Chapter 217 - Episode 28. Rupture (11)
Chapter 217: Episode 28. Rupture (11)
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As the surroundings grew quieter, the state of the battlefield came into clear view. Fallen 「Rupture」 agents lay scattered everywhere, silver pouring from their torn wounds.
Jaehwan silently looked down at the unconscious Yoonhwan.
At last, he had found the friend he had searched for so desperately. Yoonhwan looked exactly as one would expect after enduring untold hardships.
Someone landed behind him.
The World Force felt familiar. Jaehwan gently laid Yoonhwan on the ground and spoke without turning around.
“Old man. Take care of Yoonhwan.”
“Another man?”
Cheongheo grumbled as he examined Yoonhwan’s body. His fingers moved quickly, completing a pulse diagnosis of Yoonhwan’s soul in an instant.
“This bastard is still alive, pretending to be dead.”
“You have to save him.”
“Trust me, brat.”
Despite Cheongheo’s words, Yoonhwan’s condition was grave.
Jaehwan knew that too.
Yoonhwan’s soul was so damaged that it would not have been strange for it to vanish at any moment. Even so, Jaehwan understood why Cheongheo had answered as though it were nothing.
Cheongheo was Chaos’s greatest Divine Doctor, the Divine Doctor of Despair who could return even Deadmans to humanity.
Whoosh. Flash.
With the sound of landings, the other Allies appeared one after another.
“What? Already?”
“Shh.”
As Sirwen moved to run toward Jaehwan, Runald caught her sleeve and raised a finger to his lips.
“Why?”
Runald only shook his head and looked toward Jaehwan.
He did not know much about Jaehwan, the god he served. He barely knew how Jaehwan had lived, or what trials he had overcome to reach this place.
Still, even Runald could sense something.
Jaehwan was clearly different from usual.
Jaehwan crossed the battlefield without a word.
At the end of his gaze sat a woman on the ground.
“How... how could this possibly...?”
Seoyul looked up at Jaehwan, curled into herself, her eyes full of disbelief. Her mind could not make sense of the sight before her. With trembling lips, she asked,
“Is it really... Jaehwan?”
Jaehwan quietly nodded.
At that simple, undeniable motion, Seoyul’s pupils shook violently.
As though it could not be true, she shook her head again and again.
Like Yoonhwan, she seemed convinced that she was still trapped within the 〈Great Disappearance Simulation〉.
Jaehwan spoke, shattering that doubt.
“It’s me.”
Seoyul’s breath caught, and her lips trembled.
The Jaehwan she knew should have died while climbing the 《Tower of Nightmares》.
“How...?”
How could Jaehwan be here?
An Awakened One nearby helped her up and said,
“Commander, fall back. He is the ‘God Slayer.’”
God Slayer?
“What are you talking about? That person is not the ‘God Slayer,’ he is...”
Seoyul stopped herself.
Wooooong.
Intense World Force poured from Jaehwan’s entire body.
The Awakened Ones, overwhelmed by that presence, screamed and stumbled backward. The World Pressure they felt from Jaehwan clearly rivaled that of Rupture’s Division Commanders.
It made no sense.
If Jaehwan, like Seoyul and Yoonhwan, had been dragged into the Abyss through a Fishing Spot, his current strength was impossible to explain. That kind of World Force was not something one could gain simply by becoming the Vicegerent of a powerful god.
Then an assumption flashed through Seoyul’s mind.
Yoonhwan had said it.
Jaehwan had reached the ninety-ninth floor.
What if, just what if...
“Don’t tell me you cleared that Tower?”
Seoyul’s heart began beating ominously. As though they had been waiting, countless possibilities flooded her mind.
What if Jaehwan had remained alone after everyone else died and climbed that Tower to the end? It was impossible no matter how she thought about it, but what if Jaehwan had achieved the impossible?
What if he had safely reached the 《Great Realm》, gained power there, and eventually made it all the way to this 《Abyss》?
What if that was why he had become the God Slayer?
Seoyul suddenly felt as though she were going mad.
Her chest felt tight, and the world swayed around her.
The words she had spoken to Yoonhwan were returning to her.
There were surely things in this world that were impossible.
The man who denied those words stood before her.
A man who had protected powerless justice and hopeless ideals alone.
The man she had once loved most.
“No. I did not clear the Tower.”
Only after a moment did Seoyul understand what he had said.
Her heartbeat gradually returned to normal.
Of course. It could not have been possible.
Clearing the 《Tower of Nightmares》 alone was a ridiculous fantasy.
Deep down, she felt relieved.
She had not been wrong.
There truly were impossible things in this world.
Almost on reflex, Seoyul added,
“So you failed too. You failed like we did and came to the Abyss. Right?”
She continued with an awkward smile.
“It really was impossible. Clearing the Tower...”
“I didn’t fail.”
Seoyul could not understand Jaehwan’s words.
He had not cleared the Tower, but he had not failed?
Her confusion disappeared in the next moment.
“I broke the Tower and came out.”
A ringing sound tightened around her temples.
A few pieces of information flashed through her mind a moment later.
The only Irregular who had broken out of the Tower.
She had certainly read something about such a person recently. She had not looked into the details, but she remembered hearing that the person had ascended to the 《Abyss》.
The first-class Threat Point designated by 「Rupture」 and the 《Great Realm》.
Seoyul remembered his nickname.
“Lord Slayer...”
A current ran through her entire body, and only then did every piece of the puzzle fall into place.
The man who had protected her world to the very end.
A slaughterer marked by Destruction, who had lived with the horrific memories of that Tower held close to his heart, all to break the end of this 《Tree of Illusion》.
“I was called that too.”
The air slowly seemed to thin, and Seoyul’s body trembled as though claustrophobia had seized her.
Breathless, she looked up at the sky without realizing it, then nearly screamed.
She could not see the sky.
A black ceiling hung there, as though she were trapped inside a massive Tower.
Though she knew it was an illusion, Seoyul could not stop herself from thinking.
What if she had never escaped the Tower of Nightmares?
What if Yoonhwan had been right?
What if there was still a ‘next floor’ she had to climb in this world?
Seoyul murmured, almost like she was speaking in tongues.
“After going through all that, how, how could you still...”
“Because I went through all that.”
Footsteps drew closer with his answer.
Still seated on the ground, Seoyul crawled backward.
“Because I went through all that, I still have not given up.”
Those words, that voice, those eyes.
From all of them, Seoyul could feel the life Jaehwan had lived.
The distant world of ruin that shimmered behind him.
For only a moment, within the darkness held by that world, Seoyul felt the history Jaehwan had endured.
How lonely he must have been. How isolated.
And still, he had come this far.
Even after coming this far, he was trying to reach the ‘next floor.’
Because his world had not ended yet.
Because he still had not seen the ‘end of this Tower.’
The truth of it pierced her so deeply and painfully that Seoyul murmured without meaning to,
“Why...?”
Jaehwan said nothing.
His silence hurt her even more.
“Why did you only appear now? Why now? Why did you have to appear before me now...?”
At last, Jaehwan stopped walking.
He quietly looked down at Seoyul’s eyes, which could not bear to meet his own.
The face of the woman he had once loved.
Jaehwan studied that face closely.
There was no fighting spirit or resolve left in Seoyul’s eyes.
Only stained despair and contempt for herself. The bold expression of the woman he had once loved could no longer be found anywhere.
Without a word, Jaehwan moved Dokbul.
Slice.
Something was cut away, and Seoyul’s world began to oxidize into gray ash.
It was the power of Jaehwan’s Setting, 「Fall」.
The 「Mountain of Corpses, Sea of Blood」 that she had believed in and served crumbled apart, red mist scattering thickly through the air.
Destruction blamed nothing.
A world’s endless transformations were perfectly natural.
That was why the only thing Jaehwan could do was tell that one world its end had come.
“You’ve been through a lot, Seoyul.”
At those words, Seoyul’s expression crumpled.
As the world that had bound her vanished, emotions poured out like a waterfall.
Within immense loss and emptiness, Seoyul continued murmuring, not even knowing whom she was speaking to.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry...”
Jaehwan did not answer.
Instead, he walked past her. He kept walking as though she had never been his destination in the first place.
Seoyul’s sobs gradually faded behind him.
Then, when he reached a certain point, Jaehwan stopped.
“Come out already.”
At his words, three people emerged from the red mist.
Each possessed power that could not be ignored.
A man with a long sword at his waist, an old man in robes embroidered with a massive dragon, and a strange figure wrapped head to toe in a black cloak.
Jaehwan first addressed the man with the long sword.
“Are you going to fight me too?”
“I do not particularly want to, but circumstances have turned out this way.”
He was Imai Kazuki, Rupture’s Third Division Commander.
Jaehwan answered,
“You will die.”
“You mean me?”
The question came from Imai.
Yu Seolha appeared behind Jaehwan, gripping 「Thunder Goblin」.
The old man in dragon-embroidered robes laughed when he saw Imai’s hardened expression.
“It is only right for 「Rupture」 to deal with 「Rupture」. Then who will be my opponent?”
Varkant, the Dragon Lord, spoke as majestic World Force erupted from him.
Jaehwan was not looking at Imai or Varkant.
From the beginning, there had only been one person Jaehwan was aware of.
The strange figure in the black cloak.
Despite the mingled World Pressures around them, Jaehwan did not take his eyes off that figure.
The figure spoke to Jaehwan.
“So you are the Lord Slayer.”
Jaehwan knew many voices that suited words such as dark and sinister. Yet this figure’s voice was unlike any he had ever heard.
Simply hearing it felt like stepping into a deep swamp. If voices had colors, this one would undoubtedly have been a profound pitch black.
“Lord Slayer, do you recognize who I am?”
He had never seen that face before, yet Jaehwan felt as though he knew who it was.
A fateful premonition told him so.
They had finally met.
The starting point of every tragedy, and the most important trigger that had led his world to ruin.
Yu Seolha, who had moved to Jaehwan’s side, twisted her lips as she spoke.
“Jerome, Lord of Darkness.”
The strongest being in the Great Realm, the pinnacle of all Lords.
The Lord said to have reached the final stage of Adaptation had finally revealed himself before Jaehwan.
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