“So, Demon King. What’s the next objective?”
Helia asked Ludger, and Ludger answered without hesitation.
“We need more reinforcements.”
“Reinforcements? How do you need reinforcements here?”
Helia glared at Ludger as if asking whether he was speaking nonsense.
Besides, if someone with mediocre skill came here, they would either be seized by Salesin’s authority or die outright.
That would be nothing but increasing meaningless sacrifice.
And above all, there was the issue of method.
How could anyone even come to a place this high up, isolated in the sky?
Not everyone could fly through the air, after all.
“Is someone supposed to bring them up?”
“You don’t need to worry about that part.”
Ludger answered lightly, as if he had known from the beginning she would point that out.
“Seeing how the situation turned out, that smart kid will know exactly what needs to be done.”
Catherine also nodded, as if she understood.
Helia snorted, displeased that she alone seemed to be missing something.
“Anyway, I have to go help that former Saintess. I’m the only one available who can move right away.”
Helia lifted her gaze to the sky.
Beyond the dark clouds, pure white light erupted again and again.
Both used the same divine power, but the atmosphere surrounding them was clearly different.
If Arkenis’s divine power felt warm and gentle, then Salesin’s divine power was frightening and destructive.
Their very purposes were different.
Arkenis existed to protect someone, while Salesin existed to dominate and chastise someone. They were complete opposites.
Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwag!
White lines scattered and reformed over and over.
The speed was so overwhelmingly fast and explosive that the surrounding clouds were beginning to tear apart from the light.
Helia summoned a monster resembling a pterosaur and rose into the sky on its back.
“Ugh. I really hate doing stuff like this.”
As Helia fixed her eyes on the approaching chaotic battle, she muttered irritably to herself.
She never liked those terrifying, heavy-handed fights to begin with.
If she ever fought, she preferred crushing opponents when she held overwhelming advantage.
But the current situation was blatantly the opposite of her preference.
Salesin and Arkenis.
The power the two possessed far exceeded that of Helia, a full Apostle.
Even if it wasn’t a shrimp caught between whales, any creature that entered the fray would have its back split open.
Helia was no exception.
And yet she advanced.
‘Well, I can’t help it! I can’t exactly admit now that the time I spent with that idiot was fun!’
Helia recalled the utterly ruined Suruna.
The only reason she had come this far and remained to the end was Suruna.
It wasn’t something like love.
More like something closer to friendship.
Because now, the only beings still called Apostles were Suruna and herself.
‘I know. Even if we’re both called Apostles, Suruna and I were different from the start.’
Helia was the only bloodline and daughter of the primordial great dragon Heliodor.
As the daughter of the Dragon King, she was called the Dragon Princess. Countless dragons blessed her birth, cherishing and loving her like their own child.
She still remembered those days.
A time when she lived peacefully and happily in an enormous forest where all life flourished.
Rolling across the grass with a small, chubby body, while her uncles fondly watched her with warm eyes.
When her wings were still too small to fly, she would sit atop her uncle’s head and savor the air of the high sky.
She even touched the clouds with her hands and exchanged glances with flying birds at eye level.
And for the first time, she looked down at the world from high above.
The vast expanse below.
It had been so beautiful.
Helia never forgot that memory.
But happiness did not last long.
The world trembled, and the sky split open.
Through the rift, Lumenis—who had slain or imprisoned other gods—revealed his power.
[Even if you are gods, you cannot meddle arbitrarily in the laws of this world! We will not allow it!]
Her father Heliodor rose into the sky with her uncles.
A single dragon, each measuring at least 100 meters.
Thousands of such dragons soared and filled the sky—a sight overwhelming enough to steal one’s breath.
The dragons breathed toward the rift, and from beyond it, a being stared down at them with wide-opened eyes.
Not eyes—more like countless spheres made of light.
Dozens of those orbs stared at the dragons, and from them burst innumerable rays of light that swept through the dragons.
No matter how hard their scales and muscles were, they were helpless before that light.
Dragons struck were pierced through, torn in half, or erased completely.
The battle lasted 10 days and nights.
In the end, the rift closed, but the dragon who closed it—Heliodor—lost his strength and collapsed.
At the center of the forest, once overflowing with life but now only ruins—
Young Helia saw countless corpses of her uncles and her father slowly lowering his massive body to the ground.
Her father closed his eyes, never to open them again.
–Dad. Wake up. Hm? Why are you lying down? Where did everyone go? Why is no one here?
And so—
The princess became the sole survivor of her clan.
Dark clouds gathered, and torrential rain fell.
Helia cried sorrowfully for the first time.
And at the same time, she made a vow.
That she would survive.
And that this cry would be the last.
The long years passed like that.
As the last survivor, Helia could never expect anyone to truly understand her.
Even if she knew someone, it was only a thin shell pretending to cover her emptiness.
Pretending to smile, pretending to be friendly, pretending to be mischievous—those were shallow acts to hide her true heart.
Helia once thought she might be able to form some bond with the other Apostles, but it was useless.
Even if they were all called Apostles, their personalities, powers, and behaviors were all completely different.
They were merely fanatics devoted to their gods.
They were fundamentally different from her, who had become the clan’s Apostle only because her father had originally been meant to take that role.
–They’re all boring people.
And then Helia saw Suruna—who at the time hadn’t stood out much.
She didn’t know why. She simply noticed Suruna.
That sunken, hollowed-out gaze, the rising hatred he didn’t even bother to hide—bristling like needles.
Somehow, she felt a sense of kinship. He resembled her.
–You’re Suruna?
So she watched him a few times, then lost patience and spoke first. That was their first meeting.
Many things happened afterward.
Suruna, who thought only of revenge, didn’t particularly try to become close to Helia, and Helia back then didn’t care either.
Time passed.
Other Apostles died one by one, the world changed to belong to humans, science advanced, and tall buildings rose.
It was an incredibly long era.
The only one who shared that span of time with Helia was Suruna.
Yes.
She didn’t want to admit it because it felt embarrassing, but—
She considered Suruna her only friend.
“Help me, Father.”
Helia activated her authority.
The massive body of the great dragon Heliodor manifested in the air.
Heliodor looked down at Helia with warm eyes.
But Helia still did not look back at him.
She knew well: her father was dead.
What she summoned now was only an illusion—an imitation of the warmth he once showed her.
That was why she disliked summoning him.
Because it revived the painful memory of that day. She avoided summoning even her uncles unless absolutely necessary.
Yet she had used it twice today alone.
It was laughable.
‘Since I’ve called him anyway—’
Helia’s eyes widened toward the two beings fighting beyond the clouds.
They might get caught in it, but they’d manage.
“Sweep them away.”
Even if he existed only as an illusion, Heliodor inhaled deeply to answer his daughter’s plea.
Heliodor’s chest swelled to its limit.
A wave of light pierced through the clouds.
* * *
“Helia. You...”
Suruna opened one eye faintly and stared at Heliodor appearing in the sky.
As an Apostle who had lived long, Suruna knew what Helia had endured.
She had lost her clan and been left alone.
Heliodor was her most painful memory.
Summoning the strongest illusion—her father—meant she carried resolute determination.
She, who always prioritized her survival and safety, stepped in now, when she had no need to, and used that ability.
Suruna could read her resolve from that alone.
A faint smile formed on Suruna’s lips.
“So you had that kind of resolve.”
* * *
Salesin sensed the heat rising from below.
“This is... a great dragon’s breath?”
Salesin, who had inherited and accumulated countless years of knowledge and experience through the soul, recognized the approaching power at once.
He had to evade this.
One vessel had already been completely shattered because of Heathcliff.
The current vessel had been prepared in advance, but because he brought it in a rush, its condition was poor.
It was enough to face Arkenis, but it could not withstand that great dragon’s breath.
The problem was that Arkenis knew that too.
“Trying to dodge, ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) are you?”
Arkenis already knew.
She knew Helia’s attack was incoming during their fight, and she knew Salesin was trying to flee in alarm.
Because her two eyes saw everything from above.
“Arkenis! How dare you!”
Salesin roared at Arkenis for forcibly trying to hold him in place.
But as he glared at her with hatred, he suddenly smirked.
“I see. But that power isn’t complete anymore.”
The eyes of Arkenis, which once held the blue of the sky, flickered.
They weren’t blinking—they were shifting from sky-blue to brown.
She had already lost her authority [Judgment Eyes].
What she used now was only the fragment she had left behind in ages past, temporarily reclaimed for a brief time.
Using Judgment Eyes continuously in battle against Salesin, her power was rapidly draining.
“That’s right.”
Arkenis did not deny it.
There was no point in hiding it.
“But I can still hold you.”
“You...!”
Salesin tried to retreat quickly, but Arkenis was relentless.
Rings of light manifested behind her back in multiple layers, and from them burst pure-white chains that wrapped around Salesin’s body.
“Oh, I won’t be hit by it. I should at least thank that demon for aiming carefully.”
“Arkeniiiiiiiiis!”
These chains were nothing—he could break them soon.
But the moment he broke them, there would inevitably be a brief opening.
A blinding white beam swallowed Salesin, bound in chains.
Earlier, Heliodor’s breath had burned the sky with fire.
But this time was different.
It was smaller, narrower—but far more concentrated and powerful.
The breath shot high into the sky, cutting through clouds, tearing through the atmosphere, and stretching toward space.
Anyone caught in it would be completely erased.
Helia watched beyond the clouds and clenched her fist with certainty.
She had not seen it directly, but her instincts told her clearly.
That hit perfectly.
But then Helia’s eyes widened.
From the place the dragon’s breath had swept—power began to rise, and Salesin returned to his original form in a burst of light.
All she could do was let out a hollow laugh.
“This is too much.”
Salesin extended a hand toward Arkenis and Helia each.
Flash!
A gigantic burst of light exploded, swallowing both of them.
It was a destructive light that brought death to all things.
Neither Arkenis nor Helia could defend against it.
Salesin clicked his tongue as the two fell, trailing faint smoke.
‘To think another vessel would break here.’
Salesin regenerated again—of course—but his displeasure was beyond words.
Something that should not have broken had broken.
‘But it doesn’t matter. There is no one left who can stop me now.’
The most troublesome one, Arkenis, had been removed by the previous strike.
Helia as well.
Salesin slowly descended below the clouds and stood atop the Galaharad fortress.
Or rather, what remained of it—too destroyed to even call a fortress now.
Salesin muttered as he looked around.
“It’s time to finish this.”
His body jolted.
Fwoom!
A massive black harpoon pierced his solar plexus.
Salesin spat blood and grabbed the harpoon. He tried to pull it out, but the interior hooks bent backward, making it impossible to remove easily.
Even if he had let his guard down, someone had wounded him?
Who?
Clatter...
The end of the harpoon was connected to a huge anchor chain.
Following that chain, a gigantic beastkin approached and locked eyes with Salesin.
“You. You’re an excellent prey.”