Chapter 667

Crash!

I lost track of how many times my wrist had broken.

Just withstanding the impact of the Void Sword was enough to shatter my wrist, shoulder, and arm. Without Tiamata’s healing power, I would have been killed in the follow-up attack from our very first clash.

I was no stranger to pain. Having died thousands of times in my dreams, I was intimately familiar with death. How could I not be used to pain?

Ellen slowly walked toward me as I lay on the ground, having been flung far away in our most recent clash. She wasn’t in a rush. Her calm, deliberate steps made it clear she believed I wouldn’t escape this battle.

Just like Ellen, I wanted to see this through to the end. I got up and approached her, neither rushing nor dragging my feet.

Ellen was surrounded by a blue aura and a faint grayish energy, and her slow, calm demeanor was suffocating.

In my dreams, I had never been able to defeat the Ellen I’d imagined. I believed the real Ellen would be different, even stronger with the power of those vengeful spirits.

I never underestimated her. I knew she would be stronger than I could ever imagine. But despite all this, I couldn’t bring myself to want to kill Ellen. I couldn’t even bring myself to entertain such thoughts. I believed I couldn’t give it my all.

But that was arrogance speaking. Even if I poured everything I had into it, using every resource available, there was still no way I could defeat Ellen.

Ellen, who had been gradually closing the distance between us, suddenly flew toward me, covering the remaining space in just a few swift steps as though she had teleported through space.

Boom!

The Void Sword and Alsbringer clashed, the impact shattering the ground beneath us.

Bang! Clang!

Two consecutive strikes.

Then...

Thud!

“Ugh...!”

She blocked my movement with her sword and drove her knee into my solar plexus, sending me flying.

I felt my ribs crack, so I quickly healed myself again with Tiamata’s power.

Whoosh!

I pushed my Mana Reinforcement to its limit, while Tiamata’s Divine Power enveloped me, shielding me from further harm.

Despite my best efforts, my Aura Armor had shattered under the sheer force of a single exchange.

The gap between us was too wide. I had believed I was strong enough that no one else could match me, but Ellen was on another level.

The gap between us wasn’t as insurmountable as it once was. I was not losing my sword each time we exchanged blows. Yet, every time our swords met, the bones and muscles shielded behind my mana-reinforced barrier were shattered and torn. That was how big the gap was.

Moreover, Ellen was not in her right mind. This wasn’t the Ellen I’d faced during Charlotte’s execution, who, burdened by guilt, couldn’t even bring herself to point her sword at me and only absorbed my attacks.

‘Does that mean that unless Ellen is her usual self, I can’t even land a single solid hit on her?’

She was someone born with every imaginable talent, wielding the strongest weapon, clad in the most formidable armor, and backed by countless vengeful spirits. Was it truly impossible for me to overcome the force crashing into me?

Boom!

A flash of fire grazed my cheek. The flames penetrated my barrier, scorching my skin and vaporizing every raindrop they touched.

This wasn’t just close combat. Even the flames from the Cloak of the Sun were enough to pierce my defenses.

Sizzle...

With a sound that should not have come from human skin, the wound began to heal.

I could always count on the healing power of Tiamata and the strength of Alsbringer, which grew in proportion to the might of my opponent.

To Ellen, the power of her holy relics were merely an enhancement to her already formidable strength. But for me, my relics were the only reason why I could still participate in this battle. My wrist had broken in our first exchange. I would have lost my sword in the next attack, and my head would have been severed from my neck in her third strike. Without Tiamata, I would have perished long ago.

The Void Sword approached from the left, arcing toward my chest. I pushed Tiamata out to deflect it to the right, and as the blades met...

Crack!

Sparks flew and the impact sent a massive shock that surged through me as the Void Sword collided with the Divine Sword. My attempt to redirect it was thwarted when Ellen deftly flipped her wrist, catching me off guard.

No—to be precise, she had anticipated my every move from the moment she’d lunged at me. In other words, she had read me perfectly.

Stab!

“...!”

In a heartbeat, my chest was laid open, and before I could even react, her blade pierced my lung.

Before the weapon could do more damage, I kicked myself off Ellen’s body, pushing myself backward and creating space.

“Ugh...!”

Whoosh!

The Divine Power of Tiamata surged through me, healing the critical wound.

Nothing but a holy relic could withstand the attack of the Void Sword.

I was accustomed to pain, so my focus remained steady, but the icy stab of a sword piercing my chest was always a harrowing experience.

Ellen pressed forward relentlessly.

Bang! Clang! Clang!

Wrapped up in the midst of this suffocating assault, a single misstep could mean a fatal wound.

But that wasn’t the only issue.

Ellen had vulnerabilities. Too many vulnerabilities. Ellen was attacking relentlessly, without a care for defense.

Clang!

“Ugh...!”

But whenever I tried to take advantage of the openings she left, I was met with an impenetrable barrier that not only sent a massive shock up my arm and through my body, but came with a searing pain as well.

It wasn’t Ellen’s Aura Armor that caused this, but the Cloak of the Sun, which activated on its own.

It wasn’t that she didn’t care to defend herself. She simply didn’t need to. My strongest attacks were utterly ineffective.

There was a reason she had been single-handedly annihilating monsters in the deepest parts of the battlefield. A sword that could cut through anything, and a shield that could block any attack...

I always knew Ellen was strong. But was she really this powerful? Even when I attacked with all my might, I couldn’t so much as ruffle a single strand of Ellen’s hair.

This was the first time I was facing Ellen while she had the genuine intention of killing me, and the holy relics she wielded were on a completely different level. I couldn’t even get close to her while she wielded her two holy relics, one for attack and one for defense.

Bang! Clang! Clang!

Dodging Ellen’s relentless attacks, which she could execute without having to worry about defense, was utterly overwhelming. There was a fundamental gap between us. None of my attacks landed, while even a single mistake on my part could result in Ellen’s sword taking my head off.

Clang!

“Ugh...!”

A single front kick from her felt like it shattered my entire body, sending me flying backward pathetically in a long arc.

The only silver lining was my ability to heal myself as long as the wound wasn’t fatal. Tiamata’s Divine Power allowed me to regenerate, no matter how severe the injury. Yet this seemingly overpowered ability only served to prolong my life a little longer, without bringing me any closer to victory.

Ellen looked at me with an indifferent expression as I lay on the ground, having been flung far away from her.

Swoosh...

In the relentless downpour, where even the clamor of the battlefield had faded into silence, Ellen’s indifferent gaze seemed to carry a heavy sorrow.

I wondered if I was destined to never defeat Ellen.

‘Was this fate sealed the day we first met? Was I always meant to fall here? What have I been striving for all this time?

‘In the end, I cannot surpass you. Is this just another tale where the Demon King falls to the Hero? Though death awaits us all eventually, I didn’t endure everything just to meet my end here. And it’s not just my life at stake; if you kill me, you’ll die too.’

I didn’t know.

I had no idea how to penetrate the defense of the Cloak of the Sun. If I endured its flames and made even one mistake while deflecting her sword strikes, I’d be sliced apart. Thus far, I had managed to avoid any fatal wounds, but I knew my luck wouldn’t hold out forever.

As I measured the distance between us, the entity possessing Ellen spoke softly.

“Is it unfair?”

‘What?’

It definitely had a will of its own, although whether it was a collective consciousness or something else, I couldn’t say for sure. Even so, I knew I could converse with it.

“I saw you trying to protect humans,”

it said.

It had to have witnessed everything.

“Now we understand that your intention was to safeguard humans.”

It realized that I had not acted to destroy, but to save. And even though things ended up like this, it knew my intentions weren’t malicious.

“Do you think it’s unfair that it turned out this way?”

it asked again.

How could it

not

be unfair?

Many people died, but because I had altered the course of events away from the original storyline, the damage to the Allied Forces was far less severe than it could have been.

There was just one more step. Just one more step to bring Ellen back. That was all I wanted. I did not need anything else.

But in the end, I would die without reclaiming Ellen. I was not even a match for her.

How could that not be unfair?

It was just one more step, but I couldn’t take it. If I lost this final battle, I would lose everything.

“Of course,” I replied.

I was not going to make the absurd statement that it wasn’t unfair.

After all, I couldn’t deny it felt unfair.

‘All those moments. All the days I’d spent up until now, hoping I might win you back. Even sometimes imagining life returning to normal, just like it was before.

‘Sometimes... Just sometimes, I let myself dream. But when I think back on all those days now, it’s heartbreaking.’

“When I finally came to my senses, I found myself a powerless, feeble demon prince of a crumbling nation. I had no memories of my life as a demon prince. All I knew was that the world was on the brink of destruction.

“I stumbled into the capital, desperately trying to survive, armed only with a fragile disguise spell that could be undone with a single cast of dispel magic. All this while, I’ve been desperately trying to save everyone, but in the end, the world ended up like this because of me.

“And yet, I gritted my teeth and pushed forward, trying to make a difference. Now, if only you would come to your senses... But I’m about to die without witnessing that.”

I locked eyes with the Ellen entity. “Wouldn’t you consider that unfair?”

In truth, everything happened because of me.

And with only one step remaining to the end of everything, I might die.

Wouldn’t it be strange if that wasn’t unfair and sorrowful?

It was frustrating, unfair, and sorrowful.

Did I make it this far, only to die here?

In response to my plea of unfairness, which didn’t quite fit the situation, it didn’t mock me.

“How pitiful...”

It didn’t criticize me or rebuke my confession. It simply closed its eyes quietly under the rain. Countless raindrops fell on its head, streamed down its face and eyes, and pooled into a puddle.

Were they tears?

No. It had to be the downpour Riana had summoned.

Swoosh...

Rumble...

To me, the torrential rain felt like tears being shed by the world. Wouldn’t it rain like that if the whole world cried?

In the middle of that pouring rain which fell so miserably, the lamentations of the entire world, the voice spoke.

“Then, what about us?”

I no longer knew how many it was referring to when it said “us.”

“Aren’t we pitiful? We who had to disappear, swept away by your stories. We who had no role, who couldn’t even struggle. Swept away by monsters. Sometimes, by humanity itself. And sometimes... by you, for reasons that were yours alone.

“The ‘me’ that had to disappear. The lives of ours that were trampled underfoot. Shouldn’t we have been the ones more deserving of fairness than you? Are we supposed to accept it all with no more comfort other than the words ‘it couldn’t be helped’?”

It spoke calmly with its eyes closed. Its voice was not one of anger or despair, but one that carried deep sorrow.

There were those who dreamed of nothing special, and their dreams had been crushed under the weight of others’ ambitions. More specifically, it was my dream that had trampled over theirs, causing them to vanish. No matter how much I insisted it wasn’t my intention, these deaths were ultimately my fault.

It was only natural for them to feel a deep sense of injustice and anger. For me to speak of unfairness to them would be unbearable.

“Even if it’s sorrowful, it can’t be helped. Even if it’s unfair, it can’t be helped. It was with those words that we died.

“O Demon King. If you cannot restore our lives, if you cannot return everything you took from us, then, in our unfairness, sorrow, and anger, you shall meet an inevitable death.

“If you die like that, if you receive such a death in return, that would be the minimum atonement for all the deaths caused by you.”

There had been too many unjust deaths. The only way to make things right would be to bring them back to life. But that was impossible, and both of us knew it. And so, I would have to die that way as well—right on the brink of achieving everything, with just one step left to take.

Dying in sorrow, in the depths of grief and despair, surrounded by unfairness and anger... that would serve as the bare minimum for atonement.

I couldn’t allow myself to live; even the thought of trying to survive felt like too much greed.

The Ellen entity opened its eyes and gazed at me quietly.

“Your heart. I know it.”

Had time softened and refined it? It no longer seemed overwhelmed by the intense emotions that had once consumed it. Or perhaps, after entering Ellen, who had always exuded calmness, it had taken on her serene nature.

Its gaze... The eyes that had once been filled with emptiness and darkness now resembled a deep, frozen lake.

They weren’t warm. They weren’t free of hostility. But they were calm.

“I have no intention of forgiving you, nor of letting you live,”

it declared,

“but at the very least, I respect you. Let’s make a deal.”

It recognized me, yet it couldn’t allow me to survive. There was a price I had to pay.

Making my intentions understood did not alter the outcome, nor could it resurrect the dead. A price had to be paid.

But it had something to offer. A deal.

“Only you will die.”

It was a stark and merciless statement.

“Those you love—your precious people, everything you want to protect—everyone except you will be spared. I will even leave the body of this child you cherish so much. And then I will vanish.

“You won’t witness how everyone you care for continues to live. Follow me into that world of indifference. In sorrow, injustice, and rage, become a being like me. And fade away from this world.”

‘Ah... So that’s what it is.’

Now I understood what that “future” meant.

The vision of my death and Ellen’s suicide... That future wasn’t one of defeat.

It wasn’t that I’d lost the fight.

It wasn’t that I’d been killed in battle.

I had seen what would come next after this deal.

It made sense to accept this deal, since I could resolve everything with just the cost of my life alone. After all, even if I fought, I would lose. Knowing that I would die anyway, I might have accepted the deal—if I hadn’t glimpsed what would come next.

***

The

Preview

feature had shown me a vision of me, dead, and then Ellen taking her own life.

But that was not what would happen if I lost. It was what would happen after I accepted the deal to trade my life in order to bring an end to everything.

If I refused the deal, it wouldn’t stop at killing me. In fact, it would take the lives of everyone who had stood with the Demon King—Harriet, Olivia, and everyone else. And in the end, it would even kill Ellen, whom it was possessing. But if I accepted its deal and died quietly, it would vanish.

If I hadn’t seen that future, I might have accepted the deal. It would clearly be the best choice, especially after knowing I couldn’t win. Facing pointless resistance and struggle, dying, and watching everyone I love perish alongside me, or trading my own life to avoid it all?

The choice was obvious. There was no need for others to die with me.

The entity wasn’t lying. Its promise to kill only me and then disappear was sincere. In the future I’d foreseen, Ellen would take her own life after she realized she had killed me with her own hands.

The promise would be kept.

But knowing the future, there was one truth I understood.

I wasn’t the only one facing death; Ellen, the one who would kill me, was destined to die as well.

The Demon King and the Hero... If just the two of us died, would that bring peace to those we leave behind? Was vanishing alongside Ellen the only fate I was allowed?

I did not know if I could defeat Ellen with Alsbringer, but even if I succeeded, it wouldn’t matter. Both Ellen and I would die, rendering the victory meaningless. Whether Ellen killed me and then ended her own life, or I used the power of Alsbringer to kill Ellen and died in the process, the outcome remained the same.

The future I glimpsed was not determined by the battle itself, but by the choices I would make. If I refused, I would have to fight, and if I lost, the entity would destroy everyone I loved. But if I accepted the offer, then only Ellen and I would die, leaving everything else to those who remain.

Even without me, life would go on. Some would mourn, while most would celebrate the Hero’s victory over the Demon King.

It was almost laughable. The Great War had concluded with both the Hero and the Demon King meeting their end. And again, in this moment, the Hero and the Demon King were fated to vanish together.

The reasons for it and the journey to this point might have differed, but the outcome remained unchanged. The Hero and the Demon King were always destined to fall together.

In the end, I would demonstrate that all I had done, I had done not out of the desire to destroy, but to protect. In my final moments, by surrendering everything and meeting my end, I would prove it.

In the end, I realized that ending up with nothing was inevitable.

‘If it’s just me, that’s okay. If it’s just me, it’ll be okay, but...’

The thought of Ellen, who would be forced to kill me with her own hands and then have to gaze down at my lifeless body with a clear conscience, haunted me.

That image lingered in my head.

And then I imagined Ellen choosing death for herself.

Again and again.

Dozens of times.

Hundreds of times.

Whenever my resolve weakened, whenever my determination wavered, I would picture that scene and grit my teeth.

I had sworn I would never let such a future come to pass. I hadn’t worked so hard to see everything fall apart.

In my dreams, Ellen had killed me hundreds, even thousands of times.

I had tried desperately to hold up the crumbling world around me, but in the end, having reached this point, it seemed I had no choice but to embrace the future I dreaded most, because every other option was even worse.

I had said the same thing about many things beyond my control.

“It can’t be helped. So, let’s do it this way for now.”

I had had to accept those things that were beyond my control in the past. But this time, I wanted to try something different. I didn’t want to go with the obvious choice again.

It was possible that I would lose, but it wasn’t a foregone conclusion. My death was not a certainty. There was more than just the possibility of me losing.

I couldn’t apologize, nor did I have a response to its sorrowful words, questioning why they had not been allowed to have anything even after they’d already lost everything. Just as I couldn’t find my happiness at the expense of someone else’s suffering, I couldn’t secure their happiness through my own pain.

It was a harsh and cruel truth to admit. But was I not allowed to be happy now?

In the end, I didn’t want to die. I was terrified of dying and of what came after.

Ellen, who would end her own life, and the others who would be left behind... What would become of them?

I had only seen Ellen’s end, but just imagining the thoughts and feelings of those that were absent from that scene was both terrifying and chilling.

Therefore, I decided to make a choice I knew I should not have.

Even though I was fully aware it was the wrong choice, I chose it anyway.

“No.”

I shook my head.

‘Yeah, let’s keep it simple.’

“I made a promise.”

I had almost died countless times before. I had encountered foes I could not hope to conquer in combat. In the presence of such adversaries, I survived solely because of a promise.

“I promised that I would not make you sad.”

Luna Artorius... She had spared me for a single reason.

I had vowed not to bring sorrow to Ellen. I had assured her I’d find a way to make everything alright later.

“I made a promise to your mother.”

Perhaps Luna had not believed me. After all, I had anticipated it, and Luna probably knew it would end up like this, too.

But if I ended up dying at Ellen’s hands, and she took her own life after, that promise would remain unfulfilled.

A promise had already been made, so I couldn’t strike a new deal.

I had not made a promise to any ordinary being.

It was a promise made with a god.

So I had to keep it. No—I

wanted

to keep it.

“So, even if I want to die, I can’t,” I said.

And in that moment.

Suddenly.

Truly suddenly...

The world came to a sudden halt, and everything turned red.

“What... is this?”

Time froze, leaving me as the only one able to move. Even the raindrops hung suspended in the air, mid-fall.

In this world, where time had ceased, something shifted. The sky, once shrouded in dark clouds, cleared, and above me, a massive hole appeared in the now-clear sky. At the center of a sun, dozens of times larger than normal, loomed a black hole.

No, it wasn’t a hole. Something was blocking the sun. The sun that seemed dozens of times larger than usual, was being covered by the moon.

“An... eclipse?”

With this sudden solar eclipse, the world came to a standstill.

And then, amidst the frozen raindrops, something appeared before me that hadn’t been there before.

“You haven’t forgotten the promise.”

Hearing that familiar, nostalgic voice, I turned my head, startled by the sudden appearance of someone I thought I’d never see again.

I blinked, doubting my eyes.

There she was, someone I believed was lost to me forever.

The moon and the sun...

I knew someone connected to both those celestial entities.

And as far as I knew, only one person could work such a miracle.

“Mother...?”

Luna Artorius...

The figure who had emerged in the moonlight now stood before me, framed by a massive solar eclipse.

“Didn’t I tell you before?” she said, reminding me of the words she had spoken when she sent me on my way.

“The blessings of the moon and the sun will be with you.”

Had those words been more than just a wish? Had they actually been a promise?