Chapter 738
Episode 184: Beyond Fate (10)
Jin’s face twisted as he swallowed a dry breath.
He watched, frozen in time, as fragments of chains fell away from Rosa’s face—moving so slowly it felt like a frozen moment.
‘Why… why Rosa?’
The one who should have been hidden behind those chains was supposed to be the revered former head of the family.
Jin had fought deliberately at a disadvantage, driven by nothing but the determination to save that ancestor.
He had passed up multiple chances to cut off his opponent’s breath, held back even when he could have dealt a fatal blow.
He had endured it all to end the fight quickly and help his comrades struggling behind, beside, and in front of him.
Every effort was to rescue the ancestor trapped within those chains, keeping them as intact as possible.
But after all that, the one he had so painstakingly saved was a fiend—Rosa.
And she looked perfectly fine…
Unlike the others who emerged from the shrine, freed from their bonds and glowing with a soft indigo light, Rosa hadn’t transformed into some grotesque monster of chaos.
She simply looked human. No, she was the very embodiment of Runcandel itself.
Her long, black hair seemed to pull you in; her eyes shone with the light of willpower; her gaze pressed down quietly but heavily on anyone who met it; her hands gripped her sword so firmly it seemed impossible she’d ever let go.
She was the lady of the house who had led the Runcandel family for many years in place of Siron, a giant of her era.
Rosa Runcandel was locking eyes with Jin.
Damn it!
Jin cursed without realizing it.
His breath hitched as if a sudden panic had seized him.
Suppressing the cold dizziness and rising nausea, he instinctively put some distance between them.
If the fight continued like this, he felt certain he’d make a mistake.
He’d been tricked.
That was the first thought that came to him. If the fiend had staged this as a psychological attack, it couldn’t have been more successful.
His allies were shocked too. For a moment, their attention shifted from their own opponents to Rosa.
‘Stay calm. This is just the fiend’s trick. That person who looks like Rosa… must be some kind of fragment created by the fiend’s power.’
Jin tightened his grip on his sword.
“You’ve developed a nasty hobby… fiend. I never thought you’d go this far just to confuse me.”
But Rosa’s reply was completely unexpected.
“You tried to save me because you know me, didn’t you?”
“…What?”
“Why do you call me a fiend?”
Once again, Jin felt his insides twist painfully.
The Rosa freed from the chains didn’t even have the eerie resonance typical of the resurrected.
She seemed truly alive.
Like someone who had fought tooth and nail to protect Runcandel to the very end.
His heart pounded wildly.
“I am Rosa Runcandel. Why do you mistake the monster that bound me for someone like me?”
“What nonsense are you spouting…?”
“Jin!”
“12th Knight!”
Urgent voices called out from behind—Hedo and Octavia.
Sssshh!
At the same moment, a sharp energy stabbed into Jin’s back.
An enemy’s sword energy aimed at him.
Because Jin had been focused entirely on Rosa, his reaction was slightly delayed.
The blade grazed his back, drawing a few drops of blood.
The wound wasn’t deep.
The one who fired the sword energy was the one-armed former head of the family.
‘…Is he really the former head?’
Jin couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that cutting the chains might just reveal another Rosa.
That indescribable discomfort kept clouding his mind.
Dodging another incoming sword energy, Jin glanced back to see his exhausted allies.
Bianca had nearly brought down the 29th generation, while Alpen and Leon were battered but still fighting, with no clear victor.
Hedo had finished off the 35th generation and was now helping Octavia.
Despite facing all of them at once, the one-armed former head was showing even greater strength than when the battle began.
Jin had just broken one more chain, which only increased the fiend’s influence over that former head.
“Ugh!”
Octavia coughed up a mouthful of blood, bending forward.
Hedo took several direct hits from the former head’s sword energy while protecting her, his massive body covered in wounds.
“12th Knight? So you are the family’s 12th Knight? And your sword is Bradamante. Your name is Jin… Jin Runcandel. Strange.”
Rosa spoke as if she knew nothing.
“Shut up!”
Jin lunged toward Hedo, hoping to buy him some time to recover.
Rosa didn’t interfere as Jin turned and ran.
Instead, she intercepted the former head’s sword energies flying toward Jin, shielding him.
Her sword wasn’t as powerful as the fiend’s or as it had been when Rosa acted as acting head, but it was enough.
Jin decided not to dwell on the fiend’s intentions any longer.
Clang!
Jin’s sword clashed with the former head’s.
In a single exchange, Jin understood why Hedo and Octavia had struggled so much.
The former head’s sword had the power to inject confusion into the opponent’s mind, just like the fiend’s.
Now, the former head wasn’t just being controlled—he was merging with the fiend itself.
Jin summoned his Eternal Flame on Bradamante once more.
He needed to end the former head quickly and bring order to this chaotic situation.
‘There’s still a chance the former head might be another Rosa, but I have to check.’
He couldn’t just dismiss the possibility that this was the real former head, like Alpen.
If he closed off that possibility just because things were overwhelming or suspicious, he’d be abandoning an ancestor who had fought for the family—alive, dead, or even after an unwanted resurrection.
So he had to sever the chains without killing him.
While Jin hesitated, Rosa kept shielding him, watching his back.
She looked like someone who had something to say but didn’t know how to start.
Jin ignored her and thrust his sword at the former head.
‘Even if it’s a trap, I don’t care, fiend. I won’t give up a single ancestor who resisted you to the end.’
Even if another Rosa appeared like before, he’d just cut them all down alongside the Rosa behind him.
Jin’s sword strikes against the former head no longer carried confusion.
His inner turmoil, stirred by the sudden appearance of Rosa, was settling.
As Jin took charge of the former head, Hedo and Octavia began to find some breathing room.
Bianca finally eliminated the 29th generation just as Jin and the former head finished their hundredth exchange.
Hedo and Octavia rejoined the fight, and the fierce battle between Alpen and Leon came to an end.
The bodies of Leon, Tucker, and Neff were breaking apart into particles, scattered by the shockwaves of battle.
What had started as a one-on-one fight had now become a many-versus-one.
No matter how much he had merged with the fiend, the former head was not the fiend itself.
Though he had lost an arm, his swordsmanship had been flawless—until now.
The only reason he had lasted this long against five opponents was because Jin had decided not to kill him.
If Jin had fought to kill, the battle would have ended much sooner.
‘Fiend, enough with these petty tricks. Come out yourself.’
Creak, crackle…!
Bradamante sliced through a chain covering the former head’s face.
The Eternal Flame clung to the cracks, melting the chain’s links.
The face inside the chains gradually became visible—and once again, Jin’s judgment was correct.
‘It’s not Rosa…!’
Though the chains weren’t fully severed, the face was clearly different from Rosa’s.
Just as Jin prepared to cut another chain, the former head suddenly lunged at Bradamante, as if deliberately trying to be stabbed.
Jin reacted immediately, stepping aside.
It would only take a few seconds for the Eternal Flame to burn through the chains completely, and he wasn’t about to lose an ancestor now.
Once the chains melted, the former head’s bonds would naturally dissolve.
The former head didn’t chase after Jin as he moved to the side.
‘He’s just letting me pass?’
The fiend controlling the former head didn’t want him to be killed by Jin’s sword.
The fiend had predicted Jin’s evasive move perfectly.
What the fiend really wanted was the Rosa watching Jin from behind.
All the allies were in front of Jin; only Rosa remained behind him.
Thud!
‘Huh?’
The former head’s sword pierced Rosa’s chest.
Though the fiend had wielded the former head’s sword with near-perfect skill, Rosa—standing behind Jin—couldn’t even withstand a single strike.
Even though it was presumably her own sword.
“Ugh…!”
Rosa gasped, clutching the blade embedded in her body.
As the former head collapsed, motionless, Rosa dropped to one knee, gasping harshly.
“Ugh…”
Jin couldn’t understand what he was seeing.
Why had the fiend stabbed itself? Why did Rosa seem to be suffering like a human?
And why was such a terrible premonition washing over him?
Nothing made sense.
Instinctively, Jin dashed toward Rosa.
It was a mortal wound. If Rosa was truly human, she would soon die.
“Fiend… what the hell are you playing at?”
“Do you still see me as a fiend?”
“Why are you acting like a person…!”
Jin flinched, suddenly stopping mid-sentence.
It was because Rosa’s face looked far younger than he remembered.
Suddenly, Jin realized that Rosa had already appeared young the moment she broke free from the chains.
Seeing a face that looked barely in her early twenties—almost his own age—once again made his heart sink. His breathing grew ragged.
“Now, I think I’m beginning to understand the situation, even if only vaguely… Jin. You must be the child of me and Siron. We had agreed to give that name to our last child…”