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Chapter 297

Suddenly, time froze. Countless snakes and beings from the past that were rushing to kill Yeon-woo and Ain stood still in their tracks.

The stars resembling human faces hovering high in the sky seemed to be slowly erasing their forms.

Yeon-woo didn’t utter a word about what that phenomenon could mean. Just because he kept quiet didn’t mean others would as well.

“Ts!”

Out of nowhere, Yuri, who stood grounded and motionless, clicked her tongue. Despite having dealt a blow to the Demon King, her expression was still somewhat perplexed, prompting Yeon-woo to frown.

“Could it be…?”

“Don’t worry, I struck true. However, it seems the laws surrounding that guy’s Demon King are holding it back, so it didn’t die.”

At those words, Yeon-woo shifted his gaze once more toward the phenomenon. A throbbing headache began to form as countless concepts filled his vision.

Amid that chaos, something murky and violet clung precariously to the phenomenon like a thin piano string.

“Disgustingly colorful…!!”

That thing was literally hanging onto a cliff with just a finger. It was so precarious that even a small stone could send it tumbling down.

But the issue was how to sever it. Since Yuri could perceive the opponent and ignore space or concepts to strike with her mind, it was a feat possible only for her.

However, her unique mana couldn’t be used consecutively multiple times, so she needed to find someone else capable of attacking it.

‘Does such a person exist…?’

Grasping his throbbing head, Yeon-woo scanned the entire area of the gathering.

The faces of countless people came into view for a brief moment, and he recalled who was who based on his memories of the past.

He could remember those who would make a name for themselves in the future, if not everyone.

But no one was there. No matter how much he pondered, no one came to mind. Hyuk Mu-ryeon and Delain, who had equal standing with Yuri, had their own specialties. They hadn’t lived their lives capable of precision strikes like this.

Even now, the fissures of space were closing bit by bit. He had to find some means. Otherwise, the first Demon King subjugation since the dawn of time could slip away.

Yuri, visibly exhausted, quietly watched Yeon-woo, who was frantically glancing around. Truly, his disciple had the worst sense of the situation possible.

Putting the grim sword in her hand back into its sheath, Yuri swiftly knocked Yeon-woo’s head.

“Ow!? What was that for!?”

“Do it yourself.”

“Do what… Huh!? How am I supposed to do that!!”

“Nobody else here can do it but you. You have to.”

Yuri’s gray eyes showed no trace of playfulness as they locked with Yeon-woo’s.

The meaning behind that was simple. Yuri clearly thought that if it was him, he could pull it off.

“How am I supposed to…?”

Today’s intensity of attention and expectation felt overwhelmingly heavy, causing Yeon-woo to stumble over his words.

Yet, Yuri continued to gaze at him with those pure gray eyes, unwavering.

“You can do it. I’m saying it because you can. When has an old man ever spoken a word he didn’t mean?”

‘Maybe once or twice…’

Even while thinking that, Yeon-woo slowly nodded his head. While there had been times he’d said things he didn’t mean, he had never forced him to do something impossible.

“Remember Noel.”

Yuri added that brief remark as she sat down on top of a pile of rocks, using her sword like a cane. She was fully in observation mode now.

By the way, remember Noel? What’s that supposed to mean? As Yeon-woo brought a fist to his mouth to think, something flitted through his head.

“Noel, she’s the easy one to understand. Tae-oh, could you call the kids over? Just tell them I need some help.”

[Even Darius…!?]

“Yeah. We’re not that close, but I’m counting on you.”

After swalling a dry gulp, Tae-oh disappeared, and soon three people climbed up on the building. Upon seeing the assorted expressions of confusion, Yeon-woo spoke.

“My dear friends, could you lend me a hand?”

Darius’s expression twisted into one of displeasure, but Yeon-woo didn’t mind.

*

Watching the four kids huddled together discussing something, Yuri rested her chin in her palm. Though her disciple, he was still annoyingly perceptive.

Yuri was worried for both Noel and Yeon-woo. It didn’t matter if they were heroes or whatever. To Yuri, both Noel and Yeon-woo were simply kids.

Especially unlike Yeon-woo, who could manage himself to some extent, she felt more protective toward Noel.

How could she not be concerned for a child who was so trapped in the mindset that he had to manage everything alone he was practically on the brink of depression?

Yuri believed that what was unfolding before her was the ideal form of a hero.

It wasn’t that Noel was bad. She simply wished he wouldn’t push himself so hard and would take it a little easier.

The same way people relied on heroes, heroes should rely on people too. The world was vast and murky, akin to a massive wave. No matter how hard an individual tried, they couldn’t clean it all up.

Just as much as the hero put in effort, the people had to as well. And the more the people strived, the more heroes needed to strive too. They had to support each other reliably like pillars.

Following Baek In-hwa’s guidance, two giant ice pillars shot up. In between them, Darius’s elemental mana connected. Yuri knew what to call that form.

‘… A sling?’

Watching Yeon-woo test the tension of that makeshift sling, she could roughly anticipate its purpose.

Yuri’s swordsmanship wasn’t restricted by distance. Thus, while it was easy for her to slice things on the ground, Yeon-woo was different.

No matter how much mana he poured or strength he exerted, his sword energy wouldn’t travel to the opposite side of the planet. It was necessary to use the mana as a propellant to generate forward kinetic energy.

However, if he went directly across to the opposite side of the planet and swung the sword down, he could easily create a crater. Meaning the closer the target, the less energy would leak.

Fortunately, the gap Ai had opened wasn’t too high. It might just be at the level of low clouds.

If Everest were nearby, he might very well jump down and enter.

Even Yeon-woo’s specialized leap technique, designed for distance, had a limit of around two hundred meters, but that was only if he leaped with his own strength.

In that moment, the strongest among them, Kim Yoo-min, pulled the sling taut to its limit. Darius’s expression distorted; it seemed he hadn’t realized his elemental mana could be used like this.

After Baek In-hwa fixed Kim Yoo-min’s taut position with ice, she placed a flat ice chunk on top.

Yeon-woo nodded as if checking several factors, then climbed onto the flat chunk of ice.

His expression was solemn, reminiscent of an astronaut, which elicited a small grin from Yuri. As Yeon-woo looked anxiously back at her, she waved her palm reassuringly.

In that instant, Yeon-woo shot upward towards the sky at dizzying speed.

*

“Urvk-ack!”

In plot points like this in cartoons, air always rushes in and the character ends up flailing wildly, so he tried it out and nearly bit his tongue off.

The ice slab launched with considerable tension sliced through the air rapidly.

Had he shot up several hundred meters? He felt the oxygen thinning as the ice slab under his feet shrank considerably.

Now was the time to leap. While the flying technique could be used to adjust direction or control posture mid-air, the first great leap couldn’t be activated without a launch pad.

Just when he felt he could no longer hold out, Yeon-woo coiled his body like a spring.

Fwooosh!!

A fist-sized shard of ice completely erupted into pieces, and Yeon-woo soared rapidly into the sky.

However, he still felt just a little short on altitude. He didn’t need to enter the realm of providence, but he had to be within effective range.

As if responding, the star’s mana, previously focused on healing by resonating with Dawn’s Stigmata, began to circulate actively within him.

It clung to the remnant power of the dragon flame and began to devour it, transforming uncontrollably.

Crack, ka-thunk.

He heard the sound of bones breaking and skin tearing. Was this due to utilizing the dragon flame’s residuals? The pain was so searing, it felt like having a campfire ignited on his back.

Scaled wings sprouted from behind Yeon-woo. But thanks to being forcibly summoned using side effects, they bore a flesh-like color, rendering them grotesquely impossible to describe.

“Well, it seems that effort paid off.”

He was getting closer, inching toward the gap that was barely big enough for a person to fit through.

In that moment, a solitary eye of the Demon King, which had appeared entirely hidden, once more flickered with malicious intent as it reappeared among the stars that constituted it.

Coincidentally, that eye was just an ordinary eye in relation to Yeon-woo. However, the gap in space wasn’t.

Until now, Ain had been opposing the Demon King’s eyes by opening the world. Thus, the reverse could also hold true. It was possible for the Demon King to use its gaze to close the fissures Ain had opened.

The intent was to completely seal the gap in the origins, so no one would ever again approach the providence. And right now, Yeon-woo had no means to stop that.

“Damn it, I almost bit it while jumping up. You bastard, I’ll hit you.”

Yeon-woo felt like he heard that voice near his ear. A familiar thuggish voice known for hurling thick curses, surely sounding disgusted.

Swoosh!!

A rough sword stroke coming from somewhere tore through the Demon King’s eye. It was driven by sheer desire, devoid of intricacy—simply wanting to deliver a blow, it cut through the flow that had opened the eye.

With the thought that he couldn’t ascend anymore, Yeon-woo swung his sword with full force. The sword energy, tinged in starlight, forced its way into the gap that was barely wide enough for a hand.

As it touched countless concepts, the sword energy shrank almost instantly. Yeon-woo could only plead silently that it would hit.

It had shrunk to the size of a stone, smaller than a baby’s fist; striking it would feel like nothing at all, yet the Aura Blade tapped that violet solid clinging to the phenomenon.

And due to that impact, the Demon King, who was hanging on by a thread, fell.

When the sluggish form of the Demon King broke free from the origin’s gap, the heavens screamed.

Looking around, the Demon King’s Snake was vanishing like dust. Those beings summoned by the Demon King from the past were doing the same.

As Yeon-woo enveloped the falling Demon King through the Doppleganger Weapon, he thought.

‘It’s over, all….’

While drowning in a sense of relief that couldn’t be put into words, Yeon-woo’s ear heard Tae-oh’s innocent question.

[So, how do you land now?]

‘Well, I have to use mana… oh wait, I don’t have any left.’

Oh shoot, that explains the overwhelming sense of relief—I just used all my mana up!

As that clarity hit him, Yeon-woo experienced the rules of free fall after so long when something gently wrapped around him. It was Baek In-hwa. She sighed deeply and said.

“…Not at all, not one bit of growth.”

Just like back when he first executed the flying technique, using all his mana and falling from the sky.

(To be continued in the next episode)

 

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