Chapter 165 - Episode 22. Climbing the Branch (7)
Chapter 165: Episode 22. Climbing the Branch (7)
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Jaehwan himself did not know exactly why the 「Ash Sword」 had no effect on him.
‘Is it because I have the right to use the Void Sword?’
He had not used it once since escaping 《Chaos》, but through his link with Catastrophe, Jaehwan could borrow the 「Void Sword」.
Still, possessing the first Part did not guarantee that an inferior Part could not harm him.
In any case, after another ten minutes passed, the Leader’s body had become a tattered mess. He looked as though he were praying for Jaehwan to turn into ash already.
By then, less than half the sand remained in the hourglass.
[How?]
The Leader leaped far back. Perhaps he had lost the will to attack, because he only stared at Jaehwan with his longsword hanging at his side. He had accepted that the second of his Three Divine Artifacts did not work against Jaehwan.
Jaehwan asked, “Are you giving up?”
The Leader shook his head with an expression of disbelief.
[Are you... a being who has taken off their ‘Clothes’? Is that why this Setting does not affect you?]
“Clothes?”
Jaehwan looked down at his naked body as he answered.
“I do take them off fairly often.”
The Leader muttered as though he had not heard Jaehwan’s joke.
[Have you ever met an Ancient God?]
“I have seen the Sole King.”
[The Sole King?]
As if a complicated thought had crossed his mind, the Leader’s eyes clouded for a moment before returning to normal.
[Did he help you take off your clothes?]
After thinking for a moment, Jaehwan answered, “We are not that close.”
The Leader looked even more confused by Jaehwan’s answer.
[Catastrophe is not an Ancient God who handles ‘clothes.’ Do not tell me... you do not know what ‘clothes’ are?]
Listening closely, Jaehwan realized the ‘clothes’ the Leader spoke of seemed to be a somewhat different concept from the clothes Jaehwan knew.
[I cannot believe it. How could someone who does not even know what ‘clothes’ are take them off?]
After finishing his thoughts, the Leader glared at Jaehwan with eyes full of disbelief.
[You took off your clothes yourself without even knowing what clothes are. I cannot believe it. Your talent is frightening.]
“I do not know what you are talking about.”
Jaehwan loosened his wrist as he spoke.
“But since coming to the Abyss, I have heard people talk about talent far too often. It was something I barely heard before.”
Jaehwan had rarely been told that he was talented. It had been the same on Earth and in the Tower of Nightmares.
Instead, he had met many who criticized his stubbornness or foolishness. They asked whether he was still doing Stabs, saying he would never improve if he only practiced such a simple technique.
Everyone who had said those things had either returned to the past or died.
Jaehwan did not think of himself as someone with exceptional talent, either.
He was simply someone who quietly did one thing.
Someone who thought of ways to do that one thing better.
Someone who put those ideas into practice.
He had simply lived as that kind of person for a very long time.
“Let us settle this.”
* * *
“This fight is lasting longer than I expected.”
The duel had already continued for over half a day.
During that time, Jaehwan’s Companions practiced the Stab he had taught them, considered what the Ninth Floor’s Task might be, and thought of ways to enter the Pentagon.
“It feels like the sand is barely going down. Is that just me?”
The sand in the hourglass had seemed to be falling quickly, but at some point, it began to slow.
What was even stranger was the course of the fight.
“It definitely looked like Jaehwan-nim had the advantage...”
Martis muttered.
Oddly enough, the Leader’s responses had noticeably improved as the battle went on. Perhaps he had learned Jaehwan’s combat patterns.
The Leader clearly looked much more injured.
“Why has the Leader not used all three Three Divine Artifacts?”
That was the most worrying part.
The Leader was known to possess three Three Divine Artifacts in total. Yet so far, he had only used 「Metallic Ash」 and the 「Ash Sword」.
The battle was already this evenly matched. If the Leader used his third divine artifact, the situation could change in an instant.
Rene, who had been sitting with her face buried in her knees, slowly raised her head.
“The Leader is already using all three Three Divine Artifacts.”
Martis turned to Rene in surprise.
“What? Since when?”
Rene’s expression was extremely complicated as she answered.
“I do not know either.”
* * *
Jaehwan swung his sword again and again.
Both of them were fighting with everything they had. It was a battle to devour each other’s long histories. As the two gods experienced and absorbed the techniques the other had learned, they had begun to glimpse their next realm.
It was only possible because they were fighting with their lives on the line.
Jaehwan suddenly stopped his assault and leaped far back.
[What is wrong? We were just starting to have fun.]
“Since when?”
[What do you-]
Jaehwan used 「Earth Stab」. His sword instantly closed the gap, accelerating as World Force exploded from it.
This time, Jaehwan had applied the double acceleration the Leader had used.
「World Stab」.
Silver light burst from the Leader’s abdomen.
Had the Leader been unharmed, he could have blocked or dodged it. But not in his current state. It was a fatal wound, enough to say the battle had completely tipped in Jaehwan’s favor.
Then Jaehwan’s eyes widened.
With a creaking sensation that squeezed his soul, it felt as though the pressure inside his eyes was rising. His vision warped for a moment, and the Leader was once again standing far away.
The wound in his abdomen had vanished.
[What is wrong? We were just starting to have fun.]
Instead of answering, Jaehwan quietly stared at the Leader before checking the hourglass’s sand.
Sparks occasionally leaped from the 「Ash Sword」.
Jaehwan released a fierce killing intent and asked, “I will ask one last time. Since when?”
Realizing he could no longer hide it, the Leader gave a bitter smile.
[Since I learned that the Ash Sword does not work on you.]
“How many times did you turn back time?”
[About 1,800 times.]
“You are insane.”
Jaehwan had known something was strange.
A battle that never ended, no matter how long they fought.
The Leader’s responses improved as time passed, and sometimes he defended himself in ways that felt familiar.
As though he could read exactly where and how Jaehwan would attack.
It truly was a perfect combination.
「Metallic Ash」, armor specialized in defense and enhancing physical ability.
The 「Ash Sword」, which turned enemies to ash with a single graze, and the 「Ash Hourglass」, which restrained an enemy’s movements.
On top of that, 「Time Rewind」, which reset the hourglass by turning back time without limit and learned the enemy’s attack patterns.
What god could win such an unfair fight?
[Strange. I thought I had turned back time without giving you even a moment to notice. How did you know?]
“The sand in the hourglass.”
[That alone could not have told you. This Time Rewind should have rolled back even your consciousness. It should be impossible for you to notice the regression.]
“Then I do not know either. Maybe...”
Jaehwan could not explain it well.
But he had noticed 「Time Rewind」.
More precisely, his soul had sensed the distortion of space and time in the surrounding area.
“Maybe it is because I hate time regression so much.”
The Leader seemed slightly interested in Jaehwan’s words.
[Interesting. You hate regression?]
“There are reasons. Was that Setting made with an Ancient God as its motif too?”
[This is a little different. If I had to say, it is a Setting created by one of the Seven Divine Thrones, who was influenced by an Ancient God.]
Jaehwan had already guessed whose Setting it was.
A being above the Leader.
「Time Rewind」 had to be the Setting of Chronos, one of the Seven Divine Thrones.
“How far back can you turn time?”
[Telling you that would ruin the fun, would it not?]
“From what I can see, a few minutes seems to be your limit. There also seems to be a limit on what you can turn back.”
The Leader did not answer. He looked as though he were considering whether he could say that much.
“A power like that cannot be without restrictions. It does not seem like you manipulate abstract time. It looks more like you forcibly restore the arrangement of particles within a certain zone.”
[Correct. At this point, there does not seem to be much reason to hide it.]
Jaehwan took a light breath.
There was a reason he had deliberately prolonged the conversation. He needed time to recover his World Force. The Leader seemed to know that as well, yet chose to let it pass.
“Do you want to return to the past?”
The unexpected question made the Leader’s expression stiffen strangely.
Jaehwan looked at the capsules beyond the Pentagon ring. They contained the Leader’s old Companions.
“Is that the only way to get them back?”
[Perhaps.]
Jaehwan did not like regression. Still, he understood well the hearts of those who wanted to return to the past.
“How many years would you have to turn back to save them?”
[Seven hundred years.]
The distant span of time made Jaehwan feel a little sick.
From what Jaehwan had confirmed, 「Time Rewind」 turned back time by reconstructing particles. Yet over the past seven hundred years, those souls would have already shattered into particles and scattered throughout the 《Abyss》.
They were not in a state where time could be normally turned back.
As though he understood Jaehwan’s question, the Leader answered.
[It would be possible if the entire world were turned back.]
“You are insane.”
[Is there any god who reaches this far without being insane?]
The Leader smiled as though he found that amusing.
“Can the Driver cause a miracle on that scale?”
[Even the Driver cannot do something like that. But perhaps the end of this world, or the ‘First Nightmare,’ can.]
The First Nightmare.
At the very least, it seemed certain that the ‘Driver’ knew a clue about the end of this world.
Jaehwan slowly adjusted his grip on Dokbul.
“You will not get what you want.”
[I know.]
The world creaked, and the space and time around them rippled ominously once more.
[But there are things you must do even when you know.]
As though he had waited long enough, the Leader’s World Force began to overflow.
「Time Rewind」
Time in the area around Jaehwan and the Leader was turning back. The time Jaehwan had bought through conversation was about to become meaningless.
When Jaehwan took the stance for a Stab, the Leader shook his head.
A Stab would not be enough.
Jaehwan knew that too.
If he stabbed faster than light, fast enough to destroy even the concept of time, it might be possible.
But Jaehwan had not yet reached that realm.
There was something else he could do.
The instant 「Time Rewind」 tried to turn back time, Jaehwan stabbed toward the floor.
If he could not stab through time, then he had to seize this space instead.
With a cracking sound, Dokbul pierced the floor. At that moment, Jaehwan’s World Force spread throughout the entire Ninth Floor like paint poured onto water.
The life he had lived making countless Stabs, his time, his history, filled the Ninth Floor.
Before that overwhelming flood of World Force, the Setting of 「Time Rewind」 began to stutter.
The force trying to turn back and the force trying to move forward collided.
Jaehwan stood at the center of those forces.
「Complete Sanctuary Manifestation」.
He had manifested a Sanctuary before, but never on this scale.
Enduring pain as though his heart would burst, Jaehwan covered the entire Ninth Floor with his Sanctuary.
A massive 《Tower of Nightmares》 rose behind him.
A scene could be seen beneath the tower. A world littered with black corpses. In the sky was one enormous eye watching over every world. Crows flew around the eye, releasing dreadful cries.
「The World After the Fall」.
In that world with neither gods nor Lords, only Jaehwan stood whole.
Then, somewhere, came the sound of a broken spring clock stopping.
The Leader looked at Jaehwan with eyes full of disbelief.
「Time Rewind」 had stopped working.
Time that would not turn back, no matter how many times it was wound.
At the center of that time, Jaehwan spoke.
“「Time Rewind」 is ultimately a Setting that tries to return to ‘Yesterday.’”
The way Jaehwan destroyed time was very simple.
“But there is no ‘Yesterday’ in my Unique World.”
He turned the entire Ninth Floor into his ‘Sanctuary’.
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