Chapter 257: Until the Ends of the Earth, Until Hair Turns White
The grass on the cliff swayed without wind, and on the tip of each blade of grass rested a glowing dewdrop.
In the thousands of dewdrops, hazy figures reflected—those departed ones who surrounded Emis and Rast, clapping, offering blessings. Were they illusions, or real?
When Rast turned his head once more, those phantoms had already vanished.
Only faint shimmering motes of light drifted above the cliff, carrying with them a lingering warmth.
“Xiao Ai, did you see it?”
Rast spoke softly.
“Mm.”
In the boy’s embrace, Emis gently nodded. “I saw them all… Granny Sally from the bakery, Uncle Mudd the hunter, and Old Blacksmith Weng…”
“I even smelled the faint trace of cigarettes on Uncle Mudd’s fingers.”
“Sure enough…”
She raised her pale fingers to her chest, as if to feel the warmth of her own heart. “I was never truly abandoned by the world.”
“The people of Canaan, those who once lived with us… they have never really gone.”
“Even if the Canaan Town in the real world has been destroyed, forever frozen two hundred years ago, as long as we still remember those good people and things…”
“Then Canaan will never die, but live on in our hearts.”
Emis smiled faintly, stretched as though to gather her resolve again.
“But, just as the answer you once gave me, Rast—”
“To this day, becoming a Shoreguard, becoming an Ally of Justice, is still your ideal.”
“Then, as an Ally of Justice, you cannot stay here stagnant, can you?”
“The gentle land of peace and rest is pleasant, but after a brief respite, the brave must once again set out upon their journey.”
She gazed straight into Rast’s eyes. “So, we should prepare to return to reality, right?”
“Mm.”
Rast nodded slightly.
“If I’m not mistaken, it won’t be long before the Gravekeepers and the remnants of the Cult Group can no longer hold back. They will surely move against Shiltina and the royal family.”
“After all, two years ago in the Imperial Capital, Shiltina, before the eyes of every visitor from across the continent, had the Holy Sword acknowledge her as its Master. She became the new Holy Sword Wielder, and the next Empress of the Granwell Empire.”
“And in just two short years, she has already stepped into the Legendary Realm, not far from Angelhood itself. She alone is enough to deter all villains.”
“At such a growth rate… If I were Shiltina’s enemy, I would be restless indeed.”
“At this pace, it won’t be long before Shiltina truly ascends as an Angel.”
Rast couldn’t help but laugh.
“By then, she wouldn’t even wait for them to come knocking.”
“Knowing Shiltina’s nature, she would strike first—cleanly eliminating every lurking threat and danger in the Western Continent, preventing disasters before they arise.”
“Mm-mm, that does sound exactly like Shiltina’s style.”
At his side, Emis nodded in agreement, her small head bobbing.
Although she had never met Shiltina face-to-face—during that reunion in the Historical Echoes of the Sixth Era, Emis had only seen Dean Silver by Rast’s side, not Shiltina herself.
But within the Canaan illusion, Emis had often heard Rast recount his experiences with Shiltina.
From their first meeting at Deep Blue Port, to their knowing each other, to fighting side by side in Frozenwater Town’s mist, and later, their engagement.
By her instincts as a woman, Emis had long since sensed Shiltina’s threat—Rast’s eyes when speaking of her were unlike any she had seen before.
Thus, Emis had already formed an impression of the legendary Shiltina. Otherwise, the Judgment Angel, born from the will of the Holy Grail, would not have carried such a similar virtual personality to hers.
After all, “Love is war.”
For Emis, to win this war of love, gathering intelligence on Shiltina, her strongest rival, was indispensable.
“If not for those Gravekeeper Angels, preserved since the Age of Gods, who sealed themselves away in slumber to preserve their rank, to resist time’s erosion and corruption… Even if they chose to awaken, it would still take time to recover their full strength.”
“Otherwise, the Gravekeepers and Evil God remnants would never have waited two years to strike at Shiltina.”
Rast’s expression grew more serious as he analyzed the present world together with Emis.
Though it appeared calm on the surface, dark clouds had already gathered over the Imperial Capital of Granwell, and around Starfall University—ready to erupt into a storm capable of toppling the Empire.
“To the Gravekeeper Angels, these two years of recovery may mean little. From the Age of Gods until now, they have endured seven eras and tens of thousands of years. What is another two?”
“But for us, this is a great boon.”
Rast smiled faintly.
This storm gathering around Shiltina and the royal family was much like the “Battle of the Fractured Coastline” during the Sixth Era.
In both cases, history had produced a dazzling “variable,” a genius capable of altering the destined course of humanity. To erase this variable and return history to the “correct” path, the Gravekeepers emerged from behind the curtains.
But unlike the Sixth Era, when Noah lurked in the dark and Shoreguard leader Sisel stood in the light, forced to respond passively—this time, the roles were reversed. Rast and his allies lay hidden in shadow.
“In the eyes of the Gravekeepers and the Cult Group, I should still be a comatose vegetable lying in a hospital bed.”
“They all witnessed that day, when I fired that shot to kill the Quasi-Angel, paying the price of shattering the Fool’s Library.”
Rast’s lips curved into a smirk.
“In their eyes, even if I did awaken, I would likely be a cripple. Without the Fool’s Library, with my Higher Sequence destroyed, my strength reduced to its lowest… hardly worth guarding against.”
“Even losing a Quasi-Angel to destroy the Fool’s Library so it could never again be inherited by the next Shoreguard—that, in their view, might have been a profitable trade.”
But the Gravekeepers could never have guessed—
That day, from far above, that desperate shot like Sataniel’s wrath—
Was Rast opening a new path of legend through destruction.
Two years later, that path was now wide and endless, carrying Rast’s footprints toward Legend.
As for Emis, who had cast off the will of the Judgment Holy Grail, regained her body, and awakened from Nightworld’s long slumber—she was an unexpected variable none of the Gravekeepers could foresee.
Her very existence, like the Artificial Angel Project and the Judgment Angel, was all under the hand of Grey the Fate Angel.
Back then, still in her prime, Grey had the power to rewrite the very flow of fate.
Everything about Emis—her traces in the River of History, her existence—was obscured, concealed, altered by Grey’s authority.
Thus, hidden Gravekeepers knew nothing of her, never realizing that a Judgment Angel had survived the end of the Sixth Era and lived until now.
“To be frank, being watched by the Gravekeepers from the shadows all the time…”
“Every time human civilization made progress, those rats behind the curtains would crawl out to stir trouble.”
“Repeated so many times, I’ve grown weary of it.”
Rast lifted his gaze toward the winter night sky.
“Since I call myself ‘Last,’ seeing myself as the final Shoreguard—”
“Then this ancient grudge between Shoreguards and Gravekeepers, stretched across eras and millennia… must finally be settled.”
The night sky glittered with stars.
Long ago, in the First Era, the Age of Gods, humanity too looked up at this same sky under the oppression of Mythic Races.
As heir to the will of the Fool, the Gravekeepers had once been pure, faithful, devoted.
They had vowed to preserve the tombstones of civilization, to guard the spark of humanity.
But over time, those ideals eroded, corroded, and twisted…
Becoming a rotten obsession with “eternity.”
Degenerating into slaughtering their own kind to preserve the status quo.
“The decrepit Old Gods lingering at the Threshold of Seraphim, the Gravekeepers who have forgotten their first faith—”
“All of them are relics of the First Era. It is time they withered with their age.”
The boy’s voice drifted in the cold winter wind.
“If they want time to plot and scheme… then let them.”
“When they step onto the stage—”
“The Mythic Era shall end.”
This was Rast’s declaration before the hunt—arrogant words, letting the Gravekeepers and Cultists weave their plots, only to sweep them all away.
Anyone else would have called him insane.
But beneath the winter stars, on the cliff above the sea of forest,
Emis only stretched out her slender white hand.
She placed it gently in the boy’s palm.
Their skin touched, warmth passing between them.
“Mm, I’ll be with you.”
She clasped Rast’s hand, her voice soft.
Not because she did not understand the madness and danger of his resolve.
On the contrary, as the subject of the Artificial Angel Project, as the Judgment Angel—her knowledge of the Legendary Realm and Angelic Domain surpassed even Rast’s.
The Gravekeepers’ ancient powers, the Old Gods clinging to the Threshold of Seraphim—
All were true Angels, transcending race, sovereign over billions, masters of their Sequences and Authorities.
And unlike Emis or Grey, these were ancients, tempered by endless years, wielding mastery far beyond the newly ascended.
Yet none of this mattered.
As the golden-haired girl once said—“Emis will unconditionally support Rast in everything.”
Whether arrogance, foolish resolve, self-destruction, cowardice, corruption, or despairing madness—it did not matter.
That vow had been made long ago, in the darkness of a cave, by a lost and broken little girl.
And now, beneath the beautiful winter night sky, Emis repeated it again.
“This is not your decision alone, Rast. It is ours, together.”
“From now on, no matter what awaits us—joy or sorrow, laughter or tears, even death itself—we will face it together.”
Emis would remain with the black-haired boy—
From youth to maturity, from innocent child to weary elder no longer able to walk.
Until the ends of the earth.
Until hair turned white.