Elden: Ring of Calamity

Chapter 459 Legacy
"The Memory Battlefield is the precious legacy of the entire Star-Moon Civilization. You are just the agent who has the honor of inheriting this legacy. I am afraid that it will be destroyed along with your death. Is this reason sufficient enough?"

Carter Pella raised her head, looked at the cold stars above the Sacred Tree Forest with her eyes covered by black silk, and spoke softly.

Lucia couldn't see her eyes, he could only see her silhouette looking up at the stars. The gaffe a moment ago seemed to be just a fleeting illusion. The current Carterpella was the Queen of Death that better fit his impression.

Perhaps also the Queen of Death that is more in line with historical records.

"That's enough." Lucia swallowed the sweet taste in her throat and closed her eyes. "Although I don't know the full picture of the Emperor's plan, I can feel its weight every minute and every second. Don't worry, I won't die before I complete the necessary mission."

"It's better this way," Carter Pera said lightly, "You've gone too far this time."

"I thought the massacre outside Guntherfred was the end of the first half of the Northern War. You have proven your ability and avenged the Northerners. After that, you can only use the strategic depth of the Far East to contain the giant army in the direction of Thor. As long as it takes long enough, the foundation of the royal court is too shallow and it will sooner or later fall apart in the civil strife. But you insist on throwing a barrel of strong gunpowder on the fire, leading 10,000 people to rush to the Falling Star Peak to fight against an army of 300,000 giants. What are you thinking?"

"To win," Lucia replied.

"win?"

"If your strategic pressure was not too harsh, the Giant King's Court would not have used the Jedi Seal without being prepared, and Radagon would not have acted rashly in the short term. In this battlefield full of runes, even if you only use the devouring ability of the memory battlefield to fight for another three months, you will have a chance to kill Kalerius with one blow. That is the only reasonable way to win!"

"I understand that I can afford to delay, but my enemies cannot. However, my people cannot afford to delay even more."

He struggled to get up half of his body, leaned against a broken tree trunk, and pointed to a meadow by the river in the northeast of the forest. "Look there - you should be able to see it, right?"

"What do you want to say?"

"That was once the territory of the Milan clan, one of the sixteen clans of Samir. In the last giant war, almost all of the previous generation of the Milan clan died on the battlefield. Since then, they have been in a state of decline and have only relied on herding and fur trading for a living. Even so, one-third of Milan children die every year due to food shortages."

"So you are here to change their fate, His Majesty Lucia Sanx, the new King of Elden?"

"No their fate is sealed."

"On June 49, Golden Year 6, the head of the Celia family, Glen Celia, led six hundred wolf hunters to massacre three towns under the Milan clan. All the Milanese were killed."

Carter Pella was stunned for a moment, and whispered: "You said they make a living by trade, so there should be at least a few caravans surviving outside."

"Unfortunately, June is not the time to harvest furs."

"When the wolf-hunting knights entered the village, the men of the Milan clan were grazing nearby, the women were repairing the livestock shed, the older children were digging wild vegetables and tree roots, and the younger children could only huddle in the house, shivering with hunger in their hands."

"They cut off the limbs of the clan leader and his family, injected incense into them, and nailed them to the flagpole at the entrance of the village. They also left an inscription on the stone tablet nearby, claiming that this was revenge for the blood feud of the Kashir family in Slovens Town. After that, they tortured all the men in the same way. As for what happened to the women and children, I think Your Majesty has experienced the chaos of the War of the Gods, and you can imagine the hellish scene without my description."

"I know this not because the Ancient Dragon Dynasty's intelligence network is so powerful, but because Gran Cilia wrote this into the battle report submitted to the Northern Border Garrison, and then it was passed all the way to Asia through the official channels of the Golden Dynasty, and spread as a precious topic of conversation among the nobles after dinner. May I ask if your Majesty will also publicize this kind of deed as an achievement when the Tibia Dynasty still exists in the world?"

"Of course not." The queen immediately answered firmly. Her voice turned cold, and every syllable was as cold as the sword that had killed the gods.

"Whether you believe it or not, I am not Marika. The Black Flame of Death treats all villains equally. If my followers and nobles commit such evil deeds, I will personally bring the heaviest punishment upon them."

"I am not familiar with that period of history, especially those unknown truths hidden in the shadows of history—" Lucia turned to Carterpella, and raised her head slightly in the latter's distant and cold eyes, as if she was not only looking at her, but also looking up at the stars and the moon that illuminate the endless time of people in the mortal world.

"But I believe that Your Majesty has no need to deceive, nor does he bother to deceive."

“But I don’t understand.”

"I don't understand why the evil deeds that Your Majesty considered taboo during the War of the Gods could spread unscrupulously during the Golden Age, and those in high positions were not ashamed of it, but proud of it."

"I don't understand how a law that is universally recognized can turn a blind eye to this."

"I don't understand how in a world where there are gods who really protect mortals, the gods can be indifferent to this."

"Mortals can admit that they are weak and hide in the torrent of the world, playing the role of an ostrich with its head buried in the sand to avoid reality for the rest of their lives. No one will blame them for anything, but what about us?"

"We who think we are extraordinary, aren't we worthy of lowering our heads to take a look at the suffering of all living beings and the wailing of all souls under our feet?"

"If this is the case, the gods should be defeated and the kings should be executed."

Gods should be defeated and kings should be killed!
The moment he heard these words, Carterpella felt as if he had suddenly fallen into cold well water under the scorching sun in midsummer, and every cell in his body trembled involuntarily.

For the first time since they met, she felt a certain will in this dragon, which shocked her greatly, yet seemed extremely familiar.

Then she heard him say calmly: "Perhaps, I will never understand them in my entire life - so I must win, and I won, it's that simple."

Carter Pella looked at the man, whose body was covered with wounds that were enough to be rebuilt, and whose voice was as weak as a candle in the wind, and couldn't help but ask: "You almost died, can this be considered a win?"

"Winning always has to cost something, and it's better for me to pay than for someone else to pay."

Lucia exhaled lightly. The low temperature at night froze the water vapor into a misty white fog, blurring his face. "Anyway, as an inheritor of the legacy, I will always have a chance to make a comeback, right? I don't want to mourn in front of my subordinates' tombstones while hating my own incompetence."

Hearing this, Carter Pella's anger, which had just been suppressed for a moment, began to bubble up again. He laughed in anger and said, "So you set your life source on fire without saying a word? Do you know that when Odysseus swept the northern border, he was much stronger than you are today, but he still sent out 500,000 soldiers and used the power of an entire country to dare to risk his life like you? Even if you don't care about your own life, do you know that after such a chaotic battle, many of my plans here will have to be overturned and started over again?"

At this moment, the "king" who had just been making an impassioned speech suddenly realized his identity as the "legacy" and slumped down along the tree trunk, saying, "Anyway, this body is completely broken for the time being. As one of the important shareholders of the legacy, Your Majesty the Queen of Death, please decide whether to save it or not?"

"According to what you just said, my dragon claws, dragon teeth, dragon blood, and dragon scales are still worth some money. You can take them as you like. As for whether I can compensate you for your losses, I have tried my best anyway."

These words seemed to have exhausted his last bit of strength. After he finished speaking, he tilted his neck and lay flat on his back. Carterpella was about to retort after holding back for a long time, but he heard a light snoring sound beside him.

She stood up angrily and reached for her waist, but she remembered that she had even given the greatsword of the hunting god to this guy. She could only hold the "invisible sword" in the air and gestured frantically at the dead dragon for a while, and then stepped on its face several times in the air before she recovered her breath.

"Just this once, I owe you a debt, and you owe me a debt. If you don't pay me back, then wash your neck and wait for the dragon feast!"

(End of this chapter)