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The temple was quiet as night fell.

In the silence, Si-hyun aimlessly wandered around.

He eventually stopped in front of a room where he sensed a slight presence and peeked through the slightly ajar door.

“………”

Inside, Hana was still sleeping soundly, with a boy keeping watch beside her.

Si-hyun simply stood and gazed at the two, not daring to enter.

It might be a foolish thought, but suddenly he felt envious of Shin Woo.

Unlike him, Shin Woo had a clear purpose in life.

There was a meaning to his life that he was determined to protect at all costs.

As a result of focusing solely on that, he finally achieved what he had longed for.

And what about himself?

Hana had her own dreams.

They were akin to the bright and pure wishes of childhood.

However, since the day her younger sister died, that bright light had been buried in cloying darkness, turning into an obsession instead of a dream.

He would become strong and stronger.

He would eradicate all the sinister forces in the world.

Such a common and unremarkable aspiration that anyone in this world could have dreamed of.

Is that why? Perhaps the dream was so ordinary that it had gradually dulled over time.

Maybe through a series of ongoing events, he subconsciously realized something.

That it was meaningless.

The reason his sister left wasn’t such a one-dimensional problem.

Si-hyun looked at Hana, illuminated by the pale moonlight, with hazy eyes.

“………”

The first time he saw Hana, for some reason, his sister’s face overlapped in his mind.

Lacking abilities compared to others.

Low self-esteem and a timid personality.

Unnecessarily kind-hearted, unable to hurt others, always wrapping herself around every wound instead.

And yet, she would smile and say.

That she was fine. That there was no need to worry.

A foolish child too busy worrying about others.

When such a child mentioned his sister’s death, he became even angrier.

It pained him when she couldn’t overcome her sadness and her heart broke.

He trembled with betrayal when he saw the moment that stabbed his sister’s heart.

When he realized it was all a misunderstanding, he was drenched in regret.

In a relationship too tangled to simply express with a single word.

For some time now, Si-hyun had wished for the girl to find happiness.

As if that were the only atonement for his departed sister.

Of course, he knew.

That Hana and his sister had no connection whatsoever.

No matter how happy Hana became, his already deceased sister could never find happiness.

He was fully aware of such things.

Si-hyun wiped away his tears and forced them back.

After all, he was a brother who didn’t even deserve to shed tears for his sister.

*

Leaving the room where Hana was asleep, he began walking again.

He didn’t want to return to the bedroom. It was evident he wouldn’t be able to sleep properly in his current state.

Si-hyun stepped outside the temple and walked absentmindedly along the path.

The island wasn’t large, so it wasn’t long before the beach appeared.

The crashing waves of the night sea. He gazed endlessly at the horizon that stretched to the end.

Except for the temple, nothing else was visible here.

No land or ships.

Just the endless sea.

If he were kidnapped here, escaping would be tough no matter what he tried.

He didn’t make an effort to erase the useless thoughts.

What should he do once he returned to the academy?

He felt uncertain whether him being there would be of much help.

He had some pride in his skills, but standing next to true monsters, he felt endlessly pitiful.

Should he look for his sister?

Would that even be possible if she had turned into a divine being?

“…Huh?”

At that moment, Si-hyun spotted a silhouette standing at a distance.

Even just the back view was enough for him to recognize who she was by her hair color alone.

Such a mystical lavender hue belonged to only one person.

She naturally approached closer.

Was it because she sensed his presence? Longinus turned her head.

She too had moved to this island from the cathedral due to Hana’s miracle.

Since arriving here, she had been perfectly still, behaving as if she were dead.

Not even reacting to the black goat that had been fiercely attacking just moments ago.

Moreover, she hadn’t even spoken a single word properly.

If she were an enemy, she should either fight or escape; something should have happened.

Yet, her behavior didn’t seem cooperative enough to consider her an ally.

He had no idea what she was thinking.

Perhaps she was even more enigmatic than the black goat.

He couldn’t gauge Longinus’s true identity either.

Was she even human? The first time he met her, she was being escorted by soldiers in the academy’s underground facility.

When thinking of the myth of Longinus’ spear, she might not even be human.

An artificial weapon created for the sake of the council’s schemes centered around Hana?

Or could she be the very persona of the sacred spear from the myth?

What’s more important than her identity was whether or not she was friendly toward them.

In fact, he had no clue about that either.

“You… What on earth are you?”

Ultimately, unable to come to a conclusion alone, Si-hyun directly questioned Longinus.

She opened her mouth to respond.

“My role is to end everything.”

“Don’t speak in riddles, say it clearly.”

“My role is to confirm the death of Christ.”

That surely referred to Hana.

When he confirmed Hana’s ability through Magi in the academy’s basement, he realized that her codename was Messiah and had researched related materials for a while.

He was somewhat aware of the content of the myth.

Including what role Longinus’ spear played in that story.

When the Messiah was nailed to the cross and died, a Roman soldier who was watching that scene pierced his side with a spear to confirm his death.

At first glance, it might seem like a blasphemous act, but one might wonder why this is considered sacred.

The key was that the Messiah’s death was a sacrifice for humanity.

In other words, since it was a noble death, confirming that death was regarded as a sacred act as well.

Si-hyun remembered the situation that day clearly because he was aware of this fact.

“You already stabbed Hana six months ago. You pierced her side and blood and water came out.”

The description matched too closely to be mere coincidence.

Seeing that, Si-hyun was completely convinced that Hana was indeed the Messiah.

“Right. The Messiah has already died once. And according to prophecy, He rose again three days later.”

Si-hyun couldn’t help but be astonished by the scene that unfolded before him.

Longinus, who until now had never expressed a single emotion, was finally showing distinct feelings.

It was an excruciating sorrow.

“So there is no next time.”

“…Huh?”

“When Christ sacrifices again, He cannot resurrect.”

“…………..”

Si-hyun was flustered by the sudden revelation and struggled to find his words.

The first feeling that arose was naturally confusion.

Hana had already died once?

He had only believed she had returned without dying; now, it turned out she had died and resurrected.

This was likely something he and Shin Woo had never heard before.

“It’s strange… If your true role is to confirm Hana’s death, then why did you stab her that day?”

“You didn’t understand, did you? When Christ reached the heavenly temple that day, the fate of death was already sealed. The problem is that despite having sacrificed once for humanity, there are still those who desire more.”

Longinus’s words were incredibly vague and quite challenging to grasp.

But Si-hyun tried to combine as much of the theological knowledge he had learned and the current situation to deduce the content.

Those still wanting sacrifices.

Without a doubt, this clearly referred to the council.

They had very directly expressed the intention to create a better humanity through Hana’s death.

He assumed the heavenly temple referred to the gate where Hana had died that day.

Understanding that the fate of death was sealed could be hard to comprehend from a common perspective, but it wasn’t completely unfathomable.

What mattered was the point that Hana had already sacrificed once for humanity.

No matter how much he racked his brain, he couldn’t come up with anything that suggested he understood the day’s event.

Hana was exhausted due to the chase from himself and the academy, and she was on the brink of death there.

However, at a desperate moment, Shin Woo and his group appeared, stopping her and engaging in a battle.

And then the angel statue present in the temple awakened.

After that, it was a continuous cycle of chaos.

The last memory Si-hyun had was when Hana fused with the archangel and transformed into a terrifying monster.

According to what he heard later, Hana returned after breaking the merger with the angel due to Shin Woo’s persuasion, but he heard she ended her own life amidst the collapsing temple.

That was all Si-hyun knew about that day.

Was there any part of it that one could consider a sacrifice for humanity?

No.

No matter how much he thought, it seemed there was none.

So what was it?

Si-hyun pondered over what he might have missed in this story.

“………”

And at last, he arrived at one possibility.

What if the premise itself was incorrect?

When the temple collapsed and fell from the sky, did Hana die?

Nobody knew.

Perhaps Hana’s death occurred later.