“Take your lies and die here!”
Laurence’s declaration rang in Aurelia’s ears like a funeral bell.
He gave her no further chance to explain, his body transforming once more into a deadly pale golden streak of light, tearing through the night.
The tip of his sword shot straight for the center of Aurelia’s forehead, so fast it left an afterimage.
Aurelia violently raised her hand, using her Dragonification to forcefully block Laurence’s full-power thrust, gripping his sword tightly.
“Let go!”
Laurence’s eyes sharpened.
His wrist suddenly exerted force, trying to shake off Aurelia’s restraint.
At the same time, his left fist, wreathed in blazing holy light, unhesitatingly blasted toward her chest.
He intended to trade injury for a kill.
Or rather, he simply didn’t care if Aurelia grabbed the blade.
As long as she died, everything would end!
Seeing this, Aurelia had no choice but to release her grip.
Her Dragonified right fist clenched and she threw a punch at his right shoulder, trying to disable his attack.
However, Laurence completely disregarded his own potential injury, stubbornly adhering to his suicidal, injury-for-kill fighting style.
Enduring the blow that dislocated his shoulder, he shoved Aurelia to the ground while simultaneously gathering all his strength and kicking her away with a powerful stomp.
THUD!!!
A dull impact sound rang out.
Aurelia felt an intense wave of pain from her abdomen flood her mind.
Her vision went dark in waves, and she even vomited a mixture of liquid—she couldn’t tell if it was stomach acid or blood.
Excruciating pain drowned her like a tide.
Her ribs were probably broken, her internal organs definitely severely injured.
Every faint breath brought a tearing agony.
She flew through the air like a kite with its string cut, crashing heavily onto the muddy ground several meters away.
Her vision darkened in waves, a ringing filled her ears, but the sound of Laurence’s approaching footsteps, step by step, clearly hammered against her eardrums.
He was getting closer.
With icy killing intent, to deliver the final blow.
“Since you don’t believe me… I’ll beat you until you can’t speak! You bastard—!”
Just as he stepped into the range near Aurelia, as his longsword was about to descend—
The frail figure on the ground, who was still vomiting large mouthfuls of blood, suddenly erupted.
Her entire right arm completely transformed into a terrifying pitch-black Dragon Claw, clenched into a fist, and swung out with a speed difficult for the naked eye to follow.
All his attention was focused on how to deliver the final blow, how to guard against possible death throes.
He never expected this “dying” counterattack to be so violent, so reckless.
He wanted to dodge, but the imbalance and intense pain from his dislocated right shoulder affected his agility.
He wanted to block, but his left hand holding the sword couldn’t bring it back in time.
He wanted to retreat, but his center of gravity was already leaning forward—nowhere to avoid.
In that hurried moment, he only had time to cross his left arm in front of his abdomen while simultaneously activating the Holy Blood Power within him, condensing a thin layer of golden light shield in front of him.
BOOM!!!
The Dragon Claw, swirling with dark red patterns, solidly smashed into the hastily condensed pale golden light shield.
The light shield couldn’t hold for even an instant, shattering like fragile glass.
Immediately after, it slammed hard into Laurence’s blocking left arm.
CRACK!
A clear bone-cracking sound rang out.
Laurence grunted, a piercing pain shooting through his left arm.
But this didn’t completely negate the terrifying force of the punch.
The remaining immense power pierced through his arm’s defense, heavily striking his abdomen.
Laurence felt a mountainous, overwhelming force crash into his abdominal armor.
His internal organs felt as if they had been churned together by this punch.
The silver abdominal armor visibly dented, leaving a clear fist imprint.
His entire body was sent flying backward as if struck head-on by a large, fast-moving metal carriage, his feet leaving the ground.
On the other side, after throwing that punch, Aurelia collapsed.
She was still coughing up blood, her throat choked with blood, making her face alternate between green and pale.
The solidified Dragon Scale phantom on her right arm rapidly faded, reverting to a pale, slender human arm.
The dark red aura that had quietly emerged receded back into her body like a retreating tide, leaving only the pain that nearly made her faint, along with a burning, fiery ache that spread to her lower abdomen.
Under the moonlight, the two were separated by over ten meters.
One sat slumped on the ground, clutching her lower abdomen, tears of physiological pain streaming down.
One had his right arm hanging limply, using his left arm to hold his abdomen, his appearance wretched.
Yet at this moment, the voice of the Disaster Source abruptly sounded in Aurelia’s mind, full of mockery.
‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t my dear independent sister? How did you end up in such a pathetic state? Beaten to a pulp by the Brave.’
‘You…’
Aurelia was stunned for a moment.
Her peripheral vision glanced at the ring on her hand. It was still active, so how did this old bastard just pop out on his own?
‘No need to be curious. Just now, you subconsciously used my power, so now this broken thing doesn’t work anymore.’
It explained, then continued while Aurelia was still thinking, ‘Rather than worrying about that, have you finally decided to fight the Brave to the death?’
‘…Shut up!’
Aurelia weakly retorted in the depths of her consciousness, but her gaze involuntarily drifted to the spot over ten meters away.
Laurence was using his left hand to press firmly against his dented abdominal armor, trying to stand up again.
His dislocated right arm hung powerless, his left arm trembling slightly from the bone fracture.
His face was deathly pale, his forehead covered in cold sweat, every breath seemed labored.
But his golden eyes still pierced through the drifting dust and bloody aura, firmly fixed on her.
The killing intent within them hadn’t weakened in the slightest; instead, it burned even fiercer because of his injuries and her counterattack.
‘It’s all because of you, you old bastard…!’
‘Tsk tsk, here we go again. Hey, do you know that if you hadn’t used my power just now, that Brave would have cut your head off?’
‘Look at you now. At least you’re still alive, still breathing, still able to glare at your former Captain with those pitiful eyes. Isn’t that much better than having your head roll? Just use my power to erupt and kill him, wouldn’t that be it? Why do you have to suffer like this?’
‘I don’t need your power!’
Aurelia gritted her teeth, forcing her body to stand up.
She vomited another mouthful of blood, spraying it onto the ground.
Over ten meters away, Laurence, who had just used his longsword to prop himself up, enduring the churning agony in his abdomen and the intense pain from his fractured left arm as he tried to stand, happened to witness this scene.
Seeing Aurelia stand up before he could, his eyes were filled with shock.
Immediately, it transformed into a kind of unshakable certainty.
“Heh… still saying you’re not the Disaster?”
He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with his left hand, his tone even carrying mockery.
“A frail constitution that never received combat training, who would get out of breath from walking a few extra steps on normal days…”
His voice wasn’t loud, but it clearly reached Aurelia’s ears.
“How could she, after taking a Silver-rank Warrior’s full-power kick head-on, with broken ribs, internal injuries, massive blood loss…”
He paused, his gaze like a torch, tightly locked onto Aurelia’s face, pale from blood loss and pain.
“—still be able to stand back up in such a short time, relying on willpower?”
He took a small step forward.
Though his steps were somewhat unsteady, his aura was like an unsheathed sharp sword, even more oppressive.
“Willpower can make you grit your teeth and persevere, can make you throw one last punch before passing out. But it can’t heal your wounds, stop your bleeding, and certainly can’t give you strength out of thin air!”
Aurelia wiped the blood from her mouth, coughed out the blood clot in her throat, then retorted at Laurence:
“How many more times do I have to say it! I told you… there’s something in my head! It has consciousness, it… makes me do things I don’t want to do!”
Laurence’s advancing footsteps abruptly halted.
“Something… in your head? Has consciousness? Can talk? And can control the body?”
Fragments of memory from his Predecessor Life surged uncontrollably at this moment.
That girl who always quietly followed at the back of the team, meticulously repairing armor, mixing potions, who would give a slight, pursed-lip smile when listening to his adventure stories by the campfire.
Her eyes were clear, her smile shy.
The occasional questions she asked about herbs and material handling seemed so earnest and pure.
Until the night before she transformed into the Cataclysm, dragging everything into destruction and madness, she had still leaned by the window gazing at the stars, softly discussing everything about the future with her Captain.
Those words, those expressions, were so normal, even carrying a kind of comforting warmth.
That flawless, vivid memory belonging to “the human Aurelia” was the most powerful evidence he had for her perfect disguise, and also one of the cold cornerstones supporting his determination to swing his sword down.
He had never doubted the truth of his memories.
Not for a single second since the moment he awakened.
But what if… what if what Aurelia was saying now was true?
The chill brought by this thought was even more piercing than facing the Cataclysm itself.
Could it be that she had always been that gentle Liya who treated everyone kindly?
Was she… controlled by some evil thing, and he had never noticed her abnormality?
‘No, impossible!’
Laurence let out a low roar in his heart, forcibly extinguishing this terrifying conjecture that had just surfaced—a conjecture enough to completely collapse the conviction he had finally built.
Wouldn’t that mean that, from his Predecessor Life to this life, he had never truly cared about this person who cared so much for everyone?
This is a trap!
It’s a more sophisticated and vicious lie woven by the Disaster Source to shake him, to survive!
It saw through his complex residual feelings for Aurelia, using this point to try and plant a seed of doubt in his heart, to make him hesitate, to make him unable to swing that sword!
“Utterly absurd!”
Laurence’s voice was colder than before.
He immediately suppressed it with even stronger willpower, transforming it into a nearly furious sternness.
“You think fabricating such a vague, baseless lie can cover up your nature as the Disaster? Can absolve the blood on your hands? Can make me believe that the destruction I witnessed with my own eyes was false?!”
“Huh?”
Aurelia frowned, sensing something was wrong, but… couldn’t pinpoint what exactly.
‘The way he looks at me isn’t simple disgust or wariness… There’s… hate? And fear? He’s afraid of me? Why? What did I do?’
Why had this red-haired young man, who had inexplicably cold-shouldered her even before expelling her, become so paranoid and crazy in such a short time?
Questions began to take root in Aurelia’s heart, but right now…
‘Hiss… No! Whatever madness he’s having, if I keep dwelling on it, I’ll lose my life!’
She gritted her teeth tightly.
The waves of burning heat from her abdomen gave her a bit of motivation.
Enduring the pain, she forced her legs to move, desperately running toward Twilight City.
“Stop! You… bastard…!”
Laurence knelt on the spot, watching that staggering, fleeing figure, his eyes almost spitting fire.
He tried to stand up and give chase, but the moment he exerted force, the intense pain from his abdomen and right arm made his vision go dark.
He vomited another mouthful of blood, nearly collapsing completely.
He could only watch helplessly as that figure disappeared from sight.
Anger and resentment climbed his heart again, just like when he witnessed the Disaster destroying the continent in his Predecessor Life.
Then, Laurence could hold on no longer.
Amidst distant calls, he fell unconscious.