The Heroine is My Stepsister, and I'm her Final Boss-Chapter 66: The coming Messiah

The sun hung low, a blood-orange smear against the ashen sky, bleeding over rooftops like a warning. Lara’s boots struck the cobblestones with rhythmic force, each step echoing authority she had not asked for but had chosen to wear. Dust clung to the folds of her cloak, the weight of the Dark Continent still lingering on her shoulders, even here—’especially’ here.

Her entourage followed: two knights, armor battered and dulled by battle, one mages cloaked in midnight blues, two adventures and a scout whose eyes never stopped moving. They moved not as a parade, but as ghosts passing through a kingdom that had forgotten how to hope.

The town of Ember Hollow—once vibrant, loud, foul with life—was now a hushed ruin of panic. Merchants clumsily shuttered their stalls. Mothers whispered blessings over their children’s hair. Men drank too early and too hard, muttering about kings who no longer spoke and princes who never returned.

"The king is dying," a woman sobbed to her neighbor, eyes hollow and soot-stained. "And the prince? Dead! Who’ll stop the Empire’s March?"

Lara heard her. She heard all of them.

And she said nothing.

But her fingers twitched at her sides, brushing the worn leather of her sword’s grip. ’Atlas, where are you? Why aren’t you here to shoulder this with me?’ The question buried itself deep beneath her ribs, right where doubt liked to make a home.

They didn’t mean to stop in Ember Hollow. The plan was to avoid towns, slip unnoticed toward the capital. But dawn came harder than expected, and they needed rest—rest and ground to stand on that wasn’t cursed or bleeding.

Yet this place, this town... it wasn’t the Ember Hollow they’d passed through on their march to the Dark Continent.

That Ember Hollow had been proud. Farmers played dice with knights. Taverns rang with songs that mocked the crown. Now? The very air stank of fear, like wet iron and unspoken grief.

The fire she had conjured still burned behind her ribs, but it flickered now—wavering, uncertain. Her gaze swept the square, over the dazed citizens , the melted weapons, the stunned mercenaries collapsed like broken dolls. She expected awe. Command. Obedience.

What she saw was fragility.

A mother still huddled behind her stall, arms curled tight around a child too old to be held like that. A blacksmith—one arm missing—stared at her sword in the stone, lips parted like he was trying to remember how to pray. An old man on his knees silently moved his mouth over and over, mouthing her name like it was a spell he didn’t believe in yet.

Lara’s throat tightened.

They’re not soldiers, she thought. They’re not ready. They’re afraid. And now they think death awaits them all.

A single, traitorous whisper slithered through her mind: What if you can’t be him?

Because that’s what they were looking for, wasn’t it?

Not Lara the soldier. Not Lara the scholar. Not even Lara the princess.

They were waiting for Atlas. For the storm in flesh. The fire-breathing contradiction who burned down expectations and still stood taller than their fear. The impossible boy who died and still refused to vanish. The one who changed the kingdom within weeks.

But he was gone.

And she was all that was left for now.

The weight of that realization settled on her like a second spine—too heavy, too sharp.

Lara’s jaw tightened.

’He was right,’ she admitted. Atlas, damn him, was always right in the most frustrating ways. The kingdom ’needed’ someone. And this time, it would not be her father. It would not be a myth. It would not be a ghost.

It would be her.

They were unloading gear near the edge of the square when the crash came.

A cart overturned—wood splintering, apples tumbling across the dirt. A scream followed. The sound cleaved the morning stillness, raw and urgent.

Lara was already moving.

Her blade whispered free from its sheath like a sigh. One breath. One flicker of mana. She crossed the square before the others could react.

Three mercenaries—greedy-eyed men with half-rusted weapons and breath that reeked of rot—had cornered a merchant’s daughter. One had her by the wrist, dragging her toward an alley, while another kicked aside a crate with lazy cruelty.

"Let her go," Lara snapped. Her voice didn’t rise, didn’t waver—it cut.

The leader turned, eyes narrowing beneath a cracked brow. He sneered, spitting a glob of blackened saliva near her boots. "Or what, who the fuck are you, little cunt?"

Her silence was louder than any answer.

She moved.

Steel hissed through the air. The mercenary didn’t even have time to scream before blood arced in a wide red bloom across the cobblestones. His grip released. The girl fell backward, gasping, scrambling away on all fours.

The remaining two turned, too slow.

Lara spun. Her blade caught one across the forearm, his sword clattering to the ground. He cried out, backing away, only to be met with her knee in his ribs.

"You think the kingdom is weak, because We, the royalty are weak right now?" she hissed, her voice not raised but ’infused’ with something ancient. "We are still here—" she twisted the blade in her hand "—I am still Here!."

The last mercenary lunged, dagger raised for her throat.

She ducked. Her boot slammed into his ankle—’crunch’—and her elbow came down hard on his spine. He folded in on himself, groaning in the mud.

Lara stood over them, breath steady, sword steady.

"This is Berkimhum soil," she growled, her weapon now aimed at the ringleader’s one good eye. "And I.... am its Messiah."

The square was silent.

No cheers. No applause. Just raw stillness.

Lara turned.

The girl she’d saved had crawled into her mother’s arms, trembling. The crowd stood motionless. All their fears, all their suspicions, pointed straight at her now—this dirt-smeared, armor-dented woman with fire in her eyes.

She exhaled.

"I know your fears," she began, stepping forward. Her voice cracked—not from weakness, but from ’too much truth trying to fit through too narrow a throat’. "The Empire’s armies are vast. Their mages burn brighter than our stars. And our king..."

She stopped.

Swallowed.

"...our king is no longer the storm he once was."

Another ripple through the crowd. Murmurs. A name whispered: "Is that...?"

Someone shouted, "Then who leads us now?"

Lara didn’t pause.

"I do."

She stepped forward again, each footfall pressing her declaration deeper into the stone.

"Your prince is not dead. He’s missing." Her voice trembled—once—but she locked it down. "And if you’ve heard the rumors the empire has spread, if you believe them, then listen to this and carve it into your bones: ’Berkimhum does not kneel.’ Not to kings. Not to empires. Not to gods."

For a split-second, her eyes glazed—not tears, but ’searching’. ’Where are you, Atlas?*’she thought. ’You left me the fire. So I’ll become the flame.’

"You think me soft because I’m young? Because I’m a woman?" She smiled then—sharp and bright as moonlight off steel. "Then watch closely."

With a roar, she drove her blade into the ground.

The sound it made—metal meeting stone, will meeting fate—rippled out like a heartbeat.

Mana erupted.

A burst of blue light cracked across the square. The shockwave shattered the mercenaries’ discarded weapons. It split the flagstones beneath her. Sparks danced across the air like spirits answering her call.

Gasps filled the silence. No longer fear. Now? Awe. Uncertainty.

"This is your power?" Lara asked, turning slowly, blue fire flickering from her armor’s joints. "The Messiah’s power?"

She held out her arms, palms bare.

"It’s not mine. It never was. It belongs to every hand that lifted a sword for this kingdom. Every mother who bled for her sons. Every child who grew up wondering what freedom tasted like."

She paused.

Breathed.

"We are Berkimhum’s fire."

Her sword trembled slightly where it stood, crackling. The blue aura surged, then settled—like a beast watching from behind her eyes.

"And fire doesn’t die," Lara said softly, "It spreads."

For a moment, no one moved.

Then, slowly, a man in the back removed his hat.

He knelt.

Then another.

Then another.

A ripple—not of worship, but ’acknowledgment’.

In that square, cracked and soaked with ash and fruit juice and mercenary blood, ’a new name took root’.

Not the king’s.

Not the prince’s.

’Hers’.

She didn’t smile.

But she felt something—’not peace’, no. Not yet. But direction. A wind finally at her back.

She looked east, toward the capital. Toward her dying father. Toward her brother, wherever he might be.

And in her chest, something old and furious and ’sacred’ took form.

She was not the heir.

She was not the miracle.

She was the Answer.