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Stop Calling Me "Mate"! I Only Defeated You Once, Not Married You! (Web Novel) - Volume 8, Chapter 92: Let My Ruined Body Become Blazing Fire
Volume 8, Chapter 92: Let My Ruined Body Become Blazing Fire
This chapter is updated by JustRead.pl
Constantine’s expression was grave, but he said nothing.Rosvisser came up as well and checked Orion’s injuries. Only when she was sure there was nothing serious did she finally exhale.
Then Rosvisser looked to Leon beside her and asked with concern:
"How are you? Nothing wrong?”
Even knowing exactly how capable her husband was, timely concern was still necessary. It wasn’t for show. However strong Leon was, as his wife Rosvisser could not help but worry.
Leon smiled and shook his head, pulling the equally exhausted Rosvisser into his arms.
“I’m fine. Really.”
“Good. As long as everyone’s all right.”
Leon patted his wife’s cheek, then looked to Constantine.
“Hefei and the Golden Helm? How are they?”
“They should be on the way to the Silver Dragons right now.”
Constantine glanced at the Old City Lord’s lifeless corpse and went on:
“I’ll send a Message Dragon to bring them back at once.”
As he spoke, Constantine slowly turned his head toward the far horizon. “And then... we try to reignite the sun.”
...
An hour later, the surviving Red Flame dragon guard returned to the Sanctuary (ruins) with Hefei and the Golden Helm.
Not long after, Noa and Isha arrived as well.
Everyone gathered at the Red Flame Dragons—just as Leon had planned from the start.
Still, when Leon and Rosvisser took in the oddly battered Noa, the sky-dropped Kaiser, and the “one we picked up on the road,” Wuconstantine, they were momentarily stunned. After that brief, quiet daze, the couple’s first thought was still their daughter’s condition. Only when they learned Noa had suffered only a minor fracture did they finally relax.
Constantine and Wuconstantine, brothers parted for years, hurried a few words of greeting.
When they learned that neither of them had had an easy time of it, the brothers sighed together again and again.
“At least we’re all still alive,” Wuconstantine said with feeling.
Constantine lowered his eyes, looked at the unconscious Orion, and after a long silence said, “Yes. Still alive. That’s enough.”
Rosvisser helped Noa to rest off to the side, while Leon began exchanging information with the others.
“One at a time.”
They sat around a bonfire, the Golden Helm set beside the flames.
Leon looked first to Wuconstantine. “So—you sensed the sun was dimming, rushed straight back to the Red Flame Dragons, got swarmed by ancient peril-forms on the road, and only survived thanks to Isha and Kaiser stepping in. Right?”
Wuconstantine nodded. “Yes.”
“I helped too, I helped too!” Valendna threw up a hand from the side to assert her presence.
Leon gave a helpless smile. “Right, and Valendna—you were a big help.”
The Wind Dragon King planted her hands on her hips, tail cocked, proudly straightening a chest that was not exactly ample.
“Then, Wuconstantine, did you come back intending to accept the Golden Helm’s power, or...?”
At that, Constantine also turned to look at his elder brother, waiting for his answer.
Wuconstantine was silent a moment, then spoke slowly. “To tell the truth, even now I feel I’m not worthy to inherit that power, nor to shoulder so great a charge. But... I don’t want to let Cloti down, and I don’t want...”
He pressed his lips together, then lifted his gaze to Constantine. The brothers’ eyes met, and Wuconstantine went on: “I don’t want Constantine risking himself. So... I’m willing to try putting on the Golden Helm.”
At his words, they all looked at one another; for a moment, no one knew what to say.
Not even Leon could decide for them. He had already done all he could. From here...
It would be up to the Constantine brothers.
After a brief hush, Constantine suddenly spoke. “Brother, you can’t wear the Helm. I’ll do it.”
“Constantine...”
“Father, you—?”
“Constantine... how could I let you take my place..”
Constantine raised a hand and cut Wuconstantine off. “It’s not a question of who takes whose place, brother.”
He opened his palm to the firelight and looked at the burning heap before them. The fire glowed in his red dragon eyes; his gaze had never been this gentle.
Hefei quietly set her small hand on his knee. Constantine gently curled his fingers around his daughter’s hand and continued, “To inherit Apollo’s power, you must bear the same trait as He did—love for the world. But if your motive, brother, is only to keep Chronos from being disappointed, or to spare me from harm, then your starting point is wrong. The Golden Flame will never accept you.”
Wuconstantine’s eyes shifted. “And you, Constantine? Are you sure you bear those two traits? Are you certain the Golden Flame will recognize you?”
Constantine pressed his lips tight, lowered his eyes, and said softly, “Compassion and universal love... Have you forgotten? When I was small, you said I had both. These past centuries I slowly forgot the boy I was, and kept doubting whether I truly lived up to your hopes for me. But later, I figured it out—some things never vanish. They just get buried, bit by bit, deep inside us. Even if now I may still be unworthy of compassion and universal love, I’m willing...”
He paused. His gaze slid to Orion, lying in a pool of blood. After a moment, he drew his eyes back and gently gathered Hefei into his arms.
“I’m willing to trade everything I am to obtain them.”
Hefei nestled against her father, listening to his calm voice.
A child can’t grasp what it means to save the world. She only had a dim premonition that her father was about to leave her.
“Father!”
Constantine stroked Hefei’s cheek and said gently, “If you live with Sister Orion from now on, would that make you happy?”
“Happy!...”
She nodded on reflex, but a heartbeat later realized something was wrong and hurried to correct herself. “What about you, Father? Won’t you stay with me...”
Constantine didn’t answer. He only held his daughter tighter.
Leon watched in silence. He knew Constantine had already, completely, made up his mind.
Fuyuan—now free of the Demon Sword Shard’s control—walked over as well.
“Of everyone here, only I’ve seen the result of attempting the Golden Helm and failing. It was... horrific. Red Flame Dragon King, are you sure you’re ready?”
Constantine stood, handed Hefei into Leon’s arms, then bent to pick up the Golden Helm beside the fire.
“I’m sure. Very... sure.”
Silence fell over them.
Constantine stood at the center of their sight. One-handed, he held the Golden Helm, staring at it with complete focus, lost in thoughts none of them could read.
“In less than ten minutes it’ll be dawn. By rights, the sun should rise as usual.”
“Constantine...”
With the Golden Helm in hand, he set off at a slow, steady pace toward the east.
Their eyes stayed on his back until he dwindled in the distance.
“Father... Father! Father, where are you going!”
In Leon’s arms, Hefei struggled and writhed. As her father’s figure shrank, a violent dread burst open in her chest.
“Constantine...” Wuconstantine watched his younger brother, slowly knotting his fist.
At the same time, Orion drifted up out of her faint.
“I... Mr. Constantine? Mr. Constantine!”
By the time her clarity returned, Constantine was already far away.
She knelt, blank-faced; the blue of her eyes had lost its light. She looked like a marionette with its strings cut, lips mumbling “Mr. Constantine” over and over.
Leon felt Hefei’s teeth clamp into his hand. It hurt like blazes, but he still did not let her go.
Watching Constantine’s back recede, scene after scene from long ago rose in his mind.
The Red Flame Dragon King’s life—wild winds and roaring fire, loud and blazing; and yet when he reached the end, he walked it alone.
Constantine stopped and slowly raised the Golden Helm.
His body, wrecked by wounds, had not yet healed. His knees shook—whether from pain or...
“Fear?
Hmph. As if I’d be afraid.
I am...”
He set the Golden Helm on, enunciating each word: “—the Red Flame Dragon King, Constantine!!”
Power surged through him in an instant.
Scorching. Ferocious. A force that seemed to burn all things to ash.
The tearing agony made Constantine, by reflex, brace with his dragonized body.
Damaged scales flared open; the scar-latticed surface of his flesh began to glow with gold. What ran in the vessels beneath his skin no longer seemed like blood, but burning fire.
Slowly, the gold in his eyes became pure flame, and it wrapped his entire body.
Within the blaze, he completed full dragonization.
A vast crimson dragon beat its battered wings and flew for the far east.
The firelight was as bleak as dusk, burning across the whole sky. And the pain beneath that grandeur and majesty—only Constantine knew it.
The flames seared his skin, muscle, bone, and viscera. He could feel the divine power rampaging through him. If he dared slacken by a hair, his body would be ripped apart.
So...
He could not stop.
He must not stop.
“Sun... bring light to this world once more.”
Far to the east, power converged. An all-or-nothing fire-meteor burst with sacred radiance and lit the black night.
And in that moment, the sun was rekindled.
Warm, familiar sunlight crept over the distant horizon, driving off the night’s cold and deathly stillness.
Yet as they felt that long-missed sunshine on their faces again, not a single person smiled.
“Constantine... Constantine!!”
Wuconstantine could hold back no longer; he ran, half-mad, toward the direction Constantine had gone.
“Father! I’m going to find Father!! Let me go!!”
This time, Leon let Hefei go.
Orion, too, ran with the others toward the east. Leon slung Noa on his back and followed close behind.
They didn’t know how long they ran before they finally found Constantine on an open stretch of ground.
“Constantine!”
“Constantine!!”
“Father!”
They rushed to him at once.
Hefei threw herself on her father’s chest, the little one a weeping mess. She clutched at the tatters of his burned, ruined clothes and cried out, “Father, wake up! Wake up!!”
But Constantine gave no sign.
The last spark of Primordial magic heartfire guttered out in his breast.
Which meant he was, entirely...
“Mr. Constantine...” Orion clapped a hand over her mouth. Tears flooded unchecked as she stared at the man lying on the ground, wishing, for the thousandth time, that this was only a dream.
Leon stepped to Rosvisser’s side. The husband and wife met each other’s eyes—and had no words.
“Constantine... how could this... how could this be!!”
Wuconstantine fell to his knees, sobbing, fists thudding again and again against the hard earth.
Isha and Valendna were just as silent. Their bond with Constantine had not been deep, but what he had done had saved this world. No one holds prejudice against a hero who saved the world. Even if he had once been their opponent, what they remembered now was everything he had done.
The torn breath slowly settled. Under the warmest sunlight, the most heart-rending cries echoed.
Fuyuan looked at Constantine and said in a low voice, “He’s the first I’ve seen who gained divine power with a mortal body.”
At that, Leon blinked, as if something had occurred to him. “A mortal body... gaining divine power...”
At the same time, golden light began to flicker up behind them.
And within that glow, a clear, steady girl’s voice drifted out. “Hey, hey—don’t get that wrong.”
They all turned toward the sound.
Violet hair, long and airy, swayed in the cool morning breeze. In her right eye’s pupil, mottled flowerlike points of light glimmered. The girl’s smile was bright as the sun, tinged with pride and self-satisfaction.
“Constantine isn’t the first to gain divine might with a mortal body.”
She planted one hand on her hip and hooked a thumb at herself with the other.
“I am.”
