“Cartia… But…”
[What’s there to butt about? Hey, Rubia. If Laila opens the gate to Paradise without lagging behind, your roles are done. Do you understand what that means?]
Rustle- In an instant, Frey swung and cleanly sliced through the branches of Yggdrasil.
Then, picking it up, he plunged it into the ground.
[You are no longer puppets. It means you will become perfect beings, no longer bound by regulations, without a predetermined fate. You could even become something greater.]
Looking at the Yggdrasil branches embedded in the ground, Rubia frowned.
[What’s with the serious faces? I’m a ghost anyway. You know I can’t live with you guys forever.]
Chuckle- As she laughed mischievously like usual, Cartia turned to look at Laila.
[So, if the false Paradise opens, I’m counting on you, slippery girl. Show off that golden glow you’ve been longing for.]
[…You’ve really changed a lot.]
[I told you; over a thousand years—]
[No.]
Interjecting and shaking her head, Laila turned to look at me.
[I meant that the future, once filled with despair, has changed. You, the foe, the shaman, and my descendants—all of you have taken on entirely different forms. What I thought was a ridiculous plan… we really made it this far.]
[Here we go again. Can you break it down for me?]
Hehe… Okay. Sorry about that.
Laila who had propped herself up looked at the Yggdrasil branch in the ground and began to speak.
[The first one to notice the twisted causality was the observer of this world. Rather, it was the being that twisted causality who approached the observer.]
[And who the heck is this observer?]
Cartia muttered, having never heard of this before, as she shifted to sit up while listening intently to Laila.
[You might have met them once. They descended into the world before Jong-eon fully awakened—]
“Uh…?”
At that moment, from a distant land where my soul was connected, I felt an unsettling sensation from Cartia.
“…Noah?”
[Oh, come on. I was listening, so why are you cutting me off… huh?]
At that moment.
―――!
A massive trumpet-like sound echoed, as if tearing open the sky.
It was a strange yet somehow familiar sound.
The land screamed.
The tranquil flowerbed shook.
Yggdrasil trembled.
The Blood Aura enveloping my body surged fiercely.
[…No way.]
With her face contorting in disbelief, Laila jumped up. In sync, Cartia clutched Frey and stared intently at the endlessly stretching horizon.
[You really… went and did it.]
“…What’s happening all of a sudden?”
“This sound…”
In the past, it heralded the destruction of Habron and unleashed calamity upon Loholan.
“The Horn of Rampage…?”
The terrible sound of nightmares continued to echo.
[What on earth are you thinking…]
Turning her head towards Yggdrasil, Laila traced a line in the air with her hand.
Splat- Between the torn body of Yggdrasil, shimmering galaxies began to manifest chaotically.
[The Apostles of the ‘Nameless One’ have summoned the ‘Primordial Beasts’.]
[These damn things…]
“Primordial Beasts…? What… what are those?”
[Disasters that flowed into the false Paradise. Beasts that killed gods. Apostles of outsiders. Behemoth, Leviathan, and Jiz, with others diverging from typical monstrosities.]
Laila waved her hand once more.
The chaotic galaxies parted, creating a massive hole.
[I’d like to explain in detail, but there’s no time. If this continues, our world will meet its doom before we even enter the false Paradise. So—]
Thud- Thud-
Amid the massive trumpet sound, small footsteps echoed.
Clink-
Not one, but two.
The sound of light leather shoes and the heavy clang of armor.
“It’s been a long time, Lady Laila.”
Swish- A lightly dressed man, Aaron, bowed.
And then—
Clang- Vamilion, clad in golden armor, came to a halt, his voice shaking violently.
“…Car…tia?”
He called out Cartia’s name.
*
Beasts of the Primordial kind, unrecognizable as any sort of form, enveloped Cartia.
They looked like a grotesque combination of all beasts.
At first glance, they appeared monkey-like, but their might was from another dimension.
Every single beast that covered Cartia possessed power comparable to that of gigantic monstrosities.
“Alex!!”
Crash- The monstrous footsteps shook the ground as massive steel spikes attempted to halt their advance.
But the weak steel spikes could not fully halt the Primordial beasts.
Crash- With a mere flick of their claws, the steel shattered. It was reduced to shambles.
[WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKK-!!]
The annoyed Primordial beasts let out horrific roars towards Alex and Yuria.
Just hearing it felt like being shredded to bits.
Amid that horrific sight, Yuria’s summoned beasts dashed towards the monsters, ripping through the dimensional fabric.
Following them, gigantic arrows and steel spikes, cultivated once more to be stronger, rushed in, aiming at one among the numerous beasts.
Crash- The summoned beasts’ teeth shredded the beast’s skin. Through the torn hide, arrows and countless steel spikes lodged into it.
[GGGGIIIIAAAA-!]
But the beast’s momentum didn’t falter. It tore off the parts where the spikes and arrows had impaled, then barreled forward with its remaining leg.
The direction the beast charged toward was—
“Urgh-!”
Yuria.
In the blink of an eye, it closed the distance, and the beast swung its claws at Yuria. The claws, sharp enough to tear through steel like paper, dug into Yuria’s flesh.
At that very moment.
Crash- A fist extended from behind Yuria, crushing the beast’s head, igniting a ferocious wave of destruction.
“Ugh… ha, ha… Lady Hermila.”
With a stiff smile, Hermila handed Yuria an Elixir she pulled from her pocket while scanning their surroundings.
“We have to aim for the head. They don’t seem to feel pain at all.”
Yuria, downing the Elixir in one go, nodded in agreement with Hermila’s words.
“Phew… It does seem that way.”
“What the hell is all this…?”
The beasts were tearing apart the residents and liberators alive.
With a terrified expression, Mia notched her arrow and looked at Hermila.
“I’m not sure. But… these don’t seem like the monsters we knew.”
Hermila, seeing the ashes swirling on the ground, unfurled the red-stained bandage.
“If we try to take them down individually, it’ll be impossible. Let’s stick together.”
The blood-soaked bandage fell to the ground.
Drip- Following it, thick droplets of blood were splashed everywhere.
“Hermila, your hands…”
After killing how many beasts, Hermila’s hands were already in tatters.
Her skin, crudely patched up, hung limply, and the muscles revealed underneath were torn and barely functional.
“It’s fine.”
But Hermila, showing her mistilteinn-made arm, smiled faintly.
“Ugh… Hey, Hermila. At least splash some high-grade potion on yourself. How can you even fight like that?”
“I can fight, so I think it’s better to prioritize everyone else. Starting with you, Alex.”
“I can hold on with willpower—”
“It hurts, so just eat it. That’s enough to be a hindrance.”
With a clumsy tongue-lashing, Mia slapped Alex’s back thwack-
Under normal circumstances, it would’ve been a minor pain, but after repeated battles, Alex’s body interpreted it as sheer agony.
“Ugh… you lunatic…”
“There’s no time for pride, so hurry and drink it.”
With a playful smirk, Yuria opened the cap of the Elixir from her dimensional pocket and handed it to Alex.
Face contorted, Alex reluctantly gulped down the Elixir. Once Yuria confirmed the glass bottle was empty, she turned to Hermila.
“Hermila, your orders.”
“First and foremost, let’s prioritize the residents and liberators’ retreat.”
“Not just retreat— we could kill them all if we wanted.”
Alex, with his short hair tousled haphazardly, adjusted his stance.
“Alex. Don’t even think about using Reverse Heaven.”
As if it wasn’t the right time yet, Hermila firmly cut off Alex’s words and looked up at the sky.
In the crimson sky, the black sun hovered in an arrogant manner.
Mocking the beings on the earth with an even darker aura than before, Hermila gritted her teeth.
“First, let’s start from the east and move south.”
After tying a knot in the tattered bandage given by Rubia onto her battered hands, Hermila glared at the battlefield that had transformed once again into Cartia.
“It might be impossible to annihilate them, but let’s tear apart the beasts blocking our path.”
