"Traitor, how are you still alive? You should have died and turned into a poison bomb for the Imperial Family."
Hyrk wasn't surprised when he heard those words and saw an elderly man in front of him.
"You are the traitors to the Empire."
The elderly man coldly sneered.
"We aren't traitors because we have never been loyal to the Empire! Since the creation of the Hyeran Clan, the clan's objective has been destroying the Revgen Empire and conquering this continent!"
Hyrk couldn't be bothered with the words of that elderly man; he had met that man before and knew that was at the Grandmaster Rank, so there was no way of surviving in front of him and arguing was useless.
"I don't know what you did to those kids, probably you sent them to run alone towards some town, but that is useless! The towns are under our True Empire's control, and there are a lot of savage beasts in the area; those kids will die!"
Although it was true that there were a lot of savage beasts in the area, the strongest ones barely reached the Novice Rank and weren't dangerous for anyone of the rescue group. Of course, if those kids would have run alone as the elderly man said, it would have been difficult for them to survive.
Moreover, the surrounding towns and cities were in the process of cleaning by the Revgen Empire, and the only reason that elderly man was safe and hadn't noticed anything was that he was living in an isolated place and the focus had been the places with more people. As for the remnants like him, they weren't difficult to kill later on as they didn't even notice that the others had been killed.
"So, you don't want to reply. Very well, now I will torture you till death."
Hyrk had been ready to die since the start, but he didn't plan to let the other party slaughter him without opposing resistance.
Seeing that Hyrk seemed ready to battle the elderly man laughed.
"An ant like you wants to battle against me? How ridiculous!"
Hyrk knew that very well, but he still wanted to battle till death even if the battle lasted only a second.
"You have already chosen the path of death in battle. If you are determined to battle till the end, I will grant you power."
At that instant, Hyrk heard a voice in his mind, and that was a voice that he recognized, that was Yale's past life's voice.
Hyrk had only head Liye's voice when he announced the start of the attack before, but he had no doubts about it as it was the same as Yale' but with some ancientness on it.
"I want to battle till the end."
Hyrk replied in his mind; he truly wanted to die in battle, but if he could choose, he would rather die in a true battle rather than in a battle that lasted only for one second.
"I left a string of my power on you when you chose to go to that rescue mission. Use it, and your power will increase a lot temporally. However, that power is too much for your body and how much of it you are able to use will depend on you. Moreover, regardless if you win or lose the battle, using that string of power will kill you or at least leave you unable to move your body once again. Use it, and this will be your last battle regardless of the result."
Although usually, one would ponder about using that kind of self-destructive power, Hyrk used it immediately; he would die even without using it and didn't fear death, so he felt that at least he wanted to harm that elderly man as much as he could and make it his last gift of loyalty to the Revgen Empire before dying.
Meanwhile, Liye was still in the midst of the air with the experts of the True Empire in front of him, but no one had moved since they met.
Liye had been asking the other party to make a move first, but the other felt that it was a trap, so they didn't dare to move, which was just as Liye planned.
"If you had attacked me instantly, you might have injured me a bit before dying, the more you wait to attack me, the worse for you."
The reason for thinking that was that Liye had his own plan, but that required a bit of time. Although he could kill all his opponents just with brute force, he felt that killing them in that way would be too merciful for criminals like them.
"Oh, it seems that Hyrk triggered the string of power I left in his body, it seems that he chose to die in battle. As expected, Yale and Revgen didn't notice it, but for Hyrk the two options he had were equally worse. More than living like a disabled person or reincarnating, he would rather die while battling for the things he believes."
Liye had acted stealthily to put that string of power on Hyrk's body as he guessed that Hyrk planned to sacrifice himself in the rescue operation. Hyrk's last wish was to die honorably while battling for the Revgen Empire and Liye gave him a method to make it true.
He understood very well how one felt when death was the only option and how important was being able to fulfill all your wishes before dying.
Liye died due to obtaining the Origin Path, but if he had given up the Origin Path at the last second, he would have avoided the attack and survived, so it could be said that he chose death. Afterward, he endured the great pain of having his soul in dispersion process all the time until he managed to finish all his plans for reincarnation.
Liye didn't want to disappear forever with his soul dissipated as he still had things to do and as a Law God in the laws of Life and Death, he didn't fear reincarnation.
Hyrk wasn't planning to hope for any reincarnation or anything else after death, he was planning to truly disappear, so his situation was a bit different from that of Liye back then.
Thus, Liye felt that at least Hyrk had the right to fulfill his last wish before dying and decided to help him. Despite their situations being in a completely different context, Liye felt that there was some fate between the two of them since both had decided to disregard their lives for their objectives.
Therefore, Liye left that string of power in Hyrk's body to help him at the moment he chose to discard his life in battle.
"Good luck. I hope that you die without regrets."
Liye couldn't know Hyrk's situation since the barrier created around the Hyeran Clan headquarters isolated everything, but he gave him his blessings.
At that moment, Hyrk was experiencing the biggest pain of his life, but at the same time, he felt boundless power on his body.
"Aren't you going to attack? This battle will end with my first hit, so at least you should attack first, or this will be too boring."
The elderly man already considered Hyrk as a corpse, so he decided to tease him a bit trying to increase his hopes before sending him to the desperation.
Hyrk didn't reply, but instead, he attacked the elderly man with all his strength.
The elderly man put a finger to stop his attack expecting that Hyrk would be shocked when his most powerful attack was stopped with one finger. However, the result wasn't like the elderly man expected as his finger was broken, and he was sent flying backward.
"What?"
The elderly man was shocked; he didn't understand how Hyrk was able to use so much power.
"Cheap tricks!"
Of course, the elderly man thought that Hyrk used some kind of weapon hidden in his hand to power up the punch, but after clashing with Hyrk a few times, his face changed because he felt that all the attacks of Hyrk weren't weaker than his own.
"How can this happen?"
If the elderly man battled seriously, he would still have the upper hand due to his superior experience in battle but taking seriously a crippled kid like Hyrk would be akin to losing for someone like the elderly man.
However, that wasn't a moment to worry about reputation as he could really die if he continued to take Hyrk lightly, so he finally started to battle seriously.
Hyrk was suffering a lot of pain due to the use of a power that far surpassed the limits of his body, but when the elderly man started to battle seriously, the pain increased another hundredfold as his body was full on injuries making that the string of power was even more difficult to use.
However, Hyrk didn't stop and continued attacking the elderly man with all his strength disregarding anything else. At that moment, the elderly man understood how fearsome someone could be who disregarded death in battle.
Fifteen minutes later the elderly man fell to the ground with almost all his bones broken by the battle against Hyrk, but the later wasn't in a better state and also fell to the ground a second after him.
Both of them were still conscious and tried to get up, but that was far too difficult in their current state.
Neither could get up, but the elderly man was able to fly thanks to his superior rank. Although Hyrk's power increased, that was only the power of his body as his level didn't increase.
Previously both of them had flown a bit when the elderly man thought of using his flying capability to beat Hyrk, but Hyrk had learned a flying skill in the special realm. Thus, both of them ended battling on the ground again as fighting in the sky could attract someone else, and the elder didn't dare to wait until Hyrk was exhausted and couldn't continue flying.
However, when the elderly man saw Hyrk's state, he was sure that he couldn't use a skill to fly.
"At the end, this is my victory! Die!"
The elderly man had prepared a long-range attack with all his remaining power to destroy everything in a kilometer radius; he believed that it was impossible to Hyrk to avoid that attack and even Hyrk knew that he couldn't avoid it.
However, that powerful attack was never cast as the elderly man was gulped down by a flying beast at that same moment.
"The enemies of the Demon Lord didn't taste very well."
That was the leader of the wolfs in Wyba's Army, who had been in charge of cleaning the isolated members of the True Empire in the area, and the elderly man who battled against Hyrk was the last one.
Although the wolf leader and the elderly man were at the same rank, the elderly man had been weakened a lot by his battle against Hyrk and was unable to defend before being eaten.
"That human has a bit of the smell of the Demon Lord on him."
The leader wolf didn't fail to notice that Hyrk had some relationship with his Demon Lord, so he put Hyrk on his back before flying back to the Imperial Palace where Revgen had ordered everyone to go after finishing.
"At the end, I am satisfied. I battled with all my strength and put a Grandmaster Rank expert into dire straits. I can die satisfied now."
In the back of the wolf leader, Hyrk smiled before his heart stopped and his consciousness vanished.