Ch.121Chapter 121. A Fate Beyond Time

# The Turning Point

The emotion of seeing a human standing before me—something I never thought possible.

A possibility that should never appear before me, who seeks to destroy all humanity in this world and leave only their madness behind.

“Win? You’re saying you’ll defeat me…?”

-CRASH!!

Red currents of mana surged. All of it solidified into afterimages following her path, transforming into the shape of weapons.

Temporary material creation through precise mana control.

“A mere Hero like you dares to babble about defeating me, who is war itself!?”

As the torrent of magical power erupted alongside those weapons, soldiers were blown away, but the Red Knight paid no attention.

Those fools who could only watch helplessly due to her ability to forcibly imprint her existence were nothing but hunks of meat hindering the advance in this battle.

“You’re nothing on your own! If you hadn’t interfered, you would have been under my command long ago!!”

The Red Knight charged, drenching her body in blood.

But while her rage-filled attacks were fierce, they lacked composure.

For someone fixated on childhood memories, battle was something that should never be approached with leisure.

-BOOM!!!

And he didn’t miss that opportunity.

The Red Knight’s body was pushed back by the explosion of a javelin thrown at an opening.

The rotten blood flowing from her mouth afterward showed that she had finally caught her opponent off guard.

Even though she couldn’t deploy her troops properly, she had taken enough damage to bleed in a battle against a mere human.

“Ugh, aagh, AAAGH!”

As the Red Knight spat blood and stood up, regenerating her wounds while gripping her sword, the man staring at her only spoke in a quiet voice.

“…You must have worked really hard to gain your current power.”

“Shut your mouth…”

“It makes sense that you turned out this way, being thrown onto the battlefield at such a young age and surviving until the end.”

“What do you know about me, what could you possibly…!!”

“I know everything. Because I’ve experienced all your memories.”

Her voice, choked with anger, cut off abruptly, and with it, her power deployment halted.

It meant she couldn’t simply brush off his words—they were enough to momentarily quell her rage.

“Memories… experienced…?”

Yes, what he had shown so far wasn’t something that could be achieved merely by inheriting a dragon’s lineage.

It was too perfectly matched—both the weapons he manifested and the techniques he used were identical to her own.

“Ah, yes. My memories…”

Moreover, even with his slight advantage, he didn’t mock her.

Beneath that cold gaze lay an emotion that could be called sympathy.

That was surely an emotion that could only be shown by someone who had directly experienced her life, not merely heard about it from others.

“So, you’re the same as me, is that it?”

If that were truly the case, the state of the person before her could be described as a harmony of two personalities.

Right now, he was both Hyoseong Woo and Tachia Pailoi.

Someone who understood the feelings of a child abandoned by her mother wandering the battlefield, and how she felt when she finally met her mother at the end.

“If you’ve seen my memories… then you can understand me.”

Contrasting those memories with the present, he must have realized.

That humans only consider themselves victims when they’re in a weak position, but ultimately, humanity is rotten to its core.

“You also hate the world, so you wanted power and chose to share my memories.”

Those with power always despise the weak, and those with authority always blind the masses and shape the world as they please.

It’s only natural that humanity, manipulated by such people, would be engulfed in madness and ultimately face destruction.

What she aimed to do was simply accelerate that inevitable end and preserve their ugly appearance for eternity.

As they desire, and as her mother desired.

“Because you hate humans. Because you want to sweep away everyone who torments you…!!”

“Is that really all there is to it?”

Though she wished he would understand her sense of injustice.

Yet the pity in his eyes as he faced her never faded.

“All… what do you mean…?”

“I asked if every human you met only tormented you.”

And sympathy is an emotion expressed merely through observation…

That which can only be revealed when not considering it one’s own circumstance was also teaching her that the one she thought understood her would not walk the same path.

As if definitively stating that even though they shared memories, they were ultimately different beings.

“…The reason I’m here now is because there were people who carried on after you.”

Unlike the specter before him obsessed only with the past, he had faced the world that moved on after her death.

The lonely master who couldn’t forget the person he admired and sought to create a successor.

This moment created by the old general who wanted to build an army that could fight alongside her, if not replace the hero, and those who followed in their footsteps.

“Even after you died, people who remembered you connected your existence to me.”

If something remains after a person dies, there is meaning even if that life was miserable and desperate.

The same applies to the hero before him.

Understanding that honor and cause existed in her final moments, he couldn’t live seeing only the negative aspects of humanity.

“So I’m sorry. I have too many debts to join you.”

That difference became the decisive factor separating them in this moment, despite sharing the same memories.

While the monster born of lingering attachment remained bound to the past, the successor sought to pursue a future that the one who came before couldn’t reach.

“…Ah, I see. So that’s how it is.”

Though she understood this intellectually, the Red Knight couldn’t accept it in her heart.

Even as all the memories of her life were revived, what stood out most vividly were still the recollections of slaughter from her childhood.

For a specter who gained power through such memories and moved by them, all that was permitted was to act as instinct drove her until that lingering attachment was resolved.

“So in the end, even another version of myself can’t understand me…”

The sword imbued with that will was pointed at him, then lowered.

In the midst of the fierce battle, it began to point toward where the crumbling dragon lay.

“W-wait. What are you—!”

“After all, only mother accepts me!!”

By the time he noticed, her sword had already pierced through her body.

Though he belatedly realized this and threw a manifested spear, even with half her upper body blown away by the impact, she didn’t fall.

Instead, she lifted the sword stuck in her body and smiled with feverish joy.

“Ah, mother… Mother! Why did you leave me and only appear again now!?”

Her body, now infinitely light with nothing left inside.

But in that walking corpse, only the concept and rank of the lord of all creation remained.

“Yes, you loved me too… You acted out because you loved me. If only those disgusting humans hadn’t interfered, we could have loved each other again!!!”

The dragon’s heart.

Though it was said to have weakened to the point where not even embers remained, the heart forced into an unfulfilled covenant was not permitted to die even when stabbed.

If only that vessel remained intact, insufficient power could simply be filled in. If lacking, it could be filled with one’s own.

As that sinister magical power responding to her will was transmitted to the heart, its flesh began to swell grotesquely.

“No! Tachia-san…”

-BOOOOOM!

By the time he noticed, it was already too late.

The body, rapidly expanded by magical power, blasted away everything around it with the impact.

And what was constructed at the end was a dragon rising from the ground… no, something in the shape of a dragon.

“Yes… We don’t even need to go to war. Just like back then.”

Bones began to form as ashes scattered on the ground gathered together.

Fresh flesh gradually sprouting above them almost looked like a dragon being created on the spot.

“We just need to blow everything away and start over, right…!?”

For now, it was just an unstable construction.

But if her obsession with her mother grew increasingly fierce, it would soon lead to the manifestation of a dragon’s form from the past.

After stabbing her sword into the spine of the Dragon-Linked at the end of that belief, she began to pour her will into the vessel, filling it with power.

Countless spirits began to gather. The dragon’s form hardened under their hands.

The moment he saw the bones that formed the skeleton gradually swelling and sprouting new flesh and scales, a voice quietly echoed in his head as he looked up at the sight.

‘Disappointing, isn’t it?’

More precisely, it was about the conversation they had before coming here.

Though they no longer needed to converse now that they had completely become one, if that child were here, she would probably have repeated the conversation they had then upon seeing this sight.

‘I’m not a hero or anything like that. I’m just a coward who ran away from reality because I wanted a new life.’

Just a human being.

Just a girl who inherited a dragon’s lineage and was born with slightly stronger power, but was fragile inside and held onto her love for her mother.

“…But you forgave Tachia-san.”

But knowing she was merely a weak human, he didn’t spare his respect for her.

“Even though you could have transformed into this kind of being at any time while alive, you forgave your mother in the end.”

Though the largest part of her life was hatred toward humans, she endured it, giving her mother the opportunity to meet him.

She proved through her final act of forgiveness that she was someone capable of love, granting a reprieve to her mother who might have committed more sins.

“So I think it’s a shame. If you had been given just a little more time, you might have been reborn as a true hero remembered by everyone.”

‘…Do you really think so?’

“Yes.”

Believing this, he could muster the courage to face the enormous calamity before him with spear in hand.

“That’s why I’m here—to prove it.”

By succeeding her, he fulfills what she couldn’t.

That was the duty he had to shoulder as someone who admired heroes to protect himself and those who protected him, and who ultimately followed in Tachia Pailoi’s footsteps.

-RUMBLE, BOOM!!!

The imperfect dragon sweeping across the mountain range appeared as the first gateway to this, along with distorted soldiers beginning to pour down from above.

These monstrosities created from entangled memories of the past were instilling fear as if this place had become a living hell.

“…Don’t be scared, Hyoseong Woo. This fight will end once we take down just one target.”

But no matter how mighty an army, there is only one commander, and even a massive dragon has a vital point.

What he needed to target in this vast battlefield was no different from before.

The question was whether he could break through to reach there.

Could he reach the commander of the legion serving as the vital point on top of that massive dragon, which was a living fortress in itself?

“Hey, Hyoseong~ You seem to have gotten incredibly strong while I wasn’t looking!”

Amidst his attempt to gauge that opportunity with bated breath, a familiar voice began to sound from behind.

Turning his gaze in that direction, he saw a man with a shovel slung over his shoulder approaching, dealing with the troops scattered nearby.

“Looks like you want to head up there from what I’ve seen coming here. Need a construction worker to open the way?”

“Jaseong hyung? Why are you here…”

“Save the joy of reunion and briefing for later. I hate being dragged along.”

Hero Jaseong Nam.

A man who had always survived with his quick wit, despite his reckless and impulsive personality.

“If you understand, get ready. I’ll blast you with maximum power.”

“W-wait, hyung. You don’t mean…”

“Domain Expansion!!”

-RUMBLE!!!

The shovel swung with full force struck the ground, and at that moment, the surrounding soil began to reverse, defying physical laws.

Earth Reversal.

The power to instantly reverse the ground beneath one’s feet according to the amount of magical power.

-BOOOOOM!

When it was exerted with maximum power, everything within its influence was launched up to the top of the mountain, reaching a height where everything around appeared as mere dots.

People and specters alike looked no different from insects from this vantage point.

The only thing clearly visible was the ashen dragon roaming the mountain range, but even that was only momentary.

-SCREEEECH!

Soon the reversed gravity would return to normal, causing them to fall back down.

As if sensing this, crows formed from the ash scattered around began to fly toward the fragment he was holding.

The memory of crows gathering to feed on corpses on the battlefield now awakened an appetite for the living.

-BOOM!!!

Just as it seemed they would have to helplessly endure such an attack.

The trajectories of the rocks that rose together twisted abnormally, blocking the crows’ path and crushing their bodies with their own speed.

A familiar phenomenon. This was the power of object control, capable of manipulating even masses of tens of tons if they lacked will.

“Garam!”

“Leave the cover to me!”

Hero Garam Lee.

Having risen together with the Earth Reversal, she used her ability to glide fragments and deal with the approaching crows one by one.

When the controlled fragment settled on the dragon’s bone, Garam prepared to use her ability to send the fragment he was riding toward that spot.

“You’re targeting the Red Knight, right? How fast should I throw it!?”

“Damn it, throw it as fast as possible!!”

Any help was welcome.

As soon as he shouted, Garam threw the fragment with his body on it with all her might as he requested.

At the moment when the speed accelerated on top of gravity, the Red Knight, recognizing the presence of such an intruder, drew the sword she had stabbed into the dragon’s back and swung it at him with full force.

The red sword energy that burst forth was an attack imbued with enough power to annihilate a human body in an instant.

But the fragment, already beyond Garam’s control, lacked the maneuverability to avoid that attack, and if he took it head-on, he would be pushed back and fall below.

-BOOM!!

While pondering how to respond to such an attack, a third helper flew in from a fragment on the side and threw himself to block it.

His gaze, noticing him, turned toward the man wearing a paper bag who had rushed to collide with the attack and was now falling far away.

-Rustle.

Hero Taeyang Lim.

After 28 deaths, he had succeeded in throwing his body to protect him, and now began to fall below the dragon due to the force.

“Taeyang-ssi…!”

His hand reflexively stretched out upon recognizing him.

But even as he fell, his finger remained pointed at the target.

‘Go.’

With his ability, even falling from this height, he could attempt to land thousands or tens of thousands of times until he survived.

But once that time passed, what came next was his responsibility.

Past time cannot be reversed, and if they’ve been separated, those who remain must move forward.

-BOOM!!!

Accepting that will, he finally kicked off from the fragment and collided with the Red Knight who had taken the place of the dragon’s vital point.

Afterward, he deployed weapons made of magical power at his landing point, embedding them in the dragon’s spine, and glared at the Red Knight who sought to confront him.

“…Hyoseong Woo.”

The Red Knight, like himself, had deployed numerous weapons all around.

But she was gathering massive mana in the sword she held, expressing her killing intent toward him.

“You are someone who should not exist in this world…”

“So I’ll annihilate you without leaving a trace right here. With everything I have, no matter what…!!”

The opponent, despite sharing the same memories as him, chose a different path.

Moreover, she was the only one who threatened his wish by imprinting her existence even in eternal war.

“…I’m curious about that too—whether I’ll be forgotten in this world if I die.”

Receiving such hatred, he gathered mana in his spear shaft, recalling what he wanted to protect.

The battlefield where the living and dead were entangled, and the decaying dragon gradually revealing its presence before them.

And on top of it, a hero facing the vital point…

-BOOM!!!

The two people, realizing that everything was rooted in memories of the past, began to clash with increasing momentum.

The story of a hero who confronted a dragon.

At this moment, when that destiny has spanned over half a century, it will be settled by the hands of those who inherited that fate.