Chapter 16 – Rise from the Ashes (1)  

Sina couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She hadn’t been able to follow Juan’s movements; all she saw was Juan flashing into the one-eyed giant’s arms, soaring into the air and bouncing off.

Sina had thrown her sword at him only when she felt that he had been in extreme danger, only to see Juan catch it and swiftly split the one-eyed giant’s head into two. She found the fight to be beyond shocking. In fact, it was more fitting to call it an execution instead.

‘That was so incredible... Would I be able to win against him with my blessing? Maybe...’

Juan looked exhausted after flashing around thrice. If Sina could endure three of those attacks, she could win. But she wasn’t confident that she could take even one of those swift attacks. That wasn’t all; that movement also negated the disadvantage that Juan had due to his small body. He used minimal movement to effectively kill his target, throwing himself into harm’s way without any hesitation. Sina feared Juan’s future potential

‘It’s like he’s the embodiment of the Baltic Sword.’

Sina was appalled at her own thoughts; the creator of the Baltic Sword had been His Majesty, the Emperor and its direct successor was General Barth Baltic. The words ‘embodiment of the Baltic Sword’ implied that Juan was either Barth Baltic or His Majesty himself. Sina shook these disrespectful thoughts away.

She now blamed herself for slacking on her training after moving from the capital to the border. On the one hand, the knights at the border were very much lacking compared to those she had met in the capital. On the other hand, Sina herself had thought she had done it all when she had become an Elite Knight at the young age of 20, and she had acted conceited for a while.

She bit her lips as she looked at Juan.

‘I need to start training again.’

***

Juan heaved a long sigh. While he had pushed himself beyond his limits, it had been worth it. Juan looked down at Sina’s sword—it wasn’t an excellent sword, but it was well-maintained. Juan missed the two-handed sword that he had sharpened at the smithy himself, but even if he had it now, he wouldn’t be able to wield it.

Juan then climbed onto the one-eyed giant and dug into the skull that he had split open. He dug ferociously into it and climbed inside, almost getting himself drowned in the blood and brain fluid due to his small stature. Behind the one-eyed giant’s eye, he managed to find the dark red glob of liquid that he was looking for. It squirmed in Juan’s hand as he held it, and Talter’s mana could be felt clearly from it. Juan threw the glob of dark red blood outside and it dashed in a specific direction. At the same time, all the blood in the colosseum followed it as well.

‘That’s where it is, huh?’

“Juan!” Sina shouted as she approached.

Sina then asked, “Are you hurt anywhere? You look like you’ve pushed yourself beyond your limits...”

“Thanks for the sword, it’s pretty good,” Juan replied as he returned the sword to Sina.

Before Sina could reply, Juan picked up a broken heavy sword and followed the glob of blood as it headed toward the balcony. The eerie room was filled with a horrifying amount of blood that was flowing from all over the colosseum. The blood squirmed, coagulated and gathered in the center of the balcony.

Daeron, who was by the railings, looked at Juan as he cried, “U... Uuuuu...”

He crawled toward Juan with his hands trembling, not caring about the blood that had gathered in the room.

“His Majesty... has descended...” Daeron mumbled. He had simply said this out of formality thus far, but he now meant it after he saw what Juan had done in the colosseum.

‘His Majesty has descended and he’s appeared in front of me.’? This was the only thought in Daeron’s mind.

Daeron was 76 years old and he remembered what it had been like when gods had still been around in this world. Of course, he remembered what His Majesty had done and grew up listening to His Majesty’s heroic tales.

His own father was a slave kidnapped by Talter’s apostles as a sacrifice. The emperor, who had been still young back then, had appeared, killed Talter, and freed the slaves. That story had amazed Daeron so much that it was also the reason why he was so obsessed with Tantil’s colosseum. He greatly wished to see the birth of a new hero in a place where humans and monsters fought it out. And now, he’d witnessed the hero of heroes, the emperor, with his own eyes.

“His Majesty has descended, His Majesty has descended…” Daeron repeatedly mumbled as he crawled to Juan on his knees. Juan laughed, amused as Daeron kissed his sandy feet. It had been just yesterday that Daeron ignored Juan while he was being dragged into the bloodied colosseum, but now he was on his knees, kissing Juan’s feet.

“So only a devout believer recognized my return,” Juan muttered.

Juan raised the broken heavy sword and struck down accurately at the gap on the stone plate that was in the middle of the balcony. He then used the sword as a lever to lift up the stone plate and saw a space barely as big as a fist. Juan put his hand in it and took out something.

“This is where it’s been hiding… what a sneaky bastard,” Juan exclaimed.

It was a weirdly-shaped glass bottle with dark red blood swirling inside. The dark red blood tried to get away from Juan’s hand, but it wasn’t strong enough.

“Juan! What... the hell is that?” Sina asked, astonished at the sight as she entered moments later.

Juan shook the bottle around as he said, “Talter’s blood.”

t.ly/3iBfjkV.

“T-Talter’s blood?! Why is that here?” Sina questioned.

“I don’t know either. It was probably done by one of Talter’s believers. It seems like someone looked for a part of Talter's body and tried to use the blood from the colosseum to revive him,” Juan explained.

Sina pointed her sword at Daeron with widened eyes. Heresy was considered one of the gravest crimes, on par with treason, and based on what Juan was saying, Daeron had actually tried to revive a god.

“Don’t kill him; he’s got nothing to do with this. He’s just a crazy bastard who’s obsessed with putting on a show, like you said. The person who hid this here took advantage of Daeron’s obsession with entertainment to do what they wanted,” Juan told Sina.

Juan lifted the bottle and peeked into it. The dark red blood thrashed around as the screams of humans and monsters could be heard from within the bottle. Evil energy was leaking in all directions, but it looked like Daeron wasn’t affected by it. Whoever had hidden this dark red blood here didn’t think they needed to control Daeron.

“It doesn’t matter! Now that I’ve discovered concrete proof of his heresy, I won’t overlook it! We’ve got both the evidence and the charges against him so we’ll first interrogate him and then decide on his crimes afterward! He’ll definitely be executed!” Sina shouted.

Juan heaved a sigh as he said, “Where’s the proof?”

“What? The evidence is in your hand...” Sina trailed off. Her eyes widened in shock as Juan opened the cap, raised the bottle, and drank the liquid inside.

“What are you doing?!” Sina screamed.

As Talter’s blood flowed into Juan’s throat, Sina tried to grab the bottle, but she was too late. She could do nothing but observe Juan to see if anything was different.

Most of the bodies of the gods defeated by the emperor had disappeared, but a few of them had been stolen and hidden, as there were people who tried to eat the bodies of gods to gain their power. All such instances ended up in a disaster.

Now, Juan had turned completely still.

“Juan!” Sina called out desperately.

***

‘You’re always getting in my way, huh?’?A familiar voice said in Juan’s subconscious.

When Juan had first heard that voice, it had been laughing like crazy. That laughter had slowly turned into chilling screams, and now, at the end, it was nothing but a tired, frail murmur.

“Talter, if you didn’t want me to get in your way, then you shouldn’t have been born,” Juan replied.

‘Fool, I simply let my guard down before because I didn’t know what you were capable of. I only suggested playing with offerings for entertainment...’?

Juan laughed, as he had indeed been too reckless when he had faced Talter. If Talter hadn’t been his first target, Talter would probably have been hard to deal with. After all, Talter was a god of madness that enjoyed battles. It was normal for Talter to have let his guard down, since Juan had been an unknown kid when Talter had first met him.

“And as a result, you were punished severely, weren’t you?” Juan taunted.

‘I laughed when I heard the news of your death, but now you’ve revived as a weak and useless child, huh?’

“You sure you should be saying that when you’ve lost to a child twice? And you ought to think about how you?look now before you criticize my appearance,” Juan retorted.

Talter raged, ‘Fool! Your arrogance ends right here. Now that you’ve drunk my blood, your body will be consumed by madness. Although you look weak, you must be pretty useful, since you were able to defeat my subordinates.’

Juan broke out laughing at what Talter said, “I’m arrogant? You should take a look at yourself.”

Talter suddenly felt chills running down his back, even though he didn’t even have a physical body. He hurriedly tried to take over Juan’s body, as he felt uneasy, but Juan was totally unfazed.

Talter was shocked—even though he used up all his mana, it was nowhere near enough to take over Juan. He realized that the chills he felt stemmed from fear, because of the overwhelming gap in strength between him and Juan. It was as if he was floating in an empty world with nothing to land on, and in that massive space, Talter’s mana was nothing more than a little droplet.

“You’re nothing more than a mana potion to me,” Juan whispered.

***

Sina was holding Juan in her arms when she suddenly felt heat rising from his body. She reflexively let go of him. Juan fell to the ground as his skin began to tear.

Rip—

Flames surged out from the tears on his skin, evaporating the surrounding blood and burning the clothes that he was wearing. Juan eventually became engulfed in flames. Shocked, Sina tried to douse the flames with a cloak, but the cloak caught on fire as well.

Sina shrieked desperately as she stepped back from the flames. “Juan!”

The flames continued to burn Juan, heating up the air and making it hard to breathe. Unfortunately, Sina wasn’t able to withstand the heat, so she quickly dragged Daeron out of the room. Flames started to creep out of the room itself and the chances of Juan being alive was slim. Sina was devastated at the thought of Juan’s death.

“Juan...”

Moments later, however, a boy walked out from within the flames, propping himself up against the heated walls. Sina watched in disbelief as the boy patted off his own charred skin, which turned into ash and scattered away.

Daeron was also in disbelief. He was reminded of the great fire that had happened across the great plains recently. No one had found out what had caused that great fire, and an ash-covered boy had been sold to the colosseum shortly afterward.

“Hmm... Looks like some of the discomfort is gone,” Juan said, looking at his naked body. He had grown older, looking like a 12-year-old now.

“That Talter bastard is only worth three years of growth...? Looks like he was lazy in gathering mana,” Juan talked to himself.

Juan’s body would be reconstructed based on the amount of mana he had. Thus, he experienced rapid change the moment he absorbed Talter’s mana. If Talter had been in his prime, Juan would have experienced exponential growth, but Talter had been so weak that he was an embarrassment amongst the gods. It had probably not been long since Talter had planted his body in the colosseum.

Juan was worried about how long it would take for him to get back to his prime condition. That said, he was still pretty satisfied; after gaining some muscle on his scrawny body, he now looked somewhat decent. But it was still just a child’s body, so Juan thought, ‘I guess if I want to restore my body, it’d be a good idea to absorb corpses.’?

In various parts of the empire, there were gods that Juan had sealed, along with the inheritance that he had left behind. If he absorbed those, then his body could be restored much faster.