Ch.152Season 2 – Towards a Better Future Nevertheless

“Ora ora ora ora ora ora ora-!!”

Little Lia didn’t stop punching her fallen future self.

She hit and hit and hit again.

As if begging her to come to her senses, little Lia used all her strength to keep beating her stupid future self who had taken her sister away.

“You’re! Also! Lia! So! Why! Are you! Hurting! Sister!”

“…!”

Just before being dragged away by her future brother.

Lia had seen Sophia crying sadly as she watched Shinwoo collapse in defeat at the hands of her future self.

Blood bursting from her mouth, she had screamed and called her brother’s name over and over, though he couldn’t get up.

And that unacceptable emotion had entered the heart of Lia, Sophia’s monster servant, making her share the same sadness.

“You’re terrible! Both you! And future brother! Don’t take our sister from the present!”

She threw a straight punch at her fallen future self, as if delivering the final blow while swallowing her tears.

But.

Thump!

“…!”

Just as the past world had become sad because her sister disappeared.

“I… feel exactly the same way.”

The future world had also become this miserable mess because it didn’t have her sister.

Therefore.

“I also… want to live in a happy world with sister.”

“Ugh?!”

Even if she was the villain, future Lia who didn’t want to lose that ‘happiness’ again caught past Lia’s fist.

Then, as if this was still far from enough.

“Leg sweep.”

“…!”

First, she easily knocked the much smaller figure into the air.

“Straight punch.”

Crack!

“Kuhak?!”

She drove her fist straight into her past self, who was still young enough to cry and throw tantrums.

“Kugh…!”

“Did you think those shallow attacks of yours would do even a little damage to me?”

Future Lia spat blood and looked down at her past self collapsed on the ground.

The numerous wounds she had received from the surprise attack were completely healed, as if they had never existed.

Compared to her future self, her past self couldn’t even get up after just one hit, as if it had been fatal.

“You’re weak… That’s why you can’t protect even one precious person.”

Empress Lia placed her boot on little Lia’s head and looked down at her past self with disgust.

“And we’re monsters, not humans.”

“Kughh…”

“In a monster’s mindset, only the strong are supreme. Survival of the fittest. You (past) were bound to lose simply because we (future) were stronger.”

“Don’t be ridiculous…!”

Lia forcibly pushed away her future self’s ankle.

Then she got up again and tried to throw a straight punch at her solar plexus.

But the difference between the two was already like heaven and earth.

“What do you think you’re doing with that pathetic fist?”

It couldn’t reach.

Everything was caught.

No, as if even that was too much effort, Empress Lia merely dodged the childish punches of her younger self with minimal movement.

Then she drove her fist even harder into her solar plexus.

Thwack.

“…!”

“What do you think you can do with such weak power!”

Boom!!

The match was over.

That last blow was a punch that her 20-year-younger self could never hope to withstand.

A single deadly strike delivered with full force, making the ground vibrate and creating a crater where they stood.

“Her heart… has stopped.”

At the end of her completely stopped fist.

Empress Lia looked down at her past self who should disappear, thinking this too was the world of monsters governed by survival of the fittest…

“Kugh, ku…!”

“What?!”

But despite her conviction.

“This is… it…!”

“You, how…?”

“Brother said… when you clash with your future self, those memories, that power! Flows into my body.”

“!!”

Hands that should have been unable to respond somehow managed to catch the future self’s fist just in front of her solar plexus.

And that wasn’t the only thing that had changed.

The appearance of little Lia who was now holding her future self.

Her body had begun to gradually expand, and the child’s body was now entering adolescence.

“You, your body…!”

“Survival of the fittest, you said just now?”

“!!”

“Well then, try to block me completely! You old hag!!”

Boom-!

The stormy adolescent period.

Past Lia’s body had reached that stage.

Her flat chest began to swell, and everything else—her hips, facial features—was growing in real time.

The power of the punch coming from such a physique would be difficult to block even in perfect condition.

“Kugh…!”

It wasn’t a force that Lia, whose body was more than half broken from decades of intercourse with Han Shinwoo, could block properly.

Plus, this one was a teenager!

A monster from the time when she had nothing to fear, with the proverbial wet ink still drying on her head.

“Give! Our! Sister! Back!!”

Her technical precision was also developing as she glimpsed her future self’s memories.

Her power was gradually approaching that of her future self.

Riiiiip…

‘…! My clothes are tearing. How much more is she planning to grow?’

The gothic Lolita maid outfit that Sister Sophia had bought for her, saying she would look pretty in it, was tearing as it failed to withstand Lia’s growing body.

“Cartina, stop.”

“What?! Brother! You used an absolute declaration on me? I’m your little sister!”

“That’s why I’m subduing you without hurting you.”

The third daughter Cartina was defeated by Leon.

“Your name was Cria, right? Won’t you please stop now?”

“Y-Your Imperial Majesty… your face is too close…!”

“? What’s wrong with a father looking at his daughter’s face from this distance? Right?”

“D-Daughter?! Did you just acknowledge me as your daughter?”

Cria seemed to be losing her will to fight, her face flushing as she temporarily stopped fighting with past Shinwoo.

“It’s all over.”

Unlike herself who was growing stronger, her future self was getting weaker as time passed.

Looking at her future self who had become an empress, the now pubescent Lia said as if calling it quits.

“You’ve lost. Now hurry up and tell me where sister is!”

“If I tell you… will you spare us?”

“No, maybe you, but the present brother has already decided to kill future brother… so I can’t guarantee your survival.”

“Is that so? In that way, we’re quite alike.”

“What?”

“Well, we’re both Lia… so it’s natural we’re similar, I guess?”

Empress Lia sighed heavily, seeming quite exhausted.

But the smile on her lips didn’t give any impression that she felt defeated.

Surely she must be the only one left now, so what on earth was this woman talking about?

“Brother Shinwoo can sense the location of all his genetic descendants… that is, all the children he’s fathered.”

“…What?”

“Thanks to that, from the moment you all came to the future, he’s been waiting and tracking your path until he discovered the humans’ last residence.”

The reason various imperial soldiers and royals suddenly gathered around the tunnel village.

It wasn’t because there was a traitor among the human rebels.

It was because of Shinwoo’s children that past Shinwoo had been bringing along, hoping they would learn about humans.

Shina, Laira, and others like Leon—he could sense the presence of his children who carried Han Shinwoo’s blood, which is why the tunnel village now faced the crisis of destruction at the hands of the saviors from the future.

“The sky is opening.”

“…!”

“F-Father, up there in the sky!”

“That’s where the tunnel village is…!”

A vast darkness began to cover the sky where the red sunset should have been appearing.

And then what emerged was an enormous spear piercing through the cloud-covered sky.

It was a gigantic, abnormal spear that seemed to have been carved from an entire mountain, of an impossible size.

“The Spear of Judgment, Ragnarok. During the war with humans in the past… it’s an artificial ‘divine tool’ that Brother, who became Emperor, created by carving the entire Mount Everest.”

“E-Everest?!”

“If something like that falls on the tunnel village…”

“Even if it’s 1,000 meters underground, it will pierce through! Father.”

The location of the tunnel village had been discovered.

Everyone present realized this fact as they saw the spear encompassing the entire sky.

Yurian, inside the time machine, was radioing Shina who was currently in the tunnel village, telling her it was an emergency.

Meanwhile.

“Kraaaaaaaa-!!”

“Wooooaaaaargh!!”

Unable to stand by, Leon and Jaewon immediately transformed into monsters to try to stop it somehow.

“Damn, can we do it alone?”

“What about Empress Kurumi and the others from the past? Are they all still in the tunnel village or whatever it’s called?”

“Yes! They said they’d stay behind in case something else happened to the village. But that…!”

It truly was the Spear of Judgment itself, something that seemed capable of forcibly splitting the Korean peninsula in half the moment it touched the ground.

“If Empress Kurumi’s Amaterasu, Yoo Cheran’s divine tool release, and the human forces underground were all together, maybe…!”

If they were all gathered in one place…

…could they have stopped that even then?

The spear was so massive it looked like it had been carved from an entire continent, making even the usually calm Leon unable to formulate a strategy.

“Hey, stop it!”

Lia grabbed her future self’s collar.

She shouted as if telling her to stop immediately.

But her future self just shook her head.

“That’s not my power. It’s only my dear brother’s power.”

“…!”

“So I can’t stop it.”

“Even though your daughter is in there?”

“…What?”

“Laira is in there! I’m asking if you’re going to kill even your own daughter, you idiot!”

“Laira…? Why is she here?”

The worst situation.

It was essentially the moment marking the end of humanity.

Leon and Jaewon, who could do nothing even after transforming into monsters, were sweating profusely with completely stiff expressions.

That was father.

That was the Emperor they had to kill.

That was Han Shinwoo’s true power.

…What made us think we could fight against that?

Well, because…

“Kraaaaaaaaaaa!!”

Crash!

“!”

“Father!”

“Brother!”

“Dad…”

“Past Your Majesty?”

“Your Majesty, this is reckless! Even you can’t stop that!”

Their father from the past was pushing them forward.

Everyone looked at him quietly.

With gazes filled more with worry than expectation, no one thought he could stop the Spear of Judgment.

Even if he was the Emperor from the past…

“Haaah…!”

They thought he couldn’t stop it.

“Divine tool…”

“Huh?”

“What?”

“No way!”

That’s what they thought, but.

“Release.”

His future self had chosen to become a monster and used “demonic equipment,” a secret technique that only chosen monsters could use.

In contrast, past Shinwoo.

Shinwoo, who had pursued being “human” to the end, thought of the jet-black skin covering his entire body not as a monster’s but as a human weapon.

That’s how he was able to reach it.

A completely different path from his future self who had become the Emperor of monsters.

A new “human path” where he could grow stronger while still remaining human.

“White Robe.”

It was an angel’s wings.

However, the body using those wings was that of a monster capable of destroying the world.

A truly contradictory awakening.

But because he could be reborn as such a contradictory being.

“Here I go.”

And so Han Shinwoo’s body, leaping up as a jet-black flash, pierced through the world’s largest Spear of Judgment and stepped into space.