Chapter 425

Clang-clatter!

White Flame, having lost its target, rolled across the ground.

Ah.

The Arch Lich snapped his fingers at me as I stood frozen like a statue. A pair of black hands materialized in midair and constricted around my entire body.

He no longer needed an incantation to cast his magic.

Step. Step.

With every step the Arch Lich took, something seeped into various parts of his body, which was as hazy as mist.

The left arm that had vanished in One Annihilation slowly regenerated, while his shattered, fractured bones knit back together, sturdier than before and gleaming with an even darker hue.

The closer the Gate came to completion, the stronger the Arch Lich became.

—So there was a reason I smelled death upon you. Friendship between a human and a monster… How touching.

Crack.

I heard bones shifting out of place throughout my body, but I stared blankly over the Arch Lich’s shoulder.

More precisely, at the sword buried in the ground—and the hand of someone who had held on to its hilt until the very end.

The Skeleton Warlord.

Humans and monsters were sworn enemies, as ordained by God.

The same had been true of me and the Skeleton Warlord. At least, it had been at first.

But… now I finally understood. At some point, the Skeleton Warlord had stopped being a monster to me.

If I’d still thought of him as a monster, I would’ve erased him with my own hands.

If I had killed the Skeleton Warlord myself, the resulting level-up might have given me one last hope.

But I had hesitated, and ultimately given up.

Not because he had saved my life. Because in my heart, I had already accepted him as a friend.

A hollow laugh escaped me.

Damn it. I never should’ve gotten attached.

The Arch Lich’s eye-lights narrowed at the sight of me.

—Are you laughing? In a situation like this?

“My mother used to say that fortune comes to those who smile.”

—You have lost your mind.

“Why the fuck do you care if I laugh? What are you, my immediate senior in the army?”

I spat toward the Arch Lich’s face. A thick liquid, impossible to distinguish as blood or phlegm, trickled down between his brows.

At the same time, the red eye-lights in the places where his eyes should have been flared violently.

—I heard your answer clearly.

“Go eat a dick.”

It would have been a lie to say I had no regrets about the life I had lived, but none of that mattered now. Regret always came too late, and I had fought until the bitter end.

I had done enough.

Once I let go of everything, it all felt like one long dream. My face, smiling peacefully at the Arch Lich’s eye-lights, was reflected in them.

—I told you, did I not? Your flesh would be torn to pieces, and your soul would wander the River of Death forever.

I readily nodded in agreement.

“I guess so. Just like that Demon King bastard you serve.”

—……!

“If I run into him, I’ll give him your regards. What’s his address?”

—……We shall see how long you can continue spouting such nonsense.

At the Arch Lich’s gesture, the enormous hands of mana squeezing me seized all four of my limbs. Then they began pulling my body apart with tremendous force.

Slowly.

Little by little.

Crack. Craaack.

Small ruptures sounded inside me, and the sensation of pain I had momentarily forgotten awakened.

I thought I no longer had the strength even to scream, but a cry tore itself from between my lips.

“Gnh… graaaaagh!”

—That sounds much better.

Pain bleached my vision white. I let out all the screams I had been holding back and waited for death to come.

But when even the pain began to fade, what came for me was not death.

It was a System notification.

Beep.

System

• Hero’s Soul grants you the light of healing!

• All status effects have been removed!

• All injuries have been healed, and all attributes restored!

• Someone who is not here smiles at you.

System

• High-grade Potion has been used!

• The amount of potion used is too small. Your injuries have been healed slightly!

• Your injuries are extremely severe. You require a greater amount of higher-quality healing than this!

…What?

A cool sensation spread through me, and the pain surged back to life. My eyes flew open.

The Arch Lich was staring at me with mockery gleaming in his eye-lights.

And in his hand was a glass bottle.

That’s…

It was one of the potions that had been in Lee Jungryong’s subspace pocket—the one the Arch Lich had stolen long ago.

And now he was using a potion made for healing as an instrument of torture.

Just enough healing to keep me poised at the threshold of death.

Just enough to make me feel the greatest possible pain.

—Foolish human. Did you truly think this body would grant you such an easy, peaceful death?

“……!”

—Continue to howl. Weep like a coward and writhe in agony. Only once you have realized your folly shall you be permitted to cross into the River of Death.

The Arch Lich shook the glass bottle, his voice thick with mockery.

Not even a tenth of the potion was gone. The amount that remained represented all the pain I had yet to endure.

Time would crawl by without end, each moment stretching into an eternity.

Weak healing spread through my body, but so did pain that came crashing down over every inch of me. My breathing grew ragged. I forced a smile and asked the Arch Lich,

“If I give three cheers for the Demon King, will you finish me off sooner?”

—Perhaps. If you do so with sufficient passion and sincerity, I may consider it.

“I’m not doing that, you son of a bitch.”

—Very well. We have plenty of time, after all. There is no harm in considering it at your leisure—

Crunch!

The Arch Lich’s eye-lights trembled.

So did I.

Neither of us had expected what happened next.

No one had.

—……What is this?

With a doubtful voice, the Arch Lich looked down at his chest.

Light.

It was light. A dazzling radiance bright enough to illuminate the entire world had burst through his chest.

No. That isn’t light.

I stared at it with vacant eyes.

It was a sword, shining more brilliantly than ever before.

I knew the name of that all-too-familiar sword.

Hero’s Soul.

And I knew the owner of the hand wrapped tightly around its hilt beyond the Arch Lich’s skeletal chest.

“……!”

It was as if the entire world had stopped moving.

In that impossibly slowed world, I watched hundreds—thousands—of bone fragments gather.

They had been nothing more than the last traces someone had left behind, but now they pulled toward one another and began taking shape.

Click. Clack!

Bones fused together.

Two arms and two legs formed first, followed by a chest and abdomen.

The black sheen washed from the bones beneath the radiance spilling from Hero’s Soul. Before long, they had taken on a soft golden hue, growing longer and sturdier.

Ah.

It was an astonishing sight.

Countless fragments of bone gathered to form a body, as though time itself were flowing backward. The light streaming from the sword drove the darkness from every joint, heralding the birth of a new being.

And finally, when a skull settled onto the completed body—

Flash!

Golden eye-lights burst from its empty sockets.

The feeling was both utterly familiar and completely strange.

The next moment, a voice rang out, and the time that had stopped began to flow again.

—You asked me why, did you not?

“……!”

My body trembled as if lightning had pierced through me. A memory from less than an hour ago flashed through my mind.

Then why, exactly?

Yes. That was what I had asked back then.

Why had he saved me? Why had he chosen to become my shield even though he had been prepared to face Erasure?

He had said he did not know. He did not know why he had done such a thing. Perhaps the sword had bewitched him.

And now, the answer I had not heard then pierced my ears.

—Because though you are devious, you are a pretty decent human. That was all.

A pretty decent guy.

Words I had once said to someone.

I stared at him in disbelief.

His faintly golden body was larger and sturdier than before. An unknown silver pattern was engraved across the forehead of his skull, resembling a crown.

No.

It was unmistakably a crown.

System

• Lv. 160 Skeleton King

The moment I saw the System window hovering above his head, a hollow laugh escaped me.

“Look how much you’ve grown, Bones.”

—No wonder I have felt itchy all over for so long.

The small black caterpillar had finally shed its skin and spread its wings.

The Skeleton Warlord—or rather, the Skeleton King’s eye-lights curved like crescent moons.

He was smiling.

So was I.

And there was one being who could not smile.

—Graaaagh! Graaaaaaaaaagh!

The Arch Lich.

The unprecedented Named Monster, who commanded hundreds of thousands of undead and possessed inexhaustible, tremendous mana, writhed in agony.

A single sword had pierced straight through the center of his chest.

The golden radiance flowing from Hero’s Soul devoured his mana and melted his body.

Perhaps even his soul.

—Human.

At the Skeleton King’s quiet call, I realized what I had to do.

Now… let’s finish this.

Beep.

Fwoooooosh!

A pillar of light burst from Hero’s Soul and enveloped me.

Gentle warmth flooded my body. Shattered bones knit together, torn flesh healed, and my damaged organs and meridians¹ recovered. At the same time, heat seethed through me like lava, ready to erupt at any moment.

I can do this.

The certainty was so absolute that it surprised even me.

And it was true.

With this strength, there was nothing I could not do.

Come.

Fwoooooosh! Clack!

At the same time that I pulled White Flame, rolling across the ground, into my hand—

Fwoosh!

I thrust out my foot, feeling myself rise into the air.

At the end of that step stood the Arch Lich, writhing in agony as streams of tremendous mana poured from his body.

—What in the world! What magic have you used?!

The Arch Lich spotted me and shrieked in a frenzy.

His red eye-lights shook wildly, swelling larger and larger.

That alone told me how much pain he was in.

—Damn you! Damn you, human! Graaaaagh!

Instead of answering, I slowly raised White Flame.

I aimed its transparent spearhead at the Arch Lich, whose limbs were trembling violently from the pain, and at the enormous Gate looming behind him.

Whoosh.

The fire dragon spread its wings and soared from my dantian, transforming into a ball of flame as it surged through every limb and bone in my body. It flowed along my fingertips, kindling blue flames atop White Flame’s spearhead and layering them over and over.

—You cur! How dare you—

The Arch Lich flailed his arms and legs in a frenzy, but the magic he fired collided with the heat surrounding me like a barrier and vanished before it could even reach me.

Unlike the weakened Arch Lich, however, the darkness around the Gate churned with ever greater violence.

And at last, I realized.

Now!

White Flame trembled as rotational force traveled up through my leg, waist, shoulder, and wrist.

The unprecedented surge of qi drawn from my entire body kindled flames larger than ever before.

Yes.

This was the moment.

Fwoosh.

One step.

All the space separating the Arch Lich and me vanished, and time slowed.

Before the Arch Lich’s slowly moving lips could finish the incantation, I launched a single strike filled with every ounce of my will and strength.

—Blink…!

One Annihilation.

There would be no second mistake.

The blue fire dragon bursting from White Flame’s spearhead swallowed both the Arch Lich and the Gate.

Kwooooooooooong!