CHAPTER 179: A GOLDEN HEART—1

"Three years of pain, three years of sacrifice... all for this one moment. Either I own this heart, or it owns me." His jaw clenched, face hardened with resolve as the words echoed in his mind.

——

The bright green hue was enveloping his body, two vials of breath were ready for the next brutal assault from the heart of destruction—the one whose beat could potentially kill its own owner.

Then it came in the next second. Leon was ready for it, the final shockwave.

Boom!

The shockwave travelled across his body like a marble struck by a hammer—it scattered apart. The force rattled his teeth, a high-pitched ringing filling his ears as the ground quivered beneath him. He didn’t even get the chance to scream.

A piece of the once whole body flying across the ground, a mist of red in the air.

Yet the pieces of his mangled, torn-apart body were still covered in that bright green hue.

Then it happened.

It flickered like a dying light on its last breath, and the hue was gone.

The Elixir of Last Breath had failed him.

But there was still something else—his last hope, the thing that could never let him die.

The Phoenix Feather.

However, it also lay there in his bloody remains, unmoving—only a beautiful-looking feather painted in crimson red. Its once-soft barbs clung together under the drying blood, the faint golden sheen beneath struggling to glimmer through the red.

Everything lay motionless for a while. Then, it answered again, like a call to the very air around him and the blades of grass, which shifted in the silence.

Boom!!

The air trembled. The grass bent low before the mighty force.

The golden heart stayed afloat in place, even after Leon’s body was nothing but pieces on the ground—yet it still beat again, making its presence known.

Fueled by faith that never stopped for a second, new holy energy was being given to the heart.

—

It was dark. There was nothing he could feel around him—nothing but his thoughts. He had experienced something similar to this before.

Have I died again? Is this going to be another reincarnation...?

I was really loving my new life... Seraphine would be sad...

He remembered something, and anger surged in him.

Why the fuck didn’t the Phoenix Feather work? I was gonna sue that fucker!!!

Then he remembered he had died. He couldn’t do that.

Everything felt hopeless now. He was floating in his dark place, unable to tell how much time had passed. The void was neither warm nor cold, just an endless, airless stillness pressing against his skin.

If he had to die, he would have liked to die in an epic battle—not by the shockwave of his own heartbeat.

Hah! What a lame way to die.

Am I going to reincarnate again? Pull me out like before... don’t let me wait so long.

All the light-hearted thoughts vanished altogether as his thoughts became heavy now.

I didn’t endure all this to vanish into nothing. Seraphine’s waiting... and the bastards who hurt us still breathe.

He didn’t think he would get another chance like before, as this time he was the reason for his own death—no one else.

But I can’t die like this; there has to be something that can help me!

Seraphine’s face flashed in his mind—smiling, laughing, alive—and the thought of never seeing her again burned hotter than any holy fire. I can’t leave her. Not like this. Not when there’s still breath to steal and blood to spill.

He started working his consciousness in full capacity.

He felt pity for the lonely casualties waiting in his account to be spent.

He was just about to lose all hope.

Then suddenly, an unescapable force pulled his consciousness out of nowhere.

What the hell!

His existential nerves calmed down—it was just like the way he got reincarnated the first time.

—

A few minutes earlier.

The golden heart was still beating, its heartbeat causing cobweb-like cracks in the ground around it.

The intensity of the rune glowing inside had reached another level. If the golden outer layer of the heart weren’t there, it would have illuminated an entire street’s distance.

But then suddenly, its glow began to diminish. It stopped sucking holy energy like a black hole.

As the glow settled into a natural, dim, ethereal gold... The light softened like the last embers of a dying fire, its warmth brushing over the ground in fleeting waves. This marked the beginning of something even stranger.

The sky in the dimensional realm, which had always been a clear, unnatural view without any clouds, was now starting to gather not one or two, but massive clusters of smoky-grey clouds.

The people inside the dimensional realm—who had been living there for almost four years—noticed the strange, massive grey clouds in the distance, stretching far and wide.

They were easy to see, yet far away.

Everyone stopped to witness them, for this was truly something they were seeing for the first time here.

It was as if the sky itself had birthed a serpent of storms, coiling upon coils of cloud, its golden fangs sparking in the heavens.

They felt relieved that it was too far away—not close to them.

—

As the lightning crackled around the massive clouds stretching for kilometres, circling far above the golden heart as if waiting for prey to appear...

The golden heart was now serene; only a faint thumping could be heard.

Strange letters began forming around it, appearing out of nowhere—symbols entirely made of runes. Something ancient.

They drifted toward the remains of Leon, the pieces left of him.

They merged. Once they entered his body, they began knitting together, making him whole once again. It was like icy threads being stitched through molten flesh, every pull tightening with unnatural precision.

At the same time—muscles, blood, bones, and down to his very cells—everything was changing, transforming itself by the power of the ancient runes, triggered by the creation of his heart made from holy energy.

—

In a world that crossed the barrier of the universe.

Inside a mighty, grand throne room stretching far and wide, yet only emptiness and ancient silence filled it.

A single being sat on a throne, eyes closed for... who knows how long.

Centuries.

Millennia.

Or even more.

No one but the being itself knew the answer to that question.

His eyes fluttered open for the first time since forgotten times.

They opened leisurely, revealing a cross in the middle of his pupils, like glass shattered into a million pieces—ever-shifting and mesmerizing.

"After uncounted ages... still there are those so witless as to attempt what cannot be wrought."

"I am the last. None shall come after. We are not fashioned, nor imitated—we are as we were birthed by the first dawn, and thus shall we remain."

His eyes closed once more, a final breath shaping the words.

"Yet another death of folly."