[71]
Side Story – Farewell [2]
Looking back at the past.
The memories of childhood were bleak and barren.
Back then, she didn’t truly understand the bonds between people.
Memories that could have been forgotten…
Yet, the coldness that touched her young skin remained vivid in her mind.
She thought that coldness was something natural, something that would stay with her forever.
Until she met a boy.
The boy brought color into her life.
He taught her warmth.
The warmth the boy showed her was truly comforting, but…
Because she learned about warmth, she also came to understand pain.
“…”
Realizing pain, Luna harbored a small wish.
She wished for Ray to stay by her side.
She simply wished for him to remain close, healthy, and happy.
That was all Luna wished for.
In return for this humble, insignificant wish…
Luna steadfastly stayed by Ray’s side.
Ray, too, had a small wish.
He wished for Bella to be respected and to live a happy life.
Just as Luna did not ask for much, neither did Ray.
But in a world destined for ruin,
Ray had to burn everything he had been given, struggling desperately to fulfill even this small wish.
For a long time, their wishes crossed paths without meeting.
Ray did not know how the world had come to its impending doom.
Thus, he could not rest or feel satisfied, always carrying anxiety within himself as he obsessively expended his life trying to escape from the inevitable end.
Lost in a maze without answers, Ray suffered wounds and anguish while Luna could only watch on helplessly.
Ray was a warm person.
Intelligent, knowledgeable, wise, and talented in many ways—but he was no superhuman genius.
At best, he was an ordinary man who managed to rise in a small city and strut around with confidence.
When everyone else saw Ray as an unparalleled hero, Luna knew him for what he truly was: a kind and ordinary person.
As everyone endlessly relied on Ray, Luna alone understood the anguish and suffering of the path he had to walk.
While pretending to be an emotionless superhuman, Ray struggled tirelessly to keep from breaking down.
Fortunately, Ray’s struggles bore value. Eventually, he achieved miraculous feats worthy of a true superhuman and reached the twilight of his life.
Luna pleaded with him to stop there.
So that after he left, they might cherish their warm days together just a little longer…
She begged him to remain by her side and create peaceful, happy memories.
However, Ray never granted Luna’s humble wish.
Cruelly and selfishly, Ray clung to his stubbornness and burned away his remaining years.
Before his final moments, Ray swore to Luna:
He promised he would make no further requests of her.
But even that promise, Ray failed to keep.
Though Luna always prioritized Ray, Ray could not reciprocate until the very end.
Ray was unrelentingly selfish till the last moment.
Ray betrayed Luna in the most terrible way possible, yet still leaned on her until the very end.
And so, Luna resented him.
Perhaps, she even hated him.
The warmth Ray had left behind now caused Luna nothing but pain.
Sometimes, it made her sick.
Even so…
“…”
“To you…”
Luna whispered toward Ray seated on the imperial throne.
“I love you.”
Holding onto an emotion she would never forget, one of searing pain.
The seventh circle began to form centered on Luna’s heart.
Though Luna did not want it, the seventh circle took on an increasingly distinct form.
When this moment arrived, Luna had spent a long time thinking about what to say to Ray.
Still, unable to decide on anything, Luna finally muttered toward the deeply slumbering Ray.
“I hope… you find happiness.”
But…
“Occasionally… miss me and cry for me.”
Luna delivered her final petulant remark to the beloved one who had never truly looked back at her.
Then turning her back on Ray…
She couldn’t take even a few steps before glancing back at him again.
Ray continued to quietly guard the imperial throne.
Recalling the last regret Ray had offered her here, Luna wiped the tears streaming down her cheeks.
With great difficulty, she forced a smile and asked Ray:
“Ray… am I still a good mage?”
Leaving behind a question that would receive no answer,
Luna turned away.
Luna did not look back again.
Nor did she shed any more tears.
The seventh circle was completed.
As the seven circles began to resonate, the overwhelming evil permeating the world became distinctly clear to Luna.
When Luna revealed herself outside the imperial capital, the evil swelled even greater, threatening to consume the entire world.
It was the scream and struggle of beings beyond the stars.
Amplifying the resonance of the circles, Luna wielded her power.
To ensure the world Ray would live in would no longer be tainted, Luna began severing and distorting space, gathering all the evil spreading across the world into one place.
As Luna’s power grew stronger, the struggles of the entities beyond the stars intensified.
The crimson lightning enveloping the world was no different from the blood they spilled.
Overlapping the severed landscapes, Luna calmly stepped through the void.
Unbeknownst to her, she now stood above the ground where the Demon King had been sealed.
ZzzzZZZT!!!!!
A storm of evil surged forth.
It was none other than Luna herself who pushed the evil into the Demon King’s seal.
All the evil Luna had gathered concentrated around the Demon King, rippling as if ready to explode at any moment.
Not even Swordmasters or Archmages dared approach.
This was no longer a place where humans could intrude.
Jjjerjerjerj!!!
As the boundaries of dimensions collapsed, the powers of the entities beyond the stars struck alongside bursts of red lightning.
The desperate attempts of the malevolent spirits to erase Luna from the world reached out toward her.
“…”
The Obelisk crumbled.
The Meteor spell could not be used.
Nevertheless, gazing down at the immense mass of swelling evil, Luna constructed a Warp Gate in the sky.
Warp Gates consume vast amounts of mana proportional to their size and distortions, becoming unstable in the process.
The larger and farther the distance connected by the gate, the more vulnerable it becomes to external interference.
Thus…
Even with precise coordinates, constructing a Warp Gate near celestial bodies like ‘stars’ filled with immense heat is impossible.
But…
By distorting time, Luna delayed the collapse of the Warp Gate and…
Summoned a star from the distant heavens to the earth below.
A Warp Gate connecting to the sun opens on the ground.
Subsequently.
Zzzt-!
A tearing sound echoed.
It was the sound of the Earth’s crust ripping apart.
Flares erupting from the star’s surface slashed across the distorted land.
The massive lump of evil consuming the land ignited.
Simultaneously, due to the tremendous gravitational pull, the ground tore apart and rose into the sky.
Everything melted and evaporated.
The light of the star impartially purified the evil that had invaded the land.
“…”
The duration during which Luna maintained the Warp Gate was not long.
The scale of the Warp Gate affected by the star was not overly large either.
Even so, after the star’s light swept over the land,
The area had vaporized and dissolved, losing all form.
Jjeokkkk!!!!!
When the Warp Gate closed, the objects drawn by the star’s gravity fell back to the ground, molten and charred.
A primordial landscape resembling the planet’s infancy emerged beneath Luna’s feet.
In this bizarre scenery, the only thing that retained its original form was the Demon King.
Jjeongg!!!
The Demon King, enduring the star’s heat, surged toward Luna.
However, the Demon King could not even reach her.
With a flicker of her lips, Luna froze the Demon King mid-air, binding him immobile.
Facing the flailing Demon King, Luna clenched her fist.
Trdtrtdtk!!!
Space warped, and the artifacts of the malevolent deities surrounding the Demon King began to peel off one by one.
Twisting countless artifacts of the malevolent deities, Luna approached the Demon King.
Finally, when the last artifact was torn away from the Demon King,
The Demon King faced Luna.
Anthonyus, facing Luna, moved his throat.
“I…”
Even with all the artifacts of the malevolent deities removed, Anthonyus remained bound by their influence.
Still, Anthonyus grasped the remnants of his shattered sanity in his final moments, moving his scorched throat to whisper painfully:
“I kept… the contract… with Ray… I upheld… the contract…”
“…”
“With Ray… It’s your turn… now… it’s your turn…”
Anthonyus stared at Luna with eyes that refused to dim despite being consumed by flames, shedding tears of blood.
“You must… complete the myth…”
“…”
“You must… seek vengeance…”
Vengeance.
That was Anthonyus’ longing.
Anthonyus was far from noble.
Throughout his life, he never valued nobility.
He merely pretended to be noble in order to protect his sister.
The sister he so desperately wanted to protect, he ended up cutting down with his own hands.
“The touch… from that day… still runs vividly through my palms…”
The pure hatred that would never fade propelled him until the very end.
“I’m sorry… sister…”
Tztztk-
Having fulfilled his duty for vengeance, Anthonyus turned to ash and scattered.
After witnessing Anthonyus’ final moments, Luna completely released the seven circles she had forcibly segmented.
The liberated seven circles began to overlap, drawing closer to each other and fusing.
“…”
Walking a path from which there was no return.
On the verge of transcendence, Luna saw fleeting visions of herself appear and disappear beside her.
Each vision represented another possibility Luna had once held within herself.
The turning points of fate cannot be changed.
Luna’s transcendence was a predetermined outcome.
However, the process leading to this result was infinite.
Sometimes, it took thirty years to achieve transcendence.
Other times, seventy years.
Sometimes, it took hundreds of years.
Sometimes, she lost everyone she cared about; sometimes, the continent perished, and the land became a land of death.
Despite converging to a single outcome, the countless ‘branches’ and ‘possibilities’…
Were finally decided upon at this very moment.
“…”
[…]
After all the visions disappeared,
Luna faced her future self who had guided her.
The future Luna who had achieved transcendence looked upon her past self who had brought Ray’s happy ending.
Finally.
One process merges with one result.
The seven circles fused.
And Luna was no longer there.
*
My throat feels dry.
My eyelids are heavy.
That was the initial sensation.
My head was muddled and dizzy, preventing coherent thoughts.
Forcing open my eyelids to assess the situation,
“…”
Ray opened his eyes.
Through the blurred vision,
Two girls familiar yet strangely unfamiliar to Ray startled and shouted simultaneously.
“Daddy?”
