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His power from Sia-fication was already fading when he defeated the fiend titan, which was why he made up his mind to end the battle as soon as possible.

He instantaneously raised multiple layers of barriers as soon as the light enveloped him. Similarly, Carolyn also protected herself through the Savior’s sun and her tremendous life force.

The light was too blinding for anyone to open their eyes, and the deafening rumbles from the explosions continued for a long time. It was only when the mana pulsations calmed down and darkness returned to the horizon that Roel finally dispelled his barriers and opened his eyes.

He was in awe of Carolyn’s determination, but he hadn’t held back in the earlier attack at all.

His intuition told him that he would surely fall in defeat if he dared to hold back in this clash, and that would spell his death. He had no desire to die, and he was determined to protect Alicia too. However, due to going all out, he didn’t have the spare attention to keep track of what was going on around him, so he had no idea whether Carolyn was dead or alive.

While gasping for air, Roel raised his head and saw that everything within a radius of several kilometers of their clash had been reduced to a desert. A bloodied figure was standing right in front of him.

“…”

She’s still standing?

Carolyn’s armor was awfully tattered, but she resolutely stood her ground, refusing to collapse. The exhausted Roel narrowed his eyes, while Carolyn raised her head and wordlessly stared at him.

They were less than a hundred meters away from each other, but their silent stares showed that they had no inclination to back down. The only thing holding them back was their physical limits.

Carolyn was severely injured, and she had nearly depleted all of her turbid mana.

On the other hand, Roel didn’t have any visible injuries on his body, but the heavy burden he had to shoulder from Sia-fication was worse than any external wounds. His silver hair turned black, and his mana receded from his Inner Sanctum. His breathing slowly weakened.

He tottered forward with clenched jaws, intending to determine the victor of this battle while he still had energy left. He was already too tired to think, but he instinctively knew that this battle wasn’t over until one of them fell.

Just then, a familiar voice echoed, “Big brother Roel, are you all right?”

“Paul?”

Roel turned his head over and was shocked to see an armored, black-haired man. It was someone he hadn’t expected to see here, to the extent that he wondered whether he was hallucinating.

Before he embarked on his journey to find Alicia, he had received a report informing him that Paul Ackermann had been incarcerated by Emperor Lukas. It should have been impossible for him to escape under Lukas’ nose.

Even if Paul somehow managed to get away, it was still inconceivable how he was able to locate this place and travel here, considering the fact that Tark Prairie was an extremely dangerous place, and Roel had no clue exactly where they were at the moment.

Roel blinked his eyes in confusion, as he found himself at a loss for words.

“My apologies, big brother Roel. Leave the rest to me,” Paul suddenly said out of the blue.

“What?” The apology further confused Roel, but before he could ask about it, Paul had already begun marching toward Carolyn. This alarmed Roel, and he exclaimed, “W-wait! What are you doing, Paul? Come back here!”

But Paul neither turned around nor answered him. In fact, he even hastened his footsteps.

This further panicked Roel. He had no idea what was going on, but he thought that Paul was going to challenge Carolyn. To him, this was no different from an act of suicide.

Even though Carolyn was in her weakest-ever state due to the injuries she had suffered, she was still not an enemy that an Origin Level 3 transcendent like Paul could deal with. Just her pressure itself was enough to bind his movements and render him helpless.

He tried to rush forward to stop Paul, but he was unable to keep up with the latter’s footsteps. Just then, iridescent mana appeared before him, and he heard a familiar voice saying, “It’s fine. Leave it to him.”

“This mana!” Roel widened his golden eyes.

The iridescent mana whirled, and two figures emerged from within.

One of them was an unkempt Antonio, who had a good chunk of his prided beard scorched off. As for the other one…

“Ancestor Astrid!” Roel exclaimed in shock.

“!”

Overwhelmed by his emotions, Roel took a step toward Astrid, but the latter was taken aback by his excitement and hesitantly halted her footsteps.

Upon seeing that, Roel quickly reined in his emotions and stopped himself before apologizing with a strained smile, “My apologies. You don’t recognize me, right? I forgot that you don’t have memories of the Witness State…”

The realization that he was the only one with the memories of what happened back then left him feeling forlorn, but he received an unexpected reply to his apology.

“No, I recognize you.”

“Hm?”

“I have no way of knowing exactly what happened in the Witness State, but I have seen much of what happened through Lilian’s and your dreams… but I have to say that it’s weird to see myself through others’ eyes,” Astrid remarked with an awkward smile.

Roel was taken aback. He hadn’t expected this.

“My apologies, Roel. I was a little nervous. It has been several years since you last met me in the Witness State, so I was worried that you might have forgotten about me. It looks like I was thinking too much.”

“Ancestor…” Roel felt much better upon hearing that, but he quickly remembered the current situation and asked, “You were the one who brought Paul here, right? What’s he planning to do?”

“…He’s here to end things,” Astrid said with a sigh before turning to the black-haired woman whom she had not seen for a thousand years.