Chapter 38
Chapter 38
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: uly
Chapter: 38
Chapter Title: Even If I Die (3)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"What is it? A final spasm of desperation?"
At the sudden explosion bursting from Riu's direction, the Blue Moon Werewolf King scanned his enemy with measured movements.
"Sorry, Blue Moon. Facing you was so overwhelming that my overthinking made me miss the most important thing. I admit it. And I won't pay it any mind anymore."
"What... is that?"
In an instant, all the dust blew away, revealing Riu standing tall with fierce, piercing eyes gleaming sharply.
"Living itself. For me, it's simply about slashing. Even if I die, I am one who never yields."
Riu readjusted her stance once more.
"You mean... you're going to keep fighting?"
"Because I am the sword of the Knight Order."
"Then die."
Thorns came flying at her again, but.
Boom!
Amid the explosion, Riu smashed the incoming thorns to pieces.
"Even if I die, I am one who never yields."
Saharon's face stiffened at the aura that felt somehow different.
"Something's changed. Knight, did you... detonate yourself?"
"I'll explain as well. The more swords I draw, the faster my sword-drawing becomes. And right now, I've accepted my own death-and decided to draw the final sword I can."
"Complicated."
"It means dying."
Whatever had happened, the mere touch of Riu's foot on the ground turned nearby stones to dust.
"Then I... shall live even more fiercely."
Thorns now packed densely around Saharon, forming what looked like a mountain of spikes.
'Fangs that tear while sadly howling at the lonely blue moon'.
"I will... draw my fangs... until you die."
Infinitely swirling fangs. In answer to his cruel yet noble assault, Riu gripped her sword anew, leveled its tip at him, and cried out quietly from the deepest depths of her soul.
"I am a sword that never yields, so I shall be inherited!"
Boom!
'[Sword Draw]-Infinite Chain of the Self-Immolating Blade.
The final sword she cried out in the tongue of her vanished homeland. Red energy vibrated from her body and detonated.
"Receive the final sword I can draw! And die with me! The first and the last, the end and the endless infinite! Thus inherited to future generations, I never yield!"
"Come at me-your strongest sword, death itself. I will kill death with my fangs and live on. If fangs fail, with my arms. If my arms are severed, with my legs. If even that fails, with every shred of my life. In the end... I will live again."
At the same moment, the thorns erupting from Saharon's body were no longer mere fangs-they grew into an entire forest. And just as sword and fangs turned sharply toward each other, toward their foe, a massive roar of flame storms raged from the central castle.
The two collided.
Boom!
Blade and fangs intertwined before their shadows could even fall, blooming anew in a ceaseless whirlwind. Which was sword, which fang? Which attacked, which defended?
Which was knight, which demon?
Which was life?
Which was death?
Severing and reconnecting endlessly, rendering all else in this world meaningless in their infinite clash of life and death's edges-amid it all, only two unyielding wills stood stark and clear.
Die. Fall. Enemy, please vanish.
Each time Riu swung her sword, Saharon raised thorns to rake its edge; the shattered fragments reformed into new blades for Riu to wield. When no sword remained, she drew from empty air. She even drew from her own blood. The sword never yielded.
Each time Saharon swung his thorns, Riu's drawn blade of light shattered them; new thorns sprouted from the breaks to become fangs lunging at her. Thorns flew, stabbed as they regrew, exploited openings to bite straight at Riu. The fangs bit again.
Until this life of mine ends. Enemy, please vanish.
Boom!
"Yeruusa Ha Horn!"
"Yerutsa Rahav!"
Energy exploding from Riu's entire body shone like a supernova as her sword targeted Saharon's throat-and simultaneously, from the hellish pit cloaked in thorns, Saharon's fangs lunged for Riu's neck.
In that split second, in that single instant, slashed and torn, the two were buried in the grave they had raised with countless blades and infinite thorns.
In the end, both vanished.
They died.
When the vast wreckage held no more spark of life's will, no more urge to kill-only silence filling the void-their battle was over.
Eden... was it like this for you too?
Is that why you departed with such a peaceful expression?
Take care of Godel...
Saharon never realized it even in death, but just before closing her eyes, Riu at last found peace in a smile. For the Hero, the Empire's sword, now lived on in him.
She had realized her sword would be inherited by Bulki Sonain, the knight she trusted most.
Thus, the Empire's mightiest knight could die in peace alongside her foe.
***
"Still getting up?"
Speaking to Saint Holden-who stood on one leg in a state of total unconsciousness-the Demon King asked.
"No awareness left?"
The Demon King regarded Saint Holden, standing blankly before her with unfocused eyes. Or rather, he wasn't truly standing; he simply hadn't fallen yet.
"Strong for a human, but this ends here too. What are the other Demon Kings doing? I'm the only one suffering here. Annoying. I'll kill them all."
For all her words, Girimun Jai bore no major wounds-not even a minor scratch.
"Where's that princess bitch? The Great Demon King is coming. Huh? That fight over there isn't done either."
Girimun Jai watched Graveheim slaughter her legion one by one with his axe, even as blood poured from him. No-his wings blazed red once more.
Whoosh, boom!
Right then.
"What?"
She blocked with her wings, but a ghostly wind surely blew in. From Saint Holden, who somehow balanced on one leg in a way no one could comprehend.
"Argh! So annoying. Why won't he drop? Should I twist his neck? No, this time I'll grind him to dust, you tenacious knight."
Saint Holden heard none of her words, nor could he even see her approach.
"Die!"
He was in his abyss.
***
Where is this?
Am I dead?
Is my enemy dead?
Walking through the abyss, he tried to recall. But the battle evaded memory; whether he was walking evaded it too; even what he was evaded it.
Instead, what surfaced was a memory ancient beyond comparison to his time as Saint.
He remembered colors.
Blue, red, black, gold, and deep green.
As black vanished, the colors chipped pieces of themselves, merging into one-then split into two. Beside them, the green dimmed, brightened, dimmed, and repeated.
Saint had no way of knowing what it meant, but one who did revealed itself from the abyss: a vast, serpentine, intimidating green.
"Did you crave recognition?"
The indescribable form asked, and Saint pondered.
From his father?
From the Hero?
Or from himself?
But no matter how he thought, that wasn't what he had wanted.
"No."
'Strong for a human, but this ends here too.'
"Then was it this you desired?"
Recognition from an enemy bent on killing him. The green soon took on a jade hue, coiling around him threateningly as if to devour him whole-but to Saint, it felt strangely familiar.
"No. Looking back, it's all so fleeting. All of it, meaningless in the end."
How long had he honed his blade, chained to the pursuit of recognition?
But before encroaching death, it all rang hollow.
"Then what do you want?"
"I don't know."
In that instant, Saint envisioned a time deep in his abyss when he forgot everything else and lived freely with all.
Whether true memory or longed-for dream, he couldn't tell-but everyone was smiling.
A smile free of inferiority, belonging, security-utterly unburdened.
"I want to go back. To the time when I was free."
"You've never once been free since birth?"
"That, I don't know either. But I clearly want to return to that time when I escaped everything and was free."
Why did he remember the feeling of freedom so vividly?
"Even just once, when I didn't need to wish for anything else."
The thrill of soaring across the continent on vast wings.
"Remember. Freedom is already within you. I am the freedom you so desperately long to return to. Thus, I am you, and we cycle eternally. Don't you see? Recall it."
He didn't grasp the meaning, but in that moment, the same green flowed from Saint's body. And the green coiled around him unfurled wings vast as the world itself.
"I, Etz the Mir of Circulating Winds symbolizing the cycle, am a being that lives again even if I die. That is precisely you. The greatest wings in this world, bestowed by El-that is freedom itself."
Thus, like the world crumbling, green wings enveloped Saint.
"Remember."
Something awakened in the abyss.
```