CHAPTER 199
The battle between Asheria Eve and Rapha Hastel. Following right after that was Soun's intervention.
Asheria Eve stood against his sword multiple times, but the damage left by Rapha Hastel was far too great.
Thud—
Ultimately, Asheria Eve was subdued by Soun's sword.
Soun severed all of her blood vessels and bound her.
Thank goodness.
That he didn't just cut off her head right away.
I had a lot of questions for that woman.
Right now, I needed to ask her about the Sky Castle ascending to the Transcendent Realm.
"...He's gone."
Ririran looked down at the ground with a bitter smile.
It was the true death of the one she had harbored an unrequited love for, a final farewell.
Ririran would likely need some time to sort out her feelings.
Leaving her be, I walked alone toward Asheria Eve and Soun.
"Soun-nim."
"You're here."

Soun stood there, his sword still pointed at Asheria Eve.
Even with all her blood vessels severed, the opponent was still Asheria Eve.
We couldn't afford to let our guard down.
Asheria Eve was a complete wreck.
Her gaping stomach was filled with a single talisman instead of organs, and unhealing sword wounds from Soun remained all over her body.
Her clothes were in rags, and her entire body was covered in blood.
It would be hard to look more miserable than this.
And yet, that sickening face of hers still wore an incomprehensible smile.
"You can still laugh?"
I stepped up to Asheria Eve and clenched my fist.
Then, I violently grabbed the talisman clinging to her body.
The talisman stretched stickily and emitted red sparks.
My fingertips were burned black as a result, but I didn't care.
This was a threat directed at Asheria Eve.
A threat that if she wanted to keep her life, she'd better tell me everything she knew.
"Speak. Why is the Sky Castle ascending?"
The ascension that Asheria Eve had told us about.
I yelled at her to tell me what it meant right this instant.
"Harua."
Asheria Eve replied to me with an incredibly gentle smile.
"The outcome has already been decided anyway."

Rumble, rumble, RUMBLE!
At that moment, a massive tremor began to echo from the sky above.
A vibration akin to a rocket shooting up through the atmosphere.
I quickly realized what that meant.
It meant the Sky Castle was rising into the Transcendent Realm.
"Stop it right now!"
"Do you think it can be stopped?"
Asheria Eve shrugged her shoulders with a brazen laugh.
"It's already out of my hands."
She had the face of someone who had already let go of everything a long time ago.
In fact, I couldn't feel any will to resist from her anymore.
Everything is over.
That was what she seemed to be saying.
"What the hell is this damn Artificial Transcendent project that you'd go this far?"
The Sky Castle ascending into the sky.
I couldn't even begin to fathom what it meant.
Asheria Eve gave a short laugh and quietly looked up at the sky.
"You know. At first, I actually had some kind of goal, right?"
A laugh mixed with ridicule.
That laugh was pure madness.
"Ahahaha, but what was it now? Maybe it's because I've messed with too many brains. Even I don't really know what I was thinking anymore, you know?"
What's so funny?
What the hell is so funny about this situation that you can laugh?
Looking at Asheria Eve, not an ounce of understanding formed in my eyes.
I only felt disgust and a deep-seated dread toward her very existence.
"Ah, so this is what that was."
Then, as if realizing something, Asheria Eve spoke.
"What Rapha Hastel said about how clinging to life makes everything meaningless. I guess he wasn't wrong."
I couldn't understand a single thing this woman was spouting.
I wasn't the only one; Soun had the same expression.
"Yeah. Right now, I just..."
Asheria Eve quietly looked up at the sky, as if she had finished everything she set out to do.
"I'm satisfied just watching the night sky."
Thud—
A sound echoed as if something had touched the top of the sky.
It was not a sound anyone could comprehend.
A profound terror blooming from sheer instinct.
It sounded like an unknown world, one that humans could never face, was opening up.
The sky was instantly dyed in darkness.
The endlessly spreading darkness swallowed everything in the deep blue sky, ultimately forming a night sky.
Above the night sky.
Countless stars began to etch themselves into it.
But they were clearly different from the stars we normally saw when looking up.
I could feel gazes from those stars.
This world below.
Countless gazes looking down, curious about these trivial things.

My body shrank back.
My stomach twisted, my skin crawled, and my vision blurred.
It wasn't just me.
Right next to me, even Soun—the man who had reached the pinnacle of the sword—couldn't look up at the sky.
Cold sweat completely covered his face.
Reflected in that cold sweat was my own face.
I was already pale, but it looked even worse than that.
The sensation of my heart shrinking, even though I didn't have one.
The Transcendents.
The stars filling that night sky were all Transcendents.
My mind was turning completely blank.
What do we do now?
Only that thought filled my head countless times before slipping away.
I had known for a long time that Transcendents were unfathomable beings.
I possess Grade 1 Light attributes.
As the one closest to the Transcendents among everyone else, I knew full well just how terrifying their power was.
But despite knowing that, my body wasn't moving an inch right now.
The gazes from the sky slowly swept over the surface.
Just that alone made me feel as if some city somewhere was being crushed and lives were fading away.
Cr-crack—
At that moment, another sound that shouldn't be heard came from the night sky.
It felt as though something was extending a finger, as if trying to intervene in this world.
But I instantly realized that the moment it touched down, this world would be erased.
Step—
Before I knew it, my foot stepped forward.
Because I had experienced countless deaths, my feet were the only ones that could move forward in this moment.
I ran across the ground, passing by everyone who had frozen as if time had stopped.
And finally, I reached Ririran.
"Ririran-nim, Ririran-nim!"
I shouted while grabbing her.
Ririran's vacant eyes turned to me.
Her pupils were unfocused and didn't seem to move.
Her wings drooped, and her face was deathly pale.
Even a powerhouse like her couldn't handle the gaze of the Transcendents.
This is bad.
There's no way out of this.
"Harua."
At that moment, a languid voice reached my ears.
Beneath Soun's feet.
Asheria Eve looked up at the night sky as if enjoying the view, and spoke to me.
"I could take you to the place you're thinking of right now."
"You crazy bitch! You caused this, and now you're offering me a ride?!"
"Pfft, hehehe."
Even in a situation where Soun had frozen, Asheria Eve laughed.
Was she not afraid of the Transcendents' gazes, or was she just completely out of her mind?
I wasn't sure, but one thing was certain: Asheria Eve wasn't lying.
I gritted my teeth.
I wanted to kill that woman right this instant, but she was the only means to overcome this situation.
"Tell it to me straight. What happens if those Transcendents up there break the sky?"
"If the ceiling breaks, the Transcendents will probably reach in and poke around at random. Like a person stirring up an anthill."
It was obvious that the ants' world would collapse and the ants would be exterminated by that hand.
"Answer me again. What did you do this for? Explain your plan."
"I intended to send the vessel of the Artificial Transcendent into the sky to absorb the power of the Transcendent Realm."
Asheria Eve answered more obediently than I expected.
It meant there was no point in hiding a plan that was already in motion.
"The Transcendent Realm is endlessly overflowing with the power radiated by the Transcendents. Absorbing just that would have been enough to complete the Artificial Transcendent."
However, the vessel for the Artificial Transcendent did not exist.
The only thing that had reached the sky was the Sky Castle.
That alone could not complete the Artificial Transcendent.
"And the reason you used Sohan to gather the Transcendents..."
"That was to punch a hole connecting to the Transcendent Realm. Originally, it was a hole that would have opened on its own, but..."
Asheria Eve tilted her head and looked at me.
"Since it got cut off midway, I forced it open, and the aftermath of that drew the immense attention of the Transcendents."
These were the details of every plan Black Dawn had made up until now.
However, those plans had been thwarted by the intervention of myself and countless others.
But Asheria Eve had repaid that in the worst possible way.
"So you're saying you want us all to die?"
"Not really? I just placed a bet on my final gamble. You might have destroyed the vessel for the Artificial Transcendent, Harua, but there's massive power in that realm. Who knows, maybe someday it'll tangle together and birth something new."
All her previous plans had been stopped.
Because of that, she threw out a gamble—hoping it worked out, but not caring much if it didn't.
"As for me, I've achieved my minor goal. I have no reason to fight you anymore, Harua."
"Hah."

I was so dumbfounded that a sigh escaped my lips.
I knew she was a crazy bitch, but now she had really crossed the line.

"Now I'm curious about what Harua will do. That's why I'm going to help you."

Asheria Eve rolled her body lightly to escape from Soun.
The veins in both her arms and legs were severed, but she moved using only her shoulders.
Soun couldn't stop Asheria Eve.
The presence of the Transcendents poured out a crushing pressure that kept even the Sword Lord, Soun, from moving.
What made it even more terrifying was that it wasn't hostility or killing intent—it was pure curiosity.

"Or how about this? Give me one more chance to grope your brain.
If you do that, both you and I can have Resurrection Magic.
We'll never die. The two of us could live together forever."

"I'd rather just fucking die."

"I thought that was a pretty romantic confession, though."

"Shut the hell up."

The conversation was over.
I approached Asheria Eve, hoisted her onto my back, and declared,
"Keep your damn word. What you just said about wanting to see what I'm going to do."

"Of course. I'm not that bad of a girl, you know?"

"In my entire life, I've never met a crazier bitch than you."

Despite my cursing, Asheria Eve laughed, as if she found it all incredibly amusing.

"Really? But Harua, you're quite the bad boy yourself."

"What kind of bullshit..."

"Look over there. There are some girls who are pretty mad about you going on a date with me."

I didn't understand her words, but the moment I raised my head, my jaw dropped.
At the spot my gaze landed on.
Two people were running toward us.
In a world where I thought no one but Asheria Eve and I could move.
In that frozen space, two people were moving.

Aranseol.
Babiyen.

Even beneath the night sky dominated by the Transcendents, those two had come all this way just to find me.