On the ground, evacuations were in full swing.
The most elite members of the organization were headed down the waterways to hunt down the liberators, but that didn't mean they could be complacent.
Furthermore, the periodic vibrations coming from underground were alarming.
A fight that should have been a one-sided affair was instead fiercely fought causing the evacuated citizens to tremble in fear.
The same could be said for the students of Theon who were evacuating the palace.
[Boom! Boom!]
"Doesn't the sound seem to be getting louder?"
"What the hell is going on down there…….?"
"Everyone, don't stop moving!"
Some of the knights and guards leading the students also sensed the seriousness of the situation and sped up their steps.
"Everyone's getting restless."
The air around them was filled with stifling negativity and what should have been a fun field trip had turned into hell in less than half a day.
'God, let's hope this ends well.'
As she started to walk away, Rene slumped down. The pain, like a needle piercing her temple, was overwhelming.
She grabbed her head with her hands.
"Ouch!"
"Rene!"
Erendir, who had been walking beside her, came to her aid.
"Are you okay? What happened? You didn't hurt yourself, did you?"
"Oh, no, it's just that all of a sudden my head…… ouch!"
"Rene!"
Rene couldn't answer Erendir's call for her easily. In addition to the headache that felt like it was splitting her skull, her eyes burned like they were on fire.
'My eyes, my eyes hurt so much.'
The pain was so intense that I felt like she was going to cry, but the tears dried up and evaporated in the heat.
The pain that had been there for a while disappeared as though it had been swept away. It was only a few tens of seconds, but the pain was so intense that it felt so long.
Rene could barely catch her breath.
"Rene, you're really going to be okay, aren't you?"
"Yes, yes. I'm fine for now."
"Come on, let's move. We'll be in trouble if we stay behind."
Erendir started to help Rene to her feet, but then stopped. There was something strange about the way Erendir stared at her.
"Senior?"
"Rene. Your eyes……."
Erendir muttered as he looked into Rene's eyes.
Lights like a cluster of sparkling stars floated in her pupils.
Had her eyes always been like this? It couldn't be. Erendir's senses and time watching her so closely told her. Surely Rene's eyes had changed, and in a very different way.
Just as Erendir was about to ask what had happened, Rene's expression hardened in an instant. Her eyes stared in a single direction before she spoke in a firm voice.
"Senior, you need to move first."
"Eh, eh? Yes, I should. More than that, you, your eyes are……."
"Now is not the time to talk about that, let's go."
"Uh, okay."
Erendir moved with her touch, puzzled by her suddenly determined demeanor.
"Still, I'm the senior one……."
Erendir's bewilderment and grumbling didn't deter Rene. The others might not see it, but she saw a vast evil presence, bubbling up from the depths of the capital city.
It looked like it could burst through the ground at any moment, like a volcano. But it didn't, because someone was desperately holding it back.
'Who is it?'
All Rene could see for the moment was power in color. The color of a great evil, the color of darkness and its opponent that was a brilliant golden color casting a dazzling radiance and dispelling the darkness as if he stood in direct opposition to the evil entity.
It was almost nostalgic but she couldn't let it go.
Her instincts warned her for some time that it would be dangerous to stay here.
* * *
Huge golden palms filled his vision.
Basara realized it was too late to dodge and raised his four hands to meet it. Willing himself to put up as much resistance as he could.
His regenerated body surged with terrifying power and was engulfed in black energy, burning like a flame.
It had summoned all its strength.
Resistance? No. It was going to pierce through those golden palms like a bolt from the blue.
"Come!"
Let's see who's stronger.
Basara's confidence slowly dwindled as the palm slowly approached.
Four arms blazing with black flames met the palm of the Buddha's hand but with a crackling sound, the fingertips crumbled to dust and scattered.
"……!"
Basara could only stare at the sight with wide eyes.
Powerful magic, a strong body, immortal regeneration, all of it was worthless before him.
Only face to face could he could feel that no matter what he did, he would never be able to resist its power.
I should have done as my instincts told me and dodged before the attack was complete.
As the seconds ticked by, Basara's eyes filled with golden light and the Buddha's enormous palm completely engulfed his body.
There was no noise as the huge hand descended but only the slightest sound of wind, like a butterfly landing on a lotus petal. And then the golden hand was gone.
All that remained was a giant palm print on the ground.
"Ha. Ha."
Rudger breathed heavily.
Behind his back, the golden Buddha with a merciful expression turned into a powder of light. It scattered around him, illuminating the interior of the hollow beautifully.
The golden dust looked like fireflies as it traveled between the roots of the World Tree.
Andrei looked up at the sight with a blurry gaze.
"……It's beautiful."
The sight suddenly brought back memories.
He, too, had a child who dazzled like a star in the dark night and remembered her smiling face, which he couldn't see anymore.
'It's all for nothing.'
Andrei's gaze fell to the palm print on the floor.
Despite his fearsome regenerative powers and ability to surpass the Masters, Louispold's flesh showed no sign of life. He had literally been reduced to dust, cell by cell.
Andrei's lips curled in disbelief that such a thing was possible.
Despite the loss of his life's work, Andrei was not strangely angry. In fact, he was almost relieved that the obsession that had consumed his mind for so long was gone.
Suddenly, he remembered why he was here.
He had once been a promising mage not a warlock hiding out and experimenting.
He was a nobleman, with a lovely late daughter, a daughter he would never trade for anything.
His wife was weak and died shortly after giving birth to their daughter but her last words were a request for her daughter.
-Honey, I want you to take care of her.
Andrei raised her with all his heart and soul. He loved her more than anyone and taught her to love more than anyone else.
She was his purpose in life, his everything.
Then she became terminally ill and despite all the medicines he could find and all the doctors he could call, her condition grew worse and worse.
I can't.
He couldn't let her go like his wife so Andrei decided to make his own cure.
There was no disease in the world that he couldn't cure.
He was an authority in this area, a respected intellectual so he analyzed the causes of the disease and looked for ways to cure it, but he lacked too many things like time, materials, data and samples.
Time is something you can get by sleeping less, and materials are something you can spend money on.
Data on whether a treatment would work or not was not readily available and he could only do so much research with lab rats.
It was important to know if it would work in humans.
At that moment, a word flashed through Andrei's mind.
'Human experimentation.'
A taboo for wizards, a horrible evil reserved for fallen warlocks.
If he attempted it, Andrei would lose so much.
His honor, pride and money, everything he had built over decades as Andrei Semov would crumble like a sandcastle.
But as Andrei turned to check on his daughter, he was stopped in his tracks by the sound of a harsh cough coming from her room.
Through the crack in the door, the child was coughing in pain and the handkerchief covering her mouth was smeared with red blood.
The child who had smiled so cheerfully at himself earlier in the day looked like she was dying.
The moment he saw it, Andrei felt something snap in his head.
The next day Andrei sneaked away from prying eyes and bought ingredients from the underworld and ended up performing forbidden human experiments.
Like a car with broken brakes, Andrei continued his research with less and less sleep, first on cadavers, then on criminals who deserved to die.
The data piled up quickly and when the cure was ready Andrei was overjoyed and went to visit his daughter.
-Andrei Semov, you are under arrest for state-sanctioned human experimentation.
If only the Imperial Intelligence hadn't come to arrest him.
Andrei realized that he's been caught, but he also realized that he needed to get the cure to his daughter so he overpowered them all and headed for his mansion but when he got there the child's closed eyes, now cold, greeted him.
-Child, why are your eyes closed?
Andrei trembled and squeezed his daughter's hand but he could not feel any warmth in her cold hand.
-The cure. Here is the cure. This will surely cure the disease…….
He squeezed the medicine into her hand, but the vial rolled helplessly across the floor.
-Why? I have succeeded in developing it. I have found a cure for an incurable disease.
There was no longer a daughter he knew. She no longer smiled at him as a father, or wished to go outside to look at the view from the window.
-I, I didn't do all that to see this……!
Andrei eventually broke down, cradling his daughter's body in his arms.
Soon after, agents of the Imperial Intelligence burst into the room.
-Here! Andrei Semov is here!
-Arrest him! If he resists, kill him!
Andrei's tear-filled eyes turned to the agents.
They stared at him with contempt, labeling him as evil and Andrei's anger boiled like lava at the sight.
Today I have developed a cure for an incurable disease.
A great advance in medicine.
But why?
Why did my daughter have to die?
Why do you look at me like that?
Why are you bound by such petty morals that you let someone who could be saved die?
It's wrong.
This world is as wrong as it gets.
-Yes.
The words slipped from Andrei's lips. His voice was hoarse from crying, but still dripping with hate and filth.
-Then let me show you that you were foolish and I was not wrong.
-Stop it!
Intelligence agents and even knights rushed in, but they were no match for Andrei, a Lexer wizard.
That day, the promising sixth-rank wizard Andrei Semov died. In his place, Andrei Semov, a warlock of the Biotech School, was born.
'So that's what happened.'
Andrei lowered his head again, reflecting on his past.
A shadowy man stood in his path, Rudger Chelici, a teacher at the Academy.
Rudger stared at Andrei and Andrei stared back.
Rudger didn't ask why he was helping. He just stared at the wizard, who was now on the verge of collapse from exhaustion.
It was then that Andrei muttered in disbelief.
"Are you going to kill me?"
"I don't intend to."
"Huh."
Andrei didn't know if it was the confidence of his own power, or the last bit of sympathy he could muster. But he felt strangely familiar with this man.
"Have you ever failed to protect something you were supposed to protect?"
"……."
"Have you ever hated the world, and yet, as if sustained by evil, you did everything in your power to prove yourself wrong?"
"……."
When Rudger didn't answer, Andrei smirked.
"I see you have."
"……."
"I didn't realize it at first, but I could see it in your eyes, you're like me."
Andrei muttered like a man who had already given up on everything.
"So you're not an ordinary teacher after all."
As Andrei muttered that, he squeezed the last of his mana into his right hand and materialized a spell.
It was the same framework that Rudger unfolded as he taught his students the source code.
"This is the formula for my knowledge. Take it. It will help you in some way, or you can make it public. Then you'll have a place in the Arcane Chamber's Hall of Fame."
"Why are you giving me this?"
Rudger realized that Andrei's knowledge was unusual. After all, it was the culmination of a lifetime of study by a Lexer-rank wizard turned warlock.
It carried no small weight.
"With that, you might be able to regain your former reputation, or at least, given your help in the last fight, you might be able to avoid the worst punishment."
Andrei shook his head.
"I didn't do it for anything in return, it's just that I couldn't bear it."
"Couldn't' bear' what?"
"What I failed to protect, and what the world failed to protect. I was tormented by it all."
Andrei coughed, and black blood gurgled. His body was dying.
Andrei laughed bitterly.
"It wasn't praise I needed, or great achievements to make a name for myself in the world. I just wanted to protect what I held in my hands."
"……."
"It must sound ridiculous to commit such an evil deed for such a thing. It doesn't make sense to others. Of course, I don't want it to make sense. I was sincere the whole time, that's all that matters to me."
I didn't care if I had to be an enemy to the world for that.
I didn't care who cursed and pointed fingers.
No matter the filth, no matter the thorns.
I was willing to endure it all.
"You are, too, aren't you?"
Andrei's clear eyes pierced Rudger's.