Chapter 344
Chapter 344
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 344
Chapter Title: Kyle■■ (5)
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Death had come, yet he could not die.
Kyle realized that something was holding his soul captive within his body. Standing at the precipice's edge, at the end of the road, he saw a new path stretching out before him.
A pitch-black path.
It was a path that denied every road he had ever walked. Thus, it denied the life of the man known as Kyle Toven. Naturally, he could not take such a path. He had to resist.
But how?
His body wouldn't move.
Even if his soul was still tethered to his flesh, this body was already dead. One couldn't move a corpse. In that moment, Kyle came to a realization.
'So that's it.'
This was it.
'This is what you were trying to stop me from doing.'
Raniel from the future.
The Ashen Goddess had told Kyle.
That his world had perished. Reduced to ashes. Weeping and pleading, Raniel from the future had begged him.
Please, don't go there.
When he heard her words, Kyle had harbored one doubt in his heart. The world had ended? Why? As far as Kyle could tell, there was no enemy at that time who could surpass Raniel, bearer of the star.
"There are disasters... things I must kill, things I must defeat, things I must capture. Too many... way too many..."
Moreover, Raniel's words had gaps here and there. She had hidden specific information, glossing over it. She hadn't lied, but she hadn't told him everything either.
But then.
When Raniel uttered the word "disaster," Kyle remembered that her gaze had been fixed on him. Recalling that fact, Kyle let out a hollow laugh.
'I was your enemy, after all.'
Standing before the unfolded path, Kyle smiled bitterly.
The pitch-black path was one of corruption.
A life as a non-human disaster awaited him. Something from behind pushed at Kyle. It whispered for him to become its vessel quickly. Ignoring the whisper, Kyle thought.
No, I can't let that happen.
Kyle opened his eyes.
He moved his body. With each exertion of force, his flesh began to crumble with crunching sounds, but Kyle forced it to move. To do what he had to do.
He shoved Sara aside.
He confronted the encroaching shadow.
The moment the shadow swallowed him, Kyle felt his consciousness waver. His sense of self twisted. The beliefs he held began to warp. Amid that horrific sensation, Kyle gritted his teeth.
Crunch.
He clenched his teeth and clung to his consciousness.
He had to resist. He couldn't let the future where that thing arrived come to pass. He had to show it that other futures might exist.
So, he had to resist.
Even if this act was meaningless... he had to resist. Thrashing until the very end was humanity's specialty, after all.
'Sword.'
The man who rejected death.
The man who chose to resist until the last prayed to some unknown god. Perhaps it was a prayer to himself.
'...If only... if only I had a sword.'
A scattering wind.
A wish the stars did not heed.
But that voice reached someone. The Ashen Goddess listened to the human's wish. To grant it, she used the last handful of time left to her and wrought a miracle.
Rustle.
Ashes scattered in the air.
A handful of ashes rising in the darkness shone brilliantly. So brilliantly that it lit Kyle's way even in the shadows. Kyle's eyes, about to close, flew wide open.
"...Ah."
A laugh escaped through his lips.
Where the ashes flowed, there was a sword(?).
There was the life he had let go.
Grip.
Kyle seized the holy sword.
No starlight bloomed.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 2.
The moment he grasped the sword, Kyle knew what he had to do. His hazy consciousness sharpened. With clear mind, Kyle thought.
What can I do?
What can I cut?
Cutting the surging shadow was impossible.
Cutting the path of corruption stretching before him was also impossible. Nothing but impossibilities. His allotted time had already ended.
'...Ridiculous.'
He, called the strongest hero.
Yet in the very end, what Kyle could do was pathetically meager. Even that was desperately precious to him now.
Clutching the sword, Kyle made his decision.
"Raniel."
Kyle wished.
"I leave the rest to you."
With a prayer that she could hear his voice, Kyle swung the sword. The keenly sharpened blade did not aim at the shadow. Its tip pointed at himself.
Stab.
Kyle pierced his own heart with the sword.
A mouthful of blood spewed from Kyle's mouth. The shadow consuming him rippled for a moment. The shadow's origin was the heart. Kyle had carved a clear wound into its foundation.
A wound etched into the root.
A flaw that could never be erased.
Unable to heal that wound, the shadow swallowed Kyle's soul(?) and flesh(?). Feeling his consciousness sink into darkness, Kyle murmured.
"...This should."
This should be enough of a variable.
Right, Raniel?
With those words, Kyle closed his eyes as his consciousness faded.
Because he closed his eyes.
Because he thought this was the end.
Thus, Kyle did not see.
"...Don't make me laugh."
Her, moving the moment he closed his eyes.
The Saintess, Sara.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Sara watched Kyle being swallowed by the shadow.
Kyle, entwined by the shadow, was changing. Sara instinctively knew his soul was breaking. She also sensed that it was different from the usual betrayal.
She had to run.
She had to flee right now.
Her instincts warned her.
Something terrifying was about to be born. It was no longer the Kyle she knew. Something surpassing disaster would appear here. Unthinkingly, Sara took a step back.
One step, then another.
As she retreated, something caught Sara's eye.
It was the ashes clinging to the sword in Kyle's hand. Sara knew whose they were. Raniel. The Ashen Mage, Raniel.
...Even in his final moments, Raniel had helped Kyle.
The voice of Raniel from the future, her pleading face, flashed through Sara's mind. Flinch. Sara's steps halted.
"...Seriously."
Sara was jealous.
Possessive.
Sara let out a hollow laugh and brushed back her hair. Then, with trembling steps, she moved forward. Toward the transforming Kyle, Sara walked.
"Don't make me laugh."
Anyone would think she was his lover or something.
"That one."
Kyle Toven was.
"Mine."
That man is mine.
She thought she'd dealt with that damn elf who came rolling in from nowhere, and now a childhood friend from the future shows up... She dealt with that too, and now it's a god(?).
Sara let out a hollow laugh.
Too many rivals.
'Why do they keep eyeing my man?'
Letting out a hollow laugh, Sara kept walking.
Shoulders back, chest out, proudly.
Sara embraced Kyle, swallowed by the shadow. Skin to skin with Kyle, Sara thought of the final price she could offer.
It was her uniqueness.
The uniqueness of her, chosen by god.
Just as Kyle had forsaken his own uniqueness for Raniel, perhaps the same was possible for her. Sara squeezed out every bit of her uniqueness. It was the core that made her 'Sara'.
Chosen as Saintess.
Raised as Saintess.
Adored by all, she spent her childhood intoxicated by her uniqueness. To Sara, being the Saintess was practically her entire being. She knew that without it, she would be nothing.
'But it's always been that way.'
It didn't matter.
Though she lived her whole life as a Saintess, before Kyle, Sara was just a girl. She fell in love like an ordinary girl, dated like an ordinary girl. So it was fine.
Without hesitation, Sara declared.
"I'll offer it."
Her life as a Saintess.
All memories of living as one.
The divinity granted because she was the Saintess.
Offering it all, Sara created a small light. Holding the light in her mouth, she grabbed Kyle's collar and pulled him close. She pressed her lips to his cold ones, passing the light to him.
At that moment, Sara's pupils clouded over blankly.
As if white paint had been poured into her mind, her memories began to bleach. In her fading consciousness, Sara barely managed one last phrase.
"I love you, Kyle."
In her final moment, Sara smiled.
Like an ordinary girl, not a Saintess.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 3.
The Ashen Goddess watched it all.
Raniel from 13 years in the future struggled to understand the situation unfolding here. But she couldn't comprehend any of it.
A miracle had occurred.
Variables upon variables had stacked.
Neither Kyle's final choice nor Sara's action had happened in the past Raniel experienced. Events that never occurred had taken place.
...Unpredictable.
Raniel instinctively knew the path to the future had diverged. Of course, the major branch hadn't changed. Despite the variables from the two, Kyle had begun his betrayal. Soon, a new disaster would appear on this land.
But.
"...It's not the same."
The disaster she faced.
Reverse Heaven Sword, Kyle, had been near-perfect.
To kill Kyle, Raniel had lost countless things. Turning countless to ashes, sacrificing countless lives, she barely reached him. But what of this Kyle?
Not perfect.
Incomplete.
An ineradicable wound scarred his heart, and the light Sara planted flickered within the shadow. The variables had made Kyle an imperfect being. To Raniel, that was a possibility.
A possibility leading to another future.
A possibility connecting to a future different from what she imagined. In Raniel's eyes, worn dull over long years and lost their light, a faint gleam appeared.
"...Perhaps."
Perhaps, Raniel murmured.
"Really, perhaps..."
The best outcome might be possible, not just the worst.
Though terrified to voice it, Raniel entertained the hypothesis of "perhaps."
"......"
Raniel fell silent.
The silence didn't last long. Click. The sound of Raniel stepping forward echoed through the church. She, who had been still for ages, took a step.
Variable upon variable connected.
Small things gathered to present a possibility.
All that remained was to seize that possibility.
But seizing it was not her role. She from the future couldn't interfere with the present.
'If there's someone who can seize it.'
There would be only one.
"Next."
The Ashen Goddess stopped before Raniel.
"Next is your turn, Raniel."
The Ashen Goddess smiled bitterly.
"...I'll wait."
If it were me 13 years ago.
If I weren't broken.
If I pursued the best.
'I might find an answer.'
The Ashen Goddess took a step forward.
She leaped through time one last time. To the future ten days ahead, the last divergence point she remembered.
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