Episode 960
Chapter 236: The Fire of Destruction, A Cruel Past (3)
The explosion instantly swallowed Jin and Murakan from sight.
They had no choice but to revise their plan. With Elona frozen in place, recklessly charging at Keliak would mean the total annihilation of Jinma’s realm.
Though Jinma had invaded the human world, it was a tragedy born from Keliak’s brainwashing.
Without Jito, Jinma was a world much like the human realm—a home to billions of demons, an entire underground world.
They couldn’t stand by and watch Jinma vanish. More than that, if they failed to contain the blast now, even their allies outside the battlefield would suffer catastrophic damage.
Not only Valeria’s forces but also the human fleets that had just arrived in Hell would be utterly destroyed.
The fire Keliak had unleashed was an unprecedented explosion in human history. It wasn’t just a blast—it was a spell of the Flame God, twisted by Keliak’s divine power.
The Fire of Destruction—the ultimate power Shinu had obsessed over for centuries to surpass other gods, before the creation of the Origin Stone.
That fire now threatened to incinerate Jin and Murakan. Only the narrow space between Keliak and Elona remained untouched by the flames.
“No… no… this can’t be…”
Keliak slowly descended toward Elona. Her face had gone deathly pale as she stumbled backward.
The closer they got, the more Elona’s hair began to change. Her long, pure white hair—the mark of a pureblood Ziphl—shifted to a radiant golden hue.
Inside her chest, uncontrollable, passionate emotions swirled. Sharp shards of memories from a thousand years ago pierced through—terrible experiments in darkness, days longing for light, and an overwhelming desire to finally wear that laurel crown.
These feelings paralyzed Elona. The old memories and newfound sense of purpose she had just recalled upon meeting Jin paled in comparison to the instinct driving her toward that crown.
Keliak stood before her.
Elona struggled desperately to resist her instincts.
She tried to summon magic to attack Keliak, to move her legs and put distance between them.
But her magic was dead, like a powerless engine, and she was already on her knees. Her eyes were vacant, her breathing slow and labored. She was helpless.
“How pitiful. A life that knows nothing of itself. The truths you fought so hard to uncover are all lies, and the countless meanings you clung to in search of yourself are nothing but hollow obsessions… You are a miserable being, Elona.”
Don’t listen! No matter what Keliak says, don’t listen!
Murakan’s distant voice echoed faintly. He and Jin were already far away, struggling to hold back the Fire of Destruction, pushed back with every passing second.
Elona didn’t register the voice. She was lost in a haze, as if hearing only the echo of wind howling through a cave.
Keliak was well aware of this and didn’t care. In fact, it only confirmed once more that Jin and Murakan hadn’t given up on Jinma.
If so, there was no chance they could interrupt this ceremony. With two stars of creation present, perhaps they could prevent Jinma’s total destruction—but saving Elona was out of the question.
“They want to help you. But is that truly helping you? Elona, your life is miserable because you don’t know who you are. You feel despair at the endless destruction and slaughter, drowning in self-loathing… And they cannot give you that knowledge.”
Keliak brought the laurel crown close to Elona’s head. Her hair now shone like the sun.
“It’s time you faced yourself.”
The crown touched her head.
It slithered like a serpent, wrapping around her hair, then rose above her, spinning.
For the first time, Elona opened her eyes again.
Her irises shattered. The fragments filled her white sclera like a miniature galaxy.
At the same moment, Elona began to fall into her own memories.
Elona Ziphl—or the being she originated from—was discovered by humans about 2,500 years ago.
This was before the name Runkandel existed, when Ziphl mages, favored by the gods, had long held dominion over the world alone.
Reginald Ziphl.
The fourth head of the Ziphl family, he uncovered a hidden ruin beneath a kingdom in the Lutero Federation.
The land was bathed in a vibrant green light of life—a mysterious place where, for those with perfect magical bodies, simply standing on the ground healed all wounds and illnesses.
There, hunger was unknown, and no matter how much power was used, fatigue never came.
Reginald immediately declared the site a sacred ground for the Ziphl. Only the family head and closest confidants could enter, and the secret was kept to this day.
“This land was not made by the gods we know, Bitchellin.”
Bitchellin nodded. She was then the deputy head of the Ziphl and a contractor of Melzayer.
“No god we know could have created such a perfect land. Not Melzayer, with whom I have a contract, nor Shinu, whom we worship as our lord.”
“I don’t mean to disparage the gods. We have prospered under their favor, after all.”
But on the other hand, Ziphl’s rule by divine contract meant they were slaves to the gods.
Breaking free from divine control was Reginald’s long-held wish.
It was why he obsessed over ancient ruins and relics, seeking the world’s secrets. Finding the sacred ground beneath the kingdom was no accident—it was the fruit of Ziphl’s greatest investment of manpower and time.
No god’s voice could be heard there. The gods could not intervene.
They had never spoken of the sacred ground and seemed unaware of its existence.
To Reginald, this was fate. If he could harness this unknown relic, Ziphl might not just be a family favored by gods—they could become gods themselves.
“I believe this place is the trace of a primordial being. The god of gods, the creator of the world. It must be their mark.”
“The land of the creator…”
“To those who have never seen it, it sounds absurd. But you and I can still feel it, Bitchellin. This land belongs to a higher existence.”
“Indeed, brother. There are too many things that defy explanation otherwise.”
“We will study this land and become the true rulers of the world. The creator has guided us. We are the ones who can surpass the gods and perfect the world.”
Reginald and Bitchellin’s conversation.
Elona remembered their voices clearly because she was the tree standing tall in the center of the sacred ground.
At the time, she couldn’t understand human language but could remember it. After countless years of solitude, their words sounded endlessly sweet, even if their meaning was lost.
She longed to speak with them.
That was Elona’s first desire. She waited every day for Reginald and Bitchellin to visit the sacred ground, and that waiting soon turned to pain.
For someone who had spent thousands, even tens of thousands of years indifferent to time, days and weeks began to feel unbearable.
“Brother! Brother…! Look! The sacred water is splitting in two!”
“What is this?!”
“Something inside the water… a p-person?!”
Elona had the power to turn longing into reality.
Unconsciously, she sought a form better suited for movement than a tree—one that resembled the humans she waited for every day.
“C-creator!”
When she first emerged from the tree, she looked like the Elona Ziphl known today. She resembled Bitchellin, who chattered endlessly, but her hair shone like the sun, and her eyes held a tiny galaxy.
“Creator!”
Reginald and Bitchellin bowed deeply to Elona. But she realized then that the world she dreamed of and the reality before her were very different.
The breath of humans outside the tree—their smell, their appearance, their clothes, their attitudes, their expressions—awoke a disgust she had never imagined.
Like facing a swarm of crawling insects, Elona shuddered. The kneeling siblings never saw her expression.
“Ugh…”
She only showed her revulsion with a wave of her hand.
The sacred ground’s power gathered instantly, forming a sharp wind that swept Bitchellin away without a trace.
Bitchellin was the first to notice Elona’s change but died without even seeing her face.
“B-Bitchellin!”
Elona felt no particular emotion at the death of the voice she had once found so sweet.
She only wished for those filthy beings to vanish from her sight. But having seen the filth once, she instinctively knew she could never return to what she was before.
From that moment on, Elona’s sole desire was clear:
To eradicate all the world’s unpleasant things.
“This… what is this? Creator, we pledged our loyalty to you! Why would you do such a thing?”
Elona said nothing, only sweeping her hand again in an attempt to kill Reginald.
But unlike Vitchellin, Reginald managed to take a defensive stance even in his shock. At that time, he was the strongest human in Inse.
Using his skills and combat experience, he withstood Elona’s crude, reckless attacks and managed to escape.
By the time he fled the sanctuary and returned to his family, Reginald had lost an arm and the patriarch’s staff. The kingdom where the sanctuary was found had been destroyed.
That was the first time Elona and Ziphl crossed paths.