‘Another bottle?’ Philip furrowed his forehead, a little befuddled. Chi-Woo was momentarily confused as well, but soon realized what Kabal meant.
‘Say that she can!’
“…What?”
‘The holy water! Holy water!’
“Ah…seriously, are you…” Philip’s eyes narrowed. How many bottles did they have left? Two bottles, or three? Holy water was like the special talismans made by Chi-Woo’s master. Once used, it couldn’t be replenished again. They had already used one bottle on Kabal, and now she was asking for another one?
In Philip’s perspective, it seemed wasteful to use something like that on a god who didn’t even have a good foundation or was worshipped throughout generations; instead, she was an esoteric god who had been pushed far back into history. He couldn’t help but hesitate.
However, there were two reasons he couldn’t outrightly object. First, they weren’t in a situation to be picky. Second, using holy water was a method that consumed ‘relatively’ fewer resources and guaranteed better results than the other options they had. The die, World’s Milestone, was off the table as its effects were uncertain, and the remaining special talismans were more valuable than a bottle of holy water in Philip’s perspective.
In the end, Philip yelled, “…Damn it! Fine!’”
“Thank you! You really are the best, oppa!” Kabal smiled brightly and pulled out one bottle of holy water, popping off its cap and pouring it straight into her mouth. Gulp, gulp. The amount of holy water in the bottle quickly decreased with every gulp.
“Kuh!” Kabal finished a bottle in an instant and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Yes, this is it. This is why I can’t completely pull away from absolute neutrality.” Using blood as an analogy, ‘neutrality’ was akin to type AB when it was the recipient and type O when it was the donor; either way, it was the most inclusive of all alignments.
“You better not go back on your word now and claim you can’t do anything,” Philip said while glaring at her.
“What a brash bastard.” Kabal snorted, but seemed to be in a good enough mood that she continued, “What do you see me as? I am a god.” She looked slightly drunk as she stretched out both arms to her sides and looked up at the darkness. “A god. God.”
She closed her eyes. Lightning clapped, and as if she was savoring the stormy tidal waves in front of her, she said with exhilaration, “Ahhh…this place is full of evil.”
“In order to drag this place full of pure evil to chaos…” Kabal’s eyes burst open. No, she was kabbalah—whose left eye burst into a brilliant light, while the right eye echoed with deep darkness. She smiled until her lips were stretched flat. Then her drunken expression gradually disappeared and was replaced by one of indifference. She slowly flew into the air as she blankly stared in front of her.
“—"
Incomprehensible words came out of her mouth. Her lips were moving fast, extremely fast, as if they were sped up by a hundred times. As a great volume of incantations poured out, three large magic circles burst into existence with her in the center—two from her hands, and a large one from the necklace on her chest.
Even Vepar, who only had her existence left, realized what was going on. The power was tremendous, but also delicate. It felt like her territory was getting destroyed. Her face crumpled when she looked up.
“—. – —!” As Kabal chanted, mysterious spirits rushed in while making strange sounds.
—Kyaaaah!
Spirits whooshed forward and got absorbed into the magic circles without leaving a trace. Meanwhile, Vepar quickly collected herself, and all the numerous faces on her body began to murmur incantations at once. The ocean stirred, and the dark sky shot down thunderbolts mercilessly. As a turbulent storm raged from all sides, the whirling ocean opened its mouth wide and raised a terrible tidal wave like it was going to eat the god alive.
“!?”
However, everything got devoured by Kabal instead. Although she was stunned, Vepar chanted even more furiously than before. New faces popped out of her body until they covered her from head to toe.
“—! – —!– —! – —!” “– —!—!—!—!” “– —!—!—!—!” “– —!—!—!—!” All the faces chanted simultaneously. Syllables combined into phrases, and phrases combined to complete one spell. Nevertheless, it failed to reach Kabal.
“—” With a single syllable, Kabal cast thousands of compressed spells. It was a form of divine speech that surpassed any high-speed incantation. She gathered already completed spells and formed new, greater ones that left Vepar completely helpless no matter how she exhausted her efforts and power. And as Kabal’s magic ate away the ocean, the magic circle on her right hand began to glow with black. It grew darker and darker and shrank in size; simultaneously, the magic circle on her left emitted a white light. Every time the dark magic circle shrank, the light one increased in size, and once the two magic circles became equal in size, an incomprehensible current passed through the area, making a deep rumble.
Wing! Wing! Wing! Wing! Wing!
The two magic circles began to expand.
“…—" The opposing powers edged toward one another with the giant magic circle in front of Kabal’s necklace at the center, and they joined together.
Baaaaaaaam!
As soon as they clashed, the two powers fluctuated wildly and sputtered white and black sparks. Kabal raised both hands slowly as if she was supporting the two powers. Her bob hair was flowing upward now, and her clothes flapped like they were about to rip apart. The power was so great that ‘enormous’ didn’t even begin to describe it.
The black power became whiter, while the white power became darker; it was as if the sun and the moon were joining, and something unknown was born—chaos. Something that was neither light nor dark encroached on the world, and everything disappeared. The desperately fluctuating ocean waves succumbed under it, the fearsome current whirling around the girl settling.
Nobody could see or hear anything in the quiet, mysterious space of her making—until Kabal broke the silence. Her eyes flickered with neither light nor dark, but chaos as she looked down. A cold smirk tugged at her lips when she spotted Vepar helplessly standing below her. And in this unsettling silence, the girl spoke like she was giving a death sentence, “Area Declaration.”
Bambambambam!
Unidentifiable streaks extended out of the chaos and fell down like rain, drawing long parabolas in the air and forming a dome around the city. They brought chaos wherever they went, and the smothering darkness cracked; in the places where darkness collapsed, the evil ocean shrank until it disappeared. Everything Vepar had bet on was quickly erased, and even her existence was no exception. Her entire being was swept into the currents of the chaos. It tore apart each of the faces all over her body and penetrated deep into her scales, seizing every single one of them forcefully. They pulled away her multiple faces with pieces of skin attached, and the faces shriveled up in pain. Like a slice of cheese with many holes left by mice, she collapsed helplessly to the ground.
“Ugh…Ah…Ack…” Vepar groaned in pain, twitching like a bug before slowly fading into nothingness. There wasn’t even a trace of her left. Her very existence was now gone. With Vepar’s demise, the nagas’ powers decreased, and they fell down in agony for trespassing into an area they shouldn’t have entered.
“What’s wrong with them suddenly?”
“I don’t know. Let’s first kill them!”
Since the nagas were now easy prey, the only thing left to do was to kill them all.
As if the fluctuating chaos was melting into the world, light returned to the sky. The complete darkness turned grayish, and the sun slowly rose and revealed itself at a distance. Only then did Kabal crash down from the sky. “Ouch!” She fell on her butt next to Chi-Woo and scowled at him. “Why didn’t you catch me?”
Philip, who had been staring blankly as everything unfolded, closed his eyes. ‘…Hey.’ He shook his head and let out a long sigh. ‘Take your body back.’ Without proper warning, Philip passed over the control, and Chi-Woo took over. Kabal’s eyes turned black again. After Chi-Woo regained his senses, it finally registered in his mind that this long battle was truly over.
‘So that’s what happened.’ Chi-Woo looked at Kabal as she complained about her butt hurting and inadvertently nodded. He now realized why Balal had wanted to go to the temple so desperately, and why an unknown force had been guiding Chi-Woo there. ‘In the first place—’ The moment he took Balal to the temple and revived Kabal, he had essentially won the battle. The only thing left was to finish the work and decide how exactly he was going to win.
“Teacher!”
“Seniorrr!”
Chi-Woo heard two familiar voices. He turned around and saw the Ru siblings running towards him, and a strange middle-aged man was following behind in a sluggish posture.
“Hey~!” The middle-aged man looked like he better belonged on the beach. He greeted Chi-Woo by raising his hand like an old friend. “Heh. How long has it been? Anyway, I thought you’d come. I trusted you…?” He walked up to Chi-Woo with friendly banter, but his expression turned blank once he got a better look at Chi-Woo’s face. “…What?” He let out a gasp, and his eyes widened at the same time. He seemed to have mistaken Chi-Woo for someone else.
“Uh…huh? Hold on. I was sure that you matched 50 percent…? I mean, I was wondering why it was only 50 percent, but wait a minute. That means…huhhhh?” His words were incomprehensible to everyone else.
Ru Amuh and Ru Hiana blinked at Ismile’s strange behavior. Ismile, who was always smiling like a creep, was unusually flustered. Moreover, he was intently staring at Chi-Woo with a serious expression.
‘This old guy can also make a face like that?’ Ru Hiana was quick-witted enough to immediately notice Ismile’s expression, and her eyes gleamed. She had been suspecting Chi-Woo’s identity. Of course, she didn’t doubt Chi-Woo’s ability as a great hero, but he was too unknown for someone as good as he was. No matter how wide the universe was, it was strange that someone of his talent would remain unnoticed. Considering all the reactions of the heroes they had met so far, Chi-Woo was much less known than Ru Amuh. This made absolutely no sense.
What if there was something that ordinary heroes didn’t know about? For example, what if senior was a secret agent who had to keep his identity secret for some unknown reason? Then it made sense that he would have such a low profile.
On the other hand, heroes from the twelve great families such as the Ho Lactea and Nahla family might have met Chi-Woo before, or even knew about him.
“Senior, do you know each other?” Ru Hiana asked with curiosity, but Chi-Woo shook his head.
At Chi-Woo’s denial, Ismile said, “…Sorry, my bad. I must have analy…mistaken you for someone else.”
“Ah…anyway, senior! He’s the one who helped Ruahu. When Ruahu got hurt, he fixed him up in no time.”
“Ahaha. It wasn’t much.” Ismile smiled brightly and turned away from Ru Hiana’s inquisitive eyes, taking a step toward Chi-Woo. “Nice to meet you. I’m Ismile. Ismile Shain Hakmart…Nahla.” Even though he had revealed his real name, Chi-Woo merely looked at him with a puzzled expression. Considering Chi-Woo’s reaction even after Ismile revealed his full name, Ismile’s hunch gradually turned into certainty. “What’s your name—”
“You were hurt? Mr. Ru Amuh?” Chi-Woo purposefully put on a look of surprise and fuss over Ru Amuh, changing the topic the moment the word ‘name’ was uttered; Chi-Woo inwardly congratulated himself for his great timing.
“Ah, I’m all right now.” Ru Amuh took a step forward when Chi-Woo stared at him. “I quickly recovered with Sir Ismile’s help.”
“Aha. That’s why I lost you at some point.”
“Yes. I sincerely apologize. I tried to rejoin as soon as possible, but the surrounding suddenly…”
“Ah, it’s all right. Everything worked out well.”
“What about you, Teacher…?”
“I’m completely fine,” Chi-Woo said nonchalantly before thinking for a second and shrugging. “There were some dangerous moments, but…it’s over. It’s all good. You know what they say, it’s the end that matters.”
Ru Amuh fell silent. If even his teacher said it was dangerous, he was sure things must not have been easy to deal with. No, it must have been incredibly difficult, but in the end, his teacher did it again. Ru Amuh was deeply moved. When they had first arrived at this place, everything seemed so hopeless and gloomy with no answer in sight. However, the situation was now resolved. Ru Amuh felt as if he had come out of a long and deep tunnel. Now that he reflected back on what had happened, he should have expected this of his teacher.
Chi-Woo awkwardly coughed as Ru Amuh remained silent. Ismile seemed like he was going to ask his name again, so Chi-Woo wanted to continue his conversation with Ru Amuh.
“…For the first time ever.” Then Ru Amuh spoke up. “I lied.” And thanks to his effort, he was able to trick Vepar and drag her out. The promised child, Ru Amuh, had broken one of his lifelong convictions during this incident. However, he didn’t regret it; just like how Chi-Woo had broken his conviction to save Liber, Ru Amuh had also contributed at least a little bit to the same goal. He was suddenly reminded of what Shahnaz had requested of him before coming here.
Thus, Ru Amuh asked, “How was it?”
“Huh?”
“How did I do? Will you acknowledge me now?”
Chi-Woo blinked. ‘Has he always been like this? Did his personality change in such a short time?’ While various thoughts passed his mind, Chi-Woo burst into soft laughter. It didn’t really matter, since everything was finally over. “…Yes!” He gave the man a thumbs-up. “You’re always the best, and you were the best again.”
Ru Amuh’s complexion brightened. “Thank you.” He bowed and smiled more brilliantly than ever when he raised his head back up, “Thanks to you, I made some unforgettable memories.”