I Became the Teacher of the Imperial Family’s Bastard

094. What Bloomed in the Snowfield (1)

There was a surge of astonishment as I faced the foreign god.

It wasn’t about the appearance.

The evolved Tongkwean showed that the homunculus flesh was woven onto the body of the grand prince to create that.

What surprised me was the form of the supernatural power, crafted by the divinity of the foreign god, which was unlike anything of this land.

‘Something from outside?’

That feeling was certain.

The basic structure was too different.

Adding one more to it.

“You must know. What my eyes are.”

I grabbed the crushed head and met its eyes. The foreigner’s eyes, rolling around, fixed on me. It was hard to read anything from the face, with no distinction between the whites and the pupils, but the foreigner’s voice eased some of that frustration.

[…It must not be. That much is certain.]

There was a reaction of bewilderment, even a kind of fear.

He definitely knows the true nature of these eyes. In other words, this guy might know the origins of the Pharos family, which I hadn’t heard of.

It was at that moment.

[I cannot accept it…! Your existence…!]

Boom―!

A vibration emanated from the mist suddenly emitted by the foreigner.

The hollow eye delved into its mechanism.

My brows furrowed.

‘Teleportation?’

He is trying to take me somewhere.

It must be a space advantageous to him. The choices of ‘going over’ and ‘not going over’ were laid out, and I chose the former.

‘The damage is moving.’

I still couldn’t digest the accepted shock.

I don’t have the ability to identify and attack allies right now.

What can I do, I entrusted my body to the vibration. Then, I felt a sensation as if I was being sucked somewhere along with the foreigner.

“Yuren!”

The grand duke shouted.

I answered.

“Hold on. I’ll take this guy.”

The grand duke’s eyes were filled with astonishment.

Worry, despair, and the like were visible.

Did it look like I was going to sacrifice myself?

I didn’t intend to go that far.

It was at the moment I tried to add more words.

Whoosh―!

My vision flipped faster than that.

The place that unfolded right after I blinked was like that.

Dark red mist, with lights densely embedded like a cluster of stars above it.

A world where that is all there is.

In the middle of it, there he was.

[…In the beginning, there was the death of a god.]

Rumble―!

A woman with a dreamy impression and pink hair walked gracefully through the mist.

The difference from before was that this time, even her facial features were implemented, showing a distorted expression.

“Is that Bonchen?”

[Because of that, the dimension opened, and thus we were able to covet this land.]

The foreign god’s eyes were dyed with starlight.

Immediately after, when he spread his palm, countless eyes floated in the air.

“…I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

[Therefore, we know. The death of that god is irreversible, and the power of that god can no longer exist.]

I drew out the sacred tree and the saw blade sword, inducing an answer.

I summoned the spirit of the cloak.

The dead god.

Since the keyword came out, I thought I could find a more certain path if I scratched a little more. If I could just hear the desired answer, I would go all out.

But was I too naive about the foreign god?

[So I must know. Why does a being that should not exist still remain, and how can a mere human possess it?]

“Who said they would tell you?”

[No need to tell me. I can just tear you apart and rummage through your brain.]

An extraordinary plan popped out.

Screech―!

The eyes in the air shone.

Each eye began to take on a different shape.

Some resembled humans, some resembled beasts, and some resembled monsters.

Enemies that should be described as a legion surrounded us on all sides.

I still struggled to control the force pressing down on my body.

I gripped my hand more tightly.

‘…I must do it.’

And it can be done.

The spirit had certainly conveyed this power along with the words that it was for this purpose.

Boom!

I stomped my foot and charged at the foreign god.

* * *

Queen of Nightmares, Belle, glanced briefly at the spot where Yuren and her mother had disappeared together. She sighed.

She knew it, but still, they were so unruly.

Gods were such uncontrollable beings.

But well, Belle had never expected a relationship or attachment between creator and creation from a foreign god she had never communicated with in her life.

From the beginning, she had only wanted one thing.

The damn enhancement of this race’s traits.

Her own power that would grow stronger with the presence of the foreign god.

That task was accomplished splendidly.

Belle could still feel the power that surged with a thrill the moment the foreign god descended.

She instinctively knew what she could do with this power.

She wanted to test it immediately, and there were good experimental subjects here who could serve both that purpose and her mother’s needs.

“Well then, shall we play among ourselves?”

Flap!

Bat-like membranous wings sprouted from Belle’s back.

Her pupils turned a dark red.

The situation was overwhelmingly in her favor.

Just look at the current scene.

Kallios was collapsed, gasping for breath, clutching some necklace.

The saint was squeezing out divine power and infusing it into Kallios.

The strange magician who used an artificial hand? The artificial hand seemed to be broken, and he was grumbling nervously.

And finally, the two people who brought the most joy.

Aindel and Tibria.

Among them, the one who made Belle laugh the most was none other than Tibria.

“Your son, he’s really cute.”

At the chuckling sound, the expression disappeared from Tibria’s face.

Bell took pleasure in Tibria’s expression and mocked her even more fiercely.

“Since the devil stirred things up, it’s easier to handle. Isn’t it? Your creations, I mean. When they can’t sleep, they all start to fall apart.”

Recalling that moment, it was true.

The more Bell remembered the crumbling expression of Shuperte, the hotter his breath became.

“At first, I kept him from falling asleep. In a daze… I kept him awake in that state, then subtly mixed in dreams, making him dream while awake. He thought he was asleep. So he didn’t feel the crisis.”

Watching him wither day by day was delightful.

“Next, I manipulated the content of the dreams. When you do such things in a hazy state, the sense of reality blurs. That’s the turning point.”

A chuckle escaped Bell’s lips.

“I planted cognition in the dream. ‘The dream you are having now is a beneficial dream.’ And ‘The figure appearing in your dream now is your helper, no matter what form it takes.’ Something like that.”

In fact, it was the result of several conditions aligning.

It had to be before Shuperte corrected the twisted cognition caused by the devil, it required the characteristics of the race called Mongma to dig into it, and finally, the power granted by the goddess of fate. But was there any need to elaborate on such stories?

Bell had one reason for telling this story.

To humiliate the ruined Tibria.

“All this time, you were just outside the door.”

Bell’s words were clearly meant to break Tibria.

Her eyes, turning black and lifeless, proved it.

Seeing her disheveled appearance, ruined by her mother, and the eyes soaked in despair between her messy hair, gave off a special scent more than ever.

A broken and tainted consciousness, a delicacy that Mongma loved.

Let’s cook it, and then taste it.

Bell considered this situation a pleasant pastime until his mother returned and wounded Tibria’s consciousness.

And at the moment he invoked the newly acquired power to harvest it, causing mental derangement.

Whoosh―!

Sparks flew.

Very unsightly, but persistent.

Bell’s eyebrows raised. He hadn’t expected her to still have the strength to resist.

At that moment, Tibria spoke.

“…Yes.”

She staggered to her feet.

Clenching her fists, she looked up at Bell with bloodshot eyes.

“I was incompetent. As a mother, as a lord.”

She took a step forward.

Ugly, dripping blood.

“But…”

Immediately, the flames that wrapped around her body colored Tibria’s pupils, and at that moment, she took a step forward.

“…There is no reason to hear reproach from you.”

It was at that moment.

Boom―!

Tibria, dragging her battered body, lunged at Bell.

* * *

Tibria vaguely realized something.

Looking back, she was always late. She was never there at crucial moments.

The first time she felt that bone-chilling feeling was when her husband died.

He was a frail man. She married him knowing that, loving him, and even had a child with him. Yet, when his illness worsened, she was so consumed by work that she couldn’t say her final goodbye.

Because she was a Grand Duke, the leader of this land.

That was the excuse she made.

The next time she felt it was when Hilla died.

At the time of the carriage accident, she had enough reason and opportunity to go to the Empire, but she was too engrossed in training to go.

She thought it was more important to keep the promise of a duel on the day Yuren turned 15 and came to the north.

The third time was with Shuperto.

She thought he was doing well at the academy.

She was satisfied with the occasional letters and the professors’ praises, and didn’t take care of Shuperto.

The result was his seclusion, and today, Shuperto’s sacrificial journey.

And one more, adding to that, Yuren.

In the battle to make up for her lack of virtue, Yuren disappeared with that terrible foreign god.

She knew Yuren was strong. But having fought him herself, she knew the foreign god’s strength far surpassed Yuren’s.

He would die.

Like the others she couldn’t protect, her lack of virtue was claiming another victim.

The more she chewed on that, the more her blood dried up.

She loathed herself terribly.

Tibria knew only one way to vomit this out.

BANG―!

Swinging a fist to break anything.

Taking out anger on something irrelevant.

“Puhat! What are you doing?”

Tibria’s body had already surpassed its limits.

Even the remnants of mana had been handed over to Kallios.

Yet, Tibria swung her fist.

With nothing left to squeeze out, she even squeezed out her breath as she charged at Bell.

It seemed she couldn’t endure otherwise.

There was no logic in swinging her fist.

There were moments when she launched attacks that could be dodged with eyes closed.

If hit, there would be damage, but if dodged, it was just an emotionally driven offensive.

Bell carved even deeper scars into Tibria’s body without giving her a moment’s respite.

Meanwhile, Tibria’s eyes shone brightly. She could be likened to a wounded beast.

How much longer did such moments pass?

Thud―!

Bell grabbed Tibria’s outstretched fist with a face full of ridicule.

The power of fate, the awakened blood of the nightmare, and her own realm combined to make it possible.

Whoosh―

The flames began to lose their strength and fade away in Bell’s grip.

Tibria felt a terrible sensation at that sight.

Disgust surged once more, and it began to fill an element that had been lacking in Tibria until now.

Sss―

“Is it over now? Then can I finish you off here?”

Bell’s words were answered unconsciously in her mind.

‘…No.’

She didn’t want to die uselessly at the crucial moment, having done nothing.

The flames weren’t wrapped around her for that.

What was fading away was the will to overcome.

It was a determination not to be crushed by the world.

“`

Even if I collapse, it was a desperate struggle to ensure it wouldn’t end in vain.

The thought of even that one thing fading away was something I couldn’t tolerate.

That thought was the catalyst.

Emotions overflowed, and the name of that emotion, which I felt so intensely at this moment, was self-loathing.

It was the moment I faced it.

“…Hah.”

Crack―!

Under Tibria’s skin, a red glow began to burn.

She laughed with a grotesquely twisted face.

Crack―!

That was it.

In the end, what she lacked was desperation.

It was the absence of contemplation about ‘what to become.’

Bang, a sensation of piercing through her mind surged.

It was something to be called enlightenment, and it gave a rightful reward to the prepared.

Whoosh―!

New skin sprouted beneath her flesh.

The mana that had been scraped down to the bottom began to fill up to an incomparable level.

And as her wish imbued the flames.

‘Burn it all.’

Her weak self that could do nothing, the obstructing wall, the crisis, the despair.

She intended to burn it all to ashes.

“Kkhak?!”

It was named the Fearsome Flame.

Tibria finally realized what she wanted.

“`