The decisive battle on Golgotha Hill.
Eliya made a sun in the sky and dropped it.
The blazing light and flames plunged toward the emperor.
But then—
With a rough sound like the wind howling, the sun seemed to be sucked in somewhere.
The entity that had drawn it in was Geist, the leader of the Royal Wizard Order.
There was a black dot above his head, with both hands raised.
A fist-sized dot whose depth was hard to fathom.
The sun revolved around it, got absorbed, and soon disappeared.
Geist looked down at Eliya and smiled.
“It was once truly cursed, but now that I think about it, I’m grateful for it. Living in an era alongside a wizard rewriting history.”
Eliya de Bevel.
A genius wizard known as the reincarnation of the mythological era.
Just by existing, she wielded an influence that was hard for many wizards to dismiss.
And among the three genius wizards before Eliya awakened as a wizard, there were Balak, Epona, and Geist.
However, simply based on ‘talent,’ Geist was the strongest among them.
Diminished by Eliya, he paradoxically was the one most influenced by her.
He decoded, analyzed, and imitated her magic, rapidly growing his own power.
And during the weeks Eliya spent in seclusion caring for Judas, Geist prepared means to rival her.
“…….”
Eliya gazed at him intently.
‘…It wasn’t like this before.’
The atmosphere he exuded had changed.
It was much denser and deeper.
Resembling the sticky and slimy aura of dark magic.
‘…I can’t see the Royal Wizard Order.’
The Royal Wizard Order had not been wiped out.
There were survivors besides Geist.
Yet, among them, Geist was the only one present at the moment.
None of the wizards who fled with the sun symbol earlier were present.
Furthermore, there was Johan’s dark magic barrier that had easily defended against her magic just moments ago.
‘A few days ago… the incident where the inhabitants of Yggdrasil mysteriously disappeared.’
Clues intertwined and formed a result.
“…You’ve used quite a lot of offerings.”
The remainder of the Royal Wizard Order.
And thousands of Yggdrasil’s inhabitants.
They were all sacrificed to enhance Johan and Geist with dark magic.
Eliya speculated thus.
“Impressive deductive skills.”
Geist affirmed her words with a grin.
“I never realized dark magic could be so versatile.”
“Thank goodness the monstrous wizard didn’t realize this sooner; otherwise, you would have never been able to handle it.”
“Well… I have enough without resorting to such things.”
Eliya glared at him disapprovingly before averting her gaze.
Right behind her was Judas.
Unlike the royal guards, he was close to her side.
Just confirming his presence made her heart feel warm.
“Judas.”
“Yes, Miss.”
He responded while still keeping an eye on their surroundings.
“Go out.”
It meant for him to go out and fight instead of staying by her side.
Judas looked at her with concern.
Unconsciously, Eliya smiled.
Even in this urgent situation, she found joy in his worry.
“Don’t worry.”
The sun rose in the sky.
Though it twisted unsteadily compared to the one Eliya made, it was clearly the magic she wielded.
However, Eliya did not cast the spell.
Geist was mimicking her.
The scorching light erupted.
Eliya, unconcerned, softly leaned into Judas’s embrace.
It was hard because of the armor.
She couldn’t feel his warmth.
But it was okay.
Under the falling sun, Eliya smiled as she nestled into Judas.
“As long as you are here, I won’t die.”
“…….”
Judas let out a deep sigh.
In truth, her worry was ridiculous.
Eliya was stronger than any ally.
Moreover, their side was at a serious disadvantage.
Rather than staying by Eliya’s side, he’d be more pragmatic to fight himself for the better chance of victory.
“…You must be careful.”
Eliya’s smile brightened.
“That’s enough to hear.”
She slowly detached from his body.
Judas stared at her face for a moment.
Her uniquely folded eyes.
The golden eyes visible beneath them.
Originally, her eyes were set against a red background, with glowing orange and a golden sun shining in the center.
Those were the eyes of a raging fire.
But now, they radiated a pure golden light.
“Be careful too.”
There was no time to ponder.
Eliya held onto his fingertips as she spoke, and Judas resolutely nodded.
Eliya’s golden eyes looked up.
The sun filled the sky.
It seemed trivial compared to her.
Eliya soared straight towards the sun.
The plummeting sun engulfed her.
Afterward, the sun quickly shrank in size.
Before long, the falling sun had disappeared.
And in its place floated Eliya.
Her fiery golden eyes gazed down at the ground.
The sun was not gone.
It was held in her hand.
The small, compressed sun thrashed in her grip, as if wanting to escape right away.
Geist also ascended to her level.
Eliya fixed her gaze on him.
‘Geist… Are you confident enough to fight me? The emperor will somehow handle Judas. Let’s trust him.’
She would do what she had to do.
It wouldn’t take long.
“But if you thought you could follow me and fight me with just this much, that would be disappointing.”
Eliya extended her hand, holding the sun towards Geist.
‘Trajectory distortion.’
She bent the trajectory of the power that was about to burst.
‘Compact supernova explosion, linear.’
The golden light shot straight out, scraping the ground.
The ground touched by the ray boiled, and the enemy vanished in flames.
A linear void appeared in the formation of the enemy that surrounded them.
At the end of the ray stood Geist.
After the ray turned the earth upside down, a sharp noise echoed everywhere.
“Ugh-!”
He cast a defensive spell while simultaneously casting teleport.
If he took that hit, even with a barrier, he wouldn’t survive.
So it was best to get out of here.
Casting magic and teleportation at the same time was incredibly difficult.
Especially when mixed with such high-level magic.
If he made a mistake in his calculations, he could end up somewhere ridiculous, but Geist chose to trust himself, reinforced by dark magic.
The glaring ray painted everything white.
As he teleported, his field of vision rapidly changed.
He had succeeded.
He arrived near Eliya.
As expected, he immediately continued to cast magic.
He reached out his hand…
“…?!”
Eliya was watching him.
As if she had anticipated it.
She was already poised with her hand extended toward him.
Golden flames danced from her hand.
Eliya smiled leisurely.
The maximum speed magic at close proximity used by Balak.
The target was cursed, but the magic itself held no crimes.
Besides, her own was stronger and faster than that.
‘Solar core release.’
-Boom!
Brilliant golden light exploded.
Geist had no time to defend or evade.
He was struck directly.
“Ugh….”
He coughed blood.
His waist was burned clean off.
His upper and lower body separated as he toppled over.
However.
“That’s truly terrifying…”
Geist grinned with a smirk.
From the cut between his upper and lower body, black shadows began to writhe and rise, connecting them.
With his elongated body resembling a centipede, the wound healed in the blink of an eye.
The dark gray eyes of Geist revealed some obsession that resembled madness.
“I can’t just die like this…”
Eliya looked down at him indifferently and spat out.
“How grotesque.”
*
“Judas! Where’s the lady?!”
Richard said, cutting through an enemy’s midsection.
Judas, who had just joined, beheaded that enemy and answered.
“She went up to face the wizard!”
The magical battle in the air rendered their ears deaf, and the ground shook.
Hence, the two had to yell to have a conversation.
“She’s not exactly someone we should be worried about!”
“How’s our situation?!”
“We’re screwed! There are too many enemies!”
Royal Guards.
Royal Knights.
And soldiers enhanced by dark magic.
Each was a threatening foe.
Aside from Eliya, their numbers barely totaled nine.
They were struggling to defend while barely backing each other up.
Yuel was also there, but the prospects of fighting seemed dubious.
It was a race against time to hold on until Eliya took care of Geist and came back down.
This situation was not like the fight against the empire’s forces at Eliya’s mansion.
Here, the enemies were spreading out far and wide, and he was hiding and ambushing using terrain with Yuel.
This place was a barren desert with no foliage or trees.
Exposed, surrounded by numerous enemies.
Moreover, the quality of the foes was greater than before.
Each dark magic-enhanced soldier was formidable.
The only solace was that there were no wizards.
Thanks to Geist absorbing them all.
Yet still, the situation wasn’t promising.
‘I can’t let it stay like this.’
As Judas confronted the advancing enemies, he looked up the hill.
Emperor Johan.
He held a spear while looking up at Eliya.
Seemingly not needing to pay any attention to this side.
It appeared he was waiting for an opportunity to ambush Eliya.
‘I’ve never known the Emperor to do something like this. Especially not to call upon the Evil God using dark magic…’
What had caused the Emperor’s future to change?
He couldn’t tell.
It was not a question worth pondering at the moment.
What mattered was how to navigate through this situation.
‘Those two must know about the powers of Eliya and me. Yet they still decided to fight, which means they must have some confidence. About the recent incident where Yule residents disappeared… was it dark magic?’
The ominous dark energy swirling around Johan and Geist was the signal of being engulfed by dark magic.
‘And the soldiers who have been mutated/strengthened by dark magic… They’re a significant issue, but if I tried to reduce their numbers one by one, there are too many.’
Those entranced by dark magic show a degradation in intelligence.
They cannot move as strategically as these soldiers currently.
This means there’s a core figure controlling their mental state.
Itward, when he had to confront a dark wizard in the Underground City during the Royal Guards’ exams.
‘Geist or Johan. One of them, or both.’
And that spear Johan holds is dangerous.
He couldn’t allow it to be aimed at Eliya.
‘Geist seems to have become stronger than before. Eliya shouldn’t lose, but we can’t introduce variables. I have to kill the emperor as quickly as possible.’
Judas chopped off a royal guard’s arm and shouted.
“Richard! Please help me!”
“What’s up?!”
“Cover me so I can get to the emperor!”
“Do you think you can win by going?!”
“Yes!”
Judas answered with conviction.
Richard smirked.
“Kid! I like your straightforwardness! Hey, Dillon! Did you hear that-!”
Dillon’s command took the place of a reply.
“Royal Guards assemble-!”
His booming voice shook the battlefield.
All the Royal Guards gathered around Dillon without looking.
“Clear a path! Protect Judas-!”
A gentle hill leading up to where the emperor was.
The enemies swarmed everywhere.
The Royal Guards decided to execute a concentrated breakout in that direction.
Being more susceptible to encirclement was dangerous, but they agreed to take the risk.
“Judas.”
Lindell patted Judas’s shoulder.
The hand on his shoulder trembled slightly.
“I’ll cover you, so just run.”
The fastest member of the Royal Guards.
Also, the one who had grown the most over time.
Judas momentarily recalled the day he first faced Lindell and nodded.
“…Understood.”
“Forward-!”
At Dillon’s sharp shout, Judas ran.
Enemies clustered thick directly ahead.
They rushed at him like a wave.
Swords and spears.
Arrows and crossbows.
All manner of weapons targeted Judas.
Survival instincts screamed at him to stop or evade.
But Judas gritted his teeth and endured.
Ignoring everything and just moving forward. Moving forward again.
Only running straight ahead.
As if in response to that faith.
-Clang, Bang!
Richard and Dillon intervened, defending and eliminating the threats to Judas.
“Run!”
“Go!”
The target was the emperor.
As a knight, the distance was mere seconds, yet it felt impossibly far.
Judas gritted his teeth.
“Keep running-!”
Lindell followed closely beside him, shouting.
He was running at a similar pace as Judas while defending against small threats surrounding them.
Even when enemies blocked them from the front, Judas solely focused on running.
Then, other guards would rush in, pushing threats aside.
Trusting his fellow comrades, he continued to run.
The surrounding scenery rushed past swiftly.
The sound of iron clashing.
Flames bursting forth.
The smell of blood and soil.
Cries of the fallen.
He couldn’t distinguish whose were whose.
But then, at one moment.
A knight clad in platinum armor stood in his way.
The squad leader of the Royal Guards.
It was an unavoidable gap due to a lack of personnel.
All the Royal Guards were tangled up with other enemies.
Judas reached for his sword.
“Just go-!”
Lindell shouted urgently.
He was following Judas’s pace in case of a moment like this.
Judas hesitated for a second.
The squad leader of the Royal Guards.
A formidable adversary.
If he helped, and if he cooperated with Lindell, they could take down the squad leader in one strike.
But then what?
If they wavered in that brief moment, they could be surrounded by enemies?
His companions were still fighting behind him.
The Royal Guards who had become like family.
Richard, Dillon, Perlyn, Esmo, Jerry, Hador, Gauss, Nils.
Dike, who had chased after the sun symbol. Argon.
They must have been hurt.
Someone might have died.
It was a precarious operation that could put lives on the line.
Suppose they got encircled, stopped, or lost.
Then all those sacrifices would bear no meaning.
In a moment that was less than 0.1 seconds.
Judas resolved to move on and clenched his teeth.
Lindell shouted without looking at him.
“Keep running! Judas-!”
In that moment, Lindell’s silhouette shot forward like an arrow.
Tangled with the squad leader, he disappeared from view.
A scream echoed somewhere.
Whether it was Lindell’s or the squad leader’s, he couldn’t tell.
Wanting to confirm but unable to look away, he charged toward the emperor.
Only two steps remained till he reached him.
A shadow loomed in front of him.
A grotesquely enlarged soldier, twisted by dark magic, fell while swinging an axe from above.
He placed his hand on the lunar pupil and pulled.
The small crescent moon gleamed brightly.
-Shred!
The trajectory of the sword sliced through.
The soldier split left and right as he fell.
Diving headfirst through the pouring blood and guts, Judas finally halted his run.
He landed and slid down toward Johan, who stood on the hill.
“…Remarkable.”
The emperor gazed down at him with admiration.
Judas held back the urge to burst from his racing breath.
“So now, you finally notice me….”
“A meaningless struggle, I suppose.”
The emperor’s gaze shifted behind Judas.
Judas internally shook his head.
It wasn’t meaningless.
Even without results.
If it was a struggle for his sake, it would never be meaningless.
He didn’t say it aloud.
There was no time or room for that.
He just plunged into action.
The emperor laughed mockingly and thrust his spear.
An overwhelmingly long spear, twice the size of a robust adult man.
Judas raised his shield.
Just before crashing into the silvery-white spear.
He leapt forward, rolling his body.
The spear grazed at an angle along the surface of his shield.
As he stumbled forward, he crushed the emperor’s face with his heel.
“Ugh?!”
A reflexive counterattack that bordered on the miraculous.
The startled emperor couldn’t even defend himself properly and got hit in the face.
Judas quickly stood back up and readjusted his stance.
The emperor was looking at him with wide eyes.
Inside, Judas couldn’t help but burst with amusement.
Though he didn’t know why the emperor was acting like this.
Before this reincarnation, he had fought with that emperor countless times.
When he played the game, he tried many approaches to get close to Eliya.
To do various things, power was a necessity.
‘How many times have I killed you?’
In other words, theoretically, he was well-versed in fighting Johan.
The only variable was that he had enhanced his body with dark magic.
‘Still.’
Judas pretended to give him an opening and then dove in fiercely.
The emperor thrust the spear aimed at Judas’s face.
Judas deflected it with his shield.
Seemingly anticipating this, the emperor swiftly withdrew his spear and thrust it back low.
The head attack was essentially a feint.
But even this was what Judas anticipated. He leapt into the air and stepped on the spear shaft with one foot.
‘Does the emperor lack confidence?’
The emperor’s green eyes trembled as they looked up at him.
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