At the End of the Hidden Greenery - Chapter 262
Crash!
Jiwoo had barely shut her eyes when a loud crash echoed through the room.
But it wasn’t the sound of a blade stabbing into her.
When she opened her eyes in a panic, she saw two people tangled together right in front of her.
“Kugh…”
“Kyaa!”
Jiwoo’s face drained of color. The dagger that Tyrinos had been holding only a moment before was now buried in his own chest.
And the one who had done it…
“Ka, Kaman!”
“How dare you. How dare you…!”
Kaman wasn’t done. He looked ready to twist the blade, right there in Tyrinos’s chest, but Jiwoo dashed forward and barely managed to stop him.
“It’s a misunderstanding! It’s not what you think!”
“A misunderstanding? You mean this bastard was just about to stab you and I’m not supposed to react?!”
“That’s…”
“And then shove you through some dimensional rift afterward?!”
“Kaman…!”
“I told you this was absolutely not allowed!”
This couldn’t go on. If it continued like this, nothing would be solved.
Jiwoo hurriedly pried Kaman’s hand from the dagger, but she couldn’t bring herself to pull the blade out of Tyrinos’s chest. She knew all too well that you’re not supposed to remove a knife that’s lodged in someone. Still, if she did nothing…
‘Maybe if I use a sudden surge of power, it’ll work…’
“Kaman, pull it out.”
“What?”
“Hurry!”
“Haa…”
Kaman let out a defeated sigh, but his hands were steady and decisive as he pulled out the dagger.
The moment the blade came free, Jiwoo immediately sent a surge of energy into Tyrinos. His wound sealed and the bleeding stopped almost instantly.
But the rush of power left Jiwoo feeling as though all the blood in her own body had drained out.
It felt like the world was spinning, as she was on the verge of fainting.
And then.
“Heh… haha…”
Tyrinos started to laugh.
“Wait, did you… do this on purpose?”
But that was as far as it went.
Suddenly, Jiwoo felt herself being dragged away by some invisible force, and everything in front of her vanished in an instant.
28. An Otherworldly Being
Jiwoo found herself facing it again.
A massive eye, big enough to fill the whole space with its darkness.
‘That’s…’
She knew exactly what it was.
It was the same presence that had been trying to reach out to her ever since her trip to the beach.
Now, she finally understood what it meant when people said that physical location, and maybe even time itself, didn’t matter.
In fact, it was probably this thing’s interference that had hurled her so unexpectedly into the past in the first place.
“Was it you, trying to reach out to me this whole time?”
She thought back to the way Tyrinos had laughed, as if everything had gone according to plan at the very last moment.
‘He did it on purpose?’
Jiwoo had already explained that the power of Akarna wasn’t endless. If she overused it, she would quickly become weak and depleted.
‘Unbelievable…’
It wasn’t that Tyrinos had planned it out of any concern for Jiwoo. He’d simply decided that wounding himself and exploiting the situation was more effective than hurting her directly.
It was just the method he thought would get the job done.
‘He tricked me.’
He hadn’t lied, exactly, but in true children of Ellandos fashion, he’d kept his real intentions hidden and led Jiwoo right into the trap, knowing she’d never just let someone die in front of her.
“Haa…”
She was angry, and more than that, she felt guilty.
Especially when she remembered Kaman’s face, devastated and on the verge of tears, right before she’d fallen into this void.
Why did it always have to be like this? Jiwoo demanded answers from the thing looming before her.
“Why? Why are you doing this to me?”
Whoomm. The air itself seemed to vibrate with a strange, mournful sound, and then it spoke. A voice, or something like a voice, resounding all around her.
[―――……. ――――.]
“What? I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”
[――.]
The gigantic shadow reached toward her, stretching closer and closer.
“Uh!”
As it made contact, Jiwoo felt as though her fingertips were crumbling away.
It doesn’t hurt, exactly, but it was a horrifying sensation. As if her limbs were being whittled down, bit by bit.
‘So, so scary…’
A creeping sense of dread filled her.
But then, just as that terror peaked, a clear word echoed in her mind:
[Hurts.]
Startled, Jiwoo dropped her arms from around her shoulders.
“You’re… in pain? Did you say you’re hurt?”
The massive eye trembled.
[Hurts…]
“If, if you’re in pain, that’s… I guess you could say that’s my specialty.”
But there was a problem.
Jiwoo glanced around, trying to figure out exactly what she was dealing with. All she could see was endless darkness.
‘Can I even heal…. something like this?’
Up to now, Jiwoo had only healed humans and trees.
Akarna’s power was fundamentally a force of self-preservation. It would eradicate things that posed a threat, and heal whatever Jiwoo identified as her own.
At first, she’d thought its reach extended only that far. But when she realized that even trees were just another part of nature, she’d been able to heal those, too.
But this?
‘If this was another being from a different dimension, just like me…’
Maybe it wasn’t impossible.
And thinking about it, she could even understand why it might be in pain.
“You’re hurting because you forced yourself through a dimensional barrier, aren’t you?”
Trying to cross between dimensions would unleash unimaginable forces, enough to shred most beings to pieces.
“If you’re hurt, then… I’ll try to help you.”
Just like she healed people, just like she healed trees, Jiwoo reached out with Akarna’s power toward the unknown shadow.
“Ugh, ahh!”
But the instant she made contact, searing pain shot through her arm, and she yanked it back.
It was as if barbed tentacles had pierced right through her flesh.
Instead of healing, she felt like she was being devoured. If she kept this up, it felt like she might literally be ripped apart.
“I, I don’t know what to do…”
But she couldn’t just leave it as it was.
Because if Tyrinos was right, this thing was the very calamity from the other world.
And if Jiwoo just gave up, that would mean letting this being cross over into El Ragneil in its current state.