Chapter 748
Episode 184: Beyond Fate (20)
Swoosh!
Murakan thrust his fist with all his might toward the Fiend.
The shockwave from the clash of fist and blade rippled through the massive aura enveloping the three of them.
Unlike Jin or the Meiwang clan, Murakan wasn’t completely immune to the aura’s influence. Yet, his own power was so overwhelming that ordinary attacks couldn’t infect him.
Though not fully restored, he was closer to his prime than during the first major assault.
The Fiend retreated first. Murakan formed spheres of aura in both hands and fired them at the Fiend, keeping distance.
“Hahaha! Last time, I just didn’t have the time! You think I’d fear the likes of you? Ah, but that stings like hell!”
With that, Murakan quickly whispered to Jin.
“Kid, honestly, we don’t have much time this round either. You know that, right?”
“Misha said so.”
Murakan’s absence meant Solderet’s absence as well.
If he stayed away from the ‘Divine Realm’ too long, the world’s order concerning shadows would collapse in an instant.
“But if you can just buy me a little time to recover, I think you can finish this alone. You’re already badly hurt. Good job holding on this far.”
Right now, Solderet’s divine presence lingered within Murakan.
Because of that, he could perceive realms invisible to mortal eyes.
As long as Jin’s body remained intact, the Fiend was a foe Jin could handle solo.
“It wasn’t me, it was my half-brother. Just protect me for about a minute.”
“Got it.”
Whoosh…!
Murakan transformed back to his true form, spreading his wings.
The Fiend, now seething with venomous rage, unleashed a barrage of sword energy at Murakan.
Outside, a fierce battle raged on.
Unlike before, Padler was holding his own against Veil, and the newly arrived Chaos Army was enormous.
The real problem was the mental assaults through aura and the sheer number of Black Knights.
The allies suspected the Fiend had resurrected every Black Knight in Runcandel’s history.
The four squad leaders were commanding all those Black Knights with deadly efficiency.
But Jin and Murakan had no energy left to worry about the outside fight.
Jin pulled from his chest a gem resembling a round ruby.
It looked like a wavelength tracking synchronization device but was something entirely different.
The Blood of Numerus.
A sacred relic given by Zip before the final battle.
Jin wasn’t fatally wounded or on death’s door, but without hesitation, he bit into the blood.
He used it simply to restore his strength—to fight the Fiend at full power again.
This was a fight worth it. Even if it were tears instead of blood.
Crunch!
As the divine blood filled his mouth, Jin felt the weakness drain away rapidly.
Life returned to his eyes, and his heart pounded wildly, pumping blood to every corner of his body.
His muscles tensed, ready to explode, and his senses sharpened to a razor’s edge.
The darkened light of his radiant heart gradually returned to its original brilliance.
Exactly one minute later, Jin gripped his sword again, more perfect than ever.
Aura wrapped around him, forming a dazzling protective shield.
Magic surged wildly in all directions, and spiritual energy enveloped Bradamante.
Through the magical veil, a summoning portal opened.
“Gahhh!”
The Fiend’s dead world—the Fiend’s castle—had already been shattered and turned into parts of Ram, allowing Tess to be summoned again.
“Whoa, you scared me! Next time, give me a heads-up before you call me!”
As Tess breathed fire, spiritual energy and aura intensified in response.
The flames of uprising.
And the eternal flames.
The two fires symbolizing Runcandel’s magical sword pushed back the chaos flooding in.
Murakan couldn’t combine the shadowy black flame like Misha, but he simply poured in massive spiritual energy to strengthen the uprising flames.
What pierced the Fiend now was no ordinary sword.
It was the will of fire that had burned through a thousand years of Runcandel’s history.
Jin twisted the blade lodged in the Fiend’s chest, gritting his teeth.
“Family, my home, my fallen brothers, countless innocent lives! All destroyed by your hand!”
Unconsciously, Jin shouted, driven by rage.
“The strongest Runcandel in history? A family untouchable by any threat? What you tried to do was something even my father, Temar, and the gods couldn’t accomplish. Look at the result of your reckless rampage! The Garden of Swords is broken, the knights, the family…!”
“Shut up! If your family was so precious, you should never have left this place—not you, not Siron! My choice was right!”
“Die!”
What maddened Jin was the bitter truth that even if he killed the Fiend, what was already broken could never be restored.
He couldn’t keep his composure in battle.
It didn’t matter. He was certain he could tear the Fiend to shreds a thousand times over.
But even then, this fury would never be quelled.
The pain of those who had died under the Fiend’s claws, and those left behind, would never vanish.
Screech!
Jin slashed horizontally, cutting the sword embedded in the Fiend.
The Fiend immediately regenerated, absorbing the eternal flames as before.
With a fierce glare, Jin drove the blade into the same spot again, twisting and slashing.
When the Fiend tried to dodge, Murakan forced her movements.
One by one, wounds appeared on Jin and Murakan.
Blood, spiritual energy, and aura mingled, staining the air.
Amid the ongoing uprising flames, Runcandel’s ultimate techniques and secret arts clashed relentlessly.
Meteor showers and black meteor showers rained down simultaneously.
Blades and dark sword energies flew at each other at near-light speed, blurring vision.
Falling flowers, lightning flashes, black crosses, golden rings, thunderclaps—all collided.
Blades that could shatter even superhuman bodies and divine flesh battered those who had once been comrades, stabbing and slashing.
Breath came fast, throats burned as blood rose.
Over thirty minutes of fierce combat, the Fiend lost her body more than twenty times.
Beheading, bisecting, shattering into pieces, burning without a trace—
The Fiend endlessly regenerated and revived.
Could the family be rebuilt and resurrected with such tenacity?
Could the Runcandel family, now reduced to so few, be restored after this battle…?
Whenever such doubts crept in, moisture welled in Jin’s eyes.
He would make it happen, no matter what—but more than ever, he longed for things he could never see again.
The dark, cold Garden of Swords where his past self had no place.
The cold, harsh people who treated his past self.
The cruel family his past self had no choice but to leave.
He missed even those painful memories so much it felt like his heart would rot.
If someone could take away his privilege of reincarnation and return Runcandel to those days—even if that meant his exiled self never met Valeria and quietly died somewhere—
If he had the choice, Jin would nod without hesitation.
He’d accept living a miserable, insignificant life if only the family could be restored.
“That won’t happen. I won’t be given that chance. I will kill you and bear this heavy burden… the burden of Runcandel. The duty to rebuild a place where Runcandel stands tall once more.”
Muttering words the Fiend and Murakan couldn’t hear, Jin swung his sword.
His body, restored by Numerus’s blood, felt heavy as if submerged.
The Fiend’s regeneration slowed; her body took longer to form.
No one in this world—
Would want to kill their mother.
No one would want to be a child of such a mother, nor be fated to save the world from her.
Jin was no different. He never wished for this future.
Fate was an inevitable end he had to accept, so he fought against it.
He was trying to overcome it.
“Graaah!”
Jin roared, swinging Bradamante.
The uprising flames vanished, and Tess returned to her flame form.
Murakan stayed behind, shielding Jin’s body with his own to prevent further injury.
Screech!
The blade wrapped in spiritual energy raked across the Fiend’s chest.
For the first time, the Fiend coughed up blood—not aura, but bright red blood—like a human.
The eternal flames, which had been absorbed continuously, left a faint blue spark on the Fiend’s chest.
She grasped the flame.
“Hsssh, huff…!”
The Fiend exhaled a breath mixed with a metallic rasp.
Her horns and two wings trembled and slowly melted away.
The aura surrounding her body fell to the ground like ugly, cracked scales.
At last, the eternal flames that had burned the Fiend’s chest began to strip away her aura.
With each passing second, the Fiend’s form grew more human.
Jin, suppressing his conflicted feelings, leveled his sword.
And instinctively, he knew.
This fight was destined to end with Jin facing the Fiend alone—without Bando, Murakando, or any of the others.
“Kid, you holding up?”
Jin nodded, and the storm of spiritual energy swirling around the three of them suddenly surged violently.
In an instant, the tempest tightened its grip, constricting them all.
“A last desperate move,” Murakando muttered. “Using this much energy in that state means there won’t be a next time. I still have a little time left, so I’ll break through first. Once the energy subsides, we finish this…”
“No, Murakando. You go out first.”
“What? Why?”
“The outer battlefield is losing ground. Go help them. Besides, this energy can’t harm me.”
Murakando opened his mouth to argue but stopped when he saw Jin plunge his hand into the raging storm. Unlike before, the tempest no longer affected Jin at all.
“This is the final one-on-one. Like always, I’ll come out on top. Hold on and save as many as you can. You’re the guardian of Runkandel—you have a role worthy of that.”
With that, Jin began to step forward toward the Fiend.