The Last Place Hero’s Return - Chapter 302

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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 302. Interlude – The End of Eternity
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Morris squinted at me, genuinely unable to comprehend my expression.
“You….”
I worked my lips silently for a moment before shaking my head.
‘There’s no point in saying anything.’
That’s right.
What use was it now to tell him that the comrades visible before his eyes were illusions?
What he desired wasn’t the truth.
It was things that merely resembled the truth.
“I don’t know what you’re brooding about,”
Morris twisted his lips into a cruel smile.
“but do you really have the luxury for that?”
Morris kicked off the ground violently.
Thousands upon thousands of petals crashed down like a tidal wave.
The aura was distinctly more powerful than during our first battle.
“Kuh…!”
The petals surged forward, swallowing my ash.
My hair, grazed by the petals, was torn away as if mauled by a beast’s fangs and tumbled across the ground.
Scattered ash drifted through the air.
In the blink of an eye, I was resurrected and swung my blade toward the charging Morris.
Krrrrrrang!
A deafening roar that couldn’t be called a mere clash of swords.
The shockwave alone twisted the earth for hundreds of meters, and a tremendous tremor shook the entire Academy.
Boom! Crack-crack-crack! Krrrrang!
The beautiful ornamental trees that were the pride of the Hero Academy were uprooted and rolled across the ground, while roads carved from solid marble shattered into pebble-sized fragments that scattered through the air.
A battle of gods, in the truest sense.
In such a fierce battle worthy of mythology itself, neither Morris nor I could remain unscathed.
“Gah, ugh…!”
My head was crushed.
My arms were torn away.
My legs twisted at grotesque angles.
Entrails spilled from my torn abdomen, and blood gushed between the mangled flesh.
Death.
An endless cycle of death and resurrection.
My consciousness was gnawed away like a candle flickering in a violent storm.
And above all else.
Whoooosh!
With each death, the primordial flame’s power that I had barely managed to stabilize grew increasingly violent.
“Kuh, ah, ugh….”
“Hah, hah! How is it? Getting close to your limit?”
Morris too was not immune to the shock of nearly hundreds of consecutive ‘deaths’, his face pale as he gasped for breath.
But my condition was far worse.
Whoooosh!
The violent, primordial flames consumed my body.
An intense, surging urge to destroy.
My mind was flooded with a powerful desire to burn the entire world into a handful of ashes.
‘This is….’
The destructive impulse that Demon Humans who accepted the power of the Demon God felt.
If you amplified that tens, hundreds of times over, would it feel exactly like this?
An intense thirst, as if sharp hooks were scraping the inside of my throat, gnawed away at my reason.
“Don’t try to resist the desire.”
Morris twisted his lips upward and continued speaking.
“That impulse you’re feeling right now— that’s your true nature.”
“My true nature?”
“That’s right!”
Morris spread his arms wide and cried out as if wailing.
“You know it too, don’t you? How immense is the pain that death brings!”
Every time I died, I thought about it.
Every moment my breath stopped, I yearned for it.
Continuously, endlessly.
“Wishing desperately that this damned life would finally end!”
“….”
“Pretending it doesn’t matter! Acting as if it’s nothing!”
Deep within our hearts.
More desperately than anyone.
More urgently than anyone.
“We continue to crave death, don’t we?”
“….”
I couldn’t deny it.
Just as Morris said, somewhere deep in my heart, the desire for ‘death’ still lingered.
Whiiiiing.
A blizzard swirled before my eyes.
The endless expanse of the Snowy Wasteland, the cold that crushed my lungs, snow piling up to my knees.
My life changed through regression.
A life spent fleeing death gained a purpose for living.
The cold no longer stung, and when I awoke, what greeted me was not the endless stretch of the Snowy Wasteland but the smiles of those I held dear.
Yes.
I am happy now.
More than any other moment.
‘But.’
How long could this happiness possibly last?
After a hundred years had passed?
After a thousand years had passed?
After tens of thousands of years, or even ten thousand years had passed?
Would I still be alive then?
Would I still be able to say I was happy then, just as I am now?
As I had been in my previous life.
Was I not living a life bound by endless existence, thrashing about in desperation to die?
-That couldn’t possibly be true.
I heard someone’s voice.
-Iris, Yurina, Berald, Sophia, Elisha, Lanez, Camelia… how many more years could they possibly live? A hundred? Two hundred? And then what happens after that?
It wasn’t Morris’s voice.
-In the end, you’ll be left alone.
It wasn’t the Demon God’s voice either.
-Now is the time.
So terribly familiar.
Excessively intimate.
-Your final chance to meet the end of eternity that you’ve so desperately yearned for!
My own.
Voice.
“….”
Whoooosh!
Fierce flames wrapped around my body.
The method was simple.
Don’t resist the flames—just quietly close your eyes.
Then it would end.
My long life, my endless eternity.
I could finally place a period on it.
“…ha.”
A dry laugh escaped between my lips.
“Damn it.”
I took a step forward, pushing through the raging inferno.
‘My life isn’t mine alone.’
So how could I possibly dare to place a period on it without permission?
‘Yurina.’
Because of the courage I learned from you, I stand here now.
‘Berald.’
Because of the perseverance I learned from you, I stand here now.
‘Sophia.’
Because of the wisdom you taught me, I stand here now.
‘Iris.’
Because of the love you taught me, I stand here now.
‘Elisha.’
Because of the insight you taught me, I stand here now.
‘Lanez.’
Because of the warmth you taught me, I stand here now.
‘Camelia.’
Because of the will you taught me, I stand here now.
Yes.
Because you existed, I could exist.
Therefore.
“I cannot die.”
Whoooosh!
Brilliant crimson flames engulfing my body gradually shift to ashen gray.
“What….”
Morris’s eyes widened in shock.
He knew well the intense destructive impulse that the Primordial Fire possessed.
He had suffered terrible thirst from merely carrying a fragment of it within himself.
“You don’t want to die?”
Ha.
Morris’s expression twisted harshly.
“That’s only because you know nothing.”
Gnaw.
He bites his lip and looks around.
Scattering petals.
The figure of my comrade who always stood beside me and cheered me on is nowhere to be seen.
“You can spout such nonsense only because you’ve never lost everything!”
Yes.
I knew.
I knew, but I simply turned away.
That ‘we’ no longer exists.
That my comrade, with whom I promised to return together, died hundreds of years ago.
“I know.”
“Ha! You know? You haven’t even lived a hundred years and you claim to know!”
Morris cried out in anguish.
“It never ends!”
Fragments of overflowing emotion leak through his lips.
“So lonely I could die… yet I cannot die… no matter how much I endure, and endure, and endure, and endure, it never ends…!”
He vomits forth the emotions he had suppressed.
“Knowing it’s a hallucination and yet laughing like an idiot, babbling away… repeating the same conversations hundreds of times, thousands of times…!”
And yet.
“But it never ends…! I’ve smashed my head, severed my neck, torn out my heart, burned my body! No matter what I do, I keep coming back…!”
“So.”
I exhale deeply and take another step forward.
“I understand.”
Better than you do.
“…What?”
“Was it 500 years? The time you’ve lived?”
“Yes! For a span of time so impossibly long that you couldn’t even fathom it! I’ve endured all this time!”
“A span so impossibly long that I couldn’t fathom it….”
Ha.
Even knowing full well that comparing who suffered more means nothing whatsoever.
A bitter laugh escaped me unbidden.
“That must have been difficult.”
“You….”
Did he sense the mockery woven into my words?
Morris glared at me with a contorted face.
“Yeah, let’s see how long you can endure the shock of ‘death’!”
Whiiiiing!
Petals scattered violently as Morris’s assault crashed down upon me once more.
Crack!
Brain matter sprays from between my crushed skull.
Crunch!
A sickening fracture echoes from limbs bent at unnatural angles.
Splorch!
Entrails spill from my torn abdomen.
“….”
With each petal that touches me, death repeats itself.
And yet.
I take another step forward.
“What… what are you….”
Morris stared at Dale with an expression of disbelief and horror.
Though the body is restored intact by the blessing, the psychological damage continues to accumulate relentlessly.
‘Normally, experiencing over a hundred resurrections in such a short span should render someone unable to move properly…!’
In less than thirty minutes, Dale had already experienced over a thousand deaths, yet he continued walking forward without hesitation.
One step, then another.
Slowly but surely, he drew closer.
“What the hell are you…!!!”
Morris screamed at Dale, who now stood before him, his voice a desperate wail.
Thud.
Dale’s blade touched his left chest.
“I am your end.”
Squelch.
The sword wrapped in primordial ash pierced through Morris’s stigma, driving deep.
“Ah.”
Whoooosh!
The raging power of primordial flame devoured his protection without mercy.
“…So this is the end.”
I could sense it instinctively.
If I met death in this flame, there would be no resurrection.
“Ha.”
A dry laugh escaped my lips as I turned my head.
Beyond the fully bloomed chrysanthemums, I could see the faces of those I longed for.
Why was it?
In this moment alone, they felt not like phantoms, but truly alive.
“…I’m sorry.”
A transparent tear rolled down between the petals turning to ash and fading away.
“I couldn’t… keep my promise….”
Let’s go back.
To where we came from.
To our homeland.
Whishhhhh.
The ash remaining from the burned petals scattered into the void.

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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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