Chapter 309

“Finally—.”
Abel muttered. It shouldn’t have taken this long if his legs were still attached, but it had taken longer than he thought. He could barely feel his cold body anymore.
“I better get this over with.
Fleeing from the General Headquarters, he found himself in a world of giants. A sphere as large as the imperial palace pulsed before Abel’s eyes.
The sphere’s identity was a mass of energy that the giants called the Source. Abel thrust one of his remaining hands into it. An indescribable power radiated through his body.
“That’s a lot of power—.”
There was a reason the giants worshiped it. The white clouds, which had been flowing calmly, were swirling wildly around their source. A low, gravelly voice echoed incessantly around them.
“Get out of there now, foolish mortal.”
“What a pity. How can a man who has sworn allegiance to me violate a taboo!”
Each word was loud enough to tear his eardrums, but Abel didn’t react. The giants, who must have numbered in the thousands, surrounded him.
“How dare you touch His heart!”
A giant cried out. The normally calm creatures could not hide their panic this time. They should have taken Abel out immediately, but they couldn’t approach the source for fear of damaging it.
“How do you feel, baldies, this is mortal power.”
Abel snarled as he studied the giants’ faces. The frantic flapping of their wings revealed their urgency. There was nothing more entertaining than watching the arrogance of a creature fall into despair.
Abel had planned this operation for a very long time. It was for this very moment that he had risked death and humiliation to crush the giants.
The heart of an entire race of giants, this mass could only be touched when the king was not present. Abel took another step forward and plunged his arm fully into the source.
“What do you think you’re doing!”
The giants’ faces contorted once more. Instead of answering, Abel smiled a wicked grin.
Everything he had given up for this moment flashed before his eyes. Finally, as he recalled his last memory with Cain, he spoke up.
“Stand there and watch. Watch as we move toward immortality.”
****
“—-Abel!”
The king of the giants groaned. He had seen Abel’s form through their shared senses. The filthy traitor had reached the source in the briefest of glances.
He was slowly pushing himself inside the source. He didn’t know what he was doing, but it didn’t feel very good. The Children of the Stars hadn’t been able to attack for fear of damaging the Source.
“How dare you—the dust of the universe—dare you.”
The king gritted his teeth. Suddenly, a memory from not long ago flashed through his mind. Abel had come to his world, and he’d taunted him out loud, asking if he was afraid to come to this planet.
In fact, it was that one word that started the whole thing. The King, who had originally refused to descend because he was wary of the Good King’s disappearance, responded to the provocation and descended. Kwah-ang-! Eight wings spread out at once.
“Get out of the way!”
“Do, I’m running away!”
The people watching the battle cried out in horror. The king ignored them and soared into the sky. It was humiliating, but for now, Abel had to be stopped.
“Stop fighting and run away!”
Ronan cried out as he crossed swords with the king. I thought he was too wounded to fly, but apparently he still had some left.
Much to the king’s chagrin, Ronan and the others had no intention of letting him go so easily. Ronan’s mana-enhanced thighs swelled to bursting.
“Stand!”
Ronan stomped the ground and leaped vertically. Barely catching up to the king, he plunged his broad-backed sword into the king’s back. Poof, the flesh-cutting tip of the blade sank into the king’s wing bone.
“Kkkk—!”
The king’s body shook violently. But he didn’t stop gaining altitude. Ronan cursed at the unexpected reaction.
“This asshole—.”
In the blink of an eye, the king, Ronan still attached to him, was just below the magic circle, only two or three wingbeats away from entering. A sudden, dizzying pain shot through him.
“Ugh—!”
The pain was too much to ignore, and the king’s brow creased as he felt his body grow heavier.
Turning his head, he saw two massive ice spikes growing through one of his wings and one of his thighs, respectively. Asel’s shoulders dropped as he realized he’d been hit.
“Ma, you’re right!”
“You—wizard.”
Looking down to the ground, the king gripped the hilt of his sword. The red-haired mage had seen it before, through shared senses. How dare a mortal subject steal the power of the stars.
I should have torn it apart, but I couldn’t afford to. The magic was slowly freezing the area that had been hit. The king, barely able to shake off the pain, was about to take flight once more.
A black comet-like object flying from the corner of his eye pierced his right third wing. Almost at the same time, a dark shadow from the opposite direction completely severed his left fourth wing.
[Garbage, how dare you show me such an illusion!
[Blood must be tied with blood.
Orse and the Shadow Archduke had awakened from the visions Iril had shown them, angry to the core, when an invisible force crushed the king from the sky.
“Kick!”
It was a pressure he had never experienced before. After falling a hundred meters, the king barely caught his balance and stopped in midair. Lorhon wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and cursed.
“Gee, that was a trick number.”
I pressed down with all my might, but I couldn’t contain it. But it was not a futile attempt. Unable to resist, the king roared.
“How dare you-!!!”
The five remaining wings exploded open. The wind, powerful enough to uproot mountains, sent Orse and the Shadow Archduke flying.
[Kaaaah!
“I swear, no matter what, I will destroy this star!”
The king cried out. It was too late to turn back now. An irrepressible rage boiled deep in his chest.
Shaking off the distraction, the king surged toward the magic circle again. This time it was time to turn back, as he was about to plunge his head inside the circle.
Suddenly, from behind his back, a familiar voice spoke.
“I’m still here.”
“What—.”
Then, for the first time in his life, the king felt fear. All the feathers on his wings twitched at once. In his frenzy, he had forgotten. Ronan was still clinging to his back.
“I mean–I should have forgotten.”
Ronan muttered through gritted teeth. The ramancha, deeply embedded in the hilt, was stained a more intense red than he had ever seen before.
Within the thin hilt of the sword was all the power Ronan had been saving. The moment he released it, the condensed sword energy would tear the king’s heart out.
“You–you dare!!!”
“That’s it. Took you long enough.”
The king growled, but Ronan ignored him. He was about to release the power he had been gathering. Suddenly, a dazzling wave of light burst forth from within the magic circle that covered the sky.
“What is it?”
Ronan frowned at the unexplained phenomenon. The white beam of light surged and spread across the battlefield. As if out of nowhere, the power drained from the king’s body where the sword was embedded.
“Billion—.”
“Huh?”
Ronan’s bewilderment flashed across his face as the rock suddenly felt like mud. What the hell. I haven’t done anything yet?
“What the fuck is wrong with this.”
The king plummeted to the ground before he could say anything. BOOM! The giant that crashed to the earth let out a deafening roar.
One by one, the remaining giants began to fall. BANG! The crash echoed through the air. The soldiers watching the final battle from the ground began to roar.
“No, they’re going down!”
“—Did you win?”
The changes didn’t stop there: the magic circles that covered the sky and connected the world of the giants were slowly disappearing. The landscape of the General Headquarters Mountain, which was covered in an eerie white color, was also changing.
“Hey, this is where we started!”
“The landscape changes—.”
Grass and flowers seemed to emerge from where the snow had melted. The sky and earth soon regained their original colors.
The Allied troops stood atop the garrison where they had marched toward the General Headquarters. The dark green forest surrounding them swayed in the night breeze.
“Hey, look!”
Then someone cried out. The king’s body, lying on the ground, was vanishing. The body was burning into light from the extremities and disappearing, as if the ashes were being scattered by the wind.
The same was true of the other giants. The corpses of the giants littered the ground, all of them turning to dust and flying away. Soon, Ronan rose from the spot where the king’s body had disappeared.
“Holy shit, what the hell happened?”
“Ro, Ronan!”
His friends covered their mouths in horror at the sight of him. Ronan’s fall from that height had not left a single wound on his body. Asel, the first to run to him, sobbed.
“Go, good job—you really did it!”
“That’s great, you’re really, really—.”
Tears were welling in Marja’s eyes, too; they thought Ronan had slain the King of the Giants. Ronan did not answer, but twisted his lips.
“I didn’t kill him.
It was very suspicious. An unidentifiable sense of foreboding was creeping in. People who didn’t know what was going on were rejoicing.
“Ooh, we won!”
“Hurrah! Hurrah!!”
Thunderous cheers were coming from everywhere. It was so loud that it could be heard even in the islands. Soldiers hugged their comrades and cried aloud when they realized that they were not dead. The jubilation lasted for a long time.
[Wake up, everybody! Watch the sky!]
Suddenly, Adeshan’s full voice echoed in everyone’s heads. Everyone frowned at the intensity of the sound, which was far beyond anything they had heard before. Ronan’s gaze fell on Adeshan as he scrambled to his feet.
“What is it, why—.”
Her face was white and worn. Her ashen gaze lingered on the sky, where the magic circle had vanished. She could feel the hairs on her body stand on end with an indescribable foreboding. As Ronan moved toward her, the inky blackness of the night sky turned white.
“What the—.”
Ronan’s eyes widened, as if the entire world had been struck by lightning. Then, before he could say anything, the sky began to fall.
“——!”
Ronan could feel it. The orb’s attack was coming, like the spears of light the giants had hurled. Only this one was absurdly wide.
“No.
Everyone in the room sensed death. But Ronan was the only one who could move in the moment. In the slowing of time, he watched the elements of the landscape disintegrate into particles.
Clouds drifted across the sky, then the towering Baidian Mountains. The light overhead was erasing the higher beings. The top of the battleship Dynhar was dissipating, revealing its mechanical interior.
“It’s late.
Ronan gritted his teeth. For the time being, the giants’ attack was equal to the orb, and he could cut it down and offset it. But there were too many people to protect. At least seventy percent of them would die.
“Holy shit—!”
Of course, Ronan’s body was already moving, regardless of the calculations. He had to save those around him. Gathering up what little strength he had left, he tugged on the hilt of his sword.
Out of the corner of my eye, a familiar voice rang out.
“Conserve your strength.”
“What—.”
Ronan turned his head in the direction of the sound. The Savior was standing there, his arms raised in the air like a man about to receive something.
“Father?”
Ronan’s eyes widened. The Savior was moving in slowed time, too. A faint, inexplicable smile curved his lips. A hemispherical shield suddenly appeared, enveloping the entire Alliance.
“What do you think you’re doing—!”
The Savior was not accepting mana from others. Ronan was about to shout at him for his reckless behavior. Finally, the white light collided with the shield.
There was a loud crash that seemed to turn the world upside down, and the whole world went white.