I collapsed to my knees. Blood leaking from my lacerated lungs stained the ashen earth. Every bone in my body creaked, and my divine power had been scorched away to the very last drop, leaving me without even the strength to flicker a finger. Before my eyes, the King of Steel—Arthur—stood in his noble glory. Unscathed, and without a speck of dust upon his raiment.
It was a total, crushing defeat.
King Arthur approached me with measured steps. The wrath in his emerald eyes—the fury he held for the foreign King who had defiled his lands—had subsided. In its place dwelt a deep, tranquil light, a gaze that acknowledged a fellow warrior. He came to a halt before me and pointed the tip of the radiantly shimmering holy sword, Excalibur, directly at my heart. There was no hesitation in his movement, nor any hatred. It possessed a sense of sublime duty, as if he were merely fulfilling his natural obligations as a King and a Knight.
"It was a magnificent struggle, foreign King. Though you were my enemy, you proved yourself a King and a valiant warrior.”
His words were not the arrogance of a victor, but the final courtesy shown to the vanquished. I could feel the flickering sparks of my life rapidly extinguishing through the countless wounds carved by Excalibur. The strength drained from my limbs, and my vision began to blur into a haze.
"Do you have any final words you wish to leave behind?"
...So this is the end.
Is this how a prisoner on death row feels? A strange sense of serenity arrived even before the pain. My life as Min-jun Jeong, the ordinary university student, and as the Devil King Campione flashed before my eyes like a revolving lantern.
When I accidentally killed a god in Italy and became a King, I wanted nothing more than to deny it all. But on the beaches of Hawaii, when I looked upon Tāwhirimātea—the God of Storms who spewed his wrath toward the countless people standing behind me—I felt the weight of a 'responsibility' I could not flee from for the first time. Since then, I had hovered at the threshold of death while facing the Goddess of Fire, Pele, and the new Devil King, Ravana, born of a syncretism with Jiha Daegukjeok. In that process, I had learned how to willingly become a warrior just to survive. In Korea and Japan, I established my authority by showing the terrifying reality of a King to the arrogant fools who dared treat a monarch as their chess piece.
It was short. Abysmally short, yet a life more concentrated and dense than any other. The euphoria, the rage, the delight, and the despair—emotions I could never have tasted in a life of normalcy. All of it had been compressed under the name 'Campione.' If so, it would be only proper to accept this end in a manner befitting a Devil King. As a King who slew a god, there is no shame in kneeling before the pinnacle of another mythology. Rather, this might be the most fitting conclusion to the path I have walked.
Yes, there were no regrets.
I offered a faint smile and shook my head. King Arthur nodded slightly, seemingly understanding my silent reply. For a fleeting moment, a spark of pity seemed to cross his eyes.
"I have received your resolve.”
Then, his blade pierced my heart without hesitation.
Squelch—!
The sensation of cold steel burrowing into my heart. Yet, there was no explosive agony like I had expected. Instead, a bizarre void settled in, as if my entire being was being sucked into the tip of that frigid blade. Sensation vanished from my toes, and the roar of the battlefield echoing in my ears subsided into a distant silence. I could only watch blankly as the world before me lost its saturation, fading into a monochrome gray. Is this what it means to die?
"MY LIIIIEEEEGE!"
What erupted from Alessandro’s mouth was no longer a human voice. It was the howl of a beast witnessing the collapse of the world he had dedicated everything to. His eyes were stained with blood-red fury, and I could almost hear the sound of the cool-headed knight’s reason shattering into pieces. He drew the rapier from his waist and attempted to throw himself madly toward that horrific battlefield where the outcome had already been decided.
"Stop, Diabolosso!"
Alice blocked his path. Her face was pale with horror and her fingertips trembled violently, yet her eyes were desperately struggling not to lose their grip on cold logic.
I cannot afford to lose you too...!
"Shut up! Just shut up! Because of you! If it weren't for you, my King would never have come to such a place! You are the one who drove him to his death!"
Alessandro’s resentment-filled screams stabbed into Alice’s chest like daggers. She bit her lip in agony. He wasn't wrong. If she hadn't tried to borrow the strength of this young King. If she hadn't dragged him into this desperate struggle.
...I know. If I... if I hadn't called him here... this young King would at least not have died in a place like this.... But... what use is regret now? The survivors have a duty to somehow clean up this catastrophe.
Suppressing her trembling voice, she pronounced the cold reality to the knight who had lost his sanity.
"The future of this country now rests in the hands of King Arthur, who has been resurrected as a God of the End. We can no longer defy him...!"
As if her words were a period to the sentence, the battlefield was enveloped in the silence of perfect despair. Alessandro slumped down as if he were collapsing, and Alice lowered her head, unable to bring herself to look toward where the King had fallen. Everyone thought it was over.
It was then. Breaking the silence of despair, at the very center of the battlefield where the King had fallen, a tiny, faint, yet inextinguishable spark of light began to bloom.
Within the ashen world of death, my consciousness was sinking endlessly. I felt that if I just let everything go, it would become peaceful. In that very moment, two voices echoed like shadows from the deepest depths of the darkness.
'...It will be very special...'
[...I shall be waiting for the battlefield where we meet again!]
Pandora’s whisper and Ravana’s boisterous shout. They became the ropes that caught the final embers of my dying existence.
It’s not over yet.
I cannot let it end like this!
Screaming a silent cry, I resisted the stillness of death that shackled me. Gathering the final remnants of my will, I whispered the sacred verse of destruction for a new birth.
「In the name of the Creator and the Destroyer, I shall return to the embrace of the Void.」
「Shiva, grant me destruction; Brahma, raise my existence anew.」
「Vishnu, maintain my being and complete the cycle of samsara.」
「All creation stems from destruction; every end leads back to a beginning.」
「——Under the name of 『Trimūrti Prāṇa — Breath of the Triad』, I shall be resurrected here and now!」
At that instant, the wound that had pierced my heart vanished without a trace. The spark of life that had been extinguishing surged back into a flame far more gargantuan than before. This was not mere regeneration. It was a complete re-creation through the destruction known as death.
"...This is...!"
For the first time, a look of pure bewilderment crossed King Arthur’s face as he had been confirming my death. Instinctively sensing danger, he swung Excalibur once more, aiming for my neck. However, the blade of the holy sword was repelled just before it touched my body, as if blocked by an invisible wall.
CLANG!
The Authority of the holy sword was bounced back fruitlessly, as if it had struck a massive steel rampart. Shock flashed in Arthur’s eyes.
I too was struck with immense surprise. This invisible barrier surrounding my body was not a defense.
My very existence had temporarily become 'immortal,' rejecting all forms of destruction. A power awakened by paying the price of death. So this is Ravana’s Authority, 『Grace of the Three Lords』. I slowly raised my head. The fighting spirit that had died within me began to roar like an inferno.
"Let's go for one more round, King of Knights."
Standing up, I reached out with my right hand into the empty air. From my fingertips, the flames that scorched the earth—the crimson lava—bloomed. It carried a pure white heat that seemed ready to swallow all light, condensing into the form of a perfect 'spear.'
"My Hearth is the furnace that melts all things to return them to the beginning; I shall incinerate that impure existence and begin my pure creation! O sacrifice offered to my Hearth, surrender your very soul to the altar— Pāoa!"
WHOOOSH!
A spear forged from pure white lava was held in my hand. The surrounding space distorted like a heat haze from that temperature alone. A foreign divine majesty, where destruction and creation coexisted in a scale incomparable to before, blanketed the battlefield. Even the holy light of Excalibur seemed to flicker weakly in the presence of this blasphemous aura.
"This time, it is my turn to judge you.”
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