Ch.88Chapter 88 – Because It’s a Happy Ending (3)

I couldn’t believe the scene unfolding before my eyes.

“Your wounds are severe. I never thought my other self’s master would be such a weak man.”

Unlike the current Bi-wol who addressed me with respectful speech, the one standing here now spoke with formal diction.

Since Kang Si-woo’s smartphone served as a gateway connecting different worlds to reality, this situation occurred when I became its user.

‘…Is this her appearance right before the final battle with Kim Hyul in the original work?’

Even through my pain, I couldn’t help but smile as I looked at Bi-wol. The ending that the author never wrote was unfolding right here.

Though she resembled the Star of Heavenly Murder I’d met in Bi-wol’s mental world, her speech and behavior were like a cold, sharply honed blade.

She seemed different from the inner being who would easily get excited, run wild, and fire martial arts at us.

“…Bi, Bi-wol.”

“So you really don’t call me Heavenly Demon. I wonder why my other self from another world formed a connection with such a man.”

Even as I bled, I spoke the Heavenly Demon’s real name. After all, I was the one who had restored what would have been erased from the world.

She gave a bitter smile hearing my words. There was someone who remembered her past that she thought she had completely abandoned in her life.

“You look unsightly. Get up and take your stance. If you were truly my master, you wouldn’t struggle with an enemy like this.”

Gulp—

As Heavenly Demon Bi-wol said this, she pushed the 10,000-Year Ultimate Blood Treasure into my mouth, forcing me to swallow it by moving my Adam’s apple.

Normally, without proper energy circulation or special methods, this inner elixir could have burned my body with its tremendous yang energy.

“Excuse me for a moment. Bing-yeon.”

“I hate troublesome things, but this guy truly isn’t marked as evil…”

“I never dreamed there would come a day when I’d have to use my holy power from when I was a Saintess.”

The three placed their palms over my lower abdomen, my dantian, spreading different energies to suppress the elixir’s effects and regulate my energy flow.

Normally, I would have died burning or experiencing the seven-orifice bleeding death, with blood pouring from every opening in my body.

“Hold onto your consciousness as much as possible. All we can do is reduce the pain and regulate your energy. We can’t eliminate the elixir spreading through your body.”

Heavenly Demon Bi-wol wore a small smile as she watched me gritting my teeth and enduring the pain.

Thump, thump.

My heart was beating like it might burst. I could vividly feel my blood flow reversing, driving out the cold and opening my blocked meridians.

“To sustain such injuries even while wearing the Hero’s Holy Sword and Holy Armor… gods truly are gods after all…”

Verdandi Astraia, wearing pitch-black armor and carrying a blood-stained holy sword on her back, sighed as she observed my condition.

She was originally chosen as the Hero, destined to kill monsters and demons before finally defeating the Demon King.

She was the fallen hero I had imagined—Verdandi who, after killing the Demon King, realized the world was still filled with evil people and went around killing all living beings.

“You’re… not going to kill me?”

I asked with a questioning voice as I looked at this Verdandi from another world line. Originally, she was a character who chose suicide after killing Sieg-hardt and her own mother in the final battle.

“I tried to hang myself, and after wandering through hell-like places, I saw a light and arrived here.”

Verdandi began speaking to me with a bitter look. She said she thought her destination after killing countless lives would be a purgatory-like hell.

But,

“If I had met someone like you, things would have been different—I’ve seen that with my own eyes.”

Verdandi turned her gaze away, speaking as if she could see through to her other self beyond this space. Her “Eyes that Know Truth” was an ability that grew in this way.

Verdandi tried to smile, attempting to show her usual positive and bright self by lifting the corners of her mouth, but she couldn’t quite manage it.

“……”

For her sake, I barely moved my trembling hand to lift the corners of her mouth with my fingers.

It seemed too sad for Verdandi, who was always beautiful with her smile, to be unable to smile.

“…You truly are a kind person. I wonder if this is how it would have felt to have a father.”

Seeing this, Verdandi grabbed my hand and brushed it against her cheek, savoring the warmth.

“Aren’t you indulging your personal desires too much? I could recreate this world with a single gesture anyway.”

At that moment, another movement knocked away Verdandi’s hand.

A woman wearing a black veil covering her entire face, with a beautiful appearance like a giant butterfly.

Her appearance was closer to a succubus than a saintess, and her rainbow-colored eyes and fangs were captivating, shaking my reason.

“Hmm, my charm doesn’t work on you. This is the first time I’ve met such a man…”

Though her appearance was quite different, she was definitely the Azazel I knew. Originally, she would reveal her identity as Gabriel’s twin sister and become the final boss of the original work.

“Besides, I can’t see your future. This means…”

“…The path I’m creating now is your future.”

I preemptively spoke what Azazel was about to say. There was only one case where her future prediction wouldn’t work.

‘I can’t die pathetically in front of my disciples…’

Grind.

Grinding my molars, I closed my eyes and began circulating my energy, determined not to die from the side effects of the 10,000-Year Ultimate Blood Treasure here and now.

My body had just recovered enough to move again. To defeat Yog-Sothoth here, I couldn’t rely solely on their help.

‘I have no choice but to try that. Thanks to the elixir and my disciples’ help, my inner power is already sufficient.’

Right now, I had Bi-wol’s inner power and the energies from other worlds that my three disciples had shared with me.

‘…What I need is enlightenment alone.’

I needed to transcend the barrier of the Transformation Realm and Transcendence Realm to reach a new state.

“Can you buy me some time?”

I asked the final bosses from the original work to hold off Yog-Sothoth for a while. Each of them possessed abilities greater than they currently had, with powers strong enough to destroy an entire world.

“It seems you have a plan. Very well, I shall place my trust in you.”

“Of course. That’s why I came here.”

“Please act according to your will, brother.”

The women who had become my disciples in this world nodded readily and began charging at the mass of purple foam.

The Heavenly Demon’s Sovereign Step that could flip heaven and earth and temporarily distort space-time.

The Hero’s Holy Sword and Holy Armor that drive away evil and provide absolute attack and defense to the user.

The Saintess’s tentacles that read all incoming attacks using future prediction and create new worlds.

Together, they could certainly—

“…Your head is held high. Originally, two suns cannot exist under the same sky.”

Slash—! The sword strike wielded by Heavenly Demon Bi-wol appeared heavier and sharper than anything. Yog-Sothoth’s foam mass immediately began to burst as if crushed.

“I will annihilate evil. That is the justice I believe in…!”

Verdandi quickly thrust in her sword strikes to prevent it from regenerating, and dozens, hundreds of sword strikes bloomed like flowers, cutting the opponent to pieces.

“You? Mere insects who couldn’t even protect your own worlds and instead destroyed them…?”

Then, as if finding it absurd, a cold voice spat out as massive arms and legs formed to immediately strike them down.

CRASH—!

Similar to what happened to me, the final bosses from the original work were embedded into invisible walls and fell. No matter how strong their martial might, their opponent was a god from outer space—it seemed impossible for such dull blades to reach his neck.

“Are you going to fall here? That’s no fun at all.”

At that moment, the voice of the calmest woman was heard.

With a snap of her fingers, Azazel turned back the world line, restoring Bi-wol and Verdandi to their uninjured state.

Azazel’s ability not only included future prediction but also rewinding time and space to create something closest to her desired parallel universe.

“…I’ll buy you enough time, so please show us something impressive, brother.”

Azazel from the original work, known as the Whore of Babylon, looked at me with something like longing in her eyes.

“Yes. Of course.”

Within the given time, I began to reflect on my life—short if you consider it short, long if you consider it long.

‘Life is a guide toward hope.’

I am both the author who must end this world with a happy ending and these children’s master.

‘I’ve lived a life crawling helplessly like an insect toward hope, tasting countless regrets and despair…’