Chapter 222 – The Archmage Yelena

We moved as quickly as possible, unsure how severely the Demon King was injured or how long his recovery would take.  

And so, we arrived in Pyongyang.  

There, we received heartbreaking news.  

“I’m sorry… It took us too long to dismantle the magic circle.”  

Yelena apologized to us tearfully as we arrived. Though we were in a hurry, we couldn’t leave immediately after hearing her apology.  

On the top floor of the building, just below the rooftop, Hoffman lay.  

He was leaning against the wall, his face peaceful.  

A long trail of blood stretched to where he rested, and countless undead corpses littered the hallway.  

Hoffman’s body was mutilated—his arms and legs severed, his body covered in wounds. Yet, his expression showed no pain.  

Instead, he looked satisfied, his gaze fixed on the window in the hallway.  

Was it because he sensed mana? Or was it due to his indomitable will?  

Even in death, Hoffman did not turn into an undead.  

The corpse of the old soldier was a mess. To anyone else, it might have seemed gruesome, but to me, his remains did not appear hideous.  

Yelena and Irin shed tears as they looked at Hoffman, and Zahina gazed at him with sorrow. I felt the same.  

Though the face of the dead showed peace and contentment, those of us left alive could not share those feelings.  

Regret. Grief. And rage.  

There was anger at myself—for vaguely knowing this might happen yet leaving him behind—and anger at the undead and the Demon King who had killed him.  

Yerim, who would grieve the most, wasn’t here.  

She was on the rooftop, treating Seung-ah.  

While Hoffman fought the undead inside the building, Seung-ah had been holding off enemies descending from the sky—vampires and even a lich among them.  

It was an impossible battle.  

Seung-ah barely survived, forcing Yerim to focus on emergency treatment.  

Though Yelena was apologizing to us now, she deserved praise.  

Despite Hoffman’s death and Seung-ah’s near-fatal injuries, the two mages had dismantled the Demon King’s magic circle.  

Even without interference, it should have been impossible. Yet, staring death in the face, they achieved the impossible.  

Other mages would have been stunned if they knew.  

But even after performing such a miracle, Yelena could only mourn now.  

I took out a white cloth from my retrieved pouch and wrapped Hoffman’s body in it.  

The white cloth I always carried after the war—a burial shroud for the dead.  

After preparing his body, we ascended to the rooftop.  

The rooftop, once covered in magic circles, had returned to normal. The circles on the building’s walls and the massive one on the ground below had also vanished.  

Only a desolate plain remained, with a single old, towering hotel standing alone.  

On its rooftop were two women—Seung-ah lying on the ground, receiving treatment, and Yerim healing her.  

Yerim’s head was bowed deeply as she poured divine energy into Seung-ah. Her hair covered her face, but her trembling shoulders and the droplets falling from her cheeks betrayed her tears.  

I stood behind them, holding the shrouded body, waiting for the treatment to end.  

When Seung-ah finally regained consciousness, she bit her lip upon seeing the corpse in my arms.  

Did she feel guilty?  

But now wasn’t the time to worry about her feelings.  

Yerim, having finished healing, saw Hoffman’s body in my arms and finally broke down.  

“Waaah! Uncle! Uncle! Why did you die?! No! This can’t be!”  

She touched Hoffman’s face and wailed in sorrow.  

Though she had witnessed many deaths, Hoffman’s hit her the hardest.  

He had protected her like a daughter, so her grief was only natural.  

Losing a comrade after so long left me unsettled as well.  

I almost wished the Demon King would attack us now.  

But that wasn’t an option.  

The living had to keep living.  

As long as the Demon King wasn’t dead, an opportunity like this wouldn’t come again.  

“Let’s go. We all need to return.”  

My companions nodded.  

I placed the body into my pouch, and we left the hotel.  

Then, we headed south.  

Many had died fighting the Demon King.  

Zahina’s mother tree had perished, along with those who stayed on the submarine—and now, Hoffman.  

Though we had dealt the Demon King a severe blow and prevented the merging of dimensions, no feat could bring back the dead.  

As we left Pyongyang and traveled along the western coast, we were fortunate enough to encounter familiar faces—the sailors from the submarine.  

They had suffered greatly after landing ashore, and though less than half survived, we managed to save them.  

They already knew the submarine had self-destructed.  

Of course, how could they have missed such a massive explosion?  

Reuniting with the surviving sailors brought us immense relief, but the thought of traveling south with them was daunting.  

Without the Demon King’s immediate threat, our group could go anywhere without worry. But escorting dozens of ordinary sailors south wouldn’t be easy.  

Fortunately, we didn’t have to walk.  

Shortly after meeting the sailors, Yelena regained the ability to open portals.  

“We’re far enough from the Demon King’s city now. I should be able to connect a portal to the safe zone in the south.”  

The spatial magic that had been unusable due to the Demon King’s dimension-merging spell was now accessible again.  

Of course, spatial portals weren’t something a single mage could create—but Yelena, who had once built a Gate alone, was more than capable.  

She drew a magic circle on the ground and constructed the portal at an astonishing speed.  

Staring at the glowing circle, I couldn’t help but ask:  

“Are portal magic circles usually this easy to make?”  

Even if Yelena was a genius, I never expected it to be this effortless.  

I had assumed it would take days—or at least a full day—but she had created a portal to Jeonju in less than an hour.  

It made me wonder. If it was this simple, why had we walked so much before?  

“Ah, I should apologize. Mocking the Demon King earlier was a mistake.”  

At my question, Yelena looked remorseful.  

I tilted my head in confusion.  

Who was she apologizing to? Me? The Demon King?  

Ignoring my bewilderment, she continued:  

“The Demon King’s magic wasn’t just about vast mana. While dismantling his circle, Irin and I learned so much about spatial magic. As mages, we’ve grown by a whole level, you could say.”  

Irin nodded in agreement.  

Grown by a level?  

Even before this, Yelena had been a genius far surpassing other mages.  

What did that make her now?  

“Don’t tell me you’ve become an Archmage, on par with a Sword Saint?”  

My half-joking remark made Yelena avert her eyes awkwardly, while Irin’s sparkled as she looked at her teacher.  

“Wait… You’re serious?”  

As I stared in disbelief, Zahina answered instead.  

“It’s a different field from mine, but she’s grown much stronger. On Earth, she’s likely stronger than me now. She’s become what the Ea call an Archmage.”  

I gaped at Yelena.  

Just how much of a genius was she?  

Dismantling the Demon King’s magic circle had suddenly turned her into an Archmage? It was absurd.  

“Though, coming from someone who’s both a Sword Saint and the Hero, you shouldn’t be too surprised.”  

Yelena fired back, seeing my stunned expression.  

I had no rebuttal.  

And her ascension to Archmage was incredibly fortunate for us—now, we could return to Jeonju in an instant.  

We immediately stepped through Yelena’s portal to Jeonju.  

All that remained was reactivating the Gate there to return to Ea.  

Before that, we needed to send the locals to Jeju Island, and I worried about those who would remain on Earth after our departure. But we couldn’t protect everyone.  

As the Ea knights and the Hero’s party departed through the portal, far above in the dark expanse of space, the Demon King opened his eyes.  

His location: geostationary orbit, 36,000 kilometers above Earth.  

The Demon King floating in space was no longer the same.  

The handsome young man was gone.  

In his place was a horrific corpse—bones, charred tendons, and half-melted organs dangling between ribs.  

His head was no better.  

His skull was exposed, his eyes burnt black, leaving only a terrifying visage.  

The Demon King examined his ruined body with magical eyes, no longer relying on his destroyed physical ones.  

[The body I worked so hard to create is ruined.]  

His tone was calm, devoid of the emotions he once had.  

[This is troublesome. I spent so much time and mana crafting this flesh.]  

He observed Earth and shook his head.  

[The dimensional magic has been dismantled. But how could humans have done that?]  

Even now, it made no sense to him.  

For human mages to dismantle a spell merging dimensions—it defied logic.  

[But since it happened, questioning its possibility is meaningless.]  

Unlike before, the emotionless Demon King didn’t rage over the impossible.  

[Thanks to the automatic defensive spells, the damage was limited. Had I been careless, I might have needed a century just to recover.]  

Instead, he analyzed the situation coldly.  

[Now I see. It wasn’t the other Ea who hindered me—it was that Hero’s party.]  

Humans from this dimension, fighting alongside the Hero.  

This Hero was different from the Ea he had expected.  

[That unfamiliar divine energy… This world’s god must have chosen its Hero.]  

Of course, merging dimensions would provoke the local deity.  

[It’s a shame, but I won’t be able to recreate a human body. It made me too emotional, prone to mistakes.]  

He began discarding the remnants of his flesh.  

Tendons clinging to bone, dangling organs—all scattered into space.  

Stripping away everything human, the Demon King was left with only bones.  

A lich.  

The King of Death had shed his mortal shell, returning to his original form.