Book 19 Chapter 23
Chapter 162
Rista opened her eyes in a golden space.
The scorching heat that felt like her soul was burning and the sandstorm that tore her skin were nowhere to be found; it was just peaceful.
It was strange that her severed upper and lower body were fully intact. It was also strange that Shurpen was with her.
“Are you awake?”
The owner of this space, of all this peace, spoke.
The Three Divine Dragons rarely took the form of Dragon-humans due to their profound symbolic significance, but the Radiant Dragon Haradriman, who stood before Rista, was in the form of a Dragon-human.
Haradriman appeared as an old man with a long, yellow beard, dressed in golden holy robes.
Strictly speaking, dragons are a long-lived race, but not immortal. And Haradriman had lived for a thousand years.
‘He looks several times older than the Water Dragon-nim or the Fire Dragon-nim… What could have happened?’
Rista felt such a question, but shamefully, or perhaps naturally for a living being, her greater concern was for her own body.
For a long time…
For a very long time…
Hesitating, lips trembling, she finally, with great difficulty, mustered the courage to ask:
“Am I… dead?”
Just asking this question required immense courage.
The courage to admit her own death, the courage to accept the end, everything that implied… the courage to part with her fellow hero party members.
Even though she thought she had gathered courage, her body seemed unwilling to accept that reality, as endless tears and sobs refused to be quelled.
“Ah, ah, ahhh… Ahhh…”
The Radiant Dragon Haradriman looked at Rista’s face with a sorrowful smile and said:
“Why do you weep? Your time has not yet come.”
“…?”
“This is a mental space permitted only to those among the Dragon Race who have received the souls of ‘us,’ beings greater than True Dragons. I have called you here.”
A mental space?
Come to think of it, hadn't Rin and Friede also been summoned to a True Dragon's space for training in the Tersh Archipelago?
“I need to go back. Right now, right now, the fierce battle with the old nobles…?”
As she hastily mumbled, her blurry memories returned. She remembered the Radiant Dragon arriving on the battlefield.
The Radiant Dragon was a Divine Dragon.
When learning about the mythical era at the <Weiyong Sword School>, a hero training institution under the Papal See, she had also learned about the inequality of power.
‘The Eldia heroes are stronger than the old nobles, and the old nobles are stronger than the Divine Dragons.’
However, thanks to Rin, the old nobles’ power had awakened incomplete, and with Rin, Friede, and Kiese, the Radiant Dragon would surely have a good chance of victory.
“Nothing will change even if you return to the battlefield now.”
The Radiant Dragon approached Rista and suddenly plunged a hand into her chest.
Despite spitting congestion over his yellow beard, what he boldly pulled out with his fingers was a shard of light.
Since this was a mental space, that was probably a fragment of Yoshuhar’s soul… in other words, a part of the Yeouiju (Cintamani).
“Take it.”
“No, Your Holiness. How could someone like me dare… I cannot accept it. Please take it back.”
“You must take it. To send you to where ‘they’ are. And for ‘them’ to believe you are an ally.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
“The power I received from my father is insight. Before the genesis, when the war with the Abyss was in full swing, I gave my fragment to the Elmene Knights at my father's command. Through it, my father observed their battles and sent precise support.”
When speaking of the distant past, that is, a thousand years ago, the Three Divine Dragons usually wore similar expressions.
A yearning, wistful smile…
How could they smile like that, even though they described that war as so fierce and so painful?
‘Are they yearning for that time?’
Rista had gradually begun to understand why since the hero party began their expedition.
“The place I am sending you now is the past of this land. Specifically, a fragment of spacetime from that era that I observed with insight.”
“The past of this land, you say… Ah!”
A fragment of spacetime?
The Radiant Dragon said he wasn’t sending her *back* to the past, which meant it would be impossible to intervene and change the past.
“It is a fragment of the timeline when Lord Eldia Alma (01) Arkaios and Lord Bete (02) Cadwell defeated the Gluttony Duke. I will send you there. There, you will learn from them. The true way to use the power of your Holy Sword!”
To accomplish this, the Radiant Dragon Haradriman had to sacrifice 10% of his lifespan.
The Radiant Dragon willingly offered it.
With the Radiant Dragon’s fragment, Rista’s lifespan would be slightly extended, and that life force would be more than enough to restore her body.
‘To come here, I had to create a clone, which used 50%, and another 10% here… Do I only have 40% of my lifespan left now?’
There were no regrets. No lingering attachments.
He had never dreamed of eternal life or immortality.
Only, when he finished the fierce race of life… he would dedicate all his passion and sincerity to living a life worthy of receiving praise from his father, saying, ‘You did well.’
“Go now. The operations of the era you call the mythical age progressed in mere seconds, so there won’t be much time. Even half a day would be long, but whether you can learn something and return is all up to you.”