The Return of the Iron-blood Sword Hound
chapter-476

Chapter 476: The Unrivaled Father Who Knows Destiny (1)

A severed head sneered.

[Didn’t I tell you from the beginning? Your efforts are in vain.]

“……”

[As of now, it is impossible to kill me. Give up, demon hunter.]

Phlorosya continued to wag his tongue.

It might be truth or may be lies. Would Vikir be deceived knowingly, or would he push through?

Camus, standing beside Vikir, ground her teeth in frustration.

“Hey, is that bastard telling the truth? Will that so-called Gate of Destruction really open if we kill him?”

Two voices responded.

One came from Sere, trembling on Camus’s shoulder, and the other from Decarabia, clinging to Vikir’s chest.

[Phlorosya possesses the power of deception, so even we don’t know if what he says is true.]

[...But it's very likely. He’s cunning, after all.]

In the end, even demons of the same caliber couldn't tell whether Phlorosya was lying or telling the truth.

At the critical moment of choice, standing at the crossroads, Vikir hesitated.

Should he let Phlorosya go, or kill him and risk opening the Gate of Destruction?

Even at this moment, Phlorosya was turning his head into mist, slowly escaping.

Cold sweat dripped like heavy lead.

Vikir clenched his teeth so hard it seemed they might break as he wrestled with the decision.

…Just then.

"Do what your heart says."

A deep voice came from behind Vikir.

It was Hugo. He cast a long shadow over Vikir.

“My son.”

He called out to Vikir.

Vikir did not turn around.

But Hugo continued to speak.

“Even if a child makes a wrong choice, it is the father’s duty to bear the responsibility.”

Vikir found those words strangely fresh.

After finishing his statement, Hugo muttered softly to himself, ‘It’s funny for me to say such things when I’ve never really been a father.’

At that moment.

Screeech-

The sound of claws scraping the ground was heard.

“W-wait!”

Vikir quickly turned his head, but it was too late.

…Flash!

Hugo swung his sword.

A fierce slash struck the ground.

It was aimed where Phlorosya’s head was, just as he was about to make his escape.

[Aaaargh!]

A piercing scream echoed through the air.

The merciless strike severed the demon’s last lifeline.

Vikir’s mouth hung half open as he watched Phlorosya’s head shatter into pieces.

The demon was slain. Vikir would have made the same choice given a little more time.

But the weighty responsibility of the decision was taken from him.

And it was done by Hugo, whom Vikir had never considered a father.

Unintentionally, Vikir ended up appearing as if he had deferred the decision like a child seeking comfort.

“……”

“……”

Vikir and Hugo’s eyes met.

A complicated tension hung between them.

Everyone gathered in that delicate atmosphere found themselves at a loss for words.

…At that exact moment.

Boom! Crash!

A sudden bolt of lightning struck from the clear sky.

Dark clouds gathered, and a red pillar of light appeared in the sky.

It was a truly immense and towering red line.

The red curve, which seemed to form a circle, began to weave a complex, geometric pattern at its center.

And Vikir instantly recognized what it was.

“The Gate of Destruction!”

Phlorosya died, and his words came true.

He borne an immense burden, equivalent to annihilation, in order to open the Gate of Destruction and had used his own life as a tether to seal it.

Now that Phlorosya's lifeline has completely severed, the seal has been released, and the gate has opened as foretold.

The second corpse, a demon of the highest level, had summoned the gate at the cost of his life.

By now, Phlorosya's soul must be suffering a penalty worse than annihilation, trapped in eternal agony. But none of that mattered anymore.

The Gate of Destruction has opened.

Vikir barely suppressed the violent trembling that seized his entire body.

Soon, the monsoon of hellfire would begin.

A long monsoon season signaling the end of this world.

‘The storm of dreadful calamity’

The demons' ultimate weapon that nearly wiped out 98% of humanity, inflicting the greatest and most horrifying damage on the Human Alliance.

Endless rains of fire, fiery winds, lightning storms of flame, and floods of molten lava.

The crimson raindrops falling across the entire world will burn everything to ashes.

The mountains' grass and trees will ignite, forests will turn into ashen deserts, seas and lakes will boil over until they become wastelands, and all living things will either burn to death or dry up into desiccated husks.

The great flood of fire that will rage for the next 150 days will annihilate all remaining life.

"...It was real?"

"A dimensional gate of this scale... It's incomparable to anything I’ve experienced before..."

"I've never seen such a terrifying spell before! The overwhelming sense of doom..."

"I can't believe it. Something like this existed?"

"It makes Nouvellebag feel like a cradle in comparison."

Camus, Aiyen, Dolores, Sinclaire, and Kirko all stood speechless, staring at the massive dimensional gate forming in the sky above.

Seeing it with their own eyes, yet unable to believe it—that was the essence of their disbelief.

And at that moment...

Boom!

The entire sky began to tremble violently.

Vikir shouted like a thunderbolt.

"The first explosion is coming!"

He vividly remembered the moment the Gate of Destruction opened before his regression.

As soon as the gate opens, a colossal inferno will pour out from within.

The instantaneous heat will turn tens of thousands of soldiers into mere ashes in an instant.

The Gate of Destruction that appeared here now possessed that kind of power.

Rumble—

The gate opened slowly.

The crowd was already horrified by the searing heat that was beginning to pour out.

"...It's hot."

"Pssh— I'm already dying of thirst, and now we're going to burn to death?"

Even Orca and Sade had to surrender their will to fight against the Gate of Destruction that appeared in the sky.

Cindiwendy, who was standing on the ramparts of Fort Tochka, also spoke up.

"...If that thing starts spewing fire, Tochka will be blown away entirely."

The countless refugees who had been desperately hurling stones from the walls also fell silent, losing their will to resist.

A natural disaster that didn’t allow even the thought of resistance, a presence that brought overwhelming despair and fear.

That was the Gate of Destruction.

The red dimensional gate that opened in the black sky had now fully formed.

And now, it began to slowly reveal its deep, malevolent interior.

At that moment—

Step—

Someone stepped forward, through all the despair, chaos, and fear.

Vikir.

His expression was calm, more serene than ever.

'...Now I understand why I returned.'

Perhaps it was to stop this very situation.

Chaaang—

Vikir drew his sword.

And then, he took a determined step forward toward the Gate of Destruction, which was gaping open toward Tochka.

And then...

Rumble!

A gigantic pillar of fire shot out.

It was a supernatural disaster of a magnitude comparable to the eruption of the Nouvellebag volcano.

Like a tongue emerging from a mouth, the Gate of Destruction spewed out its first crimson flames, attempting to scorch everything in its vicinity.

But one person jumped towards it,

Vikir, he burned every part of himself to sever the ‘tongue’ of the Gate of Destruction.

This was something he had been prepared for ever since he first woke up in the Cradle.

...Rumble!

Vikir, squeezing out every last drop of his mana, conjured a black sun at the tip of his sword.

The eight fiercely spinning fangs took the form of a sphere, standing against the Gate of Destruction.

But it was so small and insignificant that it looked like a moth flying into a torch.

'Still, I can't give up.'

Gritting his teeth, Vikir exploded all the mana in his body.

He summoned every ounce of strength, from the day when he strangled serpents in the Cradle to now, launching a final strike.

Vikir’s slash, imbued with Dolores’s blessing, clashed against the flames spewing from the Gate of Destruction.

Tightly—

Vikir closed his eyes, imagining his body soon being consumed by the flames.

…

...However, nothing happened.

There was no impact, nor did he feel any heat.

“?”

Puzzled by the lack of change, Vikir opened his eyes.

And what he saw was astonishing.

The Gate of Destruction. The inferno erupting from it. Tochka on the brink of annihilation.

And something standing defiantly between them.

Black fangs.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

They were blocking the flames pouring out of the infernal gate.

"No, not eight..."

Vikir slowly counted the number of fangs.

There was one more than eight.

Nine.

The ninth fang was fiercely biting into the flames.

Nine fangs resisting destruction. The ninth style of Baskerville.

The terrifyingly explosive clash of red and black aura was holding back the apocalypse from reaching Tochka.

It was something Vikir had seen once before.

In the Sword Tomb. Cane Corso who had once been the strongest count, stood at death’s door, becoming a death knight.

It was the pre-requisite to master the ninth style.

‘You have to die to master the 9th style, hence 8th style is the pinnacle of baskerville swordsmanship’ Cane Corso told Vikir.

The Supreme Baskerville.

A being that had crossed the boundary of life and death.

An undead, who despite having died once, was granted a reprieve from oblivion.

'...Since when did he act like a father?'

Hugo.

Hugo le Baskerville.

The head of the iron-blooded Baskerville clan stood there proudly.