As Ludger climbed upward with the relic in hand, he suddenly stopped and looked back.
The staircase stretched downward into darkness.
Suruna must have gone even lower than the chamber where the altar had been.
Ludger resumed his steps.
In that moment, he remembered the words Suruna had once spoken about why he had come this far.
—My goal may be revenge against Lumenis, but not entirely.
Most Apostles moved out of hatred for Lumenis, the god who dethroned their own deities, but Suruna had said revenge was secondary for him.
—You may not believe this, but my objective is entirely personal. Not the destruction of the world, not the death of gods, not the downfall of the Church. Nothing so grand or cumbersome. It’s something endlessly small and insignificant.
And then Suruna had murmured a shocking truth.
—Arkenis is alive.
It was a statement uttered with such natural ease, yet Ludger could not imagine how long Suruna must have agonized before he could bring himself to say it.
—Long ago, when Lumenis descended into the lower world, he tried to kill me together with the Saint who had defied him. I suppose he believed I would one day become his greatest obstacle. An evil being close to the Saint—yes, it must have seemed intolerable.
But there was one thing Lumenis had not foreseen—
—that the Saint Arkenis would defy his will.
When Lumenis descended into the lower realm and sought Suruna’s death, Arkenis used her own power to save him.
In the end, the enraged Lumenis sealed Arkenis away.
—Arkenis was sealed. By Lumenis himself. Hidden deep beneath this fortress.
—So she did not die that day?
—No. But reaching the sealed zone requires a condition. In my current state, I could never enter, even if I died and rose again. But with the relic you brought, that’s different.
—Your goal is to release Arkenis from her seal? To set her free?
—Ha. Is that what the story sounds like?
Suruna had laughed and nodded.
—Yes. It’s absurd, isn’t it? The so-called Great Demon, whom the world has cursed for a thousand years, committing every imaginable atrocity—all for the sake of saving one woman.
Then Suruna had asked Ludger,
—Do you think I’m mad too?
—If you’re mad, then so am I.
—Is that so.
At Ludger’s reply, Suruna’s expression had softened at last.
—At least, it seems my final journey won’t be a lonely one.
* * *
Suruna gazed quietly at the woman before him.
He had never once forgotten her.
Her face, her voice, her presence—they had remained in his mind, unweathered by time, even growing clearer with the passing centuries.
And now, he could finally see her again in reality.
Because of the seal, Arkenis looked just as she had in the past.
That was due to the white tree—Lumenis’s seal and curse entwined into one.
Without help, she would likely remain in that state forever—neither dead nor alive, lost in endless sleep.
“This is the end.”
Suruna drew his sword and approached Arkenis.
He crossed the whispering field of flowers until he stood right before her and swung the blade wide.
Kaaang!
The sword that could cut through anything did not so much as scratch the white tree.
Instead, the tree stirred as if recognizing intrusion, and with tremendous force, hurled Suruna backward.
Shaaak!
He landed and slid across the ground, scattering white petals along his path.
“As expected. It won’t yield so easily.”
The tree creaked and shifted, its form distorting.
It stood upright upon two legs—a humanoid doll of pure white.
Its head was sharp as a spear, its limbs equally pointed, and within the spiral cracks of its twisted, drill-like face gleamed a single red eye.
That was Lumenis’s curse.
A filthy safeguard left behind to mercilessly punish any who dared free the Saint who had defied him.
The cursed doll stepped forward.
Suruna advanced as well.
He had come too far to turn back now.
Ssshhk.
The cursed doll moved its right arm.
“......!”
Seeing the arm blur, Suruna twisted his torso sharply.
Something invisible sliced from the ground up, cleaving through the wall beyond.
Fragments of a carved praying woman statue crumbled and fell.
A moment slower, and he would have been cut in half.
Suruna raised his sword and swung.
The blade blurred as it swept for the doll’s neck.
The cursed doll did not move until the sword was nearly upon it.
Tunng!
A pale force erupted around the doll and easily deflected Suruna’s strike.
It was the same blow that had once overwhelmed the Lord of Flames—but it had no effect here.
“As expected of a divine curse left by a god.”
Lumenis could no longer interfere with the mortal realm, but this remnant was the last fragment of his power.
A splinter of the might once possessed by the ruler of all creation.
Even after centuries of decay apart from its source, it remained this strong.
But Suruna did not despair.
He felt no frustration, no hopelessness.
Those emotions had long been buried in the flow of ancient years.
Instead, he felt joy.
If the enemy truly possessed absolute power, he would have already been erased in a single instant.
‘I am not dead yet.’
The cursed doll was not perfect.
Powerful, yes—but not omnipotent.
It could be avoided. It relied on divine energy to attack.
Suruna began to draw sigils in the air.
Though he favored the sword, the Authority of Learnable allowed him to master all arts—including magic.
“No holding back.”
Above his head, an immense ship of ice materialized.
With the sound of a departure horn, the Heavenly Sea Icebreaker Fleet descended toward the cursed doll.
The doll merely looked up and swung its blade-like arm.
Slash—
From below to above—
The world split vertically in two.
The colossal ice vessel divided neatly down the center.
Beyond it, another spell was unleashed.
6th-Circle, wind-attribute grand magic—
[Moon-Sundering Fortress of the Wind God]
Boom!
Air pressure spiked to a monstrous level, crushing down on the cursed doll.
Yet it did not kneel.
Even as the gale condensed into the form of a colossal palace pressing upon it, the doll stood unmoving.
Its body should have burst under such pressure, yet it did not so much as sway.
But Suruna had never expected it to.
He had cast the spell to saturate the air with high-density oxygen.
“And the fuel... is ready.”
Tick.
A spark of flame flared from his fingertip and touched the doll.
The air exploded into fire.
Flames roared outward in a chain of violent combustion.
Through the dancing inferno, the doll’s red eye never left Suruna.
Then the ground beneath the doll rippled, transforming into the jaws of a colossal beast that swallowed both flame and figure whole.
The compressed air and burning fire fused, turning the earth crimson as it melted like wax under the heat.
Suruna unleashed another sequence of spells.
A greater beast devoured the first.
A giant iron cube crashed from the sky and crushed the ground flat.
One overwhelming magic after another burst in rapid succession, each amplifying the other.
He thought that should have been enough to land a serious blow—
—but a thin white line split the massive cube clean in two.
The cursed doll stepped out from within, largely unharmed.
Not entirely, though.
Burn marks marred patches of its white body.
For all that power, only scorched traces—but Suruna saw in them proof of possibility.
The cursed doll moved.
It bent its legs and sprang.
Bang!
The air tore apart in a sonic boom.
Suruna’s eyes darted, predicting its trajectory.
Reaction was too slow—anticipation was key.
‘Here.’
He spun, parrying the arm slicing for his back.
But the onslaught didn’t end.
Two wooden arms—sharp as drills, bladed like saws—moved faster than vision could follow.
Suruna poured mana into his body, cloaked himself in aura, and conjured another sword mid-air to counter.
Kwagwagwagwang!
Each clash sent shockwaves ripping through the chamber.
Petals flew, sliced in half by stray strikes, their fragments cut again into dust.
The doll lifted its leg and slammed the ground.
The spear-like foot pierced deep instead of shattering the floor.
Suruna leapt back with a quick back-tumble just as white spikes erupted from where he’d stood, aiming for his vitals.
Around the doll, dead, twisted wood surged upward like a forest of lances.
Suruna focused aura into his blade until it blazed white, then swept it in a wide arc.
The compressed aura sliced through every spike and shot toward the doll.
The doll raised its blade-like arms to block.
The split wave carved deep into the walls behind it.
The doll stepped forward—
—and in a single stride crossed the distance between them, slamming both arms downward.
Boom!
The blow tore up the floor itself.
But # Nоvеlight # Suruna had already moved. He planted his hand on the doll’s arm and spun, kicking its head.
Kwhang!
A blast like a bomb rang out as the doll’s head snapped sideways.
Suruna readied a follow-up strike—but froze.
A new arm had sprouted from the doll’s shoulder, seizing the back of his neck.
Unlike the others, this arm resembled a human’s.
He slashed it to ribbons at once.
The hastily formed limb lacked the durability of the originals.
‘I’m still fine.’
The problem was the doll’s movements were becoming more erratic—less mechanical, more adaptive.
Its red eye fixed on him, unblinking.
He could not tell what kind of will it possessed, but its hostility toward him was absolute.
A remnant of Lumenis—it was only natural.
The cursed doll charged again, and Suruna raised his blade.
Their figures blurred, trading countless attacks faster than thought.
Kachiiing!
Suruna’s sword shattered, reaching its limit.
He drew another and hurled it.
Then another.
Hundreds of blades streaked toward the doll.
But it didn’t end there.
The flying swords suddenly expanded fivefold in size.
The doll merely crossed its arms in an X and swung.
Every blade caught in that motion disintegrated to dust.
Suruna’s eyes widened.
One swing—and everything caught in it had vanished into fine particles.
It had done something again—
—but before he could discern what, the doll was already upon him.
It refused to let him retreat.
Suruna met it with every weapon, technique, and spell he had—but the battle was slipping away.
Blood splattered from his arms.
A gash opened on his thigh, another across his cheek.
Wounds multiplied, while the doll remained almost pristine.
Worse, it moved faster, stronger, with each passing second.
Through a fleeting opening, Suruna kicked it square in the torso.
The doll staggered back—but he immediately noticed his own foot was torn and bleeding, laced with cuts from ankle to sole.
Clicking his tongue, he used a curse to mend the wounds, scattering swarms of dark-magic insects to block the doll’s approach.
The swarm rushed like a black storm—only to be shredded in an instant by a single sweep of the doll’s arm.
Suruna threw up a barrier, but it shattered, flinging him back, his body cut and battered.
He rolled across the ground and collapsed flat among the white flowers.
‘Even this... isn’t enough.’
Cough.
Blood dripped from his lips.
‘I tire, while it grows stronger.’
There was no winning this fight.
He was so close—just one step away.
Just one final thing left to do.
A shadow loomed over him.
He looked up—and saw Setadel.
Setadel stood above him, sword in hand, gazing down with eyes filled with murderous intent.