Chapter 95
Elena saw it—the contradictory truth. Right after Sertina began conversing with that unidentified entity, she transformed into a completely different person. Her eyes sharpened, her voice laced with hatred. Elena swallowed hard as she watched.
Wasn’t it Sertina who destroyed that otherworldly dimension... but those Immortals?
If everything in that conversation was true, then Sertina wasn’t the end of life—she was the world’s hero. People should have been exalting her as a savior, yet they pointed fingers and spat words too vile to repeat.
Did Sertina truly not know?
She knew it all and let it slide. Mourning the deaths of innocents, charging ahead to protect them—that’s her true nature.
Damn it, what the hell had she done...!
Elena bit her lip until it hurt. Her stomach twisted in knots, a massive spike driven straight through her chest. She too had viewed Sertina through prejudiced eyes at first. Hadn’t she brought the camera precisely to expose her “true nature”?
Yet she understood, on some level. Why this had become Sertina’s most terrifying memory.
She didn’t want to lose them.
All the people she cherished. The failure to protect them had morphed into fear, suppressed as trauma until it finally erupted.
But one question lingered.
The game lore calls her the End of Life. The Immortals wiped out half of all life—situationally speaking—so why does the infamy fall on Sertina?
She didn’t know the answer, but it wasn’t important right now. What was unfolding before her eyes was no trivial matter.
Decisive proof that Sertina was harmless.
If this gets out to the world, it’ll shatter all the opposition against her in one blow!
Elena licked her parched lips and fiddled with the ultra-compact camera disguised as a button. If this was all a dream, it might record nothing—but better safe than sorry.
If Sertina’s truly benevolent, and I jumped to conclusions on my own, then I share the blame. So let’s lend her what strength I can. For whatever good it might do her later.
She held her breath and kept filming. That’s when it happened.
Kwaaaaaang—!
A world-flipping quake rattled the ground. A shockwave of mana erupted, shredding everything in all directions.
Elena staggered, barely keeping her footing.
“Kyaaak!”
She dropped to one knee, steadying herself, then refocused the camera. There stood Sertina, sword raised high overhead, radiating an aura Elena had never seen.
Elena furrowed her brow.
What’s that? Holy power? No... it’s different.
The energy coiling around Sertina’s blade was indescribably radiant, majestic beyond words. It was unfamiliar, yet somehow warm and comforting. Utterly alien from the forces Sertina usually wielded. Blinding golden sword aura surged skyward, as if to pierce the heavens.
“Aah...”
The two women’s conversation faded from her ears. The world grew still, as if only that golden glow and Elena herself remained. Her gaze locked onto the swirling vortex, entranced.
It was truly...
“...so beautiful...”
Elena stood frozen, murmuring the words in a daze.
The golden energy blazing along the sword’s edge flickered out with a soft pfft. The world lost its light, plunging into darkness—as if proving it had all been a futile dream.
Faint silhouettes faded like candle smoke. The shattered medieval buildings, the corpses littering the streets, the acrid smoke and stench of rot, the Immortal who’d mocked me moments ago, even the stars overhead—all vanished.
“Ah...”
I reached out, but grasped nothing. Only emotions lingered. Fear, rage, hollow futility echoed silently in the void.
“...It hurts.”
One side of my emptied chest throbbed. I clutched it with my free hand. A tearing pain pulsed like an untreated wound.
“Why.”
I didn’t know. But the conversation had given me a vague sense of what happened back then.
Immortals... Did those bastards bring calamity to Pandela?
Hundreds of years ago. Before my death on Earth and descent to Pandela. The world had teetered on annihilation from an otherworldly invasion. It was barely averted, the tale passed down as the legend of the Memory Warrior—who repelled the invaders and somehow severed the dimensional link. A folktale handed down through generations.
Well, when I first arrived in Pandela, it was a total wreck anyway.
No intact cities, reconstruction dragging. The continent crawled with bandit hordes, evil cabals, power-hungry nobles, heretics worshiping the invaders, even a Demon King mustering monster legions for global domination. Smashing those colorful skulls one by one had taken forever.
But something didn’t add up.
I wasn’t even born then. No way I’d have memories from the invasion.
Yet I’d seen the Immortals in my nightmare. And nightmares recreate the subject’s deepest terror.
A paradox: memory of an era before my existence.
So what was that nightmare? And that unidentified golden energy.
Clues were scarce; the truth slipped further into fog. Like chasing a phantom just beyond grasp.
That’s when it came.
“You look relaxed.”
Libra’s voice, dripping displeasure, filled the space.
“Careless in a dream world. Kinda hurtful, don’t you think?”
No distance to it. I glanced at the crater where she’d been embedded.
“...You’re up already.”
Spiderweb cracks lingered, but only chill wind and silence remained.
And the space shifted once more.
Wooong—
As if plunged into cosmic void, stars and galaxies shimmered into being amid the dark. Between them, a colossal eye snapped open.
Gooooooong—
The transcendent red eye bore down, crushing.
Phase 3.
Mind-rending assault that would warp perception and corrupt sanity for any normal soul. But to me—and Elena under my aegis—it was mere spectacle.
“Threats don’t scare me. You’re beneath me, after all.”
I crooked my index finger downward.
The transcendent eyes narrowed into savage slits.
Kuquququkwang!
Pressure blasted from the giant eye, flattening the area like a hydraulic press.
“Don’t judge from the tip of the iceberg. I told you—this is my dream.”
“So what?”
I shot back irritably, and Libra snorted.
“Hmph, still clueless, huh.”
Her curved eye drew an ominous arc.
“In dreams, you can do anything. Achieve whatever you desire. Think you can handle godlike power?”
No sooner said than a spatial maelstrom hit.
Vortex so violent it blinded, barbed tendrils lunging like a predator’s maw.
“Urk! First time for this pattern! Why’s it hit so hard?!”
Elena shielded her face with one arm, barely holding ground as she yelled.
Winds that would’ve diced an S-rank player without a barrier.
“Hm...”
I eyed the raging gale wall quietly, then raised my sword.
Cheeeeeeeng!
Slashed long across one spot.
“Kyaaaaaaaak!”
A rending scream, and the tempest cleared.
The massive eye looming over the ground. Etched across it—a long, heaven-splitting blood-red scar.
“You bitch... you...”
Hatred-fueled eyes blazed.
Cursed timbre laced with ragged gasps.
Another wave crashed.
“All things, sink into darkness!”
No warning—light snuffed out like a flipped switch. Pitch black where even fingers before my face vanished.
“Even the finest warrior’s just a scarecrow blind. Scream in unseen terror. Regret!”
Directionless voice, then incoming presences.
I swung without pause.
Kwaaaaaang—!
Thunderous boom, dull slice through the blade.
“L-Luck, right?”
Libra’s voice quavered.
“Has to be. Gotta be luck. Don’t screw around!”
Dozens, hundreds of unknown strikes from every angle.
I felt every flow, cleaved them as they came.
Kwang! Kuququkwang!
Senses heightened, sifting the barrage for the source.
Far stronger mana pulse elsewhere.
There!
Sent a massive sword beam pinpointing it.
Kwaaaaaaaaang—!
“Kuaaaaaak!”
Earth-shaking impact. The Dream Witch burst from the dark, hands braced on the ground, heaving breaths.
“How... sight’s gone, hearing can’t pick it up?!”
I met her stunned gaze casually.
“Yeah. Should’ve masked your presence better.”
“Urk!”
Libra’s twisted mug crumbled alongside her pride.
Truth was, presence had nothing to do with it. Block senses all you want—mana glows plain as day.
No reason to tip her off.