CHAPTER 23
Flames flickered before my eyes.
To get straight to the point, I wasn’t dead yet.
The moment the Red Flame Lord had fired her flame.
Babiyen, my hostage, had reflexively swung her staff.
The fire magic that bloomed from it managed to partially offset the incoming flames.
But it was only a tiny fraction.
Babiyen’s fire was quickly devoured by the Red Flame Lord’s.
I hastily tripped Babiyen and rolled across the floor with her.
The partially canceled flame passed over our heads and slammed into a pillar.
The stone pillar melted as if it had been touched by lava.
It was instantly clear just how high-temperature the flames wielded by the Red Flame Lord were.
“Hmm.”
The Red Flame Lord stroked her chin as she looked at us.
Then, without a second thought, she aimed her hand at us again.
I had only gotten lucky before because Babiyen wielded the same type of fire.
There would be no second time.
The faces of the other disciples were already frozen in terror.
The Red Flame Lord had suddenly appeared and was attacking her own disciple.
To anyone watching, she was clearly an enemy.
With a Lord turned against them, their chances of victory were zero.
“M-Master!”
At that moment, Babiyen scrambled to her feet and cried out.
“D-Did you cast that spell to save this girl? If so, please stop! I was just cooperating with this man to stop Black Dawn!”
Desperation filled Babiyen’s eyes.
She pleaded that I wasn’t a real kidnapper holding her hostage.
But the Red Flame Lord’s expression didn’t change.
That fact made Babiyen’s eyes tremble.
Even Babiyen must have read the situation.
Her heart wanted to deny it, but reality was cruel.
Babiyen’s lips quivered.
“Why… why are you doing this? This girl is your 11th disciple.”
She asked, her voice filled with anguish.
Black Dawn was a world-renowned terrorist group.
For a Lord to side with them was utterly incomprehensible.
Moreover, the Red Flame Lord was Babiyen’s own master.
Even if their relationship was built on money, for a master to try and kill her own disciple was a clear betrayal of all principle.
“I was paid,” the Red Flame Lord offered as a simple answer.
“More money than I’d ever make as a Lord.”
She was paid enough to abandon the prestige of being a Lord.
Damn, is Black Dawn just rolling in cash?
“So, things have to go according to plan.”
The Red Flame Lord had never been one to distinguish between good and evil.
Her good and evil were defined solely by money.
This time, she had simply followed the money and become evil.
“You…”
Babiyen staggered to her feet.
Rage boiled in her eyes.
“You’re not human.”
Feeling nothing but disappointment for the woman who had lost herself to greed, Babiyen aimed her staff at her.
I could feel the desperate fighting spirit that was ready to take on the Red Flame Lord.
It was a magnificent display of courage.
At least, until the Red Flame Lord fired another beam of fire.
Fwooooosh!
Babiyen was charred black and collapsed on the spot.
Because she’d cast a spell just before, she managed to avoid being completely incinerated, but that was the extent of it.
The gap between her and the Red Flame Lord was immense.
The weak can get as angry as they want; it changes nothing.
“Are we done now?”
The Red Flame Lord turned away as if her business was concluded, the heels of her shoes clicking.
The members of Black Dawn once again drew their weapons in unison.
“Take care of the rest.”
Her steps headed for the exit.
The moment I saw that, I realized where she was going.
Sohan and Aranseol.
She was going after the two who had escaped.
I ripped the mask from my face.
“Hey, you fucking bitch.”
And I opened my mouth.
Even a little bit would be fine.
I had to buy more time.
So I would do anything.
In that moment, everyone present realized who my words were directed at.
Not just the disciples, but even the members of Black Dawn turned to look at me, their faces aghast.
The Red Flame Lord stopped in her tracks.
In the chilling atmosphere where everyone was frozen solid…
Only my cursed mouth kept running.
“If you’ll do anything for money, I’ll pay you. Why don’t you burn off that useless head of yours?”

Her gaze slowly fell upon me.
Her eyes seemed to ask if I was really talking to her.
The Red Flame Lord had reigned as one of the strong.
People might talk behind her back, but no one had ever dared to speak to her like this to her face.
It was only natural.
No one who valued their own life would ever do such a thing.
So, for a moment, the Red Flame Lord truly didn’t know if I was talking to her.
“What, you think I’m talking to someone else? Even a prostitute has more principles than you.”
The Red Flame Lord, once high and mighty as the heavens, was brought lower than a prostitute in an instant. It was a fall befitting a savage this-worlder.
“Hah.”
A sound of amusement escaped the Red Flame Lord.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen a viper.”
The venomous fangs had found their mark.
So now, it was time for retribution.
The Red Flame Lord snapped her fingers.
And that was the end.
The beam of fire that flew at me engulfed my body in an instant, just as it had Babiyen’s.
The heat of the flames burned through my skin and muscle, melted my bones, and even incinerated my brain.
My eyes, the last to go, captured the image of a world on fire before they vanished.
As always, this world is fucking shit.

Thud—
Another corpse fell next to Babiyen’s.
Unlike Babiyen’s, this one was charred to ash.
It was clear that not even a body would remain.
The Red Flame Lord stared at the fallen corpse.
It had been a truly long time since she had heard such openly contemptuous words.
Which was why she couldn’t understand it.
For what reason had that brat spouted such nonsense?
She had prepared for his next move, thinking he must have had something up his sleeve, but he had simply burned to death with nothing to show for it.
She thought he must have been someone of note, taking Babiyen hostage in this situation.
But his actions were nothing but bizarre.
'Whose disciple was he?'
She was the Red Flame Lord, after all.
Identifying disciples was Black Dawn’s job; there was no reason for her to bother with each and every one.
“That brat, whose disciple is he?”
She casually tossed the question to a member of Black Dawn.
“Rapiel Vaniola’s.”
The Black Dawn member answered faithfully.
Rapiel Vaniola, daughter of the Grace Magic Tower’s Master.
As such, she was known to be quite skilled in Holy Magic.
'A Holy Mage?'
Did he act so recklessly because he trusted in his own Holy Magic? He had seen with his own two eyes the flame that melted Babiyen.
And yet he provoked her, trusting in Holy Magic?
That made no sense either.
Which meant he must have had some intention before he died.
The Red Flame Lord had been about to go after the ones who had just escaped.
Right after that, Rapiel’s disciple had slandered her.
Could it be that he did it to buy time for the two who fled?
The time he bought was a mere few seconds.
Rapiel’s disciple had sacrificed his life for those few seconds.
Was that even plausible?
People cherished their own lives above all else.
No matter the reason, one couldn’t just throw their life away so readily.
“Ha.”
A dry laugh escaped the Red Flame Lord’s lips.
“To think I’d see another madman like the Commander-in-Chief.”
If that truly was his intention, then he had succeeded.
Because those two had managed to escape.
And soon, they would return with the Regular Army and all the other disciples’ masters in tow.
The Red Flame Lord slowly swept her hair back.
“You lot, just grab the ones you need to. If we take everyone, we’ll leave a trail.”
“Will that be alright?”
“Yes, it’s fine. I’ll just erase the rest, anyway.”
There was no reason to leave the disciples alive.
At the Red Flame Lord’s words, the disciples flinched.
This was the woman who had erased two of their own in an instant.
Erasing the rest would be no problem for her.
“Just come along quietly.”
The Red Flame Lord smiled chillingly.
“Who gave you permission?”
—Until a voice sounded from behind her.
Shiver!
The Red Flame Lord’s head whipped around.
The moment flames shot from her palm, aiming behind her…
She realized she’d been had.
There was nothing behind her.
Instead, a man appeared before her, swinging a sword.
The protective barrier of flames around the Red Flame Lord was cut away without a hint of resistance.
The level of the sharp aura surrounding the blade was not something that could be blocked by mere magic.
It was a sword that could sever anything.
Whatever he held became a legendary blade, the strongest of swords.
That would be true even if it were a tree branch.
Because the man himself was the sword.
The Sword Lord.
Soun.
The man who had reached the pinnacle of the sword had arrived.

Just before the Red Flame Lord’s neck was severed…
Someone leaped in front of her to block the attack.
The blind swordswoman, Tear Rain.
Only she, whose other senses were heightened to their absolute limit, had sensed Soun’s arrival.
And so, to protect the Red Flame Lord, she swung her own sword and stood in Soun’s path.
However, Tear Rain quickly realized what a foolish choice she had made.
Soun’s sword cut through her own.
It sliced through it with no resistance, as if it were nothing.
The sheer sharpness of his blade inspired a terror of a different magnitude.
Unable to see, she felt Soun’s presence all the more keenly and let out a horrifying scream.
The death that was upon her didn’t even grant her the time to see her life flash before her eyes.
Tear Rain’s body was bisected and sent flying.
Soun’s sword didn’t stop there, continuing its path toward the Red Flame Lord.
But Tear Rain’s death was not in vain.
The miniscule opening created by her intervention.
Using that gap, an explosion erupted from the Lord's palm, blasting her backward.
KABOOOOOOOM!
The Red Flame Lord narrowly evaded Soun’s blade.
However, two of her fingers were sliced clean off.
It was the result of her fingertips brushing against Soun’s sword as she unleashed the explosion.
As blood dripped to the floor, the Red Flame Lord gasped for breath.
If not for Tear Rain’s intervention, it would have been her own neck that was severed.
“You monster.”
Even though they were both Lords, the gap in their power was absurd.
Among the Lords, Soun was in a league of his own.
Which was why he was the one she had least wanted to see here.
…How did he get here so fast?
The two disciples who had escaped moments ago.
Even if they had contacted him, Soun shouldn’t have been able to arrive this quickly.
'At this speed, it must be space magic.'
There was only one person in the world who could utilize space magic to this extent.
The master of space magic, Ririran.
But she was said to have died taking down the Sin of Sloth, Cosmic Jac.
…Could she be alive?
Something about this situation felt wrong.
An alarm bell was ringing in her head, telling her this job would require more work than she was paid for.
She didn’t realize that it all stemmed from the contemptuous words of a single man just moments before.
“Red Flame Lord. You’ve been blinded by greed.”
“Hehe, look who’s talking. Greed is the most valuable thing in life.”
The Red Flame Lord broke out in a cold sweat.
She clenched and unclenched her hand.
Just as she was pondering what to do…
“Ah-hehe, need a hand?”
A man’s head suddenly popped out from the shadow at her feet.
He was a grotesque-looking man with a nail driven into his head.
“Now!”
The moment she saw him, the Red Flame Lord screamed, and Soun was already moving.
As his sword rushed toward the Red Flame Lord, she melted into the shadows.
Soun’s sword cut through empty air and sliced the hall’s inner wall in half.
The wall was cut so cleanly that it didn’t even collapse.
Simultaneously, the members of Black Dawn gathered around him.
They surrounded him, their faces already resigned to death.
Grind—
Soun gritted his teeth.
“The Sin of Envy.”
That was the identity of the one who had just taken the Red Flame Lord away through the shadows.
“Ririran, chase them.”
Soun shouted as he reversed his grip on his sword.
“I will finish these things and follow immediately.”
For the members of Black Dawn, those words were a death sentence.

A Word from the Author
All illustrations are uploaded to ‘Muhwa Kkotran’s’ SNS.