Chapter 403: The Tale Left Behind, the Place Left Behind

After the vampires disappeared, only a blood-stained silence remained within the Cloud Waterfall.

As if they had not just taken lives and blood, but even noise with them.

Those who could still move struggled to sort out the wounded from the corpses, but their movements were sluggish, like the battle had drained all the life from them.

The Thunder Guardians busied themselves with tending to the living and mourning the dead.

“Thunderarch…”

Of course, among the fallen, there was one loss that was particularly difficult to accept.

Elkid, the Thunderarch, lay dead, her body split apart.

Inside the dried blood, her flesh looked eerily desiccated—not so much a corpse as something broken beyond repair.

Even if they tried to fix her, it wouldn’t bring her back to life.

Standing over Elkid’s body, Shei—the Regressor—gazed down at her with a bitter expression and muttered,

“Elkid was a Crusader…?”

The Crusaders existed in various forms across the world, some not even realizing they were part of the Holy Order.

They were chosen by fate itself.

In one of her past timelines, Shei had also been designated as a Crusader.

She had been elated at first, believing she truly belonged.

After all, regression was such a mysterious power that it seemed like something only a god could bestow.

Of course, after several regressions, she realized just how different her power was.

Still, the sense of belonging she had briefly felt among the diverse warriors of the Crusaders lingered even now.

Perhaps that was why she had felt a sense of kinship with Elkid.

Shei gazed at Elkid’s lifeless body, feeling only a faint regret.

There had been a time when she might have felt sorrow, but after countless regressions, death had become routine.

She had seen it too often, and Elkid would return in the next timeline anyway.

Instead of sinking into grief like Peru, Shei focused on a more practical question.

“Why did she awaken now, of all times…?”

She could make a rough guess.

As unbelievable as it sounded, the man she had met by chance in prison—Hughes—had turned out to be the King of Humans.

The King of Sin was merely one branch of the King of Humans—a discarded remnant of humanity’s chaotic existence, a byproduct of the process of choosing between good and evil.

Somehow, in the future, this fragmented concept would coalesce into an incarnation of sin itself.

And it would likely emerge… through the King of Humans.

Shei had believed as much and acted accordingly, aligning with the Sanctum to prevent the descent of the King of Sin.

If the King of Humans had truly appeared, then it made sense that the Sanctum had reacted so violently.

The possibility of him becoming the King of Sin was too great to ignore.

“It’s not a lie… He even revived Tyrkanzyaka’s heart. Feruel confirmed it, too.”

If that was true, then this was an unfortunate turn of events.

The King of Humans had surfaced and the Sanctum responded—only to end up provoking Tyrkanzyaka instead.

And along the way, Hilde’s schemes had driven even Shei into opposition against them.

She had intended to mediate the conflict from a position independent of the Sanctum in this timeline, but things had gone far off track.

“So that means Hughes was the King of Humans before he became the King of Sin. But then his age… Ugh. The King of Sin didn’t emerge the way the King of Beasts did, did she?”

Still, this could be an opportunity.

The knowledge that Hughes was the King of Humans was a clue far too valuable to trade for anything else.

A deviation from her original plans was a small price to pay.

As always, the regressor reassured herself that even this setback would serve as nourishment for the next round.

It always had before.

Holding onto that sliver of hope, Shei suddenly frowned.

“…But then, why didn’t the Sanctum foresee Elkid’s death?”

Tyrkanzyaka’s darkness interfered with foresight.

Even if they couldn’t see what was beyond the darkness, they should have at least known it was there.

So why had they sent both Elkid and Feruel into that very place?

Unlike her other questions, this one had no immediate answer.

As Shei furrowed her brow in contemplation, a dark shadow crept up behind her—gripping a spear with both hands, ready to strike.

“Hahp!”

A spear infused with lightning lunged toward Shei’s defenseless back, an attack honed with enough mastery of Qi Arts to pierce through her.

…Or at least, that might have been true eight regressions ago.

Heavenly Counter Domain.

A Qi Art that allowed one’s body to react to future events through sheer experience.

It was similar in effect to combat foresight, but its fundamental nature was entirely different.

Shei twisted her body, her arm snapping out like a whip.

Her hand coiled around the shaft of the spear, her Qi reinforcing her grip like iron.

With a single squeeze, the reinforced metal of the spear shattered into three pieces.

Shei turned to the dumbfounded Thunder Guardian and spoke with an indifferent tone.

“What the hell? Why are you attacking me all of a sudden?”

The difference in power was overwhelming.

Her opponent was strong—someone who could stand against vampires—but in that moment, he was trembling with helpless fury.

The Thunder Guardians, despite their lifelong training, had been utterly powerless in the battle that had just taken place.

All they could do now was pour their emotions into their words.

“You… The monsters you brought here killed the Thunderarch! They killed my comrades, too!”

Shei was used to hearing that kind of resentment. She replied with disinterest.

“If you’re talking about the Elders, I didn’t bring them here.”

“That doesn’t matter! None of this would have happened if it weren’t for you!”

His voice cracked with anguish.

Shei had seen this reaction countless times before—people desperately looking for someone to blame when disaster struck.

As she debated whether to ignore him or subdue him, another Thunder Guardian rushed in and pulled him back.

“Stop! He helped us.”

“Helped us?! Claudia treated them as honored guests, welcomed them with the utmost hospitality! But they repaid us with betrayal!”

The Thunderarch, Elkid, had been a Crusader.

But before that, she had been the leader of the Thunder Guardians.

It was rare for a leader to be universally respected, but Elkid had apparently managed to do just that.

Her followers were so devoted that they now swore revenge.

Blaming Shei for Elkid’s death was meaningless—Shei had fought to save her, after all—but to them, reason didn’t matter.

They needed someone to direct their grief toward.

Instead of wasting time arguing, Shei simply responded with a mocking sneer.

“I’m sorry. You’d only be satisfied if Elkid could be brought back to life, but since that’s impossible…”

Just as Shei was speaking, a flash of lightning struck.

At that very moment, Elkid’s eyes snapped open.

Before anyone could process what was happening, Elkid rose unnaturally, creaking like a puppet controlled by invisible strings.

Even with her flesh split open beneath the dried blood, she moved as if it didn’t matter.

Even for Shei, who was used to the deaths of comrades, seeing a dead one move again was deeply unsettling.

She recoiled in shock, feeling a brief moment of fear, but then quickly narrowed her eyes when she realized something was off.

Elkid wasn’t alive.

There was no life in her movements.

“What is this? Black magic?”

Black magic, the counterpart to white magic, which used living beings as mediums.

A living body was a closed system, a world of its own. Even though it was physical, it held profound meaning.

Black mages shattered that system, breaking down life’s boundaries to manifest their unnatural miracles.

Naturally and cruelly, the easiest medium for humans to use was other human bodies.

Since ancient times, black magic had required corpses or bodies soon to become corpses. Because of its inherent brutality, it was met with disgust and persecution, not by decree, but by the instincts of humanity itself.

Shei was no different.

The idea of using human corpses repulsed her, and the thought that a fallen comrade was being desecrated filled her with revulsion.

“Did Kavila curse her with black magic before leaving? What a disgusting hobby!”

“…No.”

The unexpected answer came from Peru.

Letting out a deep breath, Peru raised her hand. A mysterious thread, almost like a floating cloud, drifted from her fingertips.

As she moved her fingers, it responded with a flicker of light.

A moment later, hundreds of strands of lightning coursed into Elkid’s wounds.

The glow of electricity flowing through her veins was clearly visible, almost as if the lightning itself was acting as her soul.

For a brief instant, her eyes seemed to regain their light.

Now that the culprit was identified, Shei demanded.

“Witherarch, what the hell are you doing?”

“…Fixing the Thunderarch.”

Peru spoke as if she were repairing a machine.

Shei scowled.

“What? Fixing? How?”

Peru could feel the resonance between the mysterious threads and the power of thunder within the Thunderarch.

Having mastered alchemy and unlocked her Unique Magic, she had no difficulty understanding the Golden Lord’s power.

The power of Elixir had reached her Unique Magic, manifesting in a way she could comprehend.

But the power of the Lightning Thief—that was not hers.

The power had chosen her, but she had almost no knowledge of how to wield it.

She understood it only in a limited sense, where it overlapped with alchemy.

If she wanted to master this power, she needed someone well-versed in it, like the Thunderarch.

Peru came to a conclusion.

If she could use the Golden Lord’s power to restore the Thunderarch, she could both stabilize the chaos in Claudia and gain a proper guide to wield this power.

That was why Peru had pleaded with Tyrkanzyaka to leave.

If the vampires had stayed, they would have prevented Elkid’s resurrection and thrown Claudia into deeper turmoil.

She needed them gone, no matter the excuse.

With Hughes’ help, she had succeeded—he had subtly but deliberately pushed Tyrkanzyaka to leave.

This was no baseless assumption.

Peru hadn’t shown it outwardly, but she was fully aware that Hughes had actively granted her power.

Not only that, but he had also created the perfect conditions for her to use it.

While others might not have noticed, the one who received the power understood it best.

She had no idea what the King of Humans was testing or what he hoped she would accomplish with this power.

But Peru had her own principles.

No matter the situation, no matter the expectations placed on her, she would follow her own beliefs.

To make the world more valuable.

“…The Thunderarch was created. Alchemy and the power of thunder shaped both her body and mind. It’s complex and intricate, but with the power of the Divine, it might be possible to restore her.”

If the living were worth more than the dead, then reviving someone through alchemy was an endeavor worth pursuing.

Regardless of how others viewed her actions, Peru acted with unwavering conviction.

…

Somewhere far away, a Saintess closed her eyes.

Reality was once the future.

Long ago, the Saintess had seen this future.

She had hoped the Thunderarch would not die.

Or, failing that, that everyone present would die together—so that the dignity of humanity would never be put to the test.

But only gods could shape the future to their will.

The Saintess was not a god.

Foresight revealed the future, but did not grant the power to change it.

And the moment she intervened, the future twisted beyond her control.

All she could do was grieve.