Chapter 121: A Fate That Transcends Time

Chapter 121: A Fate That Transcends Time

Winning.

A sense of victory, an emotion they never thought the human standing before them could display.

In front of them was someone who wished to annihilate all of humanity and leave only their madness in this world—the one possibility that should never have appeared.

“Win? You think you can defeat me...?”

Crash!!

Red currents of mana surged. All of it solidified into the form of a weapon, trailing behind her as she advanced, created through the intricate control of mana.

A temporary material creation made through the delicate control of mana.

“Just a single hero dares to claim victory over me who is war itself?!”

Despite the soldiers being blown away by the torrent of magical power added to such a weapon, the enemy knight did not care.

Those who could only stand there stupidly due to her ability to forcibly imprint her presence were nothing more than lumps of meat hindering the advance in this battle.

“You, who are nothing on your own, should have submitted to me if not for these interferences!!”

The enemy knight, who drenched herself in blood, sought to press on.

But her attacks, filled with rage, lacked the cold calculation they needed.

To her, who was fixated on the memories of her childhood, there was no room for composure in a fight.

Boom!!!

And he did not miss that chance.

The enemy knight’s body was pushed back by the explosion of the thrown spear.

The rotten blood flowing from her mouth indicated that she had finally been caught off guard.

Despite her inability to command her troops, she had sustained enough damage to bleed in a mere fight against a human.

“You, ugh, argh!”

The enemy knight, coughing up blood and regenerating her wounds, gripped her sword, but the man who faced her spoke in a calm voice.

“...You must have worked really hard to gain your current strength.”

“Shut your mouth....”

“Thrown into the battlefield at a young age, it’s only natural that someone like you, who survived to the end, would end up like this.”

“What do you know about me, what do you...!!”

“I know everything. I’ve experienced all your memories.”

Her furious voice abruptly cut off, and along with it, the flow of power halted.

It meant that she couldn’t easily brush off his words, enough to momentarily suppress her wrath.

“Experienced... my memories...?”

Yes, what he had shown so far couldn’t be merely due to receiving the stature of a dragon.

The weapons created and the techniques used were too exquisitely matched to what she had wielded.

“Ah, right. My memories....”

Above all, even in a situation where he held a slight advantage, he did not mock her.

Underneath his calm gaze lay an emotion that could be called sympathy.

This emotion could only be shown by someone who had directly experienced being the person in question and lived through that life.

“So, you’re saying, you’re like me?”

If that were truly the case, then the man before her could be said to possess two intertwined personas.

He was now Woo Hyo-sung and Tacchia Pheloi at the same time.

Someone who understood both the feelings of a child abandoned by her mother wandering the battlefield and the emotions upon meeting her mother at the end.

“If you’ve seen my memories... then you can understand me.”

He would have realized, contrasting those memories with the present.

Although currently in the position of the weak and considering themselves victims, the human race as a species was fundamentally rotten.

“You also dislike the world, so you desired power and chose to have the same memories as me.”

The powerful always despise the weak, and those in power always conceal their actions from the masses, shaping the world as they please.

It was natural that humanity, manipulated by such beings, would spiral into madness, leading to inevitable ruin.

What she intended to do was hasten the end that this race would meet, following their own demise, and preserve their ugly form forever.

As they wish, and as her mother wished.

“Because I hate humans. I want to sweep away all those who torment you...!!”

“Is that really everything?”

Despite wishing for her grievances to be understood, the pity in his eyes facing her did not disappear.

“Everything, you say...”

“I asked if every human you’ve met has only ever tormented you.”

Sympathy was an emotion expressed by those who merely observed...

It teaches that the one considered an understanding ally does not walk the same path as oneself.

Even if they had shared their memories, they were ultimately different beings.

“...The reason I’m here now is because there was someone who took over after you.”

Unlike the phantom before him, obsessed only with the past, he faced the world that moved on after her death.

The lonely master who, unable to forget the person he admired, wished to create a successor.

A veteran who wanted to create an army that could fight together, even if they couldn’t become a replacement hero, and those who inherited their will created this moment.

“Even after you died, there were people who remembered you and connected your existence to me.”

If anything remained after a person dies, there was meaning, even if that life was miserable and despairing.

The hero before him was no different.

Understanding that honor and cause existed at the end, he couldn’t live seeing only the negative side of humanity.

“That’s why I’m sorry. I owe too much to too many people to join you.”

In this moment, that difference, despite sharing the same memories, became the decisive factor that divided them.

The monster born from lingering regrets remained shackled to the past, while the successor sought a future beyond what his predecessor had reached.

Always headstrong and reckless, but with quick wits that have kept him alive so far.

“If you roughly understand, get ready. I’ll blow it away with maximum power.”

“Wait, just a moment, hyung. Don’t tell me...”

“Territory Expansion!!”

KWARRUNG!!!

The shovel swung with all his might struck the ground, and in that moment, the surrounding earth began to reverse, defying physical laws.

Terrain Inversion.

The power to invert the ground one stands on in an instant, proportional to the amount of magic used.

KWAAAAHHHH!!!

When its power was unleashed to its fullest, everything within its sphere of influence flew up to the top of the mountain, making everything around appear as mere dots.

A scene where people and phantoms alike appeared no different from insects.

The only thing clearly visible was the smoke dragon roaming the mountains, but even that was only for a moment.

KIEEEEK!

Soon, the inverted gravity would return to normal, causing everything to fall back down.

Sensing this, the crows made of ash scattered around started flying toward the fragment he held.

The memories of crows gathering to feast on corpses on the battlefield awakened their hunger for the living at this moment.

KWANG!!!

For a moment, it seemed inevitable to withstand such an attack.

But then, the trajectory of the rising rocks distorted, blocking the path of the crows and crushing them with their own speed.

A familiar phenomenon.

The power to control objects, enabling the manipulation of several tons of mass if they lacked will.

“Ga-ram!”

“Leave the cover to me!”

Hero Yi Ga-ram.

Riding together with the Terrain Inversion, she used her ability to glide on the shard, sequentially dealing with the approaching crows.

When the controlled shard landed on the dragon’s bone, Ga-ram prepared to launch the shard carrying him to that spot with her ability.

“Your target is the Red Knight, right? How fast should I make it?”

“Damn, throw it as fast as you can!!”

Any help was welcome.

Immediately after he shouted, Ga-ram threw the shard he was on with all the power she could muster, as per his request.

As the speed of the throw was accelerated by gravity, the Red Knight, recognizing the intruder’s presence, drew the sword embedded in the dragon’s back and swung it with all her might towards him.

The burst of red sword energy at the end was a powerful attack capable of annihilating a human body in an instant.

However, the shard, now beyond Ga-ram’s control, couldn’t maneuver to evade the attack, and taking it head-on would mean being pushed off and falling below.

KUUNG!!

While pondering how to respond to such an attack, a third ally flew in from a shard on the side, throwing himself to block it.

Noticing him, his gaze quickly turned towards the man wearing a paper bag, who had collided with the attack and was now falling away.

RUSTLE.

Hero Im Tae-yang.

After 28 deaths, he succeeded in throwing himself to protect him, only to be thrown below the dragon.

“Mr. Tae-yang...!”

His hand reached out reflexively as soon as he recognized his presence.

But even as he fell, his fingers were pointed towards the target.

“Go.”

With his ability, even falling from this height, he could attempt to land thousands or tens of thousands of times until he survived.

But after that time passes, the rest was up to him.

Time passed couldn’t be reclaimed, and if parted, those who remained must move forward.

KWAAANG!!!

Accepting that will, he finally kicked off the shard, colliding with the Red Knight, who had taken a position as if replacing the dragon’s vital point.

After being pushed back, he landed and deployed a weapon made of magic, embedding it in the dragon’s spine, and glared at the Red Knight, who sought to confront him.

“...Woo Hyo-sung.”

The Red Knight, like himself, deployed numerous weapons.

But the sword in her hand gathered a vast amount of mana, expressing a killing intent towards him.

“You should not exist in this world...”

“So, I will obliterate you from this place without leaving a trace, betting everything I have, no matter what...!!”

The opponent, despite sharing the same memories, sought to diverge onto a different path.

Moreover, he was the only one who could inscribe his existence into the eternal war, cracking her bitter desire.

“...I’m curious about that too, whether I’ll be forgotten in this world after I die or not.”

Receiving such hatred, he gathered mana into his spear, thinking of what he wanted to protect.

A battlefield where the living and the dead entwined, and a declining dragon revealing its presence before them.

And a hero facing the dragon’s weak spot...

KWANG!!!

The two, realizing that everything was rooted in past memories, clashed their bodies with even greater force.

The tale of a hero who faced a dragon.

At this moment, surpassing half a century, that destiny shall be concluded by the hands of those who have inherited it.