“Ah... ah... ah...”
Silver hair, matted with blood, dragged along the ground, leaving a sticky red trail in its wake.
Mary crawled across the floor in desperation.
She was trying to escape.
Her jaw had been completely torn from her face.
Her mouth hung open, and only a faint, guttural moan slipped out.
All she could repeat was a pained death rattle.
Mary was terrified.
She had been blessed with great power since birth by the Great One, and never in her life had she been driven into such a corner.
And yet now—
Even within this space where she was supposedly immortal, the fear of death shattered her mind.
She was being crushed by a primal terror so overwhelming, she forgot that she couldn't die.
How—
How could a single human push her this far?
Yes, she was weakened at the mont.
But even if she unleashed the full extent of her true self—could she really defeat that woman?
Even Mary herself couldn’t say for sure.
Cheon Yeoul had now taken the form of her past self—when she was at her most powerful, feared as the Saint of the Battlefield.
Back then, she had power on par with the Apostles.
But at this mont, the Apostles were not even capable of accessing their full strength.
There was no way Mary could face Cheon Yeoul in a proper fight.
Her trembling hands pressed against the floor.
She reflexively turned her head to look back.
There stood the human, staring down coldly at her.
Cheon Yeoul. She, too, was wounded in several places, but compared to Mary’s state, they were re scratches.
“Haa...”
Cheon Yeoul slowly wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand.
A faint red sar trailed down her chin.
She understood it well. The Apostle could not die in this space.
But what mattered was that, if they were injured this badly, they would need a long ti to recover.
That ant the resurrection of the Evil God would also be delayed.
Ti had been bought.
And that was enough.
Her gaze turned cold and resolute.
Cheon Yeoul slowly bent down and roughly grabbed a handful of Mary’s blood-soaked hair.
“See you again~”
From Mary’s perspective, there couldn’t have been words more unwelco.
A flash of light erupted from Cheon Yeoul’s hand.
—CRACK!
Mary’s head was slamd rcilessly into the temple floor.
Her body shattered instantly into fragnts of shadow and vanished.
“Ghh...”
In that mont, Cheon Yeoul clutched her chest.
Even if she could invoke the power of her pre-regression self, her current body was still that of a young, unripe student.
Far too fragile a vessel to fully contain the strength of her past.
—Chirp!
Baekryeong chirped softly on her shoulder, gently pecking her cheek with its beak, as if worried.
“I’m okay... I just need a little rest...”
A faint smile appeared at the corner of Cheon Yeoul’s lips.
This pain was nothing—nothing compared to the burden he had to carry.
She took a slow breath and closed her eyes.
***
At the sa ti.
In a transcendent space beyond ti and dinsion—
Yu Hana opened her eyes. She had been swept away by the silent wind.
“I’ve longed to et you.”
A deep, low voice.
A faint shadow lood across the vast space.
It was clearly there—and yet as if it wasn’t. Blurred and elusive.
The Apostle, Hayato.
He took a slow step toward Yu Hana.
His unwavering gaze pierced through her.
“I knew it imdiately. You too are one who seeks martial mastery, like . A genius upon whom your clan has placed its hopes.”
Hayato lightly moved his fingertip.
And in that mont, space twisted softly. From the subspace erged a sharp blade.
“I once walked the sa path as you. And the one who saw where that path ends now stands before you.”
His voice held an unusual certainty.
“Though your life will end here today, before that... I hope you’ll show the height you’ve reached.”
He spoke with polite courtesy, but his words were chilling.
“Don’t resent too much. The end is emptiness, regardless.”
There was a strange sense of resignation at the end of his statent.
But Yu Hana simply stood there.
Without a word, she reached for the callia blade sheathed at her side.
“Very well.”
Hayato smiled as he raised his sword.
But Yu Hana... closed her eyes and drifted into thought.
A mory from her past.
She was born into the Yu family.
And she learned the sword of the Yu family.
She was Yu by birth, and by birth she wielded the sword.
She grew up with a blade in her hand, lived with a blade in her hand.
She had longed for martial mastery, yet inside, she was always empty.
She trained without knowing why, honed her skills without any clear purpose.
Then one day—
By soone’s hand—
She began to change, slowly, without even realizing it.
Yu Hana, once a blank canvas, was gradually painted by his touch.
He taught her how to swing the sword.
How to adjust her footing.
Where her shoulder should loosen the mont she thrust.
Where to place her weight when she stepped.
How bending her knees slightly could make her burst forward faster.
How to twist her feet when stopping, to allow a split-second counterattack.
Even how to breathe.
Everything—every detail, from beginning to end.
There wasn’t a single part of her untouched by his hands.
And every ti his hands reached her, her blank canvas filled in little by little.
With his breath. With his guidance. She was completely, utterly colored by him.
Now, Yu Hana was no longer a blank slate.
She had beco a being dyed solely in his color—soone that belonged only to him.
And now, she smiled.
A warm breath slipped between her lips.
She could feel it.
That she had returned.
That version of her, completely saturated in his color.
The exhilaration of becoming one with him again after so long. The unity.
Yu Hana drew the callia blade from its sheath.
Her fingertips trembled gently.
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
Hayato turned his head, sensing a faint floral scent on the air.
There shouldn’t be flowers here. Not in this realm beyond space and ti.
And yet—
This was the unique domain she had reached.
『Peerless Chaos Bloom』
An endless storm of blooming flowers.
Dazzling enough to leave one breathless.
Dangerous enough to kill.
At so point, without notice, red callia petals had begun to swirl around her like an illusion.
Every movent Yu Hana made was graceful, yet laced with a tension—like walking across a sheet of thin ice.
“What...!”
He gasped in disbelief. Without the slightest warning, the tide had turned completely.
Yu Hana smiled with a light flush of delight.
“~♫”
She gave a soft whistle, and from sowhere, a small squirrel leapt onto her shoulder.
With its tiny paws, it touched her cheek and nuzzled gently against her.
“Hey there,”
she whispered softly.
The Apostle Hayato couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
He had dedicated his entire life to the martial path.
He had offered his clan, his rank, his everything to the Great One in pursuit of that path.
And yet—
Never once had he witnessed a human display swordsmanship this beautiful, this perfect.
At last, he slowly raised his hand.
The space around him warped as one by one, countless transparent blades ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) materialized.
An endless array of swords, resonating with the weight of his will.
But Yu Hana remained completely unshaken. As if she had foreseen it all from the very beginning.
Her callia blade drew a gentle arc through the air. Scarlet petals fluttered like weightless dancers.
She began her final sword dance.
『Infinite Crimson Lotus』
—A bloom of red in full flower.
Born in the void of infinity, the crimson petals consud all of Hayato’s domain.
In that instant—
The space rippled crimson.
—SHRAAAACK!
Hayato’s entire body was torn apart within the whirlwind of petals.
He instinctively raised both hands to grasp at his neck.
But what slipped between his fingers—
Was red blood, cascading endlessly like falling petals.
When he closed his eyes, the entire world was red. Not like blood—more like a field of blossoms.
“How... can this be...”
He staggered, then fell to his knees.
He opened his lips.
He wanted to ask—
What kind of resolve must one carry to wield such a blade?
But before he could speak, his consciousness faded.
And in his final vision—
Only the sight of crimson petals fluttering in the air, and a woman smiling softly among them.
Only the scent of callias, drifting in the wind, remained.
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