The wind blows.
But this is no ordinary wind; it carries an evident sense of death within it.
Aslan braced his jaw against the wind, exhaling a long breath.
Trickling blood muddied his tear ducts, and his vision blurred with spreading haze.
It feels unreal.
Likewise, there’s no sense of crisis.
This was the fear of the Veil.
An unrealistic death.
An attack that exploits the self-deception held by all humans, who believe they won’t die, leading to a lack of vigilance at the edge.
Aslan moved blindly against it, pulling and tearing at the dislocated shoulder joint, then spinning.
Hidden within the spin was a sweeping kick that traced a long arc—not targeting an enemy but space itself.
The light drawn in midair pushed back the wind.
Kreeeeek!
The afterglow embracing the wind splits. Without bothering to wipe the blood streaming from his blurry eyes, Aslan moved his body.
Amidst the freezing atmosphere, only his frost-covered hair flickered black and white.
Crack! Zing!
The rushing cold made his hair flutter and cracked the plaza floor apart. Amid this chaos, Aslan remained steadfast.
At the end of the rotation, Aslan’s sword reached a thinly clad woman. The blade, which clearly touched her skin, was repelled before it could penetrate half an inch.
Though it cut through the cold and deceived the eye, it ultimately failed to pierce her skin.
Aslan well understood the reason.
Ice was growing on the woman’s body.
Before the sword thrown off by the repulsion could fall from his hand, Aslan adjusted his grip and shifted his shoulder.
The sword, which had been pushed horizontally, abruptly stopped mid-air. Then, raising his arm, he struck downward. When the rushing sword strike pushed the wind aside with a howl, the woman merely rolled her eyes and extended her hand.
And thus, they clashed.
The sound was like metal striking metal, scattering white sparks around them. This was followed by Aslan’s fierce offense and Ash’s precise defense filling the space with a deafening roar.
Ka-ga-ga-ga-gang!
She repelled his descending sword with ice and deflected the incoming purity with a strike to the blade. When Aslan forcefully swung his sword upward despite its wide miss, Ash blocked the attack by kicking it away with her foot.
Ash, whose leg was kicked out in the same direction she was pushed, retaliated with a kick aimed at the falling Aslan.
Invisible acceleration and the resulting shockwave. Unprepared for the incoming kick, Aslan raised his sword.
“Call Thunder.”
Rumble-rumble!
Zeeeeeng!
At the moment Ash’s kick struck the sword aiming for Aslan’s heart, a thunderous sound accompanied her body as it was quickly hurled backward. Her glowing halo, trailing behind her head, tore through space and buildings as it carried her away.
Thus, upon the frozen plaza, a scene of hell unfolded. Walls stretched and tore in impossible ways, creating a brutal landscape of scattered bricks.
‘Left eye… can barely see.’
Even with just light attacks, counters, and retaliation, death loomed. Naturally, Aslan had no choice but to overuse his foresight.
But at the cost of such abuse, Aslan simultaneously reached his limit where further use was impossible, while also losing sight in his left eye.
His left eye could now only vaguely distinguish afterimages and colors. With his fading vision, Aslan smirked bitterly.
This is likely beyond what Equalization can restore. Closing and reopening his left eye, Aslan steadied himself.
Defeating a high priest without sacrifice, or surviving, is impossible.
So the first sacrifice would be Aslan himself.
Even without his left eye’s vision, Aslan could still fight.
The problem was that he could no longer use foresight.
He had only two uses of valor left. Since the number was limited, he had to conserve them carefully.
As Aslan prepared himself, the woman who had been flung away charged forward.
Her attack was a kick. Unlike Angie’s raw kicks or Aslan’s orthodox ones, this kick was uniquely different.
With a posture reminiscent of ballet, her extended foot possessed enough penetration power to mock even an average spear.
The fleeting sensation of rapid movement flashed through Aslan’s mind and disappeared, prompting him to narrow down the possible targets to evade the invisible attack.
Twisting his body, he thrust his sword toward the woman. The raised blade was the divine sword capable of cutting anything.
The woman realized this when she lost her arm and spear, and she warily guarded against the blade. Naturally, her attack lowered. Knowing this in advance, Aslan withdrew his extended sword and closed in.
The result of the woman guarding against the blade and Aslan’s intention looked like this:
Kaaaang!
Aslan’s sword grazed past her leg. A slash mark appeared on her extended white leg, causing Aslan to spit up blood and turn his body.
Aiming for the neck, Aslan used the momentum from being pushed back to twist his waist and swing his sword horizontally. In response, the woman retracted her leg mid-motion and extended it again.
Just as her leg flew like a sharp spear and Aslan’s purity aimed to sever the head and pierce the heart simultaneously—
Crack!
A massive arrow flew through the gap between them and struck.
Although it shattered into pieces of ice immediately upon impact, the arrow successfully pushed her leg away.
Thrown off target, it missed her heart and hit her side instead.
Clenching his teeth, Aslan twisted his body further, allowing her leg to graze past his side.
Serrrrr!
The collision caused another surge of blood in his mouth, and Aslan’s sword severed the woman’s head. The severed head floated briefly before falling. Dozens of decapitated heads rolled across the ground.
The Messenger of the Veil, Ash, is not human.
Fittingly, she has no heart.
No brain either.
Only filled with the Divine Power of the transcendent Veil of Compassion and the cosmic death.
Aslan raised his sword to block the following attack. The sword aimed from his side to his head met Ash’s roundhouse kick.
Zeeeeeeeng!
Aslan’s body, catapulted away, tumbled pitifully on the ground before stopping. Another figure approached the headless woman.
A figure squeezing through the gap in the severed afterglow, swinging an axe—Ereta, a woman with graceful curves and flowing white hair.
Gripping the axe with both hands, Ereta spun her body and delivered an overhead strike.
Boom!
When the axe sliced through her arm, the headless Ash turned and kicked with her leg. A soundless yet swift kick—capable of splitting Ereta in half, even if she had fully charged her Courage of Bijou by slaying multiple priests.
Before the kick landed on Ereta, Angie revealed herself.
“Hryaaaaah!”
Bang!
With an unusual battle cry, Angie rushed forward and kicked Ash away with her leg like a projectile. Ash’s body flew through the air like a cannonball. Taking advantage of Ash being pushed back, Ereta caught her breath, rolled on the ground, and Aslan, who had tumbled across the floor, stood up and approached.
“Damn, when will this thing die…?”
Most of the group was present here.
Their weapons and equipment were in top condition.
They weren’t negligent or complacent either.
All of them fought their hardest to survive and win.
Yet despite all their efforts and preparations, Ash wouldn’t die.
Even after flying far away, smashing a fountain, and getting buried under rubble, Ash rose again—her head and arms already regrown.
Exhaling sighs of frustration, Angie and Ereta watched as Tiamat, standing afar, struggled to pull out another arrow with trembling arms.
Their comrades’ conditions weren’t good.
The worst off were Angie and Aslan.
Aslan had an entire arm torn off, exposing his shoulder bone, and one eye was red with trickling blood.
Angie’s lips were smeared with blood, and her arm was bent at an unnatural angle, having allowed several attacks.
Even Tiamat and Ereta, who were less injured, weren’t in great shape.
Ereta’s plate armor, purchased from Belus Alphen, was horribly torn. Her labored breathing indicated the fatigue she experienced for the first time since gaining the Courage of Bijou.
Tiamat looked exhausted too.
There were only two arrows left in her quiver, and her arm muscles occasionally twitched. Combined with the shivering from the cold, it was clear that Tiamat couldn’t continue fighting much longer.
On the other hand, Ash seemed unaffected.
Lifting his gaze, Aslan closed his blurry left eye and observed Ash with his right eye alone.
Ash’s expression looked bored and tedious.
As if doing something she had no choice but to do, yet found incredibly dull and undesirable.
And Aslan didn’t feel inclined to criticize her arrogance for this boredom and tedium.
Rather, he felt proud of himself for enduring this long.
And Aslan understood the main cause.
It was that afterglow.
Already restored where purity had once cut through it, the violently spinning afterglow corroded the surroundings, scattering freezing cold everywhere.
Ash walked slowly toward Aslan, carrying the afterglow behind her.
Even her simple act of walking caused the frozen plaza’s bricks to shatter and crumble as if ground by a blender.
This was the repercussion of forcibly dragging and distorting frozen spacetime.
There were few means to resist the power freezing spacetime.
Perhaps only Angie, wielding the power of an ancient deity, or Aslan, capable of cutting through the afterglow with purity.
That Tiamat and Ereta were still alive was, in itself, a significant achievement.
This situation was akin to something that couldn’t happen in a game.
The hidden boss, the Messenger of the Veil from Eternal Dominion, was made most difficult due to this afterglow.
The afterglow froze spacetime for those without the power of an ancient deity, leaving them to die standing still.
In the game, this resulted in the Messenger of the Veil boss fight being a ruthless 1:1 scenario, with long-range attacks thoroughly blocked.
The only option was to confront her directly with weapons in hand.
Now, in Geladridion, Aslan realized the ferocity of the afterglow wasn’t much different.
Tiamat’s arrows failed to land effective hits. Even after Aslan cut through the afterglow, they could reach her but weren’t counted as effective hits.
Ereta faced a similar situation as Tiamat. She could only approach from the direction where Aslan dealt with the afterglow.
Despite the considerable power gained from stacking the Courage of Bijou effects, it didn’t feel like it was truly hitting effectively.
Ultimately, in situations where entry routes were restricted, only shallow attacks could be made.
If only the afterglow existed, there would have been countless methods to counter and defeat it.
The problem was that it wasn’t just the afterglow.
The hybrid who survived since the age of ancient deities also posed an issue with her diverse means.
Freezing spacetime to block, scattering ice to attack, attaching ice to her body to defend, and boldly sacrificing body parts upon being hit to minimize damage.
Coupled with attacks utilizing the properties of the afterglow.
Recalling how he lost his right arm to one of those attacks, Aslan realized the woman’s strength surpassed even what was seen in the game.
Whereas a dragon king might feel solid, Ash felt untouchable.
The woman, possessing abilities comparable to a dragon king, was truly impregnable.
Aslan looked up at the dimming sky with his blurry left eye and clear right eye.
The darkening sky testified to how much time the group had spent.
One Equalization remained in his tattoos.
Two Valor points left.
No mana remained.
Few means were available, fewer chances to survive, and foresight was unusable.
But he had to fight.
Not fighting meant death.
The only way to survive was to buy more time.
Aslan trusted Phey and lowered his stance.
Holding the purity close to his torn shoulder, he exhaled heavily and focused. Closing his left eye, he fixed his gaze with his right.
While Tiamat aimed her bow, Angie removed her left hand supporting her broken arm to take position, and Ereta gripped her axe and breathed heavily, Ash suddenly halted her advancing steps.
“Ah.”
The first sound heard since the fight began.
The woman, devoid of humanity, who had remained silent until now, turned her head as if sensing something.
Although Ereta, Angie, and Tiamat reacted differently without understanding its meaning, Aslan knew.
Phey had succeeded.
The plan relied on Phey from the start.
As evidenced by her silence throughout the fight, the woman, who had lived for a very long time as the messenger of the Veil of Compassion, was essentially the embodiment of the Veil itself.
Personal emotions, likes and dislikes, desires—none of these existed for Ash.
She was merely a shell resembling a human, practically a monster taking human form.
She moved solely for the purpose and goals of the Veil of Compassion.
As far as Aslan knew, Ash, connected to that god of cosmic scale, wasn’t a high priest who retaliated or vented anger upon perceived failure.
Meaningless fights and killings didn’t exist for her.
Only battles beneficial to the Veil of Compassion mattered.
And now, Aslan realized Phey had shattered the Veil’s purpose.
The rare material—Anna’s daughter, possessing immense magical power and the rarity of having matured as a priestess for 200 years.
The recovery of that material had failed today.
Then, the reaction from the messenger was predictable.
As the purity in Aslan’s hand dimmed and returned to normal, Aslan lowered his sword and panted.
Ash stared vacantly at the direction Phey and Anna had gone, then turned her head to look at Aslan.
Her cloudy eyes, as if containing the universe, locked onto Aslan and curved into a crescent moon.
It was a forced smile.
“I’m disappointed.”
There was no need to question what she was disappointed about.
Since Aslan didn’t respond, the woman bowed her head slightly and added,
“And regretful.”
Then she turned around.
Turning her back, she started walking toward the outskirts of the city.
Her leisurely steps carried neither tension nor irritation.
As her figure gradually faded into the distance, Tiamat raised her bow.
Shaking her trembling arms, she drew the bowstring and pulled an arrow.
Though her loud and heavy breathing from exhaustion was noisy, Aslan placed a hand on Tiamat’s arm without any sign of displeasure and shook his head.
Tiamat hesitated for a moment, then lowered her arm and clicked her tongue. Swiping her tail across the ground was an added gesture.
In their exhausted and ragged state, they all silently watched the high priest walk away.
Though the figure was reduced to a dot, their vigilance remained strong.
As Tiamat gazed at the unseen dot, she spoke.
“Hey kid, answer me one thing.”
Without waiting for Aslan’s response, Tiamat continued.
“Did we win?”
To this question, Aslan took a deep breath and replied.
“Yeah.”
Tiamat gave a wry smile with a bitter expression.
“This is the first victory that leaves such a sour taste.”
Agreed.
Swallowing his own thoughts, Aslan scanned his surroundings.
The city was desolate. How many people had died was unknown.
It wasn’t Aslan’s responsibility. Unrelated to the quest, Ash had come to achieve her purpose.
The high priest they couldn’t capture wasn’t worth lamenting.
It wasn’t someone they could hunt now.
But Aslan felt a sense of responsibility and regret.
He regretted the intangible victory.
Even though it ended as a lesser evil rather than the worst-case scenario, he closed his eyes in regret. Blood trickled down his neck from his blurred left eye.
Closing his hazy left eye, Aslan resolved.
He would surely kill her someday.
