Episode 1024
Chapter 247: The Liberation War of Laprarosa (12)
Lokia tried to fire again, but the separated Kree’s main cannon didn’t budge an inch. The psychic energy was completely disrupting the cannon’s control.
[Damn, clever move. I got hit.]
The cannon scattered into particles and began absorbing back into the main body. The Tuwang warriors charged at Lokia, but their strikes hit nothing but air. Lokia had already transformed into a shadow and was heading straight for the Kree.
“Huh, that’s strange. I’m pretty sure the sword made contact.”
“Yeah, it looked like it hit to me too, Brother Beliz.”
“What’s going on?”
To the Tuwang, Lokia didn’t seem all that fast. Her movements were heavy and sluggish—hardly what you’d expect from a legendary knight of Runkandel a thousand years ago.
[It’s magic. She’s using magic to distort your senses. I remember now—we used to call it Lokia-type magic.]
The very magic that had saved Temar and his comrades countless times during the crisis a millennium ago was now threatening Jin and his allies.
[Get out of there immediately and come to me, Lords of the Underworld. Unless you want to accidentally stab each other because of the sensory confusion.]
Whoooosh—!
Murakan exhaled gently toward the Tuwang. Instead of the usual destructive energy meant to tear enemies apart, this breath was meant to guide them, preventing them from losing their way in Lokia’s magical haze.
As the energy touched the Tuwang’s position, invisible threads of magic suddenly became visible to their eyes. Complex, tangled strands of magical power filled the area around them like a knotted skein.
[Don’t touch those threads. Move carefully. This magic can flip even your senses upside down in an instant.]
The Lords of the Underworld instinctively sensed the danger the moment they saw the magical strands.
Psychic energy and destructive swordsmanship alone wouldn’t be enough to counter this—it felt strange, almost impenetrable.
[Yeah, like you said, it’s been a long time since I fought directly. Even when I was a knight, I never enjoyed charging into battle. There are plenty of ways to defeat an opponent without risking your body. That’s a tactic only fools like Sara prefer.]
“You’re acting all friendly, Lady Sara.”
[She’s adorable. You might find it surprising, but Sara relied on me quite a bit.]
Jin chuckled again.
“Hey, Lokia. Does thinking that way bring you some comfort?”
Even as he laughed, Jin rained a flurry of strikes against the Kree’s outer armor. The Kree continued to turn transparent, nullifying Jin’s sword, but now, unlike before, small fragments began to chip off. The enemy’s technology was slowly failing to keep up with Sigmund’s speed.
“Besides Lady Sara, who else were you close to? Butler Luet? Lord Frey? Maybe you really were close to them. But what do you think their expressions would be if they saw you now?”
To Jin, Lokia was an enemy with glaring weaknesses.
She was still trapped in the glory of her family from a thousand years ago.
“Sticky, filthy regrets—the feelings you desperately deny seem to smother even the foul winds of the battlefield. It’s disgusting. You’ve abandoned something far too precious to move forward. And more than anyone, you know that better than anyone else.”
Swoosh—!
A blue blade sliced through the center of the Kree. The armor, unable to fully cloak itself, and the magical circuits inside were torn apart. The components fell away like sticky flesh, consumed by the psychic energy and oxidized.
Slowly but surely, the Kree was breaking down. Wherever Jin’s gaze landed, sword energy spread, and the blue psychic energy surged, shaking the massive hull.
The cannon reattached to the Kree moved like a beast’s eye, relentlessly tracking Jin. Lokia had just released the psychic energy that had consumed the cannon.
Normally, there would be no need for precise aiming—the attack range was so wide that dodging was impossible.
But Jin was now rampaging inside the hull. Extracting the cannon back outside to target Laprarosa was no easy task.
Jin was more aware of the cannon’s position than before. At the start of the battle, he couldn’t effectively counter because he was searching for Lokia’s location, but not anymore.
From the moment the cannon and Lokia returned inside the hull, Jin never lost track of her position for a single moment.
‘Damn. Even if it meant risking some damage to the Kree, I should have released the psychic energy that consumed the cannon from outside. Jin never intended to let me or this flying fortress fall. To come up with such a move without any prior information…’
The Kree’s greatest weapon was its cannon. That was why Lokia had come to the Great Desert today. She planned to use that weapon to turn the tide of this battle in her favor.
[You’re right—I still love Runkandel from back then. More precisely, it’s a love-hate relationship. Hah, maybe that’s why my plans always go slightly off. Because I’m bound by something, I keep making mistakes without realizing it.]
Suddenly, Lokia looked back on the past.
The days after Runkandel’s defeat a thousand years ago, wandering the world like a ghost, watching the Sword Garden from afar.
For a thousand years, Lokia had faced dozens of chances to end Runkandel if she had only wanted to.
‘Shiron, and Luna and Jin… I had hoped for children like them to be born. Because of that hope, I never destroyed the Sword Garden. Even as I wandered the swamp of a corrupted world and manipulated history.’
Her heart swelled.
Watching Jin wield his sword, Lokia trembled. He still represented Runkandel—the foolish yet strong who believed the world could be changed and protected by sheer will alone.
[If you watch from far away like I do… Runkandel is unchanging and eternal. That’s what captivated me. Temar, Shiron, Luna, and you. People who could be brilliant without the witch, people who could make the world a better place, keep appearing.]
Emotions she thought had long since faded were stirring again.
[But it’s not so beautiful that you wield the Sword of the Lords of the Underworld instead of Runkandel’s. Do you know? They are each fragments of the sun. Because of that, they have no interest in changing the world. War and conquest—that’s all they care about. Their swords don’t suit you.]
No sooner had she finished speaking than Jin suddenly felt dozens of invisible hands gripping him, weighing him down.
It was the effect of the Radiant Heart.
Inside it, Lingling’s inner self was writhing in chaos, trying to break the fusion with the warrior spirit.
The bond was weakening. The storm of the Lords of the Underworld’s dominion sword, which had dyed the battlefield deep blue, was rapidly shrinking.
[Now it’s time to sever that bond. I’m curious what your sword would be like if it wasn’t the weapon of the sun’s born calamities, but your own.]
In an instant, the blue energy vanished from the battlefield. The grand aura was revealed to be a lie.
Jin’s Radiant Heart darkened to a murky black and cooled rapidly. The psychic energy inside no longer pulsed, and Sigmund lost its brilliance, returning to its faint, pale original form.
“Damn! Jin’s fusion with the warrior spirit…!”
“The Lords of the Underworld’s dominion sword has gone out! Damn it, is Jin okay!?”
From Murakan and the Tuwang’s vantage point, the inside of the Kree was completely hidden. All they could see was the misty aura rising like poison where the blue storm had disappeared.
“Without the fusion, even Jin will be at risk facing the primal chaos like that, Murakan. Hurry to Jin! We’ll do whatever it takes to protect Laprarosa!”
Murakan’s heart chilled. The moment he moved, Lokia would surely launch a full-scale attack on Laprarosa, but Jin was always his top priority.
Just as he was about to spread his wings—
Murakan and the Tuwang heard Jin’s voice.
Lokia, the sword of the Lords of the Underworld will soon be my sword.
Everyone on the battlefield heard it. Even those who had just arrived at the edge of the Great Desert in response to Jin’s call.
“Just as Solderet is the god of Runkandel, half of me is his warrior spirit. I am Runkandel, and so half of me is Runkandel’s warrior. All of this is entirely my sword.”
Just as using spiritual energy through a contract with Solderet can’t be said to be anything but Jin’s power, the fusion with the warrior spirit can’t be called anything but Jin’s sword.
“You’ve become too strong for you to handle.”
Fwoooosh…!
Where the blue psychic energy had vanished, brilliant golden psychic energy surged in its place. A dazzling golden wind rose.
“You said the Runkandel you saw from afar was eternal and unchanging. No, a family is just a gathering of people, and people change. But even after so many years and changes, it shines because there’s something they refuse to forget.”
Lokia’s spirit appeared behind Jin. It lunged with a black blade, but was engulfed in golden lightning and vanished.
“Lokia, I once hoped you’d understand me. Why you had to betray your family, why your ideals are needed in this world… But you’re no different from the madmen I’ve seen before. Trying to ruin a world that’s working just fine will only leave you empty.”
Rokia didn’t respond. She had clearly severed the fusion between Lingling and Gwangsimjang’s spirits, breaking their unity. The radiant light emanating from Jin now was something far beyond the understanding she had cultivated over the past thousand years, exploring the secrets and truths of the world.
[…Jin, I never intended to kill the spirit of Laprarosa. That being had a purpose, a role to play. But that was a misjudgment. I have to kill him—if I don’t, he’ll become another Solderet or even a Sun God.]
A chaotic dimensional gate began to open in the sky. Rokia was releasing new spiritual entities through it.
This was a dangerous move she hadn’t anticipated. The Balmel Alliance had a single record mage, who could examine the dimensional gate and trace the location of her true form—Rokia’s world.
That was the information Jin most desperately wanted to obtain from this battle.
“Now you’re worrying about trivial nonsense,” he muttered.
Without hesitation, Jin raised his sword. It was time to unleash the final chapter of the Spirit’s Secret Art—the Reign of the Underworld King.