Chapter 1016: To the End of the World Where Both Worlds Meet [I]

Merlin stares without blinking at the Devourer after he asks me the question. I can only say that he is someone who has indeed aided the late King Arthur to even detect the power of the real Excalibur inside the Devourer though that is natural since it is Merlin himself who knows the real power of the sword and how it was a sword that is prophesized to choose the next king. If only the king himself was a good one then nothing bad should happen.

And since Merlin also wields a replica of the Excalibur, it is safe to assume that he knows the real sword as well. Lying is not going to help me in this matter anyway so telling him the truth would be much better.

"I was tasked to retrieve the Excalibur here in Agartha to aid me in defeating the Goddess of Life. I found it not too far from the entrance of Agartha and extracted it there. Of course, after the task is done, I will be returning the weapon to where I found it."

The Lady of the Lake approached us and inspected the weapon in a glance.

"That was the weapon you once wielded, wasn’t it? It seems to have grown tremendously since the last time we met."

"Yes. It has evolved so much that changing its appearance is no longer a problem even for me."

Merlin just shook his head and looked at me with a bit of anger in his face.

"That still doesn’t mean you can just basically grab the weapon and use it for your agenda. And killing the Goddess of Life. Isn’t that a blasphemous thing? Perhaps defeating the Goddess of Life would be a good thing but killing her? You are committing a heavenly tribulation once you kill her. You are talking about killing a god after all."

"And that is my mission. If I have to deal with her by killing her just to save this world and my world, then it doesn’t matter if she is some god or not. I will do anything to preserve the peace and order without her interference and meddling of this world’s natural order."

Merlin frowned and wanted to press the matter more but the Lady of the Lake stopped him and she shook her head when Merlin looked at her when she was stopped.

"It doesn’t matter who takes the Excalibur. And to be honest, I do agree that defeating the Goddess of Life is a necessary decision he has to make. This is an assigned task for him that he has to do."

"...You used the precognition power on him huh?" Merlin can tell that the Lady of the Lake used something to me but I was unaware of it.

"Correct. By using it, I tried to see the future and he is indeed on the path of finishing his final task. And looking further beyond is indeed destruction. However, what I saw is one of the outcomes that will happen if he loses this battle against her. And even us who are not supposed to be affected by this will be also dragged in the battle as well which will then result in us losing our lives, including yours, Merlin."

"No, no. Stop saying anymore. If I knew more, I don’t know what I would do. But hearing you say that we will be involved, does that mean there is no escaping it?"

"This matter will only occur if he loses in battle. Supposedly, if we stop him on his quest here, then the resulting ending for us in the future will be our death. Get it now? So if you are planning to let him return the Excalibur to its former place, then we are doomed."

Merlin gritted his teeth. He seems more inclined to follow the prophecies than let someone like me do something ridiculous.

"Ha, look at this bastard. Even with the world in peril, do you still want to stop this loser kid? Ha, what a pathetic man. It is pitiful for you, I guess that the only things you wanted to be fulfilled with are the prophecies."

"Shut up, Cath Palug, this doesn’t include you. You are just a beast and you can’t just join in on this."

"As if you could understand what he was going through, you piece of sh*t. At least, I can say that he is doing his very best to struggle with something that he is supposed to die. And yet, he isn’t backing down. What about you? Now that you know that you will be dragged into the battle if he loses, you lose your footing and reason for stopping him. Pathetic. No wonder King Arthur who was supposed to be the ideal king of this world has been trash since the beginning and following the bad road since then."

Merlin seemed to be ready to attack Cath Palug but I decided to intervene and block him.

"Don’t stop me, young man. I must teach that beast a lesson."

"No. Just accept it if you are in a losing argument. And even if you try to stop me, I will fight back. I don’t care if I am destined not to wield the Excalibur, but I will use it even if it costs me my life in exchange for the safety of everyone. So if you try to stop me..." I then ready my Devourer and enter combat stance. "...I will fight till the very end."

Merlin couldn’t respond to this and he silently backed away. Cath Palug snarkily mocked Merlin in the process.

"Pft, what a coward. I guess that is how an incubus like you do."

Merlin is angry but he held his anger this time around. Seeing that Merlin is in a sour mood, the Lady of the Lake takes over the conversation. As for Cath Palug, he climbed over me stopped on my head, and lay there while observing Merlin.

I disengage from my combat stance and the Lady of the Lake apologizes.

"We apologize for our behavior. It’s just that you, holding the real Excalibur is something we didn’t expect. But I have a question. Why are you still here? Shouldn’t you have returned to the surface now that you have retrieved what you are looking for?"

"I am not yet done. I needed one more weapon to take down the Goddess of Life for good. And I needed to find it before this month ends."

"Another weapon? Like what? Galatine, Arondnight, Longinus?"

"No. They aren’t what I am after. I am looking for the real spear that King Arthur once used before but after using it once, he stopped using it again."

Merlin who was just listening to the conversation was shocked and frowned.

"Wait...don’t tell me..."

"Yes. I am looking for the spear called the Rhongomyniad."

The Lady of the Lake was also shocked but she didn’t get shocked as much as Merlin.

"Ah, indeed. With the Rhongomyniad, you would indeed make the battle against a god easier. After all, that weapon is considered the anchor of the world, and its power alone is dangerous and can indeed slaughter millions of lives if used improperly. Even the replicas themselves are very strong and are even more powerful than the Excalibur themselves."

"Anchor of the world?" I frowned.

"Oh? It seems you didn’t know much about this weapon."

"I have limited information about it and most of it was something I just learned recently from the person who tasked me with this."

"Can I learn who gave you the task to retrieve the weapon?" the Lady of the Lake asked. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

"The one who tasked me to retrieve it is the Ancient Blacksmith, the one who forged the Devourer and the one who gave me a relic to contain the Excalibur and the Rhongomyniad once they are devoured as a way to stop them from being completely devoured in the process and they can be retrieved again once their task is done."

The Lady of the Lake was totally surprised while Merlin was looking confused when he saw the expression the former made. As for me, I immediately concluded that she might have some connection related to Tojiro.

"But...isn’t he supposed to be dead? I heard about his death back when the end of the Primordial wars was done."

"Yes. He was dead but he returned as he said that he was there for the final task that he needed to do before completely passing on. But what about it?"

"I guess you didn’t know much of the story and after hearing who sent you to do this quest, I now understood why these two specific weapons are needed. Just so you know, the Ancient Blacksmith is the one who made the Excalibur and the Rhongomyniad. Not the replicas, but the real weapons themselves. He knows the worth of these weapons and if he sends you on this task, that only means he knows what he is doing."

I didn’t expect that little revelation. It seems Tojiro is more of a big shot that he can forge the legendary weapons one after another. As I was still not sure what to do next, the Lady of the Lake gave me an offer I didn’t expect from her.

"Hearing your full details, I will offer an offer to you, young man."

"An offer?" I frowned.

"Let us accompany you on this quest to retrieve the Rhongomyniad. We know the location of the weapon that you are looking for."

Merlin seemed to be ready to stop her but she stopped him and he couldn’t say anything when she cast some sort of silencing power to stop him from talking.

"Where can I find this weapon?" I asked.

"To the End of the World where both worlds meet."