Chapter 298: The End of the World (3)

Shock rippled across the battlefield. The heroes fighting the ancient heroes stared ahead in disbelief while their foes’ wounds regenerated, as if time itself were reversing.

“W-what is this?”

“They... came back to life?”

What the heroes saw wasn’t merely fast healing. It was immortality, a miracle that defied the natural order. Despair spread thickly across their faces.

“This is insane!”

“H-how are we supposed to fight monsters like that?”

Even without their minds, these foes had been legendary heroes, figures who had carved their names into history. Now, those same ancient heroes possessed immortality, rising again no matter how many times they were killed. What would anyone feel facing that? Once it took root, despair spread like poison, devouring the heroes’ will.

The situation had taken a turn for the worse. Even the professors and my party members were faltering, retreating step by step. I bit down on my lip as morale sank to its lowest point.

At that moment, a booming, carefree voice rang out.

“Hahahaha! Why do you all look so grim?” Leaving the retreating heroes behind him, Berald charged forward without hesitation. He stomped the ground and clenched his fist. “Berald Combat Style!”

A translucent sphere of mana formed around his fist. It was a basic spell that even first-year students could use. But what wrapped around his fist now was anything but ordinary. The mana sphere flattened into a layer as thin as paper, wrapping around his fist like fabric.

One layer, ten layers, a hundred, then a thousand. It kept stacking endlessly. Finally, the compressed mana roared like thunder.

“Genesis!” he shouted.

With a single punch from him, the thousands of compressed layers exploded at once, sweeping everything away. The overwhelming tide of mana crushed the resurrected ancient heroes into pulp.

Berald’s overwhelming display stunned the professors.

“What?”

“H-he did that with just a mana bullet?”

“Bianca... Isn’t Berald your student?” Professor Kane asked.

“I-I’ve never seen anything like that either!” Professor Bianca exclaimed.

Berald raised his clenched fist high and grinned. “Gahaha! See that? If they come back to life, we just have to kill them again. Ain’t that right?”

It was a ridiculous argument, the logic flimsy. Berald’s words sounded like something a ten-year-old would say. Yet, somehow, those words reignited the morale that had been crashing to the ground.

“Heh...”

“Well, it’s not like they’re guaranteed to revive forever.”

“If nothing else, we just need to hold them off until the cadets evacuate.”

I looked at Berald, who was still holding his fist up with a grin. This guy...

Although a smile hung on his lips, his legs were trembling, barely able to support him. That attack had definitely exceeded his limits. The technique he had used was so taxing that he could barely stand, which explained why I hadn’t seen it until now. Yet, he hadn’t hesitated to use it. But that was just who Berald was. He had always been like this, in my past life and even now. He had never changed.

My mind felt clearer now. I turned back toward the ancient heroes, who were already starting to regenerate. They couldn’t revive infinitely. If the Prophet of Eternity truly had the power to grant infinite immortality, there was no way I would have been the sole survivor during the Demon God’s rampage in my previous life. Something was sustaining this revival.

As I narrowed my eyes and scanned the battlefield, I saw something. Camellia, who had stepped beside me, looked up at the massive tree towering into the sky.

“The tree,” she muttered.

I looked at her. “The tree?”

“I felt something off earlier, but after seeing your companion wipe out those heroes, I’m certain now,” she added.

“What is it?”

“That tree... is withering now.”

Following her gaze, I looked up at the massive tree stretching hundreds of meters into the sky. It was hard to tell at a glance, but just as she said, some of the leaves at the tips of the branches had begun to dry and shrivel. It seemed the tree was the source of their regeneration. Since we had found the cause, the solution was simple.

However, quite a lot of ancient heroes blocked the path to the tree. It seemed they had been ordered to guard it. To reach the tree, we would have to break through over a hundred of them. But that was not exactly a difficult task for me. Igniting Ashen Flames in my hand, I stepped forward.

Camellia asked, “You intend to burn the tree?”

“Of course.”

“Heh. A Demon God setting a tree hundreds of meters tall ablaze... It’s like witnessing a myth reborn.” Camellia chuckled softly and spread her arms. “I shall escort you to the tree.”

“I can handle it alone,” I replied.

“To burn such a massive tree, wouldn’t it be wiser to conserve your strength?” she said.

I couldn’t argue with that, so I nodded.

“Then I shall take the lead.” A radiant seven-colored aura burst forth from Camellia’s body.

Floating into the air, she shot forward at incredible speed toward the ancient heroes guarding the tree. “Manifest!”

A storm of seven-colored light surged forward, sweeping away the charging heroes. However, even with limbs severed, heads torn off, or holes blasted through their chests, the ancient heroes did not stop. They continued to surge forward relentlessly.

“Ah,ugh!”

“Stop... protect... the tree.”

“For... eternity.”

“Kugh!”

Even Camellia, who possessed power worthy of being called a demigod, was being overwhelmed. After all, these were legendary figures who had once shaped this continent’s history. Faced with dozens of such beings charging without regard for their lives, even an empress couldn’t hold them off forever.

I moved to step in, igniting my Ashen Flames, but Camellia stood her ground.

“How dare you?” A violent explosion of seven-colored light erupted from her. She thrust her arm forward toward the advancing heroes and shouted, “You dare block my path?”

Along with a thunderous roar that echoed across the battlefield, the surging seven-colored light blew away dozens of ancient heroes. The ground within a radius of hundreds of meters collapsed, carving a straight path all the way to the massive tree.

The sight was so overwhelming that even I couldn’t help but let out a breath of awe. “Damn!”

Camellia, panting heavily, pointed toward the tree. “What are you doing? Hurry! Go!”

For a moment, I hesitated. Was it really right to leave her here in such a state, barely able to breathe?

“Hurry!” she shouted again.

I kicked off the ground. Shooting forward like an arrow, I instantly reached the towering tree. I drew in a deep breath and summoned the power of the Primordial Flame.

A half-hearted attack wouldn’t be enough to bring that thing down. I had to burn it in one strike. Ashen Flames surged and wrapped around me. Slowly, I reached out and grasped a sword formed of smoldering ash. Enduring the searing heat that felt like it was burning every cell in my body, I drove the sword into the core of the towering tree.

“HAAAAAAAH!”

The flames erupted, devouring the hundreds-of-meters-tall tree in a raging inferno. The tree desperately tried to regenerate, struggling against the flames, but it couldn’t withstand the fire that seemed capable of devouring the world itself. At last, it began to collapse. The earth trembled violently. Ash from the burning tree scattered like falling snow. And then, the battlefield experienced a change.

Shouts of realization rose from the heroes battling the ancient ones.

“Huh?”

“They’re not... regenerating!”

“Their wounds aren’t healing anymore!”

“And... aren’t they slower now?”

“Wait, you’re right?”

I exhaled heavily, staring at the fallen tree. Did it work?

Even after consuming the tree, the flames continued to rage wildly.

“Stay... still, damn it!” I commanded.

Maybe I had drawn too much power trying to burn the tree; the flames now rampaged like a starving beast, difficult to control.

After several minutes, I finally managed to suppress the flames and turned toward my party, still fighting the ancient heroes. That side had almost finished too. With the tree gone, the ancient heroes had weakened significantly. The battle had become so one-sided that it was practically a rout in the heroes’ favor.

I frowned, thinking of the Prophet of Eternity, who hadn’t shown even a trace of himself even as the tree burned to nothing. “So, you’re not going to show yourself until the very end?”

Suddenly, the call alert from my Hero Watch rang out. It was an unfamiliar number. For a moment, I wondered if it was the Prophet of Eternity and quickly answered, “Who is this?”

“Ah, hello. I’m David Kim, an intelligence agent in charge of the Republic from the Hoover Guild.”

“Ah.”

So, it’s from the Hoover Guild? I thought Han Dae-Soo finally lost his patience and contacted me, I thought.

Given how the situation had already tilted decisively in our favor and the Prophet of Eternity still hadn’t appeared, I had assumed he was watching from afar without any intention of joining the battle. I figured he would call me afterward with the usual loser’s script like “This isn’t over,” “Now it truly begins,” and so on.

It seemed I was completely off. I cleared my throat to shake off the awkwardness and focused on the call.

“Do you remember asking us to look into the sponsor list for Sprout Orphanage?” said the agent.

I replied, “Yes, that’s right. But now’s not really a good time for a call...”

“We’ve identified the sponsor,” the agent explained.

What? Already?

He continued, “Let me see... Ah, here it is. The largest donor to Sprout Orphanage is... Morris Jin.”

“What?” It shocked me. Why had that name come up there?

“Is that someone you know?” asked the agent.

I kept quiet, processing the information. Then I ended the call without answering. Memories from just a while ago flashed through my mind. I recalled the image of Morris collapsing, coughing up blood.

“AAAGH!”

“Let me see the injury!”

“I-is my son going to be alright?”

The scene of Iris and Khalid rushing toward him in panic flashed past my mind.

“Take him to the main hall. Headmaster Ryu will open a Warp Gate soon. Send him through with the other cadets.”

“Thank you. I’ll be right back.”

Khalid still had not returned.