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The leaping Apostle charged forward.

Every time his arm lunged out, I blocked it.

With my True Dragon Form as the tank, Isabel and Ban unleashed their coordinated strikes.

At first, when they saw my transformation, Ban and the others were clearly startled.

But only for a moment.

Right now, the Apostle takes priority.

Questions can wait.

Even if the enemy grows stronger, our team's growth is a blessing, not a curse.

The moment Ban and Isabel's blades sliced through the Apostle's body, wind and flames surged in from behind.

Elemental fire and wind tore through the Apostle’s form.

The Apostle staggered, trying to retreat.

He wanted to escape and buy time for his super regeneration.

Boom!

But I drove him back, preventing his retreat.

Charging at him head-on, the Apostle roared.

He was already burdened with stacked curses.

On the other hand, I was fully buffed with support magic.

Unable to shake me off, he had no opening to escape.

“So persistent.”

Even my sweat evaporated into the ashes and flames.

“Stamina’s my specialty, after all.”

Clinging to him like a leech, I refused to let go or give him a chance to slip away.

With the Apostle restrained, the others’ attacks rained down relentlessly.

The more I held him, the more fiercely the kids attacked.

Scratches and wounds began appearing on the Apostle’s tough hide.

Even if they were minor wounds, stacking them this much would overwhelm his super regeneration.

Super regeneration isn’t invincibility.

Once the physical limits are reached, even regeneration comes to a halt.

I knew that—and so did the Apostle.

Before long, all of the Apostle’s eyes focused on me.

He realized that unless he took me down, he couldn't escape.

His attacks began focusing entirely on me.

Even so, the others continued their assault, but he seemed to trust his regeneration to handle that part.

His arm lashed out with ferocious speed.

Dodging and defending, I engaged in a frantic battle of wits with him.

The Apostle sneakily blended physical changes into his attacks.

His deflected arm would twist and come back from the opposite direction, or his maw would thrust forward to rip my head off.

This was nothing like the distant past, when I stood in a ring.

Endless irregularities and foul play.

No rules—just one relentless attack after another.

Pure, instinct-driven slaughter.

And because of that, I could react to every single one of his attacks.

If he had been thinking and mixing in feints, it would have been harder to read.

But he was an Apostle.

A beast that only knows how to kill and devour.

His arm flew at me.

I stepped forward, tucking my body in a tight roll.

Kagagak!

His hand grazed past my ear.

Even the sound of the air splitting made his strength terrifyingly clear.

The Apostle’s jaws opened wide.

He was trying to smash my head completely.

But I lowered my head even further.

So low it barely scraped the ground.

Crunch!

A few strands of hair were sliced off by his sharp teeth.

That much, I could let him have.

Now it’s my turn.

Lowering myself to the limit, I delivered an uppercut from below.

Flames burst from my elbow.

Magic engravings and mystical power surged together.

With explosive force that nearly dislocated my shoulder, my knife-hand shot upward.

Sizzleeeeeee!

The flame of the Ashen Dragon intensified, roaring upward from my hand.

Crunch!

The knife-hand finally pierced the Apostle’s thick hide.

As I skewered his solar plexus, I let out a shout and unleashed the full power of the Ashen Flame.

Kwagagagagagak!

Ashen fire erupted upward through the Apostle, blazing into the sky.

“GERRRAAAAAAAAGH!!”

The Apostle screamed with his mouth wide open.

At the same time, his body began turning red.

“When that bastard turns red, he shoots a beam! Dodge it!”

Solvas’s voice cried out from afar.

I was already moving as soon as I heard it.

Black blood dripping from the Apostle's mouth evaporated, and a heat ray fired out.

At the same moment, a white beam shot in from behind me.

The goddess’s declaration of victory.

The heat ray and the divine beam collided, and the world briefly ignited.

Boom!

Caught in the blast, I tumbled across the ground.

Ban caught me and helped me stop.

Barely getting back to my feet, I gasped for breath.

Where I had stood just moments ago, another elemental fusion attack came raining down.

Through the raging storm of wind and fire, the Apostle burned.

“That damn thing… you'd think it'd be dead by now.”

“Seriously.”

Ban nodded in agreement and stood up again.

“It’s Hannon, isn’t it.”

And he tossed it out bluntly.

As expected, perhaps because we’ve clashed several times before, he’d already figured it out.

“Yeah.”

“We’ll talk more later.”

“You, Ban!”

With Isabel joining us, we once again kicked off the ground.

The strategy for dealing with the Apostle was the same as before.

Overwhelm it before its hyper-regeneration can catch up.

To carry that out, the moment we arrived as soon as the spirit unification finished—

What we saw was the Apostle, charred completely black.

So, was the Apostle dead?

No.

My eyes caught what lay beneath the Apostle.

Beneath the blackened shell of the Apostle—

There was a gaping hole.

Chill!

At the same time, the ground beneath Sharin began to crack.

Come, Lightning Caller!

With an unhesitating call, lightning crashed down from the sky.

Isabel pulled Ban close and shielded him with her wings.

Lightning seeped into my entire body, transforming my form.

Celestial Dragon Form.

I transformed my entire body into lightning and without hesitation rushed toward Sharin.

Heavenly Lightning.

The fastest speed I could muster.

The magic that Sharin used to trap the Apostle—was it truly only cast on the ground?

Sharin is too smart for that.

She would have secured the underground thoroughly with magic too.

But that magic was breached.

What does that mean?

An irregular Apostle came to mind.

The one who gained magic immunity after being repeatedly struck by Sharin’s spells.

Even if it was an evolved Apostle, could it not have similar traits?

Of all the accumulated damage, the strongest effect was likely Sharin’s first barrage of spells.

The Apostle relentlessly targeted Sharin because those spells posed a true threat.

None of the rearguard had grasped the situation yet.

Too late.

Even Heavenly Lightning wouldn’t make it in time!

At last, the Apostle burst through the ground and lunged at Sharin.

The defensive magic she always kept around her responded, but the Apostle’s hand pierced through it.

In that moment, time seemed to slow.

And in the corner of my vision—

A blazing red flame blocked the way in front of Sharin.

At first, it was an axe.

But the axe shattered in the Apostle’s hand.

Next came an arm.

That too was pierced and shattered.

Finally, it was a body.

Red hair fluttered.

And red blood sprayed through the air.

My eyes widened as I realized who had stood in front of Sharin.

Seron Parmia.

While everyone else was focused on the Apostle, she alone bore the mission of protecting Sharin.

The weakest among us—she thought more of her comrades than herself.

Only Seron predicted the Apostle’s movements.

And that’s why she could protect Sharin.

She looked past the Apostle and smiled at me.

But that smile—it wasn’t like the ones she always gave me.

The Apostle’s hand burrowed into Seron’s chest.

And then, its arm burst out through her back.

BOOOM!

With my full power, I crashed into the Apostle with Heavenly Lightning and sent it flying.

Thunk!

The flung Apostle crashed into the ground and rolled.

Dorara’s wind magic followed right behind, pounding the Apostle further.

The spirits raged.

Despite their onslaught, the Apostle kicked off the ground and dodged.

My eyes couldn’t bear to look behind me.

I couldn’t bring myself to see.

Because deep inside my chest, a long-lost, wild emotion was roaring uncontrollably.

The Celestial Dragon Form began to crumble.

It was because my will couldn’t fully control the dragon’s magic.

That’s how deeply shaken I was at this moment.

“Seron!”

The children’s belated screams echoed out.

The Apostle possessed a bodily disintegration trait.

That Apostle’s hand pierced Seron’s chest.

So then, what happened to her?

I didn’t want to imagine it.

I couldn’t look back.

If I did, something inside me felt like it would shatter.

Something I had long forgotten in my chest began to stir violently.

My mouth was parched, and my vision spun.

Even the curse of the Veil Bandages couldn’t suppress the emotion that screamed out from within me.

“Prince! Sweet potato!”

At that moment, I heard a voice, strained as if it had been cut off.

My head snapped to the side.

There was Seron, being treated by the Saint and Joachim.

My eyes widened.

Alive.

Seron was alive.

She spat out the blood pooled in her mouth and, with sheer rage, shouted:

“What are you standing around for, idiot?! Go fight already!”

Seron shoved me in the back.

I had no idea how she had survived the physical collapse.

My eyes trembled.

At the same time, strength surged through my entire body.

“HUSBAND!”

At that moment, Sharin screamed louder than ever before.

Her blazing eyes glared as she threw her broken staff to the ground.

In its place, she pulled out a new staff and shouted:

“From now on, I’m casting magic only on my husband, so take it all!”

The magical engravings etched into my body—

They all came from Sharin.

Now she was going to push those engravings to their absolute limit.

“In return, make sure you kill that bastard.”

Her magic had been pierced.

Seron had nearly died.

As a mage, there was nothing more humiliating.

The world’s greatest mage was angry.

And so was I.

Even wrapped in the Veil Bandages, the emotions that burst out—

This was definitely rage.

Seron had kept her promise to help me reclaim my emotions.

I’ll praise her later… then scold her until she dies.

Crack!

The Apostle, now with fur turned white, opened its jaws.

The beast-like creature narrowed its eyes.

It seemed to regret not finishing off Sharin.

Yeah, you better regret it.

Because that really was your last chance.

“Foara! Beaquirin!”

I shouted the names of the Spirit Duo and stomped the ground with all my might.

“Unleash maximum firepower!”

The Spirit Lord and High Spirit revealed themselves.

Both of them unleashed their full power, engulfing the ground in a storm of fire.

The Apostle, who had planned to escape his body again and regenerate, was trapped within the inferno.

It may be immune to magic, but not to spirits.

Not even it could escape this.

At that moment, the magic engravings across my body all began to shine at once.

Sharin overheated her staff, stacking spell upon spell.

Magic engravings held synergy with the arcane mystery.

And dragon magic, by classification, belonged to the arcane.

The Dragon let out a thunderous roar.

The immense power erupting from my body shook the air itself.

Maybe this was the true Heavenly Dragon Form that Zerion once used.

Feathers of the Goddess fluttered in the air.

Isabel unleashed her divine wings at full power.

Wings carrying the sun appeared behind my back.

Stage Two of the Goddess’s Wings.

As expected of the main heroine—she awakened once more at a critical moment.

Right now, I was truly grateful for her talent.

I kicked off the ground and charged straight through the storm of fire.

There I saw the Apostle thrashing to escape.

Spotting it, I swung my hand in a knife strike, harder than ever before.

BOOOOM!

Not the clash of metal, but a full-blown explosion resounded.

The Apostle spread its arms wide and opened all of its eyes.

Finally… it felt threatened.

Good.

Keep those eyes wide open.

Watch closely.

Because today is the day you die.