Everything was nothing but waste and desolation.

Yet, despite all the sacrifices, we had to make,

Despite that colossally powerful attack,

He was still alive.

Out of exhaustion and desperation, I let myself fall to my knees.

That attack didn’t miss him, it was just that he somehow managed to survive it, though not without heavy injuries. Currently, many chunks of his body were missing, his arm, both of his arms, and half of his torso.

"Toi, … Un enfant … Tu etais un enfant?... Qu’est ce qu’un enfant fait ici? "

Though I didn't know what he was talking about, I knew that his voice contained confusion,

He walked to me, to finally reach where I was. He was just right in front of me.

"Ces Magies, c'était … Pourquoi un enfant l’aurait? Je vois, tu étais donc comme moi, comme elle ", Suddenly he once again laughed. It was a strange laugh, like one of both disappointement and relief, "Quoi qu’il en soit, c’est ici que tout se termine pour moi, C’est finalement la fin pour moi, hahaha, n’est ce pas formidable? J’aurais aimé te rencontrer dans d’autres circonstances, bien que douloureux, notre rencontre a été un honneur pour moi, mais maintenant que j’ai fini mes adieux, Il est temps pour de dire Adieu."

With these words out, he simply let his body fall heavily next to me.

His body fell, but before it could even reach the ground, it evaporated.

After a long while, the incandescent environment calmed down. And the liquified environment had finally regained its usual solid form, as had my brain's processing capabilities;

I made no effort and allowed my body to fall to the ground,

I felt like crying, but once again couldn’t.

Never did I ever think that not being able to cry would be so painful.

"I can cry for you if you want."

Hearing that uncorporeal and familiar voice somehow calmed me down.

"Aaaah, shut up."

"I mean, I really have reason to, I’m the biggest victim here. Uh, huh, my poor vessels, I will miss them, I guess I’ll have to go vessels-less for quite some time then."

Laying exhaustedly on the ground, I felt the burning sun above me.

I had noticed it earlier, but for some reason, we shifted from the late afternoon to the midday hour.

It happened right after the implosion and explosion thing from earlier.

Was that some sort of time magic?

That was the only explanation I could provide for what happened.

Approaching me from behind, I heard footsteps. It was clumsy and exhausting, but I immediately recognized these footsteps as Heon’s.

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She came and just lied right next to me.

"Heon, I'm glad that you’re okay… though I suppose okay isn’t the correct word. "

"With this level of destruction, I was afraid that she would get accidentally entangled by tha- Isn’t this?"

I heard something fall to the ground out of nowhere; it wasn't anything living, but rather a small object.

I tried to sit up but then reached for the thing that fell to the ground, right where the man should've fallen if he hadn't desegregated.

"What?"

It was something I immediately identified as the sky-blue and golden ring worn by the man Han had described earlier.

Yeah, it is.

"Why didn’t this ring disappear with him?"

Thinking about the literal hell that man made us go through and all the suffering we had to endure, I couldn’t help but clench the thing within my fist in anger.

"Yeah, good question, but most importantly, where the hell did it come from? It literally materialized out of nowhere. With everything that bastard pulled off so far, I wouldn’t even- "

My heart skipped a beat.

I heard a very strange noise, followed by another noise completely different from the previous one. It was the sound of something cracking.

"What was that again?!"

We beat that man, but there was something that was beside us that we completely overlooked. The giant egg-shaped object,

That thing, despite its sky-blue color, a color reminiscent of the man’s mana, was completely forgotten by us, given how focused we were on the man and how stubborn he was to kill us off.

It was from that egg-shaped thing, I heard something crackling.

That egg-shaped thing was cracking from within, just like an egg cracked from within by a chick on the upper part of the shell.

"That bastard won’t magically pop out of this egg, right?"

"I don't know."

If he does, we’re dead for sure.

The cracks spread throughout the surface of the egg, and then I heard it.

Even Heon, who was baring her teeth at the egg thing, went silent when the noise in question leaked out of the egg.

I approached the thing.

When I got there, I remained silent and still.

The egg was already cracked through and through, but it hadn’t fallen apart yet. It only fell apart the moment I put my hand on it.

Surprisingly, it did not fall apart as one would expect an egg to do, instead of causing a small burst that cracked half of the shell into tiny microscopic glowing powder.

Strange steam leaked from within the cracked open egg, and along with it, a strange flowery smell.

Only then did I hear it clearly, since earlier it caught my attention,

I was hearing a heartbeat and breathing

They were weak and inconsistent at first, but they gradually but steadily improved and stabilized.

I knew it wasn't the man's breathing because it belonged to something-no someone of a smaller stature.

A child.

A girl of about 10 or 11 was lying in the middle of a bed of sky-blue flowers inside the egg-shaped thing.

Her long hair ran down her back and was a very unique golden color, but the end of her golden hair was dyed a sky-blue color for some reason.

She was dressed in a pink two-piece dress with gold ornaments, and she wore a ring similar to the one from earlier.

Tears streamed down her cheeks.

To be honest, it was that I caught the earring first.

"Papa… papa," she sobbed weakly.

I could hear her sobbing these words from within the egg.

I could tell from her breathing and heartbeat that what I was looking at wasn't a relic but a living child, and that she was apparently waking up from what I assumed was a deep slumber.

I could tell she was awake because of her breath. She was clearly perplexed by what was going on around her, but her heart clearly skipped a beat when she saw Heon.

She didn't scream, perhaps because she was too shocked or tired, but she was clearly terrified.

After a while, she tried to get out of the cradle-like bed she was in.

So I instinctively extended my hand to her.

It took her some time to decide, but she finally agreed the moment she took my hand.

It happened so quickly, but it appeared that I had passed out for some reason or another, and strangely, I wasn't the only one.