The Last Place Hero's Return

Morris frowned, glaring at me as if he genuinely couldn’t understand. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You...” My lips moved for a while, but in the end, I shook my head. There was no point in saying it. What would it even change, telling him that the comrades standing before him were nothing but illusions? He didn’t want the truth. He wanted things that looked like the truth.

“I don’t know what you’re spacing out about.” The corner of Morris’s mouth twisted upward into a crooked grin. “But do you really have the luxury for that?”

With a violent kick off the ground, he lunged at me. Thousands, no, tens of thousands of petals surged forward like a tidal wave. The aura behind them was unmistakably stronger than it had been during our first battle.

The petals swallowed the Ashen Flames as they came crashing in. A strand of my hair brushed against them, only to be torn away as if ripped apart by the jaws of a beast, tumbling to the ground. Ash scattered into the air.

In the blink of an eye, I regenerated and swung my sword at the charging Morris. A deafening roar resounded, one so loud that nobody would believe it came from the clashing of blades. Due to the shockwave alone, the earth twisted for hundreds of meters, and a massive tremor shook the entire academy. The academy’s proud, beautifully kept trees were uprooted, sent rolling across the ground. Roads carved from solid marble shattered into fist-sized gravel and scattered through the air.

A battle between gods—that was the only way to describe it. And in this clash fierce enough to belong in myth, neither Morris nor I could remain unscathed. My head was crushed; my arm was torn off; my leg twisted at an unnatural angle; and my entrails spilled from a ripped-open abdomen, blood pouring through mangled flesh.

It was an endless cycle of death and resurrection. Like a candle flickering in a raging storm, my consciousness was steadily being eaten away. The more times I died, the more violent the Primordial Flame I had barely managed to stabilize became.

“Kah!Ah!Ugh!” I groaned.

Morris also looked pale. Gasping, he said, “Well? You’re reaching your limit, aren’t you?”

Clearly, he was also unable to escape the shock of experiencing “death” hundreds of times in succession. But I was in a worse condition. The raging Primordial Flames engulfed me, a searing urge for destruction boiling inside. It was a violent desire to burn this entire world down into a handful of ash.

An unbearable thirst, as though a hooked claw were scraping down my throat, gnawed away at my reason. It was the destructive impulse that those who had accepted the power of the Demon God were said to feel. If that were amplified dozens, hundreds of times, would it feel like this?

“Don’t fight it.” Morris grinned. “That impulse you’re feeling right now, that is your true nature.”

“My... nature?” I muttered.

“Exactly!” Spreading his arms wide, Morris shouted as if proclaiming a revelation, “You know it too, don’t you? Just how immense the pain of death really is!”

Every time I died, I thought of it. At the very moment my breath stopped, I craved it again and again, endlessly.

He continued, “That we wanted this damned life to just end already!”

I kept quiet.

“That even though we try to act like we’re fine! Even though we pretend it’s nothing! We keep craving death, don’t we?”

I couldn’t deny it. Deep down, deeper than anyone else and more desperately than anyone else, there was one thing we deeply wanted. Somewhere within me, the desire for death lingered even now.

A blizzard raged before my eyes. The scene of an endless snowfield stretched on—a cold that crushed the lungs and snow piling up to my knees. However, after going through countless “deaths”, my life had changed. A life that once chased only death had finally found a reason to live. I no longer felt the cold; when I awoke, I no longer saw an endless wasteland of snow, but the smiles of those precious to me. Right now, I was happy, happier than I had ever been.

But how long could this happiness last? After a hundred years? After a thousand? After several thousand, no, ten thousand years? Would I still be alive then? Would I still be able to say I was happy? Just like in my previous life, would I end up trapped in an endless existence, struggling just to die?

Suddenly, a voice echoed in my head.

“That won’t be the case. Iris, Yurina, Berald, Senior Sophia, Elisha, Laneige, Camellia... How many more years will they live? A hundred? Two hundred? And after that...? In the end, you’ll be left alone...”

It wasn’t Morris’s voice. It wasn’t the Demon God’s voice either, but one that was far too familiar—my own.

“This is your chance. Your final chance to reach the end of the eternity you’ve always longed for!”

The raging flames coiled around me. It was simple. All I had to do was stop resisting and quietly close my eyes. Then it would end. I could finally put a period to this long life and this endless eternity.

A dry laugh slipped through my lips. “What a load of bullshit! Give me a damn break.”

I stepped forward, pushing through the violently raging flames. My life wasn’t mine alone. How could I dare to put a full stop to it without permission?

Yurina,because I learned courage from you, I am here now.

Berald, because I learned perseverance from you, I am here now.

Senior Sophia,because I learned wisdom from you, I am here now.

Iris,because I learned love from you, I am here now.

Elisha,because I learned insight from you, I am here now.

Laneige,because I learned warmth from you, I am here now.

Camellia,because I learned resolve from you, I am here now.

Yes. Because you all existed, I could exist. And because of that...

“I can’t die,” I said to myself.

The crimson flames coiling around my body slowly faded into a gray hue.

* * *

Morris’s eyes widened in shock. “What the...?”

He knew all too well the overwhelming, destructive urge brought on by the Primordial Flame. Even having contained only a fragment of it before, he had been driven to a horrifying thirst.

Morris’s expression twisted harshly. “You’re saying... You don’t want to die? Hah! That’s only because you don’t know anything.”

Biting down on his lip, he glanced around. He glanced at the fluttering petals, but nowhere could he see the comrades who had always stood by his side, cheering him on. “It’s because you’ve never lost everything that you can spout that kind of bullshit!”

He already knew. He had always known, having chosen to look away. The “we” he spoke of no longer existed. The comrades who had promised to return together had already died centuries ago.

“I know,” Dale said.

“Hah! You know? You, who haven’t even lived a hundred years, what could you possibly know?” Morris shouted, his voice breaking into a scream.

“It doesn’t end!” Dale said, fragments of overflowing emotion spilling from between his lips. “It’s so lonely it feels like I’m going to die... but I can’t die! No matter how much I endure, endure, endure, endure, and endure... It never ends!”

The emotions Dale had suppressed burst forth. “Even though I know they’re just hallucinations, I laugh and talk like an idiot, repeating the same conversations hundreds, thousands of times! And yet, it still doesn’t end! No matter what I do! Crushing my head, cutting off my neck, tearing out my heart, burning my body, I always come back to life! So...”

* * *

Letting out a deep breath, I took another step forward. “I know. More than you do.”

“What?” Morris said, not understanding what I just said.

“Five hundred years, was it? The time you’ve lived,” I asked.

“Yeah! For a length of time you couldn’t even begin to imagine, I’ve endured it all!” he replied.

“A length of time beyond imagination, huh!Haha!” A chuckle escaped my lips even though I knew full well that comparing whose suffering was greater was meaningless. Then, I said, “It must’ve been rough.”

“You!” Perhaps he had caught the mockery laced in my voice, Morris glared at me, his face twisted. “Fine! Let’s see how long you can endure the shock of ‘death’!”

The petals whipped violently through the air as his assault surged once more. Brain matter splattered from a crushed skull, a sickening snap echoed as limbs bent in impossible directions, and entrails spilled from a torn abdomen. With every single petal that brushed against me, death repeated itself. And still, I took another step forward.

* * *

Morris stared at Dale in utter disbelief. “What... are you...?”

Even if Dale’s Blessing restored his body, the mental damage should have continued to accumulate. Normally, after experiencing over a hundred resurrections in such a short time, a person shouldn’t even be able to move. Yet, despite having experienced over a thousand “deaths” in less than thirty minutes, Dale continued walking. Step by step, slowly but surely, he closed the distance.

Morris screamed, “What the hell are you?”

Dale’s sword touched the left side of his chest. “I am your end.”

The sword wrapped by Ashen Flames pierced straight through Morris’s soul stigmata. The Primordial Flame raged wildly, devouring the soul stigmata.

“Ah! So, this... is the end,” Morris muttered.

Morris, the Prophet of Eternity, knew instinctively. If he met death in these flames, he would never return. Letting out a dry laugh, he turned his head. Beyond the fully bloomed chrysanthemums, he saw the figures he longed for. Strangely, at this moment, they didn’t feel like illusions. They felt real.

A single, clear tear slid down between the petals that were crumbling into ash. “I’m sorry! I couldn’t... keep... the promise.”

Let’s go back. To where we came from. To our home.

The ashes left behind from the burning petals scattered into the air.

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