Episode 1130
Chapter 258: The Predator of All Dimensions (20)

Before the footsteps of Ameris and Lokia could be heard, a distant explosion echoed first.

Time had started flowing again, so naturally, the battle had resumed. No one knew that time had been frozen by Valeria from another dimension.

The corridor grew chaotic. The great seal on Talaris had been lifted earlier than expected, and Luet and the crew had rushed over. Luet’s face was pale, fearing something had happened to Talaris.

“Archbishop, the seal… no, So, So Gaju!? Your arm—no, Valeria!”

Everyone stared at Valeria, who was bound by Jin and her. No one understood what was going on. After all, in their minds, the two had just been fighting fiercely on the battlefield against the Changsung.

The priests who came with Luet hurried to treat Jin, but Jin motioned them away. Not even Lani or anyone else could heal this wound.

“Head steward, there’s no time. I’ll explain briefly. Until just now, time on the battlefield was frozen for everyone except Ameris, Lokia, and me.”

“Huh?” Luet didn’t ask again. Like Talaris, she quickly grasped the situation. If So Gaju was here now, there had to be a reason.

“I was helped by Valeria from another world. Thanks to her, the curse on Temar’s left arm has been lifted. So from now on, I will enter Anbae. I pray there’s something there to end this war.”

Praying to what? Not a god. To the people—the comrades fighting alongside them.

“Understood. Whatever you say, we’ll be ready.”

Jin then moved inside the workshop.

Ameris and Lokia were panting beside the coffin holding Temar’s arm. Both were exhausted from quickly breaking the curse. Especially Lokia, whose face and body were rotting in places, as if the weight of the past thousand years had suddenly crashed down on her.

“…I thought you’d betray us and cause another pointless fight, but it seems that won’t happen.”

It was clear.

Lokia was now little more than an old, powerless witch from a common tale. Her blackened nails, soaked in madness and evil, looked like they’d fall off at the slightest touch, and her yellowed teeth were the same.

At first, Lokia had told Luet that if she didn’t trust her, she should restrain her. Even with minimal magic, she could help lift the curse.

Had Luet bound Lokia then, she wouldn’t have even had this decayed body left now. From the start, Lokia had accepted her own destruction by entering the workshop.

Now, with her weak eyes buried in wrinkles, she glanced back and forth between Jin’s left arm and Temar’s left arm lying beside it.

“Puhuhu… You really came here missing your left arm… You’re so loved by the world it’s almost annoying, descendant. I’m truly jealous.”

“Your betrayal isn’t justified just because you sacrificed yourself now.”

“I only struggled.”

“What you did for the past thousand years wasn’t struggle—it was scheming and manipulation. Did you see the Ziphl as fighters? They were no different.”

Just as Jin reached to pick up Temar’s left arm, Lokia chuckled again and spoke.

“Yeah, yeah, maybe you’re not wrong. But how do you plan to use it? To enter the legacy, you have to wield Barisada with Temar’s body. Only then will the barrier be lifted. You’re not seriously going to force Barisada onto that arm and swing it with your right arm, are you? That’d be quite a sight!”

Snap! Lokia grabbed Jin’s waist. More than half her body had melted like a swamp, so no matter how far Jin reached, she could only hold onto the waist. As Jin tried to pull away, Lokia chuckled again.

“Here, try attaching it to your arm. I added one more function while lifting the curse. Somehow, I had a feeling it would come to this. Somehow… I just knew it would…”

Jin didn’t answer but looked at Ameris. When Ameris nodded, Jin didn’t hesitate and placed Temar’s left arm on her left shoulder.

Sssshhh… tsuzzz…!

A soft friction sound, like a winding spring, arose as thin threads of magical energy formed between the wound and Temar’s left arm. Thousands of thread-like strands of magic connected Jin’s shoulder and Temar’s arm as if they were one, all within mere seconds.

Jin felt a surge of energy rising from the left arm, spreading throughout her body.

It was Temar’s residual energy. Though it had endured a thousand years of curses and experiments, and couldn’t be called fully intact, it was the best means to restore Jin’s strength for now.

“Hahaha… It suits you well. The last gift from a failed ancestor. Don’t lose it—use it well…”

Sssht, sssht! Lokia’s breathing grew sharp. Her end was near.

“Head steward.”

Only then did Jin release Valeria from her body. Perhaps because her energy had recovered, the once-heavy Valeria suddenly felt light as she was passed from Jin’s arms to Luet.

Luet said nothing about her. A descendant of the fairy race, Hister, the last survivor, who had lived a lonely, desolate life, and had finally found a place to rest her heart—her kin.

But many had died fighting alone on this battlefield. Jin had held Valeria all along to overcome himself, but Luet could not afford to treat Valeria as special. No matter how much she wanted to.

“I’m leaving.”

With every passing second, the assault from Keliak and the demon army intensified. Laprarosa was being relentlessly battered and shaken by the merciless bombardment of the sun.

But Jin no longer feared Keliak or the deaths caused by his power. Of course, he was still frightening, but if there truly was something in the legacy to defeat him, Jin could drive a sword through that mad god’s throat. The one who claimed to be the sole deity would finally be slaughtered.

“Keliak, you should have ended us before I got this. Killed every last one of us. But even with that immense power, you failed. The path is found. Now all that’s left is for me to claim the legacy. It’s… my turn.”

Temar’s left arm held more than just energy.

A kind of ‘certification’ set by Solderet a thousand years ago had activated, transmitting the exact location of the legacy directly into Jin’s mind. The certifier was Jin Runkandel; the legacy’s location was the domain of Morganyel in the Black Sea. Though hidden beneath the Red Sea, Jin could now recognize it at a glance.

“Yes, good fortune… Go and seize it. Grasp it! After all the struggle, show that in the end, we are the ones who stand last.”

When Luet knelt in respect, everyone nearby raised their swords in salute. Even those not followers of Runkandel offered their highest form of respect.

“Jin, you owe me a great debt. No matter what you do, you can’t repay it. But if you return alive this time, if you defeat them, consider it all paid back. With interest. You are someone who repays kindness. Someone who never forgets. So you will come back.”

Talaris embraced Jin briefly. Through the wrinkles around her eyes, tears glistened like snowflakes.

Jin left, sprinting down the corridor with all her might and leapt out beyond the bridge.

As others prepared to leave, Talaris planned to recover briefly before heading to the surface, and Ameris intended the same.

Luet had to return to the bridge and lead the crumbling Laprarosa beneath the sun. The first sight So Gaju would see upon returning could not be a destroyed, fallen Laprarosa.

“Cluck… cough… Luet…”

“Do you still have more to say, traitor? You won’t get to see So Gaju cut down the Ziphl, or Runkandel’s brightest moment in a thousand years. Are you satisfied with an ending where you’re never saved? Your twisted final affection for the family… it meant something, at least. That’s all.”

Luet tried to leave Lokia to die and hurry to the bridge. The tangled feelings of friendship from a thousand years ago and the sting of betrayal now swirled chaotically, but no sympathy stirred.

“Listen… it’s about our niece…”

At those words, a fire ignited in Luet’s eyes.

“Our? Our? Haelin is not your niece!”

With trembling hands, Lokia pulled something from her bosom—a crystal clear orb, unlike anything she should have.

“Haelin… Puhuhu, her body is alive. Or rather, was alive. It seems now she’s been absorbed by Keliak, who wields the power of the sun god… But this is Haelin’s soul, separated from Araksion.”

“Haelin’s…?”

“I wanted to show her. To this child.”

Lokia Kanesto.

For the past thousand years, she had sought a way to ‘rewind’ the world. To return it to a state without light, darkness, or matter, and then fill that void with the land she created.

When that time came, Lokia planned to show Haelin’s soul the world she had crafted—the ‘just’ world she had made as the price for her thousand years of betrayal.

In other words, Haelin’s soul was Lokia’s last desire as Runkandel.

Though it served no real purpose for the ultimate goal, they had painstakingly purified Hailin’s soul over the course of centuries. We never saw it ourselves, but our child would witness the world where Runcandel had triumphed.

Rokia didn’t explain the full story to Luet. It was a tale no one could truly understand—not even herself.

“Give it to Lucy… just in case. If, by some chance, the true Runcandel defeats Ziphl, then maybe she’ll see it. Hailin too.”

Luet snatched the orb from her hand as if stealing it, already moving away. He didn’t want to hear any more.

Kukuk.

Rokia’s thoughts drifted to the Kanesto warriors who had died fighting on the battlefield—Ran, Vigo, Mew, Ann, and Joshua.

They were children who could never be satisfied with the price paid for a thousand years of betrayal. Children she could never bring herself to care for. From the start, to Rokia, they had been nothing more than expendable tools, used out of necessity.

Yet, for some reason, they came to mind now. She wished they were by her side. But the Kanesto riders had all met miserable ends on the battlefield. Even Joshua, who had merged with Iroanu.

“…It’s over.”

And so, the Kanesto line vanished from the world.