CHAPTER 115
Immediately after the shadow space closed.
Aranseol, who had escaped the space, wore a bewildered expression as she shouted at Morbid.
“Open it! Open this damn thing right now!”
“Ugh, heuk, I-I don’t know what’s going on either, ma’am! Ugh!”
Morbid screamed and tumbled about as Aranseol shook him violently.
He was already a wreck after being severely electrocuted.
“What’s going on? Didn’t Horizon go with him?”
Babiyen, bewildered and unable to grasp the situation, suddenly felt a chilling sensation. As a mage, she was sensitive to mana.
The next moment, as Babiyen turned to look at the passage…
KWAAAAA-BOOOOOOM!
With a deafening roar, shadows erupted outwards in all directions.
Aranseol hit the ground, rolling along with Morbid.
“Aigooooo…”
Morbid cried out, weeping and groaning.
Aranseol also swallowed a pained gasp but quickly turned to look towards the shadows.
A gaping hole was left where the shadows had exploded.
The moment Aranseol saw it, her face turned deathly white, and she tried to leap into the hole.
“HARUAAAA!”
Just before she could dive into the hole…
…spears of light suddenly rained down from the sky.
The spears of light pierced through the empty air and reached inside the hole.
Startled by the sudden action, Aranseol looked up at the sky.
There, she saw Lululio, goggles pulled down, her face taut with tension.
It was the face of someone who had witnessed something they should never have seen from the sky.
“Lululio?”
Before Aranseol could even voice her question…
Click-clack—
The sound of high heels echoed from within the shadow hole.
As she slowly turned her head, she saw hair as dark as ink fluttering in the air.
A dress with embroidery the same shade of black as her hair.
The only color was red, vividly etched into her pupils.
They were like red moons.
Red moons, hanging alone in a pitch-black night.
A pair of seductive moons that seemed as though they would steal your life with a single glance were there.
Crack—
The spear of light held in her hand shattered powerlessly.
Her appearance alone changed the atmosphere of the surroundings.
The landscape lost its color, and the sky was stained dark.
Her very existence was a darkness that devoured light itself.
Black Dawn.
Why was this terrorist organization called by such a name?
It was because of a single woman.
For wherever she appeared, nothing but a despairing, pitch-black dawn remained.
The Sin of Wrath.
Asheria Eve.
She appeared upon the shadow.
“Ah, ahhh, Lady Eve!”
Morbid, half-broken, chanted praises and submitted to her.
In front of him.
Aranseol held her sword, unable to even breathe properly.
She had drawn her sword on instinct, but she didn’t know how to swing it.
She couldn’t guarantee what would happen if she swung her sword at this woman, here and now.
It was the same for Babiyen.
Her mana, terrified, had already lost the will to fight.
She was gripped by a mortal fear that if she drew out even a little mana, her head would be sent flying.
Asheria Eve stared at the two of them for a moment.
Then, she slowly stroked her pale chin with a long finger and smiled sweetly.
“Would Harua be happy if I broke you two?”
But the moment Asheria Eve spoke her next words…
Zzzzzzzzt!
Fwhoooosh!
Lightning and flames erupted from Aranseol and Babiyen.
Both of their eyes flashed simultaneously.
“What did you do to Harua?”
“Why is Harua’s name coming out of your mouth?”
Just moments ago, the two had been frozen with terror.
But with a single statement from Asheria Eve, they snapped back from their fear in an instant.
To them, death was not what they feared.
What they feared was losing someone precious.
At their reaction, Asheria Eve pressed her chin.
Then, she shook her head.
“No, that won’t do. It’s better if you two stay by Harua’s side. You should become even closer.”
“Don’t talk nonsense! Just tell us what you did to Harua!”
Harua hadn’t returned.
That meant Asheria Eve had done something.
“How troublesome. I’m the one who was attacked, you know.”
Asheria Eve wore an aggrieved expression and shook her head back and forth.
“He’s probably been revived somewhere by now. Go ask him yourself.”
As if to say the conversation was over, she turned away.

But Babiyen and Aranseol were not about to let her go.
Babiyen immediately began casting, creating a barrage of flame magic.
Aranseol, too, unleashed lightning and charged across the snow. In that instant…
…both of their bodies pitched forward.
THUD—
In an instant, their bodies were severed in two.
Neither seemed to have even realized what had happened to them.
Having butchered them both, Asheria Eve walked across the snow, click-clack, click-clack.
“Morbid.”
“Ye-yes, ma’am!”
Morbid, practically a broken mess, crawled towards her.
She flicked a finger at him, and his body was restored.
It was holy magic.
Immediately after, Asheria Eve looked up at the sky.
Lululio stood there silently, a half-formed spear of light in her hand.
Asheria Eve looked at her and smiled sweetly.
“There should be at least one witness.”
No matter what Lululio did here and now, Asheria Eve couldn't be stopped.
Knowing that, Lululio couldn't move a muscle from her spot.
In that time, she was already heading towards the battlefield.
It was where the Regular Army and the members of Black Dawn were clashing.
She merely passed through the area.
The moment the members of the Regular Army belatedly noticed her presence…
Sh-sh-sh-shred!
They were instantly torn to pieces and turned into chunks of meat.
“Wh-what?”
“What is this…”
Even the fighting members of Black Dawn showed their confusion.
Asheria Eve stopped walking.
KWAAANG!
Just then, someone shot up from above the snow cave.
It was Ganibal, all his teeth shattered, with only his neck and head remaining.
Ganibal's face was barely recognizable.
He had been beaten to such a pulp that he no longer looked human.
“Ahh, Ganibal. What a pitiful state you’re in.”
She sighed, picking up Ganibal, who had rolled to her feet.
With his neck torn off, he had long since stopped breathing.
Knowing this well, she picked him up like trash and tossed him to Morbid.
“Everyone is so careless with their own lives.”
The moment she said that…
KWAAAAAANG!
The ground beneath Asheria Eve’s feet shattered, and she plummeted downwards.
“Lady Eve!”
Morbid cried out in a shocked voice, but Asheria Eve was already falling.
At the same time, a woman came into her view.
A woman, battered and bruised, clenching her fists tightly.
It was Lieutenant General Anastasia of the Regular Army.
Her entire body was covered in wounds from her fight with Ganibal.
Yet she was the one who had sent Asheria Eve plummeting underground.
“Lululio!”

Anastasia shouted towards Lululio.
“Get back to the 1st World, now! And report that the Sin of Wrath has appeared!”
Her face was already set with the resolve to die.
Asheria Eve looked at her and, while still falling, broke into a bright smile.
“If you don’t value your own life…”
An ink-like darkness surged from her palm, forming a sword.
“...then I have no choice but to collect it, do I?”
And then, the inside of the cave was filled with darkness.
The moment she saw that, Lululio immediately became a streak of light and shot across the sky.
The nightmare of the Great War of the past.
The monster who single-handedly killed countless heroes and took them for her own.
It was the return of Asheria Eve.

Asheria Eve.
I opened my eyes, remembering that five-syllable name.
A faint light entered my newly reformed eyeballs.
Following that light, I lifted my head and saw someone’s wings.
“Are you awake?”
Ririran was there.
It seemed she had noticed me regenerating from my wrist and had moved me.
“Lady Ririran, what’s the situation?”
“Is that the first thing you ask upon waking?”
“It’s fine. I’m used to dying.”
And I probably wasn't the only one who died.
Asheria Eve.
That madwoman seemed to craft and create death itself.
The others must have met the same fate.
I was glad I had taken out insurance.
I should be able to revive everyone soon.
A wave of relief washed over me, followed by a shudder of rage.
“The Sin of Wrath has appeared on our side. She was hiding as Horizon.”
“What?”
Ririran’s eyes shot wide open at my bombshell announcement.
But perhaps because of my overly calm demeanor, she simply stared at me for a moment before letting out a breath.
She concluded that exchanging information came first.

“Hoo… for now, we’ve pushed through Black Dawn’s main base. This is a victory for the Regular Army. We’ve acquired all the research data related to the Artificial Transcendent. We’ve also captured the Black Dawn gang.”
A victory for the Regular Army.
Hearing that, I clenched my fist.
We had landed a solid blow on that bitch, Asheria Eve.
But there was something strange about her words.
“What do you mean, ‘on this side’?”
This side.
Those words bothered me.
When I asked, Ririran lightly bit her lip and sighed.
“Soun was defeated.”
“Excuse me?”

What did she just say?
Soun was defeated?
Did she really mean that Soun, the Sword Lord I knew, had been defeated?
“And the Imperial Palace was attacked. The treasury was robbed.”
“W-wait a minute. There was someone in Black Dawn who could take down Lord Soun?”
Finding it utterly unbelievable, I asked again. Ririran wiped her face.
Then, she carefully delivered the crucial truth.
“Yes. To be precise, it was Black Dawn… no, I suppose it is Black Dawn after all. It was Sohan. It was Sohan’s doing.”
“So…han?”
I repeated the name, my face blank with shock.
Sohan.
The Sword Lord’s disciple and Aranseol’s fellow student.
He had betrayed and attacked Soun, robbed the treasury, and fled.