Ch.153153. The Final Day

The woman with crimson wings floating in the distant black sky.

Looking at her, Kathy shrugged her shoulders with feigned nonchalance.

“I don’t think introductions are necessary, right?”

Sonia nodded and spread her wings once more.

“I’ll handle Baal. That woman…”

“I’ll figure something out with the kids.”

Snore.

No sooner had she finished speaking than her party members were snoring.

Kathy rolled her eyes awkwardly.

Sonia also stiffened her cheeks as she defended them.

“… They must be tired from recovering.”

Healing only treats wounds, not fatigue.

Especially with injuries severe enough to take a direct missile hit, the damage essentially becomes fatigue, so this happens often.

Unable to wake the party members who couldn’t get up, Kathy chose other companions who still had energy.

“Sigh… at least we have Sunwoo and Sunhwa.”

“Thanks for your help.”

Sonia flew toward Baal.

Meanwhile, Kathy made eye contact with the crimson-winged Saint of Sin and…

“Sigh… this is going to kill me.”

With a deep sigh, she gripped her spear tighter.

***

As she headed toward Baal, Sonia recalled his abilities from their previous encounter.

It wasn’t difficult to understand his powers.

Fire, lightning, and sorcery.

He breathes fire, strikes with lightning, and uses sorcery similar in structure to divine magic.

He keeps opponents at bay with flames, attacks with simultaneously chanted sorcery, and aims for critical hits with lightning.

His tactics were remarkably similar to Sonia’s own—using guns, divine magic, and special ammunition sniping to aim for critical hits.

Because they employed mirror-like tactics, their first battle had been a one-sided exchange of bombardment and interception.

‘I need a variable to defeat Baal.’

At this rate, both sides would continue their attack and defense forever.

That’s why in the second battle, Sonia decided to take a bit of a gamble.

‘First, I need to separate him from the Saint.’

In the worst-case scenario, if the Saint and Baal teamed up to deal with Sonia and then picked off the remaining members one by one, nothing could be worse.

So Sonia began preparing to separate Baal.

*

“Hmm?”

Sonia, who had been flying toward them with momentum, suddenly changed direction.

While Baal was tilting his head, unable to fathom her intention, the Saint’s voice echoed in his mind.

[Child, why do you turn your eyes to another harlot while leaving me? I am the mother of tolerance, but I am also an ever-burning flame.]

“I apologize, Mother. I feared that harlot might harm us.”

[Your faith is weak, child.]

The white woman with six pairs of wings stared at Baal with red eyes.

As her gaze fell upon him, what began as a feeling of tightness gradually spread into chest pain.

“Urgh!”

The white being resembling a goddess looked down at Baal and sent a telepathic message.

[Why do you fear when I am by your side?]

As if responding to her emotions, the dark clouds filling the sky above the city rippled.

As if they would devour Baal at any moment if he answered incorrectly.

Ironically, this rough treatment filled Baal’s heart with joy.

‘She’s real!’

Not some counterfeit briefly detected at the Higgjen Group.

She is the true Saint of Sin.

Baal rejoiced at his successful summoning and implored her:

“Mother of demons, our miracle, you are truly the one who will lead us to paradise. How could I fear any storm?”

[That is sufficient.]

Recognizing the reverence filling his heart, she ceased her questioning.

Afterward, the Saint looked toward the four people Baal had mentioned earlier.

[Are those sheep the ones who persecute my goats?]

“Yes, Mother.”

[Hmm.]

She was silent for a moment, then spoke as if she had made a decision.

[I shall make those children my trumpeters.]

“Mother?”

[A new creation must be preceded by an end. And for an end, the cycle of conquest, war, famine, and death is necessary.]

Her cold gaze turned to Baal.

With the implication that she would execute him on the spot if he objected again.

Baal had some reservations but complied with her words.

Thinking about it, there could be no greater insult than corrupting the goddess’s favorites in such a way, just as she said.

“This unworthy son failed to understand Mother’s profound intentions.”

[It is good that you understand.]

She nodded and stretched her hand forward.

[Now then-]

Just then, a spear shot toward her.

Tok

She caught the spear blade between her fingers, easily blocking it.

And when she gently pushed the spear away with her fingertips, it shot back toward Kathy at the same speed it had arrived.

“Eek!”

Unlike the composed Saint, Kathy barely managed to dodge the spear.

The Saint smiled faintly at Kathy and declared:

[I shall show a miracle by molding sheep into goats. Thus I shall illuminate the truth to them.]

Sunhwa unconsciously frowned at the pure malice hidden beneath the fresh and innocent exterior.

“What a psychopath.”

Sunwoo agreed that he never knew pure malice could be so disgusting.

Sunhwa sighed and readjusted her grip on her spear. Then-

“Try blocking this one too.”

Whoosh!

The spear shot forward at a speed incomparable to before.

This time the Saint blocked the spear blade with her palm instead of her fingers.

At that moment, Sunhwa’s lips curved into a smile.

“Boom-“

Boom!

As if responding to her cue, something flew in and exploded in front of the Saint.

“Mother!”

Baal, who was standing beside her, exclaimed in concern as she disappeared into the explosive smoke.

At that moment, Baal detected a massive projectile flying toward him and turned his head in that direction.

When his superhuman dynamic vision identified the projectile, his mind filled with question marks.

‘A shell??’

Too late to dodge.

Baal twisted his body, intending to sacrifice only his shoulder, trusting his regenerative abilities.

This was clearly a misjudgment.

Boom!

The shell exploded just like the spear that had detonated in front of the Saint.

Flying far away from the Saint due to the impact, Baal looked in the direction the shell had come from.

Not far from where he had been flying, he saw Sonia tossing aside a smoking anti-aircraft gun.

‘What a brute force…’

While Baal was astonished as he flew away from the Saint, Sonia gritted her teeth and spread her wings again.

‘It hurts…’

While Kathy was distracting the Saint and Baal, Sonia had dragged an anti-aircraft gun from a non-functioning military unit and intercepted with a high-explosive shell, which was good.

The problem was that she had to absorb all the gun’s recoil herself.

She is not an artilleryman.

Even though she had moved the gun as close as possible to increase her chances of hitting the target, she wasn’t confident she could hit it with one shot.

So she decided to use a somewhat crude method.

She tried to control the gun’s recoil with her abilities.

The price was her screaming muscles throughout her body.

She regenerated her melting muscles with healing as she flew toward Baal.

When she arrived at the spot where Baal had crashed, he too was half in tatters.

“Humans always exceed expectations.”

Flesh was gathering at the cross-section of his missing left shoulder.

Sonia wanted to completely regenerate her muscle fatigue, but now was the critical moment.

She whipped her protesting muscles and closed the distance with Baal.

‘Long-range combat is meaningless!’

She needed to aim for a short decisive battle while the Saint of Sin was separated from Baal.

So she abandoned her specialty of long-range combat and drew a dagger.

Close combat wasn’t her specialty, but she had a chance against Baal with his missing left arm.

Baal also recognized her approaching instantly and abandoned his chanting to respond with close combat.

Crack!

As Baal’s armless kick collided with hers, both their shins broke.

Having lost mobility, the two entered a standing fight.

Unfortunately, lacking close combat proficiency, she couldn’t easily gain the upper hand even against Baal with only his right arm.

Then, Baal launched a surprise lariat with his left arm, which had regenerated up to the upper arm.

Caught by the unexpected attack, she lost her knife and rolled on the ground.

Baal was confident of victory as he looked at his almost fully regenerated left arm.

That’s when it happened.

Bang!

“!!!”

A large hole appeared in Baal’s side.

It was because she had drawn a modified shotgun and pulled the trigger after recovering with a breakfall.

Though his left hand had regenerated, the hole in his side was even more fatal.

The waist is essential for putting power into punches.

‘I’ve been had.’

Baal was furious.

But Sonia couldn’t exactly rejoice either.

The recoil of the modified shotgun was something she could barely handle with her abilities even when she was in normal condition.

So naturally, the price for pulling the trigger in this physical state was severe.

‘My bone is cracked.’

Through countless battle experiences, she could tell her condition just from the pain.

One shot had cracked it, and it would probably break after a few more trigger pulls.

Nevertheless, she didn’t stop pulling the trigger.

It was a battle of whether her arm would break first or Baal would become a rag.

The winner of that battle was…

“One shot short, girl.”

Baal’s tenacious vitality won.

Baal approached her, dragging his honeycomb-like body.

“I was once called the Sun God. You can be proud of reducing me to this state.”

At that moment, leaving her limp right arm, her left hand pointed toward Baal.

Then came her hoarse voice.

“I still have one shot left.”

In her left hand was a crossbow.

Amon’s crossbow.

“This-“

Thwack!

The crossbow bolt penetrated Baal’s forehead.

No one could know what Baal was trying to say at the end.

The only certain thing was that even Baal couldn’t do anything when his entire body was riddled with holes and his forehead was penetrated.

“Phew…”

Sonia carefully returned the crossbow to her waist and caught her breath.

“I’ll rest a bit and rejoin…”

However, Sonia couldn’t have what could be called a rest.

When she came to her senses, she was already in front of the Saint.

‘!!!!!!’

She instinctively drew the crossbow.

But before she could pull the trigger, the crossbow string broke, and pain shot through Sonia’s heart.

‘What is this…’

Sonia quickly assessed the situation as she collapsed.

‘I was in front of Baal just now…’

Looking closely, the location had changed.

This meant the Saint hadn’t moved to Sonia but had moved Sonia to her.

‘Where are the others?’

Even through the tightening pain in her chest, she searched for the other children.

Eventually, she couldn’t believe the scene unfolding before her eyes.

“Ugh-“

“Cough…”

“Sorry, Sonia…”

Half of Sunwoo, Sunhwa, and Kathy’s bodies were transforming into monstrous beings.

Sunwoo into something like a skeletal knight,

Sunhwa into something like a red witch,

Kathy into something like a black banshee.

However, they were each suppressing their transformation in their own way.

“I am human, damn it.”

Sunwoo suppressed the urge to massacre with the pain of self-disembowelment,

“Sorry, but my sword doesn’t get drawn for reasons like this.”

Sunhwa sealed her scabbard with her hair to suppress the urge for war.

And Kathy was stabbing her thigh with a spear while sweating profusely.

“I… promised Amon.”

Repeatedly denying the sense of chosenness filling her mind.

In this atmosphere, seeing her fingertips turning blue and her mind filled with hellish landscapes, Sonia knew what she had to do.

“The Four Horsemen aren’t meant to be used like this, fake.”

Strictly speaking, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were apostles of the Goddess, not of demons-

“I won’t fall for it.”

Without hesitation, Sonia pointed the arrowhead toward the back of her hand.

The Saint didn’t bother to stop Sonia.

[It’s good to see resistance. It will be an opportunity to gain enlightenment through pain.]

As if she believed without doubt that they would ultimately fall.

But Sonia’s arrowhead didn’t penetrate the back of her hand.

A third party had suddenly appeared and grabbed her wrist.

“Sorry. I thought it was 72 hours, but it was 75.”

With the familiar warm touch and warm voice in her ear, Sonia burst into tears involuntarily.

“You’re late…”

“I’ll make up for it. I’m back-“

“Finish your greetings later.”

“Got it.”

The figure wrapped in tattered robes kissed Sonia’s forehead.

With just that, Sonia collapsed as if exhausted.

After carefully laying her down on the ground, the figure removed his robe.

Kathy expressed her dissatisfaction toward the man who revealed his identity.

“Wow, that’s unfair. Look how you only take care of your legal wife. We’re in this mess. Shouldn’t she get an arrow stuck in her too?”

“S…sorry.”

“It’s fine, just save us too.”

Amon nodded, pulled out Kathy’s spear, and healed her.

Amon stroked the head of the regenerated woman.

“You did well.”

“I really tried, okay?”

Amon nodded and from the half of her that had turned into a black banshee-

Rip!

He tore off the banshee part.

“Phantom of inequality and famine.”

– Kieeek!

Amon declared to the black banshee that had separated from Kathy.

“You are not the mother’s judge.”

With those words, the banshee dissolved in Amon’s divine power.

After restoring Kathy, Amon went through the same process with Sunhwa and Sunwoo.

He regenerated their wounds, tore off the monsters that were transforming them, and declared:

“War is still premature. You are not the prophesied war. Retreat.”

“Victory is not yours. What is prophesied for you is only defeat.”

With declarations that could have been directed at either the curse masses or the Saint, he removed them.

After saving his companions, Amon turned his attention back to the Saint.

“You’re not attacking.”

[The prodigal son who left home-]

“I am not your child, woman of the serpent.”

[…]

“Lilith. No need for introductions, right?”

[Are you Azrael or Amon?]

At those words, Amon’s smile deepened.

As if answering, Amon drew a greatsword from the air and swung it sideways.

“I am the angel announcing your death.”

With those words, the scenery around the two changed.

The Saint, called Lilith, knew this place.

It was where the Ten Commandments tablet that had crushed her head was made,

Where her betraying child was in seclusion,

And-

“Can you hear it? The sound of trumpets and shouts.”

[…]

“I am but a humble trumpeter with a ram’s horn, a blade without will-“

[A child who defies heaven…]

“Under the name of silence, I proclaim.”

[Why do you follow that indifferent goddess?]

Amon ignored Lilith’s words and recited his lines.

“Sefer HaChaim nomen tuum delevit (The Book of Life has erased your name.)”