Chapter 221
The human hero Hanuk.
The one who had once set out to save the world now appeared in the form of a devil. Did Apeon not know about this?
"Are you trying to imprison my god?"
Rod stepped forward.
"You can't defeat me."
"This time, it's different!"
Lightning flashed from Hanuk's sword. Rod leapt aside and fired the Arrow of Light.
A fierce battle soon broke out.
"Iren! Hold off Ucanel for me!"
"Understood!"
While Rod kept Hanuk at bay, we dashed toward the lake, breaking through the raging storm of debris. Then, apostle Tak appeared and swung a massive axe of light down upon us.
Iren swiftly raised her staff and shot a fireball upward. The fireball and the axe of light clashed from above, causing an explosion.
Iren held off Apostle Tak, and the rest of us kept pushing the wagon forward. We had to continue infusing it with holy power. We were almost there, but if the devil awoke, it would be a disaster.
As we approached the lake, hanuk and Ucanel desperately launched powerful attacks to stop us. More than once, we were thrown aside while pushing the wagon.
Kukwakwa-kwang—
Lightning exploded beside us, blowing us away with the wagon. We were barely twenty steps from the lake when even the wagon's wheels popped off.
Now, there were just six Holy Knights left.
Six of us pulled and pushed the grounded wagon.
A boat waited on the lake.
With difficulty, we loaded the wagon onto the boat and rowed toward the column of holy light rising from the lake. The water was strange. It wasn't sticky, but its viscosity was extremely strong.
We had barely moved forward when more apostles of Yan and Amir, who had come here, joined the battle, helping to hold off the humans and Apostle Tak.
"Rod! We can't hold out much longer!"
"Hurry! Those two will be right behind us!"
It looked like those two apostles had shaken off Apostle Dran and Apostle Gadisil and come this way. Apostles were fighting in the sky, and with the storm tearing through the atmosphere, it was total chaos.
I could have changed history but still hadn't said what I needed to Rod. Iren will be cursed by Hanuk. Elin Apostle Garil will suffer a fatal injury.
"Rod!"
My voice didn't carry at all because of the storm.
Maybe I already told him. Warned him to beware of Hanuk when coming here. Was I afraid that the future would change?
If Iren didn't fall under the curse, we wouldn't keep reincarnating. I wouldn't have had any reason to come here. It felt like they meant to follow exactly what I had told them!
The sounds of explosions from above grew even louder. Apostle Dran and Apostle Gadisil seemed to have jumped into the fray here. Apostle Dran used spatial movement and immediately unleashed a gravity wave.
Swaaeee—
If that hit us, the boat would capsize!
There was nothing we could do.
Kukwakwa-kwa-kwang—
With a blast, the boat was thrown into the air. We, who were on board, were scattered in all directions.
And then—
A flash! A powerful light erupted.
Black lake water splashed up from the explosion, and the boat that had shot upward was flipped and broken apart. I and the Holy Knights were flung through the air, our bodies upside down.
Then, off in the distance—
Garil, who had plunged into the lake, was floating in midair, radiating light. Her light caught us as we went flying away.
Time stopped.
Within the reach of Garil's light.
Only then did I realize. A hand was emerging from the broken box. At the very moment the devil was about to break out, garil used some authority to stop time.
Apostle Dran tried to break into the scope of Garil's light, but his body froze as well. The bolt of lightning Hanuk sent out was also halted.
What was astounding was that Rod and Iren somehow entered this authority of light, where time had stopped. They moved their arms as if swimming through water.
Both of them were wrapped in a green light.
Rod was using the stone of the gods embedded in his bow. It had the authority to overcome all abnormal phenomena in the world.
Even Garil, floating in the air, was frozen inside the scope of her light. Only the two of them leisurely swam through space, pushing the floating wagon forward.
I wanted to yell something at them, but my mouth wouldn't open. Didn't I warn those two that Hanuk would cast a curse?
Rod and Iren put all their strength into pushing the floating wagon, but it wouldn't budge. The wagon and the two of them remained suspended in the air.
At last, rod approached me and pressed the stone of the gods embedded in his bow to my hand. A green glow washed over my body, and I was able to move.
"Roger. Support our feet."
I made my way toward the wagon.
I had ended up right where I could support them from below. As they pushed the wagon, I pushed their feet.
The floating wagon began to edge forward. The jellylike surface of the lake had become hard enough that my feet didn't sink in too deeply.
"Rod, you must be careful with Hanuk."
"I know."
"Are you going to let yourself be caught despite knowing?"
"You didn't tell us the details. You only told us we would succeed. Still, what you told us gave us hope—a hope that we could succeed."
In other words, they hadn't just followed my instructions. I hadn't told them about this place. They managed to make this happen themselves after hearing they'd succeed.
"I know why you withheld so much. You worried that your involvement would cause a distortion of time. Especially, you didn't talk much about your own era."
"Because it would affect the time I'm from?"
"Yes. Especially in this case, I thought that if you'd explained in detail, we might have failed by trying to do things exactly as you said."
"Did the others not know anything?"
"Only Iren knows. After your last visit, she prepared herself. She had to choose whether to endure or give up the pain and sacrifices to come."
Rod and Iren saw hope in me and Eilin. Eilin and I had already endured that pain, though it would happen far in the future—it was something we could bear.
I looked at Rod and Iren.
Both were smiling faintly.
Rod spoke.
"But if I had to choose between saving the world and saving Iren, and I could only pick one, I'd have chosen Iren. At least, before I knew you and Eilin."
If something similar happened to me...
I would make the same choice.
We drew closer and closer to the holy beam rising from the lake. Hanuk kept firing lightning, but it had no effect.
"We're almost there!"
"Count to three! One! Two! Three!"
The two pushed the wagon with all their might.
I also pushed them with all my strength.
The wagon entered the pillar of holy light and was instantly sucked into the lake. Glancing below, there was nothing to see—it was as if it connected to another plane.
"Garil!"
Rod's shout rang out.
As the light vanished, everyone who had been floating plunged into the lake. At that moment, a gigantic black shape engulfed us.
Garil tumbled into the lake unconscious, and Iren also lost consciousness after being struck by a black shape as she fell. Only Rod, the Holy Knights, and I emerged on the lake's surface.
Around the lake, fighting between apostles resumed. Then, suddenly, the lake began to churn violently and something began to rise. A massive monster.
"Everyone out!"
"Move! Hurry!"
Rod clutched the unconscious Iren, and I carried Garil and ran. Or rather, we were swept away. The enormous monster rising from the lake pushed us back.
Khaaaa—
We were swept to land in an instant by the surging waves of the lake. I raced away, dodging the gravity waves and the power of frost flying toward me.
Swaaa—
Amazingly, the gigantic monster emerging from the lake unleashed a powerful storm breath. The two apostles who were about to attack us were instantly blown away.
"What is that monster?!"
"It's the guardian of the black earth!"
"A dragon?"
"It's a different kind of dragon! If Noble Dignity is Rac's guardian, then this one is the guardian of this land!"
Khaaaa—
Even Hanuk, who had been chasing us, was swept up by the storm and thrown into the air. Even if he teleported after us, the result was the same. The black dragon's body was like the bedrock of the earth.
We fled madly into the temple.
None of the apostles attacked us anymore.
After passing through the door leading to Rac, we continued straight to Elin's land. In the temple there, beneath the osu tree, was a door of light.
Rod laid Iren down beneath the osu tree, and I laid Garil, who I'd carried, beside her. Only then, sitting down next to them, did he finally let out a sigh of relief.
"Is it over now?"
I asked.
"It's over. With the devil gone, the darkness filling Rac will gradually recede. The devils will lose their vitality and have to return to the devil's land."
I looked at the two Elin women.
Both were stained by darkness.
"Will the darkness not heal?"
"It's not just ordinary darkness. Garil and Iren were already cursed by it before they met me. There was really no other way."
"I see."
Rod looked at the two women and spoke.
"All I could do was seal it. When time resumed, the darkness rushed in and broke the seal. Hanuk obtained the stone of the gods that had been with me."
"And you used that stone to catch the devil?"
Rod continued gazing at the two women.
"Yes. I infused the box with holy power so he couldn't break the seal. Hanuk's holy power is the devil's power. The devil's strength, even with the stone of the gods, can't overcome the holy power of light."
"Does he have more stones of the gods?"
"He has the stone of regeneration."
The stone of regeneration?
"Can that stone bring the dead back to life?"
"In a way, yes. After his head was cut off, he appeared with a new body. Hanuk did that."
"So the body doesn't matter?"
"Right. You have to burn the head—then it's over."
Hanuk had the stone of regeneration.
That stone was passed to the grand duke.
If that was the case, the grand duke is still alive.
"There should be one more stone among them."
"Yes. The stone of the barrier. Apostle Gadisil has that one. If three come together, they're sealed."
"Do you have any others?"
"I only have this bow's stone and the stone of the giant. I don't know where the rest are."
"I have four."
"Really?"
Rod looked at me with surprise.
It was Apostle Gadisil who created the frost barrier on the island continent of Gadisil. That stone ended up in the grand duke's hands.
The grand duke knew that if the three stones were together, they could be sealed. He must have gathered them under different holders. But even then, they couldn't be seen after a while.
"You created the giant golems in the northern part of Aindel?"
"I did?"
"I found the stone that controls the giants there. It was embedded in a sword. That's in your future, but I also told you about the crack in space and time nearby."
"That's the first I've heard of it."
That might count as interference too. I didn't know there was a stone in the giant, though.
"Do you know where the stones of the gods came from?"
"No one knows. Even Mammon was an apostle before becoming a god, but there's no way to know the origin."
"So Apeon might not be an all-knowing god after all. Since he didn't know the apostles would betray him."
Rod looked at me.
"You said it before: if a human becomes an apostle and an apostle becomes a god, then even Lord Apeon might not be an omniscient creator after all."
"Me?"
"Yes. You also speculated that there might be gods like Apeon elsewhere in the universe. And that maybe Mammon became a god after visiting such a place."
"So there might be a divine realm."
"There does seem to be something we don't know about."
Could such a divine realm really exist?
Since Apeon's symbol was a star, I had wondered before if perhaps there was a separate constellation where the gods lived.
"How many times have I come here?"
"This is the third time. The first time, you stayed about half a month before returning. The second time, you were here for almost a year."
So I hadn't used the one-minute version.
Maybe Rod didn't know.
I looked at the two women.
"Will Garil never wake up?"
"Iren will wake soon, but Garil will gradually grow weaker like this. Eventually, she'll die, and her soul will dwell in the osu tree."
"Did Garil know this?"
Rod shook his head.
"I told none of the apostles. Because of the contradictions and causal order of time. Neither I nor Iren tried to change things; we went along with the flow."
If the apostles had known, maybe they would have failed. If you know you're going to die, you'll desperately try to find another way. That, too, would count as interference on my part.
"You said that distortions between cause and effect would create a crack in space and time. When that happens, you get punished in a way. It's like the order of the universe trying to repair the breach."
I think I understood what he meant.
"I guess I have to go through that sort of punishment."
"Probably. It's impossible to know exactly which words and actions will affect the order. Even this conversation could have some effect."
I nodded.
That must be why cracks in space and time appear. I fell into one myself, but, anyway, I escaped.
"There is one thing I can safely tell you."
"What is it?"
"There'll be a kingdom war before the invasion of the devils."
"When about?"
"Not long after you return."
So it seems the vampire Kas will return.
I think that much will be all right.
Because I expected it.
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