Chapter 618

Chapter 618

Raina’s eyelids fluttered open.

Her gaze swept across the chamber with urgency.

Taking in the recognizable surroundings, she rapidly deciphered her situation.

‘The bedchamber inside the Flobe estate manor.’

Glancing toward the timepiece while remaining prone, she discerned that daybreak had arrived.

An intense ache resonated throughout her entire frame.

It was from the clash.

The strain of pushing her physical limits past their breaking point had manifested as severe recoil.

‘Judging by the lack of healing in my muscles… less than twenty-four hours have elapsed.’

Confirming that the chamber was devoid of any other presence after analyzing her state, Raina forced herself to rise.

Right at that moment.

Knock, knock—

A hesitant rap preceded the gentle opening of the entryway.

“O-Oh, milady.”

Stepping past the threshold was Anna, the head maid charged with overseeing the principal residence of the Flobe family.

Observing Anna’s trembling frame and tear-brimmed eyes upon seeing her mistress awake, Raina cut straight to the point.

“Anna. Where is the uninvited intruder?”

“In… in the Young Master’s quarters…”

Hearing this, Raina stood up fully and directed her steps toward Leo’s chambers.

When she reached Leo’s personal room, she discovered the Hero Slayer casually flipping through the pages of a volume.

“Ah, you’ve awakened? Raina Zerdinger. Or perhaps Raina Flobe is the title you prefer these days?”

Confronted by the Hero Slayer, who maintained a serene countenance without even lifting his gaze from the text, Raina demanded,

“What is the meaning of this?”

“I am merely investigating. I wish to comprehend exactly what sort of individual Leo Flobe is.”

The Hero Slayer raised his eyes to meet Raina’s, a slight smirk playing on his lips.

“Before we proceed, introductions are in order, yes? I am Zorua Iner. The entity your kind refers to as the Hero Slayer.”

“Iner?”

Raina’s brow twitched sharply.

It was a prestigious, mighty bloodline of champions that had established its roots in the central territories of the continent eons ago.

An untold number of legendary figures had rallied under the banner of Iner.

It was, quite literally, the preeminent lineage of heroism.

Yet, at a certain point in time, that entire house had vanished from the face of the earth without leaving a single trace.

“Correct. I am the patriarch of that very house, the one erased by the Shadows.”

Zorua, concealed beneath his cowl, spoke with a twinge of reminiscence in his voice.

“Despite my shortcomings, I was a champion who once commanded the moniker of ‘All Master’. Though, naturally, that is nothing more than ancient history now.”

“All Master?”

It was a title completely foreign to her ears.

A title of that caliber would be utterly impossible to overlook if it had been preserved in the chronicles of time.

Raina, initially bewildered, suddenly connected the pieces to specific entities.

“The Shadow Lords.”

“Incredibly perceptive. You truly possess the intellect expected of a woman who was once a prime prospect for heroism.”

Zorua let out a low whistle.

“Those detestable Shadow Lords went to great lengths to expunge my very existence from historical memory. Had I realized that not even my name would survive in the annals, I would have unleashed a far more savage reign of terror.”

During his mortal lifespan, Zorua had achieved deeds magnificent enough to secure his status as a legendary figure.

Furthermore, he had projected an aura more noble than any other champion.

He did this specifically to evade discovery and tracking.

No living soul could have fathomed that a revered champion was secretly butchering fellow heroes in the shroud of night, driven purely by a thirst for dominance.

Once he was cornered and suppressed by the Shadows, every single document detailing his life was thoroughly obliterated.

Consequently, wiping his memory from historical records took no time at all.

“If your resentment runs that deep, why did you fail to lead an honorable existence?”

“It matters little now. The current era will never have the luxury of forgetting my identity again.”

“Your identity? You will be remembered for nothing but pure infamy.”

“Hahahaha! You deeply misinterpret my desires. I never craved the prestige of a righteous savior.”

Zorua erupted into a volley of laughter.

“It is entirely sufficient for this world to recognize that I walked upon it. Whether that recognition comes as boundless notoriety or supreme reverence is irrelevant. The classification does not concern me. My only requirement is that the world understands the Hero Slayer was none other than myself.”

“For a being who speaks so boldly, you have spent your resurrected life scurrying about like a rodent in the dark, have you not?”

“Naturally. I intend to etch my legacy into history in a flawless state. Attaining a second chance at life was a welcome turn of events, however…”

Zorua chuckled deeply as he reached up and pulled back his cowl.

“I was unfortunately saddled with such a repulsive physical form.”

Clack— click— clack—

Bleached skeletal remains rattled together with every movement.

Despite the inherently bizarre and grotesque spectacle, Raina’s expression remained entirely frozen and detached.

Fixing his gaze upon Raina, Zorua murmured,

“What a terrible waste. A profound tragedy. Had you reached your full potential and stepped into the mantle of a true hero, you would have unlocked unfathomable might. You would have eclipsed the reigning patriarch of the Zerdinger clan, Seld Zerdinger.”

“You are the very monster responsible for stripping away my potential, are you not? Why act remorseful now?”

“It is simply a lamentable fact.”

Whoosh—

Suddenly, a torrent of crimson fire erupted around Zorua’s form.

Recognizing the distinctive nature of that fire as her own stolen ability, Raina clamped her teeth together in fury.

As the blaze enveloped the skeletal frame, Raina’s features stiffened into a mask of shock as the flames reshaped into a young woman who was just transitioning out of adolescence.

“The ultimate advantage of forfeiting a standard mortal vessel is precisely this. Operating in this state, I can assume the likeness of any person I choose.”

Zorua executed a fluid, elegant pirouette.

Witnessing that specific movement caused the veins in Raina’s clenched fists to throb violently.

It was the exact visage she had lost long ago.

Halting his movement, Zorua spoke again.

“You see, my preference is to strike down my targets precisely when their brilliance reaches its absolute zenith. I desire to encapsulate that glorious peak for eternity.”

Zorua turned his borrowed gaze directly onto Raina.

“In that era, your light was blinding. You outshone every single champion I had ever laid eyes upon. Even while offering yourself up as a sacrifice, even when staring directly into the jaws of demise, you ignited your life force without a moment’s hesitation. You lacked even a shred of self-pity regarding the forfeit of your life for the sake of others. You were utterly magnificent. It was for that very reason I reaped your essence but refrained from delivering the killing blow. I presumed you would perish on your own if abandoned, yet I harbored a belief that if you somehow endured, you might transform into an exceptionally grand human being.”

Borrowing Raina’s youthful features, Zorua narrowed his eyes critically.

“Yet, you failed to live up to that. You are filled with remorse. You look back on your past sacrifice with regret.”

Zorua clicked his tongue in disappointment.

“Had I foreseen this outcome, I would have abstained from hunting you so prematurely. I would have permitted you to mature into a far more pristine entity.”

“If that is your sentiment, what stops you from executing me this instant?”

“Do you truly possess the value to warrant such an action?”

Zorua gave way to a mocking laugh.

“Your only remaining utility is to serve as the perfect piece of bait to draw out Leo Flobe.”

Raina’s knuckles turned white as her trembling hands clenched tighter.

“Tell me. What sort of existence is Leo Flobe, truly?”

Zorua surveyed the parameters of the bedchamber.

“It is exceedingly rare to encounter an individual so utterly devoid of flavor, so thoroughly uninteresting.”

Living beings boundlessly leave imprints upon the spaces they occupy.

Their disposition, their passions, their aversions.

They deposit far more fragments of their identity into their sanctuaries than they realize.

On the surface, these details might appear inconsequential.

Yet, these minor details coalesce to expose the fatal vulnerabilities of the target.

That was the precise motive behind Zorua’s presence in this chamber—to decode the nature of the man known as Leo.

However, Leo’s quarters yielded absolutely nothing to the senses.

Zorua cast a cold glance at Raina, who remained motionless with her gaze cast downward, and spoke with complete apathy.

“Stripped of your function as a lure, you are thoroughly devoid of worth.”

Depositing those parting words, Zorua turned and stepped through the doorway.

“Perhaps it is time I venture out to welcome our arriving guest.”

Left entirely solitary within Leo’s personal quarters, Raina looked down at her own palms.

Grounded in bitter frustration, her mind drifted backward into the tides of time.

To the era long gone.

Before her inner fire had been extinguished.

Word had reached her that Ellen Lundah, a brilliant Seirune prodigy of her identical academic year whom she had challenged since their earliest days, was caught in a mortal predicament.

She had felt a profound, spiritual connection with him, given that they both commanded the sacred Phoenix flame.

Though they belonged to competing institutions, that shared bond had forged a companionship so deep that laying down one’s life for the other was a natural instinct.

The moment she learned that Ellen Lundah’s expedition had collapsed upon entering a hazardous hero dungeon raid, she did not waver.

Raina threw herself into the unstable hero dungeon with the sole objective of recovering Ellen.

Under standard circumstances, accessing a champion’s domain was strictly forbidden following its initial activation.

Yet, when a hero dungeon fell into a state of total instability and went berserk, an outside force could become entangled in the chaotic energy distortion and gain entry.

That chaotic distortion was the very reason she understood Ellen’s unit had failed to clear the objective.

Had the operation succeeded, the violent fluctuations would have ceased entirely.

Instead, the instability persisted, and the boundaries of the labyrinth expanded exponentially.

A classic manifestation of a failed raid.

Disregarding whether her dearest companion was dead or alive, Raina breached the perimeter of the hero dungeon without a second thought for her closest friend.

And there, she witnessed it.

‘The color of an ashen sky.’

Beholding that sight, the truth dawned upon Raina.

That uncharted champion’s domain was a reflection of the world inhabited by the legends who endured the devastating Age of Calamity.

In her quest to locate Ellen, Raina combed through the surrounding terrain until she finally discovered him—the sole survivor of the doomed expedition.

Dragging Ellen along, Raina desperately marshaled every ounce of her remaining vitality to decipher the mechanism required to clear the domain.

She engaged in a ceaseless, grueling struggle against nightmarish entities.

Before long, she pushed past her physical threshold and stared directly into the shadow of death.

And then…

‘By the time my consciousness returned… the domain had been cleared, and my inner fire was completely gone.’

The very fact that she drew breath was nothing short of a divine intervention.

The trauma inflicted upon her physical vessel had been catastrophic.

For the longest time, she operated under the assumption that her core had shattered due to the reckless overexertion of her flame.

‘I genuinely believed that to be the case… to think it was actually stolen away by the Hero Slayer.’

Raina ground her teeth in a silent rage.

The monster’s words hit their mark.

She did harbor regret over the events of that fateful day.

She regretted abandoning her grand future for the salvation of others.

Even in this modern moment, she wrestled with the bitterness of that path.

Just as Zorua had pointed out, she was no immaculate, flawless savior.

Yet, as she stood there grinding her teeth in anger, a sudden wave of confusion washed over her features.

The memory of that bleak, ashen sky resurfaced in her mind.

‘…Reflecting upon it now, during that crisis. Why did I refuse to surrender?’

Her final perceptions within that legendary domain were fractured and clouded.

She forced herself to summon the memories of that specific moment—memories she had consciously chosen to bury until this very second.

The recollection of the exact instant she had abandoned all hope, only to forcefully pull herself back from the abyss.

‘That’s right… I am certain that the first rays of dawn pierced through the dark back then.’

Within her fractured recollections, the specific morning light that broke the horizon during the climax of the Age of Calamity crystallized in her mind.

Furthermore, there was an additional detail embedded within that memory, an image she had long dismissed as a mere hallucination born of exhaustion.

‘A silhouette.’

The figure of a person descending through the heavens directly toward her, framed perfectly by the rising sun.

She had anchored her failing resolve upon that sight, firmly believing that this individual was coming to deliver her from death.

An image she had written off as a trick of a dying mind.

But…

‘Could that silhouette have actually been… the definitive closing moment of the Age of Calamity?’

As the realization settled in, Raina’s eyes swept across the room once more.

This was the private sanctuary of her son—the young man who had inherited the legacy of Kyle, the Hero of Beginnings.

Raina drew a long, stabilizing breath into her lungs.

‘Indeed. It is precisely because I refused to capitulate in that darkness that this present reality is allowed to exist.’

Raina turned and walked out of the bedchamber.

‘Leo will emerge victorious.’

Yet, she could not simply sit idly by and thrust the entirety of the burden onto Leo’s shoulders.

Returning to her personal quarters, Raina fixed her gaze upon the blade mounted against the wall.

It was entirely possible that her contribution would amount to nothing.

After all, she no longer held status as a champion of the Zerdinger order.

‘However, that does not mean my identity as a knight has ceased to exist.’

She might no longer be a Zerdinger knight, but Raina had never once stopped viewing herself through the lens of knighthood.

‘The true purpose of a knight is to stand as a shield for others.’

Furthermore, this domain belonged to the Flobe line, and she was the matriarch charged with its honor.

‘I still possess lives that require my protection.’

Going back to the very first moment her fingers gripped a hilt, Raina had looked up to the idealized protectors found within ancient fables.

She had nurtured a dream to mirror those legendary guardians.

Perhaps it was a naive, foolish aspiration.

In pursuit of that very ideal, everything she once commanded had been reduced to cinders.

She undeniably carried the weight of regret for the choices that led to the sacrifice of her future in exchange for her companion’s life.

Yet…

Even if she were transported back to that exact crossroads.

Even if she was doomed to endure that same agonizing regret all over again.

Raina knew with absolute certainty that she would walk the identical path.

‘Because that is the fundamental truth of who I am.’

With that final realization, Raina reached out and claimed the sword.

‘To ensure that no harm falls upon the souls who reside within these lands. I will stand as their defender.’