Ch.78Chapter 78. Thank you for Acting as Expected.

“Cough……”

When I regained consciousness, I was coughing up blood.

Despite trying to move my body, my collapsed form only trembled, showing no signs of being able to stand up.

This was the expected outcome. Even though I had resolved to die for my mission, until now I had always avoided dangers aimed at me through my power to foresee the future.

No matter how prepared I was to endure pain, when the body instinctively goes numb from that pain, willpower alone can’t overcome it.

“Is it over already?”

Toward her, step by step. The demon of madness entered the ruined building where the wall had collapsed.

Even in this moment, in those flashing eyes, I couldn’t find any mercy directed at me.

“Please resist more. After challenging me so confidently, ending like this is too boring!”

“Keh, hnngh!”

The moment my airway was squeezed by her grip as I tried to cough up the blood rising in my throat.

My body convulsed in agony, but that wasn’t enough to escape the demon’s power.

Even as a demigod, I was merely human apart from my prophetic abilities, while she was a Demon Tribe member who awakened power according to her desires, weak as she might be.

Given the fundamental difference in our natures, if it came to a direct contest of strength, the outcome was all but predetermined.

‘No, not yet… She’s being careless.’

Nevertheless, Irie didn’t give up.

The Demon Tribe are uniformly arrogant, and thus tend to be leisurely when dealing with those they perceive as weak.

As a race that derives pleasure from mocking and trampling such people, she wouldn’t kill me right away.

‘If I can just stall for a little time…’

Irie barely managed to move her eyes while being held by the neck.

The crystal ball rolling nearby had been losing its light since the moment it fell from her hand.

It wasn’t that its power was disappearing.

Rather, it was redirecting even the power being released externally back inward, preparing to activate the mechanism she had set up earlier.

“Now what should I do? If I kill you now, Hyoseong would be sad…”

I need to stall until that mechanism activates.

Using this moment when the opponent is careless, until the device set in the crystal ball activates.

“…Why don’t you just give up on Hyoseong?”

For that purpose, I had to endure anything.

The demon, believing herself to be in a superior position, lifted my neck high and began to speak in a whisper.

“Give up…?”

“You can’t make Hyoseong happy anyway.”

She could break my neck at any moment.

Nevertheless, Merilyn loosened her grip on my neck, even making the constriction more relaxed.

“As a prophet, you must have already realized this world has no hope, so why do you keep letting him walk toward danger?”

After all, she believed I had no chance of defeating her anymore.

Now that she knew her prophecies didn’t work on her, she was confident she could repel any attack even if I lunged at her.

“Could it be that you’re trying to raise him as a savior? In a world full of dangers far worse than me, that person who is weaker than you?”

But if I intended to put her love in danger with such limited power, she couldn’t let that slide.

He was a treasure that didn’t exist more than twice in this world, and treasures should be used valuably while they remain.

He was too precious to her to let him be swayed by a world destined to collapse anyway.

“…Leaving his side.”

Feeling those values collide, Irie grabbed the wrist of the hand holding her neck and painfully spat out words.

“Is that all you want?”

“Yes, leave his side and promise never to appear again, and I’ll spare your life. I don’t want to see him sad either…”

“Pfft!”

Her words were cut off by a faint laugh.

Even though she was on the verge of losing her breath, responding with mockery rather than begging for her life was incomprehensible by common sense.

“…What’s so funny?”

“Isn’t it… funny? Believing that… if I disappear… he will be… completely yours… it looks so… pitiful…”

Despite her broken body and precarious condition, Irie didn’t stop performing her mockery.

“…What are you saying.”

The demon of madness, taking her words at face value, tried to dismiss them casually.

“Well, he’s someone even I fell for, so there must be many women after him. But that’s fine. Whoever comes, I’ll just drive them away. In the end, I’ll be the one standing by his side at the end…”

“I was his first.”

What a terrible misunderstanding.

What I’m bringing up now is not about determination, but teaching her that the outcome has already been decided.

“You may be… his last… but I was… his first. Even if… the future can change… the past… cannot.”

“What…?”

“Whatever you do… with him from now on… it will be compared… to what he did with me first. Just like… when you had dinner with him today.”

A tremor ran through the hand gripping my neck.

That itself meant the opponent was taking my words sensitively.

Irie, who had vaguely foreseen her future actions, continued her provocation with a confident smile.

“When you had dinner with Hyoseong, you must have wondered: Did he do this with her? Did he do even more with her?”

“Don’t provoke me. No matter what you say, the result will…!!”

“Yes, as the winner, you’ll have to be prepared to monopolize him.”

Twisting her wrist in reverse and thrusting her face forward as if daring her to squeeze harder, Irie Haven.

In her eyes, which disturbed the madness, an even stronger obsession was visible.

“When the person you cherish thinks of someone else before you, and compares every memory they share with you to the love they shared with someone before…”

Even if you believe your feelings are pure, the one you have feelings for won’t be able to return that purity.

What happened has happened.

And that won’t change no matter what happens in the future.

“Can you… easily… brush that aside? Was your love… so light that you could… dismiss such things as trivial?”

Such overlooked facts would, in this moment, become a wedge that creates cracks in her heart.

The best wedge to provoke this detestable woman who dared to target the one she loved.

“Light? What do you know to say such…”

“Coming from someone who already betrayed her master.”

The moment that stung like a bee sting, her breath cut off with a snap.

In that brief silence, Irie, confident in her foresight of the changing future, delivered the final decisive blow.

“Yes, you’ve already betrayed. The person you cared for most.”

“…Shut up.”

“In the end, even you who admires human love can’t overcome your nature. A loose woman who discards men like worn-out shoes…!!”

-CRASH!!!

My body was thrown with full force.

Despite being able to twist and break my neck, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

“Shut your mouth!! What do you know?!”

Even though she rationally knew it was certain, she felt anger rising to the point where she couldn’t control it.

“Do you even know what it feels like to continue a life that would be better off ended?! Do you understand the feeling of chasing something hopeless only to realize there was never an answer to begin with?!”

Even in this moment, such pain continued to surface, and she sought to alleviate it through her obsession with him.

For a demon living mad with desire, that desire is the driving force of life, and unfulfilled desire is simultaneously a curse.

Casually defining her feelings toward the one who liberated her from the shackles of desire was a terrible insult to herself, who had considered it salvation.

-Crackle!

So she had to tear apart and kill the one who insulted it right here.

As she took a step forward for that purpose, the crystal ball lying beside her began to gradually emit light.

“…No, I don’t know everything. A being like you who defies expectations… probably doesn’t exist more than twice in this world.”

The moment the device she had set up in advance activated.

The moment she felt danger from it, she looked at her opponent reflected in the crystal ball and sincerely expressed her true feelings.

“But I’m grateful that one thing went as expected.”

“Unlike a demon, your feelings for him were genuine.”

-BOOM!!

The crystal ball shattered in the magical explosion that finally occurred.

But this attack doesn’t just end with an explosion.

At the moment the magical power spreads and bursts, using the scattered crystal fragments as a medium, it instantly freezes the surroundings like ice, a technique that includes “binding.”

“Why…”

As full power was exerted from the bound body, the crystal binding her body soon shattered with a “crash” sound.

“Why are you interfering with me?”

Though her body was tattered with crystal fragments embedded all over, the demon didn’t stop tracking her opponent’s blood trail.

Because she had been restrained for too long. If left alone, she would try to interfere again with some trick.

“Just when I thought I could finally achieve what I wanted, why…”

She just wants to be happy.

She wanted to dream of a new future gained in exchange for giving up on being rewarded for all her efforts so far.

Is it really wrong to have such a modest hope?

Is it because she had hope for both her master and him that she had to suffer so much?

“…Here.”

The place she arrived at after such obsession was an abandoned house.

The place where she had laid his body on a neglected bed.

“Hyoseong…”

He was gone.

Taking advantage of her restraint, she had taken him away from this place first.

“Hyoseong, Hyoseong!!”

No sooner had she realized this than her barely maintained reason evaporated, and she focused solely on tracking his traces.

Repeating over and over that she would abandon everything to reclaim him in her hands.

“Hyoseong, please…”

At the end of it, resentment toward the world arose, and began to echo through the streets mixed with her sobbing.

Why did she have to meet him in such a crumbling world?

Despite risking her life to settle old relationships and return, why was there someone who filled that brief gap?

“Don’t abandon me, I, I…”

If it weren’t for that, she could have been happier.

Having lived in emptiness until now, she could have been satisfied with the simple time spent with him for a lifetime.

Thud!

Her footsteps taken to achieve such simplicity suddenly stopped, and her gaze turned upward.

Something was falling from the sky.

Something massive was flying toward this place at high speed, with a mass incomparable to anything before.

“From the beginning…”

By the time she predicted it would crash into the center of the path she had entered, she noticed a woman standing on the opposite side of the street.

Though her body was so precarious she could barely walk, in her arms was the man she so desperately longed for.

“I had prepared this before the fight even began.”

Everything was according to plan.

What was about to fall on this street was the final measure she had laid to shake off pursuit if she succeeded in rescuing him.

A meteor dropped from the highest point her magic could reach.

Though small in size, if it hit the ground, it would have enough power to devastate the impact site.

“This time, I wouldn’t try to take it head-on. If you’re hit, even you won’t survive…”

Drop this destructive strike here, and escape in the commotion caused by it.

Even if she couldn’t finish her off, the surrounding collapse would block the path, buying enough time to escape.

She might come after her again later, but that too could be planned for and blocked more carefully.

“…Don’t go.”

But as if to overturn such expectations.

The demon was trying to move toward this place despite her tattered footsteps.

“What are you…!”

“No, please…”

“Are you crazy?! If you come here, you’ll…!”

There was no hesitation in those footsteps.

Even though the meteor would fall in seconds and turn this place into a wasteland.

“Not him, at least…”

Unable even to think of planning for the future.

Feeling her reason being buried by the impulse to prevent the object of her longing from leaving before her eyes.

-CRASH!!!!

But whether intended or by mistake, fate was decided.

The meteor that broke through the atmosphere struck her head, and its impact not only created a crater but also collapsed the surrounding buildings, which came crashing down.