I'm Stuck on a Remote Island With the Male Leads - Chapter 208

Spitting up blood on the ground, Kayden slowly rose to his feet, his clothes torn and ragged.

Kayden walked over to me, his body in shambles.

“Margaret.”

His dry voice cracked as he turned to me, his face haggard and weary.

“You told me to break the soul-binding contract, didn’t you?”

I nodded quickly, too emotional to say anything. Then he spread his arms wide and took one step away from me.

“I’ll do it now.”

Kayden’s face was set in determination. I pointed the flare gun at him again.

“I’m going to shoot mana at you. It’s a direct hit, so it’ll hurt, but I’ll control it.”

Kayden looked like he’d just realized what I was about to do.

“I can handle the pain.”

He straightened up, positioning himself for a better shot at my flare gun. His chin lifted, his eyes closed, and he spoke,

“Release.”

Hearing the simple contract-breaking spell, I fired a mana bullet at him. A streak of pure white light left the muzzle of the flare gun and shot into Kayden’s heart.

The beam of light flew in a wide arc through the air and landed directly on Kayden’s chest.

“Ugh.”

Kayden groaned briefly, being knocked back a couple of steps by the recoil.

The beam of light pierced through his torso, knocking the grain-of-sand souls of Jenas scattered within him out of his body all at once.

A fountain of blue grains spread out from Kayden’s back, every last one of them released from his body.

It was a bizarre sight to behold.

The escaping grains clumped together in the air, and soon flew to the rocks, where they crashed down hard.

-wham!

The sound of crunching rock and a cloud of dust momentarily obscured the view.

There was a brief silence.

When the dust cleared, I could see something that had been pooling and churning like a puddle of water, gradually changing shape.

A moment later, a man in human form collapsed to the ground and groaned.

“Ugh.”

Short silver hair. We couldn’t see his face, but there wasn’t one of us who didn’t recognize him.

Finally.

Jenas finally separated from Kayden’s body.

At the sight of it, Eunji ran to me and clung to my waist.

“Eunji wants to eat! That bad guy smells like ugly stones! Eunji wants to eat him!” Eunji said, pointing at Jenas.

Ruzef looked at Eunji in surprise. “Wait, is this kid your pet snake?”

“That’s right. Eunji, eat the ugly stone first.”

I said to Eunji in response to Ruzef’s words. I was very nervous that Jenas would come to his senses and fight back.

Yuanna, who was also watching the situation, chimed in.

“Come on, guys, let’s make this quick. I’m about to start the purification process.”

Ruzef pulled a magic stone from his pocket and handed it to Eunji.

Eunji immediately transformed into a snake and quickly swallowed the magic stone. After digesting it, Eunji looked up at me with his tongue flicking happily. At that moment, a faint glow began to emanate from his body.

“Huh?”

Gradually, his body grew to the size of three adult men.

I watched as Eunji’s silver scales gradually sharpened into half-moon shapes, becoming as hard as a dragon’s scales.

Soon, he opened his gigantic mouth and displayed his majesty with a spectacular burst of fire.

He has evolved one more step.

 

***

 

Where did it go wrong?

Including Margaret on the list of test subjects?

Planning the experimental island?

Walking down the path of the wizard he so despised?

I don’t know. Whatever it was, it didn’t really make sense now. Jenas crawled to the ground, his form made of sand-like grains of soul.

At the end of his gaze, he could see the ‘door’ to the outside of the island, and something caught in his crawling fingertips.

He lowered his gaze to see what it was. Something shimmered and glowed in the dirt.

He wasn’t sure why he was so curious, given the urgency of the situation.

Jenas pushed the dirt away with his hand to see what it was. A little digging revealed what appeared to be a human hand. In the hand was a broken, faded jewel. A pendant, to be exact.

And Jenas knew who it belonged to. A thousand years ago, he had crafted it himself, containing the mana of all the Magic Tower Lords of the past.

‘Anata.’

Jenas recognized that the hand holding the pendant belonged to Anata.

The face of his sister, who had been with him for over a thousand years, filled his vision.

A thousand years ago, Jenas was persecuted for being a non-mana person. In truth, he was not a non-mana, he just had powerful mana trapped inside of him. Anata felt guilty for him, saying that if she had realized this sooner, he would not have been persecuted.

Thus, the sister who had lived a thousand years with blood on her hands, not for herself but for Jenas, had died a miserable death, betraying him by giving her affection to a test subject.

Blood can’t lie. In the end, Jenas followed in her footsteps and met her own doom by giving the test subject his affection.

Ha.

This can’t be.

After everything I’ve been through-

Ahhh!

After a thousand years!

Just as he was about to wallow in despair, Jenas’s vision caught sight of a fist-sized orb scattering across the floor. It was the orb that Kayden had put in the pocket of his robe.

Mana gathered from a thousand years of experimentation.

He slowly reached out and took the orb in his hand. The orb began to puff out a whitish smoke.

That’s it. If I can’t have it all, I’ll destroy it. That’s what I thought from the beginning.

Jenas released the mana he had gathered for a thousand years.

 

***

 

We watched Jenas crawling on the ground.

The evolved Eunji wagged his tail excitedly, then looked back at Jenas. His eyes kept sparkling as if he wanted to eat Jenas right away.

Jenas stopped crawling on the ground and began digging in the dirt, finding something and letting out a strange wail.

The dark clouds in the sky began to gather, darker than before, as if the magic stones he had absorbed had been affected by the gloomy aura that enveloped him.

The thunder rumbled.

Seeing the long line in the sky grow even deeper, Yuanna called urgently to Eunji.

“Eunji, eat!”

Eunji flicked his tongue out at Yuanna and then glanced over at me.

I nodded and said, “Okay, Eunji, eat it.”

With that, Eunji slithered over to Jenas with an excited face. As the giant dragon approached, Jenas must have sensed the threat.

His human form shattered. He became a mass of blue light and floated up into the sky.

I saw a puff of whitish smoke emanating from the blue glow that I assumed was Jenas.

‘What is that?’

I glimpsed something like an orb through the blue light. The smoke seemed to be coming from it.

-goo-goo-goo-goo.

A bizarre noise began to echo in the sky.

The orb from which the smoke was coming suddenly began to glow. The blue light that was supposed to be Jenas shrank for a moment as the orb spun around in a brilliant glow.

Eunji flinched, perhaps sensing a threat from the sight. Seconds later, a huge pillar of light formed from the orb and soared into the sky.

“Shit, that’s the mana gathered from a thousand years of experimentation.”

Kayden, who had collapsed on the ground, pulled himself up with Ruzef’s support.

“……What?!”

That damn Jenas gives me shit until the end.

The soaring pillar of light slammed into the sky, leaving a long horizontal crack.

-kwaaaang.

A massive boom echoed throughout the air as if the sky were falling. I covered my ears and lowered my upper body.

I felt like the flow of my mana had changed. As soon as I thought about it,

“Ugh.”

The knights and wizards of the Empire standing around me began to fall to their knees and sag in their seats. They were glued to the ground, unable to get up, as if gravity was pulling them down.

Apparently, the dimensional rift had collapsed, and the flow of mana had been disrupted.

Now this was not just a phenomenon felt by those on the island. It was probably affecting the entire continent, off the island.

Only me and Yuanna were unaffected by the flow of mana.

Jenas, in human form again, appeared in my vision. My mind was filled with hatred for him, and I couldn’t think straight.

Jenas was sitting on his knees, breathing heavily, his face grim, the orb still glowing brilliantly in his hand.

“Margaret.”

Jenas stretched out his hand toward me. Of course, he couldn’t get any closer to me than that.

Eunji opened his giant mouth and swallowed him whole. But soon Eunji’s mouth opened again, revealing Jenas.

His arms trembled as he held on to Eunji’s teeth, preventing them from closing.

“Damn it, you damn snake……!”

Black smoke began to billow around Jenas’s body. It looked like poison gas, and Eunji’s mouth began to emit similar purple smoke.

While Eunji was unaffected by the black smoke from Jenas’s body, Jenas’s complexion paled as if he was affected.

“……Cough. This……. This is ridiculous……!”

Jenas’ grip on Eunji’s teeth was gradually loosening. Jenas was being pushed back by Eunji’s strength.

I watched and then turned to Yuanna.

“Yuanna. Please, start the purification,” I said to Yuanna as I watched the scene.

Yuanna held her hands out in front of her, and the white glow in her hands gradually grew in size. As I watched, I realized that this was truly the end.

Then Enoch grabbed my hand, and with a struggle, he moved closer to me.

I could see the deep despair on his face. I turned to him and said, “I left a letter for my family, please tell them later. The letter is in my drawer.”

As I spoke, I choked up and swallowed dry. My eyes become hot. I took a deep breath to keep the tears from escaping, then spoke again.

“I thought it would be too difficult to tell them directly. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to return. That’s why I’m asking you. Please tell them, ‘I love you so much. I’m sorry for only telling you now.'”

I know I should say something to Enoch, but I can’t think of anything else to say to him.

And to my surprise, Enoch, who I thought would chase me, didn’t say anything, just looked at me in pain.

It was strange. It wasn’t like Enoch. If this is our last time together, why doesn’t he say anything?

Just then, a loud noise erupted from the sky.

-rumbling. kwakakang!

That’s when Kayden moved and reached out to me, his body still in pain from the flow of mana that had broken.

“Wait, Margaret. What’s all this about, where are you going?”

He crawled to one knee, unable to hold himself up. I swallowed back the hot, churning sobs building in my chest and called out to him.

“Kayden.”

“What… what’s wrong? You didn’t tell me this. I’ve decided to live again because of you, and what the fuck is this, huh? What kind of fucked up situation is this?”

“I’m sorry, and thank you. It’s for the best, for everyone, for you.”

He slowly rubbed his face. His face showed that he couldn’t accept the situation. Finally, he replied in a calm voice.

“I, I’m no stronger than Jenas, which is why you had to make this sacrifice.”

“What do you mean? It’s not like that.”

“Margaret, we don’t have time.”

But we didn’t have time to talk anymore. Yuanna was urging me on.

Kayden’s legs gave out on him. He looked up at me, stunned.

“No……. Margaret, please…….”

He cried. He was crying, begging me.

But I couldn’t say anything to him.

I don’t want to go either. Part of me wants to stay with my loved ones. I am scared.

I don’t know what will happen to me if I cross the dimension, whether I will die or live.

At this point, I don’t have a choice.

Jenas, who was still struggling to keep from being swallowed by Eunji, must have heard our conversation. He shouted at me, “What are you talking about! No! Margaret needs to be here, next to me! No!”

-goo-goo-goo-goo.

Yuanna, who had started the purification process, said, “Now’s not the time to be worrying about everyone else. Haven’t you realized what happens when I purify?”

The long tail of the meteor wandered around her arm, and then it became a giant light, taking over the entire world, the entire field of vision.

The light was so intense that I couldn’t open my eyes, and my head continued to throb.

Then Yuanna’s voice reached my ears. “Margaret, I will always wait for you, even if it takes forever.”

Immediately after Yuanna’s words, I heard Eunji swallow Jenas.

-gulp.

“Aaaaaaah! No! Margaret! No!”

Jenas’s screams gradually faded from Eunji’s mouth, and my vision flickered slowly to the end of the screaming cry.

And then my world went completely black.