C719
In the remnants left by the Heaven Shatter, Dyfus's body writhed.
From the torn left arm and wings, a bloody chaos emerged.
From this point on, the tangled figures of both could no longer be called a fight.
Dyfus, cornered, barely wielded his sword, Volgar, while Jin mercilessly stabbed his vulnerable points with his blade.
Large holes began to appear in Dyfus’s physical form.
If Dyfus were human, he would have died over ten times already.
Jin wielded his sword ruthlessly, as if intending to erase every trace of Dyfus's physical body.
[Kwang, memories of Dyfus! Do you really perceive me as a different being?]
Kwang! Volgar, the great sword, blocked Jin’s final blow and embedded itself into the ground.[You call me a bastard of chaos who devoured your brother, huh? You’ve been saying strange things from the start. I understand your eagerness to claim victory, but take a good look. I am Dyfus Runcandel, your Elder Brother.]
"In the Garden of Swords, no one can carry the name Runcandel anymore."
[Keuk-kuk, from your perspective, that might be true. However, it’s hard to keep treating me as someone else. It’s not just a matter of fact but also a courtesy towards an opponent who doesn’t become humble even when cornered, little brother.]
Suddenly, the atmosphere around Dyfus changed.
The staggering swordsman, overwhelmed by the tide, quickly regained stability, and Volgar brimmed with destructive power as it had in the beginning.
Is this his final struggle?
Jin had always considered that Dyfus had some hidden move up his sleeve.
“So, it wasn’t self-destruction, but rather enhancement.”
It didn’t matter what it was. Even if it was an eruption like a volcano, he could block it. Even if Dyfus became stronger, it would be the same.
However, Jin soon realized that Dyfus's transformation wasn’t limited to that.
Instead of chaos, Volgar began to emit a bright white glow.
Aura…!?
The fierce aura exclusive to Runcandel enveloped Volgar with light.
In an instant, Jin distanced himself from Dyfus and fixed his eyes on him. He was smiling like a madman, breaking the horn on his forehead.
“Do I still seem like someone other than your Elder Brother?”
The voice, which had been amplified with a grim tone, returned to Dyfus’s original tone, and the wings on his back fell to the ground like withered flowers.
Instead of chaos in the wounds covering his body, warm, crimson blood flowed.
Had he reverted his physical transformation?
Dyfus, standing before Jin once again, was completely unchanged, just as before.
Naturally, this was an unexpected event that Jin had not accounted for in his predictions.
“Answer me, Jin.”
“What the hell…?”
“It was inevitable that you and I would become enemies and fight. But at the very least, don’t try to ease your guilt by recognizing me as a different entity.”
If Dyfus had shown his former self and pleaded for his life, Jin would have considered it a desperate act to survive.
However, in the eyes of the returning Dyfus, there was still the resolve of someone prepared for death.
Meanwhile, Jin’s heart couldn’t help but waver for a moment.
“When you went to the Closed Training Camp... I had to endure a harsh struggle as the Fourth Flagbearer of the Family. Along with Mary.”
Dyfus said that and swung his sword at Jin.
Jin dodged the attack, not taking his eyes off Dyfus.
No matter how many times he looked, it was still Dyfus.
“When Mother accepted the chaos, the transformation of the Family happened in an instant. Many of us, including myself, tried to resist, but it was futile. Those who resisted Mother were only hunted down and killed every day.”
But would I have held a grudge against you then?
Jin couldn’t respond to the following words.
“No one blamed anyone. Father, Luna, who showed no signs of returning despite the inevitable change in the Family, and you, who left alone. Even Mother, who oppressed us at that time. Why did it happen? Because I believed that all those things were the result of my own weakness.”
“Then, what do you want me to do?”
“But throughout the struggle, you resented me and hated me. Seeing me not as Dyfus Runcandel but as a monster of chaos. Am I no longer myself since accepting the chaos? Can you really determine that? Joshua was tainted with chaos, but he’s still Joshua. Am I no longer Dyfus now?”
“Don’t you dare compare that bastard with Elder Brother Dyfus.”
“You keep turning away. Jin, my little brother. Let me tell you something. Receiving Mother's power is impossible without one’s consent. Even if Mother tried to bestow it upon me forcibly, I couldn’t accept it. It means I became a fragment of the evil god by my own will.”
Jin’s pupils widened and trembled.
But after a few seconds, Jin regained his composure.
Even if everything Dyfus said was true, nothing would change.
“…I understand what you’re saying. Whatever the reason for choosing chaos, it’s unfortunate that it turned out this way. I won’t hold a grudge against you either.”
“Good, that’s how it should be.”
The brothers’ swords clashed again.
As soon as the battle began, Dyfus’s body was covered with persistent wounds.
The wounds no longer healed.
Unlike before, a single fatal blow would be the end for Dyfus.
Jin’s sword remained merciless.
‘Is this the realm Elder Brother Dyfus touched before being tainted by chaos…?’
He’s strong.
Even someone as strong as him couldn’t resist the chaos in the end.
That’s what Jin thought.
However, strength is only an objective standard.
In reality, for Jin, who had reached the rank of the strongest, Dyfus’s sword could no longer pose a threat.
“Kraaak!”
Bradamante struck Dyfus’s waist, and a stream of blood spurted from the open wound.
Immediately after, Dyfus’s movements noticeably slowed down.
While monsters of chaos paid no attention to such wounds, humans tended to slow down when injured.
His twisted appearance from pain tugged at Jin’s heart.
Jin silently swung his sword.
With each strike, as the blade cut through Dyfus’s body, tearing and piercing it, a vivid sensation ran down his arm, sending chills down his spine.
The sensation of killing a person, a brother.
“Our mother is incomparable to someone like me. Do you really think you can succeed in betrayal…”
Aaaargh!
A piece of flesh fell from Dyfus’s abdomen.
He held it with one hand and swung his sword like a ghost.
“You couldn’t even save your own clan, and yet you think you can save the world? Did you come to Rikalton to save the people? Don’t be ridiculous, you’re a hypocrite and a traitor. Even if our mother accepted the chaos, she never allied with her nemesis!”
Slash…!
A crack appeared in Volgar’s blade.
The constant onslaught of Jin’s attacks was exhausting the sword’s lifespan.
One, two, three times.
With each strike that Jin delivered to Volgar, sharp fragments flew off.
Some of them grazed Jin’s face, and droplets of blood trickled down his cheek.
Finally, on the seventh strike, Volgar shattered.
Dyfus, with his sword and body in tatters, was still breathing heavily.
An indomitable and ominous look.
Jin paused for a moment, looking at Dyfus.
“Come on. Are you hesitating? Haha, have you stopped your sword out of fear of killing me?”
A beam of light shot out from the shattered Volgar.
Jin didn’t even dodge it.
Because the aura was too weak, the light dissipated somewhere in his energy before it could reach him.
Even so, Dyfus fired beams of light several times.
With each attempt, the beams grew weaker and weaker, and Volgar shook off the remaining fragments as blood gushed from Dyfus’s body.
He was determined to leave even a scratch on Jin’s body, even if he died like this. He was resolved to become a vengeful spirit and appear in Jin’s dreams if necessary.
“Or do you want to mock me?”
It’s not that.
The reason Jin hesitated was because he couldn’t understand.
How could someone so strong, someone who never surrendered to death and pain, someone who could fight so fiercely…?
Why did he accept the power of the evil god?
Did he submit to chaos?
It was simply incomprehensible.
“Why… Why did you do it? What made you like this, Elder Brother?”
“I am the only one who made myself like this. Don’t look for the reason elsewhere. Anyway, as you said, nothing will change. Why, do you still need someone to resent? You’re wrong. If you don’t like this situation either, blame yourself.”
The moment Dyfus finished speaking.
Suddenly, chaos began to spread around him.
Jin desperately tried to cut through the chaos enveloping Dyfus, but at the same time, a white dimensional gate opened in front of him.
[Boong!]
“Jin!”
Mort, Syris, and Valeria reached out their hands to Jin from the white dimensional gate.
Valeria had been analyzing the records of the battlefield all this time and had just discovered the Prophet’s final movement.
“Stop, you must not kill the Fourth Flagbearer now! First, we need to eliminate the Prophet…”
“Valeria, what’s going on?”
“The Prophet placed a spell on the Fourth Flagbearer. It’s a magical curse designed to return the power he received to the evil god as soon as Dyfus dies.”
From the beginning, Dyfus’s objective was to restore the evil god’s power through his own death.
That’s why he had been holding Jin back all this time, buying the Prophet enough time to complete the curse.
If Jin had attacked Dyfus alongside his companions from the start, the war would have ended before the Prophet could finish the curse.
Without a trace, Dyfus, engulfed in chaos, disappeared.
“To prevent the curse from activating, we must first eliminate the Prophet. Hurry, the Fourth Flagbearer has been summoned to Rikalton Castle now. We must return immediately, kill the Prophet, and destroy the power that the Fourth Flagbearer possesses!”
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