“A projection,” he growled. “You’re just a damned illusion.”
“Bingo,” Helio said cheerfully, tapping a finger to his temple. “And at my level, an illusion doesn’t just look like me; it thinks like me. I can project my consciousness into it perfectly. So yes, I can delegate command to the illusion while handling other matters myself.”
“That’s an awful lot of confidence,” Hellsmoke muttered, narrowing his eyes. “Do you think your army can win without you?”
“Oh, they already are winning,” Helio replied smoothly. “And you know that better than most, don’t you?”
Hellsmoke said nothing, but silence was answer enough.
The truth was undeniable. The Kaizell Empire had already swallowed most of the world. Scattered resistance movements still fought back, forming rebel factions in remote corners of the continent, but their time was running out. The mass-produced Transcendants Helio had unleashed were simply too overwhelming.
“Besides,” Helio continued, casually brushing imaginary dust from his shoulder, “I have… other things to attend to. I can’t be wandering off from the castle every time a war needs winning.”
“Other things?” Hellsmoke snapped. “The hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, nothing you’ll be left out of, I assure you,” Helio said, the corner of his mouth twitching upward.
“Tch… What the hell are you playing at?!”
Hellsmoke didn’t wait for an answer. With a snap of his hand, he conjured and released an arrow directly toward Helio’s smug face, aiming straight for the bridge of the nose.
It passed through harmlessly. Even the smiling figure before him was nothing more than illusion.
“Pointless,” Helio said from nowhere and everywhere at once. “You’ll never find me. Zakia and his little crew may think they’ve gone unnoticed, but they haven’t. Not by me. Their efforts, like yours, amount to nothing.”
Hellsmoke lowered his hand slowly, grinding his teeth in frustration.
“Whatever. I don’t give a damn where you’re hiding. You’re not the target.”
He turned his gaze back toward the hulking, grotesque thing that had once been Emperor Sheldt—the mountain of twisted muscle and decaying humanity, still gorging itself like an animal, oblivious to their exchange.
“My goal,” Hellsmoke muttered, his voice low and cold, “is to kill that bloated freak you still call a king.”
Helio only laughed, the sound bubbling up loud and bright in the cavernous chamber.
“Aha ha ha ha ha! Kill His Majesty, you say? Impossible. Utterly futile. You could never do it.”
“You—”
“But since you’ve come all this way… His Majesty, a toy has arrived.”
“Ug… daa…?”
At Helio’s words, the monstrous mass finally turned its head toward Hellsmoke.
That single action was enough. Hellsmoke felt his body lock as if invisible hands had immobilized him. The presence before him evoked every kind of disgust: unsettling, sickening, biologically repulsive, and his limbs simply wouldn’t obey. What is this thing? The idea that the target he had come to kill might not even be human anymore tangled his mind in a way he hadn’t anticipated.
Then the thing moved.
Its motion was slow and terrible. Muscle rolled under mottled flesh; the creature’s bulk shifted like a living boulder, and Hellsmoke had barely time to register the momentum before the thing struck.
“—!”
He was hurled across the room. His body smashed into the stone wall with a sickening crack. Blood burst from his mouth as he tasted iron and pain.
“Gah—! Wh-What the—” he managed between coughs.
“DAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH—!”
There was no mercy. The creature—Sheldt, or whatever remained of him—unleashed a storm of fists. They fell with the careless force of someone crushing a rotten pillar; each blow shattered plaster, dented stone, and hammered Hellsmoke’s limbs until he could no longer stand. Even as someone who had pushed himself into the ranks of the Transcendants, Hellsmoke found his body broken and spat out like refuse.
From across the room, Helio’s eyes were alight.
“A-Amazing…! This is the Kaizell Empire’s…! No, the Weimar Empire’s secret technique!”
He laughed with a fervor that bordered on obsession. His voice, rapturous and unhinged, faded into the clamor of wreckage and Hellsmoke’s ragged, failing breaths; it no longer reached the man crumpled against the wall.
Just as Hellsmoke’s breath was starting to hitch in shallow, broken gasps—his body pulverized, consciousness flickering on the edge of darkness—Helio, as if suddenly remembering something, turned toward the creature beside him.
“Oh yes, yes… I nearly forgot. Your Majesty, that will be enough now.”
“Daa… daa? Gabi… gugeh… bububu…”
“Hyuu… hyuu…”
At Helio’s command, Sheldt, or rather the monstrous thing he had become, let out a few sputtering noises before withdrawing. Apparently satisfied, or perhaps simply losing interest, he turned away from Hellsmoke’s crumpled form and went back to gorging himself.
“Well then. As for this one—”
“I’ll be taking him,” someone said.
“—! Lord Yutis!”
The voice came without warning, crisp and serene, yet carrying with it an authority that made Helio instantly drop to one knee. Yutis had appeared without sound, as if conjured from shadow itself.
“May I?” he asked, glancing toward Hellsmoke. “I trust it’s no trouble if I take him?”
“O-Of course! Please, by all means… use him however you see fit!”
As Helio stammered through his approval, Yutis snapped his fingers.
A ripple of black mist enveloped Hellsmoke’s body. When it cleared, he was gone, vanished without a trace, not even the blood he’d spilled remaining on the floor.
“Hellsmoke, was it?” Yutis murmured, a trace of amusement curling on his lips. “Yes… he may prove quite useful.”
“Ah! So that’s your intent… to make him one of ours, then?” Helio said, his eyes lighting with admiration.
“That’s right.” Yutis answered with an elegant nod, his tone casual but laced with confidence. “In any case… it’s been a long time, Helio.”
“I-It has indeed, my lord!”
“There’s no need to be so formal. Thanks to you, the world has sunk into glorious chaos… and at long last, the Wicked One has returned.”
“—! T-The Wicked One… has truly returned?”
“Yes.”
At his confirmation, Helio trembled, overcome with emotion.
“O-Oh… finally… at last!”
“That’s right. However…”
“Hm? Is something wrong, my lord?”
Helio tilted his head, puzzled by Yutis’s reaction.
“Unfortunately,” he began with a faint sigh, “the Wicked One, having slumbered for so long, is not yet able to wield His full power.”
“—! Th-That’s terrible news…! Is He going to be all right?”
Yutis gave a small nod, calm but somber. “That is precisely why we must continue our work: filling the world with negativity, despair, and hatred. The more the world decays, the faster He will regain His strength.”
“But of course!” Helio exclaimed, instantly recovering his enthusiasm. “There are only a few regions left on this continent that we haven’t yet conquered. In fact, I was just considering the time ripe to launch an offensive on the neighboring continents as well.”
“That would be ideal,” Yutis said approvingly. “However… things have grown a little more complicated for the Cult of the Wicked One. Acting openly has become… unwise.”
“What do you mean?” Helio asked, his expression darkening in suspicion.