Chapter 1743 - The Final Battle – Side B (2/2)

She saw the clouds tear apart, and a chaotic dystopian dimension appeared in the sky. Countless starships were duking it out in that dimension.

This time, she did not see it through the resonance, but due to the tear in the dimensional fabric, not only she could see what was in the sky, but even the normal soldiers could.

“Do not mind what is in the sky!” she yelled, her magically-powered voice thundered across the battlefield. “Onward!”

“Onward!”

“Onward!”

The commanders quickly rallied their man, and Rheia’s slightly sympathetic visage appeared before her eyes again.

She heard Rheia’s voice once again in her mind. “… But Constance, do you know that you may not be a true inheritor? Or rather, you are not what a normal inheritor should be…”

She instinctively raised her blade and parried an attack from a black claw.

“After I found out that you could transfer your consciousness between a dozen clones or so like an Ebon Blade, I became slightly interested in you. We know of your unusual birth. You were picked out by Emperor Berentine 200 years ago from a lava lake, and unlike the usually short-lived inheritors, you had a parent. You were also unlike the inheritors from ancient times…”

The monster with the black claw fell, and its body quickly disintegrated in the storm. At the very last moment, its face returned to its original human form. It was a normal-looking man, a nameless imperial soldier.

He even smiled at Constance during that split moment. There was reverence in his smile.

It was the same look many imperial soldiers and knights would have every time they saw the princess. While they may try hard to hide it, Constance always detected it.

Constance looked up, and the imperial palace was before her. That was the place she grew up in, and looking at the familiar walls and spires, she felt even more at peace than expected.

The warriors beside her were all wounded, and the Knights of the Broken Blades who had arrived with her were less than half of their original numbers now. A large group of soldiers formed in the rear to block off any counterattacking monster, and in the storm, their silhouettes appeared distant.

Most of the fallen soldiers had committed suicide. Whenever they were wounded by the minions of annihilation or whenever their strength failed them, almost all of the soldiers would commit suicide. They would activate the runestones that they carried with them and blow themselves to pieces.

That way, the number of enemies would not increase.

The main door of the palace lay wide open. It was eerily silent. There were monsters in every part of the city, but at the heart of annihilation was a peaceful oasis.

Constance took a deep breath. The young yet seemingly confident and calm inspiring voice rang again in her head. “Constance, I inspected your soul while you were unaware. Do you know why you were able to transfer your consciousness so easily between your clones without any delay?

“It is because your soul is man-made.”

Charlemagne traveled through the rain as steam surrounded his body. In his hand was the famous holy sword of Izzo, The Blazing Sun. He looked at Constance, seeming much more matured and grounded than before. “It feels odd inside. We should first—”

Constance stopped him with a wave of her hand. “I’ll take point. Everyone else, follow me.”

Without any question or doubt, Charlemagne turned to his soldiers and started to arrange them. The Knights of the Broken Blade and the soldiers of the north had all gathered, forming a defensive formation behind Constance as well as the flanks.

“Constance, your soul is pieced from many fragments and memories. These memories are what you know as ‘the inheritance’, and the soul fragments that form you are probably from the real inheritors.

The palace was unnaturally silent. It was as though they had stepped into a different world the moment they went through the door. There were no monsters in sight or any signs of blood and combat, but everyone could sense that the terrifying dark powers nested there.

At every corner, behind every door, beneath every light, there were unknown shadows writhing about.

“If we are not wrong, Constance, the creator of your soul is probably your father, and the lava lake that you were born in, was probably Berentine’s doing to wipe out any traces. His reason for doing so… could probably be the fact that he is the last of the true inheritors.

“He created you and gave you the knowledge of the inheritors. He told you about the inheritors’ mission, but the memories that you’ve had of the cycles have been false. Your actual birth was about 200 years ago. The life that you have personally experienced… It is these 200 years.”

The path to the throne hall was smooth. Before Constance and her warriors arrived, he was the only person in the entire palace just like his identity in his world. He was the last and only inheritor.

The loneliest emperor in this era…

As the conduit of the power of Annihilation in this era and the source of all monsters, Berentine looked seemingly normal without any visible mutations. At least his armor allowed him to look human.

However, everyone gripped their weapons tightly because underneath his armor was an aura more foreboding, mad, and terrifying than any monster they had faced earlier.

Constance quietly looked at the throne. She knew that her father was no more; within the armor was only a shell and madness.

Under her gaze, the armored silhouette stood up as “it” walked slowly down the throne. The grinding of metals let out an unpleasant noise, and a raspy voice, even more grating and terrifying, came from beneath the armor. “Ah, you have come, my beloved daughter… What brings you here?”

Constance raised her sword slightly as she approached the monster. “To take the throne.”