Judas ran through the flames.
The blackened Eliya continued to fall.
She clings to Judas, obstructing his path.
Exhausted, Judas barely shakes her off and trudges forward with great effort.
During the brief separation, various memories pour out of the burning Eliya through several voices.
“I’m glad you’re safe, lady…”
When he nearly died at the hands of an assassin sent by Narcissi.
“Nothing happened.”
“Really? But…”
“It was all my doing.”
One day, as he became an adult.
When Eliya caused a commotion as if she had been kidnapped.
“Judas, you…!”
“… It’s nothing.”
During the guards’ test, when he got hit by a crossbow meant for Eliya.
Among them were also memories that Judas did not know.
“If we continue staying together like this, the moment your magic runs completely dry will arrive.”
“…”
“The evidence of this burned state is probably… that child can’t handle the young lady’s power any longer.”
When he heard about the soot forming on Judas’s body from the Magic Tower owner.
“You need to stay away from me.”
“That’s why. I eliminate you because you’re a weakness. You’re more of a nuisance than indispensable.”
“I’d prefer it if you died. I’d hate to need your sedative during the war.”
When he expelled Judas because he feared that he might die by being close to him.
“I hate you so much.”
When he misinterpreted that Judas killed Maria.
“Grrr…! Ugh! Argh, ugh—!”
When he saw Maria getting stabbed in front of him.
“Ah… Ugh…”
When he looked down at the gravely injured Judas, facing death.
All those memories vividly conveyed only through voices.
Judas clenched his teeth and ignored them.
He stepped heavily onto the flames.
It was hot.
It felt like his respiratory system was melting away.
With every breath, it felt like his throat and nose were being torn apart.
His exposed flesh was burning and melting away.
Next to him was an abyss.
It seemed like it would be easier to fall.
But he endured.
He walked, gritting his teeth.
He had climbed quite a bit.
The sun was now close enough to touch.
He squeezed every last bit of strength.
He would leap up and reach that sun.
At that moment, just as he was gathering strength in his collapsing legs…
“Ugh!”
The fiery path shook violently.
Judas stumbled and nearly fell below.
He barely regained his balance and looked down.
People appeared as mere dots in the distant valley.
Balak appeared clearly.
He was dying, arms outstretched.
The death of the deceased.
Soon, it meant annihilation.
*
Balak was attacked by Eliya.
Eliya, made of black flames, poured down on him like hail.
Horrible words incessantly flowed from his mouth.
The humiliation he suffered at his family home.
The abuse he endured from Narcissi.
The self that passed him by without care.
With the sole determination to send Judas up, Balak struck down the falling Eliya and killed her.
This was all an illusion.
He must not be dazzled.
It felt terrible to again kill a child he had already killed once.
At that moment.
He spotted other children melting away.
They had lost all reason and were flailing around, clouded since the first time he saw them.
Annihilation was right in front of them.
‘Ah…’
In that instant, everything became meaningless to Balak.
His guilt.
This action.
What value did it hold?
In the end, he couldn’t save anyone.
Not Maria. Not Narcissi.
Cain, Levi, Jezebel, Aghan, Sara.
Not even Eliya.
When one becomes fixated on a particular desire, their self becomes distorted.
And the moment they realize that desire can never be fulfilled, the self collapses.
The children who had lost their reason charged at Balak.
They pushed, hit, and trampled him as if they desired to kill him.
“Ughhhhh—!”
“Grrr—!”
Children who, with flesh melting away, tried to kill him in grotesque forms.
And Eliya, falling from the sky.
The black flames collided with the ground and exploded.
They scattered everywhere, splashing onto him.
It melted down hotly.
It was his filthy karma.
Balak barely held onto his crumbling self.
In that last moment.
Judas must hold on until he reaches that sun.
The black sky visible through the screaming children.
The fiery path writhed, causing Judas to sway.
He regained his stance and leaped towards the black sun.
But.
“Ugh…!”
Balak’s limits came first.
The raging flames began to fade, gradually disappearing from below.
‘No way…!’
With all his strength, Judas leaped.
His hand reached out toward the black sun.
It felt so near.
Balak sighed in relief at that sight.
Dying under the pressure of his children, he felt relieved and apologized.
To his children.
And to Eliya.
To Maria and Narcissi as well.
In the very end, he silently thanked Judas for allowing him to feel a fragment of atonement.
Just as he was about to close his eyes.
‘…!’
Someone emerged from the black sun and blocked Judas.
It tightened around Judas’s neck.
As a result, he couldn’t reach the sun.
He began to fall after trying to approach the sun.
In the end, Balak completely lost consciousness without seeing Judas enter the sun.
It was a meaningless end that suited him.
*
“You won’t go—!”
The woman who grabbed Judas’s neck screamed like a demon.
The ends of her flamboyantly flowing blonde hair were ablaze with black fire.
Judas grimaced at her dreadful appearance.
‘Narcissi…!’
Maria, who captured Balak’s heart without any background.
Eliya, the bastard child who inherited the power of fire from a commoner.
Driven mad with jealousy over her two daughters, the woman held onto Judas.
“This crazy bitch—!”
Judas hurled curses out loud.
He had climbed so high, but now he was plummeting, caught by Narcissi as the flames faded.
He punched Narcissi’s face with all his might.
Yet, that witch-like woman did not let go.
Judas had no strength left to throw her off.
Even if he shook her off, there was no way to climb back up.
“Everyone dies! We all die together!”
Narcissi’s skin stuck and dripped with flame as well.
She shouted angrily.
Judas was fed up with her, and this situation infuriated him.
His mind filled only with the obsession to save Eliya.
‘How the hell did I get here…!’
Even as blood flowed from his gums, he gritted his teeth.
Though nothing would change, he couldn’t endure without unleashing violence.
While falling, he kept pounding Narcissi’s face mercilessly.
“Cough…!”
Narcissi attempted to escape in response.
Judas did not let her escape.
He wrapped his legs around her waist and held her down, punching her.
He smashed her nose and slapped her cheek.
“Because of you, just because of a piece of shit like you, Eliya…!”
Even as he poured out his rage with bloodshot eyes at Narcissi, nothing changed.
His body kept falling down.
The ground was getting closer.
Was this truly the end?
Just as his heart wavered for a moment.
“Let go of that hand.”
A low, cold voice intervened.
Judas tightly shut his eyes before slowly opening them.
A woman was strangling Narcissi’s neck.
With flowing black hair.
In a white dress.
A figure reminiscent of Eliya was indeed the woman who guided Judas in the afterlife.
Though a bit different from how he often saw her, he recognized her now.
‘Ria…?’
Maria.
Eliya’s mother was grabbing Narcissi.
“Please stop tormenting my daughter.”
“Ahhh—!”
Maria and Narcissi fell as Maria took hold of Narcissi.
Narcissi lost her grip on Judas.
She screamed, reaching out in vain.
“Ugh?!”
Before Judas could wonder how Maria had come this high, something from below lifted him up.
His body floated up.
Judas was startled and looked down.
The branches that grew like healthy trees.
A sturdy-bodied deer.
“You…!”
A moon deer was carrying him and leaping through the air.
It was undeniably a spirit that Judas knew.
“Yuel?!”
Why was Yuel here?
There was no time to think.
In an instant, they reached the height of the black sun.
Yuel placed Judas on its antlers and raised its head high.
“Ugh—!”
As they soared toward the black sun, Judas looked down.
Yuel went back down into the air without greeting, propelling him below.
And Narcissi was plummeting, screaming.
Maria held onto her tightly from behind.
Their eyes met.
Maria smiled brightly.
Tears like dewdrops gathered in her black pupils.
She quietly mouthed.
‘Please take care of her.’
With that farewell, Judas was completely pulled into the black sun.
*
“……”
Judas barely lifted his body off the ground.
Kneeling, he looked down at his hands.
‘… I’m fine.’
His melted skin had returned to normal.
As if the incident had never happened.
His blurred sight was clear again.
‘But… where am I?’
He had entered Eliya’s black sun.
Surrounding him was dark like that sun.
There was light, but not much.
‘Is this the interior of that sun…?’
When he looked up, the only light source here, the moon, was visible.
Like when it first broke, the moon was cracked in various places.
It appeared to have been awkwardly pieced back together.
And below it was a steel frame.
‘… A cage?’
This place resembled a cage.
A very large one.
Stars rose dotted outside the cage.
Judas looked straight ahead.
A straight path stretched within the cage.
Walls blocked both sides.
At the end of the path was a door.
Two doors that swung open on both sides were different from each other.
One was Eliya’s bedroom door.
The other was Judas’s bedroom door.
It was a door made by combining one from each.
Eliya was over there.
Instinctively certain, Judas stepped forward.
Suddenly, a picture frame emerged from the wall.
The painting inside was soft and warm, resembling a crayon drawing.
The painting moved.
Sounds emerged too.
“How gentle.”
In the picture, a young Eliya was petting a moon deer.
In the mansion’s stable.
The day he first petted Yuel.
“……”
Judas walked again.
Another painting emerged.
“Don’t go.”
“Okay.”
“Did you like being here that much?”
“……”
The time when Eliya lived with them for a short while in her mansion.
He had panicked, thinking she would tell him to leave, and had unknowingly answered.
And then Eliya, looking puzzled, asked.
The two children’s figures.
A nostalgic day that made his heart feel soft just by looking at it.
The next painting held no voice.
Only tranquil breaths could be heard.
It was Eliya crawling into Judas’s bed on his birthday.
And him embracing her.
On a quiet night in the bedroom, the small warmth of their bodies embraced each other.
“Get me two of these.”
After asking him to choose a flower pot and laughing as she bought anemones.
Every time Judas took a step, another memory illustrated on the walls emerged.
“What do you think of me?”
“My possession.”
The day he unconsciously blurted out those words and felt flustered.
“… What are you doing?”
“Your cheeks… they seem really… soft.”
“You can touch them more.”
The moment he froze while touching sleeping Eliya’s cheek.
To his flustered self, Eliya said it was all right to touch more.
He could still recall the chewy texture like a rice cake from that time.
“Oh, please do.”
He committed an irreversible act, claiming he would feed her.
“Feed me.”
The next day, he paid the price immediately.
Judas chuckled wryly as he moved forward.
“It’s not something for you to apologize for, lady. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I’m glad you’re safe.”
The day he thought Eliya was kidnapped, worried about her.
Eliya apologizing while looking up at him.
“……”
On the way back after taking the last test.
When he nearly kissed Eliya while trying to place her on Yuel.
The brushing wind and the scent of Eliya tickling his nose.
Frozen in place, Eliya and Judas stared into each other’s faces.
“Look ahead.”
On the way back riding Yuel.
Once they exited the forest, a landscape unfolded.
The green fields waved gently.
At that moment, Judas realized one thing.
‘Color…’
Until now, there had been no color in Eliya’s gaze.
There was, but it was oddly twisted and distorted, all monochrome.
He alone shone with color and light.
And as he looked at the fields.
Color temporarily returned to the world.
The fresh, swaying grass.
There, Eliya smiled brightly with a yellow marigold in her ear.
“Will you swear, with your life, that you will remain eternally faithful to me?”
“… I swear.”
“Are you willing to die for me?”
“I will offer it.”
“Prove it.”
On the day of the installation ceremony.
Because he had awkwardly buried his nose in Eliya’s feet at the end, it became a truly embarrassing memory.
“Don’t let go.”
“… Don’t let go of me. Ever.”
“Because it’s your fault, you have to take responsibility.”
The day they enjoyed the festival alone during the founding ceremony.
“Do you know how I feel? Do you really know how much I think of you, and how I think of you…? Really?”
When they reunited after Eliya had let go of him, that was what he heard.
“Eww, no. That’s later. I want to do this for now.”
When he hugged her after killing Balak.
It was probably the first instance of Eliya’s cuteness that Judas remembered.
“Do I like you, or do I like Yuel?”
“Then why don’t you pet me?”
That time when she pouted, claiming he only loved Yuel.
Though he was flustered, she was just so adorable that Judas didn’t know what to do.
“Thank you for coming to me.”
The moment he first kissed Eliya in the Bevel family.
And.
“I love you so much. Judas.”
In front of Maria’s grave, Eliya confessed.
Both unaware of the truth regarding Maria’s death, they shared their hearts.
Judas watched as color returned to her world.
Colors spread like watercolors, centered around him, soon filling the land and sky.
Before the clear and lasting colors, Eliya smiled and cried.
Lastly.
“It’s okay.”
Just before the Evil God of Emptiness and annihilation.
Eliya, smiling and assuring him, looked at him.
“……”
That painting was the last.
Judas looked back at the path he had walked.
A straight stretch ahead.
The warm picture frames hanging on the walls on both sides.
It was a space that treasured and recorded only their memories.
Eliya appeared to be trying to block his approach from the outside.
As if she were trying to erase her memories with him.
But having this space inside might mean that Eliya wanted help.
After briefly organizing his thoughts, Judas placed his hand on the door in front of him.
Eliya was beyond this.
He could take the real Eliya away.
With conviction, Judas opened the door.
And then there was light.
Golden light poured out, enveloping him and dazzling the whole world.
Support me by donating at least $10, and you'll have the right to request any novel from Novelpia (excluding 19+ content) using a newly developed tool.
