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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 48
Chapter Title: The Dark Divine Beast's Plan
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“Your Highness, the search is complete!”
“Good.”
As Count Talon approached Ijeten to report, Ijeten nodded, taking one last look around.
The executions of the Dark Divine Beast's followers who had been living here were finished long ago.
When he first found the followers, he had captured, tortured, and interrogated them, but they knew nothing about the Dark Divine Beast.
For the eternal life of the Great One!
That was the only bullshit they spouted.
And of course, the Dark Divine Beast never came to save them.
Gaining nothing, Ijeten stopped leaving them alive.
*Fwoosh-!*
As red flames erupted in the Crown Prince's hand, Count Talon shouted a warning to the knights and soldiers.
“Everyone, fall back!”
The building and altar where the followers of the Dark Divine Beast had stayed began to burn fiercely in Ijeten's red flames.
It looked as if not a single trace would be left behind.
Billowing black smoke rose into the beautiful, sunset-drenched sky.
“On to the next destination!”
“Yes, Your Highness!”
“Advance!”
Ijeten, mounted on his horse, confirmed the building was nearly collapsed in the flames before pulling on his reins and shouting loudly.
Leading the soldiers and kicking up dust, the Crown Prince did not look like a boy.
And far away, a woman watching from a clifftop grumbled with a fed-up expression.
As she shook her head, her long, wavy red hair swayed.
“Ugh. Seriously, what a vicious little tiger.”
The woman clicked her tongue in pity for the ‘shrine’ that had now completely lost its form, glaring again at the arsonist with her purple eyes.
“Hmph. He's nothing like my cute silver tiger. How can a crap-colored tiger like that be my darling's brother? Ugh, so annoying!”
“Doat Hill.”
The woman called Doat Hill turned her head with a sullen expression.
“Are you colorblind? She's not silver, she's white. A white tiger.”
“Honestly. You have no romance, Lake.”
Doat Hill scoffed at the gray-haired man who had bothered to correct her, crossing her arms.
“Have you seen my darling? Only I have.”
“Doat Hill.”
“I saw the white tiger standing in the moonlight at night, you know? She sparkles just like silver. She was so pretty!”
Doat Hill flicked her red tongue.
“Truly delectable. It would be so sweet to wrap her up tight and swallow her in one gulp.”
As she spoke, Doat Hill flicked her red tongue again and shot a pure white spiderweb from her hand.
As she grinned while imagining tasting the White Tiger Princess, Lake Alp sighed and warned her.
“Don't even think about it, Doat Hill. That white tiger belongs to the master.”
“I know, I know. Of course I know that, Master~!”
After snapping irritably at the ever-serious Lake Alp, Doat Hill suddenly raised her voice a tone and called out coquettishly toward a certain spot.
To a dark something crawling on the ground in a thicket on the opposite side of the cliff where they stood.
But the human-sized ‘something’ didn't respond, slowly writhing as it focused on its task.
*Gulp, gulp.*
Hearing the strange, continuous sound, Doat Hill turned her head again to watch the Crown Prince's army retreat into the distance, then went down the cliff to check the surroundings.
A moment later, Lake Alp approached the thing and asked, bowing his head respectfully.
“Master, are you finished?”
“I am.”
The black figure, answering in a cracked and hoarse voice, rose from the ground.
It was a black snake.
But it was not the form of a typical snake. It was an ethereal shape, indistinct like a shadow, with a viscous and fluid texture.
Beneath the thicket from which he emerged lay five shriveled corpses, their life force drained.
“Ah! I'm back, Master!”
“Doat Hill. Let's dispose of them quickly.”
“Okay~ Mister Alp~”
Doat Hill, having just returned from her scouting, skillfully produced her spiderwebs and wrapped up the corpses.
Then, she and Lake Alp took the bodies and threw them into a nearby valley.
By the time the corpses reached the lower stream, they would have dissolved without a trace from the venom in the webs.
“Oh my?”
“Ah, Master!”
The two beastmen, wiping their hands and returning to their spot, were surprised and delighted to see their master's completely changed appearance.
Lake Alp in particular was overjoyed, rushing to the Dark Divine Beast and kneeling before him.
“Master! You've managed to humanize! Can you walk now?”
“I can.”
Where before his voice had been terribly hoarse and cracked, difficult to understand, it was now a pleasant male voice.
It was an astonishing change.
“That's wonderful, Master. Hoho.”
Doat Hill also preferred serving a master in bipedal human form rather than a crawling one, so she grinned and bowed respectfully.
“The life force of young beastmen is certainly good for recovery.”
“Ah, I'm glad they were to your liking, Master.”
“Oho~ I understand, Master.”
Lake Alp and Doat Hill met each other's eyes and grinned.
They would do anything for their master's recovery.
For their master was the Dark Divine Beast, the one who possessed the greatest power in this world and would ‘cleanse’ it.
“From now on, we will prepare only young beastmen.”
“Prepare a moderate mix. It will be troublesome if those Penterin royals catch on and pursue us.”
He had not yet fully recovered, so his face was incomplete, remaining a black shape.
Nevertheless, Lake Alp was delighted by his incomparably eerie presence and nodded.
“Understood.”
“Master. Since it's easier for you to move and you can wear human clothes, shall we head north?”
Doat Hill said excitedly, and Lake Alp asked cautiously in a worried tone.
“Will you be all right?”
“I'll be fine. I can recover more by eating beastmen along the way.”
The Dark Divine Beast, who had replied in a hoarse voice, suddenly recalled the Emperor of the Rilberg Empire, Tantitus, who had reduced him to this state.
The human mage who dared not only to suppress his weakened body but also to tear it to shreds.
In the center of crimson irises filled with hatred, black, vertically slit pupils glared toward the western continent.
Moreover, that bastard mage who was now Emperor had somehow managed to sneak into his and the white tiger's dreams like a rat and bind him.
“Annoying bastards.”
The Dark Divine Beast, now in human form, clenched and unclenched his fists, muttering softly in his hoarse voice.
Firmly caught in Ekiel's bindings, the Dark Divine Beast was forced to act not as a ‘Divine Beast’ but as a ‘beastman’.
His immense power itself had been temporarily sealed.
But the Dark Divine Beast grinned as if it didn't matter.
This much power was enough to swallow the world.
Besides, Anash had also been reincarnated as a beastman, not a Divine Beast. A fight is only fun if it's fair, isn't it?
He said to his subordinates.
“While the white tiger's family is off guard and distracted, I must reclaim my place as soon as possible. Let's head north.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Alright~ Master. Hoho.”
The Dark Divine Beast and his subordinates, Doat Hill and Lake Alp, fled north to escape the Penterin Crown Prince and Emperor, who were destroying their ‘shrines’ and killing their followers with terrifying ferocity.
By the time they reached a northern city, the Dark Divine Beast, having absorbed the lives of five young beastmen at once, had taken on a complete human form.
The Dark Divine Beast, now an adult man in his early twenties, had deliberately transformed into an appearance suited for this place.
A sharp-featured handsome man with light purple hair and red eyes.
It was the appearance of the ‘man’ he would live as from now on.
“Oh my. You're so handsome, my Master.”
As Doat Hill giggled, Lake Alp chided her for being disrespectful.
The Dark Divine Beast recalled Emperor Ritain, whom he had seen while passing near the north, and grinned.
So that was the ‘white tiger's’ biological father.
“Just you wait, Emperor.”
The Dark Divine Beast said, almost humming.
Because he would appear as someone they would never suspect of being the Dark Divine Beast.
He had heard that Princess Jusielia, the white tiger, had been deliberately sent away to the western continent, the empire of mages.
But she would return soon.
‘We'll see about that. Will you still be able to protect your daughter then, Golden Tiger Emperor?’
