Time Healer Ceres - Chapter 128

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

Lot waited until those figures had completely vanished before rising from his seat. From this moment on, there was only one thing he needed to do.
Ensure perfect preparations so that everyone returning when the Black Forest was breached could receive treatment as quickly and safely as possible.
“Y-yes, Guild Master.”
“We…”
The other mercenary guilds found themselves in an awkward position watching the Black Guild’s resolve. If they failed to venture all the way into the Black Forest now, it was already clear how people would treat them going forward.
The gap between them and the Black Guild would only widen. And everyone would mock them, laugh at these cowards who’d fled in fear.
But were they supposed to march in knowing it meant death? Shame was temporary, but keeping the guild intact without casualties—wasn’t that the wiser choice?
Whoosh!
“…!”
The guild masters’ eyes widened in an instant. A single figure had swept past them and entered the Black Forest entrance in the blink of an eye.
“The Grand Duke Persha?”
It was Kainel. If not for that distinctive snow-white hair, they might not have recognized him at all.
He looked desperate—so unlike the usual expression of unconcern he wore, responding to nothing with particular emotion.
“…We’re going in too.”
“Sir?”
The Red Guild Master, who’d been staring intently into the Black Forest after the Grand Duke Persha, was the first to issue orders to his subordinates.
“Get ready.”
“We too…”
“Hurry.”
The other guild masters followed suit. The Grand Duke’s appearance ignited something in them like a spark to kindling, and they all turned toward the Black Forest with resolute faces.
‘At least…’
‘We won’t die.’
With the Grand Duke Persha, they wouldn’t. He brought certainty that unlike twenty years ago, this wouldn’t end with everyone inside the Black Forest perishing.
* * *
[Screeeee…screeech…]
“Haa… damn…”
This is endless. Seres drove her sword into the skull of a colossal centipede and exhaled a long breath.
Monsters surged without respite.
The moment one fell, waves of them crashed down again, and Seres’s sighs grew heavier.
[Squeeee… squee…]
Young Airien was in the same state. The rabbit had been creating protective barriers when people appeared and occasionally dispatching monsters using tree branches, but now she seemed exhausted, her long ears drooping limp to the ground as she collapsed with a soft thump.
“Rest now.”
[Squee…?]
“Stay there and rest.”
The young rabbit tried to approach again despite Seres’s command, but Seres shook her head. She told the creature to rest safely in the flower bed it had created, then turned away.
[SCREEEEE!]
[Screech, screech!]
More monsters surged forward. Seres regarded them with a look of weary exasperation and adjusted her grip on her sword.
-Screee…
Crack!
“…?”
Seres’s eyes widened in an instant. The horde of monsters bearing down on her froze in their tracks.
In the middle of the desert, they’d turned to ice statues.
Boom!
And through those frozen monsters came a single figure.
“…Kai.”
The moment she saw him, laughter spilled from Seres’s lips unbidden. It rose from a deep well of relief welling up inside her.
In this hopeless situation, she’d finally found a place to rest, even if only for a moment.
“Are you injured?”
It was his first word as he drew near.
“As you can see, I’m fi—? But what about you? Are you hurt?”
Seres asked with concern instead, having noticed his appearance. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead, and his breathing came in rough gasps.
“…Ha.”
Once Kainel confirmed that Seres had no particular injuries, he finally exhaled the breath he’d been holding.
‘Where did Seres go?’
‘The Temple, sir.’
‘Why there?’
‘I’m not sure, sir.’
He was in the middle of learning from Ben, a member of the Sky Organization, that Seres had gone to the Temple today.
“Kainel! A Black Forest has appeared near the Temple!”
“…The Temple?”
The moment his aide Del brought the news, Kainel shot to his feet. Learning that the Black Forest was S-Rank made his chest tighten with urgency.
He spent over an hour wandering through the Black Forest searching for her, and for the first time, he understood what it meant to feel panic—each step met with an onslaught of monsters demanding his attention.
The moment he saw her standing unharmed, the burning thirst that had consumed him vanished as if it had never been.
He knew well that she wasn’t the type to fall easily to monsters, yet sometimes she moved with a recklessness that made no sense.
The thought that she might have rushed toward the S-Rank Boss alone sent dread coiling through him.
“Haah… this is endless.”
Seres muttered her frustration, watching Kainel work. Having experienced this once before, she was tiring faster than the first time.
She knew far too well that slaying monsters endlessly served no purpose—only killing the Boss would end this.
‘I have to kill the Boss somehow.’
But that wasn’t possible, and that was what made it harder. Nothing exhausts a person like a fight without end.
A piercing screech echoed across the sand.
Watching another wave of monsters surge toward her, Seres brushed her hair back in frustration. At this rate, I’ll collapse from exhaustion before I even finish killing them all.
‘There’s really only one way.’
Now that Kainel was here, perhaps the Boss could be handled eventually, no matter how long it took.
‘But while that happens…’
So many others would die.
It had happened before. She and those two had cleared an S-Rank Black Forest, but the result had been horrific.
Not only civilians but countless mercenaries who had come to rescue them had met their end. Fewer than a third had survived.
‘Am I to watch that massacre happen again?’
Seres shook her head slowly. It wasn’t as though she had no options at all…….
The problem was the lack of certainty.
‘I’ve used it on a B-Rank Black Forest before…….’
Would it work on S-Rank?
“Kai.”
A booming crash erupted as he finished off a cluster of monsters.
Kainel turned to face her.
“Buy me some time.”
Without asking what she needed time for, Kainel nodded and turned back to the advancing horde, pouring his Freezing Power at them. Seres watched as every monster that drew near him turned to ice, then lowered her hand to the ground.
Hoping—praying—that this power would work on S-Rank.
The very air around her began to shift.
A long, slow breath escaped her lips.
When she closed her eyes, the atmosphere of the entire space began to change.
“…! What are you doing right now.”
Kainel felt the shift first. He severed a monster’s neck mid-swing, turning to stare at her, his face contorting. He understood immediately what she was attempting.
“Stop.”
She was reversing time. The entire space, back to before the Black Forest appeared!
She had done this once before. A B-Rank Black Forest near the Orphanage had needed immediate clearance, and what she had ultimately done was rewind time itself.
And after that, she had lost consciousness for three days straight.
“Stop it!”
But this was an S-Rank Black Forest. Kainel moved to stop her, unable to predict what burden such an act would place on her body.
The air crackled with violent force.
Yet Seres seemed to hear nothing, focused entirely on the work of reversing time.
The change began in the space where she knelt.
The sand-covered earth began to reveal its original form, the transformed zone expanding faster and faster.
Ten minutes… twenty….
Soon, no sand could be found anywhere nearby. The eerie shrieks of the endless waves of monsters had ceased entirely.
Yet Seres did not release her power—the reversal was not yet complete.
Blood began to trickle down.
“Seres!”
Blood flowed from her nose.
“Damn… so fucking stubborn.”
Even between her tightly clenched teeth, thin threads of blood seeped through.
Another long breath, deeper than the first.
At last, even the searing air that had burned the earth itself transformed. The entire space reverted to its original form.
Far beyond the dunes, the oppressive presence of the powerful Boss was no longer felt.
She swayed on her feet.
“Cough!”
Only then did her tightly sealed lips part, opening for the first time.
“Ugh…….”
This was a new experience altogether.
A torrent of blood far greater than moments before came pouring from her mouth. Even Seres found herself bewildered by this bodily response, one she’d never encountered in all her life.
‘Hell. Anyone watching would think I’m actually dying.’
Seres grasped at her fading consciousness and tried to smile as naturally as possible. She did so while watching Kainel’s hardened face as his hand reached toward her.
‘Come on, lighten up.’
Yet the smile seemed to have the opposite effect—she could see Kainel’s brow furrow sharply in response.
‘Whatever.’
Consoling him could wait.
Seres finally released the grip she’d barely maintained on her consciousness.

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