Chapter 93
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 93
Chapter Title: Our Mission, Our Fire
-----------------------------------------------------------------
What day was it?
It must have been when Enuel was lost in grief, having lost Shurviel and Kaduel one after the other.
To be precise, it was just before the Harbadonia expedition began, right before the main force boarded the two fleets.
"Enuel."
I don't know why. I just had a vague feeling.
That Tersia would come.
As if a future I had not experienced was visiting me as déjà vu. As if reading my very thoughts, Tersia smiled faintly.
"Doesn't it feel like this has happened before? Even though this is the first time."
"Yes."
"That's because I've turned back time. This same event is now repeating for the fourth time."
I wore a surprised expression.
I wondered if I had misheard what she just said.
"The Abyss was born when Yotos betrayed Lord Geldharia and took his divinity. The power of creation was corrupted. The power that governs time and space is originally the power of creation. And this Verkensia is its catalyst."
"…?"
"I can't even remember how many times I've turned back time. For a future where Kaduel and Shurviel could live… and not just them. For all the children who have died until now… but I failed every time. The paths that led us here were the best we could achieve."
Tersia looked at me.
Beyond that quiet, sacred silence, her eyes reddened.
"Are you sorry? For not being able to save Kaduel and Shurviel."
That smile held so many tearful memories—not just one, not just two, but several.
My mother, apologizing on the day she died.
Tarsiyo, apologizing on the day she died.
This world was so wretched and cruel that those who shouldn't have to apologize were the ones doing so.
"Your Holiness Tersia."
I wanted to ask.
I wanted to ask, with all my heart, the reason why.
"What exactly is a Yongsa?"
What was it that made them shine so brilliantly?
"The world calls me a Yongsa. But I haven't been able to save a single one of my comrades…."
A question I had harbored since that day in the Neigallas subjugation, when all my bonds were severed.
Perhaps, it was a lifelong question.
But there were no more Yongsa left in that world, so it was a question I could never ask anyone.
"If I must use the deaths of my comrades as stepping stones to move forward, how can that possibly be what a Yongsa is…?"
Is one a Yongsa because they must bravely accept the deaths of their comrades?
Must one be able to bear the void and the burden of death, equal to the size and weight of this entire world.
Only then can one become a Yongsa? If that is the path to becoming a Yongsa, then I…
"Here. Look at my hand, Enuel."
Because a lifetime of sorrow, despair, and doubt was swirling within me, I didn't realize it at the time.
When I asked Tersia that question.
The fact that not once did a synchronization rate reduction warning appear.
"There are five fingers, right? The thumb is stout, the index finger is average, the middle finger is long, the ring finger is similar to the index yet different, and the pinky is the shortest and most slender."
To that question, Tersia answered.
To that question, which was like a child's complaint, she answered with a very gentle smile.
"Because each one is different like this, this one hand can accomplish countless things."
I don't know.
Even I don't know.
"This is what a Yongsa is."
Why, when her story wasn't even finished.
"Someone who defeats all enemies alone—that's not a Yongsa. So I am not a Yongsa. Neither is Enuel."
Tears.
Endless tears.
The reason they poured out, blurring my vision, falling so fiercely.
"When you and I, Ryukael and Alkaios, and the others who couldn't be here with us now are added one by one, 'we' finally start to become a Yongsa."
Was it because every single one of her words seemed to console the lives of my comrades who fought and died in that distant world?
Did it feel as if she was telling me that they were all not fakes, but true Yongsa?
Is that why my soul was weeping first?
"You don't have to win. You don't have to try to win alone. As long as you don't lose, we can win together. So please, don't give up until the very end, Enuel."
As I wept, overwhelmed with emotion.
The synchronization rate reduction warning never appeared.
Age of Mythology,
Tarhye RondelㆍEldiaㆍRebirth (14)
Warning: HP Gauge 45%.
Recovery impossible.
A being that should not exist was taking form and existing.
Its very flesh was blasphemy.
Dark blue spider legs squirmed as if sobbing. Its body was composed of the dead from a world that perished long ago.
Warning: HP Gauge 42%.
Recovery impossible.
You have been encroached upon by a Grade 1 Abyss.
Providence creates a contradiction.
Mental resonance spreads throughout the world, infecting the souls of the sensitive.
The dark blue specter, Yotos's most trusted servant and the being that would stain this world with eternal ecstasy, was running rampant.
Warning: HP Gauge 39%.
Recovery impossible.
Before that absolute blasphemy.
I merely swung, and swung, and swung again with both hands on the hilt.
And so I carved runes, and detonated runes.
[Tervel: Enuel is sealing Ashron's movements…!]
They disappear into the torrent of slashes.
The dead composing Ashron's body, one by one, shedding tears in the barrage of light.
[Tersia: We have to end this quickly!]
They disappear again.
The strings of the Heavenly Mandate Psalm that form Enuel's soul and body, one by one, and another one.
'My body is burning hot.'
In the midst of combat synchronization, I doubt my five senses. Enuel, how are you moving your body right now?
In this rotting agony…
I couldn't even move normally until I learned how to control the Abyss from Akirea of Crimson Flame.
Did he let go of his memories?
Did he let go of his future?
Did he even let go of his hesitation?
Is he burning his own body, now kindling, to white ash with the mindset that this battlefield is the last of his life?
One second.
In less than a second, the Rune Slash repeats two or three times… and through the opening created, Tersia flies in with a beautiful posture.
[Tersia: Tervel—!]
I don't even have the luxury of watching that dance of light that incinerates the darkness.
[Tersia: —Now!]
How many times did I repeat the Rune Slash? For how long did I repeat it?
The fingers gripping the sword tremble.
The UI in my vision flickers red, warning that my health has dropped below 20%.
Finally, the subjugation battle came to an end.
Ashron's core, exposed after shattering, tearing, and incinerating its body.
Tervel's lightning spear strikes the very center of that core. It was a light so powerful that for a moment, it turned the world into a black-and-white realm of pure white and pitch black.
From Tervel's throat, a gasp burst out like a roar.
[Tervel: Karenden, I've secured the Spider Lord's soul. Yotos should have lost nearly seventy percent of his power with this. By the way, Enuel, that was incredible.]
[Enuel: If not for the sacrifices of others… I wouldn't have made it in time.]
[Tersia: Yes, of course, I know. Are you alright?]
[Enuel: Now, Your Holinesses… please go up… and join Lord Karenden… As for me… as soon as my body recovers—?!]
It was in that one moment.
A sharp pain, as if my consciousness was being swallowed by darkness and my vision was blacking out, surged through me. I couldn't even cough up blood.
What shattered Praimoa's armor and pierced through my chest, dark blue and sinister, was the flesh of a god…
"I am the mystery of blasphemy, huhuhuahahahahaha… You seem overwhelmed by my mystery."
My body rots away gruesomely.
My organs strangely degenerate, transforming into individual life forms. Bones and organs with spider legs sprouting from them begin to burst out of my body.
The light of my soul…
Where my flesh has vanished, the strings of the Heavenly Mandate Psalm well up as droplets of light particles, then crumble away into nothing.
[Tervel: Ashron…! Your core should have been pierced!]
[Tersia: Tervel, we have to save Enuel! I'll stop that thing's movements, you go!]
"Uhuhuhuhuhahahaha… Do you think I would permit such a thing? I am the heart of Valadon; your arrival here is your doom."
Then, if not for the flash of red lightning that streaked across a corner of my vision.
If that light had not knocked away Ashron's spider leg, I would have died on the spot.
Amidst my blurry, distant, and shaking vision, I see the one holding me in their arms.
"You're a mess, Enuel."
It was Alkaios.
His blood-soaked body, with ninety percent of his armor shattered and not regenerating, hinted at the nature of his battle with Jayun.
It took me a moment to realize that Alkaios was speaking quietly, not using the channel.
"Commander… you're the one who…."
"This is our end. Let us advance. To the place of our entrusted mission, to the place where we guard the flame and perish. To the place where we are burned to white ash and discarded."
"I… will obey…."
Only later did I learn what power led Enuel in his final battle.
In the distant future, after this story ended.
When I, too, stood on the final battlefield. When I stood in the place where I would burn away my final life.
[Tersia: …Grace…!]
It felt like swimming through a dream.
In a whirlwind of Verkensia's light flying in from all directions.
[Tersia: …Peace…!]
The blue light of Rivelden.
The red light of Galadiel.
And the silver light of Sharrilion, spreading an aurora of light, blocking the mystery of blasphemy, in a dream.
[Tersia: …Truth…!]
I can't even see ahead anymore.
I can only see the difference between light and dark.
But the phantom of Enuel is clearly visible, so I place my footsteps in his, and I overlay my body onto his movements.
[Tersia: …Enuel! Alkaios, it's no use! Get back! I'll take the front! If you two use any more power! If you do…!]
[Alkaios: …No, raise Verkensia's power to maximum output…!]
[Tervel: …Alkaios, what are you doing? With your current strength, you can't even break Ashron's barrier! Stand back…!]
[Alkaios: …There is a way. Shoot me, Enuel! Absorb all my power and blow that bastard away…!]
[Tersia: …Alkaios, please…!]
[Alkaios: …Hurry! Eldia Kata! You will complete our mission…!]
Alkaios became a bolt of Galadiel's lightning and surged toward Ashron.
Ashron's barrier and the power of the lightning clashed violently… For an instant, Alkaios converted the energies into Rivelden's wavelength, condensed them, and detonated them.
At that moment, Alkaios would have had neither the time nor the strength to transform into Galadiel's lightning to evade.
[Tersia: …Justice…!]
That light of will.
That fire of devotion.
That sword of sacrifice.
[Tersia: Embracing all of that, the highest among them, Love.]
The silver light of Sharrilion, roaring more sorrowfully than ever before, swirls and absorbs it.
And then.
That flame of sacrifice, thus received.
I burn it at the tip of my blade, at the sword's point pulsating with entangled red and blue light.
"Pierce through, Sharrilion—!"
Shattering both the blasphemous barrier surrounding the soul and the instantly restored spectral body.
The point of Sharrilion pierces the soul.
But it was just short. I couldn't put any more strength into it. I had to push harder, to pierce it completely.
"Mhuhuhuhahahahahaha! How powerless! Do you think you can reach my authority with such a farce!"
Ashron's regeneration speed is unparalleled. It's twelve times faster than the other True Kings I've faced so far.
Tersia and Tervel are too far.
Just as a desperate gasp escaped me.
Chaaaaang—!
The two True Holy Swords, Galadiel and Rivelden, which had lost their master and entered a freefall, changed their trajectory on their own.
The swords, inheriting Alkaios's will, pierced through Enuel's body and impaled Ashron's core beyond it from both sides.
The force was so immense that it didn't just pierce the core, but slammed it into the high, distant throne.
"I am… the blasphemous… crown… of the great Abyss… who will command even the universe…!"
Had even my hearing, which had been relatively intact, reached its limit? I can't even hear Ashron's final echo.
And yet.
And yet.
The voice uttered by the Guide of Light echoes, spreading deep into my soul, more beautiful than a pipe organ.
[Tersia: Let the dawn break upon this land.]
The barrage of light from the three True Holy Swords, a primordial light that wholly and completely embraces even that barrage.
[Tersia: Tarhye Rondel.]
Its warmth is transmitted even beyond my retinas.
When the dazzling feast of light, shimmering with red dots, ended, the core had vanished.
Was it proof that their mission was complete?
Sharrilion, Rivelden, and Galadiel were still embedded in Ashron's spider throne.
My body had already rotted and crumbled away.
Even the parts pierced by Galadiel and Rivelden had rotted away, and the body that had been impaled on the throne with the core slid and tumbled down.
Before I hit the ground, I felt myself being embraced by a tearfully warm light.
This light.
Such a warm light.
There is only one person who possesses such a light. Tersia.
[Tersia: Ah, Enuel… how, your body, Brother, Enuel's body…!]
There was no dialogue synchronization prompt.
Enuel couldn't say anything. As his consciousness completely faded, Karenden took his hand.
[Karenden: I will never let your deaths be in vain.]
At that moment, Enuel was gazing calmly into the distant, empty air.
How do I know? Because the synchronization ended the moment Ashron was sealed.
In short, I was now standing in the final chapter of this historic battle as an invisible observer.
That should have been the case.
Neither Tervel, nor Tersia, nor Karenden, nor Asura could see me, yet somehow, Enuel was staring right at me, the observer.
And was it a momentary illusion?
Was it merely a coincidence caused by rigor mortis?
The next moment, a serene smile spread across his dark, rotting lips…
No.
It wasn't a hallucination.
That smile did not make a sound, but spoke only in the form of a smile.
I leave it to you now…
What we could not complete…
Our mission, our fire…
That was the end.
Cosmic Century, 4th Generation, Year 635, April 24th. Identification Number: Eldia Kata (05) Life signals lost.
With that string of text as the final word, darkness covered the world as if a stage curtain was falling.
The darkness at the end was tearful.
A darkness like a fire going out after the kindling has completely burned away. The final moments of the kindling that brought dawn to this world.
Over that darkness, the powers inherited through this experience are conveyed in the form of text.
[Synchronization Complete.]
- Engraved Slash: Rune Slash, Synchronization Rate 125%.
- Sharrilion Usage, Synchronization Rate 266%.
- Galadiel Usage, Synchronization Rate 319%.
- Rivelden Usage, Synchronization Rate 85%.
- Hisgibide Usage, Synchronization Rate 78%.
- Aizaiya Usage, Synchronization Rate 69%.
- Yoniullan Usage, Synchronization Rate 95%.
This is the end of the reenactment of the Age of Mythology.
When all the text strings vanished and the darkness finally lifted, returning me to the space shrouded in black mist, someone else was standing there.
"Those honest fools went that far for us, and yet in the end, we—no, I—failed."
Who could it be.
There was no need to wipe my tears and raise my head. It was a familiar voice, a familiar presence.
Tarsiyo's father, the Black Sun Karenden, had come to find me.