Chapter 59: The Sword of Judgment

The rescued mother collapsed to the ground, clutching her terrified, speechless daughter, Lina, tightly in her arms.

She didn’t even have time to comprehend what had happened.

She only instinctively felt the chilling breath of death that brushed past them, and the brief but solid warmth from the palm of the unfamiliar man who pushed them away at the last moment.

There was still fear in Lina’s eyes, but her small hand gripped the rough toy bear tightly.

All of this happened in a split second.

For a moment, Faluhir’s breath stopped.

This player… actually chose to sacrifice himself to save the natives?

“Roar——!”

A deafening roar yanked Faluhir back to reality from her brief daze.

The flesh-and-blood monstrosity that Zehril had become was clearly growing impatient with the struggles of these ants.

Its thick arm swept across, easily flattening half a street’s worth of buildings.

Bricks, wooden beams, the wails and cries of residents—all were swept up in the destructive torrent.

The complexity and confusion in Faluhir’s eyes vanished in an instant.

There was no time.

No time to ponder a player’s abnormal behavior, no time to mourn the lives lost.

She was the God’s Chosen, the last line of defense for Arslan.

When everyone else fell into despair, she had to be the only one who remained clear-headed, searching for a way out.

Her gaze swept across the battlefield.

The Sage of Jingwei and his Council Members were still struggling to restrain the beast.

Multicolored magic blasts and rune formations bombarded the monster’s body, but only exploded into harmless splatters of flesh.

Their attacks were like stones thrown into the sea—apart from a few splashes, they meant nothing.

Eileen was leading the last group of magic girls, hoarsely directing civilians to evacuate through the sewer entrance on the other side.

Several girls had collapsed from magical exhaustion, but the defensive line had never broken.

Faluhir took a deep breath.

The cold air stung her lungs, sharpening her mind.

The Ice Sword in her hand radiated chilling energy, but before the towering mountain of flesh dozens of meters high, it seemed so fragile—like a child’s toy.

She needed power.

Power enough to pierce through that filthy flesh, to freeze its regenerating core.

Absolute power.

She needed… her sword.

Frost Snow’s Call had already been taken by Zehril into the depths of the Demon Domain’s forbidden marsh.

Retrieving it now was impossible.

She needed an even stronger weapon…

If only Yingyue were here…

Faluhir thought again of that bright, flamboyant girl.

If she were still here, she would never have fallen into such near-despair.

—

“What are you thinking about, Faluhir?”

The newcomer wore a noble outfit in gold and crimson, long outdated.

Her well-kept face bore few marks of time, but in her eyes was the weariness and depth of one who had seen the world’s changes.

Faluhir’s pupils shrank slightly, and she forced out two words from her hoarse throat.

“Janet… senior?”

It was Janet, the previous generation’s God’s Chosen.

After abdicating ten years ago, she had lived in seclusion, cutting nearly all ties with the church and royal family, showing no interest in worldly affairs.

Faluhir had only exchanged brief and not-so-pleasant words with her at the recent banquet celebrating her victory over the Fungal Mother.

At that time, Janet’s words brimmed with disappointment and mockery toward the decaying kingdom.

She viewed the so-called God’s Chosen as mere tools maintaining the rule of the greedy, bloated king and his parasitic nobles.

To her, the idea of protection had long lost its meaning.

Faluhir, on the other hand, stubbornly insisted that what they protected was not royal power, but the innocent people living on this land.

Their argument had ended with no resolution.

Though Janet compromised, it was clear she regarded Faluhir’s ideals as naïve illusions.

Faluhir once believed that Janet’s noble birth had limited her perspective, blinding her to the suffering of the common people.

She even felt some disdain in her heart.

Faluhir never expected to see her again, here and now.

Janet did not look at her.

Her gaze passed over Faluhir’s shoulder, settling on the rampaging flesh monster, on the crying and fleeing civilians among the ruins, and finally on the mother and daughter saved by Shadowfang Breaker.

Her eyes were complex.

There was pain, reluctance, and a trace of self-mocking relief.

“I once thought that protecting this nation, rotten to its roots, had no meaning.”

Janet’s voice was soft, but it reached Faluhir’s ears clearly, carrying a strange power that calmed the chaos around them.

“I mocked your naivety, Faluhir. I thought you were just like me when I was young—bound by the empty title of God’s Chosen, blind to the filthy deals behind the throne.”

She paused, slowly turning to face Faluhir’s pale face.

“But now I understand. I was wrong.”

Janet shook her head gently.

“The meaning of our protection never lay with the fool on the throne, nor with the bloated parasites in the council chamber.

It lies with… them.”

She lifted her hand and pointed into the distance.

She pointed to the families supporting each other as they fled danger.

To the soldiers trembling with fear, yet still fighting to save the wounded.

To the mother who shielded her child with her frail back.

“It lies with those who struggle to survive among the rubble, who fight to live on.

It lies with the purest longing for tomorrow in their eyes.”

In Janet’s eyes, a fiery light rekindled—a heat Faluhir had never seen before.

“This conviction—you saw it before I did.

I was blinded by disappointment for too long.”

Faluhir’s lips moved, but she couldn’t utter a single word.

The wound on her abdomen, the exhaustion in her heart, seemed to be soothed by her senior’s words.

A warm current welled up from her very soul, bringing her to the brink of tears.

“Senior…”

“There’s no need to speak.”

Janet cut her off, her expression solemn and grave.

“I have been away from the battlefield for many years.

The power of God’s Chosen has waned, and my body can no longer bear high-intensity combat.

I cannot cut down that evil with my own hands as you can.”

Her tone carried no regret—only the calm of one who had made a final decision.

“But I can still give my last strength.”

Janet took a deep breath.

The hem of her golden-red dress fluttered without wind.

A vast but restrained magic awakened at her center, radiating outward.

It was a force pure and immense, carrying a sacred majesty completely different from Faluhir’s piercing frost—more like a brilliant, warming sun.

“Faluhir, I will forge all my remaining divine power and magic into a sword for you.”

Her voice rang with strength, each word as heavy as a mountain.

“A Sword of Judgment powerful enough to condemn evil and purify corruption!”