Salesin's attack sent Helia and Arkenis crashing down onto the top of the citadel.
Suruna staggered toward Helia with unsteady steps.
In truth, he wanted to run to Arkenis, but he decided to leave that side to Ludger and Catherine.
When he finally arrived, Helia was slumped against the debris.
A large hole had been torn into her side, and blood flowed endlessly from the wound.
In the murky background where not even light descended—
Helia, slumped and covered in dust, already looked like a corpse.
“Helia.”
Just as Suruna murmured that, the wounded Helia smiled brightly—then melted into the air and vanished.
Right beside the empty spot, a perfectly uninjured Helia appeared, looking as she always did.
“Ta-da! Surprised?”
Helia spoke with a teasing smile.
“Just kidding!”
“You...”
Suruna started to say something to her, then shut his mouth.
His one remaining eye fixed itself on the debris where Helia had been lying a moment ago.
Tap tap.
Helia tapped Suruna on the shoulder.
“What? Did you come all this way because you were worried about me? I’m fine, so go check on your girlfriend. She looked pretty hurt.”
“Girlfriend, what nonsense.”
“You’re funny. You came all the way here—what are you embarrassed about?”
“...I just think I don’t even deserve that. Not like we were in that kind of relationship to begin with.”
“Oh, look at you, acting like some tragic romantic. Enough—go. Do you really have time to hang around here? Once I recover, I’m going to go knock that arrogant Holy Sovereign’s nose out of joint again. So go.”
“...Fine. I got it.”
When Suruna nodded in reply, Helia blinked in mild surprise.
“Huh? Normally you’d say something snappy back. Why’re you agreeing ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) so easily?”
“Because you’re right. It’s not the time.”
“Good. Glad you actually understood.”
“I’m going. Helia.”
“Yeah. Go safely.”
Helia waved at Suruna.
Suruna walked past her, then halted and glanced back at her.
“It was fun while it lasted. Take care, my old friend.”
“......”
Suruna finished those words and resumed his dangerously unstable steps.
Helia continued waving after his retreating form.
Once Suruna’s figure disappeared from sight, Helia’s image blurred like watercolor dissolving in water.
And the gravely wounded Helia reappeared.
The posture—slumped against the debris—was the same wounded form Suruna had seen at first.
A widening pool of red blood spread beneath her body.
“Idiot. Why’d you say something like that on your way out?”
Helia recalled Suruna’s final farewell and let out a small, faint laugh.
“Ahh. I didn’t want to die before... but now, I want to live even more.”
Helia lifted her head, exhaling a sigh tinged with a smile.
Rumble—
The surroundings trembled.
A shadow fell over Helia’s head.
Helia, sensing her fate, quietly closed her eyes.
KWA-A-A-AANG!
A massive piece of debris crashed down over Helia’s head and swallowed the area whole.
* * *
Ludger and Catherine examined Arkenis’s condition.
She had been caught in Salesin’s attack and thrown from great height, yet her body bore not a single wound.
“Do not worry. I’m fine.”
“But that power is mostly gone now.”
The only thing that protected Arkenis at the end was the final lingering trace of the power she had carried.
The brilliantly burning candle had finally gone out.
Now, Arkenis possessed not even a fragment of her original power.
Her trembling eyes—past the quivering corners—were brown.
The Judgment Eye she had been born with had vanished, revealing her natural eye color.
“I don’t feel very sad about it. Honestly, it bought me time. Ah, but maybe I should’ve held out a little longer.”
“You endured more than enough, Saintess.”
At Ludger’s words, Arkenis smiled faintly.
“Please don’t call me that. I’ve lost that power. I’m no longer a Saintess or anything like it.”
As if to prove her words, Arkenis’s hair color was changing.
Brown—matching her eyes.
Seen like this, she looked like a pretty country girl.
Considering the era she came from, it wasn’t an incorrect impression.
Surely she must have been born in some small, peaceful village.
Helping her mother with chores, cooking meals, caring for her siblings—a kind, simple girl.
Had she not been born with the Judgment Eye, she would have lived an ordinary life.
But the fate bestowed upon her was nothing of the sort.
Even under pressure that would have broken another person a hundred or a thousand times over, Arkenis endured with steadfast resolve.
Ludger knew just how difficult that was, and so he felt deep respect for her.
Arkenis looked up at the sky.
“What do we do now?”
Through the gaping hole in the shattered ceiling, Salesin descended slowly, scattering rays of light.
Salesin's aura flared as if ready to wipe out every living being in this citadel at any moment.
“We’re too late.”
“No. We’re not late.”
“What do you—ah.”
Arkenis let out a gasp.
From somewhere, a harpoon flew in and pierced through Salesin.
Ordinary attacks could not penetrate the dense divine power flowing through his skin—they bounced off.
If an attack was weaker, it would even be erased by the divine power itself.
But this harpoon was different.
It pierced straight through the divine power and embedded itself more than a hand deep into Salesin's solar plexus.
The force of the throw was so great that Salesin jerked like a pigeon shot with an arrow.
Arkenis widened her eyes in shock.
Not a sword, nor an arrow, nor a spear, nor magic, nor sacred art, nor authority—just a harpoon.
Wasn’t that a tool for catching fish?
Not only had someone thrown that at a person—at the Holy Sovereign—but it even dealt real damage.
What happened next was even more astonishing.
CHRRRRRK! PAAAAANG!
The massive anchor chain attached to the harpoon’s end suddenly stretched long—then tightened hard.
The one pulling it was a beastkin with white hair like a lion’s mane.
Salesin's impaled body was yanked along with the chain.
KUWOOOOOO!
A red-eyed monster tore through the storm clouds overhead and stomped down on Salesin from the air as if crushing him into the ground.
Salesin's shining white body plummeted straight down and was driven into the center of what had once been the courtyard of Galaharad Citadel.
The impact was so violent that Salesin's body smashed through the ground repeatedly, breaking layer after layer as he was driven deeper.
Hans and Phantos had joined the fight.
Just as the two prepared to follow Salesin down for a finishing blow—
Light erupted from the ground, and Salesin shot back up, completely unharmed.
“Vermin. How dare you.”
Salesin seethed with fury at the fact that he had been struck.
Even for a brief moment, Phantos’s harpoon had pierced his solar plexus, and Hans’s kick had connected.
One was a lowly beastkin, and the other was a creature born from the filth of the world.
Salesin considered even humans insects—but these two were beneath even insects.
Creatures of such degradation had dared to touch his sacred body.
Reaching out his hand, Salesin prepared to punish them.
Light surged from his right arm, aimed at Phantos and Hans.
At this rate, the two would be skewered midair and turned into corpses.
But Salesin's intent did not come to fruition.
Because the light he unleashed was swallowed by the darkness.
“Darkness?”
Salesin stared at the wavering darkness with disbelief.
Darkness that devoured light—impossible.
That was impossible.
Darkness was supposed to be weak to light. Light was the truth that drove away darkness and illuminated all things.
But that darkness had devoured his light.
Not the light of some paladin or priest—
but the light of the Holy Sovereign himself.
The darkness split open, and from within it a woman emerged.
“Who are you.”
The black-haired woman dressed in a pink-hued outfit stared at Salesin with red eyes.
“I am Selina, professor of Seorn.”
Beside Selina, a spirit made of shifting darkness rippled quietly.
A spirit of darkness. And Spirit Camouflage—Spirit Assimilation.
Salesin narrowed his eyes.
“A human using spirit assimilation? That disappeared in an age long past, and even among elves only a handful barely manage it.”
If she had assimilated with a normal spirit, things would have been much simpler.
Fire, water, wind, earth—those spirits.
But a spirit of darkness was something Salesin had never even heard of.
After all, how could “darkness” exist in nature as a physical entity?
Darkness was merely the absence of light, not something with form.
Yet no matter how much he rejected the reality before him, the spirit clearly existed.
Its very existence was blasphemy.
And it had even devoured his light—an unforgivable sin.
PUH-PUH-PUH-PUNG!
Just as Salesin frowned, naval cannon-like blasts rang out from the distance, and blue mana shells hurled toward him.
A perfectly targeted bombardment aimed at only one person. Salesin scowled again—what now.
His body was unharmed, but his mood was fouled.
“We’re here to help!”
“Commander! Are you safe?!”
Cutting through the storm clouds, the Golden Monarch appeared.
On the bow of the ship, Ambella stood proudly with arms crossed.
Behind her were the Monarch Mercenaries and the mages of the Dream School.
“Hah. Those idiots.”
Caroline rose from the rubble, hair disheveled, and let out a dry laugh.
She had warned them to run in case anything happened...
yet those idiots had come all the way here to help her.
And Ambella Burke was with them too.
Caroline shot a grateful look toward Ambella.
Ambella nodded as if it were no big deal.
“Mind if I join the fun?”
A relaxed voice accompanied a lance of golden aura that stabbed toward Salesin's brow.
Salesin immediately formed a spear of light and aimed at the ambusher, but the opponent sensed it at once, kicked off the air, and slipped away like a rat.
The one landing lightly in the clearing—straightening his fluttering cape—was Passius, knight of the First Princess Aileen.
“Hmm. Everyone looks rough. I was too late, huh?”
Passius glanced at the people lying around the clearing.
Among them were Clinton and Lutus.
But he wasn’t worried—they were already regaining consciousness.
“You’re standing back up?”
Salesin found the sight of the people rising one by one... strange.
Even if Suruna had thrown himself in the way, they shouldn’t be getting up like this.
Salesin's divinely infused eyes immediately found the reason.
“The World Tree’s life force. Of course. The work of the elves again.”
Salesin had never liked the World Tree.
The massive vitality it carried always created unpredictable variables.
That was why, 500 years ago, when the kingdom that would become the Empire tried cultivating a second World Tree underground, he had sent an army immediately.
But for its power to appear on this island...
Salesin's gaze followed the trail of power to its source.
A brown-haired girl stood there.
A glimpse of her ears showed they were longer than a human’s, shorter than an elf’s.
“A half-elf.”
Child of human and elf.
But that girl was also the World Tree’s contractor—a green-mage who wielded its power.
Sedina’s brown hair grew long.
The extended strands were no longer brown, but a semi-transparent silver.
The silver hair seeped into the ground and reacted with seeds, rapidly forcing them to sprout.
Countless herbs grew, and Bellaruna harvested them to heal the wounds of the fallen.
Before long, everyone who had regained consciousness united their will and glared at Salesin.
Salesin's lips twitched.
So the insects had gathered in numbers, and now they felt bold?
“As if that will matter.”
Annoying was still annoying.
To get rid of the most bothersome insect first, Salesin focused on Sedina.
“What do you think you’re trying?”
Ludger stepped forward, swinging his mana-infused swordstick toward Salesin.
“Your opponent is me.”
“Weakling!”
Salesin drew a sword of light and clashed with Ludger’s swordstick.
The difference in strength sent Ludger flying back.
Imperial Swordmasters rushed Salesin from every side.
The Princess’s Shadow, Passius.
The Empire’s Protector, Terrina Lionhowl.
The Northern Watcher, Reinhardt Kimbell.
The Sea’s Sovereign, Johan Okeas.
The four Swordmasters who supported the Empire each drew their Aura Blades.
“Annoying pests!”
Salesin swept his light-blade horizontally.
A circular shockwave expanded from him, and all four masters were blasted far away.
Into the gap, Alex and Phantos leapt in, aiming to take Salesin's life.
A relentless chain of attacks that gave no time to breathe.
This time, Salesin formed a shield of light with his other hand.
He lifted the shield, releasing a massive radiance that blasted Alex and Phantos back.
“Hahahaha! Now this is getting fun!”
With that booming laugh, Phyron appeared and hurled a punch.
A fist-shaped mass of mana struck Salesin's body, exploding again and again.
“M-me too! I’ll help!”
Loina Pavlini arrived and unleashed a barrage of spells, and Lotheron—now unmasked—joined the battle as well.
Arkenis watched the scene unfold, murmuring in astonishment.
“Reinforcements? How did they get here?”
As she turned toward Ludger, wondering what was going on—
Rine suddenly appeared, leaping across space from empty air.
“Oppa! I brought more people! I think I brought everyone we cou—!”
Rine froze as she spotted Arkenis and Catherine near Ludger.
“Ah.”