The Hero Returns

* * *

The contents of the speech mostly had something to do with Bradley's life stories, such as how he came up with aura control or what he was thinking about when he founded the empire. He also told about the kind of trials and tribulations he had to overcome to reach this moment.

All those standing around out of pure respect toward Bradley found these stories deeply interesting, but to those who weren't, this whole speech proved to be a mountain of tedium instead.

Ya—wn

"Keum, keu-heum."

One by one, more and more people grew bored by the proceedings, and Bradley's eyes clearly noticed what was going on.

He stopped his speech, and a brief silence descended on the crowd.

"I see that you're all bored stiff."

Bradley's words were softly spoken, yet the people could still hear him crystal clear—so clear, in fact, that hundreds of thousands currently in the capital heard him with no problem.

"In that case, I shall end my speech here. Since this will be my last public outing, I might as well leave behind a good last impre—"

Kiii-aaaaah—!

A loud screech reverberated from somewhere up in the heavens.

Bradley stopped talking and raised his head. The gathered crowd followed suit as well.

"What was that?"

"Some kind of noise coming from above…"

"The clouds, are they splitting apart?"

The crowd began murmuring to each other.

Only up until a few moments ago, they were keeping their mouths shut trying to listen to Bradley's speech, but now, they were raising a frightening commotion, with some of them even freezing up where they stood.

The thick and heavy clouds covering the skies were gradually splitting apart, and somewhere beyond them was a presence so massive that merely sensing it sent shivers down their spines.

"All of you should brace yourselves," Bradley's stiff voice resounded. His voice came across as quite different from when he was making his grand speech, his tone sounding combative and on edge. "And get ready for battle."

And so, just as Bradley was about to make his first move…

Ruuuumble—!

Rumble—, Ka-booooom—!

Suddenly, a massive wall of indigo-colored flames covered up the sky, followed by a loud explosion. Bradley stopped pulling out his sword mid-way and took a look behind him. He found Su-hyeun walking up on the platform.

"It's finally here, isn't it?" Su-hyeun asked.

"Indeed," Bradley replied in a small voice that only Su-hyeun could hear. "It's here."

Kiii-aaaaah-ooooh—!

Another round of monstrous screech resounded.

Su-hyeun canceled his divine Flame covering up the skies. He cast his skill to protect all the people below from the massive aura emanating from up above, but honestly speaking, that creature hadn't even mounted a proper attack yet.

"No, that thing was just exhaling loudly," he thought.

The massive monster flying up in the air, the predator, gave off an incredible sense of presence, and for the first time in a long while, goosebumps broke out all over Su-hyeun's skin.

More than anything else, he was stunned rather deeply by the fact that he had to urgently spread the divine Flame to protect the crowd just because the monster breathed a bit hard.

And also…

"This guy over here is the same, too."

Su-hyeun glanced at Bradley standing next to him.

"They resemble each other."

The monster was a dragon covered in pitch-black scales, but Su-hyeun had no knowledge that such dragons existed. At first, he wondered if this was a new type of a dragon he hadn't come across before, but that turned out to be incorrect.

Because the aura coming off from the predator resembled Bradley's aura.

Gu-gugugu—

Eventually, the clouds completely split open, and the creature revealed itself.

It was a dragon wrapped up in pitch-black scales, and it was so massive in size that it seemingly filled up the entirety of the heavens above. One could sense the ominous and corrupted aura, as well as the unmasked hostility, oozing off from its whole body.

This monster—it was here to devour everything.

"Faf…nir," Su-hyeun muttered the monster's name without realizing it.

The atmosphere it oozed, its sheer size, and even the aura concentration it emitted were all different, but that face definitely resembled Fafnir's face which Su-hyeun remembered.

More importantly, the creature's aura that Su-hyeun could sense almost matched Fafnir's own, too.

"Although it's not a perfect match…"

Gulp—

Squeeze—

Su-hyeun gulped back his tension and gripped his sword harder.

"At the bare minimum, that thing is definitely related to Fafnir."

Fafnir, the worst monster that ruined Su-hyeun's world.

The thing was, Su-hyeun never really got to fight the monster in his previous life. Not only Fafnir ruled over countless monsters, but it was also smart and always used the creatures under its command to fight Su-hyeun instead.

Su-hyeun, exhausted from the continuous fighting, decided as a last-ditch effort to directly confront Fafnir, but even then, he failed to gauge the monster's true depth.

The only thing he found out was that majority of Fafnir's skills seemed to be closer in nature to magic-type attacks.

As such, this trial was an opportunity of sorts for him.

"I might get to find out the difference between me and that monster."

Su-hyeun hardened his resolve and made his move first. "Miru."

Split—

Miru ripped through space and peeked its head outside when Su-hyeun called out to it. At any other time, it would have started rubbing its face on him as it mewed away, but for today, it bared its sharp fangs and growled threateningly as soon as it appeared.

Grrrrr—

Su-hyeun had never seen Miru unleash so much naked hostility before, but he quickly remembered that other dragons, Miru's kin, were nearly driven to extinction by Fafnir.

"I'll leave it to you."

Miru began transforming after he made his request.

Its crimson hide and scales extended, its bones ballooned, and its overall size rapidly grew much larger.

However, despite becoming so much bigger, Miru's size was still way, way smaller than that of the predator. The massive black dragon, fully revealed below the cloud cover, was as big as one-quarter of the capital city.

Flap—

Whoooosh—!

Su-hyeun climbed on Miru's back and they lifted off toward the sky.

He looked down at the crowd of people gradually getting farther away below him. Bradley was saying something to them and urged them to get ready for the upcoming battle.

They didn't have much of a choice in the matter.

It seemed that the predator was planning to kill every living being present in this place. The hostility it continued to emit wasn't aimed at a particular thing but was meant for the entire world itself.

"At least they won't die a dog's death now," Su-hyeun thought.

He stopped worrying about them. He figured that he wouldn't have any leeway to do that from this moment on.

He simulated in his mind how he should go about fighting this gigantic "predator."

He quickly chose not to overcomplicate it. He looked at it as another flight-type monster, albeit one with a humongous size, and came up with a battle plan accordingly.

"First things first, we need to bring that thing down."

No matter how big it was, the humans numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

However, not all of them could fly, which meant that only by bringing that monster down to the ground would getting the assistance from his allies be much easier.

And thankfully, Su-hyeun possessed a pretty good method to bring the monster down to the ground.

"Strike down—"

Riding on Miru's back, Su-hyeun neared the cloud cover, but just as he began issuing his command…

"Somersault…"

"Come, descend to earth—"

Bradley's loud voice reverberated throughout the sky.

"Meteor."

Gu-woooo—

A huge shadow was cast over the head of the predator.

The moment that "thing" began its descent, Su-hyeun urgently placed his hand on Miru's back and shouted, "Dodge that!"

Gya-ong—!

Miru didn't hesitate for a second when Su-hyeun shouted and quickly changed its direction. Not even a few seconds later, right after Miru had managed to create some distance…

Ka-boooooom—!

Kiii-aaaah—!

A massive piece of meteorite slammed on top of the predator's back. The black dragon couldn't withstand the impact force, and its entire body staggered before its wings snapped upward as the huge monster began crashing right down to the ground below.

Su-hyeun and Miru barely managed to distance themselves from it in time and avoided getting swept up in the crash. All they could do was watch the ensuing spectacle with dumbfounded expressions etched on their faces. Eventually, they spotted Bradley standing on the ground with his hand raised up high.

"He…dropped a meteorite?!"

This was not the result of a magical spell. No, this attack closely resembled Sun Wukong's ability to control the clouds via the Sage Arts. However, the scope of the effect or the overall destructive power was completely on another level.

"He's stronger than the third brother in terms of the realm that they have reached in the Sage Arts."

Whether clouds or a meteor was used, it didn't take a genius to tell which of the two would be harder to control.

Compared to the clouds that were closer in distance or even lighter in weight, a piece of a meteorite was located much further away and weighed far greater. Therefore, obviously, controlling the latter would eat up a lot more energy.

Of course, Sun Wukong's true strength wasn't controlling the clouds but his marvelous and brilliant combat ability that utilized the Ruyi Jingu Bang, plus his near-infinite energy reserve.

KWA-BOOM—!

The predator's body, which was still pinned by the fallen meteorite, crashed to the ground. Due to its humongous size, quite a few people got sucked in by the impact and lost their lives, but that only served to boost the overall morale instead.

"The monster has fallen! Go! I swear that the one who kills the monster will be crowned as the next emperor!"

Bradley panted heavily after dropping the meteorite but still managed to roar out at the top of his voice, and those words brought about a momentary silence in the surroundings.

The next emperor—that one thing alone managed to ruthlessly suppress any confusion and fear in the hearts of the crowd and pushed them into the pit of wild frenzy.

"I don't know where that damn thing appeared from, but…"

"Slay it for the time being!"

"Right! His Majesty will fight with us, after all!"

Uwaaaah—!

And that linked up with the morale as well.

Despite the sudden appearance of a massive monster, Bradley's pre-emptive strike still caused it to crash to the ground, causing the crowd to see their emperor as an even bigger and mightier being than this black dragon.

After all, this would be a battle where they fought alongside the living legend, Wick Bradley.

Moreover, they could become the emperor that lorded over the whole continent after this.

No, even if that wasn't it, there wouldn't be a greater honor than to survive a battle of this magnitude.

"I don't like it."

Su-hyeun was aware that what was happening here was not real.

If what the administrator had said could be trusted, then all these people were simply "data" of those who existed in the past, which naturally meant that whether they lived or died today made no difference whatsoever.

That's what his rational mind told him.

However, he still couldn't do anything about his moods souring gradually, especially more so because he knew that this whole stage had been set up by Bradley himself.

Indeed, the emperor was truly thinking of these people as mere pawns or, more correctly, as meat shields.

"I need to wake up."

Su-hyeun soothed himself like how he would usually do and took a cold, hard look at the current situation. He needed to remember what he was here for.

"For now…"

Su-hyeun's eyes gleamed sharply as he stared at the predator as it shook its head in dizziness after getting struck by Bradley's meteorite.

"I must focus on killing that thing."

Su-hyeun sucked in a quick, soft breath.

Organizing his thoughts helped him feel lighter inside. His goal was now set, so it was about time he moved toward achieving that.

The predator had crashed to the ground. In that case, the first thing he had to do was obvious.

[The trait "Necromancer" has been activated.]

[By using "Death Aura," you can now see or command the dead.]

"Arise."

* * *

Clang, claaang—!

Staaab—

Humans climbed on the predator's body and stabbed their blades into the dragon's neck area or sliced off its scales.

Even though the scales proved to be especially sturdy, people hacked away at the same locations over and over again, plus some of them were powerful individuals capable of using their own aura blade as well.

Wounds steadily and gradually accumulated on the monster's body. Even if each wound was no more than a small scratch, the overall damage would still be great when such wounds numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

"The bastard is about to wake up!"

"Those who haven't managed to climb, get away from here!"

"Hurry the hell up!"

Even if the monster was struck by a meteor, it would not stay lying on the ground forever.

Despite being pinned to the ground by the meteorite, it began to gradually lift its body up little by little. That simple movement alone caused quite a lot of warriors to hurriedly get out of the way to avoid being crushed to death.

Krrrr—

The predator's mouth slowly opened up.

And at that moment…

"Go and duck behind the creature—!"

Bradley's command loudly rang out.

"B—behind it?"

"Could it be…?"

A massive amount of energy could be felt gathering on the predator's maw.

Every single one of the humans gathered here were powerful warriors who had trained in aura control and were capable of sensing what was going on. Therefore, many of them instantly realized what would soon be pouring out from the predator's mouth.

The symbol of all dragons, as well as its deadliest weapon…

"It's going to use the Breath—!"

An attack from a dragon, a species that had disappeared from the continent's history but was still recorded in the history books regardless, was about to be unleashed. Knights instinctively realized it and loudly shouted out.

But just before the black Breath accumulating within the predator's maw could be fired…

Chwa-rarararararak—

Countless steel bars suddenly materialized around the predator's maw and connected to each other as if to create a magic circle.

"Con…fine…it…"

And so, the spherical enclosed space made out of steel clamped shut and exerted enormous pressure on the predator's maw.

"Yogoe…Capturing Rope…"