Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 108

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 108.
Blood That Will Not Fade (21)
‘Do you wish to be saved? Then swear you’ll become my slave!’
‘Say you’ll become my slave!’
‘Say you’ll become my slave!’
What?
There was no time to process anything. In an instant—or perhaps an eternity—as my ears reopened, a sharp scream pierced through them.
“Ah!”
I spun around… but it was too late.
From the creature’s body, nearly twenty talon-like claws erupted all at once. Even from spaces I’d thought empty, razor-sharp bone shards tore free. There were no gaps, no openings.
Yet Isolet evaded most of them. Both her swords had shifted entirely to defense.
But one claw, anticipating her leap, curved through a wide arc and pierced her left shoulder.
Suddenly, an ancient nightmare blazed through my consciousness. Within Daphnen’s mind, a memory egg that had turned black shattered its shell and blazed with terrible light.
‘What a beautiful child. Come closer so I may devour you.’
‘Shall I give you death? Or something far worse than death?’
‘That sword… do you not know that those who wield it must endure an endless, murderous night?’
When had these voices, so vivid and clear, entered my memory?
Before my eyes lay Emera Lake shrouded in darkness. A colossal creature lurked behind the mist. That day—how had Yefnen and I escaped from that creature?
The creature then had been many times larger than this one, and Yefnen possessed neither Isolet’s magic nor anything else. The Winterer had not wielded its full power then, and the creature had overwhelmed them both in body and spirit without even truly fighting.
It had burned those voices so deeply into my mind.
Why couldn’t I remember? I’d thought all my memories had returned when I spent time with Yefnen in the Wasteland, but was that not everything?
And yet…
“I will not forgive!”
I was moving. Gripping the Winterer with both hands, its light now colder and sharper, I felt the cloth-wrapped hilt pressing painfully into my palms—but I felt nothing. I charged forward and struck.
I rolled to avoid the incoming talons, ran, burned with fury, and threw myself at the creature.
There was another self watching me—a stranger observing my rage. That other self spoke to my anger.
‘A fool who repeats the same mistake twice—does even such a one deserve forgiveness?’
Ah… I wanted to say no.
But I faced losing Isolet in exactly the same way I’d lost Yefnen. Through my own incompetence and carelessness.
“You…”
Isolet had dropped to one knee but did not fall. The shoulder where she’d been struck had turned pitch black, the darkness spreading gradually down her arm.
It didn’t hurt. But a terrible chill seized her arm, making it impossible to grip her sword. She tried to resist, but ultimately her left blade slipped from her fingers.
She found it shameful. What would Father have said if he’d witnessed this? If he’d seen her offer to help only to become so utterly helpless, he surely would have delivered a scathing rebuke.
And then he would have rushed in to aid his foolish daughter.
Ah… what useless thoughts these were.
I didn’t understand why I’d become so weak. I’d lived believing that injury or death mattered little—that I feared neither combat nor death.
No, I wasn’t afraid of death now. A rotted arm could simply be severed.
What terrified me far more was helplessness, the sting of defeat, dependence on another.
I’d come this far to repay a debt I’d inadvertently owed to Daphnen. Failing to repay it was naturally shameful.
But something shook my heart far more deeply than that, leaving me dizzy. I could not bear to watch Daphnen struggle alone against an enemy that overwhelmed him.
Daphnen’s Winterer possessed a strength that Isolet’s blade lacked—the power to shatter those needle-sharp claws. Yet it was not a sword capable of executing the swift techniques that came so naturally to Isolet.
The creature’s attacks were relentless, and though I skirted the edge of disaster more than once, the peril never truly subsided. There was no way I could endure this for long.
Isolet forced herself upright, gripping her remaining right blade with all her strength.
Her left arm hung limp at her side, but she could simply pretend it didn’t exist. Once the battle ended, she would mention it to Morpheus and have it severed.
How fortunate it was her left arm and not her right. Had it been her dominant arm, the inconvenience alone might have driven her to simply surrender to death.
“Move!”
Two feet wrapped in sheepskin boots pushed hard against the ground, and spring-like knees transferred their elasticity upward. She launched herself into the air, intercepting Daphnen’s path while her right blade thrust forward in a direct strike.
She deflected the creature’s incoming talons at an angle, completely altering their trajectory. The claws bent downward, striking the monster’s lower body instead.
A silent scream pierced her eardrums. Everything around her hummed and vibrated.
Daphnen, gripping his sword in one hand alone, watched Isolet’s back as she turned. Suddenly, a pain like an awl boring into his heart assailed him.
That back… I despise seeing backs like that.
Why does everyone block my path and show me their backs? Among the three figures I recalled countless times while remembering Yefnen, was one not that back—a sword held in a single hand, standing between me and my younger sibling?
Memories shattering again… Now they burst like fireworks.
The memories revived completely, reaching toward other fragments scattered in the distance.
Come back, memories. Since you are mine, I shall shatter you with my own hands.
Beyond Yefnen’s back where a campfire once blazed, backlighting from the sun now formed a black silhouette. Instead of the petty thieves who had tried to steal the Winterer, a colossal creature loomed.
Soon the two images overlapped, becoming one and the same.
“This time… I won’t do that.”
I repeated it fiercely, so painfully that my origin grew and became an incantation of magic. I swore I wouldn’t die, yet in the end, I survived by treading upon another’s death. Upon whose death am I trying to survive this time?
Am I still a child? Perhaps. Does being young excuse everything? Who do I grieve for when I regret and suffer after losing someone? Are these tears for the dead, or sighs of relief for the living?
No, no!
I cannot spend eternity gazing at someone else’s back. I will catch every arrow that flies toward me with my own body!
“I’m your opponent!”
「Let your will become your hand.」
Light scattered like feathers from the deflected Winterer’s edge. Isolet saw it too—the brilliant radiance spreading from the blade as it was cast toward the creature, passing beside her.
「Within you.」
Whether it was the blade’s tip or the light emanating from it that made contact, a luminescence of snow carved through the dark flesh like a path of stars splitting the night sky.
The creature’s wings were severed, its body split, and the diagonal cross-section extended to the tip of the next wing. Yet for some reason, the severed surface and the creature’s form appeared as two separate images.
Fragments of light that had gathered on the blade and fallen rolled to Isolet’s feet. They were ice—solid ice shards that did not easily melt even beneath the sun’s rays.
「Together… be.」

Whoooosh!
Wind erupted, sweeping across all directions. Dust, stone fragments, and everything that could be lifted spiraled upward into a vortex.
The source was the wound carved by Winterer. Darkness flowed from within that chasm.
It was the power of the Other World, thrashing violently as it tried to consume this world but was blocked by a stronger force.
Daphnen did not stop. In this moment, he too leaped as high as Isolet, and like her, swung his blade with blinding speed. Isolet didn’t know what transformation had occurred. But Daphnen felt it.
My friend had entered my body and was lending me his strength.
He was amplifying and unleashing the abilities my flesh possessed. My strength, speed, even my vision expanded several times over. I had transcended humanity itself—I was in a state of spiritual possession.
The blade thrust by two souls together pierced deep into the monster’s chest, into that place where a human’s heart would be.
From the wound, a frost-white eye sprouted forth.
It was the branch of an eye. Spreading densely like thorns, it crystallized and continued to grow. Soon it transformed into a prison of ice.
Winterer too froze solid. The thin ice coating the blade rushed upward in an instant, engulfing Daphnen’s hand gripping the sword. It was as though it sought to fuse his hand with the blade itself.
“Ahhh….”
Isolet stepped back and dropped the ice fragment she had picked up.
The monster no longer moved. Instead, the ice fortress that imprisoned it consumed the surrounding earth. The land transformed into winter. A massive ice flower was blooming, centered where the winter’s blade had been driven.
Spreading across where Daphnen stood, beyond Isolet’s position, engulfing the entire Ruins.
The power of destruction from the Other World.
The core of winter.
“Something terrible is unfolding.”
Despoina, who had stopped on the narrow path leading up to the Abandoned Village, exhaled a long sigh.
Morpheus nodded silently. Nauplion also stopped, looking up at the sky, listening intently to something.
No, he heard no sound. He was listening to the voice of premonition within his heart.
All three priests, each in their own way, sensed the crisis. Soon Despoina gripped her staff tightly and resumed walking as she spoke.
“We must hurry. We must go before it reaches a point of no return.”
Daphnen struggled to remove the ice covering his hand. But it was not easy.
The ice that had just formed seemed to have transformed into a glacier centuries old; neither body heat nor breath could produce even a drop of moisture.
Before his eyes was a prison made of sharp, crystalline ice.
The monster’s form no longer remained intact within. It clung there as half-melted remains, like dark stains.
What terrified him most was not knowing what he had done. The blade that would not leave his hand was equally unsettling.
It was difficult to imagine how far the winter, already beyond his sight, would spread. It might very well cover the entire Island in ice.
Unable to separate Winterer from his hand, Daphnen turned his body. As he tried to take a step, he slipped. Without thinking, he planted the blade against the ground.
But the moment the blade touched down, the ice that had been so unyielding cracked with a sharp sound and shattered.
Daphnen, turning around, saw Isolet.
“Isolet… you….”
He stopped mid-sentence, mouth agape. He had realized his voice was not his own.
A whisper echoed within his mind.
「Go to that person.」
Isolet, who had been watching the bewildered Daphnen, opened her mouth.
“There is a foreign presence in your body. Is it a benevolent spirit?”
This time, Isolet too flinched. Another being had answered using Daphnen’s lips. It was a young boy’s clear voice.
「You are truly beautiful.」
“Ah….”
Daphnen was at a loss for words. Unable to speak rashly, I could only shake my head and approach Isolet.
As I drew closer, I saw the black blight that had consumed Isolet’s left shoulder and half of her arm. My body trembled once more.
I knew that creature. And I knew all too well what consequences the wound inflicted by it would bring.
“Isolet, this can’t… be happening….”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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