Only now did Angel understand how terrifying that energy was.
His physical body collapsed again and again. Each time, Angel felt that there was no way to save it, yet that energy forcibly dragged him back from the abyss of death.
He did not know how many times this had happened.
Angel was both astonished by the terror of this new drop of blood and shaken by the energy contained within his body.
It was as though two colossal beings, countless levels beyond Angel, had begun a world-shaking battle inside him.
After collapsing, his body was immediately repaired. This cycle repeated itself many times.
And every time, Angel felt as if he were suffering the Earthly torture Jon had once described—death by a thousand cuts.
Blade after blade sliced away at his flesh.
After the thousand cuts came the numb, itchy agony of energy repairing him. Once he was restored, the thousand cuts began again.
The pain was so excruciating that Angel even had the illusion that death would be better. Yet whenever that thought arose, countless figures appeared in his mind.
Jon, Leon, Sanders, Toby, Nausicaa... so many people, including Shadow Diablo, who had initially been his enemy but had gradually reconciled with him; Viking, who had lost all four limbs at the very beginning of Purification Garden's opening yet had stubbornly escaped alive in the end; and First Mate Helen, who had once traveled alongside him aboard the Cloud Conch before later following Si Man to Summer Dew Ridge...
Some of these figures might have shared deep bonds with Angel, while others might have merely crossed paths with him once.
This world was incomparably vast, this universe filled with mysteries, and every person so vividly alive... That alone was enough to intoxicate Angel and make him unwilling to