My Illusion Is Survival - Chapter 24

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 24

Azel was completely mistaken right now.

‘That bastard must be deluding himself into thinking he can control his power.’

But reality was different.

Azel couldn’t control the power he gained through awakening.

“Yulia?”

“…Ah, Zel…”

How many times had I seen that illustration of Azel shedding tears of blood as he killed Yulia with his own hands.

That was a power humans should never have used in the first place.

‘What the hell is he trusting to carelessly use a power that becomes the foundation of destruction!’

If he became intoxicated with power and lost his mind like in the game, he would attack anyone without distinguishing friend from foe.

If that happened, forget about the magi or anything else—we’d all be holding hands on a nice trip to the afterlife together.

“Azel!”

When I called Azel’s name once more, those red eyes fixed on me.

However, he only looked at me and showed no intention of stopping his awakening.

Aigres, understanding my words, charged toward him at high speed, but dozens of people immediately blocked our way.

Spears flew from all directions and arrows grazed my cheeks. Fortunately, thanks to Aigres’s nimble movements, I wasn’t injured, but time kept getting delayed.

There’s no need for that, you know?

Even in the midst of all this, Azel’s eyes were telling me exactly that.

Rage boiled up inside me.

“Stop! You damn bastard!”

“Elpis?”

Meanwhile, the side I didn’t want to see move didn’t miss that opportunity.

Taking advantage of Azel’s attention being focused on me, Kazen sprang into action.

“…Dangerous!”

He threw away the sword in his hand and stretched out his pitch-black stained hand.

His intention was clear. He was trying to kill his opponent using magi.

But the direction his black fingertips aimed for wasn’t Azel.

‘Huh?’

Those glistening eyeballs that matched his sinister smile were pointed exactly in my direction.

“Elpis!”

He was clearly targeting me.

“I told you I’d kill you first.”

A terrible voice like the sound of metal casually pronounced a death sentence.

“Farewell, pretty one.”

This crazy bastard?

Something black that bloomed from his fingertips opened its maw toward me.

Aigres, who was already leaping across a great distance and landing, couldn’t possibly avoid this.

His thick paws flailed uselessly in the air.

I sensed death.

‘What, am I going to die?’

Dying so futilely like this?

I had even prepared the illusion pendant, determined to survive somehow.

I couldn’t think of any way to overcome this situation.

But right at that moment.

“Duck.”

“…!”

Along with a low voice, two strong arms embraced my body.

“…Azel?”

Azel—he had stopped his awakening and rushed to me.

Because he had thrown his body at me as if colliding, we became one mass and rolled off Aigres’s back.

“It’s okay.”

He curled his body as if wrapping around me with his entire being.

Like someone who had made up his mind to protect me from that pitch-black magi.

‘Why?’

That entire process unfolded slowly before my eyes like a broken videotape.

The black aura cast behind Azel’s back.

The warmth of strong arms wrapped around my back.

Even the whispered words saying it was okay.

Throughout seeing and feeling all of those things, I was overwhelmed by an intense question.

‘Why did he embrace me?’

Contrary to my initial expectations, I was aware that Azel was being excessively soft toward me.

But throwing his body like this for someone he couldn’t even remember was a problem of a different dimension.

‘You can’t even go back anymore, can you?’

The regression was already over.

If he died here and now, Azel would simply die. Of course, he had done this because he didn’t know that fact, but I, who knew the truth, was different.

‘You’d die for me?’

Why?

You.

…You, why?

The moment I had that question, my heart unconsciously sank with a thump.

I impulsively reached out my hand.

Following Azel’s action of embracing me with his whole body, I hugged his broad back.

Not because of fear of death, but because I didn’t want to see this man get hurt because of me.

Then immediately, something amazing happened.

Paaaaaaah-!

As if opposing the black aura, dazzling light burst forth from somewhere.

*

Azel doubted his eyes.

‘What just happened?’

It was a sight he had never seen in his life.

He had already lived for hundreds of years, repeating countless lives.

But even he didn’t know how to explain the scene before his eyes.

‘Beautiful.’

It started as a small light.

“Huh…!”

Small lights gathered to form a single group. And that light devoured all the black things that touched it.

It was a wondrous sight, as if stars were being born on earth.

“Oh God…!”

While someone’s exclamation disturbed his ears, Azel’s dead heart also began to beat vigorously at the wonder before his eyes.

He didn’t know the reason. Amidst an inexplicable surge of emotion consuming him, Azel followed with his eyes the one who had created all of this.

“Elpis…?”

In the center of the cluster of light.

She was there.

‘What on earth is happening.’

Azel instinctively rushed forward when he saw the black magic targeting Elpis.

‘She’ll never be able to withstand it.’

The human body was vulnerable to magic.

Even though the same applied to him, Azel thought he had to save Elpis.

‘Well, I can just go back anyway.’

No, that was a lie.

These were all just excuses.

At that moment, he had run recklessly without any calculation or plan. He simply thought he had to stop it.

‘Will I forget this moment too?’

When he embraced the frail body in his arms, only such thoughts came to mind.

What he felt afterward was regret.

Like that ‘cycle’ he had forgotten,

he feared that all of these current memories would disappear as well.

But something amazing happened.

A brilliant light burst forth from Elpis in his arms.

“Elpis?”

He unconsciously called her name at the bewildering phenomenon, but no answer came back.

With her eyes quietly closed while emitting light, she seemed like a completely different person.

The light that freely swam through the air around Elpis devoured the magic. But that wasn’t all.

The light that settled on the ground began purifying the earth stained with magic.

The blackened, dead land was rapidly regaining its original color.

“P-purification! The magic is being purified!”

‘That’s impossible.’

There was no way to revive dead land anywhere. Even that great Holy Maiden could only purify magic that had infected people, but couldn’t revive the land.

“Oh, God!”

However, the others were convinced that the miracle before their eyes was the power of purification.

“God! Please do not abandon us!”

Those who had chosen evil for themselves cried out in terror.

Even the black magic that rose from them was annihilated upon touching the light, so they seemed afraid they too would be consumed by the light.

But fortunately or unfortunately, the light only erased magic and did not harm people.

In the end, everyone was looking at Elpis with disbelieving eyes.

Even Kazen was the same, as they feared and revered the being who had created all these miracles.

But Azel was different.

“…That can’t be right.”

His face was deathly pale, and his unfocused eyes trembled finely.

“…No, no. That can’t be right.”

He only continued to deny it.

‘…It’s different.’

Because he had realized.

‘This power, this process isn’t purification.’

This wasn’t anything like purification.

‘She reversed it. As if… as if none of it ever happened.’

The light Elpis emitted didn’t purify the magic, but reversed time on the land.

Purification only erases magic. But her light reversed not only the magic but everything that had been broken here and there due to Azel and Kazen’s clash.

Returning everything to the state before it all happened.

This was impossible with the power of purification.

Since Azel had already encountered that woman called the Holy Maiden countless times, there was no way he wouldn’t know this difference.

“…Why…”

Azel despaired.

Because he had already vaguely realized the true nature of this miracle.

“Why,”

Black magic.

All of this was,

“Why does it have to be you.”

the power of black magic.

Elpis had used black magic to reverse time.

It was the moment when the truth he most wanted to turn away from was revealed before his eyes.

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