“Escape?”
I didn’t understand what he meant.
But before I could ask further, I wordlessly held out a plate to him — tonight’s meal, prepared by the most skilled cook among my men.
Kysis didn’t even glance at it.
“Yeah. As soon as we get back to ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) the capital, report everything and prepare an organized escape.”
“Please, eat first.”
“The mages will draw a dimensional transit circle. We’ll pass through there. I’ve been perfecting it for ten years; it won’t collapse even with a large number of people.”
“Please eat.”
Clang!
Kysis knocked the dish aside with a heavy hand.
I caught the flying plate smoothly with my left hand — without spilling a drop.
Kysis stared at me, half in disbelief.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m offering you a meal.”
I meant it.
When I met his eyes squarely, his voice dropped.
“You really don’t grasp the situation, do you?”
“If you refuse to eat, then I’ll at least perform a transfer.”
Honestly, I wanted to give him a bath too.
But that would be crossing a line, so I settled for offering food.
The unease that had lingered for two whole days still hadn’t left me.
While cutting through the contamination, I’d glimpsed fragments of his ten years of struggle — and that only deepened the weight in my chest.
Where had he even found anything edible in this place?
I masked my thoughts behind a bland expression and held the plate out again.
“If you really don’t want to eat, then I’ll perform the transfer instead.”
“You still put on airs for someone who vomits after it. People still call you the World Tree’s unfilial son, huh?”
“I’ve also heard ‘degenerate’ lately. And please keep the vomiting part a secret from the new recruits.”
Everyone knew I was one of the World Tree’s children — our golden eyes gave us away.
But I stubbornly avoided using absorption or transfer.
That’s why those who disliked me called me “the World Tree’s unfilial son.”
“Degenerate” was a newer insult. Maybe they upgraded it since “unfilial son” no longer bothered me.
Still, isn’t calling me a degenerate just because I don’t use the World Tree’s gift going too far?
“Unfilial son” I could live with. But “degenerate”? Please.
Of course, my subordinates couldn’t tolerate even that first insult.
There had been several times I had to rush forward to stop them from attacking anyone who dared to say it.
But that wasn’t the point right now.
Since Kysis clearly wasn’t going to eat, I stood up to perform the absorption and transfer instead.
At that moment, Kysis lunged at me.
Thud!
“What the hell?!”
“If you’re offering, then I’ll take it.”
He was insane — in a whole different way.
Most people, at this point, would either eat quietly or let me perform the transfer.
But this Swordmaster, this imperial bastard, apparently hated when things went the way others wanted them to.
Kysis pinned me down and grabbed my wrist.
Rolling my eyes, I muttered irritably,
“You need to make contact with my palm for the transfer to work smoothly.”
“You people still absorb monsters too?”
“Yes.”
That’s why I still believed this world had a chance.
Some summoners had succeeded in binding monsters, and we had succeeded in absorbing them.
If the contamination spread, we could purify it; if monsters were born from it, we could tame, slay, or absorb them.
I didn’t want to believe Kysis when he said there was no hope left for this world.
Dimensional transit and such—those were mages’ affairs, and I’d never understood them well.
Kysis squeezed my hand until my bones creaked.
I sighed.
“I’ll perform the transfer.”
Where was Cecil? That quiet, beautiful magician.
The one person who could appear beside Kysis without warning, grab his neck, and teleport him straight back to the capital.
I didn’t dare ask — too afraid of the answer.
Before I could speak, I began the transfer.
The share of nutrients he hadn’t eaten for two days.
“The ashes that remain after burning... there’s nothing left to absorb.”
I didn’t understand the meaning behind Kysis’s mocking words.
***
Five days after I’d found Kysis.
I understood.
“Let’s go back.”
Amid cries of “Call the mages!”, “You must get out of here!”, “Bring water!” — I turned to my knights and shouted,
“To where the flames can’t reach!”
Blue fire.
Scorching heat rolled over the camp.
Kysis didn’t flinch. He stared coldly at the spreading blue flames devouring the contamination, as if he’d been expecting them all along.
He must have foreseen this.
Those flames wouldn’t extinguish by ordinary means.
They would consume everything until the contamination ran out—and then die out only there.
To cut off the fire’s path, we severed the contaminated ground itself.
“Where is Cecil?”
At last, I asked the question I’d been putting off for days.
Kysis smirked and touched his sword.
“She’s gone.”
“...What?”
“She was opening a dimensional gate. Got pulled in. I couldn’t bring her back.”
My face stiffened.
Kysis didn’t take his eyes off the burning blue fire.
“I spent ten years trying to find a way to evolve it, but there’s no solution. Magic doesn’t work. Divine power doesn’t work. The flames burn through the contamination as they advance—and wherever they pass, nothing living can remain.”
“So that’s why you spoke of escape...”
“You, who know nothing about magic, probably think it’s nonsense.”
The unit retreated.
Up to the point where our swords had severed the contamination completely.
The knights followed in silence. Even when the contamination’s spread had accelerated before, things hadn’t felt this hopeless.
We’d once succeeded in taming monsters, after all.
I had used that very fact to encourage the knights—telling them that though things were worsening, it wasn’t beyond saving.
That as long as we kept fighting, the world wouldn’t collapse.
“There must still be a way,” a rookie knight suddenly spoke up, breaking the silence.
I looked back at him, but Kysis only let out a short, derisive laugh.
“Just like before, we’ve always found a way... surely there must be one this time too?”
“If we stopped seeking the Tree’s blessing, perhaps we’d see some hope.”
The imperial bastard muttered darkly.
“But that’s impossible, isn’t it?”
There was no going back.
And I knew it too. Of course I did. Who would ever give it up?
Even if we petitioned endlessly, it would never truly be eradicated.
Even now, with the blessing limited to a chosen few, too many still destroyed themselves trying to obtain it.
Was it punishment for tampering with nature’s order?
Whatever the case, as I was soothing the young knight with a “We’ll do what we can,” Kysis murmured,
“It’s too late.”
I caught his faint words.
“That arrogant old man will realize I was right.”
***
Grand Duke Jacques understood Kysis’s warning.
A few hours later, he emerged from his office with a terrifying expression and said to me,
“Gather the mages.”
“Your Grace—”
“It’s already far too late.”
From his blazing voice, I could sense the scale of the disaster.
The Chancellor, his neatly combed white hair gleaming, looked at me with eyes aflame.
“It’s the calculated conclusion. Even if we start organized evacuation now, not everyone in the capital will make it. But if we delay, it’ll be worse! Call in the Grand Mages from the Tower! Gather all the mages!”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll go to His Majesty.”
Beside me, the Chancellor spoke sharply to his attendant.
“Immediately.”
We moved fast.
After that, everything happened at once.
The royal family took action. They didn’t dismiss Jacques’s words.
Though it was already too late, the ruler listened to his loyal servant and son without hesitation.
Once the hopeless reality was confirmed, there was no more delay.
The capital began to move — to survive.
Even from his sickbed, the Emperor gave nonstop orders.
The eldest son and daughter ceased their struggle for the throne and joined hands.
The nobles forgot their feuds and clasped the hands of their enemies.
What else could they do?
If the world burned, neither power nor life would remain.
All the strength of the nations focused on one goal — escape.
Mages worked to slow the advancing contamination, others prepared the dimensional circle.
Kyle, Rei, and I cut through the infection alongside them, commanding our knights and quelling riots.
Hekate oversaw order within the capital and organized the evacuation teams.
Meanwhile, the lands beyond the capital burned.
“Do you think the World Tree burned too?”
Rei murmured as we watched the plains beyond the surrounding mountains blaze — the golden horizon of our homeland swallowed by fire.
I tried to sense it, reaching out with my sixth sense.
The golden spores that once poured from the Tree—
“Not completely. Not yet.”
The presence that had always pulsed vividly whenever I looked inward was now faint.
“You feel it too.”
“The fire’s spreading faster.”
Rei said nothing. Kyle, sitting slumped nearby, muttered,
“At this rate, it’ll reach the capital in less than fourteen days.”
Our hands were coated in scarlet contamination.
We carved through the ground, over and over, buying what little time we could.
Whenever it all felt pointless, I thought of Kysis’s ten years.
Ten years.
In that time, he’d discovered much.
That fire burned contamination and heated the world.
That no magic, no Swordmaster’s blade, no holy water could extinguish it.
That if things continued, the capital would either be consumed by infection or by the flames born from it.
After finishing his calculations, he hadn’t despaired.
He’d found a way for life to continue — even if it meant leaving the world behind.
At the cost of countless lives.
Kysis’s entire division had perished, leaving only him alive.
“If we’d sent more troops when the contamination began, would it have changed anything?” Rei murmured.
I thought for a moment, then slowly shook my head.
Had we stopped granting the blessing that sickened the Tree, maybe.
But otherwise, it was only a matter of time.
“No. It wouldn’t.”
Kyle seemed to share my thought, answering in my place.
“In the end, we still would’ve witnessed this.”
The burning plain.
The reeds drowned in blue fire.
I thought of the capital at my back.
Its citizens had packed their belongings, knights guided them, and Grand Duke Jacques—at the moment the dimensional circle was activated—scribbled endless calculations to determine arrival coordinates.
Kysis, smirking as always, offered curt instructions beside the Emperor.
The prince and princess rode through the city, inspecting the preparations.
“So we’ll keep trying—until the very end—to survive.”
Everyone was struggling to live.
That was the essence of life itself.
“The dimensional circle is flawless. At this rate, the escape should go smoothly.”
I whispered the words like a prayer.
Forgetting entirely that the world had never once granted me a single wish.
I stood for a long while with my old friends, watching the sea of beautiful, undulating fire.
***
Three days later.
The flames swallowed the capital.
