Chapter 17 - The New Oath

Kwa-a-ang!

Before the roar of the bombardment could even fade, a desperate scream erupted from amidst the ashen smoke.

It was not Sun Ce's scream.

"Yuan Shuuuuu-!!! You cowardly rat-!!!"

It was Gan Ning.

Having been flung away by the blast, his reason snapped the moment he saw Sun Ce lying covered in blood.

Only half a day.

It was the howl of a beast who had lost a 'real man' with whom he shared a soul's resonance, someone who made his blood boil for the first time in his life despite their short encounter.

His eyes were bloodshot, the whites completely invisible.

Clatter-!

A chain as thick as Gan Ning's forearm sliced through the air and soared.

The target was Yuan Shu's airship floating in the sky.

The hook at the end of the chain, shaped like a giant anchor, lodged precisely into the exhaust port of the airship's mana engine at the rear.

Clang!

"Got you, you son of a bitch!"

Gan Ning poured all his mana into his arm muscles, which swelled as if they were about to burst.

He kicked off the ground and launched his body toward the airship like a catapult.

No, he was trying to drag the airship down to the ground.

[W-What the?!]

Yuan Shu, who had been snickering atop the airship, turned pale.

Dragging an aerial battleship with the strength of a single commander was beyond common sense.

But common sense did not apply to the 'Mad Dog' Gan Ning.

"Come down! Die!! I'm going to rip you apart!!!"

Crunch-! Rumble!

The engine room of the airship was torn off by Gan Ning's monstrous strength.

Having lost its power source, the airship spewed black smoke and lurched, losing its balance.

[Th-This crazy...! The engine?!]

Yuan Shu frantically pulled the control stick, but the ship was already plummeting.

His gaze turned toward the embedded in Sun Ce, who was lying on the ground.

If he could just get his hands on that, it would be a perfect victory.

But from below, Gan Ning, crazed with bloodlust, was crawling up the chain like a spider.

'If I go down now, I die.'

Yuan Shu's brilliant, yet despicable brain finished its calculation rapidly.

Survival came before greed.

[Damn it! Damn it! It was almost mine!]

With eyes full of lingering regret, Yuan Shu gave up on the Red Fragment.

Instead, he clutched his own in his bosom tightly like a lifeline.

Click, Whooosh-!

Just before the airship crashed into the river, the boosters on the back of the golden maneuver suit Yuan Shu was wearing ignited.

He threw away the airship as bait and soared into the sky alone.

"Where do you think you're going!!"

Gan Ning swung his chain to aim for Yuan Shu's ankle, but it sliced through empty air by a hair's breadth.

Far away in the sky, Yuan Shu's voice, becoming a dot and disappearing, rang out pathetically through a loudspeaker.

[Just you wait! I was just unlucky today! I will return as the Emperor!!]

Boom! Rumble!

The ownerless airship crashed into the middle of the Purgatory River, raising a massive pillar of water.

Gan Ning stepped on the falling debris and leaped, landing on the deck where Sun Ce had fallen.

Running away Yuan Shu was no longer important to him.

"Hey! Snap out of it! Open your eyes!"

Gan Ning rolled across the scorched floor and rushed to Sun Ce.

But Sun Ce's condition, seen up close, left even Gan Ning, who had traversed countless battlefields, speechless.

"Ah..."

Yuan Shu's magic shell had shown no mercy.

Sun Ce's abdomen was horribly pierced, and red blood was pouring out from within without stopping.

Even the embedded in his heart had lost its light and flickered faintly.

Like a candle going out.

"Hey! Little Conqueror! You don't die from this! Get up! Get up and curse at me or something!"

Gan Ning tried to stop the bleeding by pressing on Sun Ce's wound with trembling hands, but he couldn't stop the life force from slipping through his fingers.

Healing magic? Potions? It was not a wound that could be resolved with such things.

The vessel of the soul was already broken.

"Cough..."

Sun Ce painfully coughed up blood.

His unfocused eyes wandered the empty air before finding the face of Gan Ning, who was grabbing his collar and wailing.

"So noisy... really..."

"Yeah! Am I a bit noisy? So get up and tell me to shut up and hit me!"

Thick tears fell from Gan Ning's eyes, wetting Sun Ce's face.

Normally, Sun Ce would have wiped them off in disgust, but now he didn't even have the strength to do so.

Sun Ce lifted his bloodied hand.

Gan Ning hurriedly grasped that hand.

Sun Ce's hand was already cold as ice.

"Gan... Ning..."

"Yeah, speak. I'm listening. Brother."

Sun Ce gasped for breath and squeezed out the last of his remaining strength.

His gaze turned toward his younger brother Sun Quan, who would be in the rear beyond the blurry sky.

"My... Quan..."

"..."

"He's cowardly... and can't fight... But... he's smarter than me..."

A faint smile spread on Sun Ce's lips.

Memories of roaming the battlefield with his father, and memories of bickering with his brother flashed by like a lantern slide.

"Please... my brother... protect him..."

"...!"

"I only... trust you... Mad Dog..."

Thud.

Strength left Sun Ce's hand.

At the same time, the embedded in his heart made a crumbling sound, lost its light, and fell to the floor.

That was the end.

The body of Sun Ce, the Little Conqueror of the Sun Clan who seemed destined to command the world, began to turn into a black stone lump from the toes up.

It was the 'Petrification' phenomenon that occurs when a powerhouse of the Demon Realm meets death.

"Brother? Hey... Hey!!"

There was no answer.

What Gan Ning held in his arms was now only a coldly hardened black obsidian statue.

"Aaaaaaaargh-!!!"

Gan Ning's desperate wail tore through the sky of the battlefield where they had won but lost.

The cry sounded like the roar of a beast, and also like the weeping of a child looking for lost family.

With the setting sun, the two giant stars supporting the Sun Clan fell just like that.

*

The Purgatory River, where the heat of battle was cooling down.

The ownerless was fluctuating anxiously on the river water.

At that moment, blackened feathers fluttered down from the ashen sky like snow.

Wings that were burnt to a crisp, leaving only gaunt frames.

Lucifella stumbled and landed next to the fragment.

The tips of her silver hair were singed by fire, and soot stained her pale cheeks.

As she picked up the on the river water with trembling hands, the fragment's miasma burned her white hand black.

"Cough...!"

Lucifella coughed up red blood.

But she did not let go of the fragment even in pain.

Her gaze slowly turned to the side.

There lay Sun Ce's corpse, turned into a black stone lump, and the lying forlornly beside it, having lost its light.

Lucifella approached Sun Ce's corpse with staggering steps.

She looked at Sun Ce, who had become a statue, with sad eyes, then carefully picked up the Red Fragment fallen on the floor and held it in her bosom.

"No...!"

With an urgent shout, Sun Quan arrived at the scene on a half-destroyed ship.

He bit his lip and aimed a steam gun at Lucifella.

"Don't touch it! That is... my brother's heart! Hand it over!"

Sun Quan's voice held a desperate urgency rather than murderous intent.

But Lucifella did not back down.

She stared at Sun Quan while holding the Blue Fragment in one hand and the Red Fragment in the other.

"I'm sorry. But this is... not something you can handle."

"Don't make me laugh! That's the price of my family's lives! Give it back!"

"These fragments are the very seeds of calamity. Since my fall invited all this tragedy... I tied this knot, so I must be the one to untie it. I will carry these two sins."

Faint divine power flowed from Lucifella's body and enveloped the two fragments.

It was not a threatening pressure, but a sad and warm light comforting the vengeful spirits of the dead.

Tears flowed down her cheeks, leaving trails on her soot-stained face.

"Shut up! Fire! Shoot that woman and take it back!"

Just as Sun Quan, having lost his reason, was about to pull the trigger.

Kwa-ang-!

A Ruyi Jingu Bang flew from somewhere and slammed Sun Quan's gun barrel into the floor.

Sun Wukong walked out crookedly from the dust.

"Hey, stop it. She's in terrible shape right now, so if you touch her, she'll die."

Sun Wukong blocked Lucifella's path and looked down at Sun Quan with his characteristic arrogant expression.

"And you guys, if you don't want to lose even what your brother left behind, you need to wake up, don't you?"

"...What do you mean."

"Yuan Shu ran away. With his personality, do you think he'll just leave? He'll bring stronger guys and come back. Can you stop them in your current state?"

Sun Wukong's words struck Sun Quan's anxiety precisely.

Having lost the deterrents named Father Sun Jian and Brother Sun Ce, the Sun Clan was no different from being defenseless.

Far from having the power to protect the fragments, it was a situation where preserving the lives of the remaining soldiers was a struggle.

"Let's make a deal, kid."

"...A deal?"

"We will retrieve the two fragments. Instead, we guarantee the survival of your Sun Clan."

Sun Wukong pointed at Lucifella with his chin.

"This woman is too damn kind. She says she can't bear to see you guys get hurt. We will form an alliance with you and announce you as a 'force not to be touched.' With my name value, most small fry won't dare to come near."

Practicality over justification.

Survival over revenge.

Sun Quan looked at the Red Fragment, his brother's keepsake, held in Lucifella's bosom.

She was holding the fragment protectively as if holding her own child.

Like the horribly broken wings behind her back, she too was carrying a heavy cross.

"...Fine."

Sun Quan swallowed tears of blood and lowered his gun.

"I accept... that proposal. However, if you break the promise, I will chase you to the ends of hell."

"Don't worry. My personality is such that I can't live with debt."

Sun Wukong grinned and retracted his Ruyi Jingu Bang.

Only then did Lucifella let out a sigh of relief and bowed her head to Sun Quan with sad eyes.

"Thank you. Your sacrifices... and your brother's last light, I will make sure they are not in vain."

*

The main base of the Sun Clan, where the sun had set and darkness had fallen.

In the ruins where even the flames of the furnace had died down, Sun Quan gathered the few surviving troops.

On a makeshift altar lay a piece of Sun Jian's half-burnt cape and the black stone lump left by Sun Ce.

Pour.

Sun Quan poured liquor in front of the altar.

Then he picked up the bottle and approached Gan Ning, who was staring blankly at the river water.

"Have a drink."

"..."

Gan Ning took the cup without a word.

The image of the Mad Dog, always noisy and energetic, was nowhere to be found.

Sun Quan filled his own cup and opened his mouth.

"I am not strong like Father, nor am I brave like Brother. I am cowardly and calculating."

"I know. That guy, even as he breathed his last, was only worried about you."

At Gan Ning's blunt answer, Sun Quan smiled bitterly.

"But... I must protect it. This place that my family protected with their lives, I want to protect it too."

Sun Quan looked straight at Gan Ning.

Behind his glasses, within the eyes that had seemed weak, a firm light of a ruler dwelt for the first time.

"General Gan Ning. Please inherit my brother's will. Please become my sword for my lacking self."

Gan Ning emptied his cup without a word.

As the strong liquor went down his throat, it washed away a bit of the hot lump in his chest.

'My brother... protect him...'

Sun Ce's last voice lingered in his ears.

Gan Ning threw the empty cup to the floor, shattering it, and slowly knelt before Sun Quan.

"Damn it... You have to give it to him for knowing how to work people."

Gan Ning raised his head and swore an oath to his new lord.

"Those bastards looking down on us as a toothless tiger, this Mad Dog will bite them all to death. My Lord."

Sun Quan and Gan Ning. Leaving behind the oath of two men made on the ruins.

*

On the other side of the battlefield, Sun Wukong and Lucifella were walking side by side.

There was no fancy mount or grand procession.

There were only two shadows stretching long under the moonlight.

"Oh my, just my luck. Took two fragments and even got stuck with a giant burden. Alliance? Protection? Are you out of your mind? Are we a charity?"

Sun Wukong grumbled, tapping the ground with his Ruyi Jingu Bang.

Lucifella moved her feet with difficulty, cherishing the two fragments in her arms.

"They were... excellent warriors. That much courtesy is necessary. Cough..."

"Instead of courtesy, take care of your own body. Your breathing sounds terrible, just terrible."

When Lucifella stumbled, Sun Wukong, who was walking ahead, clicked his tongue and stopped.

"Hey, this won't do. Get on my back."

"It's... fine. I can walk. My burden is mine to..."

"Shut up. If you collapse on the road, it just adds to the baggage, so just get on without complaint!"

When Sun Wukong forced his back toward her, Lucifella smiled bitterly as if she had no choice and carefully leaned her body against his back.

"Thank you... Wukong."

"If you're thankful, don't cause trouble next time. I'm seriously dying of fatigue."

The two bickering as they receded into the darkness.

Over their backs, the long, long night of the Purgatory River passed, and the dawn of a new era was breaking.