Devouring World Dragon

Chapter 218 The Seal is Broken

"You don't want to capture that woman alive, you want to kill her."

In that forgotten old world, gazing upon the Son of Adam before him, Metatron, the former vice-ruler of Heaven, and later Lucifer, the fallen angel, spoke thus.

The gaze of angels is like fire; any mortal who looks directly into the gaze of an angel will be instantly burned to salt. But the man before Lucifer is an exception, for his parents were the sons of God, the oldest humans who lived in the Garden of Eden. His parents had been companions of angels and dwelled with God.

Primitive Man, the most primitive human, the son of God who lived in the Garden of Eden and knew nothing of birth, aging, sickness, or death.

Adam, Lilith, and Eve are all like this. Lilith can easily climb Mount Kabbalah, which symbolizes the hierarchy of all things, and converse with the angel Raziel. Her lifespan, joy, and power are limitless.

Only after being expelled from Eden was the power of the oldest humans gradually weakened, but even so, the Atlanteans still had a lifespan of a thousand years, and Cain's power was even greater than that of the Atlanteans.

He was cursed by the gods, unable to feel emotions yet immortal; he was favored by the father of serpents, and by submitting to darkness, he gained the power to move mountains and overturn seas.

Looking at the son of Adam, Metatron could feel the immense power contained within him. If he truly wanted to do something, in this age of slumbering gods and demons and departed angels, no power could stop him, yet he did nothing.

"You are not helping Satan escape."

Looking at him, the Vice-King of Heaven said this.

The naked man didn't speak, but closed his eyes, feeling the cool touch of the breeze on his body, the dampness of the soft soil beneath his feet, and all the beauty of the world. But his heart, as hard as stone, remained unmoved.

I must be missing something.

His reason told him this, but his heart remained unmoved by it.

Is someone who can't feel emotional changes, who's like a stone, really human? He vaguely remembered asking himself that question before.

His memories of the time before he lost his feelings were still vivid. Those memories of his joy or anger seemed like they happened yesterday. He knew that he was laughing very happily and being very direct in his anger back then, but silently feeling those past memories... was like flipping through an old book. Although he saw them, he only saw them and was not moved at all.

Why should we help it get out of trouble?

The voice was eerily calm, completely devoid of any inflection.

"It has already decided everything, and who can defy its will?"

"It's dead."

The broken-winged angel sitting on the throne of swords spoke again.

Yes, the great serpent has fallen into eternal slumber. It has become the Earth itself. Eternal slumber is death. The great serpent is dead, but the dead are restless and trying to come back to life.

Cain remained noncommittal, speaking in a calm, even tone.

"Metatron, do you really think it's dead?"

In that forgotten old world, the winged angel no longer spoke, and in the eternally restless ruins of that old world, a new rebellion broke out once more.

The images before him vanished with the outbreak of the rebellion, but Cain remained silent.

After pondering for an unknown amount of time, the man sensed a connection from the ground—the aura of the monster known as the angel Raziel, Satan, and the serpent. He understood that the sealed container had finally been broken.

In a daze, it was as if I had returned to that day once again.

……

"Why not seal this statue away forever, and leave a key behind?"

He looked at the Frenchman in front of him, who was devoutly praying to the statue of the girl in military uniform who contained the heart of the Demon King.

The once glorious Frenchman did not respond to his words, but continued to pray devoutly to his saint. After the long prayer ended, he inexplicably let out a low, foolish laugh.

The low chuckle eventually turned into a strange, manic laugh. The deranged Frenchman opened his eyes wide, stared at the man before him, and uttered a lament.

“Sealed forever? Son of Adam, progenitor of vampires, our ancestor, who could seal the father of serpents forever? Not even the all-knowing Lord of the Gate. There is no power in the world capable of sealing the father of serpents.”

"It's not that I want to leave a key behind, but that this key is bound to exist, because this sculpture will be opened one day, that's inevitable."

He was the one who sealed that heart, but the mad former French marshal didn't think so.

Looking at the mad Frenchman in front of him, he looked at the "key" in his hand—an exquisite flag. As long as he put this flag into the hands of the girl in military uniform, the statue would be opened. This was the only way to open the statue.

then……

"Snapped!"

He broke the metal flag himself, and the key to open the statue disappeared, making the statue impossible to open. Without the key, how could he open the statue that sealed the Demon King's heart?

Let the eternally sleeping serpent remain forever asleep.

But the Frenchman who had crafted the key merely glanced at it, unmoved by the broken key, before turning back to look at the statue of the girl in military uniform in front of him.

In his eyes, the saintess's heroic figure was so admirable.

The statue depicts the very scene he witnessed that year: a seventeen-year-old girl holding aloft a flag, which then created a legendary tale resembling a myth.

He murmured as he looked at the sculpture.

"It's meaningless. Everything has already been decided. The great father of serpents has arranged everything... You destroyed an old key, but a new key will be born as a result. No matter how much you struggle, it's useless, because the father of serpents will eventually awaken."

"Cain, you have helped me, and I will use this knowledge from another world to help you, but do not think that this can really achieve what you want. One day, this seemingly sealed thing will be broken, and then the eternally sleeping father of serpents will awaken."

……

The man once thought he had sealed it away forever, but Leonardo da Vinci, Uberto, and the humans who had just broken the seal seemed to possess some kind of magic, attracting those brilliant minds to try to break the seal and awaken the sleeping demon king.

"It is not people who are pursuing knowledge, but knowledge that is pursuing people. Its pursuit is cruel and ruthless, just like an eagle pursuing a rabbit on the ground."

For some reason, the man remembered a phrase that the Frenchman often said.

Perhaps it was never the brilliant minds chasing the statue, but rather the statue chasing the brilliant minds. Its pursuit was ruthless and cruel, and none of those brilliant minds could escape its clutches.

Is this the truth?

The man pondered, unsure if it was true.

He lowered his head and saw countless sea creatures kneeling around him. From his feet to the horizon, countless, endless creatures lay prostrate before him.

They are pleading for the king's return.

The king did not refuse, because long ago, a beautiful figure had instructed him to treat these children kindly.

Wang broke his promise, but now he should fulfill it.

It had nothing to do with anything else, it was simply because he had made a promise to that figure back then.

Even if this promise can only last for a short time before it vanishes due to the inevitable end of the world, at least let these creatures have a final period of prosperity before that end arrives.

This is the last hurrah before the apocalypse, nothing more. When that slumbering power awakens, it will all come to an end.

"...Once upon a time, there was a giant who fell asleep one day. Where he slept, there was a group of ants. The ants couldn't understand why the giant was no longer moving, so they thought the giant was dead. After that, the ants multiplied and died generation after generation. A hundred years later, the sleeping giant awoke again. What happened in the eyes of the ants? They thought the giant had been resurrected."

After obtaining the book, the eccentric Frenchman once told the man this story.

He said that, like the great Cthulhu who sleeps in R'lyeh, the Serpent Father does not die; death is merely a long slumber for him.

Those who sleep eternally are not the dead; in the wondrous eternity, even death vanishes.

……

Inside an underground church in London.

This underground chapel once recorded the past of the Priory of Sion. Part of Leonardo da Vinci's remains are buried here; Newton once served as the Priory's mentor here; from here were decisions that changed the fate of the world, leading to the first alliance between the underworld and the surface world against Nazi Germany. Now, only numerous corpses remain here.

"You will surely..."

"Crack!"

Before a resentful, strange voice could finish speaking, only the sound of falling axes and knives answered it.

Corpses were everywhere—human corpses, vampire corpses, snake-men dressed as hermits. In the vast underground chapel, blood mingled together, creating an eerie color.

The pale-faced man in a suit smiled as he looked at the hunchbacked old monk in front of him.

"Brother Crawford, what, you still aren't planning to give up?"

Looking at his smile, the hunchbacked old monk, whom he called Brother Crawford, simply stared at him indifferently. Unlike before in the Arctic, the old monk now seemed increasingly strange.

His head was nearly triangular, resembling a snake's head, with deeply sunken eye sockets that sent chills down one's spine. His body was covered in snake scales, and his excessively aged body could not support itself even after transforming into a snake-man; instead, it became even more hunched over.

“My lord has already given you strength, why do you betray me?”

The strange, hoarse voice spoke, but the man in the suit and tie smiled in front of him.

“Power? I have to admit that it is indeed a very powerful power, but… since the power originates from that sculpture, why don’t I just take it for myself?”

“Old Brother Crawford, it seems you really are getting old. Your control over your subordinate organizations has weakened to the point that you haven’t realized their dissatisfaction and resistance. I only stirred things up a little, and organizations like the Hand of Peter, which have been loyal to the Priory of Sion for nearly a thousand years, have actually turned to me. You were completely unaware of this surprise attack. It seems that you really have no one supporting you now.”

"Our Lord is about to awaken, yet mortals are arguing over such trivial matters; we are truly incompetent."

The old monk remained calm in the face of the mockery from the man in the suit, and simply spoke in a hoarse voice.

The battlefield had been cleaned up, leaving only the old monk. Numerous vampires and human soldiers slowly gathered around. The man in the suit and tie wasn't worried about any accidents; instead, he began to mutter to himself.

“From the moment I was born, I was destined to be extraordinary. My father was Louis Bonaparte, King of the Netherlands, and my uncle was Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France. Everyone praised and revered my uncle. At first, I also admired my uncle because of his invincibility, but later I changed. I didn’t want to be just that. I shouldn’t just be ‘Napoleon’s nephew.’ I shouldn’t just live in my uncle’s shadow. I should surpass him.”

"I became Emperor of France, Napoleon III, and I desperately tried to surpass my uncle, but in the end I realized it was impossible..."

As he spoke, he looked at Brother Crawford in front of him.

"But why, why am I just 'Napoleon's nephew'? I'm willing to become a vampire to gain immortality, just to find an opportunity, and finally, I've found it."

His gaze was fixed on the statue in Brother Crawford's hand.

“My uncle once obtained the key to the world, and he achieved unimaginable feats because of it, but what I am about to do is to achieve something far beyond that of my uncle Napoleon Bonaparte.”

He slowly walked towards the old monk, who tried to raise his hand to do something, but then countless bullets shot at him, tearing his body to shreds like a rag.

The statue slipped from the old monk Crawford's hands and fell into a pool of blood.

The man in the suit... no, Charles-Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, the Emperor Napoleon III, picked up a blood-stained statue from a pool of blood.

The blood-stained girl in military uniform seemed to be looking at him, her heroic face now tinged with a sinister and fanatical air.

Looking at the statue in his hands, Napoleon III murmured.

"Actually, opening this statue is really simple; all you need is the blood of you monsters."

As he spoke, a small crack appeared on either side of the statue, which had been sealed for a long time. The statue slowly opened, revealing a heart hidden deep within.

The heart seemed alive, still faintly beating.

The old key was destroyed, and the statue naturally created a new one.

Staring at the heart before him, though he had seen it in his dream, this was the first time the man had truly seen it. However, he did not intend to awaken the heart's owner as the dream had instructed.

He will not awaken the heart's owner; he will seize the powerful force hidden deep within it.

"I will become the god of the new world."

Gazing at the heart in his hand, the man's eyes gleamed with fanaticism and greed.

……

Meanwhile, somewhere in the Sea Ruins, the giant dragon that had seized the father and daughter flew toward the gaping hole in the sky barrier, where countless seawater poured into this underwater world, providing a way in and out.

The dragon flew directly towards the source despite the immense water pressure. Even in the seawater, it was incredibly agile. A faint halo covered its body, repelling the seawater and preventing the father and daughter in its arms from drowning.

One thousand meters, two thousand meters, three thousand meters...

They flew swiftly towards the surface of the ocean, and after a long while, light finally appeared before them.

"Bang!!!"

With a huge splash, the giant dragon leaped out of the water and soared through the air, then flew towards the land not far away.

When the dragon landed on the beach, it flapped its wings and gently placed the father and daughter it was holding in its claws onto the sand.

Roberts had fainted from the pain, while the only one who remained conscious was Joan, who was mostly unharmed. Joan struggled to her feet on the beach. Gazing at the enormous creature before her, a creature that seemed to exist only in movies and myths, and at those vertical golden eyes staring back at her, she was speechless.

For some reason, she felt as if the enormous creature in front of her did not have any ill intentions towards her and her father, and even seemed to be quite kind.

"you……"

Before she could finish speaking, the giant dragon in front of her seemed to lose its balance, then suddenly began to shrink, and finally turned into a naked human figure lying on the ground in front of Joan.

It was a completely naked woman with slightly curly long hair and a tall figure. She looked like a typical beauty, but there was a huge wound on her abdomen that was bleeding profusely, so much so that she had fainted on the ground.

When Joan saw the humanoid figure in front of her, she couldn't help but gape. She had been surprised many times during this period, but none of them could compare to what she was seeing now.

"Wendy?"

(End of this chapter)