CRACK
CRACK-CRACK
With each teeth-grinding sound, fractures spread outward from the bloody hole in Antares' neck, webbing through his flesh.
That tyrannical dragon-slaying power rampaged through Antares' dragon body—but by now, he could no longer sustain it.
With a boom, his massive dragon form shattered. Forced back into humanoid shape, Antares dropped to his knees in a spray of blood. The once-majestic King of Dragons was now disheveled, his hair hanging loose, utterly wretched.
"Guh… pff—!"
Antares bowed his head and spat out a huge mouthful of blood.
"I… lost?"
Who was he?
He was the Monarch of Destruction.
With the Absolute One dead, he was the strongest lifeform in this cosmos—fated to bring the grandest destruction and final end to all things. Rulers and Monarchs alike feared his flames. He commanded the army of light-dragons, every living being's worst nightmare.
Invincible. The strongest.
…And yet he had lost.
How was that possible?
If he'd been overwhelmed by numbers. If he'd been ambushed. If his opponent had borrowed the Absolute One's power…
He could have accepted it.
But she hadn't borrowed the Absolute One's power. She hadn't even borrowed the powers of Monarchs or Rulers. As a human, in a fair, one-on-one fight, she had beaten him.
A sensation he'd never known before coiled around his heart, leaving him dazed, unmoored.
In the scorching wind dyed red by fire, Scáthach's silhouette gradually sharpened into clarity.
"I'm not going to stand here as the winner and spout trash," Scáthach said, crimson eyes fixed on Antares. She exhaled slowly. "You're strong. I'll admit that. But you've been chained to that throne of 'the strongest' for far too long. I can still see my own shortcomings. I'm still honing myself through battle—through strong enemies. From here on out, I'll only grow stronger. I won't stop here."
Antares was strong. In this entire world, no one was stronger than him. Even the Shadow Monarch, Ashborn, fell just short. After the Rulers killed the Absolute One and forged its power into divine weapons, they could gain the upper hand in the war against the Monarchs—but even then, defeating and killing Antares, the Monarch of Destruction, was extraordinarily difficult.
But did that mean there was nothing stronger than Antares?
Of course there was.
For example, the Absolute One—already dead.
And beyond that… the Absolute Ones of other universes.
Yes. There wasn't only one Absolute One.
Countless universes were born and destroyed in the hands of those Absolute Ones. Bored out of their minds, they let their creations slaughter each other inside the worlds they'd made, taking amusement in the destruction.
Antares could only see the war with the Rulers. He'd never once thought to look beyond—to step into a wider sky. His vision was too narrow. And because of that, he had squandered time, stagnating for all these years without the slightest progress.
Unlike him, neither Scáthach nor Fenghuang was someone who would be satisfied so easily. As long as their legs could still carry them, the road beneath their feet would keep stretching forward.
Sung Jinwoo was the same. To protect his family and friends, he would never stop.
Whether Antares took her words to heart or not, Scáthach didn't care. She raised her spear, ready to end his life for good.
And then—
Without warning, a spatial rift split open behind Antares, ready to yank him inside. At the same time, Scáthach felt a strange force congeal the space around her, locking it in place.
Faced with this sudden twist, Scáthach didn't panic. If anything, she looked as though she'd been waiting for it.
"I've been waiting for you, Monarch of Transfiguration!"
Ignoring the immobilized space entirely, Scáthach lunged for Antares—moving in the instant before he could be dragged into the rift.
"What?! Why isn't the space lock working?!"
An elderly voice rang out from somewhere—Yogumunt the Monarch of Transfiguration—thick with shock. Against an enemy even Antares struggled to overcome, Yogumunt had never been foolish enough to believe his ability would work perfectly. He only meant to slow her down, buy himself enough time to pull Antares out.
Reality, however, blew past his expectations.
His ability hadn't bought him even half a second.
What Yogumunt didn't know was that, as the Queen of this Land of Shadows, Scáthach could, to a certain extent, rewrite the laws of this world through sheer will. Other worlds were another matter—but here, trying to bind her movements with spatial powers was nothing but a daydream.
More than that, Scáthach had already sensed Yogumunt's arrival in the Land of Shadows while she was still fighting Antares. She'd been on guard the entire time, waiting for him to show himself and attempt the rescue.
The Monarchs could still contend with the Rulers only because Antares existed. If Antares died here, the remaining Monarchs would never rise again—they would be crushed completely by the Rulers.
That was why Yogumunt would risk it, even knowing Scáthach was dangerous.
Antares was almost inside the spatial rift. Scáthach took three steps in one stride, surging mana around the spearhead of Gáe Bolg.
"THIS IS MY ACCOMPLISHMENT!"
"MY ULTIMATE TECHNIQUE!"
She hurled the crimson spear.
It shrieked as it tore through the air—yet it didn't pierce Antares. Instead, it skimmed past his cheek and struck the spatial rift behind him.
A rift in space shouldn't have had a body. It should've been nothing but a phenomenon.
But the spear shattered that "common sense."
It nailed the rift—along with the surrounding space—pinning it in place as if it were something solid.
Antares, on the verge of being dragged in.
Yogumunt, behind the rift.
With space fixed and frozen, they couldn't even shift their gaze.
After throwing the first spear, Scáthach stomped to a stop. Her soles scraped long, shallow scars through the scorched earth as she braked. Her right hand was already clenched around a second spear—its tip wrapped in a spiraling aura that burned fierce and violent, dark red mana twisting into a vacuum vortex around the shaft.
"[GÁE BOLG ALTERNATIVE]!!"
SOARING SPEAR OF PIERCING DEATH
This Noble Phantasm wasn't merely about chasing raw destructive power. It was the crystallization of Scáthach's life-long refinement of divine-realm spear technique—the apex of skill forged by perfect unity of heart, technique, and body.
Reversing causality.
Fixing space.
A fatal strike that could neither be dodged nor defended against!
The spear shot out—
And in an instant, it pierced space itself, along with Antares and Yogumunt within it…
No—before the spear was even released, the curse riding its blade had already pierced the hearts of both Monarchs.
Antares and Yogumunt's bodies cracked apart like ancient porcelain weathered to dust, then became particles too fine to see—vanishing completely.
Their terrifying mana scattered across the Land of Shadows like spring rain, quietly sinking into the soil, mending the places Antares' rampage had torn and broken.
Thus, the Monarch of Destruction Antares, and the Monarch of Transfiguration Yogumunt, were defeated—and killed—by Scáthach.
There was no question: it had been a brutal fight. The kind where a single lapse meant death.
Antares was also, without question, the strongest opponent Scáthach had encountered in this world. That razor-wire thrill—the feeling of dancing on the edge—had left her satisfied, her body fully warmed and alive.
"Still…" Scáthach rolled her shoulder, breathing out. "…I need to adjust my condition. There's another hard fight coming soon…"
Mid-stretch, she paused—then laughed softly, as if she'd sensed something behind her.
"All right. Looks like I don't have time to adjust after all…"
A Gate shimmering with violet light slowly faded away. Sung Jinwoo stood there with both hands in his pockets, dark violet glow burning in his eyes as he stared at Scáthach.
You could feel it clearly—his shadow was deeper than before.
"Your fight's already over?" Scáthach lowered her lashes, voice easy. "Faster than I expected. I thought I'd have time to watch… Did what I gave you before the battle help?"
"The talisman you gave me… saved me," Jinwoo said, gratitude heavy in his voice.
Antares had said Jinwoo wasn't a true Shadow Monarch—that he couldn't defeat the Monarch of Frost, the Monarch of Fangs, and the Monarch of the Iron Body together.
He'd been right.
Jinwoo had lost—and the three Monarchs had killed him.
But that death was exactly what allowed Jinwoo to fully inherit Ashborn's power. And he had met Ashborn—spoken with him at length.
Inheritance took time. The Monarch of Fangs and the others weren't about to stand around and watch—because their goal was to erase Ashborn and his vessel before Ashborn could awaken.
Just as they moved to strike, Jinwoo's father—Sung Il-Hwan—appeared.
Jinwoo's father had once been a Hunter himself. During a Dungeon clear, he hadn't escaped before the Gate closed, and was trapped inside. With Sung Il-Hwan gone—the family's pillar—Jinwoo had been forced to become a Hunter to earn money for the family.
But Sung Il-Hwan hadn't died. He'd encountered the Rulers. They gave him power, made him their emissary, and sent him back to Earth to stop the Monarchs' schemes.
Yet a mortal body bearing a Ruler's power was dangerously unstable. By the time Jinwoo finished inheriting the Shadow Monarch's strength, Sung Il-Hwan's body had reached its limit.
After finally reuniting… they were about to part forever again.
And then the protective charm Scáthach had given Jinwoo before the battle lit up—and revived Sung Il-Hwan.
As for the three Monarchs, Jinwoo—having perfectly inherited Ashborn's power—killed them without even breaking a sweat. The gap really was that vast.
"Shishō… did you already know my father was alive?"
"I saw that future," Scáthach replied.
Jinwoo had known about Scáthach's foresight for a long time, so he accepted the explanation quickly.
"But… why didn't you tell me?"
Not just him—his little sister, his mother. They'd all missed Sung Il-Hwan. Even now, his mother refused to leave that small apartment, afraid that if his father ever came home one day, he wouldn't be able to find them.
"If I told you, then what?" Scáthach said calmly. "Would you have brought him home?"
"Your father misses you too. But he held that longing back and didn't appear before you, because he knew he still had something to do. He protected the family he cherished in the way he believed was right… and I didn't want to betray that resolve."
Jinwoo fell silent, because he knew she was right.
Silence stretched again—uncomfortable, heavy. Scáthach watched him for a long moment.
"Looks like you've fully merged with Ashborn now, haven't you?"
Jinwoo nodded slightly, his expression even heavier than before.
Scáthach couldn't help herself. "Then… Ashborn?"
"He's returned to eternal rest."
"I see… so that's how it is."
Scáthach's expression twisted into something hard to name. Emotion after emotion swirled in her eyes, until it all settled into a quiet sigh.
"That really is the choice he would make…"
Because Jinwoo had inherited Ashborn's memories along with his power, he understood why Scáthach looked that way.
"Ashborn… was your friend, Shishō?"
"Mm…" Scáthach hummed, then tilted her head. "If 'friend' includes the kind of relationship where I drop by that guy's turf every few days to spar and throw down, then… sure. I guess he was."
Yes.
That was exactly the kind of thing Scáthach would do.
Jinwoo parted his lips as if he had something to ask—something he wanted to confirm with the teacher he trusted so deeply. The words turned over in his throat, but in the end he swallowed them back. Unsteady light and shadow flickered deep in his eyes.
That hesitation didn't escape Scáthach.
"It's about time," she said. "Come with me."
As she spoke, she walked up beside Jinwoo and patted his slightly stiff shoulder.
"Where?" Jinwoo asked, baffled.
Scáthach turned back with a gentle smile.
"To prepare your graduation ceremony."
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T/N: SEX? IT SHOULD'VE BEEN MEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! I WANNA TAKE HER GAE BOLG UP MY