The Hero Becomes the Duke’s Eldest Son

Chapter 105

Aden Remes declared that he, along with the Sacred Fire Order, would resolve the legendary dungeon without the Syres Grand Duchy needing to mobilize its army or sacrifice knights and soldiers.

Everyone present was astonished.

The estimated number of monsters within the Winter Queen’s territory was in the thousands.

Yet, he claimed he would conquer such a dungeon with a small raid team.

Moreover, he was not even a Sword Master, but a semi-master who hadn’t reached twenty years of age.

‘Of course, it’s an incredible achievement for his age…’

Becoming a semi-master at eighteen years old.

It was an achievement greater than that of the second son, Dayer Syres, known for his extraordinary talent.

However, the words from this mere semi-master in front of the Grand Duke were absurd.

“In return, if I conquer it, I’ll take everything.”

He demanded ownership of all by-products from the Winter Queen’s territory and the land of the Frozen Land nearby. Essentially, he intended to make it his private property.

“Oh, and I’m a bit underprepared. How about some elixirs?”

“……”

“……”

“……”

‘Madman.’

Everyone in the meeting room thought the same word at that moment.

Until now, only one person had ever behaved so arrogantly and rudely before the Grand Duke.

And certainly, Aden Remes was not that person.

His audacity was so ridiculous it was almost insane.

He was someone whose arrogance should have led to an immediate beheading.

All the retainers’ faces turned red with anger, ready to reprimand him.

“Is it possible?”

“Of course.”

But the Grand Duke, unfazed by the rudeness, calmly asked if it was feasible.

“It was not a demand, but a negotiation,” the Grand Duke corrected his aide.

Seeing this, Yan, the aide, was even more confused by his lord’s reaction.

After a brief silence, the Grand Duke continued.

“He blocked my sword.”

“……”

Yan had no choice but to remain silent.

At that time, the Grand Duke had drawn his sword…

‘He suddenly slashed at him…’

It was a strike from an Advanced Sword Master.

For an ordinary semi-master, their head should have been severed before they could even perceive the attack.

Even the mere shockwave had cracked the stone floor and sent sharp sword energy rushing forward.

Clang!

But that brat, Aden Remes, had blocked the Grand Duke’s sword.

Though he vomited blood from the impact.

Though he was pushed back several meters.

Though his legs wobbled as if he would collapse any moment.

‘He did not fall…’

He stood firm on both feet.

Blocking the Grand Duke’s strike held significant meaning.

When the senior knights of the Grand Duke’s household were shocked by this fact,

“Do as you please.”

the Grand Duke accepted Aden Remes’s demand, treating it as a deal.

Yan, recalling that moment, could only groan inwardly as the Grand Duke spoke abruptly.

“Back then, I struck with all my sincerity.”

“……”

“But he blocked it. That alone should suffice as a minimum qualification. Whether that brat succeeds or not, we can always use the knight order to subdue it later.”

Yan could no longer argue.

Meanwhile, a faint smile, surprisingly, appeared on the always cold and emotionless face of the Grand Duke.

“…He resembles that bastard.”

“…What?”

Did he really hear those words coming from the Grand Duke?

But the Grand Duke was busy with his official duties as if he had never spoken.

This left Yan in a state of confusion.

* * *

At the Sacred Fire Order’s northern grand temple.

– Dragon Slayer King, you’re truly insane.

“Ugh, that old man’s temper hasn’t changed at all…”

Curs criticized Aden in a weary voice, while Aden groaned, receiving holy power treatment from Elise for his internal injuries.

Despite Curs’s loud complaints, it wasn’t particularly important.

After finishing the treatment, Elise sternly told Aden, “Never get hurt again! Promise!” and left with a huff.

She was clearly upset about Aden’s injuries.

Well, a cold treat later would likely make her smile as if nothing had happened.

“Well, it turned out as expected, so that’s good.”

The Grand Duke Syres, practically a representative of the knights.

And the Mercenary King, essentially a representative of mercenaries.

These two had historically never gotten along, and especially the rivalry between Vulcan, his master, and Vernon Syres was infamous.

Because of this, Aden had grown up hearing all sorts of curses about the Grand Duke from his master, and in the process, he had involuntarily learned the Grand Duke’s personality, eating habits, and even the number of moles on his body.

– How did your master know such things…?

‘How would I know?’

Anyway, knowing the Grand Duke’s disposition allowed Aden to make such an outrageous demand.

By blocking the Grand Duke’s surprise attack, he had passed a kind of test.

‘If my knees had touched the ground, he would have beheaded me right then and there.’

With this, phase one was complete.

Aden’s sole reason for making such a deal with the Grand Duke was one thing.

‘Revenge against Sylbeta.’

This was what his master had taught him.

– Always repay your debts. That is the way of the mercenary and the way of a person. Hahaha!

So, Aden had made this his creed, his fundamental principle in life.

Kindness for kindness.

Enmity for enmity.

Grudges for grudges.

‘They used me and betrayed me, confining me to the Void, cut off from this world.’

Because of this, he decided to seek revenge.

But Aden reconsidered his thoughts.

Did he really want to kill Sylbeta, the Thunder Knight?

‘No, it’s slightly different.’

He desired Sylbeta’s despair more than his life.

The sense of helplessness and despair he felt while trapped in the Void, his mind slowly eroding from the curse, was unforgettable.

Thus, he wanted to impart the same helplessness, the same despair to his former comrades.

‘Sylbeta’s mana core is damaged.’

An injury that not even the Pope of the Sacred Fire Order could heal.

As a mana warrior himself, Aden understood its significance, its weight.

‘It must be like hell.’

For a being as powerful as a Sword Master to lose their mana was worse than death.

Now, Sylbeta’s only hope was a substitute for the mana core, the Blood Jewel.

And to create the Blood Jewel, a large amount of pure energy was required, like the ‘Essence of the Winter Queen’.

‘That must be his last hope.’

So Aden decided to take that hope away.

By personally conquering the Winter Queen’s territory.

Until the Grand Duke granted permission, Sylbeta could not move.

“Now, then…”

It was time to overcome the barrier.

* * *

Aden instructed that no one be allowed to enter and went into the confession booth inside the grand temple.

He wasn’t there to genuinely confess to God.

‘Breaking through the barrier of one’s realm is crucial.’

Destroying and reconstructing the mental and physical vessel was a very delicate process.

Any external shock could lead to unknown consequences.

He untied the cloth he had been holding.

Inside, a cold, bluish, spherical object the size of a dumpling was revealed.

‘A piece of the millennia-old Ice Drake King’s core.’

It was the core of a monster that Vernon Syres was said to have killed during his prime.

The Ice Drake King that appeared back then wasn’t quite on the level of the Winter Queen, but it was strong enough to create its own dungeon as a sovereign-level monster.

‘This is it.’

Aden knew at first glance.

This was the key to breaking the wall that had cracked and strained but not yet shattered.

‘This should do it.’

Even though it had been decades since the core was extracted from the Drake King, the piece of the core was still seething with thick energy as if it had just been taken out.

It was as if it was rebelling, telling him not to touch it.

It was an amusing and pathetic display of mana.

Aden immediately popped the core into his mouth and chewed.

Ssss.

As soon as it entered his mouth, the core melted away and disappeared.

– You have ingested a part of the ‘Ice Drake King’s core.’

– Digest the mana.

Aden immediately sat in a lotus position.

The mana from the dragon, mixed with the core’s icy energy, spread throughout Aden’s body.

The Drake’s mana attempted to engulf his body.

‘No way.’

But the opponent was Aden.

A man who had even subdued the mana of the Mad Dragon with his flesh.

With his now perfected mana cultivation method and his innate mana control, he cultivated and controlled the mana.

Before this combination, the mana within the core had no choice but to be subordinated to Aden.

– The mana of the Drake King is being subordinated.

The regenerative mana of the Troll.

The poisonous mana of the Basilisk.

The icy mana of the Drake King.

And various energies absorbed from numerous spirit herbs.

All these energies fused together within Aden’s mana core.

– Warning. Mana core capacity exceeded!

– Control the mana.

– Failure will result in death due to mana overload.

The icy mana contained in the core was so abundant that Aden’s body could hardly contain it.

He had subordinated an amount of mana that an ordinary human body could not withstand.

Ultimately, it surpassed the limit.

Most people would easily fall victim to mana overload and explode in such a moment.

– Desperately controlling the mana.

However, with a mastered cultivation method, especially an advanced one, the method governs the mana to push the body’s potential to its extreme limits.

– The body evolves to optimize for mana!

Pain swept over him.

The mana veins running from his toes to the top of his head broke and recombined.

Muscles and bones collapsed and then were restored.

And finally….

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!

The dam of the overflowing reservoir burst.

– Physical Awakening (Rebirth) is occurring.

Crack.

Bones were renewed, shedding the outer shell.

Bones, muscles, and blood vessels were optimized to accommodate mana.

The body was being reborn.

And as the body transformed in real-time, his mind entered a state of perfect absorption.

Aden could feel it.

‘The wall.’

The solid, high wall inside him.

‘Is collapsing.’

That wall finally crumbled.

Mana resonated around him, slowly forming a vortex.

The Physical Awakening, which felt both short and long, concluded.

“Hoo…”

As Aden exhaled, the residual mana floated, and as he opened his eyes, lightning flashed and disappeared.

– Successfully completed Physical Awakening (Rebirth).

– The vessel of the body has been strengthened.

– Your state has advanced.

– State grade: Master.

Seeing the state of his body, he smiled.

“Success.”

He felt refreshed and elated as if reborn.

He immediately knew that his body had reached the realm of a superhuman, far beyond ordinary humans.

His old body was incinerated and refined with mana, becoming more resilient.

Aden reached out, grasped Baalzebul, and infused it with aura.

Then…

Whoosh!

In his hand, a blue-tinged tangible aura, ‘Aura Blade’, formed.

It wasn’t an intangible energy, nor threads condensed from energy, but a formidable cutting force fully enveloping the sword, an Aura Blade.

Seeing this, a smile spread on Aden’s lips.

The realm of a superhuman, Sword Master.

Aden had once again stepped into that realm.

Just then.

“Congratulations, Dragon Slayer King.”

“…!”

Aden heard Curs’s familiar slick voice.

However, it was slightly different from before.

Instead of hearing it directly in his mind, it came through his ‘ears.’

Aden instinctively turned towards the source of the voice.

“As you grew into a Master, my power could also increase. Thanks to that, I can now create a physical body, even if it’s just a spirit form.”

There stood Curs.

Dressed in a black uniform that seemed to allow no light.

Contrasted by his dull white hair, resembling ashes left after everything was burned.

A handsome man.

From one side of his head sprouted a horn reminiscent of a goat’s, and his red eyes were as if they had been soaked in a pool of blood wrung from tens of thousands of hearts.

Just looking at him felt like a rotten stench of blood was assaulting the senses, an ominous and vile sight that seemed to drag one into the depths of a bloody abyss.

Aden found this sight very familiar.

With a tense expression, Aden called out his name.

“Underlord…”

The monster that had devoured half of the Western Continent, the underground lord Underlord.

He looked exactly the same as Aden had seen him in his previous life.

“Why…?”

But Aden couldn’t help but feel a different emotion instead of hatred upon seeing him.

“Why do you look like that…?”

“…Can’t help it due to lack of power.”

It was sheer absurdity.

The Underlord, no, Curs, had a sour expression, barely the size of a small doll.