The Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health Chapter 385

Valer rang the bell.

Clink, clink—.

He could see every soul that had lost its way scatter into light as they followed the sound of the bell.

This loathsome monster horde was not something that could be purified, but Valer still felt it had been worth borrowing the relic for the sake of granting the souls their rest.

‘They handed it over readily in Lemuren, too.’

Valer had paid his own price, of course—but the Bell of the Dead was a priceless holy relic. Under normal circumstances, borrowing it would have been impossible.

Had they seen this future?

He was lost in thought only for a moment.

“L-Lord—! Me—! Over here! Save— …gk!”

Hearing someone call him, Valer moved back. He barely managed to save a Saren knight who had been surrounded by monsters and was on the verge of death. Looking around, there wasn’t a single place left intact, as if to prove how fierce the dawn battle had been.

“You won’t be a knight anymore.”

Valer hid the ache in his chest and joked as he poured his own emergency potion onto the knight. The man, barely able to grip his sword, burst out laughing.

“Hahaha! I was planning to retire anyway!”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yes! After this battle… hah, I was going to throw something at your face and retire.”

“If you throw something at my face, you won’t get to retire. That’d be insulting a noble.”

“Ah, come on—.”

“…….”

“…Wait, really?”

Valer burst into laughter.

In this perilous situation, all he’d done was exchange a few silly jokes with a knight who had narrowly escaped death—but Valer felt something empty inside him being filled.

A sense of fulfillment he hadn’t felt even when he personally severed the malignant bond of his father, the man who had dragged his life into the abyss.

Proof that he was truly alive.

Something hot surged up inside his chest, and Valer turned his head away.

“Get some rest.”

The battle wasn’t over yet.

 

 

 

****

 

 

 

The desperate fighting through dawn ultimately destroyed all eleven of the once-majestic outer walls.

Now, with only the final wall barely holding, there was nothing more the Northern Castle could do.

All the mana turrets were destroyed. The Sky Tower had been half-ruined by the attacks of the ancient dragons. Knights and soldiers were barely holding the line, but even that was reaching its limit.

Dragon Lord Karjien rose into the sky once more.

【—.】

Standing atop the final wall, Jaren watched the dragon take flight with weary eyes.

Whether his oath to never speak with humans again still held, most of the dragon’s words reached human ears as meaningless roars.

Everyone trembled beneath that roar—but even then, Jaren thought the dragon was a truly beautiful lifeform.

‘If only I weren’t the one being trampled by that beautiful creature.’

“Looks like… it’s aiming for the wall, right?”

“Seems like it.”

“Ah… so this is how we die.”

Exhausted soldiers gazed up at the deep navy dawn sky, then clenched their weapons as they saw the black mass approaching from afar.

No one needed to be told what that black mist was.

The first one or two times had been manageable. Monster waves weren’t endless, and there were moments to catch one’s breath.

But something that continued endlessly, without any sense of an end, gnawed relentlessly at the human heart.

How long was this going to last?

The unanswered question piled up again and again—until the moment came when it could no longer be endured.

The moment the heart broke.

“…We’re all going to die here, aren’t we.”

Why did I come here? No one will remember me. Will there even be a body left? Will anyone mourn me?

The fear that ate away at them grew larger and spread outward.

“What is that?! How are we supposed to beat that?!”

“No matter what we do, it’s hopeless… we’re finished.”

“M-Mom…….”

“No… no… this is a dream… I need to wake up……”

“Hahahaha… ha… hng… hahaha….”

No one could lift the morale that had hit rock bottom. Even Jaren, guarding the last wall of the Northern Castle, was already half broken inside.

‘We won’t hold.’

Everyone was going to die.

The outcome appeared clearly in his mind before they even clashed. And yet—why couldn’t he retreat?

“Damn it!”

In a state even he didn’t understand, Jaren readjusted his grip on his sword. Even in that moment, when death felt inevitable, someone tightened their hold on a blade, picked up a spear again.

That was when it happened.

“Nothing is over yet! Get a hold of yourselves!”

A firm voice struck their spirits. A rough hand seized Jaren’s shoulder.

“Rise, brother.”

“…Sir Volcram.”

Small and faint, yet like a lantern lighting the way, a thin glow spread as if blessing them.

“Even when we were abandoned by all gods, even when divine blessings faded, brothers—we rose on this land by our own strength.”

At the end of despair, humans had always risen. Survived. Proven their existence to the world.

Even in a twisted world abandoned by the gods, they had clung to life and endured until now.

The aged holy knight raised the sacred flame in one hand. It burned white—light born solely from his conviction.

“Will you kneel here?! Is this the end of your pride?!”

If the gods would not save humanity, then why should humanity believe in gods?

For thousands of years, Lemuren theologians had sought the answer, but none existed. In an age where miracles of faith had grown faint, where holy knights had dwindled to their weakest and smallest force in history, one knight—who had questioned his faith every day—shouted out.

“Brothers! If there is no god, then make yourselves the lantern! Whether by chance or fate, if you stand here now—fight with your lives to survive, to prove your existence! No one will save us. But what does that matter?! If we rise, if we move forward together, then we can save ourselves!”

Commander Volcram raised his sword high.

“Children of Lemuren! Warriors of Lemuren! For Lemuren!”

“—For Lemuren!”

In an age where divinity had faded, priests prayed for the humans who forged miracles from fragmented holiness.

“O benevolent god who watches over us, we offer you our lives and our struggle.”

The dragon was still terrifying, and the number of monsters charging from afar did not diminish.

But the soldiers’ eyes had changed.

Feeling the air heat up from Volcram’s fiery speech, the Sky Tower’s senior mages scratched their heads as they fed mana potions to unconscious mages.

“Don’t we have something cool like that?”

The mages exchanged looks in midair, their minds racing at the speed of high-tier spell calculations. Then someone cleared their throat.

“Stars don’t die.”

Another nodded in agreement.

“All stars shine brightest when they meet their end—by exploding.”

Rumble, rumble.

The earth trembled with the monsters’ advance.

No one could promise survival or victory—but their hearts would no longer break.

Senior mage Hege thought:

Faith becomes phenomenon, and phenomenon gives rise to miracles.

People call that magic.

“Mages, we were all born of the stars, and to the stars we shall return.”

The senior mages exchanged glances once more, then chanted a single spell in unison.

“Per aspera ad astra.”

At that moment, as if by prior agreement, a meteor shower poured down from the sky.

Meteors rained upon the monsters surging like a tide toward the Northern Castle’s final wall.

And that was when the anomaly occurred.

 

 

****

 

 

Against the deep navy dawn sky, the dragon with scales of azure lazurite was so immense that it was impossible to tell where the sky ended and the dragon began.

Pession was watching that overwhelming presence up close.

“Hah… Arelrin…….”

Of course, his thoughts were entirely elsewhere.

Only three humans stood here.

Valer, who had achieved the feat of a dragon slayer.
Duke Muvisk, whose combat strength rivaled his.
And Pession.

【Foolish, insignificant creatures. Do you truly believe you can oppose me?!】

Dragon Lord Karjien.

The Tyrant Steeped in Sorrow raged at the sight of the three humans blocking his path.

They were here only to draw Karjien’s attention—because if he rampaged freely, the Northern Castle would be destroyed in an instant…

But after having his cheek struck once at the Han River, Karjien had no composure left to consider such things.

Watching him, Duke Muvisk thought quietly,

‘Now I see why he’s called a tyrant.’

Valer, who knew more about immortals than most, thought,

‘This bastard was born into the right species and uses that as an excuse to act like a thug—so why does he piss me off this much?’

And Pession thought,

‘Where on earth is Arelrin…….’

Whether he was about to die or not, he was overwhelmingly worried about whether Arelrin was eating properly, whether she was crying alone somewhere.

【I shall judge you for the crime of daring to oppose me! None of you will leave here alive!】

Solemn draconic words bound them as a battle over the fate of the Northern Continent—and the world itself—was about to begin.

Karjien opened his mouth to unleash his breath.

Kiiiiiiiiiiiing—

The sky, where dawn was beginning to break. In the pink-tinged eastern sky, a massive sigil appeared.

As everyone’s attention was drawn to this sudden anomaly—

The small sigil split open into darkness, and a little girl fell out.

“Karjien—!”

She shouted the Dragon Lord’s name at the top of her lungs.

“Shut up!”

And in that instant, everyone saw it.

That enormous dragon…

Close his mouth obediently.