Chapter 204: Fairy Lancelot? No, it's Archangel Michael
Britannia was not part of Northern Europe, but it was not far from it either.
In this World, the two regions shared a quiet, unreasonable correspondence.
Perhaps they came from the same origin. Perhaps they were aimed at the same end. Like Skadi in the far north and Queen Scathach among the Celts, separate names that still echoed one another across the texture of Mystery.
That was why the Holy Spear Rowe had cast in the northern lands, the Star Anchor meant to fasten the membrane of the new World, could answer him here, on this great island beyond the sea.
Rhongomyniad was here.
Rowe had no intention of pulling the spear out.
He did not need to.
As its maker, he only needed to induce resonance. A vibration. A recognition.
And with that single act, the Holy Spear's power would awaken on its own.
It would not erase the dragon's advantage, but it could tear away part of it.
The earth shook harder.
Brilliant light rose into the sky, scattering into countless threads, like a rainbow bridge hung across heaven.
The Albion remnant's golden pupils snapped tight.
Its vertical slit shrank to a needle point.
"You…"
"The King of the Wild Hunt?"
The dragon knew that name.
A thousand years ago, that name had opened the era of the northern star gods. That name belonged to the one who pioneered a new World, who forged and anchored a Star Anchor.
But that should have been a god.
The one standing before it was clearly human.
Rowe smiled as if amused by the dragon's certainty.
"Is there an inherent contradiction between being a human and being a god?"
He did not indulge the astonishment. He issued orders instead.
"Roman legions. Blockade this coast. No one enters, and no one leaves."
Then his gaze shifted, landing on the girl who stood behind him like a rose that refused to bow.
"Your Majesty Nero."
"Hm?" Nero looked up at once, obedient in a way that would have scandalized the Senate. "Speak, my adjutant. I trust you with all my heart."
"Unleash your Royal Authority," Rowe said. "Use the Moon Cell's power to seal this island."
"Do not let it escape."
Nero grinned, sharp and pleased.
"Leave it to me."
Martha stepped forward, asking without hesitation.
"Your Holiness, what should I do?"
Boudica spoke at the same time, voice steady.
"And me."
Rowe glanced at them both, at the saint's sincerity and the warrior's readiness. He paused, then turned away and walked forward, letting only his words drift back on the wind.
"You two eat melon and watch the show."
Martha and Boudica both froze.
For a heartbeat, neither of them knew whether to be offended or confused.
Then the reality settled in. In a battle like this, they could not meaningfully interfere. Nero's kind of favor, a link to an existence like the Moon Cell, was not something the ordinary could imitate.
Rowe stepped into the miasma.
The Albion remnant's shadow rose fully, its vast body casting a cloud across the land, blotting out Rowe's view in an instant.
Its head exhaled storm like breath. Its wings spread like clouds hung from the sky.
In that moment, Britannia itself resembled a living dragon. Hills and forests layered like interlocking scales. Swamps churned like the movement of a colossal belly.
The dragon's shadow was the island.
The island's manifestation.
Its scale was comparable to the Primordial Human, a level that could disturb the planet's balance itself.
Because it was the island.
And because Britannia was an abnormality even among abnormal places. Albion's corpse had poisoned its foundation, but that was not the only reason.
This land sat closer to the Sea of Stars than any other part of the European continent.
It was like the myth of the three immortal islands beyond the eastern seas.
Albion had died here for that reason.
At the end of the Age of Gods, that primal world dragon had tried to dig a path through Britannia, forcing an exit toward the Sea of Stars.
It exhausted itself in that passage and died.
And the wound it left behind became an axis for Mystery.
So although Britannia was an island, what it covered within the domain of Mystery was equivalent to a continent.
In mass.
In scale.
That was the dragon's confidence.
"What if you are the Primordial Human?" The remnant roared, arrogant and unhurried. "Intruding here, you are no match for me."
"The Star Anchor can restrain my link to Albion's corpse, but it cannot suppress my power as the island itself."
Standing on Britannia, it held a double amplification.
The corpse of Albion.
And the avatar of the island.
Two foundations.
Two accumulations.
Even if the Holy Spear bound one of them, the dragon still believed it had enough left.
"I do not care who you are," it continued, voice swelling like a storm front. "Primordial Human or King of the Wild Hunt, this is my territory."
"I am formed from the left hand of the primal dragon."
"I am the sole ruler of Britannia."
"My word is the will of Heaven."
Wind tore the land.
Wings vibrated. Trees bowed. Swamps churned.
The Holy Spear's light remained fixed above, but the dragon was right about one thing.
Rhongomyniad's restraint had a limit. A Star Anchor was powerful, but not omnipotent, and the World had more than one anchor.
Rowe stood within the storm, watching the sky and earth press down on him, watching hills and forests and the very shape of the island attempt to crush him.
He faced it with a human body, like a small boat thrown into a violent sea.
Yet that small boat did not budge.
No matter how the water surged.
No matter how the winds screamed.
"The will of Heaven?" Rowe said softly, almost amused. "The Heaven I have overcome was never just one or two."
Mesopotamia.
Greece.
The clash with Zeus.
The duel with Odin in the north.
The gathering of ancient ghosts beneath the eastern skies.
His entire path had been a long, steady argument with whatever the era called Heaven.
Rowe lifted his gaze.
"Your arrogance is pathetic."
He stepped forward.
Then he surged upward into the sky.
The remnant dragon beat its wings, fully asserting its scale. Its spiritual foundation was the entire island of Britannia, the great landmass humans divided into regions, but Mystery treated as one body.
It carried the weight of an island that behaved like a continent, bearing the inherited power of a primal dragon.
Even so, it did not underestimate Rowe.
It could not.
It did not dare.
Both were primal.
But the dragon still believed in its advantage.
This was its domain.
No human could resist the island's will.
A deafening roar split the sky.
The pale miasma shattered like glass, scattering into torn sheets.
Force surged up from below.
The dragon opened its mouth.
Dragon breath gathered like an abyss yawning open, pulling storms into a single point.
Rowe shot upward.
And as he swung his arm, his hand expanded. Metal sheen spread across it. Structure unfolded into gears and rotating mechanisms.
The machina god's body surfaced.
One palm clamped the dragon's jaws shut.
The dragon breath collapsed, smothered before it could be born.
The remnant roared hoarsely, then raised a claw and struck down with furious weight.
Another transformed arm caught it.
In a blink, Rowe was no longer human in shape.
Arms, head, torso, waist, legs, all of it unfolded into a steel god.
A machina body forged from metal.
Its size rivaled the dragon's shadow. Its silhouette was no less terrifying than any calamity the island could produce.
The dragon writhed. Wing winds rose like countless blades, but they only carved fleeting pale scratches across the machina surface.
Its claw was trapped in one hand.
Its mouth was sealed under another.
It twisted and snapped its tail in desperation.
Rowe bent his knee.
Engines fired from his feet.
A molten glow traced a brutal arc through the air, and the raised knee slammed into the tail, knocking it aside.
It was not a duel of technique.
It was a primitive close quarters collision between beasts that carried the weight of continents in their frames.
Yet every impact remade the sky.
Britannia's heavens changed color. The earth trembled without pause. Distant hills tilted. Beasts fled in blind panic.
At the island's edge, Martha's eyes shone, devotion rising like flame.
"Our Father in Heaven…"
Boudica clenched her sword until her knuckles whitened.
We must achieve victory.
Nero, on the other hand, looked proud as if the steel god in the sky were her own performance.
"To possess such magnificent power," she declared, practically glowing. "As expected of my adjutant."
She was waiting for her turn.
Then it happened.
A roar burst out, sharp enough to make the world flinch, like a cat whose fur had bristled in terror. Every pale scale on the dragon's body rose at once.
The sting struck Rowe through the machina body's simulated senses. Instinct reacted.
His grip loosened.
The dragon twisted and whipped its tail again.
Rowe clapped his hands together, trapping the tail between both palms, then pivoted his legs, twisted his torso, and hurled the dragon away.
The Albion remnant flew.
It roared, beat its wings frantically, stabilized itself, then turned and shot upward.
Without looking back.
It was running.
The earlier arrogance was gone. The survival instinct born from a corpse was brutally strong.
It believed a fellow primal could not easily kill it.
It refused to gamble its life on that belief.
Retreat when retreat is required.
That was how disasters endured.
Nero stepped forward.
This had been agreed upon. She would seal the area. She would deny escape.
"My moment has come," she said, lifting the hem of her rose red dress and moving like an impassioned dance.
She raised a slender hand, and a noble smile bloomed across her face.
"That moon that dwells in the high heavens."
"Hear my call."
"Send down your clear frost flowers."
For a heartbeat, the Emperor was sacred.
The Roman legions bowed their heads.
Martha and Boudica could not truly stay as spectators. If the dragon escaped, Britannia would never be solved. The island would remain a prison.
"Dragon," Nero declared, voice ringing like a decree, "fall from the sky."
Light descended.
In broad daylight, a moon shadow appeared beyond heaven, answering her words.
Its light struck the dragon as it leapt upward. Suppression wrapped it like sudden shackles.
The wings froze.
Only for an instant.
Then the bindings tore apart.
Nero blinked, surprised, then smiled as if pleased anyway.
"It seems my Authority is not perfect enough."
She lifted her chin.
"However, it is enough."
She glanced toward Rowe, eyes bright.
"I leave it to you, my dear."
Rowe answered immediately.
"Leave it to me."
The machina god in the sky spread its arms wide.
The spark on its chest flared. Energy gathered in a growing sphere before it, a mass of magical power compressed into a single point.
A magic cannon driven by pure spark energy.
An attack inherent to Atlantis's sky fortress grade bodies.
Rowe had not used it until now because there had been no need.
This was a finishing blow.
It would drain the machine's reserves and make it unusable for a short time, but when timed correctly, it could destroy an existence of comparable scale.
Now, the timing was perfect.
The dragon had been delayed.
It had been forced into a straight line.
Rowe would pierce it.
He would exercise the power granted by an earthly Emperor.
He would make the dragon fall.
"Fall."
The explosion became the only sound left between heaven and earth.
The dragon tried to beat its wings again.
Too late.
Too late to flee, and later still to dodge.
A burning beam punched through its massive body.
In the light, the dragon's eyes widened.
Death.
It was born from the corpse of a dead dragon.
Was it going to face death again?
"I…"
"Am I going to die again?"
The golden eyes flickered.
A roar spilled out, heavy with unwillingness, but not hatred.
It did not want to die.
Then a voice reached it, like a bell spreading through a vast dark.
"You do not have to die."
The dragon jerked awake.
It was no longer in the scorching radiance.
Before it lay a chaotic mist.
Around that mist stretched a darkness so complete it felt like an invisible void.
In the beginning, the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was over the surface of the deep.
And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
The chaotic mist was that Spirit.
The existence that spoke to it was the higher dimensional essence behind that person.
"Can I not die?" the dragon asked, voice trembling with raw instinct.
"Yes," Rowe replied. "As long as you accept my power and become my disciple."
Rowe had never intended to kill it.
If the name Yahweh could no longer be avoided, then he would advance by retreating and take full possession of what the World insisted on calling him.
If he remembered correctly, the Son's fate was death.
Ascension was becoming stronger.
Using this as a stepping stone suited him perfectly.
The Albion remnant opened its mouth.
"Disciple?"
"My student," Rowe said, clinical and precise. "My messenger among humans."
"As long as I do not have to die," the dragon said. "I can accept."
"Then it is decided."
From the mist, countless tendrils extended, wrapping the dragon.
Its spiritual foundation was rewritten.
Its existence compressed.
The outer shell of calamity folded inward.
A dragon became a human shape.
What emerged was a small silver haired girl, youthful in appearance. Her skin carried a soft milky sheen. Her red lips parted slightly, and her golden eyes opened with a slow flutter of lashes, uncertain like a newborn.
"Can I…" she whispered, as if afraid the question itself might break the moment, "still live?"
"Of course," Rowe said, and for once his tone carried something like warmth.
"Welcome to a new era, my first disciple."
"Your old name is no more."
"From now on, your name is Melusine."
"The First Apostle, Simon."
"And also the archangel under Yahweh."
"Michael."
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