Thunk?
The sound startled him awake. Lowering his gaze, he stared at his own chest.
A sharp blade was lodged right in the middle.
“…What the hell?”
Shiron muttered with widened eyes. Then ca the delay: searing pain, stinging agony, nausea, and heat. The wound burned. Regrettably, the [Save] ability didn’t activate. Was he bleeding? Judging by the warmth spreading beneath his chest, it seed blood was flowing under his clothes.
[Hero!!]
“Ahhh!”
Amid the dizziness spinning around him, screams echoed from all directions. With slightly blurred vision, Shiron saw a panicked Lucia and a rushing Seira.
“You crazy b****! Why the hell did you stab ?”
“I-I don’t know! I just wanted to stab… That smug face saying I’d dodge it really pissed off!”
“What kind of nonsense is that? Even if you were pissed, you should’ve held back!”
“I tried to hold back…! I swear I did! This is so unfair!”
“Unfair? Are you kidding ?!”
“I don’t know! Do you know how hard I’ve tried to avoid this prophecy? I even sleep with my sword far away so I don’t stab you in my sleep!”
Seira and Lucia, flustered beyond composure, dropped all formal speech in front of Shiron. Perhaps they were too shaken to hide that they were reincarnators.
Just then,
“Enough! What are you all doing?!”
Latera suddenly appeared out of nowhere, supporting Shiron as she shouted. Her tall, muscular fra seed burdened by Shiron’s limp weight.
“Quickly, help lift him! If this continues, the Hero will actually die!”
“Y-Yeah! We need to pull the sword out first…”
“Pulling it out will make him bleed more! First, heal him with holy power!”
After Seira and Lucia supported Shiron, Latera swiftly channeled divine power into her palms. Though weaker than Shiron’s, her divine energy was enough to quickly seal the wound.
“Hero! Stay with us!”
Her small hands pressed firmly against the hole in his chest. Amid the swirling dizziness, Shiron moved his pale lips.
“…What… the hell is going on…”
“What’s going on? You’re the one who started it!”
“…I don’t know. I just wanted to test my foresight…”
Shiron muttered and turned his dazed gaze to Lucia.
“You crazy woman. What if you actually killed ?”
“Yeah! I’m a crazy woman, Shiron! So don’t die on !”
“…I won’t die, damn it.”
Feeling a peculiar tickle in his chest, Shiron spoke. It seed she hadn’t intended to kill him; though she stabbed his heart, it was shallow, and thankfully, Latera’s ergency treatnt had been swift.
“I’m just a little dizzy. It’s… just blood loss. That’s all. Phew.”
“Are you sure?”
“…Yes. I’ll be fine after so rest. So… ahh, I’m getting sleepy.”
“Don’t sleep! People who sleep in situations like this always die!”
Lucia buried her face in his chest, crying out. His vision blurred further, and by the dampness spreading across his chest, it seed she had started sobbing profusely.
But, tears or not, his drowsiness only deepened. Had he ever been this sleepy before? Yet he couldn’t afford to pass out. Looking at the unextinguished fla of prophecy amidst the chaos, Shiron smirked faintly.
‘Forget what I said about this being overpowered. I’m sleepy as hell, and it’s still consuming mana. What a useless burden.’
Still, once the mana was entirely depleted, the fla would extinguish. And since running out of mana wouldn’t kill him, Shiron decided to close his eyes and rest.
“…I’m not going to die. Wake when the fla goes out.”
“Sniff. A-All right.”
“Don’t inform Dawn Castle.”
“Sniff… okay!”
Though it seed impossible to sleep amidst the commotion, the thickening veil of drowsiness soon swallowed all his senses.
This, too, would pass as a minor incident. Shiron thought so and focused on resting.
Dream.
Perhaps due to the unexpected injury, Shiron dread for the first ti in a long while.
To say “in a long while” was to emphasize how rarely he dreamt. No, dreams were an exceptionally rare occurrence for him.
In the Holy Land Brahham,
When Siriel kidnapped him,
And now.
He could count the instances on one hand. [Shiron Prient]‘s body didn’t dream.
He’d been curious about why and researched it himself, but as he didn’t completely lack dreams, he chalked it up to being a peculiar trait.
‘…Could it be because of the possession?’
Was it because this dream was rare? The dream itself felt strangely different. During the past two instances, he hadn’t known it was a dream while dreaming, but now, he was aware that this was a dream world.
He wasn’t tense or wary.
While demons like succubi, known as dream demons, existed, they were low-level beings that couldn’t threaten him.
They lacked power and had to exploit openings, which included the dreaming state.
Still, the events unfolding warranted close observation.
‘This is…’
Amid the wavering lake-like vision, images flickered past like fast-forwarded footage on an old videotape.
‘The Third Apostle?’
A towering structure.
Though it was his first ti seeing it, Shiron instinctively knew what it was.
At the heart of the Demon Realm, in the abandoned city of Illusion, stood a tower. A tower so high it not only overlooked the entire Demon Realm but also the human world beyond the mountain ranges.
[The Tower of Despair]
At its peak, an old man in a robe sat on a throne, observing the world.
‘Why is that bastard there?’
The question escaped his lips involuntarily. While Shiron sought the power of prophecy to grow stronger, it was also a ans to locate the apostles scattered across the Demon Realm.
No matter how much he raised his fa, there was a chance he wouldn’t encounter an apostle. Though 15 years remained on the Demon God’s contract, he could still fail to et one, even after the chilling revelation in Lucerne.
Thus, he sought prophecy directly. If this dream were a true prophecy, it should have been cause for celebration.
However,
Shiron’s face twisted into a grimace.
‘What a headache.’
He knew the characteristics of the Tower of Despair.
In Reincarnation of the Sword Saint, there were certain nad characters you must never fight.
Yuma before her rage.
Hugo Prient.
And lastly, the Tower Master of Despair.
Yuma was crucial to the player in the early ga and must not be killed. Hugo Prient, the empire’s strongest until his death, was unbeatable unless you exploit loopholes.
But the Tower Master of Despair was different. Due to the nature of the Tower of Despair, anyone who climbed it could only leave through death. Since the tower constantly required a master, if Shiron were to subjugate the Third Apostle, he was destined to be trapped in the tower forever.
Just then,
‘Huh?’
Their eyes t.
Though the hood obscured his face, Shiron could clearly feel the piercing gaze beneath the wrinkled features.
The air at the top of the tower rippled montarily, and a massive spear materialized, aiming precisely at Shiron’s location.
‘It’s just a dream, idiot.’
Shiron smirked, attempting to vanish from the Third Apostle’s sight. Since this was a lucid dream, his intent could be easily realized.
The scene shifted, and his vision blurred, replaced by a different landscape.
He could have woken up from the dream, but it seed the dream wasn’t finished yet.
‘…’
This place was familiar.
But the unfamiliarity was bone-chilling.
Tagore Hill, also called the Land of Destruction.
The air reeked of a nauseating, vile energy—likely monts after a demon’s subjugation.
On the decayed earth, where even existence seed to rot, a small woman was embracing a rugged-looking figure.
“Kyrie, you shouldn’t sleep here.”
“…”
“I’m busy, you know. Get up already.”
Kyrie didn’t respond to the woman’s words. Perhaps it was right after her battle with the demon; though her heart was beating, her appearance was barely distinguishable from a corpse.
But how could the woman, unaffected in such a wretched land, casually complain as if nothing was wrong?
Ah.
Upon closer inspection, Shiron’s face turned blank. Though there were no mirrors here, he was aware of how dumbfounded he looked.
The woman embracing Kyrie wasn’t a stranger.
Though ti had altered her slightly, Shiron couldn’t fail to recognize the familiar impression from his longest-standing connection.
“…She’s dead.”
Yura sighed while holding the fallen Kyrie, tapping the air as though manipulating sothing.
What a psychopathic woman. A person was dead before her, yet she didn’t shed a single tear. As expected, she’s here. My prediction was correct. She must’ve traveled with Kyrie. The traces left behind—rougher than those during the ga’s developnt—looked hand-carved. My prediction was right. Yura, like …
A sudden surge of frustration welled up, but the fact he had only guessed until now, confird in this dream, overwheld him with emotion.
His lips trembled foolishly, and even in the dream, his eyes stung as they reddened.
And then,
Shiron’s tears stopped abruptly.
Thump.
The stopped heart began to beat again. Kyrie’s blackened complexion regained its color.
As if by a miracle.
‘…What did she do?’
His vision shifted again.
The first to speak was a child nad Hyun-jun.
Unlike Shiron, who stabbed aimlessly everywhere, Hyun-jun smiled cheekily and teased him with annoying words.
Unlike him, who had no friends, Hyun-jun quickly made friends despite being new in town.
“Why do you play with ? You’ve got other friends.”
It was such a stupid question. Thinking back, it was an embarrassing mory, the kind that made him want to bite his tongue and disappear.
But at the ti, he didn’t feel that way. Hyun-jun was kind and endured Shiron’s tantrums no matter what.
“Hmm… my mom told to be friends with you.”
“What would you do without your mom? You’d be useless.”
Such harsh words. Words he should’ve stopped saying. But back then, he was a childish brat, venting frustrations ant for his parents onto a peer.
“If I didn’t have my mom… I’d be really sad.”
“…”
“Yeah. If I didn’t have her, how would I even live? Just imagining it makes tear up…”
“Idiot.”
At the ti, he didn’t realize, but now he could discern that Hyun-jun was deliberately pretending not to notice. He must’ve overheard adults sowhere. Without needing to say it, Hyun-jun must have known Shiron didn’t have a mother.
But Hyun-jun never let it show. In hindsight, it was an odd kindness, but back then, Shiron was too immature to grasp the weight of Hyun-jun’s compassion.
Instead, he threw childish tantrums, constantly clinging to Hyun-jun up until their parting.
Though ti tempered his sharp edges, Shiron still retained the habit of speaking bluntly to Hyun-jun.
“Idiot. Are you sulking again?”
Sotis he would tease Hyun-jun just out of spite.
“Hey! You promised to watch a movie with after this! Why’d you go straight ho?”
“Because I’m sleepy.”
“Hey!!”
And sotis, he’d ignore Hyun-jun’s sulky expression just to provoke him further.
“Because you keep acting like that…!”
Shiron never stopped throwing harsh words to the end.
The idiot was him.
“Ah? You’re awake!”
His eyes opened.
Shiron saw the purple eyes staring at him from the rattling carriage’s ceiling.
“You’re awake?”
“…Where are we going?”
“You didn’t wake up for so long because your mana reserves are so large, so we decided to leave first.”
“Sleep talk?”
“Pardon?”
“…Nothing.”
The Demon Realm’s city of Ilryusin.
A towering structure reached toward the sky.
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