Chapter 507

[Outskirts of the City Walls, Ten Minutes Earlier]

When Ha-shal-leur arrived at the bell tower and faced Belcus, the battle between the four people outside the city was already nearing its end.

– Kwoong!

A man dyed red all over collapsed, clutching a cracked greatsword.

His severed arms. Twenty-nine sword wounds carved into his torso gushed blood, staining the ground. His final breath, exhaled with great effort, turned into steam and scattered along with his life.

Eljure, tearing off her tattered sleeve, looked down at the man cooling in death with an expressionless face.

“Seems like this is as far as you go… Still, you were quite impressive. The Empire’s demons really do only keep the worst of the worst as subordinates, huh?”

Her mocking voice was laced with clear displeasure.

The fight had dragged on longer than expected, and the damage was greater than anticipated. The fact that she had struggled against mere children like these was, to Eljure, an unbearable irritation.

“Haa… Haa… Is this as far as I go? Is that how it looks to you, lady?”

Milia, breathing heavily, pulled an intact arrow from Rabins’ corpse.

Her appearance was pitiful. The choice to minimize her armor for mobility had cost her dearly. Her upper body, torn and bloodied, was more like scraps of cloth than clothing, and her exposed skin was covered in burns that looked like they’d been bitten by beasts.

“Demons, huh… That’s more like you.”

Damien, who had pierced Rabins’ heart, slung the cracked greatsword over his shoulder and spoke. His stamina was at its limit, and he staggered with a hunched posture, his knees half-bent.

His left arm was a mangled mess of shattered bone and flesh, and his armor was in tatters. Blood from his torn head streamed down, covering the boy’s face.

His pupils were half-dilated, his breathing irregular. His pale complexion suggested he could collapse at any moment.

The two had succeeded in taking down Rabins by focusing their attacks on him, but at the cost of near-crippling injuries.

In contrast, Eljure, though her clothes were torn here and there, was mostly unharmed except for an arrow embedded in her thigh—and even that wasn’t deeply lodged.

Amid the blood-soaked battlefield, the only damage she had sustained was the loss of a fraction of her mana.

“You talk well, you emotionless little ghost.”

Eljure summoned a pack of flaming wolves to surround Damien and Milia, casually revealing the secret Damien had been hiding. Damien flinched slightly.

As an experienced mage, Eljure had clearly sensed Damien’s abnormality through his reaction to mental magic.

Though complex illusions worked on him, emotional manipulation spells had no effect.

A person stripped of all emotions, or one born with faint emotions.

It was rare, but not unheard of. Most such individuals turned into murderers or criminals, so it was surprising that he was functioning as a knight.

“Isn’t it funny? The lover of the woman nicknamed ‘Imera’s Arrow’… is nothing more than an emotionless doll. How ironic!”

Eljure laughed loudly, mocking Milia.

A girl named after the goddess of love, entangled with someone who couldn’t love. It was a relationship filled with illusions and deceit, a cruel joke of fate.

Of course, Eljure’s reason for pointing this out wasn’t just to mock Milia.

‘The smoke rising inside the city walls is coming from two places. One is the Imera Cathedral I set ablaze… and the other is from the Shaulite Cathedral. That must mean Diraid is dead. There’s no more time.’

Ha-shal-leur’s group would have also figured out the situation from the fire at the Imera Cathedral and the disappearance of their comrade from the city walls. There was no time to waste.

To achieve their original goal of killing the blond boy and taking the green-haired girl to ruin her, they had to finish this battle before Ha-shal-leur or Seilon arrived.

‘It’s almost over… but these two are tougher than expected. If they decide to hold out, who knows? So, it’s better to disrupt their focus and create an opening.’

That was the purpose of her provocation. Eljure, with a smirk, looked down at Milia with pity as she continued her taunts.

Of course, while attacking the two with her flaming wolves.

“Do you know? Your love will never be returned. No matter how many times you embrace, it’s no different from using a tool for self-pleasure. That doll doesn’t love you—it’s just mimicking the act!”

Did it hit a nerve? Milia’s steps faltered for a moment. A fatal opening.

“Milia!”

Damien, staggering, swung his greatsword and bisected a flaming wolf, shouting urgently. He too was under attack from the wolf pack and couldn’t help Milia.

‘To stop just like that—she’s just a little girl after all!’

Eljure’s eyes gleamed with triumph.

The flaming wolves charged at Milia. Though their forms were illusions, the flames were real. The heat was enough to burn human skin in an instant.

The fiery fangs aimed to pierce Milia’s entire body.

“…So what?”

A cold voice. Milia, with an utterly calm expression, clenched her fist and swung her right arm at the wolf’s forehead.

– Thud!

The strength of a master-level martial artist struck the beast’s forehead. The wolf’s head exploded like a balloon, scattering flames in all directions.

“Damien has no emotions? So what?”

The spreading flames licked her arm, sending up smoke. Milia gritted her teeth, enduring the searing pain, and swung her bow at the remaining wolves.

A wooden bow would have snapped or burned instantly. But hers was a steel bow, forged from refined metal.

Thus, the iron bow, swung with Milia’s strength, packed the force of a knight’s mace.

The wolves struck by her bow spat flames and collapsed. The burning flames melted the snowfield, vanishing with a fierce hiss.

After clearing the wolf pack, Milia buried her right arm in the snow to cool it and sneered at Eljure.

“Did you really think I didn’t know?”

She had known all along. She just hadn’t said it out loud.

Of course, she hadn’t known from the start. After growing closer to Damien, she had gradually realized his true nature while watching him from the side.

It might have been shocking at first… but now, it didn’t matter.

At least, not to Milia.

“You knew…?”

Eljure, summoning a flock of thunderbirds, couldn’t help but ask.

She had tried to unsettle Milia, only to find herself caught off guard.

“You knew, and yet you’re so calm? You should be furious! At him, for deceiving your feelings!”

“That’s a strange thing to say.”

Milia nocked one of her three remaining arrows and fired. A special arrow with a large, intricately engraved tip, custom-made by Asha’s Workshop.

As the arrow struck the thunderbirds, the tip split into dozens of fragments, scattering in all directions. Several birds were torn apart by the shards.

Of course, that didn’t neutralize all the magic. The birds that dodged the arrow were still flying toward Milia.

Instead of dodging, Milia nocked another arrow and glared straight at Eljure.

As the thunderbirds, imbued with lightning, closed in to pierce Milia,

– Whoosh!

Damien’s thrown greatsword spun through the air, sweeping through the flock.

The violent lightning surged along the blade, but since Damien had let go of the hilt, it was now just a massive lightning rod.

Milia, smiling as if she had never doubted Damien’s protection, aimed her arrow at Eljure.

“Furious because the person I love doesn’t love me back? Is that really something to be angry about?”

At least, Milia didn’t think so.

If Damien had loved someone else, she might have been jealous.

If Damien had maliciously toyed with her, she might have been angry.

But Damien simply didn’t understand love. He didn’t love someone else, nor did he harbor any malice toward her.

So why should Milia be angry?

‘He doesn’t understand love? Then I’ll just love him until he does. It might take a lifetime… but someday, Damien will understand too.’

From the moment Milia realized Damien didn’t understand emotions, she had resolved, instead of being disappointed or angry, to make him understand.

‘I’ll make him feel it.’

The emotion she called love—hot like flames, sticky like wax, sweet like honey, heavy like chains. A feeling that could make her soar like she had wings, yet leave her breathless and heavy. She would help Damien feel it too.

Even if his heart was as hard as stone, if she submerged it deep in the river of her love, slowly, bit by bit, the moisture of love would seep in.

“Something to be angry about? That’s so obvious, it’s not even worth mentioning!”

Eljure, who had sought love by giving it to everyone, couldn’t understand this way of thinking.

“That’s why you’re like this. Unlike us. The reason you’re a pitiful kobold, unloved by anyone. Isn’t it you who doesn’t understand love?”

Milia, turning the tables, mocked Eljure, who had tried to provoke her, and released the arrow she had drawn back.

Her emotions, the fragments of her soul, were imbued in the arrow.

Though it couldn’t match the strike of a hero, it was undoubtedly the beginning of a transcendent path.

“How dare you…!”

Eljure, furious, desperately gathered her mana to counter. Despite being exhausted, the spiraling arrow was several times faster and stronger than her previous attacks. She couldn’t take it lightly.

Layers of mana barriers filled the air, and a whirlwind sphere enveloped her body.

And it was all pierced.

“Damn it…!”

Gritting her teeth, Eljure poured mana into her flight magic to dodge. But the direction she moved in was already anticipated.

Damien.

While Eljure’s attention was focused on Milia, Damien had picked up his thrown greatsword and leaped toward where Eljure was flying.

With an expressionless face, he swung the greatsword at Eljure’s waist!

“These guys are serious!”

Eljure dodged the greatsword and changed direction again. But Damien, as if leaping once more in mid-air, pursued her.

“Nothing’s changed!”

Eljure, as before, created an illusion to dodge the greatsword.

Simultaneously, she unleashed a barrage of ice spikes at Damien.

“No, this time will be different.”

Damien, cutting through the illusion, muttered coldly. He squeezed out the last of his strength, swinging the cracked greatsword like a storm.

With each ice spike shattered, the cracks in the blade grew larger. The impact threatened to tear his shoulder apart. Shards of broken ice glittered as they fell.

– Crack!

Finally, the greatsword broke. Damien’s sword, though mixed with divine steel, had reached its limit after enduring so much.

A few remaining ice spikes pierced Damien’s body. A mix of cold and hot pain. But even as he fell, bleeding, Damien kept his eyes on Eljure.

– Whoosh!

Milia’s final arrow, spiraling through the air, flew toward where Eljure had dodged.

“Ugh…!”

Eljure, noticing the arrow, bit her lip and unleashed her defensive magic with all her might.

Her flight magic was too unstable after several sharp turns.

– Crash!

Milia’s arrow collided with Eljure’s barrier.

Like a dragon’s roar tearing through walls and uprooting the ground, Eljure’s mana barriers shattered one by one. Milia’s arrow also weakened with each barrier broken.

Finally, the last mana barrier shattered along with Milia’s arrow. A clash of opposing forces, canceling each other out.

“Too bad. This is the end-!”

Eljure, with a triumphant smile, aimed her right hand at Milia, who was kneeling, exhausted.

– Slash!

Damien’s thrown, broken greatsword pierced her right arm, severing it.