Published at 25th of August 2026 9:09 am

Volume 8, Chapter 89: The Purest LoveA Confession Left as Last Words

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When the fire vortex dissipated, Constantine sagged into temporary weakness from the overdraw of magic. Half-kneeling amid the mountain of corpses and sea of blood, the wound Orion had hastily treated with healing magic split open again, and blood ran down his arm in a steady line. Constantine slowly lifted his head and, over the heaps of peril-form corpses, looked toward the distant Old City Lord. Their eyes met. The old man’s gaze still held a hardness that didn’t belong to the very old.

“Hmph. Struggling on the brink is meaningless.”

As his words fell, a peril-form that had somehow survived clawed up from the pile. Most of its mass had been charred; bone and teeth showed through the flesh, and its eyeball on one side dangled loose, ready to fall. But controlled by the Demon Sword Shard, it was already a puppet that knew no pain. Those feral eyes locked on the weakened Constantine—and with a roar it lunged.

Constantine watched it hurtle in and tried to rise, to strike back. But the instant he forced his arms, he dropped to one knee again.

“Damn it... no strength...”

Magic and stamina were spent; even simple movement was beyond him. He fixed his gaze on the peril-form. Char and clotted blood stuck to its fangs and claws, but their sharpness hadn’t dulled. Seeing it, Constantine stopped trying to counter. So be it. He’d fought to the death—no regrets left.

The creature’s ghastly shriek was already at his ear. But the next second brought a cry of pain instead. Constantine snapped his head up.

Orion, throwing everything she had into it, drove the broken sword straight through the peril-form’s body and pinned it to the ground.

“Orion...” Constantine’s draconic pupils trembled as he stared, stunned.

She’d been badly hurt before the Old City Lord’s puppet flung her here. Even though she’d said, no matter how it ended, they would face it together, Constantine hadn’t actually meant for her to fight. In a tide like this, with those horrific magical aftershocks, even a corpse was easily swallowed up. Yet she had not only survived the blast—at the last instant, she’d saved him.

Orion’s hands clenched white around the hilt. Using the broken sword, she braced her collapsing body. She knelt, back heaving, and had no strength left even to lift her head and look at him.

“Lord Constantine... are... you okay?”

Blood-dyed gold hair veiled her cheek; he couldn’t see her expression. He imagined it was the stubborn strain and unwillingness of a body at its limit refusing to give in. To her concern, Constantine lowered his eyes and answered softly:

“At this point, not being dead probably counts as... okay, doesn’t it?”

Under the weight of despair, the unmeant quip made Orion laugh. Short and weak as it was, it was one of the few times the cool girl had laughed from the heart.

“Thank you, Lord Constantine,” Orion said suddenly.

“For what?”

“I’ve lived all my life for ‘objectives’ and ‘missions.’ After my teacher died, all the more NvIight (Original source) so. There was never room in the meaning of my life for anything outside the task; I could only find a sense of existence in the children of the Blazing Sun. But you and Hefei, and Mr. Leon and Lady Rosvisser—in this time before my life runs out—you let me feel all of that feeling, the plainest, the most beautiful feeling. Lord Constantine, this might be rude to say, and it might be that I’m... imagining things. But... if I die with you, I don’t feel even a little regret.”

Constantine was at a loss for words. With all his sharp instincts, he could not parse what Orion meant. What was “rude,” and what was “imagining things”? He had never dealt with anything like this. His mind went blank... and stayed blank.

Seeing him hold his tongue, Orion guessed he wasn’t likely to say anything comforting. If Orion had locked down her feelings, she had at least once had them—and could still stir with emotion or inner resistance to them. But those things plainly lay beyond the Red Flame Dragon King’s frame of reference.

So Orion simplified her plea and asked gently,

“And you—would you feel unwilling to die together with someone like me?”

That, Constantine understood at once.

“How could I? Of course not... To fall on the field with a fellow warrior like you—what could I have to begrudge?”

Orion blinked, then let out a helpless little laugh and murmured under her breath:

“Warrior, warrior... idiot.”

“What?” Another blind spot for Constantine.

Orion lifted her head. Some strength had returned, but she still didn’t look at him, keeping her eyes forward.

“Nothing. Since it’s come to this... could we be a little honest? If I’m not honest—if I am honest I’ll—forget it.”

She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “There’s no talking sense with you idiots.”

“Hey, you two—romancing on a pile of corpses. Stylish.”

The Old City Lord’s voice came from afar, cutting them off. Constantine and Orion looked toward it.

“Red Flame Dragon King, I’ll grant it—your title is no empty fame. To kill nearly a hundred far-ancient peril-forms in an instant by yourself.”

The Old City Lord spoke slowly.

“But... if I add another hundred—how will you answer that?”

At that, Constantine’s gut tightened, and Orion beside him was stunned.

“Th—there are that many more?...” she breathed.

The Old City Lord spread his arms, and a black mass of far-ancient peril-forms rose behind him again. They were like evil shades in the night—endless, inexhaustible. He smirked.

“Oh? A hundred still feels a little few to me. Then... how about another hundred?”

Orion’s pupils shook. “What?!”

The rolling host kept pouring onto the field. A hundred just now had exhausted all of Constantine’s magic—and now two hundred more...

“Orion, you’ve been in Blazing Sun many years. You should know me,” the Old City Lord said with a smile. “I like to leave nothing to chance. Using two hundred far-ancient peril-forms to kill you is like crushing two ants—but what can I say, I’m cautious.”

“And it’s also my way of showing respect for you, Red Flame Dragon King.”

“A Dragon King shouldn’t die quietly, right? Hahaha!”

He wrung every drop of spite and mockery from the words. Orion steadied Constantine by the shoulder and said low,

“So we’re completely out of moves now, aren’t we?”

Constantine started to say “Yes,” but a thought flashed through his mind. After a beat of hesitation, he said:

“In theory, yes—no moves left.”

“In theory?” Orion arched a brow. “And in practice?”

“In practice... there are always surprises.”

“Surprises?... What do you mean?”

Befre Constantine could answer, the Old City Lord spread his arms and shouted from afar:

“Even in the new history after the Void descends, this day will be remembered forever. On this day your sun goes out for good; and the Red Flame Dragon King, said to embody the power of burning, falls for good before this dawn... No—Your Majesty the Red Flame Dragon King, almost forgot. This world will never see dawn again.”

He slashed his arm down and said, low:

“Kill them.”

With the order, all two hundred far-ancient peril-forms fired beams of raging magic at once, straight at Constantine and Orion. In an instant, the whole sky was lit by their lances. The two figures leaned into each other like silhouettes beneath a blazing sun. Whatever the end, they would face it together.

The searing wave hit. Constantine spread his torn dragon wings and wrapped Orion inside them. Blue eyes and weary draconic pupils met; Orion raised a hand and touched the corner of Constantine’s mouth.

Boom!!

Everything was swallowed in the light of the blast. The surrounding woods and mountains, the Red Flame Dragon Sanctuary, and every tribal building behind it, along with the bodies of countless warriors on the field, were all obliterated in the explosion.

The Old City Lord watched calmly, the light of destruction mirrored in his pupils. He said softly:

“A brutal end—so quiet. No matter how strong Leon Casmod is, he can’t save everyone.”

When the glare faded, the mountain of blood, the forest and ranges, and the ten kilometers beyond had been leveled in a breath. The emptiness was so desolate it felt like the world’s end.

And where he looked ahead, there was no sign of Constantine or Orion.

“Annihilation and erasure... Hmph. That’s that.”

He turned to go. He still had to pursue the Golden Helm.

But he had taken only a few steps when an eagle soared overhead. He started and looked up, muttering:

“I don’t recall that type of far-ancient peril-form......Wait!”

He straightened in a snap, as if realizing something, his pupils tightening hard.

“That’s... that’s a Six-Winged Dragon-Eagle?! Don’t tell me...?!”

The Old City Lord whipped around—and there, not far away, was the one man he least wanted to see in this life.

“Try sending me and my wife to some gods-forsaken wasteland one more time...”

Thundercloud Blade swept out a cold arc of ghostly blue, the edge humming as it tore the air, the tip leveled at the Old City Lord’s brow.

“I’ll cut you into sausage!”

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