Chapter 51: Tears of Defeat: Valentina’s Surrender

Time passed.

But for Valetina, that time felt much longer than the thousands of years she had lived.

She recalled the battlefields of the past.

When she slammed down on the burning ground, swung her sword, and toppled fortresses, grinding the bones of the gods into a sandstorm.

Back then, she had never doubted her strength.

She was strong.

She was absolute.

No one could stop her.

No one could defeat her.

No one could avoid her sword.

But now,

The being she was facing.

Was something she had never experienced before.

“Valetina. Are you tired?”

Illeia’s voice softly spread.

It wasn’t a mockery, nor contempt, just a calm question.

But that pressed down even more on Valetina’s heart.

“Huk… Huk…”

Her breath came out roughly.

She felt as if her whole body was burning.

Strength was failing.

She was suffocating.

Her body was getting heavier.

Was this the feeling of ‘exhaustion’?

For the first time in her life, she realized that her body wasn’t following her whims.

She couldn’t understand.

She didn’t get tired.

Her mana had no limits.

Her body never broke.

She was a being born that way.

But.

Now it was different.

Her heartbeat was slowing down.

A sense of powerlessness digging deep into her bones.

Her vision blurred.

Her hand trembled slightly.

…No, this couldn’t be.

Had her mana run out?

She reached out her hand as if she couldn’t believe it.

But the infinite darkness that should have poured from her fingertips no longer flowed.

It didn’t flow, it disappeared.

No, she even felt as if it had never existed in the first place.

She hurriedly examined her body.

‘…Body.’

A body like an iron fortress.

A body that could tear apart even heavenly beings.

Now, was it tired?

This was something she couldn’t understand.

This was something that shouldn’t exist.

She had fought her whole life.

She was a being born for battle.

She was a being who had transcended ‘limits’.

Finiteness did not exist for her.

But.

Now, she was definitely finite.

“…Am I, a finite being like this?”

Her voice wavered for the first time.

Everything about her wavered.

The world she believed in, she herself, was denied.

Valetina looked at her trembling hand.

With this hand.

She destroyed the world.

She tore the gods.

She swallowed everything.

But now.

Could this hand be like this after only one fight?

She was seized by a sense of collapse.

All the wars she had accumulated until now, all her power, were crumbling.

She had fought her whole life.

But now, her fight.

Was about to end in a form of defeat she had never experienced before.

“…I don’t understand.”

Valetina muttered.

She didn’t want to understand.

She couldn’t understand.

The feeling of her immortality she believed in collapsing.

The feeling of her power being ‘nullified’.

For her, it was a ‘despair’ greater than ‘death’.

“Not yet…!”

She grabbed her sword again.

She forcibly clenched her trembling fingertips.

“It’s not over yet…!”

Her voice was still strong.

But.

She knew.

What she had to do was not fight.

It was to realize what she had lost now.

And.

In front of her eyes.

Illeia was still wearing a gentle smile.

But that smile.

Now looked the most frightening.

“Valetina, admit that you’re tired now. I also don’t want to continue this meaningless fight…”

“…Meaningless?”

A distant darkness covered her vision.

Those words struck her ears.

Her breath trembled.

Meaningless.

Meaningless.

Meaningless.

That word sank deep into her heart.

It cut through her heart.

That one word overturned the path she had walked.

Had she been fighting a meaningless fight?

The blood she had shed,

The countless corpses she had trampled,

All the power she had accumulated.

Her reason for existing.

…Meaningless?

“…You. Now.”

Valetina’s voice was low.

But there was a deep split within it.

“Are you saying that all the time I’ve lived, all the fights I’ve been in, were meaningless?”

Illeia looked at her quietly.

Her gaze did not waver.

That bound Valetina even more.

“Then what are you?”

Valetina raised her body from the darkness.

Her body had already exceeded its limits.

Her mana had already bottomed out.

But,

Her anger was still burning.

“Are you the one to dare deny my life?”

Memories of the past came to mind.

The day she first held a sword.

The day she stood up on the battlefield by stepping on countless corpses.

Every time the sword blade cut her hand and blood flowed, she clenched her teeth and grabbed the sword again.

Kneel down, and rise again.

No matter how much she was trampled,

No matter how much she was cut, broken, and bled,

She rose again.

Why?

Because she had a reason to live.

Her power was her existence.

She was defined by the sword.

She existed through fighting.

But now.

That her very existence was meaningless?

Her life,

Her fight,

All the time she had lived,

Was being denied?

…So, what are you?”

Valetina’s eyes trembled.

She looked at Illeia.

Her sword, her power, her anger.

They were everything to her.

Without them,

She was nothing.

But.

The woman in front of her.

Even after letting go of all of that.

She existed.

She didn’t hold a sword.

She didn’t get angry.

She didn’t bleed.

And yet,

She was overwhelmingly strong.

She was, in herself, a complete being.

 

***

 

That,

Valetina couldn’t understand.

That,

Was terror to Valetina.

“What do you know.”

Valetina said in a low voice.

Her hand grabbed the sword again.

Her body was already tattered.

Even breathing was painful.

But,

She couldn’t give up.

“Don’t deny the path I’ve walked.”

Valetina raised her sword again.

It was an attack that bet her entire being.

“Then, prove it.”

Illeia’s voice was calm.

She smiled.

But there was no wavering in that smile.

She no longer had a reason to fight.

She was already a being who had transcended fighting.

But,

If Valetina didn’t accept it.

She was a being who accepted even that.

“Would you like to try again?”

Valetina trembled.

Her sword.

Became heavy for the first time.

For the first time.

She felt the sword in her hand moving away from her.

But.

She.

Would endure until the end.

Because.

That was the way Valetina had lived.

“F*ck you. Sh*t…!”

Valetina’s voice was desperate.

Her body had already reached its limit.

Her mana, her power, even her anger, were running out.

But, she endured until the end.

Because this sword was all of her.

This fight,

This attack,

Was the final attack containing all of her.

If she couldn’t destroy that which denied her existence.

She could no longer exist.

She,

Would no longer be Valetina.

She swung the sword.

The final, ultimate attack.

An attack that bet all of her.

Space split,

The atmosphere tore apart,

The ground undulated and twisted.

The sword raged like a storm,

Darkness exploded and spread.

This was the power left by the ancient Black Dragon.

This was the Gargantua that even the gods feared.

It plunged towards Illeia with a momentum that seemed to swallow the entire universe.

At that moment.

Time stopped.

No.

It became meaningless to even say time was flowing.

Space shook.

No.

The existence of space itself disappeared.

There,

Illeia,

Simply raised her hand lightly.

One finger.

She extended only one finger.

That was all.

It blocked the sword containing all of Valetina.

The sword stopped.

The attack was cut off.

The world was enveloped in silence.

Valetina couldn’t understand.

That this was blocked?

The tip of the sword touched the tip of her finger.

It wasn’t a simple defense.

It was as if this attack had never existed from the beginning.

No, an even more serious sense of incongruity loomed.

…The sword, is disappearing.’

Her sword.

Her power.

Everything about her.

Was disappearing into one finger.

Illeia did not move.

She still wore a gentle smile.

“…Please stop now, Valetina.”

Her voice was quiet.

But those words.

Seemed to shake the entire world.

It wasn’t an order.

It wasn’t a denial.

It was just the truth.

Her very existence,

Her every word,

Became the absolute law that determined the end of this fight.

Valetina opened her eyes.

Her sword no longer moved.

No.

It couldn’t move.

No.

It became meaningless to even move.

She had lost.

Completely, overwhelmingly.

From the moment she had drawn her sword,

No,

From the very first moment she had held the sword in this world,

The end of this fight was already decided.

“…Damn it.”

She tried to squeeze out the last of her strength and push the sword.

But.

Her fingertips,

Her wrist,

Her arm,

Her body,

No longer moved.

She was already finished.

She.

Even her sword.

Now had no meaning left.

The attack that had been everything she had staked,

Was defeated by a single finger.

Illeia slowly lowered her hand.

Her movements were elegant, lighter and more natural than anything else.

But with that alone,

Even the air seemed to shake in accordance with her movements.

She quietly opened her mouth.

“…Accept your defeat, Valetina.”

It wasn’t

‘Advice’.

It wasn’t

‘Coercion’.

It was just the truth.

The moment she said it,

It had already become reality.

Valetina,

Trembled her lips.

“…What is this.”

She said, choked up.

Her voice was dry and cracked.

“What…is this…!”

She trembled all over and closed her eyes.

Why?

Why can’t I win?

Why am I so powerless?

Why did I hold a sword, but couldn’t fight?

Why am I… forced to lose?

From her eyes,

For the first time

Tears fell.

It was the tears she had never shed,

Since she had held a sword to survive the war.

She,

Watching the collapse of the beliefs she had upheld for a lifetime.

Felt only one emotion.

Emptiness.

The path she had walked,

The beliefs she had upheld,

All the power she had accumulated,

Everything she had fought for all her life,

With this one finger,

Collapsed.

Became meaningless to even exist.

She.

Even her sword.

Was no longer anything.

Illeia looked at her quietly.

And.

Slowly reached out her hand.

Gently.

As if to embrace all of this.

At that moment.

Valetina realized.

‘Is this the power of a god.’

She was now.

Had no choice but to kneel.

“Now, will you come to me? Little lizard.”

Illeia just smiled.

Like an adult who had just played with a child.

“I’ll make sure to get my revenge for the hits from last time and the one before that.”

Crack.

Illeia’s eyes, as she clenched her fist, were serious.

Where did that gentle gaze go, and where did those son of a b*tch eyes come from?

Valetina was momentarily stunned, then laughed and chuckled.

“Yeah. Hit me as much as you want.”

“Then, I won’t hold back.”

What a strange god.