Chapter 739: Beyond Destiny (11)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 739: Beyond Destiny (11)
Incomprehensible actions. Incomprehensible words.
And a weakness so profound it defied understanding.
Jin’s legs felt as though they might give way. He could sense no trace of the Evil God’s spirit energy emanating from the young Rosa.
She was, in every sense, merely human.
[What in the world is happening?]
“Jin, this… this human is… the Evil God.”
“12th Flagbearer, you must kill her at once…!”
The allies who had just arrived stared with wide eyes, their gazes shifting between Jin and Rosa. Though she looked ready to faint, Octavia still aimed her staff at the woman on the ground.
Hedo reached out and gently lowered the staff.
“Ghost Captain, I don’t know what’s going on, but I think we should trust Jin’s judgment.”
Cough…!
Jin remained silent, his gaze fixed on empty space. But when Rosa coughed up a mouthful of blood, he flinched and his eyes met hers once more.
Could this person truly not be the Evil God?
If this was one of the Evil God’s schemes, what could she possibly gain by going this far?
‘This is too much if the only goal was to throw me into confusion. If all of this were truly some sick joke, the Evil God should have struck me and my allies the moment she created this distraction.’
But after being freed from her chains, Rosa hadn't attacked Jin even once. The martial prowess this young Rosa displayed wasn’t even enough to threaten his group.
In fact, she had even provided cover for them while the Former Patriarch was fighting just moments ago.
Furthermore, the Former Patriarch—whose synchronization with the Evil God had reached its peak—had stabbed Rosa, not Jin, in his final moments.
That meant the Evil God had attempted to kill herself. Or rather, her own clone.
‘…A clone?’
A sudden hypothesis flashed through Jin’s mind.
What if the Rosa dying before him was a fragment that had broken off from the Evil God?
As if to confirm his suspicion, the truth was that the young Rosa was a manifestation of the Evil God’s deepest inner self—the part of her that had resisted corruption until the very end.
She was the result of the Evil God’s most radiant days being severed and cast aside, a version of herself to which the deity could never return.
That was the identity of the Rosa dying before his eyes.
In truth, Rosa herself didn’t even know she had been split from the Evil God. She perceived the Evil God and herself as two entirely different beings.
However, Rosa realized that she was a twisted existence. This was not the world she remembered.
Why had she been imprisoned in the Evil God’s chains? Where were Cyron and the other knights of the family? What had she been doing right before her imprisonment? Rosa could remember none of it.
No matter how human she appeared, she was ultimately not a real person but a manifestation of an unconscious mind separated from the Evil God. It was only natural that she had no memories of the moments leading up to her capture.
The young Rosa’s memories were frozen on a certain day when she was twenty-three.
A day from the era the Evil God yearned for most.
‘It seems I am a twisted being who shouldn’t exist here. And this knight named Jin, who is likely my son, and everyone else are calling me the Evil God.’
Did that mean the dark monster that had bound her was her own future?
For some reason, the thought that this might just be a terrible nightmare never even crossed her mind.
With absolute certainty and startling speed, she understood the situation she was in.
“Haha.”
Rosa let out a raspy, dry laugh. A whirlwind of emotions surged within her.
There were so many things she wanted to know. How had she become such a monster? How was Cyron? How many children had she borne? And how much had the family been endangered because of the person she was now?
Rosa felt a dark energy, like a poison, spreading through her entire body from the wound in her chest.
“Jin… a little closer. Could you show me your face?”
Jin didn’t answer, silently looking down at her for a few seconds.
“As you can see, I’ve been mortally wounded. And by a knight controlled by the Evil God, no less. That’s proof I’m not on that being’s side. Besides, even if I were perfectly fine, I’m not strong enough to threaten you or your companions. So, lower your guard. I don’t have much time left.”
Rosa was focusing her final dregs of strength to speak in a clear, steady voice.
Eventually, Jin knelt on one knee and leaned toward her.
As he composed his distraught heart and looked again, the young Rosa’s face felt both foreign and familiar.
“You’re handsome… You look like a perfect blend of Cyron and me. If you’re the 12th Flagbearer, are you the youngest?”
“…There is one more after me.”
“Then thirteen in total? It seems the love between Cyron and me was even greater than I imagined. What… happened to him? Surely I didn’t harm Cyron as well?”
“He is alive and well.”
“Then Cyron must be fulfilling his duty elsewhere. And the role of striking down the monster I’ve become and reclaiming the family was given to you in his stead…”
Jin’s brow furrowed every time she addressed him with such familiarity. Seeing this, Rosa gave a faint smile.
“Even though my love for Cyron was strong, your expression tells me what a terrible mother I must have been. I was likely the worst matriarch in history, too. While there have been villains in Runcandel who committed depravities beyond the Path of the Overlord, I suppose… I’m the only one who became the Evil God.”
The young Rosa was a completely different person from the Rosa Jin remembered.
The Rosa he knew was a demon capable of any atrocity for the sake of the family’s prosperity and survival.
In contrast, the Rosa smiling bitterly before him had eyes so clear and deep that it wouldn't have been strange to say she belonged in Hairan rather than Runcandel.
“Rosa.”
“Speak.”
“Why did you do it?”
At Jin’s question, thrown with bitter resentment, Rosa fell into thought for a few seconds.
“I simply lacked the character and the qualifications to be the matriarch of the family.”
“No. Until you became the Evil God, you were a brilliant Acting Patriarch whom the entire family revered. No one thought you were lacking as you led the family in Father’s stead. Your subordinates exerted every effort just to earn your recognition.”
Rosa’s head drooped, her strength failing from the blood loss.
“You were an Acting Patriarch that even your enemies and those who despised you had to acknowledge. I was the same. Until you conspired with the Prophet and became the Evil God. Until you became a mad monster who claimed it didn't matter if the entire world perished as long as the flag of Runcandel remained.”
“I said such things…?”
“Those are your words, and these are your deeds.”
“Through this power called chaos?” Rosa asked, placing a hand over her wound.
The mass of chaos, which had spread like a tumor, was now becoming more prominent.
“Yes.”
“Then the reason I became a monster is clear.”
It was the result of giving up.
Rosa spoke in a calm voice.
“Because I was tired, because I could no longer see a path, or perhaps because I felt I had done enough… I stopped struggling. Becoming the Evil God must have been a very easy path. It was likely… the most tempting and easiest choice I ever faced from the moment I was born until I became that thing.”
Tears rolled down Rosa’s cheeks.
Regret for a future she couldn’t remember, hatred for herself, and the despair of knowing that nothing she did could undo the horrific future that had already unfolded—all of it carved itself coldly into her soul.
Against the true Rosa who had become a monster, she could do nothing.
Jin squeezed his eyes shut.
“As a Flagbearer of this family, I am on my way to make you pay for those sins. If you have any words for the Evil God, tell me.”
“I pray… that death does not become a comfortable escape for her. I pray that even in death, that hideous soul and body are trapped somewhere in agony, never to be liberated for all eternity. And I pray… that I am… always there… beside her. Earnestly. More earnestly than anything else…”
The group held their breath. Even as she was dying, the ghastly aura of Rosa pouring her entire being into cursing herself momentarily weighed down on everyone present.
“I will deliver the message.”
Rosa’s breathing grew shallow.
Jin decided to stay by her side and watch her pass.
As her consciousness flickered, Rosa spoke to Jin again.
“Jin, do you… have a lover?”
“I do not.”
“In the past?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Is there someone who holds you in their heart… or someone you hold in yours?”
“Why ask such a thing in this situation?”
“Because you’re… handsome… like Cyron. I… liked Cyron… because he was… handsome.”
Pfft.
At that, Jin finally let out a short laugh.
None of Cyron and Rosa’s children had any memory of ever sharing such an ordinary, trivial conversation with their parents.
“More than that… there was no one handsomer, nor anyone… stronger… Other than Cyron, I never dated anyone else.”
“Was Father the same?”
“If he is still wandering the Black Sea, then perhaps… unlike me, Cyron is still, even now, continuing to struggle.”
Rosa exhaled a final, warm breath.
“Jin… my son, I am sorry.”
Please, you must stop me.
With those final words, Rosa breathed her last.
Every word she had uttered until her death was something the Rosa Jin remembered could never have said.
‘Yes, I will.’
Jin answered inwardly as he quietly closed Rosa’s eyelids.
Just as the dead Rosa had regretted a future she did not know, Jin was seeing off the mother of a past he did not know.
Silence reigned for a while.
“…The Rosa who died was likely an ego or a soul that broke away from the Evil God.”
The group nodded at Jin’s words. They had reached the same conclusion while listening to the conversation.
[Perhaps it was a separation the Evil God herself did not want, or one she did not expect. I have no memory of sensing this person’s presence within the Evil God’s inner self during my imprisonment. Furthermore, the one the Evil God attacked in the end through this Patriarch was not you, but her.]
Alphen spoke as he hoisted the Former Patriarch, who had collapsed beside Rosa, onto his back. The man had not yet regained consciousness, and neither Jin nor Alphen knew his true identity.
The young Rosa’s corpse was beginning to turn black. The mass of chaos that had started in her chest was now visibly growing at a rapid pace.
Jin conjured a ball of flame above his palm.
He felt he should incinerate the remains and leave before the body became any more hideous.
However, just as he was about to drop the flame, he flinched and snapped his head up.
Suddenly, the voice of the Evil God began to ring out.
[I wonder what your impressions are after watching the last of my humanity perish, my youngest. I did expect you to be the one to end it yourself… but this isn't bad either.]