Chapter 187
Chapter 187
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 187
Chapter Title: The Flames That Burn the World (1)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Melissa stared at the rag clutched in her hand.
Her gaze was fixed. All human shades had vanished from that look. She grasped only the factual information inferred mechanically, devoid of any emotion or sentiment.
Yes, this is the hem Kadim cut and left behind, and that is...
She glanced around. The golden field had been ravaged by sword and axe strokes, stripped of its original beauty. Only a hellscape remained, as if mad farmers had rampaged with their plows.
Yes, this is the trace of Kadim struggling to escape, and that is...
She gazed into the void. Beyond the jagged edges of the cracked hole lay a hall thick with overgrown forest. The forcibly breached entrance didn't vanish like ripples.
Yes, this is the hole Kadim shattered to escape through, and that is...
She stared at the nearby ground. Unlike the surrounding earth clawed up haphazardly, meaningful sword marks scarred this spot. Roughly slashed strokes combined to form these words.
'I will definitely return, Melissa.'
Melissa froze like a statue.
Without even blinking, she read the fleeting message over a thousand times. Only after her parched corneas had dissected each word to pieces did she reach this conclusion.
Yes, this is another...
lie Kadim left behind.
"......"
A blank void draped over the woman's face.
Anger... resentment... betrayal... Such names could only cling to emotions that still held form. No label fit the imagery of something burned to ash, its very particles scattered by scorching winds. Blankness—an utter, empty blankness—was the closest slur for this nameless void.
And then, suddenly.
"......Are you alright, Melissa? You look unwell."
"......"
A spark flew into that void.
Melissa ground her neck muscles with a creak. Bloodshot eyes, veined like spiderwebs, glared at the man. He resembled the one who had broken his promises to stay by her side time and again and left—but this one had never once departed.
"Melissa. If it's about what happened last time... I've forgotten it all, so don't worry. You must have had circumstances you couldn't share. No matter what happens, I won't leave your side, so don't—"
"......"
Only then did she realize.
It wasn't empty.
The void she thought blank in the woman's depths was actually filled with highly flammable gas, ready to erupt at any moment. The spark touched the compressed fumes, igniting a ferocious explosion. Hot flames surged from her heart, burning every capillary to the extremities like fuses along her veins.
Melissa crushed the fake Kadim with immense pressure.
"......Urk."
Crrrrunch—!!!
This time, it wasn't a mistake.
She rewound time, restoring the flattened lump of meat. The instant it regained human form, she crushed it again. Rewind, crush. Rewind, crush, rewind, crush. Blood sprayed lavishly only to be sucked back into the flesh chunks, exploding outward again in tides of crimson like the ebb and flow of a blood sea.
"Melissa, what is this...?"
Crrrrunch—!
"Why are you doing th...?"
Crrrrunch—!
"Hngh, st-stop...!"
Crrrrunch—!
Her eyes gleamed with feral light as sadistic distortion twisted the woman's face. The thicker the metallic tang of blood in the air, the sharper the twist became. Only after ten, a hundred, a thousand abuses of her authority had made the world's scenery shimmer unstably like a dream did she pause.
The man, minced through endless cycles of death and revival, gasped pathetically.
"Pant... pant... Stop... J-just stop now..."
"......Hey, Kadim."
"Ugh... Wh-why...?"
"Even like this... you'll keep staying by my side?"
"Pant... Hrk... Of course..."
"......"
Yes, he had no choice.
From the start, when she had crafted this replica, she designed it never to doubt or leave her.
Unlike the real one, who had already fled.
"Melissa, I know... This isn't... your true feelings... You must be possessed by that demon..."
She snapped her fingers, and a massive explosion erupted.
――――――BOOM—!!
The fake Kadim vanished without a trace.
A belated reply to the one who had futilely disappeared.
"No, this is my true feelings, Kadim."
Her crooked lips twisted upward in a smirk.
"But don't worry. No matter if you leave me, forget me, hurt me... I promised I'd never abandon you, right?"
She had never promised not to sever his tendons so he could never flee, alter his memories, and chain him to the abyss of hell where only she could enter.
Melissa slipped out of the dream.
The moment she emerged, she read the space's memory, grasping the full story. Kadim had escaped with an ally's help, Lilia from the confinement had fled too, and a dragonkin was involved... But the Forgotten God's authority had intervened, making the exact coordinates of their destination undetectable.
It didn't matter. No matter how far they went, they couldn't have escaped the Great Forest.
She'd just burn it all down, and they'd crawl out on their own.
Conveniently, there were beings suited to help. She scattered thick mana around her. From the dense underbrush, pitch-black smoke billowed out in choking waves. Amid the hazy clusters rose a pungent sulfur stench.
- Kuhuhuh...
- Kuhuhu, kuhuhuhu...
Familiars who had hidden themselves, mimicking World Tree spirits. No need for that now. Whether elves, dark elves, guardians, or forest tyrants, these would reduce them all to ash.
Grrrgle, fwoosh, fwoooosh—!!
The smoke clumps devoured the scattered mana, gradually morphing into burning giants. Melissa's command to her incarnations of living calamity was simple.
"Go spread flames across the Great Forest. The more you burn, the more mana I'll give you."
- Grrrrrrumble...
- Grrrumble, grrrrr...
――――Fwoooosh, KABOOOOM—!
The giants wreathed in hellfire leaped toward the World Tree's base, vying with one another. Scorching trails like meteor tails spread flames throughout the Great Forest.
The 'Flames That Burn the World' had begun to scatter their blaze.
Stagger... stumble...
Staggering, tottering footsteps echoed down the declining path to the cave's deepest depths.
A blond elf boy led the way, followed by a white-haired dark elf girl. The boy’s face was rigidly stern, the girl’s eyes cast down in unease. But now that all truths were revealed, the term "girl" no longer suited her.
The 'Black Panther' Parneo had finally learned Lilia's true identity.
It was shocking. The girl he thought his peer, whom he had grown close to, had lived over ten times longer than him. Her youthful appearance stemmed solely from the elf blood Melissa had forcibly infused; Lilia's true age surpassed even her master Tevio's. She had concealed jaw-dropping titles: apostle of two gods and leader of the dark elves.
She was a vital figure worth rescuing... but Parneo couldn't help feeling used. The one the boy had staked everything to save from confinement was a simple girl who loved white jade flowers—not a great woman destined to save the world.
Lilia was no fool to that. She apologized to Parneo with heartfelt sincerity for hiding her identity out of necessity to escape confinement.
His response was icily curt.
"I did that solely to follow my master's will to do the 'right thing.' You needn't mind it at all, Lilia... Apostle."
"......"
A sturdy barrier had already formed in the boy's heart. Lilia tried desperately to tear it down.
"Parneo. Um... once we've safely restored the World Tree's roots... won't you come with me to see the white jade flowers, like we promised?"
"No need. As World Tree Keeper afterward, you'll be too busy. No point wasting time on someone like me, Apostle."
"No, that's not true! The Keeper's duties are important, of course, but without your help, I never could have escaped confinement... Ah."
Her excited rebuttal cut short by a sudden wave of pressure. Her ribs trembled, legs buckled. Lilia nearly tumbled down, saved only by Parneo catching her from below.
"......As expected, moving alone in that body is too much. I'll shapeshift, so ride on my back for the rest."
"Ah, no, I'm fine! I can manage on my own..."
Before she finished, Parneo had shapeshifted into a speechless beast. Lilia mounted him dejectedly, listlessly.
Like strangers with no ties, the two elves descended the slope in awkward silence. The dragon's presence grew stronger with each step, weighing their expressions heavier.
Yet the moment they reached their goal, Lilia wiped the torment from her face, donning the resolute visage of an apostle.
Kadim and Duncan, Remillion and Ilenia, and the massive dragon Rapustran. The nest brimming with treasures already held the rest of the party. Despite her unhealed state, Lilia had mustered here to gather them all for one reason.
"Everyone's here. Then... let's devise the main plan."
To reclaim the World Tree as swiftly as possible.
They already had no margin for error—and now the situation grew even tighter. Evidence showed Melissa had made the first move. Kadim posed a question about the anomaly engulfing the Great Forest.
"What the hell are those burning giants stalking the woods? They reek of sulfur—like they're cloaked in hellfire."
Lilia gave a troubled reply.
"'Spirits.' Their essence is utterly warped now, making them little more than incarnations of calamity serving my sister."
"......Weren't all spirits supposed to have perished when ancient mana depleted?"
"Those left on the continent did. But when my sister departed for hell, a few pursued the mana in her heart all the way there."
Hellfire and demonic energy in that extreme environment thoroughly corrupted the spirits' essence. Yet it wasn't an entirely poor choice. Unlike kin who perished from mana starvation, these spirits survived tenaciously, scavenging scraps from the grand sorceress.
Melissa had bestowed this name upon her hell-returned companions of tenacity.
Hellfire Spirits, Inferno.
"The 'Infernos' unleash devastating firepower when gorged on mana. With them on the move, the Great Forest burning to the ground is only a matter of time."
"......"
"But Infernos are still spirits sustained by mana. Cut off their supply by suppressing Melissa, and they'll weaken fast. So... we must launch the operation as soon as possible."
This crisis led to the same conclusion.
Lilia steadied her resolute breath and began outlining the World Tree reclamation plan.
The core was a diversionary tactic. A suppression team to pin down Melissa, and a reclamation team to seize control of the World Tree—two groups striking simultaneously.
The suppression team's key members: 'Kadim' and 'Rapustran.'
At last, the asymmetric forces guaranteeing decisive ruin—the Warrior of Revelation and the supreme being—had united. Consensus held that excluding variables, the two alone could suppress Melissa without much difficulty.
The reclamation team's key: 'Lilia.'
The true World Tree Keeper, she alone could reclaim control and revive the roots. But first, she needed to shake off Melissa's interference and enter the 'World Tree's Dream' herself.
Thus, the plan's broad flow:
First, the suppression team assaults the World Tree's upper levels, ambushing Melissa. Draw her eyes with fierce attacks and lure her far from the tree if possible. Meanwhile, the reclamation team breaches defenses to infiltrate the lower levels. Escort Lilia up the passages to the Hall of Eternal Dreams.
If Melissa focuses solely on the suppression team, Lilia enters the 'World Tree's Dream' immediately. Otherwise, the reclamation team aids in diverting attention, then Lilia enters. Afterward, while redistributing the World Tree's power to revive the roots, fully suppress and finish Melissa.
The suppression team needed only its peerless warrior and dragon, so all others joined reclamation. Yet Remillion, the team's top fighter, scratched his chin dubiously.
"Hey, Lilia. Do we really need such a risky diversion? Why not throw everyone at suppression and have you stay here? Safer to fully neutralize the grand sorceress first, then head to the tree..."
Lilia denied it firmly.
"We need to reclaim control of the World Tree even a second sooner. We don't know when the rifts might collapse, and redistributing power to the roots takes considerable time."
"Hmm... Then how about punching a black hole through the roots to the trunk? Like when we escaped the World Tree last time, with the priestess's help..."
"Forgive me, friend of dragons, but it's not a spell to use lightly. It's basic holy magic, but long-distance travel demands heavy holy power consumption and lengthy prep like coordinate calculations."
Ilenia's immediate response. Remillion smacked his lips in resignation.
......For some reason, Lilia's gaze seemed to flick this way, but Duncan pretended not to notice.
Riding Remillion was rejected too—too risky for detection. Duncan's mantle idea was shot down; the Shadow Mantle didn't fool Melissa, proven when Duncan hiding in the hall was spotted before.
Back to square one. Infiltrate the lower World Tree while suppression drew eyes. The group began hashing out details like routes and assignments.
But one person, Kadim, thought differently.
Pondering gravely, he turned to Rapustran.
"Hey, dragon."
- ...Why do you call, minion of the War God?
"If you fought Melissa one-on-one ten times, how many would you win?"
- About a hundred. If not for that cursed Elga bastard's meddling.
"No. Objectively. Honestly. This matters."
- ......
Rapustran bristled briefly but considered seriously before answering obediently.
- Seven... no, eight. That mad sorceress isn't ordinary; she'll have a few hidden daggers. Even stabbed by all, my defeat odds aren't high.
"......"
Kadim propped his chin, sinking back into thought. Creases like blade scars furrowed his brow, his expression more solemn.
How much time passed?
Finally decided, Kadim stood.
"We'll revise the plan."
His firm voice rang out, instantly drawing all eyes.
"I have a better idea."
Intrigue lit the doubtful gazes.
Everyone knew how he had persuaded even the fearsome dragon. What stratagem would this great warrior, who felled the colossal wyrm, unveil now? Ilenia and Duncan, sensing the barbarian's nature, betrayed faint unease—but.
Kadim cut straight to it.
"I'll enter 'Hell' and lure Melissa."
"“......”"
Two humans, an elf and dark elf, dragonkin and dragon.
Every race's faces unified in perfect shock.
Expressions brimming with horror, as if hellfire had dumped on their crowns.