Ch.319Chapter 319: The Great Confrontation (8)

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The red wave, embodying a slow but certain approaching death, comes toward me.

The movement of flames belonging to such a sluggish flow of time was perceived so slowly.

It seemed as if I could avoid it if I wanted to.

Yet it was a flame that embodied an unavoidable death, impossible to escape by merely stepping back, as it approached while forming a range so vast there was nowhere to hide.

And simultaneously, it was death with a heat that would burn everything in its path without leaving even ashes.

And a death vibrating with the smell of sulfur that would bring dizziness just by inhaling it.

I had prided myself that since donning the Red Dragon Armor and wrapping my body in fighting energy, my body had never been damaged by the heat of flames.

But this time, it seemed I had no means to withstand those flames.

If I were in the vigorous physical condition I had at the beginning of the final battle, I could have clearly calculated how to endure or avoid such flames.

Although the fighting energy dwelling in my body hadn’t weakened, every part of my body, including the smallest extremities, was crying out with fatigue, leaving me with no way to perfectly avoid or block these flames.

If there was one fortunate thing, perhaps it was that despite the ferocious flames that made me think of death incarnate the moment I saw them, I felt I wouldn’t die instantly upon being hit?

I was confident I would avoid death because of my hyper-regenerative ability that would immediately restore my body even when facing flames that would turn me to ash upon contact.

But there was a fatal problem—though I might avoid instant death, I would roll pathetically on the obsidian floor with my strength completely depleted from restoring my body.

And then the future where I would be crushed under the cold-eyed Desire’s extended foreleg was all too clear.

…One way or another, death awaits me.

I tried to click my tongue in regret.

【Kuhahaha!!】

But thanks to Desire, who had already spewed all his flames and burst into a cruel laugh certain of victory, I didn’t even have time to click my tongue.

Seeing that he wouldn’t even give me time to gather my thoughts, I ended up clicking my tongue for a different reason—thinking that after stepping back from being a transcendent being, his already nasty temperament had become even nastier.

Thus, even as flames imbued with power infinitely close to death approached me, what filled my heart wasn’t fear of death.

It was only the bitter regret that I couldn’t cling more tenaciously to Desire to drain his power.

And that I couldn’t contribute to my comrades and loved ones who would arrive here next to end his life.

And that I couldn’t play a significant role in freeing this world from being an experimental laboratory where the same time period repeats infinitely until his twisted ideals are realized.

Grind-!!

Grinding my teeth with regret, I focused on the flames flying toward me.

I was doing this with the slender hope that perhaps, somehow, in this desperate situation, an answer would come to me.

【Give up.】

But seeing Desire’s attitude, which declared my resistance meaningless with a cold, rational rebuke after finishing his bout of laughter.

There seemed to be no way to get through these flames and reach him.

It was quite frustrating that despite seeing it approach so slowly, I couldn’t avoid it.

“Huu….”

Even as I let out a long sigh filled with burning resentment, his flames had not yet reached me.

People who haven’t experienced… going against time repeatedly only to meet the same conclusion would surely go mad seeing this sight.

Just watching the unavoidable flames of death that pronounced certain death approaching so slowly would be enough to break one’s mind.

If the blade of a guillotine that must sever the neck of a condemned prisoner were to descend slowly enough to follow with the eyes.

One would struggle in every way to avoid the blade touching their neck the moment they perceived it.

But upon realizing the cruel reality that their body is already bound and there’s no way to escape no matter what they do, their mind would break even before the blade severed their neck.

Did Desire intentionally create this situation that evokes such helplessness?

【How powerless. Quite some time has passed since my breath was exhaled, yet it still hasn’t reached you who can’t even dodge—must be agonizing for you, isn’t it?】

…I suspected as much, but was it really intentional?

[That’s just like her, what else would you expect.]

Pafnir’s response, whether lamentation or disgust, drove the nail into my suspicion.

While I had entered this final battle prepared for defeat from the beginning, I hadn’t wanted it to end in this form.

[I’ll take responsibility for your life somehow.]

[Don’t be foolish enough to stay still after hearing such arrogant words.]

Even without Pafnir’s urging.

My heart stirred, not wanting to end by playing into the opponent’s intentions.

Even if I were to be defeated and sprawled pathetically.

It was as if commanding me to face the flames flying toward me with dignity before falling.

In this body that had always moved only after fierce struggles between reason and instinct reached agreement, a movement born of immediate consensus without struggle was about to unfold.

Wooong-!!

The firmness of not playing into the opponent’s intentions was transmitted to the dragon sword, transforming into a resonating blade sound.

Hwararuk-!!

The will that started in my heart manifested throughout my body, kindling a subtle flame from the fire in my heart.

Compared to the approaching flames that evoked calamity before my eyes, it was a small and insignificant flame that would seem even more meager than a campfire.

Watch carefully.

“Haaaaa-!!”

From now on, I will show you how the power born from flames forged by human will burns more brilliantly than the calamitous flames raised by a being of incomparable power, overwhelming it.

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Success!!

After briefly struggling against the sword that clung to her more tenaciously than expected.

The elation of victory echoed in Desire’s mind after she had compulsively maintained distance while gathering strength, then exhaled all the accumulated flames in an instant.

She was certain that the sword would either perish in these flames or, if not, completely lose the power to oppose her, so there was no reason not to feel such elation.

Each of Desire’s scales, which could be called armor without exaggeration, displayed a slight trembling from her heightened emotions.

Though she was restraining herself to this extent because nothing was completely certain yet.

The moment the imminent victory was fully confirmed.

Her scales, which had only been repeating faint trembles, would surely quiver.

Although she hadn’t been pleased with the situation since the moment she stepped back from transcendence and returned to her primal body for the first time.

Desire, in this moment when this body had brought her sweet victory, found herself liking this form she had previously considered ugly.

Immersed in the elation of victory, Desire’s eyes caught sight of the massive flames she had spewed steadily advancing toward the sword before her.

The flames moved too slowly to be called a speed due to being trapped in the slow flow of consciousness, but that didn’t matter.

After all, she had predicted they would move this slowly and had spewed flames of such size that they couldn’t be avoided, and the majesty of those flames was magnificent enough to captivate even Desire who had spewed them.

How much more beautiful would these magnificent and beautiful flames become after they had consumed everything they should?

Lick-

Just imagining it sent Desire into ecstasy, and she slightly extended her tongue, licking her lips to manage the desire rising in her heart.

Although the pain of facing an emergency where she had to abandon the vessel containing transcendence after suffering an unexpected blow still stung her.

The pain would naturally heal once she succeeded in her revenge by making the one responsible for her condition experience the humiliation and pain she had suffered.

And after completing her revenge by recapturing the divinity dwelling in the sword’s body, which would be sprawled pathetically before her as a result of those flames.

Once she regained the lost divinity, she would reactivate the wish stone that had always taken her side to turn back time for a more perfect tomorrow.

As always, she would repeat metamorphosis upon metamorphosis to be reborn as a perfect being.

And she would return to the “ideal world” where the farce of the sword continuing its futile resistance and rebellion, always ending in failure, would be repeated to stop her.

It’s a repetition of life and time that will return to the script as always.

Not like the sword that remembered what had happened before and troubled her like an irregular.

But the script that had been passed down as always—where the sword is naturally blocked by her machinations in everything it tries to do, becomes twisted as a result, naturally lives seeking power, ruins everything.

Belatedly regrets and struggles, reaches a conclusion that is neither here nor there.

And she uses the elation felt while watching the sword’s end, turning to ash unable to withstand even the gentlest breeze, to grow herself.

Because she belonged to the world of consciousness flowing slowly.

If she wanted, she could have written the entire script from draft to conclusion instantly in her mind.

Wooong-!!

But the sword’s resonance, which could only be described as heavy, overwhelmed the crackling of the sulfur fire, causing her script to be temporarily halted before completion.

What is this?

As Desire’s gaze, filled with doubt, turned toward the source of the sound.

【…Hmm.】

There, flames were rising so brilliantly that even she was filled with admiration.

They were beautiful.

Even knowing that what remained after those flames were fully kindled would be a fleeting end, those flames displayed a beauty that momentarily captivated Desire’s eyes.

In Desire’s mind, trapped in the world of slowly flowing consciousness, a memory from the past replayed.

The color of the flames that she had emitted from her body when she lived with only the purity of wanting to ascend to great heights was very similar to the color she was seeing now.

It was a memory she suddenly recalled after seeing it again after a long time of forgetting.

The problem was that this wasn’t the time to keep memories as just memories and indulge in nostalgia.

【Kwhaaaa!!】

Having recalled all her memories, Desire exhaled the fiery breath she had been holding without pause.

It’s unclear what whim made her expend more energy that she should have been conserving for the next battle, having already been certain of victory.

【…Why is it beautiful?】

Her muttered words, spoken as if entranced with the remnants of the second exhaled flames still lingering, were trembling enough to reveal.

Unlike herself who had become twisted while pursuing limitless power to the extreme.

Her question, resentment, and anger about why the flames rising from the body of a man who had never achieved what he wanted and always met an end of turning to ash could.

Emit beautiful colors that she could only recall as memories, were evident.

Although it wasn’t a mutter intended to get an answer from the sword that had already been engulfed by those flames.

Shuaaaaa-!!

As her fierce flames failed to reach and engulf the sword as they should have, and instead the sword’s flame, which had seemed like a small campfire, grew in size.

【…Why?】

Desire’s trembling voice grew louder and louder.