Chapter 707 – What Comes to Light (3)

The Holy War Alliance had overlooked something.
To be precise—they had underestimated their own pride.
No one said it aloud,
but they were all thinking the same thing.

They had to protect the boy—
their Supreme Commander—
Lee Hoyeol.

Though they exchanged wary glances,
the Alliance’s formation was already set in firm defense,
so much so that even Eunaxus and the dragons felt the difference.

Eunaxus spoke.

“Is it ignorance that leads you to such delusions?”

Why did they insist on protecting him?

“He is a monster.”

A being who had swallowed everything—
one who had committed a great sin to achieve his goal.
There was no word more fitting than monster to define him.

Nam Taemin glanced sideways at Hoyeol.

‘Why… why does he look like this?’

The black-haired boy—
if not for the same scent,
no amount of evidence would have convinced Taemin this was the same Hoyeol he knew.
The boy’s reactions were too different, too alien.

‘If it were the Hoyeol I know…’

Eunaxus’s words?

‘He wouldn’t have even pretended to listen.’

The Hoyeol Taemin followed was a man who never doubted his own actions,
never regretted them,
and never wavered in the face of their consequences.
But this young Hoyeol was different.

…Tremble.

He simply hadn’t noticed it from afar.
The boy was shaking in fear.
Eunaxus’s words had truly unsettled him.

‘So that’s why he asked that…’

Why would you protect someone like me?
The dragon’s pupils gleamed—
it had clearly sensed the turmoil in his heart.

“He cannot be forgiven, but you ignorant ones are different. It is the Infinitely Deep Darkness itself that has guided you here. If you retreat now, I will not hold your sins against you.”

He was trying to sway them. Of course—

“What the hell is this lizard bastard babbling about?”

No one in the Holy War Alliance was foolish enough to be tempted by such words.
In fact, Leonie—whose [Berserker] trait had triggered from Eunaxus’s unleashed power—
was even more foul-mouthed than usual.

“You lost to me once already.”
“……What?”
“Doesn’t your side ache when you see me?”

He must have been genuinely thrown off.

‘Your tone’s a bit short, Eunaxus.’

A distorted space-time.
The battle they once fought against the corrupted Eunaxus technically never happened—
but that didn’t mean the experience was gone.

Nam Taemin whispered to Shahin.

“If we can get in close, we can win this.”
“That’s the best thing I’ve heard all day.”

Shing—

Shahin and the crimson-eyed Dune warriors shifted their grip,
reversing the hold on their blades.
Garmond frowned at the sight.

“I told them to throw those weird blades away ages ago—wait, what?!”

The Dune’s swords, brought from their homeland of the Seorn Continent,
were oddly shaped—neither true double-edged swords nor single blades,
almost dangerous to their wielders.

But to flip them backward and fight that way?

“Warriors of Dune.”

Shahin raised his inverted blade high—its true form revealed.

“It is time for liberation.”

Whshhh!

The Dune warriors charged.
Their movements were nothing like before—
fluid, lethal, transcendent.

Garmond stammered.

“Th-they were hiding this power? Assistant, you knew about this…?”

The woman called his assistant replied calmly, though her voice trembled.

“The Dune are the strongest warriors of the Seorn Continent. Lord Shahin has always said so. I can’t confirm the details, but Seorn is said to be even larger than Arcana itself…”

Eunaxus roared—

“Insolence!”

But his massive body worked against him.
Once the Dune warriors got close,
even his eyes couldn’t track them.

Thrust—

Their blades pierced between the faint gaps of his scales—
the reverse edge stabbing straight into his reverse scale.

Shahin grinned.

“Thanks for giving us this chance.”
“……!”

He met Eunaxus’s frenzied, blood-red gaze.

“I was reaching my limits anyway. We swore to devote what remained of our lives to avenging Bael—the Tenth Throne who destroyed our homeland. And yet, even after stepping into the Demon World, we never found a trace of him…”

The strongest of Seorn versus the strongest of Arcana.

“And now we stand before you—Arcana’s mightiest—with the perfect reason to fight: to protect him. So take pride, warriors of Dune!”

Crash!

“Silence.”

Eunaxus’s claw twitched,
and blood spurted from Shahin’s lips.
But even knowing death in the curse wasn’t real—

“Then let us die with honor!”

Shahin drove his blade deeper into the reverse scale.

The rest of the battle hardly needed describing.
Within the curse, one by one,
they fell—and were ejected back into the real world.

Vangrit and Bensch exchanged faint smiles.

“Ha… You look awful, Vangrit.”
“If not for the curse, I’d never have thrown myself in like that.”
“Heh. I’m not so sure.”

Bensch glanced toward Hoyeol.

‘What’s with that look? What do you know?’

Sensing his gaze, Vangrit quickly changed the topic.

“So, what do you think?”
“About what?”
“Could we face something like that in reality?”

Bensch clutched his battered side.

“Why ask me, of all people? You’re the one who swears by the Magic Tower’s teachings. You haven’t forgotten the lessons of the Dragon Mage War, have you?”

Vangrit’s reason was simple.

“Don’t play dumb.”

After all, the Holy War Alliance had fought the dragons—to a draw.

Crack—

The sound of space collapsing followed by fleeing dragons filled the air.
If survival counted as victory, perhaps they had won.

But both of them knew—

“Aren’t you afraid of the curse’s aftermath?”
“Afraid? Hardly.”

Bensch smiled weakly.

“You know our Chief’s personality. If he took the beating, it’s because he thought it would do us good. I’d stake my life on it—I’ve taken more of his scoldings than anyone.”

“That’s… oddly reassuring.”
“Reassuring, huh?”

Then I’m glad it sounded that way, Vangrit.

‘What will we gain—and what will we lose?’

Bensch forced his eyelids to stay open.
Nothing was certain—
only that Hoyeol and Claudi were both the same, and yet not.
He’d already suspected as much.

Jeju Island.

‘Because I could feel it… in your black magic.’

Though he’d met him now in a boy’s form,
he couldn’t claim to understand him fully.
Still—

“Even so, isn’t this the first time, Vangrit?”

There was no answer.
He must have already been ejected from the curse.

Bensch looked toward where Vangrit had vanished and murmured:

“It’s just the first step… but for once, I feel like I’m beginning to understand our onion-like Chief.”

*

*

read only on pindang

*  //pindangscans.com

*

Thud!

Already half-tangled hair was yanked up as he jolted awake.

“Uwaaaah!”
“Wow, you’re stubborn, huh?”
“Wait, I’m actually alive?!”
“Please, stay seated for a moment.”
“Huh? Ah, yes ma’am!”

Leonie, who was already making a fuss the moment she came to her senses, was soon approached by Bellier.
…Flinch.
Bellier gently lifted Leonie’s eyelid and examined her condition.

“Fortunately, nothing seems wrong.”
“Huh? Thank you, Senior Bellier. But more importantly—”
“Yes, everyone made it out of the curse safely.”
“Safely? You call this safely?”

Nam Taemin shrugged.

“Check your screen yourself. It’s cracked and glitched, but it looks like we got a clear message. Thanks to that, the aftereffects of the curse that Senior Vangrit mentioned seem to have skipped us.”

[■■, ‘■■■ ■■■ ■■■’■ ■■■■■■■■.]

One by one…
Leonie tapped at the floating message with her finger.
The number of letters seemed to line up roughly the same.

But suddenly, a question hit her.

“Wait—what did we even do to clear it?”

She tried to recall her last memories.

She’d been lost to madness, barely able to think straight—but she could never forget how overwhelmingly powerful that dragon had been. Even now, she could almost feel the phantom heat from when her whole body had been scorched by its breath.

“How should I know?”

Nam Taemin wasn’t much better off.
Even though he’d woken up a few minutes earlier than Leonie, he hadn’t been able to make much sense of anything either.

But there were some people they hadn’t accounted for yet.

“We’ve been waiting for everyone to gather.”

It was Akshan.
At the sound of their brazen voices, Leonie’s face instantly twisted in irritation.

“God, they never shut up, do they?”

When Eunaxus had declared the start of battle—

“Of course we were waiting. Why wouldn’t we?”

Akshan had been wiped out right then and there.
Indeed.
Because the dragons hadn’t fallen into corruption and become evil dragons, the [Natural Enemy] trait hadn’t activated—and the demon hunters had been utterly overpowered.

Nam Taemin calmed the fuming Leonie.

“Hold up. They might actually tell us something useful this time.”
“As if those bastards know anything—”
“You said you wanted to know why we cleared it.”
“!”

Clearing it meant one thing—
They had achieved the objective.
But what was the curse’s purpose, again?

Leonie fell silent.

‘To understand that man.’

Then… did that mean they had succeeded in understanding him?
That the trembling boy on the verge of tears had really been him all along…?

As if responding to her thoughts, Akshan spoke again.

“That is correct. You have succeeded.”

Succeeded.

“…!!!”

That single word—
It felt like all their struggle had finally amounted to something.
Even if they couldn’t quite define what they’d understood.

Nam Taemin muttered quietly.

“They say starting is half the journey.”

Taking even a single step forward—that was what mattered.

The Arcanians felt the same.
Bellier folded her hands and prayed silently.
Vangrit and Bensch exchanged jabs at each other’s bruised sides.

“What are you smiling for, Senior Vangrit?”
“Says the proud Senior Bensch—what exactly did you do well?”
“Oh? Practicing the Chief’s sarcasm now, are we?”

Shahin turned to the unusually quiet Garmond.

“You follow all that, you money-grubber?”
“O-of course!”
“I was expecting you to puff up and shake that jowl of yours, but I’m impressed.”

Garmond had finally realized the true strength of the Dune Clan.
He couldn’t dismiss them as mere savages anymore—but as the head of the Diamond Merchant Caravan, he still had to maintain his dignity.

“I’m not shameless enough to brag after being saved, you know.”

The atmosphere in the Holy War Alliance wasn’t bad.
Even if it was only the first step—
The difference between nothing and something was immeasurable.

The only ones not celebrating were Akshan.
The demon hunters.
One of them murmured softly—

“The deeper something grows… the fainter something else becomes.”

…What now?
Even outside the curse, their cryptic speech hadn’t changed.
No one bothered trying to decipher it anymore.

“This too… were your own words.”

But there was one line they understood.

“Everything is give and take.”

.
.
.

[Memories as long as eternity gradually begin to fade.]