Chapter : 1
Prologue
The sky roared, wild and furious.
Dark clouds flashed again and again before a torrent of rain poured down.
It was a downpour so heavy that nothing could be seen, yet even that raging flood could not wash away the blood spilled by the fifteen-year war.
Tens, no—hundreds of thousands of noble lives burned away.
Some rose for a grand cause, but most simply fought to protect their families, siblings, and loved ones.
It was their blood.
At the end of a war built atop their blood and corpses, stood Cleora.
“Disgusting.”
Cleora, who had fought countless battles on the front line, slowly lifted her head.
Standing before her was the man who had tormented her all those long years—Keleagos, the dark sorcerer who called himself the Demon King.
“To think you made it all the way here. Impressive.”
Keleagos praised her.
He remembered Cleora—who had swung her blade at him unnumbered times on the front lines for ten years.
With his cursed art that resurrected the dead, it had taken Keleagos less than three years to wipe out half the continent.
But after that, he had not advanced a single step for the next twelve.
Because of Cleora—the woman before him now.
Keleagos stared blankly at the woman clutching her sword and bleeding.
When this battle ended, Cleora would surely die.
And he too would draw his last breath here.
Keleagos gave a hollow laugh.
To end up like this, unable to overcome a single knight.
After two hundred years of waiting for this moment, the miserable result was nothing but laughable.
“Congratulations, Cleora. You have stopped me, in the end. What joy!”
“……”
“But I have a question.”
Keleagos narrowed his eyes and bit down on his lips.
“What do you gain from going so far? Wealth? Honor? Rank?”
“……”
“You risked your life. You wagered it to stop me, yet what remains for you? Only death, is it not? Oh, Cleora, blood-soaked goddess of the battlefield—will you allow your short life to be spent in such vain?”
He coughed bloody foam laced with organ fragments and twisted his lips into a grin.
“I acknowledge you—my rival, my equal. Come to me. If you join me, I shall heal that body, grant you immortality, and make you a true ruler of this world. You need not sacrifice yourself for such wretched humans. So come. Come to me!”
His blackened hand stretched toward Cleora.
“Go on. Take it.”
“……”
Cleora stared at his hand with eyes redder than blood. Her lips slowly opened.
“Keleagos.”
“Yes, goddess of war. Take my—”
“How about you shut that barking mouth?”
Cleora sighed long, lowered her blade, and scowled.
“What are you babbling about? Losing your mind now that you’re about to die?”
“You dare… insult me?”
“Insult? Asking me to crawl beneath you is the insult.”
Cleora gave a crooked smirk and raised her chin.
“Do you have any idea how much blood was spilled here? How many people died?”
“……”
“They’re staring at me with their eyes wide open, waiting for me to butcher you—and I’m supposed to let you live just to save my own life?”
She laughed once, bitterly.
“Keleagos. You die here.”
“You wretch—!”
“And I die too.”
Cleora summoned the last of her strength, gripping her sword and charging forward.
Keleagos screamed “You dare—!” and reached out, but a thin red line blossomed across his throat before his head slowly fell.
“Foolish… Cleora. To throw your life away…”
His body toppled to the side.
On the ground, his severed head rolled and stared back at Cleora.
“Do you not regret it, Cleora?”
“……”
Cleora did not answer.
No—she could not.
Not when there hadn’t been a single moment she hadn’t regretted since the day she came here.
Had she never come, her father would not have died. Her brother would still be alive.
Her mother would not have collapsed in grief and died from sickness.
Keleagos’ death was a long-awaited victory for the world, yet to Cleora it was no triumph.
Just a stale ending that brought her no vengeance.
Cleora met the faded gaze of Keleagos and finally spoke.
“I do not regret it.”
“……”
“My family, my friends, my brothers died—but I do not regret it.”
Cleora recalled the dried violet tucked in her pocket.
A flower given to her two years ago—after her mother’s funeral, as she prepared to return to the battlefield—by a child barely two years old.
With that memory, Cleora smiled faintly.
“This is what you want to know, isn’t it? Whether losing everything—my life included—is worth it for the sake of new life that will bloom here.”
“……”
“And the answer is, yes. It is worth it.”
Her strength failing, Cleora’s body weakened.
Even standing had been difficult; she collapsed to her knees.
Keleagos fixed his fading eyes on her and twisted his lips once more.
“After wandering hell so long… and still, you understand so little of humans.”
A chilling chuckle gurgled from his dying throat.
Thunder boomed and the sky blazed white.
Cleora frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“Heh… hehehe…”
Keleagos’ eyes fluttered shut.
“Yes… watching should be amusing too.”
The raging storm gradually faded. Dawn sunlight pierced through the parting clouds.
A sight fitting for a moment overflowing with joy.
Keleagos closed his eyes quietly, gazing at the final spectacle.
“To see how worthless and hollow those values of yours truly are…”
And with that, his mouth moved no more.
As the dark sorcerer Keleagos—who named himself Demon King—died, the sky brightened. The war neared its end.
Cleora furrowed her brows in a troubled expression and slowly collapsed.
How history would record this war, no one could know.
But Cleora believed all this sacrifice would prove worthwhile.
And so—even dying here—she had no regrets.
Father… Mother… and Brother…
Thinking of the dear names she failed to protect, Cleora smiled quietly.
I’m coming now.
Cleora closed her eyes slowly—toward the smiling family waiting for her.
Thus ended the war that had burned the continent for fifteen years.
