CHAPTER 202
I will bring everyone back with Resurrection Magic.
Bringing people back to life from nothingness, after they had turned to ash, used to be impossible.
But the current me could do it.
As my body continuously triggered Resurrection Magic, my mastery over it had transcended mere proficiency.
Lifespan, soul, physical body—none of it mattered.
If it was me.
I could revive everyone.
Even if it took ten years, a hundred years, a thousand years, or ten thousand years.
I would absolutely bring everything back.

[It is a world with nothing left anyway.]

The Transcendent spoke to my resolve.

[Poor child, you have become an existence capable of living without them. Why do you cling to things that will ultimately disappear?]

I had Resurrection Magic.
I had transcended death long ago, and I would have absolutely no problem living on in the future.
I had fought tooth and nail just to survive up until now.
Paradoxically, even though I was the furthest from death, I struggled to live harder than anyone else.
And now.
There was nothing anywhere that could threaten me with death.
A situation where even a Transcendent couldn't kill me.
It was perhaps the very situation I had desperately wished for.

However, I could give the simplest answer to the Transcendent's question.

"After living for a while, I realized I can't live alone."

Can a person live alone?
That wasn't just a question about survival.
Surviving is possible.
If you eat, sleep, and pass the days, you are technically alive.
But what does it truly mean to live?

For me, who possessed Resurrection Magic, life was something I always returned to.
Why was I so desperate to return?
Amidst disgust, anxiety, hatred, and agony.
Why did I keep coming back to life?
What did I want to live for?
I knew the answer now.

"I just wanted to live with the people I care about."

People who liked me.
And the people I liked.
A world that I could love.
I wanted to live in that kind of world.
So, I would save everyone.
Not for today, but for a distant future.
I chose to live today for that sake.

The Transcendent watched me in silence.
I didn't expect the Transcendent to understand my choice.
I never wanted anyone's understanding in the first place.
This was simply my reason for living, my goal.
After all, we were all fundamentally different beings.

[Poor child.]

The Transcendent spoke once more.

[Let us make a deal.]

Light began to seep out from the Transcendent.

[I shall take your everything. For I have long wished to soar once again.]

The light was so intense that I couldn't even open my eyes.
What did it mean to take my everything?
I couldn't understand the meaning, but the Transcendent continued.

[In exchange, I shall give you the world.]

A dizzying light pierced through my body.
The light was so fierce that my vision turned completely white, and I couldn't feel anything.

[The world I give you holds nothing but possibilities. As long as I take flight, only countless possibilities will exist.]

"What do you mean by 'possibilities'?"

[You were all born with the destiny and potential to become Transcendents. It was a kind of predetermined result.]

The saying that everyone living in Astrape was a seed of a Transcendent.
Those words hadn't been wrong.

[But with my departure, that predetermined result vanishes for you. You must decide for yourselves what you will become.]

The Transcendent subtly conveyed that it would be an incredibly difficult path.
I listened carefully to those words before slowly forming a smile.
Because it really wasn't that hard of a concept to grasp.

"That's fine."

I offered my gratitude to the Transcendent that had embraced us all this time.

"Because we've grown up now."

Not everything that moves forward in the world needs a grand purpose.
It was enough to simply strive to live a life where you don't regret the choices you make each day.

[You have grown up so much.]

The single massive tree that had bloomed within my body burst into radiant flowers all over its branches.
The petals scattered in the wind, and soon turned into seeds that spread to every corner of the world.

The Transcendent embraced those seeds, bid me its final farewell, and departed.
Countless fragments of light rained down.
The stars in the night sky flowed in reverse, leaving circular afterimages.
Taking in that distant, awe-inspiring sight, I, too, scattered into fragments of light.
A moment after drifting for a long time amidst the endlessly passing fragments of light...

Grip—

I felt the sensation of grasping something in my hand.

As I slowly opened my eyes, what I was holding was a sword. And it was a sword I had seen before.

Danmyung.
The Apostle created by the 1st Sword Lord.

That sword was suddenly resting in my hand. However, I could no longer feel the same presence from it as before. As if it had fulfilled its calling, Danmyung looked faded and dull.

Slowly, my peripheral vision returned. At the same time, I felt a weight on my waist and chest. When I slowly lowered my head, I saw two unconscious people clinging to me.

Aranseol and Babiyen.

The moment I saw them, my eyes shot wide open, and my arms instinctively reached out to embrace them. When I heard that everything was gone, they were the first two people who came to mind.

Facing them again, a pulse of emotion I had never felt before surged within me. Thrilled that I had gotten them back, I hurriedly looked around. I belatedly realized that this place was the Holy Land.

I saw Asheria Eve in the distance. She wasn't moving either, as if she had lost consciousness.

We definitely went into the pit, right?
What in the world happened?
And wasn't everything in the world supposed to have been erased by the other Transcendents?

As I slowly turned my head, I saw a broken altar. However, there was nothing beneath it. It was as if everything I had seen was just a dream.

But it wasn't a dream.
The vivid sensation of facing the Transcendent that I could still feel right now could never be dismissed as a dream.

Furthermore.

“...My heart?”

I felt the sensation of an organ beating wildly inside me. This was definitely a sensation I had forgotten a long time ago.

A heart.
My physical heart had returned.

At the same time, I clearly felt a presence beyond that heart.
The brilliantly bloomed tree.
That tree, which had been massive enough to touch the sky, was slowly fading away, as if it was meeting its end.

At that moment, the Transcendent's words came to mind.
The words that it would take my everything.
I finally understood what those words meant.

Along with that, I also realized why Danmyung had ended up like this.

'It was a coordinate.'

The only coordinate to which the world could return. Danmyung had been used as that coordinate. I couldn't know the exact meaning imbued within Danmyung, but I could feel a sense of satisfaction coming from it.

Ruuuumble—

At that moment, a tremor echoed across the sky. When I looked up, I saw a pure white hole torn into the night sky. The hole was unimaginably massive.

The Transcendents had finally pierced through.

Something poured down from the hole. That indescribable something instantly blanketed the earth, devouring everything in its path. Human bodies melted away without any resistance. It eventually swept over the land like a tidal wave and reached the Holy Land.

I merely watched that distant, overwhelming sight while holding the two of them in my arms. I wasn't afraid of it.

My crumbling tree.
Because I knew very well what the final power contained within that tree was.

"So, the 'everything' you took... was my infinite future."

I had Resurrection Magic.
Because of that, I could endlessly grow my Seed without dying. That process would be endless, pointing to the infinite future that existed for me. A future where I could eventually become a Transcendent through Resurrection Magic.

The Transcendent had taken that future.
In exchange, the Transcendent gave me a finite present.

Resurrection Magic.
To revive my world one last time.

The tidal wave crashed over me. Within it, Aranseol, Babiyen, Asheria Eve... and even I melted away.

The moment it covered and dissolved everything in this world...
The final Resurrection Magic of my life activated.

A Resurrection Magic that could only be triggered because everyone had melted down and become one. A Resurrection Magic for the single, finite life I had been given.

The world that had been erased into pure white.
That world returned, becoming a painting as if colors were being brushed back onto it. The hole in the sky was painted over, reverting to its original form, and the earth also returned to the shape it once held.

As if they had never been merged into one, everything began to move in their own distinct forms again.

Something soared up into the sky. I couldn't tell what it was, but it departed as if it no longer had any ties to this world. I could only feel its desperate wish to return to the heavens.

Despite it being night, a blue sky returned.
Beneath that sky, in the Holy Land.
I was sitting there, just like that.

Soon after, I felt two movements in my arms.

“......Harua.”
“......Harua?”

Aranseol and Babiyen each called my name. My gaze, which had been looking up at the sky, fell upon the two of them.

“......What exactly happened? Didn't we go into the pit?”
"This... is the Holy Land."

Both of them frowned with bewildered expressions. They both looked like they were experiencing mixed-up memories.

“Aha, hahahaha!”

At that moment, a burst of laughter rang out. Asheria Eve was roaring with maniacal laughter over there.

“Harua, Harua! Just what the hell did you do?”

She looked up at the blue sky with a gaze of absolute disbelief.

"The Transcendents are all gone!"

High up in the blue sky.
The Transcendents who had taken a curious interest in the earth were now gone. Aranseol and Babiyen must have belatedly realized this fact as well, as they looked up at the sky in astonishment.

“What kind of magic did you use? I'd love it if you told me.”

Asheria Eve asked me, her face brimming with intrigue. I could give a very simple answer to her curiosity.

“Fuck off.”

Why the hell would I answer you?
Stay curious forever.

Ignoring Asheria Eve, who was whining about how mean I was, I hugged the two women and stood up. Both of them still looked dazed, but they followed my lead.

"Did you do something, Harua?"
“What did you do this time? You didn't do anything dangerous, did you?”

Dangerous, huh.
I definitely did something dangerous.

“Sort of?”
"Harua, you did it again!"
“I don't really know what you did, but...”

While Babiyen was scolding me, Aranseol looked up at me and smiled.

"You saved us, didn't you, Harua?"

No.
I had to correct that.

“You guys saved me.”

Because you taught me that Resurrection Magic wasn't everything to a guy whose entire life revolved around it. That was why I was able to endure, endure, and endure again to return to this place.

“Anyway, let's go. There's still one thing left to do.”
“Aren't you taking me?”

Ignoring Asheria Eve's words, I walked outside with the two of them. Soon, I saw the people who had belatedly regained their senses.

"Oh, Transcendent?"
“His presence is...”

The people of the Holy Church in the Holy Land wore bewildered expressions. It was only natural, as even the presence of the Embrace of Holy Light had completely vanished.

Lua was waiting for me silently.

"Haru."

She looked at me and offered a faint smile.

“I believe that no matter what you've become, Haru, you are a Saint.”

I'll say it again, I'm nothing like that. Plus, it was a meaningless title for me now that I no longer had my Resurrection Magic.

"Please, go on ahead."

Lua let me go without holding me back any further. As she said, I had places to be.

"We're alive. We survived!"
“Didn't we just go through something?”

Some people were overjoyed just to be alive. And those with sharper senses felt that something was off.

However, I didn't have time to answer their questions. Because I had been just a tiny bit greedy when casting my final Resurrection Magic.

As I stepped outside the Holy Land, I searched my pockets. Inside was a single strand of blue hair. The hair from a promise I made a long time ago.

“Babiyen, can you prepare a set of women's clothes?”

Babiyen acted before questioning me. Once she brought a set of clothes, I sat down with the hair wrapped in my hands.

A pure white light seeped into my grasp. The completely crumbled tree squeezed out its very last ounce of strength. The Seed of Vanna that originally belonged to her. Using my crumbled tree as fertilizer, I enveloped that Seed.

Soon, a physical body began to form from the hair.

The person who was perhaps my very first beginning, and the one who might have been my chance to button my shirt right from the start.
The senior to whom I made my first promise.

Shishiroka was resurrecting.

The light scattered away. Now, not even a speck of light remained in my grasp. But it was fine. Resurrection Magic wasn't important to me anymore.

The revived Shishiroka slowly opened her eyes. Soon after, her eyes met mine and she blinked.

"Ha...rua?"

As she cautiously called my name, I reached out, cupping her forehead and brushing back her hair. The promise I made with her that day. I was finally able to keep it.

“Did you enjoy sleeping in?”

It truly had been a very long sleep.

Author's Note (Afterword):
Harua's journey sure took a long time! I will see you tomorrow with the final chapter and the completion afterword.