The castle was thick with fog. Sticky blood clung to the floor, staining it a deep red.

This was Mir Castle—the castle where Shamiel had once lived, and the place Ha Gangwoo now stood.

“Haah…”

Torn carpets, shattered furniture. He was deep inside Mir Castle.

Ha Gangwoo looked outside and furrowed his brow.

Ding-

[Scenario 1: Final Journey][Main]

Description: Rain, your last hope, has been taken by the Demon Lord Asrul. Reclaim Rain and restore peace to Skypier.

Reward: ???

(Caution! Time remaining until the end: 1 hour 31 minutes)

Only one hour left now. Twenty-four hours had passed since the moment of Zelta’s resurrection.

A lot had happened in that time.

‘It all failed.’

The miraculous power Shamiel had shown—he’d thought it was a Resurrection skill.

That was why he’d kept her close and run all kinds of experiments.

First, he had her cast magic on a dead animal.

The corpse of an animal, torn apart brutally.

The moment Shamiel’s hand touched it, the damaged flesh began to regenerate.

But the result was failure.

The wounds healed, but the animal didn’t come back to life.

‘Why doesn’t it work? Is it because she wasn’t desperate enough?’

Countless questions rose in his mind, and he thought about what situation would be more desperate for Shamiel than anything else.

*Let’s go to Mir Castle.*

And so Ha Gangwoo put the Scenario on hold and headed for Mir Castle, Shamiel’s home.

After killing the monsters that had taken over Mir Castle and retaking the stronghold,

Ha Gangwoo made Shamiel do something brutal.

“Use your magic on your mother. Master Zelta drew his last breath here too, I’m sure. You can do it, Lady Shamiel.”

He placed the rotting, unrecognizable corpse of Shamiel’s blood relative before her.

With a look more serious than ever, Shamiel used her magic.

Life surged back into the torn and decayed flesh.

Shamiel had never been more desperate, and she wanted more than anything to save her family.

But again, the result was failure.

Shamiel’s mother did not come back to life.

‘What’s missing? The time they’ve been dead—was it too long?’

No matter how much he thought, no answer came.

If he had to find a difference,

‘It’s those golden pupils…’

The light that had appeared in Shamiel’s eyes just before she brought Zelta back.

He’d never seen it again, except when she revived Zelta.

But there wasn’t enough time to figure out the nature of that light.

Only an hour remained.

It was finally time to dive into the Scenario.

‘No choice, then.’

Ha Gangwoo leveled a cold stare at his own palm.

There was only one option left.

‘I’ll do it.’

The only way was to Devour Shamiel with Barzel’s Appetite.

Just as Ha Gangwoo clenched his fist and made his resolve, Evan approached with a grim expression.

“Player, we really need to leave now.”

From the moment he’d awakened, Evan had wanted to head for the Teron Kingdom. It made sense—he’d ruined everything with his own hands, and now he wanted to undo it.

Until now, the hints about the Resurrection skill that Shamiel had shown were more important, so Gangwoo had ignored Evan’s opinion.

But it was getting harder to keep brushing aside.

“Get ready. We’re leaving now.”

Ha Gangwoo answered Evan, then walked over to Shamiel.

Kneeling, Shamiel was regenerating her dead family’s bodies. She wanted to make them whole even for this last farewell? He could understand that.

As Gangwoo drew near, Shamiel rose to her feet on pale, trembling legs, staggering—she looked like she was at her limit.

“Are you leaving now?”

“Yes. I have to. What will you do, Lady Shamiel?”

Shamiel’s goal was to retake Mir Castle. She had no reason left to stay with them now. That was why her will mattered.

Shamiel answered Gangwoo’s question without a shred of hesitation.

“I’ll come with you. I have no regrets left, even if I die.”

‘…’

At her reply, a stifling pressure lodged in Gangwoo’s chest—something caught and held.

Gangwoo forced a calm demeanor and answered her.

“You say that like I’m going to lose.”

“Ah! No, it’s not that. It’s just… you had such a lonely look on your face.”

At Shamiel’s words, Gangwoo ground his teeth.

Hadn’t he sworn he’d do anything for his sister? And yet, here he was, hesitating.

‘Pathetic. There’s nothing to even think about.’

She was just a character created by the Scenario. A clue to a Resurrection skill that would never come again.

Even Devouring Shamiel might not grant him the skill.

But as long as there was even a 0.1% chance, hope—he couldn’t give up.

‘Eat.’

Gangwoo steeled himself and placed his hand on Shamiel’s shoulder.

Shamiel flinched, her face flushing red.

“I need your power, Lady Shamiel.”

“Of course! I’ll help with anything.”

Shamiel answered brightly. Ha Gangwoo asked again with cold eyes.

“Even if I need your life?”

Shamiel looked flustered for a moment, but after meeting Gangwoo’s gaze, she answered without an instant of hesitation.

“I’d give it freely.”

Shamiel answered with a wide, bright smile.

Ha Gangwoo let out a short, dry laugh at that.

‘What am I even thinking?’

No matter how he turned it over, this wasn’t right. To kill someone who trusted him—who smiled at him like that—only to feed her to an item.

He felt, deep down, that if he saw the system notification afterward, he’d lose something he could never get back.

‘This is enough.’

A Scenario rewritten by the DLC. That NPC held the clue to a Resurrection skill. If that was true, then sooner or later, something would show up in the DLC Shop if he kept searching.

That single possibility was enough.

Ha Gangwoo took his hand off Shamiel’s shoulder, turned, and looked out at the Teron Kingdom. A smile surfaced on his face—relieved and satisfied at once.

“We leave immediately.”

And so, Ha Gangwoo’s final Scenario began.

***

*Thump-thump—*

Ha Gangwoo closed his eyes tight and felt the pulse of his own heart.

*Whoosh—* Wind brushed past his ears. A thick, cloying bloodlust filled the air around him.

This was the hill overlooking the Teron Kingdom.

He steadied himself.

‘Is that the Boss’s Demonic energy?’

He’d been here before, early in the Scenario.

Back then, he hadn’t felt the Boss’s presence at all. Now, even without trying, it prickled across his skin, raising goosebumps all over his body.

‘Interesting.’

The Demonic energy surging here was as bone-chilling as what Lucifel had once exuded.

“This place… the Teron Kingdom.”

Evan scowled as he took in his homeland, so utterly transformed.

‘How long will he last?’

Ha Gangwoo watched Evan and sank into thought.

He’d invested steady time into the NPCs’ growth.

Zelta and Evan had grown just as fast as Shamiel—their pace was exceptional.

They’d shot up like their growth limits had been removed. Those three together could now take on a Mid-Boss.

Just when he had a use for the leveled-up NPCs, Evan made the first move.

*—I’ll draw their attention, Player. You infiltrate the castle and look after the Prince and Princess.*

In short, a plan to make himself the bait.

*—Understood.*

Ha Gangwoo accepted the plan.

He’d been thinking of asking Evan’s group to handle the mobs anyway. They’d moved on their own.

“Alright, I’ll head there now.”

Ha Gangwoo looked toward the Teron Kingdom and was about to take a step when—

*Grrroooomble—*

The earth gave a faint tremor, then—

“Uwaaah!!!!”

A massive war cry rang out from far away.

“What the hell?”

Ha Gangwoo narrowed his gaze toward the sound. That was when Evan burst forward and shouted.

“It’s Skeleton’s army!”

The army of Skeleton, completely unexpected, was attacking the Teron Kingdom.

Ha Gangwoo watched the scene unfold, a satisfied smile curling at his lips.

‘Things are falling into place.’

The demon forces occupying the Teron Kingdom.

He’d felt uneasy relying only on Evan’s group. But then something appeared to split their attention all on its own.

It couldn’t have been better.

Ha Gangwoo stretched out his arm and opened his palm.

[Stoss’ Masterpiece:破] has been retrieved from the Inventory.

With a soft hiss—

A sword blazing with intense light snapped into Ha Gangwoo’s palm like it belonged there.

“Let’s start right now.”

And so, Ha Gangwoo’s final Scenario Quest began.

***

Kueeek!

Over a hundred beasts charged toward the army.

“Form ranks!!!”

Dikas Skeron bellowed at the top of his lungs.

At his shout, the soldiers moved with flawless precision.

Shield-bearers locked into the front line. Spearmen filed in behind them. The remaining men nocked arrows and trained their sights on the sky.

Their crisp movements spoke volumes about the blood, sweat, and tears behind the drill.

Crack—

Dikas Skeron ground his teeth and clenched his fists.

‘That senile old bastard dares to ignore me?’

Dikas Skeron, prince guarding a border castle. He hadn’t been shoved out here for nothing.

He’d already lost his father’s trust—but he wanted it back.

That was why he’d forced the development of the Red Golem weapon system.

And then those demonic bastards took everything.

‘Damn it.’

Still, up to this point, it was manageable.

—Send a dispatch!

Priceless intelligence: a malevolent force threatening the Skeron continent had seized the Teron Kingdom.

This was a crisis—and another opportunity.

Dikas sent a letter to the Skeron Kingdom.

But the reply was absurd.

—Maintain status quo.

After all the detail he’d packed into that message, the response was brutally short.

It told him everything about how that old man saw him.

—We march!

So Dikas staked everything and rode out for the Teron Kingdom.

Seize Teron with his own strength. Win back the king’s trust.

That was why Dikas was throwing everything into this assault right now.

Yelp!

Aaaagh!

The death-rattle of beasts. The screams of men.

Crunch—

Shlick—

The air filled with brutal noise.

“Lord Skeron! We desperately need the Golems!”

A blood-soaked soldier dropped to his knees and begged. But Dikas crushed his hesitation and barked back.

“Not yet! Hold as long as you can!”

The ten Golems he had left were being saved for that final bastard.

“Just hold the line!”

He didn’t care if every last soldier died.

Dikas had only one goal: retake the castle.

The desperate struggle dragged on—and then.

“Wooaaah!!!!”

The soldiers roared in triumph.

They had wiped out the entire horde of over a hundred beasts.

A satisfied smile curling his lips, Dikas tapped his temple with his index finger.

“Half… I see.”

Half his force was gone. But the result satisfied him.

“It’s right ahead now.”

The Teron Kingdom was less than a hundred meters away.

Now that he’d come this far, time was on Dikas’s side.

The faster they struck, the quicker the enemy’s forces would crumble.

“Form ranks!”

Dikas bellowed the order, his voice raw with urgency.

But in that instant—

A massive beat of wings—thump—

A gale swept over the soldiers,

“Whoa!”

A dust storm churned in the fierce wind.

Thud. A colossal figure descended from the sky, blocking the soldiers’ path.

Grrrrr—

A presence that conjured sheer terror even from the sound of its breathing alone.

“A-agh… A demon!!!”

The Mid-Boss-class Monster that had snatched Rain and Teil.

It was Tobelim.

“A… demon?!”

Dikas stared at Tobelim, doubting his own eyes.

Two enormous horns. Its head, eerily resembling a praying mantis, sprouted colossal wings.

Wasn’t this the very embodiment of a demon?

‘What the hell?! If that thing’s a real demon, then what was that other bastard back then?!’

Dikas recalled smashing the Red Golem and the man he’d grabbed to pry his guardian knight free—Ha Gangwoo.

Overwhelming force, an unshakable composure. He’d been certain it was a demon.

But seeing the thing before him now, he understood.

That man he’d faced back then—he was no demon.

The moment Dikas was seized by fear at the sight of the demon.

“A… a demon!”

“We’re supposed to fight something like this?”

The soldiers, too, grimaced and were paralyzed by fear.

As time passed, their will to fight would erode. He couldn’t allow them time to think.

“What are you doing! Form up!”

Dikas barked the order, and with a low hum—he channeled magic through his entire body.

‘Advance!’

A luminescence seemed to frost over Dikas’s eyes, and then—with a grinding creak—the Golem began to move.

He was deploying the Golem he’d held in reserve until the very end.

Thud!

At Dikas’s command, ten Golems surged forward in flawless unison.

“It’s a Golem!”

“Yeah! We can still fight!”

The soldiers erupted in cheers as the Golems lumbered into view. These constructs were the pride of Skeron’s camp, the backbone of its national might—their morale surged back in an instant.

Boom! Boom!

Ten Golems charged toward Tobelim. With every footfall, the earth shuddered.

A grinding tremor rolled through the battlefield like an earthquake—then, Crash! Demon and Golem collided.

“Go!”

“Wooah!”

The soldiers began shouting as they watched the Golems fight.

Thud! Crunch—Crack!

Flesh sloughed off the demon under the Golems’ hammering fists. Blood gushed from the torn body.

But the demon’s counterattack was no less fierce.

Crunch—Thwack!

It bit a Golem’s arm clean off, then impaled another through its torso with a massive horn.

“Wooah!!”

“That’s our Golems!”

It seemed the tide of battle was tipping in the Golems’ favor.

But.

Crack!

The demon’s torn flesh and ripped arms simply regenerated, smoothly knitting back together—

Crackle—

But the shattered Golem never rose again.

“……”

The soldiers’ war cries died out, replaced by a suffocating silence that filled the air.

Crackle—

The brutal sparks sputtering from the Golem’s broken body spoke volumes about the despair in that moment.

“Rrraaahhh!!!”

Tobelim let out a roar of triumph.

“Impossible… That’s impossible!”

Dikas’s jaw hung open. The staff slipped from his hand and clattered to the ground.

The Golem—humanity’s ultimate weapon—had been savagely crushed by a single demon. He couldn’t believe it.

“This… this can’t be…”

“Is that even possible?”

The soldiers felt the same.

The weapon they had trusted and followed so completely had been trampled into ruin by just one monster.

It was sheer, naked despair.

But then, an insane order came from behind them.

“Form up!!! Launch the attack as planned!”

Dikas forced himself to grip his scattered thoughts and issue the command. The demon was still staggering, barely staying on its feet.

The Golem’s sacrifice hadn’t been entirely meaningless.

This moment—the demon wounded—was an opportunity that wouldn’t come twice.

‘Take that bastard down, and the Teron Kingdom is mine!’

Burning with deluded fervor, Dikas rallied his will to fight.

“S-save me.”

“How are we supposed to fight something like that?”

But his soldiers’ morale had already hit rock bottom.

Hadn’t the Golem they’d trusted so utterly just been brutally torn apart?

Telling them to charge that demon now was like ordering a leap off a cliff.

“What are you doing?! I said form ranks!!!”

Dikas roared at the top of his lungs, but the words never reached his soldiers’ ears.

Thud! Thud!

All they could see was the colossal monster coming straight for them.

“Aaaaaah!!!”

One by one, the soldiers began to flee.

Crrrrrack! Ccrrrunch—

The soldiers who couldn’t flee vanished into Tobelim’s maw. Each time, the demon’s torn flesh knitted itself back together.

Even the faintest shred of hope had been ground into the dust.

Dikas’s legs gave out. He collapsed to the ground, his strength gone.

“It’s… over.”

A wound that deep shouldn’t heal in an instant.

Short of dragging every Golem on the Skeron continent here, he couldn’t think of a single way to fell that devil.

The light died in Dikas’s eyes. He knew, now, that this was his death.

A low, grinding growl—

The giant demon loomed over him, close enough to touch.

The soldier clutched in the demon’s hand stared pitifully at Dikas. His lower half had been savagely torn away, organs spilling downward in a wet, hanging rope of flesh.

The sight seized Dikas with terror.

The metallic tang of blood, the gagging stench of filth and ruptured entrails—the reek of mortality flooded his senses.

“Ugh… ack!!”

Dikas stumbled backward before he even knew what he was doing.

The giant demon’s grasp slithered toward him this time.

“S-someone… save me… please…”

Dikas pissed himself in a hot trickle, thrashing in pathetic desperation.

But the demon’s grip drew closer, and with a heavy swoosh, the crushing pressure of its strength smothered his entire body.

And then—

Thwack—

A blade whistled through the air, shearing through the demon’s fingers with a sickening sound.

“Gyaaah!”

The demon staggered back in agony.

“Wh-what…”

Dikas lifted his head in dazed disbelief. A man stood before him.

“Are you alright, Prince Dikas?”

That man’s back—he knew it all too well.

Swoosh—

Through the wind-whipped cloak, the kingdom’s insignia fluttered, the very one Dikas had always dismissed.

“Sir Evan…”

Even that tattered, mangled cloak looked gallant now.

Without thinking, Dikas clasped his hands together, staring at Evan.

Evan paid him no mind, gripping his sword and lowering his stance.

A savage glint flared in his eyes.

“We begin the demon hunt now.”

With Evan’s crisp command as the signal—

Vwoom—

Shamiel and Zelta gathered intense light between their hands.

And so, Evan’s party began their battle.

***

Thump-thump—

Ha Gangwoo stood before the enormous door, eyes closed, feeling the pulse of his own heart.

The stench of rotting corpses was enough to split his head, but his mood was soaring.

‘This is it.’

He cracked a dry smile and pressed his hand against the colossal gate.

Ding—

[Quest updated.]

[Scenario 1: Final Battle — Lord Asrul.][DLC Hidden][Main]

Description: You have arrived at Lord Asrul’s location. Defeat Asrul and bring peace back to Skypier.

Reward: ???

The quest had shifted the moment he reached the Boss Room door.

Thump-thump

Standing before this door, he knew it for certain.

‘Same tier as Lucifel.’

He could feel exactly how powerful the entity beyond this door was.

Slowly, Ha Gangwoo began to push the door open.

Creeeak— the grating noise filled the silence, then Clang! The moment the massive door swung wide—

Ding—

[Lord Asrul has detected your presence.]

The boss fight he’d been waiting for had begun.