Ch.183The Final Awakening

“Cough!”

Blood gushed from Christine’s mouth as a monster struck her in the abdomen. Before the blood could even hit the ground, the black blood monsters rushed in greedily and devoured it.

They seemed far from satisfied, baring their teeth and fighting among themselves. They went as far as eating their comrades’ limbs and ripping off heads to drink the spurting blood.

Taking advantage of the brief moment of infighting among the monsters, Christine summoned her holy power. She concentrated it into her fist and struck the neck of the nearest monster.

A loud, dull “KWANG!” sound echoed, too massive to believe it was merely a fist hitting flesh.

Yet, the black blood monster somehow endured the attack.

Though it let out painful groans—”kruk, kruruk”—and staggered backward from the impact, it ultimately withstood the blow without its upper body bursting.

As Christine attempted to follow up with another attack, she sensed something eerie behind her and quickly threw herself sideways. Clawed hands slashed through the space where she had just been.

She grabbed a monster where she landed, tore its upper body in half, and threw the pieces to either side. The legless torso and bodiless legs flailed and rolled on the ground.

This was a routine she had repeated for an unbearably long time. She had torn, burst, and killed so many of these black blood monsters that she could no longer remember the count.

Including those she had dissolved with holy power, she must have killed at least a million. But numbers were meaningless data fragments in this black space—mere estimates.

After killing three more monsters, Christine looked around. The monsters, now much more violent and ferocious than when she first encountered them, were filling the empty spaces and swarming toward her.

It had been manageable when she first cleared out the black blood monsters with holy power and exchanged blows directly with that heretic. It was still fine when the heretic summoned new black blood monsters.

It remained fine until Christine annihilated them all. Even when new black blood monsters poured in immediately after she exterminated them, it was still manageable.

After that, things weren’t fine anymore.

As if adapting with each passing moment, the monsters’ resistance to holy power clearly increased the more Christine killed them and the more new ones were created.

The black blood monsters that once dissolved by the hundreds with just a brush of Christine’s arm now often endured even direct punches, charging forward with surprising resilience.

At some point, Christine couldn’t even approach Olivia anymore. She was too preoccupied with dealing with the black blood monsters to have any opportunity.

Olivia hovered above, flapping her two pairs of demonic wings, watching Christine with leisure. Her expression exuded confidence.

That leisurely appearance itself was a trap. If Christine, enraged by the sight, charged forward, a tower of black blood monsters would immediately form in her path.

Christine’s strength remained almost unchanged since she first entered, but the problem was how quickly Olivia’s summoned monsters adapted to holy power.

The reason was that Olivia was simultaneously facing Christine, Charlotte, and Serena, but Christine had no way of knowing this.

Nor did she know that the monsters’ rapid adaptation to holy power was possible because Olivia had applied Serena’s “concept-cutting technique.”

“Keu, urgh?!”

Christine gritted her teeth as she felt a pain like hot iron searing her flesh. Turning her head, she saw a black blood monster’s teeth embedded in her left shoulder, its jaws engulfing her entire arm.

Before she could respond, the creature spun its body. Her shoulder joint made a cracking sound as it twisted three full rotations. Her skin twisted with it, and sensation in her arm dulled.

By the fourth rotation, her shoulder joint was completely shattered. Despite trying to endure the pain and summon holy power for an explosion, her efforts were futile as the monster spun a fifth time.

With a snap, her arm detached from her shoulder.

Hundreds of monsters rushed toward the one that had bitten off Christine’s arm. They fought, quarreled, and killed each other in a life-or-death struggle to get even a single bite of the severed shoulder.

Christine exploded holy power around her body to create distance from the monsters, then attempted to regenerate her torn shoulder. Limbs being torn off were injuries she was already accustomed to.

Then, feeling an intense pain from her arm, she vomited blood again.

She quickly examined the wound. Black mana was invading the torn area, interfering with her holy power’s healing effect.

Christine hastily clenched her fist and tore away chunks of flesh infected with black mana. It was useless. The black mana remained attached to the wound, refusing to let go.

Olivia cackled from the air, mocking Christine.

“Did you think you could tear it off? Are all you god-believers this stupid? So ignorant you don’t even know what’s eating your body?”

“Shut… your mouth.”

Christine clenched her remaining fist, staggering. With her left arm torn off, her center of gravity felt awkward, and burning pain surged from her shoulder, but that was fine.

The fact that her God was still alive.

That alone was reason enough to fight.

“Go on. Kill her. Whoever kills her first gets to fuck me first.”

At Olivia’s words, the monsters surrounding Christine charged with unprecedented ferocity.

—CHANG!

With a sharp, piercing sound, Serena’s body was thrown far backward. Unable to land properly, she tumbled across the ground.

After rolling quite a distance, she finally managed to stop by digging the tip of Wind Shear into the floor for traction. Blood seeped from her palms, scraped raw by the friction.

As she staggered to rise, one leg suddenly gave out, buckling at the knee. It was a small mercy that she could support herself with her sword, avoiding the disaster of falling face-first.

“…Still not enough.”

Serena muttered, spitting blood onto the floor. Her mouth tasted metallic. Judging by the blood clots rising in her throat, some internal organ must be damaged.

She had allowed too many effective hits, and couldn’t even remember when she’d been injured. Though Serena had inflicted some damage on her opponent, the woman had healed all her wounds, leaving Serena at a disadvantage.

Olivia approached Serena with calm steps.

“Oh? You’re kneeling? Are you pledging loyalty to me? But what should I do? I don’t need someone like you. I only need my master.”

Hearing Olivia’s mocking voice from a distance, Serena gritted her teeth and rose to her feet.

Her fighting spirit remained as fierce as before. She hadn’t lost her will to fight, and her two blue eyes still burned with determination to defeat her enemy.

But Serena’s body couldn’t match her spirit.

Blood leaked from countless cuts all over her body, and her legs trembled slightly. The fact that her knee had buckled once was evidence that her stamina was beginning to bottom out.

The fingers gripping Wind Shear were also trembling faintly. This wasn’t a matter of will but of physical limitation. Her grip had clearly weakened, and the results were immediately apparent.

Serena pointed Wind Shear at Olivia and charged. As she did, she became aware of her body’s condition. Her charging speed was noticeably slower than before.

Wind Shear flashed in the air. The sword was swung dozens of times, but there was only a single flash. This was the result of dozens of slashes passing through a single instant.

Olivia didn’t dodge the attack. She didn’t counter it either. With an expression of utter arrogance, she simply took the hit while staring at Serena.

The attack landed precisely. Olivia’s wrist was cut, her elbow was cut, her shoulder was cut. Ankle, knee, thigh, and finally her neck—all collapsed into dozens of pieces of meat.

And that was the end of it.

The chunks of flesh created by Wind Shear’s slashes rose into the air as if “time were rewinding,” returning to their original form.

It took barely a second for Olivia’s body to restore itself. After regenerating, Olivia tilted her head, holding her greatsword.

“Is that all?”

“…”

This was the biggest reason Serena had been unable to defeat Olivia so far.

No matter what attacks she unleashed, even cutting the very concept of recovery itself was useless against this ability.

Because this was exactly the same ability as her lord possessed. Olivia had said so herself, and Serena instinctively understood it.

Since Serena couldn’t fulfill her lord’s wish, she couldn’t defeat Olivia either.

“Then it’s my turn?”

With those words, Olivia swung her greatsword. It wasn’t a fast or threatening attack—more like she just lazily waved the greatsword in place.

“Kuk?!”

But Serena couldn’t block the attack.

It was an attack that utilized Charlotte’s “timeline,” and since Serena couldn’t read timelines, she naturally couldn’t defend against attacks coming from the past.

Her right heel was completely severed. It was a critical hit. Strength instantly drained from her right leg. Serena staggered and used Wind Shear to prevent herself from losing balance.

It was a pathetically unsightly posture. Serena inwardly mocked herself.

“Get up, hmm? You tried to take my master away from me. You tried to steal my master from me! So you should get up! Hmm? Hmm? Oh, right. You can’t. Because I cut you, you can’t. Yes. I guess I asked too much. It was too difficult a request for a moron like you, right? Right?”

Hearing Olivia’s mockery, Serena gritted her teeth and infused mana into her body to enhance her natural recovery, but it was futile.

No matter how much her natural recovery increased, severed tendons wouldn’t return.

Healing magic? She could use it. But she only knew the most basic concepts and could only heal minor scratches. Serena had never even considered learning magic properly.

She didn’t want to step into Charlotte’s field. Charlotte felt the same way and never bothered to learn swordsmanship.

Serena forced her powerless leg to stand and assumed a stance. As if mocking her effort, a stinging sensation swept across her left arm.

Strength drained from her left arm, leaving it dangling uselessly. She couldn’t even move a finger. A moment later, the pain of completely shattered muscles washed over her.

“What should I cut next? An arm? A leg? Or should I pluck out one of your eyes?”

Olivia wasn’t even bothering to take a fighting stance anymore.

She needed to attack. She needed to kill that thing. But her body simply wouldn’t move as she wanted. Just using Wind Shear as a support to avoid collapsing face-first on the ground was her limit.

“If you don’t want to answer, I’ll decide. Yes, I’ll cut you bit by bit, starting with your fingertips. I absolutely, absolutely won’t kill you. Because you tried to come between my master and me. Because you dared to covet my master.”

Olivia raised her greatsword.

“Rain down.”

At the end of Charlotte’s incantation, a rain of mana pierced downward. Massive explosions erupted wherever the raindrops met the metallic surface.

Olivia snorted and dismantled the spell. The blue mana, losing its focal point, was devoured by black mana and disappeared in mid-air.

Charlotte bit her lip. Her blood-red dragon eyes moved rapidly, assessing the situation.

The black mana that had consumed nearly all the surrounding space left barely ten meters of distance between itself and Charlotte. Everything visible was black magic and black mana.

For now, the blue mana barrier Charlotte had deployed was preventing complete invasion, but considering the mana consumed to maintain the barrier, she had perhaps ten minutes left at most.

Twitch—Charlotte’s left eye caught something. She clenched her fist. Blue mana glowed and split into thousands of pieces, each disappearing into different timelines.

Within the twisted time, blue and black mana collided, devouring each other. Charlotte countered all of Olivia’s attacks—except for one, a single timeline.

It was a moment when Charlotte’s response was slightly delayed.

“…!”

Her right arm made a terrible cracking sound as it broke. It was because she had failed to block magic in a past timeline. Since the past had changed, the present changed accordingly.

Blood flowed, but she felt nothing in her arm except pain. It was like having a piece of meat dangling from her shoulder.

That was the nature of the battle between them. Not just a fight focused on the present, but one where even the past had to be considered.

She didn’t use healing magic. Black mana was invading her right arm, so healing magic would be ineffective. Even if she cut off the arm and tried to create a new one, it would be the same.

The black mana would already be eating away at the newly grown arm.

“Is it hard? Does it hurt? My heart hurt much more. My heart, forced to be separated from my master, hurt and suffered much more. Compared to the pain I’m experiencing now, that’s nothing.”

“Shut your mouth.”

Charlotte drew up more mana. It was approaching the time to prepare for mana exhaustion.

Mana potions were useless. She would need to drink a thousand non-stop to extend the maintenance time of her magic barrier by perhaps one second, so efficiency-wise, it was better not to drink them at all.

Besides, attacks using mana that could be recovered with mere potions wouldn’t work on that madwoman anyway.

“A monster like you claims to love my husband? Stop spouting nonsense.”

Monster. That was Charlotte’s term for Olivia. In Charlotte’s view, she was a creature worthy of being called a monster.

Because she had completely destroyed her own timeline.

That monster had no past, no present, and no future. Only this moment, only the Olivia standing before her right now was all that existed in time.

Everything in this world leaves a past in elapsed time. Even Charlotte herself had once summoned her past self when she first saw timelines with the Dragon’s Eye.

But that monster was different. She was exactly the same entity 10 years ago, 100 years ago, 1000 years ago as the Olivia of this moment.

And 10 years later, 100 years later, 1000 years later, she would be exactly the same entity as the Olivia of this moment.

Because that monster had personally killed all of Olivia’s timelines. She had killed both her past self and her future self with her own hands.

That was why Charlotte couldn’t read her timeline. Even with the Dragon’s Eye, she couldn’t see what didn’t exist.

The reason for such an act? Obviously jealousy. Charlotte was certain of it.

Out of jealousy for the traces left by her past self and the traces her future self would leave, she had killed everything except the present.

“Nonsense?”

Olivia took a step forward. The black mana pounding against the blue barrier became more violent. It crossed timelines randomly, crashing forward without regard for its own form.

“—!!!!!!”

Crack—part of the mana barrier that could no longer withstand the impact developed a fracture. The cause was momentarily forgetting that her right arm was damaged while using the Dragon’s Eye to see timelines and block the black mana.

With her damaged right arm, she couldn’t reinforce the barrier in time, so the aftermath was inevitable.

In the brief moment it took Charlotte to realize her mistake, the fracture had already grown uncontrollably large. Black mana slithered past the barrier and crept inside.

A stream of blood flowed from her mouth. The burden on her body had increased dramatically.

“Did you think you had the right to say such things?”

Olivia mocked Charlotte. Before Charlotte could draw a new defensive magic circle, black mana rushed in through the fracture.

It was at that exact moment.

That the three souls pulsed faintly.