Ch.196Ignition (1)

“······What’s going on?”

Meanwhile.

Neria, the vice-commander of Astro, was bewildered.

The darkness that suddenly swept through the entire underground city.

Following that, even the slightest noise had been cut off.

Only pitch blackness and silence rippled around her.

“This is···.”

The girl surveyed her surroundings.

While Judas Snakus and the Sovereign were facing the Dawn Keeper, Neria had been tasked with confronting the specters on the outskirts of the city.

The tense atmosphere from just moments ago, when she had been fighting off waves of enemies, had now sunk into an eerie stillness.

The screams of those who had been awake, the explosive sounds of structures breaking apart, the roars of monsters···.

Everything had disappeared as if it had all been just a dream.

Looking back at the streets, everything was asleep.

“······.”

The Sovereign’s royal guards who had been protecting the remaining survivors.

Those who had been evacuating under their protection.

Even the specters that had been rampaging like dogs in heat.

Once engulfed by the pitch-black fog, they had all lost consciousness.

The nightmare that had sprouted from the seed had finally devoured the kingdom.

Currently, the girl was likely the only person awake in the city.

‘No way.’

Blackout state.

The pitch-black fog filling the underground had put the kingdom to sleep.

The terrible nightmare was dyeing an entire city in darkness.

The reason Neria alone remained unaffected was likely due to her constitution.

A constitution beloved by the stars. A constitution she herself had considered nothing short of a curse.

The starlight she had kept locked deep in her heart seemed to have blocked the nightmare’s approach.

The girl bit her lip gently.

‘Should I be thankful for this?’

A resistance that wouldn’t yield even against disaster-level black magic.

Apart from feeling slightly dazed, Neria had suffered no impact.

The girl calmly rolled her eyes.

‘This black fog… means something has gone wrong with the plan.’

Neria acted calmly.

If the plan had gone awry, the priority was to assess the situation.

She needed to determine just how dire the current circumstances were.

The girl began to walk without hesitation.

Tap-.

Steps taken lightly.

Her leap, with all traces of her presence erased, quickly crossed through the darkness.

Neria illuminated her view with the light she held at her fingertips.

The surrounding scenery was eerily calm.

“······.”

It was quiet.

And peaceful.

The trash that would normally be roaming the streets.

The drug dealers that would line every alley.

The beggars who would lie on the ground with outstretched hands.

All were silenced, pressed down by a deep nightmare.

A world in blackout.

-Disloyalty.

Paradoxically, Neria felt nauseous.

It felt as if nothing existed beside her except for the pitch blackness coloring her vision.

Such silence was one of the nightmares she had experienced to the point of weariness.

The time when she was bound by chains and iron bars.

-Child full of all kinds of malice.

-You were born with the fate of misfortune, so you will surely burn everything around you to white ash.

The old man standing beyond the iron bars.

The prophecy he whispered while looking down at her battered self.

The Sovereign had imprisoned Neria under the pretext of control.

Most of her youth was filled with memories of that place.

Eight years of hell that remained a lifelong shadow.

-Please do not hope for happiness from the outside world.

The cold, narrow, dark, and lonely iron bars.

Suddenly reminded of that time, Neria roughly erased such nightmares from her mind.

Right now, resolving the situation at hand was the priority.

She thought there was no luxury to indulge in personal contemplation.

The girl soon reached the center.

“Master…!”

More precisely, the plaza located at the center.

Originally, this was where Judas Snakus and the Sovereign should have concluded the situation.

However, the scene Neria witnessed at the plaza was completely different from what had been planned.

The seed had already sprouted, and beside it, Judas and the Sovereign lay unconscious.

And between them stood a woman covered in a blood-red veil.

Neria immediately identified the other party’s identity.

‘Is that… the Dawn Keeper?’

An extraordinary atmosphere flowing.

The pitch-black fog swirling around her.

Demonic Energy of such terrible concentration that it distorted the surrounding view.

Blood tears were even flowing down from behind the thin veil covering her.

Even at a glance, she was no ordinary woman.

Neria remained vigilant, gripping her dagger.

“······.”

After maintaining eye contact for a while, the Dawn Keeper soon parted her lips.

As if she had been waiting for Neria.

The woman’s resonance was incredibly bizarre.

“.thgin eht rof gnihcraes neeb evah I”

“······.”

“.emoc sah retsam ruoy ,roloc ykcul eht ees I”

“Target. Entering the Dawn Keeper subjugation mission.”

Neria muttered indifferently.

There was no one to hear, but it was to ease her tension.

In response, the Dawn Keeper let out an explicit sneer.

“!ahaha !ylurt ,lufitip oS”

“······.”

“?epoh ni eveileb llits uoy ,uoy denodnaba sah nevaeh nehw nevE”

“······.”

“.sdnuow ruoy kcil dna evil ot seil llams ot gnulc uoY .ylf ylenol a ekil ,etaf ruoy etipseD”

“······.”

A disturbingly twisted voice.

Neria couldn’t understand even half of what the woman was saying.

However, the role given to her remained unchanged.

To protect her master with all her might.

And to fulfill the failed mission in his stead.

“I won’t delay.”

Click-.

The girl gripped her dagger in reverse.

A burning heat was spreading in her palm.

The blade, heated to scorching, pointed at the Dawn Keeper.

Her silver eyes remained coldly composed.

“Come right in.”

An aura that wouldn’t yield in the slightest.

The woman watching such a star dropped tears as if in pity.

The dew, mixed with blood and Demonic Energy, flowed down her pale cheeks.

Hiss-. The flesh where the tears passed became corroded black.

Her hands, neatly folded together, offered a prayer.

“.sseddoG ,hO .···rats ykcul siht rof noitavlas”

The Dawn Keeper extended her hand.

At its end was a sword forged from nightmares.

The creeping screams became a complete scaffold.

Then, the blood-red woman struck the ground.

Thud-.

With a flickering afterimage, the distance closed.

The girl’s dagger and the woman’s nightmare collided.

A deep explosive sound rang out.

“.dlihc ,uoy pots lliw I”

“I’ll have to decline.”

Clang-!

In a city where everything was asleep.

There, a star’s resistance had begun.

***

Neria was a rational person.

To be more precise, she was someone who always tried to be rational.

It was advantageous for leading a group.

But even she had moments when she wavered.

‘Master.’

None other than Judas Snakus.

Matters related to her master.

Perhaps due to her clumsy feelings, or perhaps love.

Neria became hasty whenever she was involved with the boy.

This time was no exception.

“Haa, haa···.”

Slash-!

The pitch-black blade rushed fiercely.

Neria narrowly avoided it by turning her head.

Her labored breath lingered like mist over the blade.

The girl was wavering.

‘She’s strong.’

Neria clutched her deeply cut right arm.

Her breathing had also noticeably quickened.

The silver-haired girl rolled her eyes.

‘Master.’

Her gaze naturally turned to the back.

Judas Snakus, lying unconscious.

Perhaps it was because of seeing her master’s helpless appearance for the first time.

Neria had been left with a psychological shock, whether she realized it or not.

That was the reason behind her increasingly disheveled posture.

The girl clicked her tongue.

“Tsk···.”

Her brow furrowed delicately.

Before her stood the blood-red woman.

With the girl’s blood on the elegantly extended tip of her sword.

Unlike the somewhat disheveled Neria, not even a scratch marred the woman’s body.

The sword hadn’t reached her.

‘My attacks aren’t working.’

The Dawn Keeper was currently under an invincibility status.

Despite launching several attacks, Neria hadn’t managed to land a single effective hit.

Meanwhile, cuts from the nightmare were accumulating on her own body.

The Dawn Keeper was still looking down at the girl from behind her veil.

An infinitely relaxed expression.

“.lufitip oS”

Nightmares coiled around them.

“.emas eht llits tuB .thgil tnaidar kaew a neve yb detcennoc ton era uoY”

There was no exaggeration in the woman’s assessment.

Even from an objective viewpoint, Neria was holding up well.

Normally, with the Dawn Keeper’s pattern, just one small bio-attack from her would have plunged Neria into an eternal nightmare.

This was why it was impossible to defeat the Dawn Keeper in Phase 3.

Along with her near-invincible status, she also possessed an unfair passive ability.

It was called a status ailment infliction, but in reality, all of the woman’s attacks were essentially instant-kill moves.

Neria was merely blocking the nightmare based on her latent starlight.

Thanks to that, she could put up a fight even against the awakened Dawn Keeper.

But-.

“Kuh···!”

That was the extent of it.

Not dying, barely holding on.

Corrosion was progressing from the cuts all over her body.

The dense nightmare seemed ready to devour Neria at any moment.

Hallucinations covered her vision with each passing moment.

-Disloyalty.

-Please do not hope for happiness from the outside world.

The nightmare couldn’t put Neria to sleep.

But it occasionally showed her terrible hallucinations.

However, even that was enough of a burden from Neria’s perspective.

It felt like poking at festering wounds with an awl.

The girl swung her dagger with her teeth clenched.

The more she did, the clearer the scenes from the past became.

-Your fate is truly pitiful.

-Blessed by the stars… no, cursed.

-Your light will become a fire demon. It will burn those you love, and eventually the world.

-That’s also why I imprisoned you. To protect what’s mine.

-Child, please do not hope for happiness from the outside world.

-Even if you struggle, you cannot change your innate fate.

The old man’s voice flickered.

Instead of the Dawn Keeper, the Sovereign stood before Neria.

His frozen gaze pierced the girl’s heart.

The aged lips murmured as if in sympathy.

-Therefore.

-Die as the light that burns people.

It was exactly as she remembered.

Neria’s breath faltered momentarily as she swung her dagger.

And the price for that brief moment was heavy.

A sudden slash grazed the girl’s face.

Slash-!

“Ugh···!”

A flashing vision.

Then, she clutched her eye with a burning pain.

Due to her disheveled posture, her right eye had been hit.

Neria hurriedly cauterized the wound area with light.

An act to stop the bleeding and corrosion.

Hiss-!

“Ugh, haa···!”

Of course, there was an intense burning sensation.

And she had no choice but to give up her right field of vision.

The girl gripped her sword while gathering her consciousness.

Her vision still blurred.

“······Damn it.”

The woman still stood before her.

Still aiming her pitch-black sword, without a trace of fatigue.

Neria realized.

‘Perhaps…’

This place might become her grave.