Chapter 44
Chapter 44
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 44
Chapter Title: Deus ex Machina
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"Hero, I have no idea."
She spat blood from her mouth and placed her book atop her severed knee.
"Go! My strongest horn! The Hero doesn't matter. Kill the saintess! End this twisted age of myth! My Iven van Ivelhac!"
She couldn't even hear what the Demon King was saying. She merely mulled over the words the witch had spoken to her upon revealing the truth.
"When I open... the final page... I will become... a witch."
The witch's words about killing herself meant exactly this. If she recited this final incantation, she would bear the sin of tampering with time and become the world's new witch.
"Curse... of silence."
And she would curse herself with silence.
Forgotten by the world, and even by the Hero she loved most.
Nia gazed vacantly at the Hero kneeling before her. At the epicenter of the tragedy. He seemed on the verge of being devoured by the Demon King at any moment, all his light extinguished. She hated that right now. More than being forgotten herself, she hated seeing him grieve and despair.
The memories of Neshef she had witnessed were, in her heart, the will of her father who loved this world-and her mother's will as well.
Later, she would record it herself as love.
And now, that love was entirely directed toward the Hero.
She opened the final page. The incantation of dawn. There was a spell that summoned one's most radiant self from the strongest moment in their timeline, just as the sun shines brightest before defeat.
Whose future should she call? The witch had warned of a betrayer, but none of the Hero's companions could be reached now anyway-and she desperately wanted to see his future, one she could never witness herself.
"Omer."
She didn't care what happened to the current world.
"Your brightest sun, my fading dawn."
Light always emerges from the deepest darkness.
And for a brief moment, the world's light returned.
The clouds that had shrouded the sun since Or's death finally parted from their perch. The brightest light from Nia's magic illuminated the future Hero standing resolute beneath the sun. Iven whirled around at the sudden gleam.
"What the hell are you, friend?"
Iven demanded.
But the future Hero seemed merely aware of the present situation. He was bare from the waist up, his body etched with intricate golden tattoos of mystical patterns. His long hair framed eyes blazing with a light even brighter than gold.
"Or? Didn't Neshef and I kill you?"
The Demon King recoiled in horror. It felt as if every plan he'd meticulously prepared was crumbling. He scrutinized the figure closely. The appearance was clearly different from Or's. With his long locks whipping about, the future Bulki stared straight at Iven.
"Friend, how am I supposed to fight something this perfect? Why? I went this far to awaken your abyss, so why are you the protagonist again?"
Iven let out an incredulous chuckle he couldn't suppress.
"If you'd sunk into the abyss, the Hero wouldn't be here, and I could've killed the princess. I was so close-just the princess left to finish it. Then I could've escaped his will and saved Lije!"
Iven clutched his horns and wailed.
This time, Iven dropped to his knees.
"So that's how it is. Mir, come forth."
In an instant, Cheret charged like lightning, enveloping Bulki.
Mir Deployment, Cheret.
A blinding light erupted, and Bulki emerged clad in golden armor bearing patterns no mortal hand could forge. A halo ringed his head as he wielded a massive hammer that bore no resemblance to his sword Hutvana.
"You who appear like a god from the heavens, what are you? What gives you the right to humiliate me like this? Horns, extinguish that blazing light! Fade before me!"
At the Demon King's frantic scream, every undead he had raised-including the Mountain Giant king-charged toward the saintess in unison.
"Iven."
Bulki merely tapped Iven's shoulder and walked past.
"Please save me, friend."
Passing Iven, Bulki swung the massive hammer straight at Lucifer van Ivelhac.
[Judgment of Glory].
And the heavens split. Light poured down. The battlefield fell silent.
The hammer he swung spread out like tree roots or a bolt of sky lightning, then converged into a single point, scattering light across the world.
The sky cracked open, the sun cleaving the world asunder. It was the power of Cheret-and of Or.
That power purified the world.
All the undead plummeted back into the abyss, crumbling to dust. The Mountain Giant king knelt with a hole larger than its own body torn through it.
And right behind it, Demon King Lucifer van Ivelhac-who had overlooked the world-stood with his lower body gone, his right shoulder to waist vaporized, half his face missing. Only half his face, his heart, and his left arm remained.
"You son of a..."
Yet he lived. Spewing blood-red venom and gasping cursed breaths, the Demon King raised his hand toward this pinnacle of absurdity before him, spitting curses.
"I'll kill you. I'll kill you over and over. I'll shove your teeth down the saintess's throat."
At his gesture, Iven flew to his side.
"Iveldra! Hurry!"
He ordered Iveldra to flee to the western continent, then gazed at his friend.
"Bulki..."
He smiled like a gentle sun in godlike form. As if he still believed their pact endured unbroken.
"Wait. I'll save you for sure. Just hold on a little longer..."
Iven vanished through the black gate with the Demon King and the remaining demons. The Hero Bulki glanced at his hands, realizing he must return, and stood before Nia without so much as looking at the princess. Nia barely opened her eyes against the radiant light and lifted her head.
"Nia, thank you. Hang in there no matter how tough it gets, and we'll meet again. I'll be waiting there for you."
He spoke to her with the tender pity of one reuniting with a long-lost love.
"Wait! Hero! Hero! Do you remember Mariel Sonain? I'm the princess of the empire and the saintess of Miflas. Your fiancée!"
The princess approached the Hero in rapture, but he raised a hand to stop her.
As he opened his mouth to say something to the princess, the world dimmed once more, clouds veiling the sun.
The true light of Helred vanished again, and for some reason, the current unconscious Bulki appeared beside Nia.
He slept peacefully, as if all problems were resolved. The surviving knights approached him, where the light still lingered, and knelt.
"Yerutsa Rahav."
At Graveheim's lead, they whispered softly.
Yerutsa, Yerutsa Rahav.
Yerutsa Rahav...
Rain fell.
The blood of the land, defiled once more by the demon invasion, was washed away. Thus ended the Third Demon Invasion, where two knight order captains perished, ten thousand knights fell, thirty thousand subjects died, and Emperor Luiel Sonain passed away.
***
"I'll kill them all! I swear on everything I have, I'll kill them!"
Spitting curses from his half-torn, purified, ragged mouth, the Demon King dragged his body to Tehom's throne.
"Bring Hyeon! Heal me and corrupt me! We sortie again immediately!"
He rolled his single remaining bloodshot eye, searching for his horns.
And Hyeon emerged from the shadows on the left.
Iveldra emerged from the shadows on the right.
And Iven appeared from the center, revealing his horn.
"My brother, let's go now. Kill the saintess again! We have to crush that damned Or!"
As his rage and madness peaked, Iven realized his horn's dominion had weakened. And Iven slowly ascended Tehom's throne.
"What is this treachery, my strongest horn?"
Having learned the Demon King planned to use him to block the Hero and then kill the princess, Iven-still bound by his will-devised one lonely plan of his own.
That plan began from the sole resolve that kept his mind from shattering during the five years of being torn apart and regenerated endlessly.
"Defeat the princess and save the Hero. That was my will."
"What?"
"I kept thinking of ways to kill the princess. Strangling her throat, draining her blood, decapitating her and dumping her in a corpse pit, killing her over and over-it played in my head so much that the afterimages lingered without further thought."
"What are you-"
Iven stomped the Demon King's jaw shut.
"But would killing just the princess save the Hero? Behind her stands Miflas, which I once believed in. In other words, unless I kill Miflas too, we can't escape the cycle of horns and swords, this cursed war. So how could we resolve it?"
Iven had also glimpsed the true will left by the great elves, like the giant dwarf king.
"The questions I pondered at that narrow desk about the world."
"Get off!"
"Shut up! So I planned. I found a way to kill Miflas in the myths. The great sin that made Neshef vanish-you told me yourself."
"Move! I need to kill the saintess!"
The Demon King flailed his remaining arm. Iven spoke again with sad eyes.
"It took so long."
Iven seized the Demon King's horn with both hands and looked down at him.
"What the hell is this?!"
"I considered every possibility. And planned for this moment. For a very long time."
Even as his body crumbled and he wished for death, he thought and thought. For five years.
"The day I would inherit your horn."