**Chapter 63**
—
When the Black Duke rode back in haste to his castle, leaving behind the horrors of Necropolis—
There, upon the throne of the Grand Hall of Saxen Castle, sat his son.
The very throne that should exist only for the Duke of Saxen—
upon it sat the *Black Prince*, gazing down at his father.
“Father.”
“Dale.”
The two—father and son—spoke each other’s names.
*Shrrng!*
“Honor to the Duke!”
The Guardians of the Tomb knelt as one, driving their swords upright into the ground.
“Mother and Lize are safe,” Dale continued.
“After Mother calmed Lize, she finally fell asleep.”
“…I see,” the Black Duke replied quietly.
“That’s… truly a relief.”
When the battle raged here at Saxen Castle—
When his domain was under siege—
as its lord, he had been powerless to do anything.
It was his son, not he, who had stood tall and defended the House of Saxen.
In his father’s name, Dale had led Saxen’s people, fought back the invaders,
and now sat upon the castle’s throne.
“Your Grace,” Dale said, slowly rising from the Duke’s throne,
as though acknowledging it was not yet his place to sit there.
“May I speak with you for a moment?”
He stood, his voice calm but resolute.
The Duke gave a silent nod.
—
—
At the topmost level of Saxen Castle lay the Duke’s study.
The faint light of early dawn seeped through the window,
silhouetting the Black Duke’s frame against the pale glow, casting him in deep shadow.
“It seems you have something to say,” he began.
“I faced the Black Tower’s elder who attacked the castle,” Dale said evenly,
“and I defeated him.”
For a moment, the Black Duke’s expression faltered.
“…You mean to say you stood alone against a Sixth-Circle mage—and won?”
Even accounting for Dale’s prodigious, nearly absurd talent, there were limits.
To defeat a Sixth-Circle elder of the Black Tower—
such a thing was impossible.
That realm lay beyond even what could be excused by calling him *the Empire’s greatest talent*.
Yet Dale no longer cared for such rational limits.
“Yes,” he said simply, nodding without hesitation.
“And in facing him, I glimpsed the *World of Ideation* he had built—
the world he had formed as commander of the Black-Red Corps.”
The Duke’s silence deepened.
“The manifestation of a mage’s inner world… the unspeakable abominations of that demonic corps…
And through his own words, I learned the truth behind their existence.”
“…”
“The true purpose the Empire has fought so desperately to conceal.”
Dale’s eyes met his father’s.
“Second Division Commander of the Black-Red Corps—
Duke of Saxen.”
The words fell like iron.
He was naming the man’s past—his father’s unerasable sin.
“All those things you told me before, the words about life’s weight and meaning—
were they all lies, Father?”
He remembered those words clearly—his father’s lessons, his principles,
spoken with solemn conviction.
“Was everything you told me nothing more than filthy hypocrisy?”
Dale’s voice trembled with emotion he could no longer contain.
The man before him was no stranger.
He was the one who had raised him, who had given him life.
The one Dale had believed would *never* bow to the Empire’s false justice.
“Were you, too, one who could not escape the Empire’s corruption?”
Silence fell.
Heavy, immeasurable silence.
Finally, the Duke spoke, his voice low.
“That day, when the Empire’s great host fought the Demon King—
led by the Hero from another world…”
He paused. The faint morning light flickered in his dark eyes.
“When the greatest powers of the Empire gathered to finally slay the Demon King—
a man came to me.”
While the Empire’s legions occupied the north after the Demon King’s fall,
that man sought out the ruler of the northern duchy.
“Was it Marquis Yuris?” Dale asked quietly.
The Duke nodded.
“He told me he was preparing a *large-scale experiment*…
and asked for my cooperation.”
“And this experiment was…?”
“To reach the realm of the Ninth Circle.”
From the very beginning, the Black-Red Corps had existed solely for that purpose.
“He told me that if I refused, the Imperial Army—
fresh from slaying the Demon King and now stationed in the north—
would march and destroy the Duchy of Saxen.”
“…”
“He would accuse me of conspiring with the Demon King
and turn his army against us.”
That the mighty Black Duke could bow to such threats—
it was almost laughable.
Almost.
But he could not laugh.
Those legions, gathered under the pretext of justice and salvation,
were composed of the Empire’s mightiest.
He remembered them all clearly:
The *Crimson Lord*.
The *White Lord*.
The *Holy Swordmaster*.
The *Demonblade*.
And… the *Hero from Another World*.
Among them had been Dale—
a younger Dale, still idealistic and unbroken.
Even the Black Duke could not hope to stand against such a host.
Resistance would have been meaningless.
“So you accepted their offer?”
“The Pope himself and the elders of the White Tower were present,”
the Duke said with bitter calm.
“They engraved upon me a *Geas*—a binding vow—
that I would cooperate in the experiment.”
The Geas:
the White Tower’s pride,
an unbreakable magical covenant sealed by the Tower Lord and all its elders combined.
“So you aided the Black-Red Corps’ darkness,” Dale said slowly.
“Because you had no choice—because you had to protect Saxen?”
The Duke did not answer.
He could have defended himself—
said he acted to protect what he loved,
that even the Black Duke was helpless before power greater than his own.
That it was not truly his fault.
But he did not.
Only silence remained.
“I could have chosen to fight them—to die defying them,”
the Duke said at last.
“Even if I could not win, I could have used every weapon I had,
every forbidden order, and carved a wound they could never erase.”
“But you didn’t,” Dale said quietly.
“No,” the Duke murmured.
“I could not.”
A faint, hollow smile touched his lips.
“In that moment… I thought of Elena.”
Elena—Dale’s mother.
The woman the Duke had loved.
“So you yielded,” Dale said.
The Duke nodded, then spoke again, voice trembling.
“I was afraid to lose her.”
For the first time, Dale saw his father’s weakness—
laid bare, raw and human.
“I feared I would never see the child born of our love.”
The child who would be born of him and Elena.
“So I cooperated with the Black-Red Corps’ experiment,”
he said, his tone filled with bitter self-loathing.
“I knelt before the Empire and the Red Tower.
I bowed before the power that called itself justice.
I was cowardly, and I was weak.”
He laughed faintly—a sound that hurt to hear.
“Through the bond of black and red,
through the pursuit of power and truth—
we sought to reach the Ninth Circle.”
The forbidden experiment.
“We condensed agony and despair into a sealed field,
compressing the screams of countless souls…”
The words came from his own mouth,
a confession steeped in sin.
“Using that negative energy,
we sought to open a gate—
a passage to the *World of Truth*.”
“And reaching that world would grant one the Ninth Circle?”
“There was no certainty,” the Duke said softly.
“The one who designed the experiment was the Crimson Lord.
I was merely his collaborator.”
But without the power of the Black Duke—
and the Black Tower’s mastery of truth and shadow—
such an experiment would have been impossible.
That was why the Crimson Lord had so desperately sought Dale later on—
to forge a *new black-red bond* through him.
Not with the father—
but with the *future* Black Tower Lord.
“That is why,” the Duke said,
“the experiment failed.”
“You failed to reach the World of Truth?”
“No,” he said quietly.
“We succeeded.”
The two architects of the Black-Red Corps—
the Crimson Lord and the Black Lord—
both mages among the Five at the pinnacle of the arcane—
had entered the *World of Truth*.
“Then why call it a failure?” Dale asked.
“Isn’t that success?”
The Duke’s gaze lowered.
“Because I stopped him.”
“…!”
“I could not allow his ambition to be fulfilled.”
He knew what it would mean—
if that man, consumed by greed and malice,
ever reached the Ninth Circle—
ever ascended to the state called *Archdemon*.
“But the Geas—”
“To oppose him was to break the covenant,” Dale said.
“And the Geas should have destroyed you.”
“The Geas of the White Tower,” the Duke said with a grim smile,
“held no power in that world.”
Dale’s eyes widened.
“Did you see it—the World of Truth?” the Duke asked.
Dale shook his head silently.
“In that world, the laws and logic we know are meaningless,”
the Duke murmured.
“No explanation will ever suffice.”
“All I did was stand before him.
That was all.”
The world’s greatest truths had been within his grasp—
yet he had not reached out to take them.
“You defeated the Crimson Lord?” Dale asked.
The Duke nodded once.
“At least in that world, he could not stand against me.”
“Then why did you return empty-handed?”
To that question, the Duke only smiled—softly, bitterly—
his eyes distant.
“When I was in that world,” he said slowly,
“someone once asked me that very same question…”
He looked to his son.
“Do you truly believe I came back with nothing?”
—
—
Dawn broke.
The Duke stood in the chamber he shared with his wife.
Elena slept peacefully beside their daughter, Lize—
the two he loved more than anything.
They were what he would give everything to protect.
He remembered that white, wintry night—
the night his son was born.
That small, precious child crying in Elena’s arms—
he could still see it clearly.
And alongside that memory came the darkness—
the nightmare of the Black-Red Corps.
Its sins.
Its hell.
The wheels of fate had already turned.
Nothing could be undone.
And so he recalled what he had *truly* gained
beyond the World of Truth.
To stand against a blood-maddened Empire,
to protect the ones he loved,
and to atone for his sins of the past—
he had offered everything.
That day, after leaving the Crimson Lord behind,
the Duke of Saxen made a pact—with a demon.
Not metaphorically,
not the kind the White Tower’s sermons loved to denounce.
This was real.
Beyond the boundary of consciousness,
within the World of Truth itself—
something reached out to him.
A demon *did* exist.
And it accepted his bargain.
Some time later,
on another pale winter night,
a new life was born.
His most beloved son—
*Dale*.
