Chapter 410. The Four Became Three in the End (5)

Chi-Woo could now understand a bit how Bael must have felt when she struggled so desperately in their fight last time. After exchanging attacks, one thing that Chi-Woo was able to clearly feel was that Bael had certainly changed. At the last gate, her attack had been a brutish display of power with her giant sword, but here at Shalyh, her attacks were varied and free. The problem was that while her attacks had become more varied, they remained just as powerful. This was clearly evident from the fact that although he had restored his AI Armor with exorcism mana, Bael was able to partially break through it. Even now, he found himself surrounded by clattering noises. Then his protective barrier was broken again, and extending like a whip, Bael’s arm reached his ribs.

At that moment, Chi-Woo lowered his elbows. He put his arm next to his body as if he was rubbing it and squeezed Bael’s forearm as hard as he could. Since it was so hard to defend himself, he planned to at least take control of one of her arms. However, Bael snorted, and her arm bent and wrapped around Chi-Woo’s waist. Then she pulled vigorously while charging at him. Their bodies collided, and Chi-Woo was thrown off his feet.

Chi-Woo floundered awkwardly and was soon dragged back by Bael. At that moment, Chi-Woo’s eyes flashed open. With his right hand, he clenched and burst the arm wrapping around his waist, and with his left hand, he parried an attack flying toward his face.

He hit Bael’s arm with a kick and cut it right off, all the while drawing a diagonal trail of light from bottom to top. Bael’s eyes widened, and she backed away instinctively. The light grazed her throat. Then Chi-Woo took a step forward and swung his ghost-busting club down once again. Bael deflected the attack coming down at her vertically and whirled around, swinging her arm. The ghost-busting club and Bael’s arm collided in precisely the middle. Only then did the non-stop, intense battle come to a halt—no, it kept continuing.

A suppressed groan escaped Chi-Woo’s mouth as he felt an intense pressure transmitted from Bael’s arm, which was in contact with his club. In the end, the club was being gradually pushed back. Bael snorted, and she swung her arm upward before bringing it down from the side. Chi-Woo evaded it by kneeling on one knee, but as soon as he got up, he had to quickly bend down again because Bael started swinging her arm in the opposite direction as soon as her attack missed.

“You sly rat—!” Her loud cry was cut short. Bael suddenly trembled, her posture collapsed because Chi-Woo had bent down and hit Bael’s shin roughly. He intended to seize this opening to take the offensive, but Bael pushed Chi-Woo back even while she was knocked off balance. Then she attacked with her awl-like arm, forcing Chi-Woo to take a step back while grinding his teeth.

Bael regained her balance and rose from the ground, and Chi-Woo also pulled himself up. In the meantime, explosions rang between the two and—that was Chi-Woo’s limit. Although he fought as hard as he could against Bael, who had become an even more terrifying monster, he failed to defend against Bael’s attack when she fixed her posture and rushed forward.

Bam! At the very moment Chi-Woo realized his mistake, his vision grew dark. When he regained consciousness, Chi-Woo was already in the air. He was flying backward as if he had been hit by a battering ram and was penetrating through street buildings one by one. It was only after dozens of buildings collapsed one after another that Chi-Woo finally slammed into a wall and stopped flying. Then he bounced right off and rolled on the ground.

Only after he started coughing did pain slowly awaken throughout his body. Besides the pain, the bigger problem was internal injuries. He had thought the AI Armor would have blocked at least a little bit of Bael’s attack, but there was a reason it couldn’t protect him—he had already run out of exorcism mana. In other words, he had already exchanged that many attacks while fighting Bael. He was astounded by how the fight was progressing. He had tried to avoid her attacks, but he didn’t realize he was getting pushed to this extent.

“Get up. Hurry.”

When he let out a hollow laugh, he suddenly heard a quiet voice.

“There’s no way that’s enough to kill you, right?”

A figure gradually appeared beyond the smoke that had arisen around him. As she said, he wasn’t at the point of dying; however, he had almost no energy to fight further. Still, he couldn’t lay down like this, and he forced himself to stand up. Soon, Bael trudged towards him and stopped in front of him. Unexpectedly, she didn’t seem pleased. Frankly, it had been a very one-sided battle, so she should have been smug or snidely mock him , but her pride looked hurt instead. It was because Bael thought Chi-Woo hadn’t fought her sincerely.

If Chi-Woo knew what she was thinking, he would have told her that it was absolute bullshit and fervently denied it, but it was only natural that Bael would feel this way. The Chi-Woo that Bael had faced at the last gate was way above this level. He had been much stronger than this; to the point where he felt like a wall that she couldn’t ever surmount. There was no way this was his limit.

Bael was sure that he had simply been caught off guard because he assumed she would be the same as before. Bael truly believed that, and thus, she had deliberately pulled her punches; beating an opponent who was caught off guard wouldn’t erase the deep wound on her pride. Only when she beat her opponent at his full strength would her victory and sacrifice be meaningful. This was Bael’s last remaining pride.

“How about it? Have you come to your senses after the first round?” Therefore, Bael wanted Chi-Woo to acknowledge her changed self. “I told you so.” She wanted him to be surprised, amazed, and taken aback. “I’m stronger than you now.” Bael smiled and looked at Chi-Woo with anticipation. “So you’d better get serious. If you don’t want to die.”

Chi-Woo wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stared at Bael. Her power was at a completely different level than when they were fighting at the last gate. There must be many reasons, but he knew at least one of them. At that time, he had faced an ordeal caused by the Kobalos’ magic fire pit. As a result, his wish came true, and he was able to gain the power to deal with Bael, who was trying to destroy the gate. However, he was now at Shalyh, not the last gate. With the stage changed, the conditions he’d set no longer applied, and thus the strange power didn’t kick in.

On the other hand, this didn’t seem like the only reason; there was one more. While fighting Bael, Chi-Woo couldn’t detect any dark energy from her. Rather, it felt like she was evolving in real time to adapt to his attacks. He felt a strange sense of déjà vu, and when he saw Bael regenerate her crushed body parts in an instant, a thought crossed his mind.

“Sernitas.” Chi-Woo asked, “Is it the Sernitas?”

Bael’s eyes widened and curved into a pair of crescent moons. “That’s right.” When she nodded and easily admitted it, Chi-Woo scowled. In battles, the Sernitas analyzed their opponent based on the vast amount of information they had collected while wandering around the universe and found the best countermeasure. That was exactly how it felt like facing Bael now. It seemed as if the Sernitas had not only treated her, but also given her their strength—or in other words, information. Since she had abandoned her weaknesses and was reborn with only her strengths, she naturally became stronger by many folds.

The situation had flipped. At the last gate, Chi-Woo had become stronger and fought Bael in her weakened state, but at Shalyh, Chi-Woo had become weaker than before and fought Bael in a stronger state. Chi-Woo instinctively sensed that this would be a difficult battle, and something that the Last Dragon had said suddenly came to his mind. What was four became three… He hadn’t understood what it meant back then, but he could understand it now.

“What a surprising turn of events.” Chi-Woo shook his head. “Regardless of the situation, I can’t believe you became part of the Sernitas.”

“No, that’s not it.” However, Bael denied it.

Chi-Woo narrowed his eyes. “You’re denying it?”

“I admit that I received help from the Sernitas,” Bael continued in a relaxed manner. “But I didn’t become one with them.”

* * *

That night, Bael left with the Abyss King’s help and entered the Sky Castle, the deepest part of it. In the deep cavity, Bael faced the gazes of countless eyes filled with curiosity. All those eyes were waiting for an answer; the answer to an offer they had made before: ‘We’ll allow you to maintain your consciousness, so become one with us and let’s become the greatest being in the universe.’

“I…” And Bael clearly expressed her will with great strain. “I can’t become one with you…I don’t want to… But I don’t want things to end like this…” She continued despite it being difficult for her to even stand properly. “Heal me…and give me information…the power to beat him…!” Squeezing out all her last energy, Bael’s shout echoed in the cavity. However, an answer didn’t come. There was no response.

“Ha…haha…” In the end, she failed. It was really over now. Resigned, Bael lowered her head and slowly fell forward. When her curved arm was about to touch the floor, the Abyss King, who was watching with his arms crossed from behind, could clearly see what happened next.

A stem of tentacles shot out from who-knows-where and wrapped around Bael’s arm, forcing her to get up. Soon after, a thin needle at the tip of the stem glowed and was inserted into Bael’s neck without notice. Bael’s half-closed eyes opened wide. She tilted her chin to the fullest, and her drooping body stiffened and shook. But that was only the beginning. Soon, countless tentacles flew from all directions and pierced into Bael without leaving even a single gap. They seemed to be injecting her with something if the way they bulged was anything to go by. Bael couldn’t even scream out loud. She opened and closed her mouth with silent screams.

—Serious damage…Unrecoverable…

—Through transcendence…Reconfiguring operation…

Even then, Bael heard a faint sound, and she could feel it clearly that the things that made up her body were drained out and replaced by something new…

* * *

“The feeling at that time…it’s horrifying even when I recall it now. I don’t want to ever experience it again.” Bael tucked her shoulders inwards and slightly shivered. Then she soon exhaled and showed a relaxed expression. “But—I endured it, I held out with my teeth clenched and a single goal in mind.”

She looked at her body as if she was checking out her new clothes and continued while staring at Chi-Woo, “That was how I was born anew. It was not to destroy everything in my path, but only to have my revenge against you.” She declared her intention proudly, as if asking how he felt about it.

“…Revenge?” And Chi-Woo, who had been listening quietly, tilted his head. “Revenge…I don’t think that’s right.”

Bael frowned at his unexpected words. “Why? Why is it not revenge?”

“I mean, isn’t it the case? If what you say is true, isn’t it hard to say you’re still Bael?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Bael cried out with an expression of incomprehension. “I’m Bael! The same as before! Even now!”

However, Chi-Woo disagreed with her. “Your name and appearance might not have changed much, but it’s hard to say you’re the great demon Bael anymore.”

Bael faltered.

“Aren’t I right?” Before she could reply, Chi-Woo continued, “Can you confidently say that you are the great demon Bael even in front of your subordinates?”

Bael could not say that; she knew better than anyone else that everything she had built up as a great demon had disappeared.

“You know it’s not true. Bael, the first-ranking great demon of the Demon Empire, has disappeared that day.”

Every word out of Chi-Woo’s mouth pierced Bael directly in the core.

“If you were the great demon Bael, I would have acknowledged your revenge as you said…but that isn’t the case.” Chi-Woo nodded and slightly tilted his chin. “Yeah, in every way, you’re no longer Bael. So don’t tell me you’re trying to get revenge. You may look like Bael, but I’m fighting what the Sernitas reconstructed with new information.”

“Bullshit!” Bael shouted angrily at his matter-of-fact tone. “Why did I…! Do you know why I went this far…!” She had thrown everything away for the sole purpose of revenge. As such, it was only through revenge that she could infuse meaning into all of her actions that day, and the significance of her existence would be complete. However, her existence was denied by the target of her revenge. In this way, even if she beat him, it would be hard to say that she had exerted her revenge. What was more frustrating was that Bael couldn’t refute his words.

Chi-Woo smirked when Bael was rendered speechless. “I don’t know anything else, but I know one thing… Why you were the only one my brother knocked unconscious to keep you from hearing us.”

The confusion on Bael’s face instantly changed into a stiff expression. “…What?”

“That day, don’t you remember?”

When Chi-Woo went back to the past and met everyone, the first thing that Chi-Hyun did when he realized that Chi-Woo had come from the future was to immediately hit Bael in the head and make her faint. It was to prevent Bael from hearing about the future because he didn’t know what she would do with the information afterward. Other than Bael, Boboris and the Last Dragon had been there as well, but Chi-Hyun had only knocked out Bael and let the other two listen. This could only mean one thing.

Bael also knew very well why Chi-Hyun had done it. When she woke up afterward and opened her eyes, she had been furious at Chi-Hyun’s betrayal. The fact that she reacted to what Chi-Woo said proved that she still had the memory of that day.

Thus, Chi-Woo’s following words hit her gut directly. “I think I know exactly why you were the only one the legend has never thought of as his comrade until the very end.”

“──────────!” Bael screamed like she had lost her sanity. It was a fierce and completely unintelligible roar.