Episode 934
Chapter 232: Awakening (2)

A golden aura enveloped Jin’s body.

The light was so blinding it felt like his eyes might burst. Paelito clenched his teeth, holding up one hand to shield his vision. The sacred energy was freezing his demonic energy in place.

“Holy King…!”

Paelito pushed his sword forward, trying to stab Rani. But the blade was firmly lodged in Jin’s heart, unmoving.

Jin gripped the blade with his right hand.

‘He should already be dead. What kind of power is this?!’

Paelito, who had even overpowered Hedo with sheer strength, couldn’t break free from Jin’s grasp on the blade. No matter how much he strained, the Bascalar didn’t budge.

Jin’s right arm, which had just lost fingers and hardened flesh like stone, was now bathed in golden light, restoring itself to its original form.

Even his severed left arm and other wounds were regenerating in the same way. His closed eyes now shone with a steady light, and the cold ash-like body was filling with warm vitality. The black blood that had coursed through his heart was rapidly subsiding.

Jin was… coming back to life.

Shuddering at this horrifying truth, Paelito desperately tried to wrench the Bascalar free. He grabbed the hilt with both hands, pulled, punched Jin’s face and chest, even bit his neck.

“Graaah!”

But none of it fazed Jin. Instead, Paelito felt his own fists and teeth shatter under the strain.

Scritch-scratch…!

At last, Jin pulled the Bascalar from his body. Despite Paelito repeatedly unleashing bursts of demonic energy, he was the one who was flung back along with the sword.

Paelito crashed to the ground, stunned, and looked up. Floating a step above the floor, Jin stared down at him expressionlessly. All his wounds had healed as if they had never existed.

The entire sky was suffused with the golden aura radiating from him. Everywhere Paelito looked, the dazzling, terrifying sight forced him to brace himself for an attack.

But Jin had no intention of striking him just yet. The roles had reversed in an instant.

“Jin, I’m sorry. All that I and the Holy Kingdom can do… is to delay your extinction.”

Rani slumped down, her voice weak. Jin turned to look at her.

Her labored breath grew faint, her body becoming translucent, as if she would vanish completely.

They couldn’t fully revive Jin.

Rani’s tears fell, filled with sorrow and frustration. Even though Ayula had poured all her remaining life force into him, and the entire Holy Kingdom had prayed desperately, they couldn’t bring him back to life.

Rani herself was soon to disappear.

“That’s enough. So just wait until the fight is over.”

Rani tried to say it wasn’t enough, that this was goodbye, but then she vanished. In her place remained a shard of light that shouldn’t have existed there.

Even Ayula, who had sent Rani here, hadn’t anticipated this. Jin stared at the light for a long moment.

Paelito thought Jin must be suffering, crushed by the pain of losing a loved one right before his eyes.

“Hahaha… Ayula, that dreadful immortal must have forsaken himself to delay your death. And yet you still failed to protect him. Because of you, even Lord Zito, who usually avoids such immortals, met his end alongside that insect-like shadow. Do you think you’re worth that? Worth enough for Ayula to give up all her power?”

Paelito’s voice dripped with malice, but Jin barely heard it.

He was focused—trying to understand the nature of the remaining light left by Rani, and when he had encountered it before.

It didn’t take long.

‘The Sword Emperor Star.’

The pocket dimension where Gliek swallowed him and Ron during the Sword Emperor War.

Jin had seen this light there too—at the moment Ron Hyland, lost to demonic possession, struck him. When Ron finally overcame chaos and reached the realm of Creation.

Back then, Jin only glimpsed the light; he wasn’t a Creation yet, so he couldn’t see it clearly. He only knew that Ron had shared some of that light to save him.

Now, it was vivid.

Unlike before, Jin could clearly gaze upon the light of Creation with his own eyes. The barrier that had hidden it was gone.

‘The light of Creation…’

He had imagined this moment countless times since his previous life.

The moment he reached Creation, the moment he stood at the pinnacle of the world like his father, wielding that power—Jin had thought about it every day.

But the joy he felt now wasn’t as overwhelming as he had imagined.

Becoming Creation didn’t solve all his problems. For some time now, Creation wasn’t the ultimate goal as a warrior, but a means to an end.

To end the madmen threatening his life, his people, and the world, and to enter peaceful days.

To finally wipe away the debts he carried as a Returner, and to close the long struggle that had stretched across lifetimes.

Creation was a necessary step for that.

He had just crossed a great mountain after a long time. Leaving the light where Rani had been, Jin turned back.

Only then did Paelito realize.

“Ah… you. You’re… in the same realm as me. It’s not just a temporary power granted by Ayula’s energy… is it?”

“It’s true that Ayula delayed my extinction through Rani. But the fact that I awakened the moment I reached death… seems even Ayula didn’t know that.”

Fate. Paelito couldn’t help but think of that word.

‘Is the fate of a Returner truly superior to all other fates? Is it possible for a mortal—especially a human—to possess that?’

If so, Paelito could never defeat Jin. His own fate was surely of a lower rank.

He felt wronged.

He had dominated Jin’s group without ever being in danger, had come close to ending Jin’s life multiple times.

But the gap in fate forced his defeat. No matter how strong he was, no matter what he did, fate seemed to say he could never bring down Jin Runkandel. Even if Jin admitted defeat and knelt, fate wouldn’t allow it.

Jin saw through his thoughts.

“That would be true.”

“…What?”

“If the Sun God still existed in this world, or if the order of suffering you all claim had been applied, there would be no way for you to defeat me. Because that would go against the order.”

Jin slowly approached Paelito.

“But the ground you stand on now is not such a dreadful world, Paelito. Nothing is predetermined… anomalies can happen anywhere, and outcomes can change at any time. That is the world we know, the order we know.”

“Shut up!”

Bang!

Paelito charged, swinging the Bascalar down. Jin parried easily, breaking his stance.

“Ugh!”

“You probably don’t understand what I’m saying. You’re desperately trying to bind yourselves. That’s why Zito clings to order. He wants to enjoy suffering safely without struggle.”

“Shut up!”

Huff!

Paelito gasped, his body trembling from the unexpected impact as he blocked Jin’s sword. Another strike grazed his forehead, and before he could blink, his upper arm was sliced.

Caught off guard, Paelito couldn’t respond. The fearsome might of the Sword Demon, who once tore through sky and earth with a single stroke, now seemed like a lie.

It wasn’t just because Jin had become Creation.

It was because the Spirit Demon had swallowed Paelito. If Paelito had been like this from the start, Jin’s group would have subdued him easily.

“Paelito Belgassium, how did you come to this state?”

Paelito had no time to answer. As Jin extended his sword, he watched Paelito’s shadow.

Thanks to Creation’s insight, he vaguely saw Paelito’s past—leading the resistance before being brainwashed by Zito.

“You were definitely a fighter. Unlike me, you fought for the world without the burden of being a Returner. Back then, you must have had the brightest will in the Demon Realm. Countless people must have gathered, drawn to that light.”

Jin felt respect for that Paelito.

He felt kinship, a desire to fight alongside him, and even though they’d known each other briefly, he thought he could trust him with his back.

But the monster screaming now was not that man.

“Graaah…!”

“I feel that you once were that man, but I cannot forgive you.”

Swish!

Bradamante sliced through Paelito’s left arm. It fell to the ground, disintegrating into particles.

Paelito still retained faint Creation senses. Without that, it wouldn’t have been his arm but his neck that fell.

He was relentlessly thrown around, coughing up blood like Jin had done to him earlier.

At times, the demonic powers within the Bascalar blocked Jin’s path. But no plague or curse could threaten him.

The spiritual energy that had been sealed within the Bascalar was returning.

After becoming a star, the golden aura around Paelito was being tainted by a creeping darkness of spiritual energy. He wanted to move anywhere to escape the clash of light and shadow, but every direction was a dead end.

“You’ve killed too many people. Brainwashing isn’t an excuse. No matter how radiant you once were, no matter how you saved billions of your own kind from Zito, if you’ve become a monster in the end, you’ll be cut down by someone like me.”

Suddenly, Paelito felt a wall press against his back. A barrier of spiritual energy, like a massive coffin, blocked his retreat.

Inse would never forget the massacre and destruction Paelito had wrought from this day forward. The day would never come when his glorious past would whitewash his sins.

But if Zito died, perhaps there would be those in the underworld who would come to honor Paelito. Jin thought this as he looked down at him.

Paelito had stuck Vaskala into the ground and was clutching a black orb tightly in his hand.

‘…Spirit energy?’

Jin immediately recognized the essence that formed the orb. It was the very orb Keliak had given to Paelito.