

The ever-changing radiance of the soul completely captivated it.

Just looking made the emptiness that had plagued it for so long disappear without a trace.

Just facing it, the hunger and thirst that it had endured for a thousand years disappeared.

It was curious.

It so desperately wanted to have that radiant soul and vibrant body.

It seemed that if it could just get those, this time it would finally be able to achieve true completion.

It wanted to take them now.

That was something it could do right away if it just reached out.

But it didn’t do that.

It hid its greed and desire in its heart and waited for the right time.

The little prince’s soul was certainly a precious thing, something that it had never seen before.

It would surely become more precious as time passed.

That would be the moment when it would reach completion.

The little prince did not stay long and went back.

Another boring day began.

But it no longer felt dispirited.

Neither did it feel empty.

Rather, every single day felt incredibly enjoyable.

It longed and longed for a reunion with the little prince, whom it would meet again someday.

It hoped that the soul of the prince would shine even more brilliantly the next time they met.

It wasn’t like it was just waiting quietly.

It drove its sheep over the fence.

Even the soft teeth of a sheep would be quite a threat to a prince who had yet to fully mature.

New flesh would grow over wounds, broken bones would heal and become stronger.

In this way, the prince would become so strong that the sheep would not dare to do anything to him.

That soul would become more precious.

Soon its patience paid off.

His name was widely known throughout the world.

[Knight of Dawn, Adrian Leonberger.]

When it heard the name, it thought that it was truly a coincidence.

Because that was also the name of the last burning spark in the first world it had destroyed, the final hope which would not go out.