Chapter 99
Translator: uly
Chapter: 99
Chapter Title: Riverside
The Wolf King Rebanaharon gazed at Elis, who had somehow overcome death and appeared before him once more, lost in thought.
Clearly, the madness had come from me. So is what I see before me now just an illusion, a mere phantom? Or could some lingering echo of that madness have saved her from death one final time?
If not that, then perhaps she's in a precarious state, flickering like a flame about to go out.
"No."
Rebanaharon shook his head.
How could he call it fading when the ferocious life force pouring from Elis's eyes-or whatever insatiable desire it was-burned so fiercely?
Then the answer was simple.
Coincidence, fate, or the will of some god.
And he pondered. If this was a being ignited by a god's will, what should he do with her? Should he simply let her carry the sword and madness left in Promnain through the purification process before Iveldra claimed them?
"No."
With that, he ceased his deliberations, gripped his spear, and rose to his feet. The Elis before him was different-both in appearance and essence-from the one he'd seen before.
"Has your torment, your anguish, finally come to an end?"
"No. Like you, I'm still wrestling with it."
Elis pulled back her knight order for a moment and thought. The hesitation in her sword tip. She'd found the will to overcome it, only to be dominated by madness, then escape it, only to wrestle with doubt again.
If she kept agonizing endlessly, always striving for what was even slightly more right, then someday-surely-the tip of that sword would reach its mark. That must be the reason she'd been reborn.
She would shatter this tragic fate with her own two hands.
"In the end, I will kill the false god."
At that, Elis halted her own deliberations and advanced her knight order.
"Kill a god?"
"Yes."
"Then the bishop was right."
Rebanaharon gave something like a smile for the first time and continued with cryptic words in response to Elis's reply.
"Is that truly your will, knight?"
For a moment, Elis couldn't help but hesitate.
Rebanaharon stood there blankly, as if he had no intention of attacking. His body was full of openings, which meant he was either that confident or about to say something crucial.
So Elis lowered her sword and assumed no stance, just as she had the last time she'd met him. Once again, she had no choice but to hear him out.
"The bishop told me that the kin of sin inherently desire to kill gods. They are the chaos that shatters the laws of this world-or fate itself. Since that's their nature, I ask you, knight: Is your will to kill the god, to reclaim the other kin of sin, to kill me and move on-all truly your own?"
At his words, Elis looked at herself-and then at the other knights around her.
"Who are you?"
She had seen the kin of sin manifest starting with the death of the one she thought was herself.
"Does anything of what you call 'you' still remain inside, kin of sin?"
Despite Rebanaharon's question, and even as she watched, the knights silently passed by Elis and raised their swords toward the enemy once more. Elis merely smiled quietly.
"Who am I?"
Then, raising her sword toward the enemy as well, she said lowly.
"I am Elis Hope. I agonize, and thus I exist."
Rebanaharon smiled in turn, raised his spear, aimed it, and replied.
"That's it, knight."
In that instant, the knights charged at the king.
Leading them was a knight with black harpy wings among those who had filled the small clearing. He flew at Rebanaharon, thrusting his long talons like a sword, but the Wolf King swatted it away with his hand and stabbed with his spear. The knight, pierced midair, plummeted to the frozen ground without even a scream.
Rebanaharon raised his foot to crush the knight's head, but another charged in, so he simply swung his spear to fling the harpy-winged knight aside.
The gust sent a horse-like knight crashing into a skeletal tree, toppling it. And that was just the beginning. Rebanaharon tore through the knights with nothing but his spear, employing no special techniques.
Elis controlled three knights from afar to prepare light beams and charged in herself. As her sword sliced through the air, Rebanaharon ducked to evade it this time, apparently finding it too much even for him to block.
Dodging the sword, he leaped into the air, seized the airborne Elis, rolled with her, and slammed her into the ground. Then he roared.
Rooooaaar.
Elis felt her mind go blank from the lycan's roar, but the other knights were unaffected and prepared to thrust again.
But Rebanaharon knew his roar wouldn't work on the knights. In sync with it, the spear of black iron from Haithom flew toward them and embedded itself.
The lycan knights loyal to the king had been positioned throughout the forest as well. Elis writhed under the Wolf King's brutish foot while wondering if she should have the knights gathering light for this omen sweep the entire forest-but even combined, they couldn't touch the hem of the Wolf King's power. So for now, she focused all attacks on him.
'Knight's Spear Piercing the Eyes'.
Shweeeeeek!
No matter how great the Wolf King, he couldn't evade light.
Rebanaharon stomped hard on Elis and leaped back to create distance. Of course, the knights' light beams chased him, and he couldn't dodge them all, but the power he'd received through his horn was regeneration. Before his white fur could even stain with blood, vicious fangs began sprouting from his wounds.
The Wolf King, looking as if clad in armor of fangs, hurled his spear to dispatch one knight firing light beams, then charged and tore into another. And more: With a knight in his jaws, he slashed long across the empty air with his canines.
'Fangs Tearing the Eyes'.
Dark blue canines like blades poured forth, shredding five knights to pieces. Lightning-shaped, they obliterated an entire section of the forest beyond.
"Ngh!"
But Elis couldn't just take it lying down like last time. She drew forth vengeance from the fragments of the torn knights. Extracted from their smoldering bodies like dying embers, the vengeance swirled to her sword tip, gathering into purple-violet fury.
'Knight's Spear Piercing Death'.
I can win. I'd even overcome another Demon King's horn.
Shweeeeeek!
"Ngh!"
Rebanaharon's right arm was crushed and vanished by the light. And simultaneously, it regenerated, firing fangs anew.
'Fangs Tearing the Storm'.
Kwaaaaang!
A cold blue gale of fangs, and amid it, Elis's knights tearing apart while spewing vengeance. Elis ceaselessly absorbed vengeance into her own purple gale to counter the blue one, gathering it into her sword.
Not yet, not yet.
Firing vengeance now would only let it regenerate stronger and strike back harder. Then, like last time, she'd close her eyes amid the agony of her body being shredded and reformed. But she couldn't rise again like before. Even if her sword arm tore and the kin of sin descended once more.
"Not yet!"
Seeing Elis devour vengeance, Rebanaharon realized it was time to unleash his strongest fangs.
The role Iveldra had first told him was simply to kill whatever bore the will during the transfer of the kin of sin and seize the madness. Then, stripped of madness, that something wouldn't revive.
He had faithfully performed that role solely for the Great Demon King. But when handing the madness to Iveldra in Promnain, he'd heard something unexpected.
Was it a god's jest? That something-Elis-had revived.
"Now, I'll end this."
Thus, the Great Demon King's most loyal and strongest horn pondered once more. If the revived her wasn't on the Demon King's side, kill her again. And now, he resolved to kill her as she claimed to reclaim the madness. It would be the will of the kin of sin, not the Demon King's ally. He grew the fangs sprouting from his wounds massively, tearing into himself.
"Here I come."
A dark, cracked lightning-like aura rose from his body. And it began manifesting fangs in the air around him.
New moon, crescent, half-moon, full moon, half again, crescent once more, and finally another faint new moon bloomed-like a pearl necklace, they linked and glimmered endlessly.
'Fangs Tearing the Chain of Mournful Violet Full Moons'.
Rebanaharon-no, the strongest fangs passed down from his ancestors-shot toward Elis to devour her, faster than light. In that fleeting instant, certain death approached.
"Yerutsa Horn!"
Time seemed to stop.
It was always like this when facing death.
That monstrous fate would swallow her again, and this time, it would truly end. Nothing left. Neither god's will nor her life would be remembered in tomorrow's childish play.
"Yerutsa, Rahav."
But did she intend to end like this? She wasn't mere kin of sin-she was Elis Hope, knight who would kill even fate.
"I am the knight who will kill the god!"
Elis ignited the very last drop of vengeance she'd gathered thus far.
'Knight's Spear Piercing Fate'.
Boom!
A flash erupted.
And the forest was utterly erased.
Only in those red eyes, buried deep, did the fading pupils quietly behold the shadow.
"Are you coming to?"
And she reappeared in this tale.