CHAPTER 145
With Just a Single Sword

Cain’s lips twisted into a smirk. It seemed to hold a variety of emotions, but at its core was ridicule.

‘He should already be struggling with two Seeds.’

Though he appeared arrogant and audacious on the outside, Cain was, in fact, adept at calculation and never fought battles he couldn't win. In his judgment, the most powerful of the Lords in terms of raw destructive force was Jerakson.

The power of the Lords was often difficult to measure simply, so strength didn't directly translate to rank, but that was the general hierarchy. For ages, Jerakson had stained countless planets with Erosion, siphoning the essence of stars.

By gathering that essence and building his power, he had barely succeeded in forging a vessel capable of holding two Seeds. With that, he had attacked Belkarim, only to be defeated and fall at the hands of a human who happened to be there. That was the full story of Jerakson as Cain knew it.

He acknowledged that the human before him had defeated Jerakson. However, containing more than two Seeds of Erosion was another matter entirely.

Could a mere human, who lacked Jerakson's eons of time and stellar essence, possibly contain that much Erosion? If he truly possessed Prycia's Seed, then the human already held two. That alone should have been an ordeal agonizing enough to make his throat turn inside out.

[Greed is the nature of humans. You are no different from the rest, it seems. To think you’d aim for a third after acquiring two…]

"That's not your problem."

Jinwoo kicked off the ground and swung his sword. The two movements were nearly simultaneous; in an instant, he had closed the distance and was thrusting his blade toward Cain's neck.

Cain was currently in a half-man, half-beast state. He was more than twice Jinwoo's height and over four times his size in sheer bulk. To such an opponent, Jinwoo's sword looked like nothing more than a tiny needle.

[Foolish…!]

Cain's mane flared. Glowing with a golden light, a destructive energy erupted like a pillar.

KWWAAAAANG!

The tower's ceiling shattered. The black roots that had been covering the tower as if to protect it vanished without a trace, revealing the blue sky. The sun hung in the center of that sky, and as its light poured down, Cain's energy was amplified.

And Jinwoo's sword plunged into that golden aura.

‘…This feels familiar.’

The moment the sword touched the aura, he felt a strange sense of dissonance. A familiar feeling, as if he had seen it somewhere before.

The Golden Apple. It was remarkably similar to the guardian aura he had obtained from eating it. Of course, the sheer class of the energy was as different as heaven and earth, but at its source, the same kind of power was swirling.

It was an aura he knew well. The very same energy that was protecting his own heart at this very moment. Thanks to that, the method to overcome it was also crystal clear.

[Hup…!]

Cain's eyes widened as the sword, which he had expected to block with ease, penetrated his defense without resistance.

The power of the sun. A golden aura that had accumulated that power, which had risen every day for thousands of years. It was an energy field that could have deflected even Jerakson's breath without taking a major blow, yet it was effortlessly split by a single sword.

Jinwoo's sword wasn't destructive. It didn't shatter the aura or tear it to shreds. It simply, naturally, slipped through. Like a fish swimming through water, the blade met no resistance as it shot toward Cain's neck.

Death.

‘I'm going to die!’

The thought sent every hair on his body standing on end. His animal instincts screamed at him to flee. To a beast, a stronger being was death itself. Therefore, avoiding the strong was the path to avoiding death.

From that moment, the golden aura shifted its purpose from blocking the sword to forcing Cain back.

KWAAAANG!

The floor collapsed. The ground Cain had kicked off from couldn't withstand the impact and shattered.

With that powerful push, he created a definite distance. After retreating a good distance, Cain stared at Jinwoo, panting heavily.

Jinwoo flicked off the small amount of blood on his sword's tip. He had managed to scratch Cain's neck. Of course, it was just a small wound that would regenerate in a single breath.

However, if the sword had been just a little faster, or if Cain's evasion had been just a little slower, the wound would have been irreversible.

"A pity."

At Jinwoo's words, Cain ground his teeth. His powerful jaws ground his own fangs so hard that small fragments chipped off.

Pride. No, it was self-respect that pinned him to this spot. His instincts screamed at him to run, but his feet refused to move.

"Trying to run away?"

[…]

Jinwoo offered a light taunt. It was a casual remark, thrown out with the thought that it was unlikely to work. But that casually tossed phrase landed on Cain with an indescribable weight.

Keuheoeoeong!

With a roar that burned with fighting spirit, Cain charged. He couldn't just turn tail and run after a single exchange. He had to clash at least one more time.

SLICE!

[Keuk…!]

The result was this. Cain's outstretched hand had aimed for Jinwoo's heart, but Jinwoo's sword was one step faster. It sliced through the golden aura as if it were nothing and severed an arm from the shoulder. The arm that had been aiming for Jinwoo flew into the air, spraying blood.

Cain was shocked. At the same time, his resolve hardened. The hesitation from before was gone. He had made his decision.

KWANG!

He abandoned his arm and fled. His last shred of pride was left behind in the tower, along with his arm.

There was no reason to be stubborn in the first place. In this world, it wasn't the one who wins who is victorious, but the one who survives. All beasts had lived by that principle, and he, too, had survived by any means necessary to ascend to the Spirit Realm.

"W-Wait…! Are you running away!?" Permu shouted. Earlier, when it was just the two of them, Cain had become enraged at the suggestion that he was scared. Recalling that, she tried to provoke him, but it couldn't sway a mind that had already made its decision.

‘I’ll retreat from here and regroup.’

Fortunately, there was no sign of the human following him. No matter how strong he was for defeating Jerakson, he was ultimately human. A mundane species that could neither fly nor step on thin air. He wouldn't have the means to catch up to him as he fled.

‘I will… I will kill you!’

As he fled, a new arm regenerated from his severed one. An arm covered not in the original golden fur, but in black fur. Drawing on the power of the Seed, he leaped into the sky.

Rona and Ipril arrived late. The clash between Jinwoo and Cain had been that brief, that instantaneous.

"Rona!"

"Your Majesty!"

The Queen and her knight, finally reunited. But there was no time to share their joy. Leaving them be, Jinwoo called upon the black roots.

"You know where he fled, right?"

The roots nodded.

"Hinder him as much as you can. My feet are a little slow, after all."

The roots nodded again.

At Jinwoo's command, the black roots silently vanished, disappearing to carry out his order.

Ordinarily, when prey flees at full speed, a hunter cannot keep up on foot. To catch such prey, one needs traps. A snare, a log trap, or even just tying some grass together can become a formidable obstacle.

With the World Tree's power, it should be more than possible to pursue the creature and scatter traps around him.

Even so, he couldn't just stand around. He stomped his foot, ready to depart immediately.

"Um…"

"Hm?"

Just then, Permu called out to him. Her eyes trembled and her lips quivered. Her expression suggested she had much to say. Joy at their reunion, a desire to catch up, words of thanks for saving her.

But now was not the time for any of that. The only thing needed now was to see Jinwoo on his way.

"P-Please… be careful."

Seeing her say that, Jinwoo let out a small smile.

"Yeah. See you later."

Jinwoo kicked off the shattered wall and leaped out of the tower.

[KRAAAAAAAH!]

Cain swiped his claws in all directions. The black roots swarming him were torn apart like paper by his steel-like claws.

Individually, the roots were nothing. But when they attacked in such numbers, without rest, it was indescribably annoying.

He wanted to gather his nearby minions to fight them off, but this was still the World Tree, after all; his minions were no match for it. Trying to gather his wolves would only end with them becoming nutrients for the roots, offering no resistance at all.

In the end, Cain had to tear through the roots himself to advance. And all the while, that human was surely chasing him from behind!

‘No, I don't sense him yet.’

Fortunately, he still couldn't feel any presence from behind. If he were being pursued at full speed, he would be giving off some kind of presence, but there was nothing.

In that case, all he had to do was escape this forest and hide. Even the World Tree would find it difficult to exert its power far beyond the forest. Once he was out, he could hide.

‘The only problem is that this forest is too vast.’

This was a world cared for by a World Tree. It was like the World Tree's personal garden, with more than half the continent covered in forest. For even Cain, traveling through that half to reach the other would take time.

But conversely, it meant it was possible, given a little time. Perhaps three days. He calculated that in about three days, he could completely escape the forest.

‘There’s no time to sleep.’

The sun set, and the sky turned black. Though it was a dark night, Cain could clearly make out the terrain. The eyes of a beast, glowing in the darkness, provided him with a field of vision as clear as day.

Rustle.

[…]

Startled by a sudden sound from behind, he whipped around. But thankfully, it wasn't the human. It was one of his minions, a wolf.

[Insolent fool!]

His resentment exploded. Cain struck the wolf down with his black-furred arm. The wolf's corpse fell in several pieces under his claws. A shadow spread across the dark ground and swallowed the pieces of the corpse. The Erosion Cain wielded had reclaimed its power and energy.

A small amount of his strength returned, having reabsorbed the power of Erosion he had distributed to his minion. But it was nowhere near enough. To face the sword he had encountered during the day, reclaiming the power of his minions wouldn't be sufficient.

He ran all night, pondering how to overcome this crisis.

Even when morning came, and when night fell again, and when the day dawned once more, his thoughts never ceased. While swatting away the World Tree's roots that constantly obstructed him, Cain's consciousness was focused entirely on Jinwoo.

And on the third day, he saw the edge of the forest. Once he passed that point, he would be completely free from the forest's influence. The minimum condition for facing that human would be met.

Thinking this was the final stretch, he ran. Just then, a shadow fell from the sky.

Falling with the sun at its back, the figure momentarily looked like Jerakson, whom he had fought in the past. The dragon from that time, swooping down from the sky to catch him as he ran across the ground.

But it wasn't a dragon. It was a human. A small human, with just a single sword.

[Keoheok…!]

That sword pierced Cain's chest and split the Black Flame within.