Only God
Chapter 267 - 229: Baird’s Final Moments

Chapter 267: Chapter 229: Baird’s Final Moments

The guard looked incredulously at everything.

His hands and feet trembled, and cold sweat slowly trickled from his neck.

In those poems, from the mouths of minstrels, in every boisterous tavern, the name of Baird shone like a resplendent sun, captivating all who beheld it.

However, here in this deserted courtyard,

the hero Baird was actually talking to himself in front of two mummies!

Yet Baird’s expression was normal, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they were mummies, laughing and talking as he recounted the journey and the hardships he had faced.

"What is going on here?"

The guard was extremely horrified, unable to believe the scene before his eyes.

He wished it were just an illusion.

But everything was so real, without the slightest trace of illusionary magic.

"Well, I have to go in now, I have found the gemstone that can awaken her."

Baird spoke softly. In his eyes, the old man gave a slight smile, looked at him with relief, and blessed him.

The old man expressed his fortune in having such a son-in-law.

Baird just smiled and said nothing. He looked towards the inside of the courtyard, growing impatient.

For today, he had spent nearly his entire life, all to awaken his beloved who had been in a deep slumber for many years.

Baird slowly stood up, the sunlight falling on him and casting a long shadow. The guard watched as Baird left the two mummies and slowly walked towards a room hung with tattered curtains, looking all the more dilapidated and ominous.

"Where is he going? What does he want to do?"

The guard watched as Baird, holding a stone box, slowly approached the ominous room, his heart filled with dread.

He did not know that, in Baird’s eyes, it was a boudoir strung with bead curtains and burning with spices, where the hero’s lover lay on a bed strewn with white lily petals, her hands clasped together and eyes closed, awaiting the lifting of the curse.

As Baird’s figure drew nearer, an ominous premonition descended upon the guard like a divine revelation, his breathing hastened, vaguely realizing that the admirable hero was approaching his final destiny, and a terrifying sight was about to unfold.

The guard opened his mouth, desiring to let out a voice so loud it could move mountains and make the hero halt his steps.

But a mysterious force sealed his mouth, preventing any sound from escaping.

The guard saw only a white blur before involuntarily fainting.

Baird pulled aside the curtain and entered into the spice-burning boudoir.

A staggeringly beautiful woman lay on a soft featherbed, surrounded by white lily petals, with thick spices burning in the room. Baird gazed at his beloved.

Her pose was serene, her hands folded over her soft belly, her eyes closed in slumber.

"You are still so beautiful."

Baird murmured, stroking her hair,

"Time seems to have frozen on you."

Years had passed, and even the hero had begun to show a few white hairs, but perhaps because of the curse’s strange magic power, his beloved looked the same as she did decades ago, unchanged.

Even Baird was amazed by the power of the curse.

After gazing for a while, Baird took a deep breath. He placed the stone box in the woman’s hands and gently opened it.

A dazzling blaze from the Heavenly Descending Gem burst forth from the box, reappearing in this world.

Then, the gem’s brilliance grew brighter and more splendid, emitting a sun-like intense light causing Baird to involuntarily close his eyes and raise his hand to shield himself from the fearsome bright light.

For a moment, the entire room was bathed in a blinding whiteness.

When the intense light gradually faded, Baird excitedly looked at everything before him.

In his eyes, his beloved on the bed slowly opened her bright eyes, curiously and gently surveying everything around her.

"You’re awake... You’ve finally awoken!"

Baird said with a trembling voice.

The woman, holding the gemstone, turned to Baird and smiled.

Her lips moved, gently uttering the words Baird had long awaited.

Those words fell on the hero’s ears.

"I love you too."

Baird whispered softly.

Then, tears uncontrollably streamed down his face.

For the love before him, he had almost given his whole life,

but fortunately, he had finally reached this day.

From this day onwards, endless happiness awaited him.

Tap, tap.

Footsteps sounded outside the room.

The footsteps were interspersed with the sound of claws scraping against the ground.

Baird slowly raised his head and turned around.

He would not forget those footsteps, they came from Endora.

Baird realized that his three wagers with the Dragon God were about to reach their final moment.

"Wait for me a moment."

Baird said softly.

The woman responded with an understanding smile.

The hero stood up, leaving his beloved’s boudoir.

Parting the curtains, Baird saw Endora, transformed into a dragon-human hybrid.

A heavy breath expelled from its nostrils, It scoffed at everything before It.

"Endora, great Dragon God, I have fulfilled our wager."

Endora’s dragon-like pupils stared at the widely celebrated hero, remaining silent.

"The first wager was to hunt an Earth Dragon alone; I have done as promised, and this Dragon Skin is proof.

The second wager was to conquer a Kingdom, and in the battlefield, I have seen countless Kings prostrate."

As he said this, Baird glanced towards the boudoir,

"The third wager was for me to enjoy all the pleasures of the mortal world, whether it be base gambling or noble love, which I now have partaken in."

After a moment’s contemplation, Endora spoke,

"You indeed completed our wagers,

and created a legend uniquely your own."

"Let the wager be fulfilled, and I shall grant you a gift you have never received before."

Baird nodded slightly, feeling strangely calm at that moment.

The Dragon God Endora raised his hand, drawing in the air as if with those sharp claws, he was tearing something apart.

Baird stared directly at Endora, waiting for the Divine’s gift.

Moments later, his pupils constricted sharply.

The color drained from his face rapidly, turning it deathly pale.

As the sharp claws tore through one illusion after another, a dilapidated, stinking courtyard slowly revealed itself, and sitting on a stone chair, leaning against the wall, were not a father-in-law and a maid, but two desiccated corpses!

Baird stiffened, this hero praised by thousands felt goosebumps rising on every inch of his skin.

"You, what are you..."

His trembling voice squeezed out of his throat.

"Revealing the truth, Baird."

Looking at this mortal hero, a trace of pity flashed through Endora’s eyes,

"Your beloved had long since died of illness, while Slaier created a slumbering illusion for you."

Endora’s claws did not stop, their pace of tearing apart the illusions quickened.

The past splendors, in the hands of the Divine, fragmented bit by bit.

"No, it can’t be! The father-in-law I saw! The..."

Baird’s legs trembled, and he froze completely, shouting.

"Those were just two random corpses He procured."

Endora again disclosed the truth to him.

Baird’s shoulders shook uncontrollably as the truth sliced bit by bit into his soul, like a knife.

His battle-honed instincts told him the scene before him was the real truth.

He looked up in shock at everything.

Beauty no longer existed, all around him was only ruin.

At that moment,

he suddenly realized.

The one cursed,

had never been my beloved,

but myself!

Baird suddenly recalled something, his body tensing with exposed veins, as he struggled to move his feet on the ground.

He rushed into the broken, gloomy bedroom, like a thirsty camel sprinting toward a desert spring.

But the spring in the desert was merely a mirage.

On the decayed bed lay yet another desiccated corpse, only the gemstone in her hand still twinkled.

Baird knelt on the ground, the hero utterly defeated.

"I’ve given... my life, but what have I truly... gained?"

Once he had set out on his journey full of hope, just to awaken his beloved and fulfill his three wagers with the Divine.

For this, he had thrown himself into war, and his story was turned into poetry, sung by countless minstrels.

But... it was all over now, in the illusions, it had vanished like smoke.

The Heavenly Descending Gem,

was merely a gemstone that brought illusions.

After the illusion of his beloved’s awakening shattered, Baird saw only emptiness.

Nothing left, a complete emptiness.

And this,

was the gift he had never received before.

"Let me die."

Baird’s eyes slowly lost their luster, as he murmured.

"Mortal, I respect you, and am willing to fulfill your wish."

At the fall of his words,

in an instant, sharp dragon claws shattered Baird’s heart.

As the body of the hero clad in Dragon Skin fell,

there would never be a hero like Baird again upon this earth.

Thus,

the three prophecies were all confirmed.

................................

................................

Baird’s soul left this mundane world, drifting toward the summit of high mountains.

The Death God Nakbet promptly noticed the soul of this hero, astonished by the hero’s strength yet stunned by the soul’s deathly aura.

Without much thought, Nakbet guided this heart-dead soul to the Netherworld.

For reasons unknown, after Nakbet laid the soul on the Great Plain of the kind and the heroic, the gentle Death God looked at this soul walking like a living corpse and recognized the man.

Baird, once a hero among heroes, now heart-dead beyond revival.

The Death God gazed puzzlingly at Baird, who remained motionless and numb, resembling a mummy.

Being in a soul state differs from a physical state; sensory perception of the external world diminishes rapidly in a soul state, and without deep obsessions and strong willpower, one may wander like a zombie.

Yet, on the Great Plain, the benevolent and heroes mostly possessed strong wills and deep obsessions and usually remained clearer than other souls.

But Baird seemed even more numb than the ordinary souls.

After watching for a long time, the Death God felt there was little else noteworthy about Baird’s soul besides its increased numbness.

Yet, for some unknown reason, since the moment Nakbet saw Baird, a strange premonition lingered, faint yet utterly unrealistic.

After pondering, Nakbet still shook his head, muttering in a voice he could hear:

"What are you thinking, Nakbet...

No one can leave this place, no one can escape the Netherworld."

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