Chapter 668

Luna Artorius...

She had emerged during a grand solar eclipse. Had she been observing us from afar all along?

When she’d last spoken of the blessings of the moon and sun, I assumed it was just a customary wish for good fortune.

I wasn’t sure if rejecting the deal was crucial, or if something else held more significance, yet the promise not to make Ellen sad still lingered in my mind. Was it my resolve to uphold that promise that prompted Luna to step in?

I couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason why. All I knew was that someone closest to an absolute being had appeared before us.

With Ellen in her current state, I stood no chance of winning.

But Luna could.

Alsbringer could summon an avatar of a god, but she was the avatar of two gods. If anyone could make it happen, it was her.

“How did you manage to come this far?” she asked.

Her eyes held a mix of pity and admiration as she gazed at me. She smiled, a touch of sadness in her eyes, then she got straight to the point.

“I will take care of ‘that’ for you,” she said, looking over at the possessed Ellen.

“But then Ellen will...”

“She’ll return to her original state. Just as you wish, just as you envision. She will revert back to her usual self completely.”

Hearing those words made my heart race wildly.

I could have Ellen back, and whole again. She would return to her true self. The vengeful spirits possessing Ellen would vanish, the Gate Incident would come to an end, and I would finally have everything I desired.

That would be enough.

It would be more than enough.

The journey to Rijaiera to meet Luna had not just been about making me stronger; it had sparked a change that would compel Luna to intervene in the world.

“I’ll leave the rest to you,” she said.

Luna quietly approached Ellen, as if there was nothing more to discuss.

Was this the end? Would everything be resolved like that?

There would be other challenges, but they would be part of the world after this. Was this finally the time when all I needed to do was address those issues?

No way. In this cursed world, such a convenient resolution couldn’t possibly exist.

“What about you, Mother?”

“...”

At my words, Luna stopped in her tracks.

If it were that simple, she would have done it long ago. There had to be a reason why Luna had only appeared at this moment.

If it were as easy as waving her hand, she wouldn’t have waited. Yet she had watched, and watched, and watched. She had to have shown up because she had no other option.

“You’re going to vanish, aren’t you?” I asked.

My statement was met with silence.

“That’s what’s going to happen, isn’t it?” I pressed her.

There was bound to be a price.

If she could have acted without consequence, Luna would have stepped in when Ellen had first been possessed by the vengeful spirits.

In the lich’s tomb, Luna had tried to kill me. She had said that if she succeeded, the cost would be that she would vanish from the world.

It had to be the same this time. If she did this, then she would disappear.

That was why she had waited this long to appear. She didn’t want to vanish either. But because I still wanted to keep my promise, she had shown up. She must have wanted to help somehow.

Luna paused, then turned to look at me.

“I am not originally a being of this world,” she said. “I have existed for a long time without regret, acted without regret, and spent my days blissfully without regret, so there is nothing to be sorry about.”

I looked at her in silence.

“If I am not sorry for myself, then why should you be sorry?”

Was that truly good enough?

Would it be good enough if Luna sacrificed herself to bring Ellen back?

I didn’t know.

I didn’t even know how I would defeat Ellen. Moreover, even if I managed to defeat her, I had no idea how to extract and destroy the vengeful spirits within her. But Luna was promising that she would handle all of that for me.

If Luna vanished in exchange for doing what I couldn’t, would that be enough?

As convenient a solution as it seemed, it was hard to accept.

I was beginning to understand the purpose of the future.

Without seeing it, I would have refused Luna’s help too, since she would also vanish if she intervened. I would have turned down her offer and struck a deal with the vengeful spirits.

I would have believed I could handle everything on my own, so I wouldn’t have wanted Luna to sacrifice herself. Besides, I wasn’t sure Luna would be able to stop Ellen’s suicide.

However, things had changed because I had seen the future. I knew what would happen after accepting the deal.

Now, the future that was going to unfold without that knowledge was clearly different.

But was it right to stay silent in the face of Luna’s actions, to keep quiet and accept the help she was offering because I refused to deal with the vengeful spirits?

Was letting Luna sacrifice herself truly the best solution I could find after seeing the future?

Was I really incapable of doing anything? Did I truly have no role to play?

“What about Father?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

Luna paused, and the silence between us stretched. Her expression suggested she thought I was rather pathetic for even bringing it up. Perhaps my question seemed out of place, especially given the urgency of our situation.

“Of course,” she finally replied. “I’ve already spoken with Ronan.”

Her words implied that it wasn’t something I needed to concern myself with, as if they’d already discussed everything that mattered.

But still...

In contrast to when I’d first entered Rijaiera, I had a clearer sense of the dynamics between that couple. A wife who was the embodiment of the gods, and a human husband. Naturally, Ronan wouldn’t have much of a say.

“Are you sure you didn’t just tell him what you’d already decided?”

Her silence was confirmation enough.

“It seems like that’s what you did.”

As she stood there, glaring at me in silence, it became clear that Ronan didn’t have a chance to even stop her; he had merely been told what would happen.

Luna, who had been on her way to Ellen, eventually turned and approached me, her expression thoroughly annoyed.

She jabbed my forehead with her fingertip.

Poke.

“In this sort of situation,” she said, “a good child usually says thank you.”

Poke!

“And then keeps quiet, shedding silent tears.”

Poke!

“That’s the polite thing to do.”

Smack!

“Ouch!”

I was knocked backward by a flick to the forehead.

Despite the situation, I couldn’t help but laugh.

“No,” I said.

“...”

“I promised I would not make Ellen sad, but it’s not right if Mother dies either.”

“I won’t be dying. I’ll just return to the will and power I originally belonged to.”

“If I can’t see you anymore, how is that different from dying?”

“...”

In the end, it would just be trading one sadness for another. If I had to choose Ellen over Luna, Ellen would end up sad either way. Whether I died to bring Ellen back or if Luna vanished, Ellen would still lose something important to her.

Luna’s annoyance faded from her face, replaced by a cold expression. It was the same look she’d had when she first saw me, the one she’d worn while genuinely trying to kill me. Just seeing that expression sent chills down my spine.

“Then, is there another way?” she asked.

I didn’t have anything to respond with.

She continued to glare at me. “If I disappear, you’ll die fighting recklessly, and that thing will go on a rampage. Are you just throwing a tantrum because you don’t want me to disappear?”

“Yes,” I replied without hesitation.

Luna’s brow furrowed. “How could you be... so...”

She let out a deep sigh. “How could you be so stubborn and foolish...”

Her disappointment was palpable. Even at this juncture, when everything could be easily resolved by someone else, I was being unreasonably obstinate, and it seemed she couldn’t bear it.

No method, no plan. Just stubbornness.

I wanted Ellen back. But I couldn’t bear the thought of losing Luna either.

Wasn’t there a better ending? Why did something always have to be sacrificed?

“I’ve always been like this,” I said.

“...”

“You know that.”

Now that I thought about it, it had always been this way. There was never a time when I had a complete solution.

I hadn’t known how to become stronger.

I hadn’t known the cause of the Gate Incident.

I hadn’t known how to find Rijaiera.

When it came to any problem, I had never had a complete solution, but I pushed forward anyway. I failed countless times, yet there were moments when I miraculously found a way or somehow solved the issue.

I grew stronger, though it wasn’t perfect.

The Gate Incident happened, but I learned why.

I hadn’t known the path to Rijaiera, but I’d found it somehow.

And that was why Luna was standing before me.

“I understand that. But the fact that things have somehow worked out until now is truly miraculous.”

“Exactly.”

“Just shut up and listen,” she snapped.

I kept quiet.

“Where’s the guarantee that it’ll work out this time, too?”

“There isn’t one.”

I knew I was being unreasonable. Refusing the only solution without a backup plan felt pathetic, even to me. But what could I do? I didn’t want to lose anyone. If I accepted Luna’s sacrifice just because there was no other way, what would happen the next time?

If I agreed with Luna that there was no other option, if I were faced with the possibility of having to sacrifice someone else later, no matter how precious they were to me, I might end up convincing myself that it was necessary and sacrifice them too.

I understood that compromise was part of life. But if I got used to compromising, eventually, I would end up sacrificing everything I held dear, through one compromise after another.

I was terrified of taking that first step. Living a life without compromise might be impossible. But I didn’t want to live a life where compromise was the norm.

I wanted to hold on tightly. I didn’t want to let go of anything. Not Ellen, not Luna. I refused to accept the idea that to gain one thing, I had to lose another.

Luna eventually turned her head away from me, gritting her teeth.

“Foolish child.”

She was truly angry.

Despite everything that was going on, everything that had happened, I kept disagreeing with her and insisting on my position without any plan of my own. That had to be genuinely frustrating.

“Don’t you dare think I’ll help you again,” she said.

That was surely how she really felt.

After much deliberation, she had made her choice, opting for the path of death. Now, though, after seeing my response to her decision, she had categorically stated that she wouldn’t come to my aid a second time.

This had been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Receiving Luna’s help to bring Ellen back could have solved everything. But since I’d refused, there would be no second chance.

I had no intention of making a deal with the vengeful spirits, so I would likely face death. And as I lay dying, I would probably regret not accepting Luna’s help. But the decision had to be made by the present version of me.

I didn’t want to bring Ellen back to a world in which Luna had vanished. I couldn’t find any happiness in having a daughter restored by her own mother’s sacrifice.

Luna turned her back on me and strode toward Ellen, her expression filled with disdain as she glanced down at me, still sprawled on the ground after her flick. With a casual wave of her hand, a sword materialized in her grasp, and a cloak draped itself elegantly over her shoulder.

“Huh?” I muttered, struggling to comprehend the scene unfolding before me.

“This is all I can do,” Luna said, her voice steady and resolute.

In her hand was unmistakable the Void Sword, Lament, while the Cloak of the Sun, Lapelt, adorned her shoulders. Those were Ellen’s sacred relics—the Void Sword and the Cloak of the Sun—somehow reclaimed from the time-frozen world.

Luna had reclaimed them, and with that, she had taken care of the greatest challenge facing me.

This was something that hadn’t happened in the future I had foreseen. A different future, a different outcome, had emerged because of my actions.

I couldn’t pinpoint what had shifted, but something was undeniably different.

“See, there

was

a Plan B after all,” I said.

“Hey!”

Smack!

“Ouch!”

In the end, I got hit.

In the end, there

was

a way after all. Perhaps Luna interfering in this manner did not warrant a consequence as severe as vanishing. There

was

a way for her to act without having to pay the steep price of disappearing from this world.

If I had stayed silent, I would never have realized this. I would have simply comforted myself with the thought,

‘There was no other way,’

and told Ellen that her mother had vanished after saving her.

Luna glared down at me, her teeth clenched. Clearly, my thoughts were plainly etched on my face.

“You really are insufferable to the very end, aren’t you?”

She looked like she was being driven to the brink of madness from how much she disliked me. Yet she couldn’t just stand by and watch me die so foolishly. She just couldn’t leave me be.

“If you still can’t do anything even after all this, then just die, you useless fool.”

Her words cut as fiercely as her glare. Frustration, annoyance, and disbelief were etched across her face, emotions she rarely let slip. It was unusual for her to be so visibly upset.

Now that I thought about it, Ellen was the same way. I seemed to have a knack for driving people like Ellen and her to their breaking point.

“If I remember correctly, you once asked if I ever thought about having another child,” she said.

“Huh? Oh... Yes, I did.”

Did she really try afterwards?

“I have no intention of ever having another,” Luna said through gritted teeth. “If the child turns out to be as troublesome as you, wouldn’t that be a disaster?”

Ragan and Ellen had been blessed children. But what if, by some chance, her next child turned out like me? What would they do then? The thought of it was too unsettling and frightening for her to consider having another.

“But still...”

She paused, then continued, “Live.”

Even though she had told me that I should just die.

“A good son or a bad son, a strong son or a weak son, none of that matters.

“I prefer a living son above all.”

Her voice was full of emotion. “Just as you wish for a version of me that doesn’t have to be helpful—just alive, someone you can see anytime... I wish for that too.”

Those were the last words that she chose to leave behind. Words of sorrow, shaped by experience.

As always, with a single step, she vanished.