Chapter 416: Darius, Leader of Gulos

“Darius......”

Irus spoke slowly, her voice cold and sharp.

“Heh heh~!”

Darius let out a sardonic chuckle.

“The Saint Irus—your radiance is as dazzling as ever. It’s just like it was four hundred years ago, when we stood against the Demon Lord’s Army. No—brighter. It seems that even though you’ve rarely taken up arms these past four centuries, your power has never stopped growing.”

“......”

Irus narrowed her eyes, her gaze turning icy.

“Do not speak of four hundred years ago...... You have no right to mention that time.”

“There it is. That exact look. Just like four hundred years ago. You, and all the rest of them—you’ve always been so condescending.”

“......Darius, after everything that’s happened, are you still clinging to this pathetic excuse?”

“Excuse? Believe whatever you want.”

Darius suddenly turned his back on her.

“I’ll leave this place to you—for now. Next time we meet, I will take your life with my own hands.”

With that, his aura vanished beyond the horizon.

Staring at the direction he’d fled, Irus whispered softly,

“......And I will not give you the chance to try.”

A few seconds later, her aura faded from the sky as well.

The brief standoff came to an abrupt end without a single blow exchanged......

On Ignir’s back, Hulim fell into deep thought.

After a moment, she leaned down and patted Ignir’s scales, asking,

“Ignir, what was that about four hundred years ago that Irus mentioned? Was the leader of Gulos already around during the great war back then?”

“Hmm......”

Ignir hesitated for a moment, then said reluctantly,

“I have heard rumors about this...... But it’s a secret among S-Rank powerhouses. I don’t know if I should tell you.”

“It’s all right. You can tell me.”

“......”

“Can’t you?”

“Fine...... Only for you, though. I’d never breathe a word of this to anyone else—not even that guy Charkin.”

“Simply put, Darius, the leader of Gulos, was once part of the alliance that fought against the Demon Lord’s Army.”

“What?! Does that mean he was Irus’s ally back then?!”

Hulim exclaimed in shock.

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“No, not exactly,” Ignir corrected her. “Back then, Darius wasn’t an S-Rank yet—he was just one of many A-Rank warriors. But his strength and talent were the best among the A-Ranks, so he was quite famous.”

I see......

Hulim thought she finally understood why Darius had called Irus condescending.

Even the strongest A-Rank paled in comparison to an S-Rank. There would always be an unbridgeable gap between them. Even if Irus had never acted superior, Darius would have felt that she looked down on him all the same.

“The problem lies with Darius’s past......”

Ignir’s next words revealed a piece of unrecorded history.

“......Before joining the anti-Demon Lord coalition, Darius was a Battle Slave secretly raised by a certain kingdom. The foolish king of that nation brought Darius along to join the alliance, thinking he could use Darius’s power to gain a higher status in the coalition—and secure greater benefits after the war.”

“What? Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. That kingdom had somehow obtained some Ancient Enslavement Magic Artifacts. It was only through those artifacts that they were able to control someone as powerful as Darius.”

“But when the Heroes and all the S-Rank powerhouses found out about this, they were furious. They punished that king severely and freed all the enslaved people.”

“After that, Darius joined the coalition as a free man to show his gratitude. He even made many great contributions to the alliance, and was hailed as a hero by many people. However......”

“He betrayed them.”

“......”

“During one mission, Darius colluded with the demons and set a trap. The coalition suffered heavy losses because of it—so heavy that even one of the S-Rank powerhouses perished in the battle.”

“The people were outraged. They searched frantically for Darius, but he vanished without a trace, as if he’d never existed at all.”

“He didn’t reappear until decades after the great war had ended.”

“By then, he had become an S-Rank. And he had also become the demons’ agent in this world. For hundreds of years, he has brought countless evils upon this world in the name of the demons......”

“......Why did Darius suddenly betray them?”

After a long silence, Hulim asked softly.

“I don’t know,” Ignir replied. “No one does, really. Maybe he’d been harboring a grudge against the world from the very beginning. Or maybe something unknown happened to him that twisted his heart and led him down the path of corruption. Either way, the truth behind his betrayal is lost to time.”

“......”

“What’s wrong? Still hung up on that man’s past?”

“......No.”

Hulim thought for a moment, then shook her head firmly.

“What Darius was in the past doesn’t matter to me. It’s irrelevant.”

“All I know is this——”

“He is an enemy who must be eliminated!”

“Whoa, what a decisive call~!”

“Let’s set Darius aside for now. The enemy is on the verge of collapse.”

Hulim raised Seven Luminaries and pointed it at the Gulos camp.

“Ignir, charge straight in!”

“You sure about this?”

“Absolutely.”

“All right, hold on tight! ROAR——!”

The dragon let out a thunderous roar. With a deafening sonic boom, he descended upon the Gulos camp in the blink of an eye.

The Gulos soldiers, already in despair after being abandoned by Darius, looked up at the enormous shadow looming overhead. All hope drained from their faces, and not a single one of them dared to resist.

“We’re...... we’re finished......”

In the next moment——

HUM——!!!

Giant magic circles overlapped and blazed to life high above the camp.

BOOM!

The Gulos camp was reduced to rubble amid a shower of brilliant, explosive light.

The Battle of Wintermoon Hill came to an end. The Indam Federation Army emerged victorious.

......

At the summit of Wintermoon Hill.

A young girl sat quietly on a patch of grass, gazing into the distance. A gentle breeze swept across the hillside, stirring her silver hair—which shimmered like starlight in the sunlight.

The crimson sky overlord lay silently beside her, dozing peacefully.

“It’s so big,”

the girl murmured in wonder.

“The World Tree.”

She held out both hands, closed one eye, and framed the colossal tree in the distance with her fingers.

“Just one of its exposed roots is as big as a mountain range. How massive must the entire tree be now......”

“I actually know the answer to that.”

Ignir lifted his head slowly and spoke.

“I was bored a while back, so I flew around it a few times and made a rough estimate.”

“The distance between the two farthest points of the World Tree’s canopy is about six hundred kilometers. As for its height...... Well, to be honest, I could barely fly high enough to reach the top. Its highest branches stretch all the way to the outer edge of the atmosphere.”

“Whoa. It’s really that huge?”

Hulim pictured it in her mind. A canopy spanning six hundred kilometers meant its shade covered an area with a radius of roughly three hundred kilometers.

The trunk itself must be around sixty kilometers wide. No wonder even a single root looked like a mountain range.