Beyond Cloudfall - Chapter 9
On that midsummer night dampened by dew, time seemed to freeze.
All dreams of the future remain sweet and weightless.
After giving up half of my soul, that blood red greatsword never appeared again. Perhaps I’ve lost the ability to wield it, and am no longer the one who can slay the dragon.
Then, does this count as breaking the dragon’s curse? All I can do is look toward Tarus City.
But as time goes by, the other half of the dragon’s soul within me begins to boil, igniting my with the same feverish desire as his.
As days and nights pass in turn, I gradually forget who I am.
Sometimes, I am the dragon hiding alone in the black chapel. Other times, I am the human awaiting trial in the Sanctuary’s courtyard.
There is even a time when I regain consciousness and discover myself biting into the neck of the Legion of Justitia guard who was watching me.
The Sanctuary’s courtyard grows more and more quiet. Perhaps it’s because there are fewer and fewer people in Ivory City.
The planet is rapidly falling into ruin. Before leaving, the last member of the Legion of Justitia tells me that the dragon has long broken free of their restraints, gone completely mad, and destroyed nearly every city.
Doomsday inexorably arrives. All that remains on this planet is the catastrophic evil dragon. I never saw Sylus again—
Until the day of “Doomsday’s Judgment,” when I am brought to the highest “Court of Justitia” on Philos.
The Court of Justitia hangs high in the air. Beneath the billowing red clouds, dozens of Arbiterwings symbolizing circle silently.
Surrounded by the Legion of Justitia, the Sacred Judicator, dressed in red robes, appears on the towering judgment platform like a lifeless statue.
His aged voice echoes across the sky above the planet, enumerating the crimes that the dragon and I had catastrophically brought upon the world, beginning this grand execution.
Sacred Judicator: First crime: worshiping evil and desire without repentance. The heart has fallen into corruption…
Sacred Judicator: Second crime: consorting with the Evil Demon, and bearing the Demon’s contract brand. The body has fallen into corruption…
Sacred Judicator: Third crime: plundering wealth, insatiable greed. The actions have fallen into corruption.
Several chains bind me at the center of the platform. Besides the clanking sounds of my struggles, I can hear nothing else.
Blood churns in my mind, as restless as the dragon.
Sacred Judicator: These fifteen crimes are confirmed. Execute the Sorceress immediately.
As the Arbiterwings shriek sharply,
MC: …!
My knees struggle to support my heavy body as I stand, but before I can straighten my back, the next bolt of lightning tears through my
With my face pressed against the icy ground, at this moment, all I can think of is the dragon who had fallen into the valley with his chest pierced through.
MC: (...Sylus.)
That requiem—I remember the dragon likes this song.
But, I have never sung it in full for him.
MC: (This is the first time, and it is the last time…)
It’s as if I’ve returned to that night in Tarus City, on the peak of the dragon’s lair. He is sitting beside me, saying, “Sing it again.”
Tiny notes squeeze out of my chest, gathering into fragments bit by bit with great difficulty, to form a melody.
MC: (If you can’t hear this, in the future… perhaps no one will ever sing for you again…)
Lightning piercing through my soul repeatedly interrupts my song, yet I continue to sing, not noticing that all other sounds have vanished—the entire Court of Justitia has fallen silent, with only the lingering requiem echoing.
The final notes echo and dissipate into the ground. After a long pause, as if in response, a dragon’s long, drawn-out roar comes from behind the crimson clouds.
MC: ( …Is that… the dragon’s voice?)
Sacred Judicator: … It has arrived. The dragon descends.
Sacred Judicator: The true Doomsday’s Judgment has begun—restrain her, control the dragon’s bait!
The ground violently quakes as towering divine statues surrounding the Court turn their bodies and reveal the tips of sharp spears.
The Legion of Justitia surges forth like a tide from all directions, the cold gleam of the blades in their hands pointing towards the approaching dragon.
It is only upon hearing the Judicator’s command that I finally understand—this judgment targeting me was always a carefully orchestrated final hunt for the dragon.
Flames shake the ground.
Stone feathers shot by the Arbiterwings pierce through the dragon’s wings, while the Legion’s lightning-charged arrows embed themselves in between its scales.
The dragon’s wings are nearly shredded to pieces, but no injury can stop a maddened dragon.
It’s as if he doesn’t understand pain. In the end, in the vast Court of Justitia, only I remain.
Through the clouds, the dragon, , plunges towards me. In his eyes is only the primordial chaos and madness that belongs to a beast.
I know he’s only a dragon. He can no longer recognize me.
Closing my eyes, I recall the long-winded story about dragons that I had once watched in a tavern with a man named Sylus…
And in the end, the blood-drenched dragon claws that had pierced his beloved’s chest.
Sylus: But a monster can never truly become human. He can’t escape a dragon’s fate, nor can he love anyone for long.
Sylus: So, at the end of the story, he killed his beloved.
Sylus: This is the dragon’s curse.
Facing the direction of the wind, I spread my arms, wanting to embrace my dragon one last time.
But I do not receive an embrace, nor do I meet death.
Before the dragon’s attack arrives, I feel a hand grasp my wrist.
He presses my hand against his chest, and faintly, I feel the resonance with the other half of our souls.
MC: (...Sylus?!)
In the second before the death brought by the dragon would have arrived, through the resonance of our souls, the blood red greatsword once again appears from my palm.
My heart lets out a silent scream, but the sword still pierces straight through the dragon’s chest.
It looks as though I had thrust it in with my own hands.
MC: What… have I done?
MC: Blood… there’s so much blood…
Sylus: You must not fall here!
Sylus: Because once you fall… you’ll never be able to turn back.
MC: Sylus!
If I fall, fate—as preordained—will fall into the cursed abyss, and it can never turn back.
The dragon tightly grips my hand and, using all of his strength, drives the sword deeper into his own chest.
It’s like a life that refuses to admit defeat, mocking the curse and defying fate one last time.
I wrap my arms around the dragon’s neck and fall together with him from the clouds.
Using the last of its strength, the dragon carries me away from the Court of Justitia, flies past the obsidian chapel, and crashes in the valley full of datura flowers in bloom.
His body quietly lies among the flowers, my image reflected in his garnet-like eyes.
MC: Look at me… I forbid you to close your eyes…!
Tears fall into his eyes as I lower my head, letting him leave a kiss between my brows.
The dark red light in its eyes dims as obsidian crystals crawl across its scales, gradually covering its entire body.
My dragon is dead.
As its body disintegrates, the hardened crystals flake away into fragments, piece by piece.
Wind sweeps through the valley, lifting the fragments like black petals that gently rise, wrapping me in their embrace—
In that moment, the dragon’s soul seems to pass through my body, and in an instant, I see everything about him.
Deep in the cave, the boy who had grown up with dragons tightly grips a dagger and presses its gleaming blade against the base of the tender dragon horns atop his head.
He clenches his teeth, and in the next second, blood flows down and streaks over that hate-filled right eye.
Yet, the secret is still quickly discovered. All of the dragons are killed in the valley, and only he is taken away as a human.
But when people see new horns which symbolize the Evil Demon growing atop his head, the spears they had put away are thrust back into his chest again.
He tumbles down among the valley’s shattered rocks, blood boiling in his body. Something unknown supports him as he staggers to his feet.
When he comes back to his senses, all who had hurt him lie dead in pools of blood.
Black and red blood mist rises from their bodies, flowing along the dragon horns atop his head and the tail behind him, at the center of his chest.
His bowed back splits open with two bloodied gashes, two dragon wings struggling to force their way out, shattering rocks as they suddenly unfurl—the curse he once despised has become his power.
This time, he no longer hesitates, turning to fly into the depths of the valley.
The dragon bones in my arms have also dissolved into petals that drift away, and wherever they drift, the bright red datura flowers turn black.
In that moment, I smell the scent of flowers. Is that the scent of his soul, tinged with a faint, burning bitterness?
MC: (Sylus…)
My beloved was born amid apocalyptic terror.
People cursed his life, fabricated his sins, and celebrated his death.
Only one person ever gazed into his gem-like eyes, embraced his burning soul, and sang to him in the night wind.
He had long since branded the mark of his existence into my life.
Yet his vengeance against fate is like a sword that has pierced my chest.
MC: Sylus… I curse your soul…
He said the best way to punish someone is to make them live forever.
MC: I curse your soul to never dissipate…
MC: Forever bound to me.
I reach up and grasp the last black petal, as if seizing the last fragment of his soul—
MC: My curse... Only I can…
MC: Grant you a true death.
From deep within the valley comes a faint dragon’s roar. The petals quiver and are carried distantly by the wind, as though the dragon has returned to the white clouds.
It feels as though horns like tender branches are growing atop my head. Sharp pain pierces through my spine as a dragon tail replaces what was once my tailbone.
I walk into the valley that had once accepted him.
After my dragon leaves, I finally become the same kind of being as him.
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