Chapter 459

Chapter 459

“Welcome, Corporal Ronan.”
Ronan walked into the field barracks. He was greeted by a uniformed captain.
Adeshan de Acalucia stared at the ops table, a miniaturized version of the battlefield.
Ronan asked nervously, wiping the blood and rainwater from his face.
“I’m so busy—hey, what’s going on?”
“Time is of the essence. Reports indicate that your organization is capable of inflicting meaningful damage on the creature. We’ve scrapped all previous plans and set up a new one.”
With that, the General explained the new plan.
It was simple and straightforward, but it also screamed, “This woman is crazy.
Beyond the tents, the sound of rain and explosions continued to echo.
After listening, Ronan burst out laughing.
“This is a war of attrition to say the least. We’re all going to die.”
“If you’re successful, you’re not dead.”
“That’s crazy, you’re going to treat the whole corps like a punitive force?”
“I don’t care. If they protest, I’ll push them in with my power. All you have to worry about is getting to the target.”
“You can be cruel.”
“You can swear all you want. As long as you kill the monster called Ahayute, I don’t care about anything else.”
The warlord looked up for the first time.
Ashen shadows flickered in her eyes as she turned to face Ronan.
Ronan was annoyed. He was already using his powers.
The shouts of soldiers racing to hell echoed from beyond the tents.
Ronan, still facing her, nodded.
“I’ll give it a shot, and I’ll be on my way.”
“Wait.”
Ronan stopped dead in his tracks at the sound of the warlord’s voice.
“What?”
I turned my head. The warlord stared at him as if his face were a strategy map.
She hesitated, a subtle look on her face, then spoke.
“Have you ever—have you ever seen me anywhere other than in the military?”
“No.”
Ronan replied like a knife, No way.
A lowly punishment soldier meets a great imperial warlord, and the only thing that comes between them is a tasteless snack.
“——Okay. Thank you. I wish you the best of luck.”
“And you, sir.”
That was the end of the conversation.
Ahayute was firing spears of light over the distant battlefield.
Each time a white raindrop struck the ground, a pillar of light erupted.
Ronan muttered softly as they exited the barracks.
“What, are you interested in me?”
****
Memories of your first life, now as faint as a bell over the ocean.
Why it just popped into my head, I’m not sure.
****
It was unclear why Adeshan was here.
Due to the structure of the parallel world, it was normal for me and Adeshan to never meet.
In the first place, the parallel world is the world Adeshan left behind when he died and moved on to the next world.
But I couldn’t be bothered with such trivialities.
My heart was dying with the life of a woman.
“Adeshan, wake up. Adeshan!”
“Help—help me—I can’t move—ugh, I can’t move—.”
“I’ll help you. I’ll help you—fuck, why won’t the bleeding stop!”
I exclaimed nervously.
My head was burning and I couldn’t think straight. I pressed my palm to Adeshan’s stomach, trying to hemostasis it. The intestines that had burst open had somehow been rolled back inside.
“Aah… Aaaah…”
But no matter how hard I pressed, the bleeding wouldn’t stop. The blood oozing from the crevices of my fingers was hot enough to bring tears to my eyes.
Adeshan was still mumbling in a dazed voice, unaware of my presence.
“Who—is holding me, I’m cold—.”
“It’s me, Adeshan. I’m here. Ronan’s here.”
“Oh, I can’t see anything—I can’t hear anything—I don’t want to die.”
“You’re never going to die. Don’t worry. You’re going home alive.”
I said so and squeezed Adeshan’s hand. It was cold. I could feel no warmth in my already corpse-pale hand. I rubbed my cheek against the back of my hand.
“Please.”
Bandages made from torn clothing were tied around both of Adeshan’s thighs.
It was the reason she hadn’t died yet. The pretty, long legs that everyone glanced at as they wandered the streets were gone, leaving nothing but tattered, rotting flesh.
I knew it. This was a wound that would never heal. Even if I survived, I would live with the pain for the rest of my life.
“Please. God.”
So I sought God for the first time. I needed a miracle now.
Adeshan’s breathing was growing faint; she had already dipped her toes into the river of death.
Suddenly, a glimmer of hope flashed through my mind.
“Yeah, there was this—!”
I rummaged through the inside pockets of my coat like a madman.
The hand that was pulled out soon afterward held three ugly pieces of stone. They were shards of Xeniel. It had lost its shine ever since Akasha’s surprise attack, but it didn’t matter.
He said, setting the shard down on Adeshan’s belly.
“Fix.”
This is the method I used to fix the Emperor in the second parallel world.
The dying Emperor was revitalized by Ceniel’s life force.
I looked back and forth between Adeshan and the shard, and then I yelped.
“Fix it, you stupid piece of shit!”
A flock of startled crows flew into a frenzy.
No matter how long I waited, Ceniel’s shard didn’t respond.
“You’ve been doing so well, why aren’t you standing still this time?”
I picked up the shards with trembling hands. I could not feel the slightest trace of life. The body of the star spirit had been reduced to a mere piece of stone.
“Hmmm—. Hmmm—!”
I couldn’t breathe properly. There was no way to save Adeshan without this. His stomach, which he thought had been stabilized, was bleeding again. Adeshan’s lips twitched.
“There—.”
“Adeshan?”
“If there’s anyone out there—do me a favor—ha, ha, listen—please.”
My closed eyelids stayed in the sky, not me.
With a shudder, she raised her left arm and caught herself by the throat.
“My father—is in Lundalian—so please give him the military number around his neck—.”
“No.”
“She’s all alone–she’s so poor–if you could just say sorry–cool! Kuluk!”
“Adeshan!”
Adeshan coughed violently as he spoke.
Blood rumbled from her mouth and wounds all over her body. I tossed aside the shards of Ceniel and pulled her into a hug. Even with our bodies pressed together, I could barely feel her heartbeat.
I stroked her hair through clenched teeth.
“Was there any life left, any life at all?”
A low, deep voice rang out from up there.
All the crows on the battlefield soared in unison. Thousands of black feathers fell like a dance.
It was a bass note that was ripe for the picking. The hairs on the nape of my neck stood up.
I looked up, holding Adeshan in my arms.
A four-winged giant stared down at me from the dark sky.
“Ahayute will carry out the sentence.”
The clouds were dispersing with each gust of wind from the giant wings.
It was the same Ahayute I knew. I wondered why the bald man I’d killed four times across the original world and parallel worlds was here, but that wasn’t what mattered now.
The blood in his body boiled like a furnace.
“You son of a bitch.”
This was the man who had made Adeshan this way. He tugged on the hilt, and the reddened blade emerged. It would take less than a hundredth of a second to kill such scum now. Particles of light gathered in Ahayute’s grasp, forming the shape of a spear.
Without knowing the subject matter, the installation was a car that was about to die a bald death.
billion-!
Ahayute’s body exploded in midair.
“What?”
“This is—.”
The rest of my head shook in disbelief.
Before he knew it, it had happened: his massive, solid body had turned to a blue liquid and was dispersing. It was like a bomb had exploded in his stomach.
Before Ahayute could say another word.
billion-!
The spinning, falling head exploded, as did the torso.
“What the—!”
His eyes widened. The giant’s blood poured overhead in a torrential downpour.
Spreading my coat like an umbrella, I wrapped it around Adeshan. The sound of blood droplets hitting the fabric had died down.
Feeling a tap on my back, I jerked around.
“What the fuck are you doing!”
The blade drew a half moon. Reddened, the sword god stood ready to fire his sword qi at the suspect.
Lungs sucked in a startled gasp as he caught sight of the pretender.
“You.”
I’d forgotten how to make my voice heard.
He was more suspicious than anyone else, but his sword didn’t fire.
Akasha, thought to be dead, stood.
“Akasha.”
『——.』
Silence descended. He stood ten paces away, staring at us, still.
The masked head was still attached. The limbs that had once been severed were intact. His cloak was unblemished, as if all his wounds had healed.
“—Didn’t something get smaller?
The only difference was his size. Where he had towered over me, he now stood at eye level with my chest. Unless my eyes were mistaken, he was definitely smaller.
It felt like my hair was bleaching white. I didn’t know what was going on, and I was in no condition to fight anymore. He even seemed to have gotten stronger than the last time he fought me, if only in size.
Take a breath and open your mouth.
“Ahayute is—did you kill him?”
Akasha did not answer. The blue blood was now a drizzle.
A tense confrontation ensued.
“Kulk! Kulk!”
“Adeshan.”
Suddenly, Adeshan vomited blood. The sound was eerie. The size of the black mass looked dangerous. I looked at Akasha, momentarily forgetting she even existed.
The bullshit was coming out of his dry, puffy lips.
“The northern—I, the world has never seen such a—monster—.”
“I can’t. You have to hold on.”
“It’s cold, the wildflowers are blooming and the sun is setting—the Great War is still—hmmm.”
It was not good. The time of death had come. I hurriedly changed Adeshan’s position to make her comfortable. I was encouraging her, repeating to her that she shouldn’t die.
Something sharp poked me in the back.
『■■.』
“What?”
He shifts his gaze and raises his eyebrows.
Akasha had taken a step forward in the briefest of moments. I had to bend my head to look at the mask. He was holding his right palm out to me like a beggar in the service of the enemy.
“Seniel?”
In my ugly palm lay the three shards of Ceniel that I had pushed out. The ugly pieces of stone looked even uglier in my ugly hands.
“Why is this—.”
Maybe it’s because I’m not in my right mind, but strangely, I didn’t sense any malice. I instinctively reached out as if to pick it up. I picked up three shards. Akasha stretched out her other arm like a thunderbolt and grabbed my hand.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!”
I panicked and tried to pull my hand away, but Akasha wouldn’t let me go. Her outstretched right hand wrapped around my fist like a shackle. With my other hand, I tugged on the hilt of my sword and was about to deliver the killing blow.
An intense flash of light erupted from Akasha’s hands.
“Crack!”
My eyes closed. The brightness was unbearable. I barely opened my eyes and gasped in horror. The entire space was warping in a blur of colorful light. But even more surprising was the stasis of the force that produced it.
“Life force—!”
The most powerful life force I had ever seen in my life came out and circled him.
Even if Senniel regained all his powers and descended, it wouldn’t be this bad. He could make a new star, no joke. The scars from his fight with Akasha had long since faded.
Suddenly, I realized that Akasha had been traveling through all the parallel worlds, releasing the life force she had absorbed.
“What the fuck are you trying to do?”
Nothing was expected.
The suddenly warped space returned to normal. The flashes died down at once. The shockwave of the vanishing life force swept across the battlefield like ripples on a lake.
“Ugh.”
My body jerked at the sudden change. I would have fallen if Akasha hadn’t caught me.
Adeshan lay in the same spot, breathing heavily. He looked better than he had earlier, but the shadow of death still hung heavy over him.
My shaky vision was about to return to normal.
“Do what you have to do.”
From beneath Akasha’s mask, a human voice spoke.
“Well.”
My body froze. It was a voice so beautiful that it could make a flower blossom with its sound alone. Before I could say anything in response. Akasha released our clasped hands and stepped back.
“——Did you just say that?”
No answer came. Shaking her head in farewell, Akasha became a black bullet and shot into the sky. Just before it touched the clouds, a crack opened.
In a world washed in white, the sound of giants flapping their wings could be heard. Blue blood gurgled as Akasha disappeared into the rift.
The crack is closed.
“What should I do—?”
I muttered in a stunned voice.
I didn’t know what the hell was going on. Suddenly, Akasha felt a foreign sensation in her clasped hands. She opened her palm.
And then I realized.
“—ah.”
This was the first world.
Before it all started.
A world where the Warlord has not yet experienced death, where no regression has occurred.
“Fuck, really.”
The puzzle in my head was quickly coming together. I could see why Akasha had been so desperate to gather life force. Why she needed so much strength.
I wiped my reddened eyes with my sleeve and looked at my palm again.
In the place where the three shards had disappeared, a single blue orb lay.
“Is this what happened?”
It was my first time seeing the real thing with my own eyes.
I knew what this bead was supposed to do.
With the bead in my mouth, I walked over to Adeshan.
“Haa—haa—.”
Adeshan was still dying.
However, his face was relaxed, as if he had been affected by the life force while the beads were being made.
I dropped to one knee and kissed her.
“Ugh—!”
At the same time, I pushed the beads in. The white throat heaved.
Adeshan swallowed the marble and started coughing.
“Kolok! Kolok!”
“Adeshan.”
I blinked up at the sky, and then, forehead to forehead with her, I spoke.
“What you just swallowed is a time-traveling orb.”
The Academy’s Genius KnifemanChapter 509