The Path of Ruin

Still, that didn\'t mean the tunnels were completely unguarded.

The guards who were responsible for what went in and out remained at their posts, no matter what. And Kael and Matthew inevitably encountered them.

And, naturally, they were not allowed to pass without a permit.

The result, then?

Kael and Matthew knocked out both guards. The situation was urgent now. They had no time to waste on formalities.

So they made their way through the tunnels. And the duo... finally reached the Heart of the Guardian.

\'Just as I thought!\'

The Guardian\'s Heart was beating smoothly. It was in its usual place.

The only problem was... the woman they had seen in that cave was here, too. Just as Kael had suspected.

The woman sensed the presence of two people coming towards her and turned in their direction. Her eyes were the color of the original, green, because she didn\'t use eon at the moment. And... seeing her beauty for the first time, the two almost stumbled, even if only for a brief moment.

"Oh, welcome."

Kael and Matthew quickly assumed a fighting stance. Both had their guard up.

"You don\'t have to be so serious... I don\'t have to kill you anymore, after all."

The woman curled her lips up slightly, showing Kael and Matthew a rather innocent smile.

"I have already achieved my goal."

And at that very moment, another person stepped into the Heart of the Guardian. Someone all three of them knew quite well.

Amar, whose eyes showed that he could still fight, even if he was in pretty bad shape... had arrived here. He too had probably suspected that woman was targeting the Guardian... and rushed here just like Kael and Matthew.

But the woman didn\'t mind him much either.

"Oh, you\'re welcome too."

Though... Amar didn\'t even listen to her.

"Stay away from the Guardian, you witch!"

Kael, Matthew, and the woman were momentarily taken aback when they sensed the anger in the voice of the normally calm, cool man.

"Witch...? My Path may look malevolent from the outside, but I am not a witch. On the contrary, what you are trying to protect is more malevolent than me."

Amar\'s eyes flashed with a brown gleam, and the vines beneath his feet stirred with the same anger as if responding to his emotions.

"You can\'t fool me with your sweet tongue!"

The vines rushed at her. Each one had spikes that aimed to pierce through her.

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But she still didn\'t seem to care.

"How quickly you forgot what I said in the cave..."

She raised her hand. Purple smoke, an ability of her Path, quickly surrounded her, then covered the vines.

One by one, the vines withered and fell to the ground, and the woman kept her smile on her face.

"You can\'t do anything against me."

She narrowed her eyes as the purple smoke disappeared into the air.

"Though there\'s no need for me. You\'re in such a bad state that you don\'t notice things around you."

Amar\'s eyes widened. He quickly turned around and defended himself... but what he was facing was not something he should care about defending himself against.

It was a cross-eyed, insane snake, just like the creatures she had used in the jungle.

And this snake... took the opportunity to sink its fangs into Amar\'s arm.

"Agh!"

Amar gritted his teeth, grabbed the snake by the tail with his other hand, and threw it aside. But the moment he did, his eyes blurred and the world began to spin.

"You don\'t even know the history of the \'guardian\' you think you serve, let alone why it exists."

The woman turned her eyes slightly back to the big beating heart at her feet.

"How many lives were sacrificed, who died, what happened... to bring this thing into existence... you have no idea. You don\'t even know why it keeps growing and growing, and you think it\'s helping you..."

Knowing how powerful she was, Kael, who until now had not attempted to do anything, was momentarily thrown into doubt by what he heard.

When he had first come to this town, he had thought that the plant called Guardian might be something troublesome... Then, after what he had experienced with Amar, he had come to trust it.

Were his initial suspicions... correct?

"What you think is protecting you is constantly draining your life. Little by little, it grows itself by killing you all. It may not want to, in its primitive consciousness, but it doesn\'t or can\'t stop it. Either way, its past and what it does doesn\'t change."

The woman narrowed her eyes, her expression turning serious as she slowly raised her hand and placed it over the Guardian\'s heart.

"That is why it must disappear. Along with this town that sees it as a god."

Just as in the cave, her hand suddenly took the shape of a rotten one, her eyes shimmering with a purple glow. As he did so, his eyes were not on Amar, but on Kael and Matthew.

And she was looking at them with such intensity that... even if Kael and Matthew wanted to stop her, they could not move.

Then... the woman applied her ability to rot on the heart.

At first, nothing happened. But after a single second of silence, a brief purple began to spread from the back of the woman\'s hand over the heart.

Then it began to expand rapidly. Unusually fast, in fact.

The Guardian\'s heart gradually slowed down as it turned completely purple. As the room, covered in lush green vines, rapidly decayed, the Guardian... just went to its death.

Just like that.

The woman removed her rotten hand from the heart even though the process was still in progress. After her eyes and hand returned to normal, though, she sighed.

And that\'s when Kael realized something else.

The woman was talking about killing the Guardian, but she was also talking about destroying the town... but was just causing the Guardian to rot enough to destroy the town?

\'Ah, the eon in the dungeon!\'

And his thought was spot on...

But just like before, he was powerless to do anything.

"Now, the town..."

This time, the woman raised her hand gently, then simply snapped her fingers.

Kael felt a violent earthquake and heard an ear-splitting sound, like the ones just before the insane were released from the dungeon. But this time it was so strong that he couldn\'t stand, so he lost his balance and fell over the rotten vines.

Matthew, although injured, kept his balance better and did not fall.

After the tremor was over, the woman smiled brightly. Amar had already passed out from the snake\'s venom, so she didn\'t need to pay any attention to him. She simply did not even see Kael and Matthew as a threat.

She simply bent down, dropped to her knees. She began to scrape the rotten vines from the floor with her hands. She dug, she tore, she dug, throwing all the rotten pieces aside, and finally... she reached the soil beneath the vines.

She touched the soil. Her eyes narrowed a little, and her smile widened at the same time.

"I have avenged you all... sleep in peace."

And she just stayed where she was. Not saying anything, not moving a muscle... just waiting.

Kael and Matthew looked at each other as they stood where they were, not making any move. Even though they didn\'t speak, they were both thinking the same thing. And they both understood it.

They just left the woman and Amar where they were. There was nothing they could do about them. She simply didn\'t care about them, but if she did, she could simply kill them. Amar was poisoned, but his chest was still moving, so he was clearly alive. Since she had no intention of killing him anymore, they could leave him here.

So they turned and ran back the way they had come, leaving the Heart of the Guardian. It was a very different experience compared to before, as the green tunnels turned purple and rotten pieces kept falling from the ceiling... but they kept running, not caring.

Finally, when they reached the walls of the mansion, past the place where they had knocked out the guards... that\'s when they realized what the second tremor and the sound meant.

The path to the tunnels was normally one level below the mansion and covered with concrete.

But now... sunlight was shining on their faces.

The mansion had almost completely collapsed.

Kael quickly climbed over the rubble. He aimed to get high enough to see the whole town... and he did.

The sight he finally saw... made him freeze in his tracks.

"This... This..."

The town... was in complete ruins. Everywhere, there was a trace of the intense eon from the dungeon. The few lucky survivors were trying to understand what had happened in fear and horror, a few were trying to help the wounded, some were trapped under the rubble, crying and screaming incessantly.

\'I...\'

He had... failed?

So... he couldn\'t do anything?

He didn\'t care much for this town or the people it had. But it was still his mission to help them. He had tried to get these people out of trouble, that was his goal...

But he had failed.

His enemy... had won. Easily. Almost effortlessly.

\'Ah...\'

Then, he silently thought to himself.

\'How... weak I am...\'

He... had lost. Completely.

"I\'ve been dreaming of this for years, you know."

He stiffened again at the sound. But he didn\'t turn around, he didn\'t need to.

That woman... apparently, she had decided to move.

"Oh, how good it feels to achieve it..."

Kael involuntarily clenched his teeth, his fist.

He held no great grudge against this woman. Frankly... after two or three days, he would have forgotten her.

But he was angry.

That he had failed.

That he was powerless.

That this woman... had won by completely crushing him.

"Oh, are you angry?"

And she realized that pretty quickly.

But she didn\'t even have to care about Kael.

After all, he was... weak.