Chapter 1029
Episode 247: The Liberation War of Laprarosa (17)
Kraaaah…!
The moment Jin spoke, one of the transparent walls along the corridor shattered, unleashing a sudden surge of dark energy.
It was spiritual energy—malignant and chaotic. Jin and Murakan immediately swung their swords and wings, pushing back the explosive force, but an unsettling feeling crept over them.
“Kid, this isn’t…”
“Lokia’s spiritual energy, Murakan. It’s not hers.”
“Yeah, I thought so. Damn it, who the hell is this? There’s no way some unknown enemy slipped in using spiritual energy without us noticing.”
That was true. No one could have entered through the rift without Jin detecting it, especially with the overwhelming psychic presence of the Underworld Sovereign’s Sword covering the battlefield.
Even Lokia herself was tightly bound by Jin’s own seals.
“Could it be the witch’s spiritual energy? Hmm, doesn’t seem pure enough for that, and it’s not very threatening either. Even the low-level minions connected to spiritual energy are purer than this.”
“Maybe that’s exactly why it’s from the witch. Or perhaps it’s the fading spiritual energy of Solderet.”
“What? Solderet?”
Jin’s mind suddenly clicked.
Perhaps the spiritual energy that had slipped out from within the dimensional wall was the very energy Solderet used when transporting the Underworld Sovereign clan into this pocket dimension.
“It could be a leftover byproduct from when the witch interfered with Solderet’s attempt to save the Underworld Sovereigns. Sribi, Marsalun, Karmaash—the energy of those three isn’t present in this spiritual energy at all.”
“Huh, now that you mention it, that makes sense. If that’s true, then maybe the witch, not Solderet, was the one who originally created this dimension.”
“That’s a valid point.”
Solderet and the witch Helluram.
Jin didn’t fully understand the relationship between these two transcendent beings. What he did know for certain was that spiritual energy and psychic energy shared similarities, and at their extremes, their natures almost overlapped.
Every trial and event Jin had faced since his reincarnation only deepened his sense that these two were connected in some special way.
“Murakan, do you remember anything else about Solderet, the witch, or Lokia?”
Murakan shook his head.
“No. You saw my final moments in the painting from Keitam, right? I don’t even know how I managed to find the witch in the Black Sea back then… Though, that new face of Lokia’s was strangely familiar.”
The face of Lokia they had just seen was completely different from the one from a thousand years ago.
“I thought so too. Now that I think about it, it’s because she resembled Temar.”
“Oh, right! Why would she have a face like Temar’s? With her abilities, she could maintain any appearance she wanted. She could look even younger than Thalaris. And it’s not exactly Temar’s face, just similar? What a weird obsession.”
“…Temar’s child. Could that be the face?”
Murakan stopped flapping his wings.
“Huh…? Child?”
He was shocked at the thought. Even though Temar’s bloodline had never been broken since their defeat a millennium ago, Murakan had never considered that Temar might have had a child.
“Damn, that makes sense. But with whom? Temar must have had more than a few admirers… Damn it, it can’t be Lokia, right!?”
“Do you really think that’s possible? That’s a pretty horrifying thought.”
“No, no. Ruet… judging by the atmosphere back then, Ruet was the most likely candidate. Everyone thought Ruet’s unrequited love would eventually bear fruit. But Ruet was trapped in Temar’s tomb the whole time… So who then…?”
Suddenly, Murakan’s eyes widened as if he’d remembered something.
“Lucy… Lucy Runkandel. After the war, the child born between Temar and Lucy continued the family line.”
Lucy Runkandel.
She was the last remaining teenage knight Jin had never encountered directly, neither in reality nor in any records.
‘…If the face Lokia showed this time really is the child of Lord Temar and Lucy, then Lokia might have been using him all along.’
After liberating Laprarosa, Jin knew he had to track down the truth about Lokia—her true identity and her hiding place. He already had some clues.
Murakan seemed deeply shaken, muttering Temar and Lucy’s names over and over in a daze.
“Those bastards… without telling me. How could they keep this from me?”
“The family situation was grim back then. Besides, it’s not confirmed.”
“No, I’m sure. I feel betrayed! I wanted to have something called a ‘family’ too! Hey, kid. If you ever marry a historian and have kids, you better tell me…”
“Where did that come from all of a sudden? Shut up. Let’s move. We still have a mountain of work after rescuing the Laprarosa brothers.”
They had only just wiped out one faction—the Enemy Sovereign clan. There were still Ziphl, Kinzel, the Sun God Cult, Ganesto, and perhaps even transcendent beings like the witch to deal with.
They all had to be eliminated from the world. To do that, the brothers’ strength was essential, especially Ban’s survival.
If every battle ended this painfully, they’d never keep up with the enemy’s pace—those who schemed and tried things Jin didn’t even know about.
The dimensional storm was growing fiercer.
Murakan formed a thick protective barrier with his spiritual energy, while Jin kept the Underworld Sovereign Sword’s psychic energy spinning. Without Ban’s psychic energy pushing back the storm alongside them, even the two of them couldn’t have moved this fast.
The hardship Jin and Murakan faced now was like a novice climbing a steep snowy mountain without any gear.
Neither had ever crossed a pocket dimension like this before, and the impact of the dimensional storm made previous battles seem trivial.
Huff, huff…
They caught their breath and read Ban’s psychic currents. Jin conserved his strength, knowing he’d need to maintain the Underworld Sovereign Sword in case something went wrong.
Crack, crunch!
The walls kept crumbling more frequently. Dark, crude spiritual energy still poured out, but now and then, spiritual energy unmistakably left by Lokia appeared.
It was the witch’s pool—the cursed residue Lokia had left behind. The curse heading toward Laprarosa had been torn apart by Ban’s Underworld Sovereign Sword, embedding itself like crystals throughout the corridor.
They were getting closer to Ban’s psychic currents.
“Brothers! Can you hear me?”
Jin shouted. His voice shattered into fragments by the dimensional storm, barely carrying far, but he kept calling out regardless.
Crack, crunch!
With every step, Murakan’s protective barrier buckled.
“Even mighty dragons would be crushed into fist-sized chunks here. The pressure spikes sharply as we near the psychic currents. That means inside Laprarosa, it’s at least several times worse.”
Jin’s worry grew.
At the same time, he was glad they had come. If they’d just waited outside for the liberation device to activate, Ban and the brothers would have had to endure all this pain alone.
“Brothers, I’m here!”
How much time had passed?
Time in pocket dimensions often flowed differently from the outside world. It could have been hours, or just seconds inside Laprarosa.
Just as Jin prepared to call out again—
Suddenly, Ban’s psychic currents, which had been spreading out, rapidly began to fade.
“Damn it! No way…”
In just two or three seconds after Murakan’s shout, Ban’s psychic currents vanished completely. Jin didn’t respond but heightened his senses.
‘…Ban’s Underworld Sovereign Sword hasn’t been deactivated!’
Ban’s massive psychic energy hadn’t disappeared—it had instantly condensed into a single object.
Jin judged it to be a sword. And there was only one reason the entire psychic energy of the Underworld Sovereign Sword would be concentrated into a blade.
“Murakan, dodge! Get out of the way!”
“I’m dodging!”
Jin and Murakan split left and right, raising their barriers.
Moments later, a streak of blue light shot precisely where they had been standing. Even if Jin and Murakan were hit head-on, there would be no saving them. Even blocking it inside the dimensional storm would be fatal.
It was the final strike of the Underworld Sovereign Sword, compressed into a single slash. The blue trail of the sword’s energy warped the dimensional rift.
And they could tell the sword energy contained spiritual energy—an intense spiritual energy they hadn’t even seen when facing Lokia outside the Great Desert.
“Spiritual energy…! Please tell me my brother hasn’t fallen.”
Jin didn’t need an answer.
The spiritual energy mixed into the Underworld Sovereign Sword was because Ban had been holding the curse in check. And now, Ban had fired the sword energy to clear the way.
“Jin, brother! Is that really you!?”
A familiar voice called out.
Tantel—the brother who always greeted Jin as a guide whenever he came to Laprarosa.
“Tantel, brother!”
Tantel’s face was gaunt, as if he might collapse at any moment, his body covered in black wounds stained with spiritual energy.
“Are you okay!? What about the others!?”
“Just some injuries, but they’re alive. Don’t worry and come in quickly! Ban said he can’t hold the passage open much longer!”
By the time he finished speaking, Jin and Murakan had already reached Tantel’s side, stepping into the massive rift he had just escaped from.
The rift was about to close. If it sealed like this, Jin would enter Laprarosa having lost all the energy of the Hell King’s Reign Sword.
[Kid! I’ll hold it a little longer, so hurry and recover the energy!]
Fortunately, Jin hadn’t come here alone. Murakan spread his two pairs of wings and poured his spirit energy into the rift.
[Glad I brought you along, Murakan.]
Jin immediately closed his eyes and focused. His brain lightning surged rapidly through the rift.
At the moment the Hell King’s Reign Sword’s energy was fully reclaimed, Murakan panted heavily and nodded.
[Got it. Now go back and don’t bother me while I’m playing with my strawberry pie.]
The rift closed. Jin supported the collapsing Tantel and lifted his head to look ahead.
Before him stretched the homeland of his brothers—Laprarosa.