Episode 660
Chapter 167: The Fifth Tomb of Temar (4)
Thud!
Black blood, tainted with chaos, splattered across the faces of the two.
Despite her body shattering into countless pieces, Runtia had relentlessly swung her sword without pause—until finally, she stopped moving.
“Kuh…”
Behind Runtia, faint, thread-like connections flickered and snapped.
These connections tried to converge back into her, but the scar left by the Reaper’s Dominion Sword blocked their path.
Between the cracks of the pocket dimension, particles of chaos fell like black rain.
Jin stabbed the brother he felt kinship with deep inside.
Though the situation left no other choice, something inside his chest felt broken and aching.
“I… have lost.”
A metallic rasp escaped from Runtia’s hoarse throat.
Jin didn’t twist the sword that pierced her chest.
If possible, he wanted to speak with his sister one last time.
If she could shake off even a fraction of the madness before death.
“Runtia, sister.”
“Huff.”
“Are you coming back to your senses?”
“Youngest…”
Jin’s eyes widened.
Runtia’s reason was returning.
Slowly, she grasped the blade of Bradamante.
Her eyes, flickering between the sword and Jin, no longer glowed with the blackness of chaos.
Overwhelmed by a sudden flood of emotions, Runtia squeezed her eyes shut tightly.
“I was too cruel to you…”
With the last of her strength, she began pushing the blade out of her body.
It wasn’t an act of counterattack.
Jin carefully helped her pull the sword free.
Each time she moved or exerted force, chunks of flesh, hardened like stone, fell away.
Once the sword was fully withdrawn, Runtia slowly caught her breath.
Jin struggled to find the right words.
“You had no choice but to stab me.”
He had only ever seen one person fully consumed by chaos regain their sanity.
It was when Ron Hiran entered the Creation Realm, but Runtia’s return to reason seemed different from his.
She hadn’t achieved creation like Ron.
“There probably was no better option. If not for you, I would have endured meaningless years, trapped in this dark space, ruled by chaos.”
“How did it come to this?”
Runtia gave a bitter smile and answered.
“Because of family.”
Family.
She wasn’t referring to Rosana or the other siblings.
When the Runkandel family spoke of family as something precious, it usually meant not blood relatives, but others.
Nannies who acted more like real parents than their own, comrades formed through shared growth, those they gave their hearts to, or in rare cases, brothers bound by extraordinary circumstances.
So Jin immediately thought of one person.
“…Nanny Risham. Did Rosana and the Prophet take her hostage?”
Risham was Runtia Runkandel’s nanny.
Before the battle began, Jin had asked if Runtia had a weakness, because he had Risham in mind from the start.
Runtia nodded.
“Nanny asked me.”
“Risham asked you to accept chaos…?”
The nannies Jin had seen in the Runkandel family were devoted to an almost harsh degree.
They had no personal lives.
They existed solely for the children they cared for and never acted in ways that would harm them.
Tymun Marius, who deceived Luna, eventually became Joshua’s pawn, but his twisted love was ultimately for Luna.
Neither Gilly nor Tymun would have asked their children to accept chaos.
As far as Jin knew, Risham was the same.
She would have risked death or worse for Runtia.
“Wasn’t Risham already brainwashed?”
“No, she was fine. But…”
Runtia’s eyes reddened.
“She had a daughter.”
“A daughter…?”
Nannies in the Runkandel family couldn’t have children.
Even the adopted children raised in Tymun’s orphanage were merely weapons to be used and discarded.
If they had been Tymun’s biological children, Runkandel would never have selected Tymun as a nanny.
Yet Risham had a biological child.
Without hearing more, Jin already sensed the unpleasant story that would follow.
“When I was in the Storm Castle, nanny was away for about a year. She gave birth to her daughter then.”
Risham had broken the family’s code as a nanny and was on the brink of a cruel punishment.
Her newborn daughter, her entire family line, and their relatives were almost wiped out.
But Risham paid no price.
“At that time, Father covered for her personally.”
Sir Shiron had sealed Risham’s crime with a single word, sparing her child and family.
It was the first time in Shiron’s era that a nanny broke the family code—and that it was forgiven.
However, Risham was never allowed to see her daughter or family again.
They were all exiled from Hupester and relocated to a small town in the Lutero Magic Federation.
“…I suppose the reason the family head forgave me was because of you, my lady.”
“Because of me?”
“You cherished me deeply when I was young. And still do, of course.”
“If it were Father, he’d probably think my attitude was weak and lacking in fighting spirit. He wouldn’t have spared the nanny and her bloodline.”
“But I’m still alive, my lady. Though I’m old now and don’t have much time left… I heard that my daughter, whom I haven’t seen since that day, is living a normal life with her family. A peaceful, happy life.”
“Ha…”
“Lady Rosa has now declared she will kill them all. Since the family head personally smoothed things over, even Lady Rosa didn’t know where they lived… but Lady Illina found them.”
“What is this… Get up, nanny. Don’t do this.”
“I have devoted my entire life to you, my lady. My youth, my whole existence. So please… just once… show mercy to this wretched person.”
“I’ll try to stop Mother. Get up, don’t do this!”
“That alone won’t save my daughter and grandchildren…”
Rosa’s condition was that Runtia would ‘stand in’ as the master of this pocket dimension.
She would replace the original master of this space.
Runtia accepted the terms.
As Runtia explained all this, Jin’s head throbbed, struggling to contain the hatred swelling in his chest for Rosa.
“They said it would be for one year. Just one year standing in for the original master of this space—the former Templar Knight, Sir Padler Runkandel.”
He had expected the Prophet to pull Padler from his tomb, but never imagined Runtia would take his place.
He hadn’t even known such a thing was possible.
“Damn it…”
“But through Illina’s power, the moment I replaced Sir Padler, I realized it was a lie. Not one year, but even after a hundred years, I wouldn’t be able to leave this place. The Prophet might have methods I don’t know, but I was certain—I had become one with the pocket dimension.”
That was why Runtia could regain her sanity despite being consumed by chaos.
She was no longer human Runtia Runkandel, but the pocket dimension itself.
Therefore, as the dimension’s chaotic energy was spent, the chaos consuming her also faded.
But that meant the moment the pocket dimension collapsed, Runtia would die.
Even now, the pocket dimension was breaking apart in real time, shedding black rain of chaos.
Jin’s gaze landed on the connections.
“If we reconnect those to you, can you survive?”
“Probably. The entire pocket dimension isn’t completely shattered yet. But I don’t want that, youngest. I think it’s better to end it like this. At least now that my reason has returned, I can die as myself.”
“How did you get in here? I don’t think the Prophet knows how to bring you back after making you Sir Padler’s replacement.”
“Maybe. But does it matter? Their goal was to use Sir Padler here with full power, through me.”
“I know one sure way to enter here. As long as you’re alive, someday when I can save you, I’ll come back. It’s still impossible to fully heal someone consumed by chaos like you, but there is a way to purify chaos.”
“If I reconnect to those, I’ll go mad again.”
“I don’t want to lose you like this. Just hold on, and I’ll make sure purification is possible. If you disappear now, we can’t take revenge on them, sister. There’s no guarantee they even spared Nanny Risham’s daughter.”
“Right, there’s no guarantee. Only Mother’s promise. If nanny had told me before her family was taken hostage, maybe we could have found another way. But then, I had no choice. I couldn’t abandon her.”
“I wouldn’t have abandoned Gilly either. I’ll find and protect Risham’s family. Please wait.”
Runtia hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
[Alright. Since I’m already trapped and struggling in this snare… But why go to such lengths for me? Even if you killed me here, it wouldn’t really harm you.]
“Wouldn’t that just make us a better family, sister and me?”
Jin grasped the connections between them.
[Jin, if I tap into the power of the pocket dimension again now…]
“I’ll reach out after I find Hister. If you have enough strength to move, please help me. You said Hister is hiding somewhere in this pocket dimension.”
[Very well.]