Chapter 739
Episode 184: Beyond Fate (11)
Actions I couldn’t understand. Words I couldn’t comprehend.
And a fragility so profound it was almost incomprehensible.
My legs felt like they were about to give out. There was no trace of fighting spirit left in the young Rosa.
She was, quite simply, human.
[What on earth is going on here?]
“Jin, this… person… is a fiend.”
“The 12th Knight—kill her immediately…!”
Allies who had arrived late blinked in disbelief, shifting their gaze between Jin and Rosa.
Octavia, on the verge of fainting, still pointed her staff at Rosa.
Hedo lowered the staff with his hand.
“Captain of the Phantoms, I don’t fully understand what’s happening, but it seems Jin’s judgment is correct.”
Cough…!
Jin stared blankly into the air, silent, until Rosa coughed up a mouthful of blood. He flinched and met her eyes again.
Could it be that she really wasn’t a fiend?
If this were some fiend’s scheme, what could they possibly hope to gain by going this far?
‘It’s too elaborate just to throw me into confusion. If this were truly a fiend’s cruel trick, they would have caused direct harm to me and my allies after sowing chaos.’
Yet Rosa, freed from her chains, never once attacked Jin. The passivity she displayed was hardly a threat to the group.
In fact, she had even provided cover while the former head of the order and his party fought.
Moreover, the former head, whose fusion with the fiend had reached its peak, stabbed Rosa—not Jin—just before breaking free from the chains.
That meant the fiend had tried to kill itself. Or perhaps its own fragment.
‘…A fragment?’
Suddenly, a theory flashed through Jin’s mind.
What if the dying Rosa was a splinter, a fragment separated from the fiend?
If so, the young Rosa was the deepest part of the fiend’s inner self—the part that never wanted to fall completely—manifested into a physical form.
She was the part of the fiend’s once brightest self that had been severed, never to return.
That was the true identity of the Rosa dying before Jin’s eyes.
From the start, Rosa didn’t even know she had split from the fiend. She saw herself and the fiend as entirely separate beings.
But she was aware that she was a twisted existence. This world was not the one she remembered.
Why had she been trapped in the fiend’s chains? Where were Sir Siron and the other knights of the family? What had she been doing just before being imprisoned?
She couldn’t remember any of it.
No matter how human she appeared, she was ultimately just an unconscious fragment separated from the fiend. It was natural she had no memories from just before her imprisonment.
Her memories stopped on a day when she was twenty-three.
A day from the fiend’s most cherished past.
‘It seems I’m a twisted being who shouldn’t even be here. And perhaps even Sir Jin, my son, and everyone else call me a fiend.’
So the dark monster that bound her was her own future?
For some reason, the thought that this might be nothing more than a terrible nightmare never crossed her mind.
She understood her situation too clearly, too quickly.
“Haha.”
Rosa let out a hollow, metallic laugh.
A flood of emotions surged through her.
There were so many questions. How had she become such a monster? How was Siron doing? How many children had she borne? How much danger had her family fallen into because of her?
She felt the poison of the fiend’s energy spreading through her entire body from the wound in her chest.
“Jin, come a little… closer. Can you show me your face?”
Jin said nothing, quietly gazing down at Rosa for a few seconds.
“As you can see, I’ve suffered a fatal wound. From a knight controlled by the fiend. That’s proof I’m not on their side. Besides, even if I were unharmed, you and your comrades are far beyond any threat I could pose. So lower your guard. I don’t have much time left.”
Rosa focused her remaining strength and spoke clearly.
Finally, Jin knelt on one knee and leaned toward her.
Gathering his scattered thoughts, he looked again at the young Rosa—both unfamiliar and yet strangely familiar.
“You’re handsome… like a perfect blend of Siron and me. If you’re the 12th Knight, are you the youngest?”
“…There is one more.”
“Then thirteen in total? Seems Siron and I had a better relationship than I imagined. What about Siron? You didn’t harm him, did you?”
“He’s well.”
“Then Siron must be fulfilling his mission elsewhere. You’ve taken on the role of defeating the monster I became and reclaiming the family in his stead…”
Jin frowned every time Rosa used the second-person pronoun “you.”
She noticed and smiled faintly.
“Only my relationship with Siron was good. Your expression shows just how terrible a mother I was. I must have been the worst matriarch in history. There have been villains who crossed the line into wickedness in Runcandel before, but the only one who became a fiend… was me.”
The young Rosa before him was a completely different type from the Rosa Jin knew.
The latter was a demon who would do anything for the family’s prosperity and survival.
But the Rosa smiling bitterly now had eyes so clear and deep she seemed more suited to Hyland than Runcandel.
“Rosa.”
“Speak.”
“Why did you do it?”
Jin’s voice was thick with anger. Rosa paused for a moment, lost in thought.
“I simply lacked the qualities and qualifications to be the family’s matriarch.”
“No. Before becoming a fiend, you were undoubtedly the acting head everyone revered. No one thought you unfit to lead the family in your father’s place. Your followers did everything to earn your recognition.”
Rosa lowered her head, weakened by blood loss.
“You were the acting head even your enemies and detractors had to acknowledge. I was no different. Until you conspired with the prophet and became a fiend. Until you became a mad monster who said it didn’t matter if the whole world perished, as long as Runcandel’s banner remained.”
“You say I said those things…”
“You did. And you did those things.”
“Through this power called chaos?”
Rosa placed her hand on her wound.
The fiend’s energy had spread like a tumor.
“Yes.”
“Then the reason I became a monster is clear.”
She spoke calmly.
“It was because I gave up fighting. Because I was tired, because I saw no path forward, or because I thought I’d done enough. Becoming a fiend was the easiest, most tempting path I ever took from birth to now.”
Transparent tears slid down Rosa’s cheeks.
Regret for a future she couldn’t remember, hatred for herself, and despair that no matter what she did, the terrible future was irreversible—all chilled her soul.
Against the real monster Rosa had become, there was nothing Jin could do.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
“As a knight of the family, I’m here to collect the price for those sins. If you have any last words for the fiend, tell me.”
“Please… may death not be an easy escape. May that ugly soul and body be trapped somewhere in pain, never to be freed for eternity. May I… always be there beside it. More than anything, I pray for that…”
The group held their breath. Even in death, Rosa’s curse upon herself weighed heavily on them all.
“I will deliver your message.”
Rosa’s remaining breath was fading.
Jin stayed by her side as she passed.
Between moments of fading consciousness, Rosa spoke to him.
“Jin, do you… have a lover?”
“No.”
“In the past?”
“I don’t know.”
“Someone who holds your heart… or someone you hold dear alone.”
“Why ask that now?”
“Well… because you’re handsome… like Siron. I… liked Siron because he was handsome.”
Jin couldn’t help but laugh at that.
Their children had never shared such ordinary, trivial conversations with their parents.
“More than that… there’s no one more handsome or stronger… no one but Siron. I never dated anyone else.”
“Did your father feel the same?”
“If he’s still wandering the Black Sea, then unlike me, Siron is probably still fighting.”
Rosa exhaled a warm breath.
“Jin… my son, I’m sorry.”
“Please, stop me.”
With those final words, Rosa died.
Everything she said before her death were words the Rosa Jin knew could never have spoken.
‘Yes, I will.’
Jin answered silently, gently closing her eyelids.
As the dead Rosa regretted a future he didn’t know, Jin was sending off a mother he never truly understood.
A heavy silence fell.
“…The dead Rosa was likely a fragment of the fiend’s self or soul.”
Jin’s words were met with nods from the group. They had been drawing the same conclusion from the conversation.
[Perhaps it was an unintended separation, even the fiend itself didn’t want it. I don’t recall sensing anything about this fragment inside the fiend during my captivity. And the fiend’s final attack through this head wasn’t against you, but against this fragment.]
Alpen hoisted the fallen former head of the clan, who had been lying beside Rosa since earlier, and spoke quietly.
The man still hadn’t regained consciousness, and neither Jin nor Alpen knew who he really was.
Young Rosa’s body was darkening, the chaotic tumor spreading rapidly from her chest.
Jin summoned a small flame in the palm of his hand.
They needed to take care of the body and leave before it deteriorated further.
But just as Jin was about to drop the flame, he flinched and looked up.
Suddenly, a sinister voice echoed in his mind.
[I’m curious how it feels to watch the last remnants of my humanity fade away, youngest one. I had hoped you’d be the one to end it yourself… but this isn’t so bad either.]