Slowly, all of the pressure from the arena starts to cool down. People start to regain consciousness.
As they get up, people start to gather to see the scene, while most flee for their lives.
Kara, with Chio in his arms, gets weak and sits down. The crystal Kara just broke starts to assemble in one place and reforms to its original state.
He puts Chio aside and stands up forcefully. He takes a couple of steps toward Seka, almost falling on the way. Right as he gets in front of her body, he kneels down, gathers some energy, and gently grabs her head, placing it on his shoulder. "Seka?" A slight whisper from Kara echoes through her ears.
"Oh, I knew it was you. Always had known." Kara finishes the sentence and brings his hands to her cheeks. Then, the eye patch covering her left eye falls down.
Once again desperate to see Seka alive, he uses his last bit of mana and casts heal. He watches in regret—her body filled with punctures, blood covering her outfit, and her eyes closed. "She is breathing… again," Kara thinks to himself.
His healing flickers and almost stops, like a lifeline cut right before him.
"Heal!..., heal!..., heal!..." Desperate at the unacceptable fate, he tries his hardest to summon mana he doesn't have.
She starts healing. Her wounds glow green with the natural color of light. Bloodstains and punctured holes slowly begin to fill up. The bleeding stops ultimately.
But before she could heal fully, his magic runs out. His hands stop glowing. He looks at her body—the giant hole on her stomach has reopened. He places his hands on her stomach.
With no idea what to do, with regret, he closes his eyes.
"Kara, it's you again… my prince, who has now saved me twice, right?" He hears a shaky voice, a voice he has yearned for.
With disbelief, he opens his eyes hastily and looks at Seka. His heart melts as he sees her smiling, the sparkle of her golden eyes coming back to life. Her tired red cheeks get even redder as the moment feels like it's getting brighter.
Kara finds himself in another situation, as she starts to close her eyes again.
Kara, who thought he finally got to be with her, puts his hands on her face with a shaky, small "No, please…" He lets out a weak voice. Unable to bare the regret of not saving her, he punches the ground with his fist, still holding her.
The ground shakes, leaving the whole arena trembling.
Just when he thought she came back…
A hand comes his way and rests on his shoulder. Kara, with his guard down, gets alerted. Slowly, another hand comes and rests on top of his hand—still pressing on Seka's wound.
He looks up. It's Chio.
Kara looks back at the place he left her. "She doesn't look well, but she walked all the way here…" She loses her strength a little, trips, and holds on to Kara.
She sits beside Kara. Without comment, she chants heal…
"Her hands are so… warm," Kara thinks to himself.
In the midst of thinking, he hears the sound of someone weeping. He looks at Chio and finds her tearing up.
"Kara, I am so sorry, I-I…" With a shaky voice, Chio starts to apologize, right when Kara interrupts her.
"No need for that. I know you don't hate each other. And if you were so cold of a person, your hand wouldn't feel this warm," Kara gives a heartwarming compliment.
With the comfort she gets, she starts to tear up more. Unable to hide her tears, she leans on Kara.
Resting her head on Kara, she looks at Seka and starts transferring mana to Kara. "What are you-" before he could finish, She looks up at Kara, and with a smile, "It's better with two people, right?" she says.
Right then, Chio's eyes change. Her right eye slowly turns golden, the same as Seka's.
Kara notices it. "Chio, your eye…" She gently touches her right eye with her left hand. Kara notices the glow on her ring finger is the same as Seka's.
He takes a glance at Seka's hand too—it's glowing as well. Then even his hand starts to emit the glow from his ring finger. "What is the meaning of this?" Kara thinks in confusion.
"What is going on? These rings look like—" Almost when Chio finishes her sentence, Seka makes a sound. "Chio? Kara?"
Kara looks at Seka, but his eyes are almost closing from exhaustion. "I've gone beyond what I could do today. Don't know till when I'll stand, let alone survive… most of the bones are all shattered from too much power."
Chio looks at Seka as she opens her eyes. Kara, almost unconscious, forcefully stays awake.
Chio slowly loses consciousness with depleted mana, while Seka's golden eyes start to glow brighter, emitting a golden aura around them.
The healing power increases. Mana slowly comes back to Kara and Chio. Their healing grows stronger—mana doesn't stop coming from within Chio and Seka. Her wound heals completely.
"Ah…" Chio feels a slight headache.
Both Kara and Seka feel it too. They gain an uncontrollably large amount of mana. Then Kara goes black instantly and has a vision of someone again.
"Sera, I will meet you down, okay?"
A place with a blue sky. "My, there is no human compatible."
An orb comes down from the sky. It splits in two.
"Wait… isn't that Seka's home in Kryak?" Kara thinks to himself.
One orb enters her mother's stomach as she feels it with her hand. The other orb reaches the deep forest, with no sight of human settlement. A hut is seen—inside, a lady with black hair.
In an instant, Kara feels a ton of pain.
"Ahhh!" he shouts in pain.
"Mom, no!"
He starts to see some bits of blurry vision.
"Look who it is, I think we found the right house," a man says.
"Yup, we are the Dharovin," a child's voice replies.
Again, another voice echoes through his mind, a little more mature: "I should not have said that."
A person whose face is all blurred says, "Hey, so our money—"
A door opens abruptly.
"You Dharovin scum!" A fight breaks out.
An axe is stuck in the ground.
"Oi, did you just kill him?" the person standing with him comments.
"We can't leave them like this."
"Mama, wake up!" A girl cries in front of her dead parents' bodies.
"Take her. Not good now, but in the future she will be fresh and useful."
The two men set their eyes on the child. One of them grins.
The sound of footsteps—running through the jungle.
"Chio shall be your name…" Chio's mother, with blurry vision, says just after giving birth...
Hachi arrives at the scene.
"Kara!" she shouts desperately.
She sees Kara holding someone tightly in his arms on the floor. Other S-rank parties gather up too.
"Wait, did he just use all of his magic?" Hachi shouts in fear.
"He is breathing," Kanjo checks his breathing.
"Did he just use fourth stage again? He used it multiple times before, but I did not think it would look this bad." Hachi sits beside Kara and puts her hand on top of him.
Hana speaks, "I think he used his fifth one. We sensed it, didn't we? The power of the Curse. Of course he must have used it—it was way too much. Even most of the S-ranks got stunned by its rage."
"But really, sorry we couldn't make it in time," Hana apologizes.
Hachi nods her head. "No, don't worry about it. I felt it too. I had the same situation… still." Hachi's eyes start to tear up. As a sign of relief, she sighs and smiles. "Hana," she calls.
No reply. She looks at Hana.
Her face is in utter confusion and panic. She says, "Hey… that's Seka, right?" She looks down—but the girl Kara was hugging was not Seka.
A darker crimson-red long hair, with a hairstyle similar to Seka's, but the bangs completely cover one eye.
She is wearing an outfit just like Seka's, but her dress has a mix of shorts and a long skirt, with a white body and red theme.
A black tied-up strand of hair sticks out to the side, with golden ornaments on her head.
She wears stockings on one leg, boots, and a long Sal that runs from the pattern of her dress to the back, hanging down.
The whole color of the dress is themed in white, black, and red.