Chapter 29 - Episode 5. The Dead (4)
Chapter 29: Episode 5. The Dead (4)
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Silver Restraint was powerful.
Most of Geumcheon Hall's people holding the hostages could not resist Karlton's 「Edict」 and fell to their knees. The remaining Janya Brothers were also being driven into a desperate corner by Karlton's innate skill, 「Silver Restraint」.
His reputation might have been tarnished by the nickname “the Stubborn,” but Karlton's standing as the strongest of Gorgon's four checkpoint chiefs was no empty boast.
“So the rumors that Silver Restraint can hunt Garnak alone were true.”
Janya gritted his teeth as he barely knocked aside the tip of Karlton's halberd.
For Adapters traveling through 《Chaos》, a Celestial's 「Silver Restraint」 was the worst possible matchup. As a high-level Adapter, Janya could resist its binding force to some extent, but his two younger brothers already seemed unable even to hold themselves upright.
Karlton's halberd drew a line through the air and pointed at Janya's throat.
“Any further resistance is meaningless.”
Janya swallowed.
His lips moved faintly.
[It seems we have no choice but to use the Black Cloud.]
[Are you serious, Elder Brother? If we use that...]
[The envoys have all been taken down. We die either way.]
[...Understood.]
Janya slowly raised both hands.
“I surrender.”
“A wise decision.”
Karlton approached, taking out restraints as Janya looked completely resigned.
Then Janya smiled.
“They said you were as naive as you were righteous. That was true as well.”
Karlton seemed to realize something and shouted at the guards.
“Everyone, get out of the tavern!”
At nearly the same moment, a small explosion went off inside Janya's clothes. Something like black smoke billowed out, quickly filling the tavern.
Painful coughing and groans came from within the smoke. When those who had escaped it safely tried to go back inside, Karlton shouted,
“No one enter!”
The smoke showed no sign of clearing. Soon, Karlton's voice disappeared as well.
Instead, chilling sounds of flesh and bones twisting began to flow from within the smoke.
The Janya Brothers watched the scene from the roof of an abandoned building beside the tavern. Janya had somehow put on a mask, and his expression was bitter.
“I never thought we'd have to use the Black Cloud here.”
The second brother, Janmyung, spoke with a dark expression.
“I think the youngest drank some of the Black Cloud.”
“What an idiot. I told him again and again.”
Janya frowned when he saw Janmang's blackened face.
“If he only drank a small amount, he may live. Endure it a little longer.”
Geumcheon Hall's reinforcements were racing toward them from a distance.
“...They certainly took their time.”
The leader of the reinforcements was Black-Tongued Wolf, an elder of Geumcheon Hall and a high-level Adapter like Janya.
He had been infamous in the 《Great Realm》 as a sex fiend. In the end, he had been caught by Adapters, had his genitals and tongue torn out, then been brutally dismembered.
Black-Tongued Wolf leaped onto the roof where Janya stood and sneered.
“Janya. You look terrible.”
“Shut up.”
“What happened to the witch? Didn't you say you would hand her over to me?”
“I had no time to worry about that.”
Black-Tongued Wolf frowned at Janya's irritated response.
He checked the black smoke drifting from the tavern, then clicked his tongue.
“You must have been desperate. Using Black Cloud so freely without the Hall Master's permission.”
“Silver Restraint came.”
“Silver Restraint?”
Black-Tongued Wolf's voice wavered as he looked toward the tavern.
“Are you saying Silver Restraint is in there right now?”
“Yes.”
Black-Tongued Wolf burst into delighted laughter.
“Kuahaha! That stubborn bastard drank Black Cloud? Serves him right.”
No criminal had pleasant memories of Silver Restraint. Black-Tongued Wolf had also suffered at Karlton's hands before.
“Today, this should be quite a show.”
Black-Tongued Wolf spoke with a wicked grin.
Janya, however, did not look pleased.
“Second Brother. Can you see that man?”
“There is no sign of him. Even he cannot possibly resist Black Cloud, can he?”
“You never know. Keep watching.”
Silver Restraint was not the real problem.
Silver Restraint had only held an advantage in compatibility. Under normal circumstances, the three brothers could have dealt with Karlton well enough.
The one Janya was truly worried about was the man who had pushed them back using nothing but Stab.
Unaware of the situation, Black-Tongued Wolf pressed him.
“Janya. What happened to the Soulstone?”
“It is still in there.”
“You didn't let the Fortress Lord's side take it, did you?”
“No. We only need to retrieve it.”
Janya tightened his mask and prepared to move in.
The tavern had already been completely covered by Black Cloud. Considering that even a small amount could contaminate a soul in an instant, he did not want to enter again.
By now, the souls of everyone inside the tavern had probably reached the limit of contamination.
...He did not even want to think about it.
Janya knew well what kind of ‘beings’ those whose souls had been contaminated would become.
No, perhaps there was no one in all of 《Chaos》 who did not know about those beings.
Then Black-Tongued Wolf stopped Janya and spoke.
“...Janya, what is that?”
Without thinking, Janya looked in the same direction.
Then he froze.
Something impossible was happening.
“What... This cannot be...”
A man was walking calmly out of the tavern's Black Cloud.
Even a member of the Verdant Light clan could not emerge unharmed after inhaling Black Cloud head-on. Yet that man was not one of them. Janya had never heard of a member of the Verdant Light clan without antennae.
Janya's fingertips trembled faintly when he saw the man's face.
“That man has the Soulstone.”
“What? Good. Attack!”
The reinforcements who had come with Black-Tongued Wolf charged.
The man calmly drew his sword.
One step, then another.
Each time the man took a step, Janya saw an illusion of the ground shaking. Every time the man's sword moved, another reinforcement died.
Black-Tongued Wolf's face changed as he shouted,
“Who the hell is that bastard?”
Who was he?
Janya wanted to ask that himself.
More than fifty Third Adapters still remained behind them. It was a force that could wipe out a decent mid- to high-ranking clan in an instant.
Janya looked at the number of reinforcements and tried to calm himself.
There are still enough of them. At this rate...
Jaehwan frowned as he cut down the reinforcements swarming him like bees.
There were too many to kill one by one with Stab.
If he delayed any longer, he might end up in another difficult situation like before.
...I did not want to use this.
He had held back because he did not like relying on an item's power. Still, refusing to use it forever out of stubbornness would be ridiculous.
For the first time since the fight began, Jaehwan drew Dokbul from its scabbard.
Only then did Janya realize that Jaehwan had fought with the sword still sheathed until now.
Dokbul scraped against its scabbard with a harsh sword cry. An enormous demonic aura spewed in every direction, and a single massive form appeared.
The bodies of every reinforcement except Janya and Black-Tongued Wolf went rigid.
It felt as though an enormous Horned Beast had arrived before them.
“G-Garnak...”
The innate skill embedded in the scabbard, 「Garnak’s Majesty」, had activated.
The massive Garnak let out a thunderous roar, and Dokbul's blade moved.
Janya stared blankly at the sight.
It cut through a unit of Third Adapters like fallen leaves in an autumn wind. The reinforcements, their bodies frozen in fear, fell apart as though torn to shreds by enormous claws.
When Janya came to his senses, only he and Black-Tongued Wolf remained.
More accurately, Black-Tongued Wolf was already fleeing far away.
Janya looked at his brothers sprawled across the ground and saw his own future in them.
He would not survive here.
“There is one way for you to live.”
Janya sharply raised his head at those words, as if Jaehwan had read his thoughts.
Jaehwan said,
“Tell me where the Dream Demon is.”
Janya's expression gradually changed. Jaehwan's eyes also took on a strange look.
“Why are you laughing?”
Jaehwan asked as he watched Janya laugh like a madman.
Janya did not answer.
He only laughed.
Janya knew that if he revealed anything about the Dream Demon, he would eventually die even if he survived here.
He recalled the back of a certain being. The strongest being Janya had ever seen in 《Chaos》, and the only one who had the potential to unite 《Chaos》 in the future.
The Geumcheon Hall Master.
Could this man truly be stronger than the Geumcheon Hall Master, no matter how powerful he was?
Janya shook his head. Anyone who had seen the Geumcheon Hall Master in person would never doubt the answer.
Janya believed it.
Only the Geumcheon Hall Master could unite 《Chaos》, obtain the 「Fruit」, and advance into the Great Realm.
“Loyalty?”
Janya's laughter grew louder.
“It is not such a simple emotion.”
The Geumcheon Hall Master was terrifying. The man before him was terrifying too.
But if someone asked whether he was acting out of loyalty, that would be wrong.
Janya looked at his fallen brothers one last time.
The years they had struggled through together, their hatred for the world, all of it was stirring awake. So was the image of the one being who would fulfill that hatred's long-held wish for them.
Janya laughed as he caught his breath.
Now that the Black Cloud had truly been released, ‘that’ would soon begin.
It is a little early.
But if I am going to die here anyway.
Glaring at Jaehwan, Janya pulled something like a black jewel from his clothes and swallowed it whole.
It happened in an instant.
Jaehwan's expression shifted strangely.
Soulstone?
For an instant, Jaehwan saw the shape of the jewel Janya had swallowed.
It was certainly a Soulstone. More precisely, it was a stone that gave off an aura far more sinister than a Soulstone.
The stone's energy flowed into Janya's body, and his flesh began to swell.
Its energy was powerful enough to make even Jaehwan's senses uncomfortable for a moment.
Hahahaha, hahahahahat!
Janya's laughter twisted grotesquely. Black veins rose all over his body, and the muscles across his entire body rapidly expanded.
His spiritual power coefficient, once at the level of a Fourth Adapter, nearly doubled, instantly surpassing that of a Fifth Adapter.
A power that might even reach the Sixth Adaptation.
Janya's swollen body slowly began to split down the middle. A giant mouth lined with hideous teeth emerged, and grotesque tentacles extended from around it.
Jaehwan suddenly thought he understood what that being was.
“Everyone here is taking something like drugs.”
When Jaehwan had said that after seeing people on every street inhaling strange powders, Mino had answered,
“Well, I can see why you would misunderstand... But that is not a drug. They have no choice if they want to lower their soul contamination.”
At first, he had not understood what she meant.
Now, he thought he did.
“Nobody wants to become a Deadman.”
* * *
A Deadman. A monster created when a being's soul contamination reached one hundred percent.
The fear of everyone who lived in 《Chaos》, something all of them considered more horrifying than death. A beast that had lost every memory and shred of reason from its former life, leaving only desire behind.
Oooooooooh.
Janya's voice was soaked in ecstasy.
His memories as a human were vanishing. As he destroyed everything he was, Janya finally reached complete freedom.
The freedom to cast himself into the abyss. The freedom to consign himself to the maggots. At the end of that destructive freedom, Janya arrived in another world.
...Is this the truth of this world?
A world where all humans looked like corpses. A world where horrific numbers and data gnawed at beings like maggots.
Janya looked at his surging tentacles, filled with the sense that he could do anything.
It was laughable that he had feared becoming a Deadman until now. What use were memories or dignity as a human when he could see such a magnificent world?
“A-A medium Deadman!”
“Everyone, run!”
The terrified guards began to flee.
Janya drove his tentacles wildly into the nearby corpses, absorbing their spiritual power. His reason gradually went numb.
Sexual desire and hunger. Endless cravings seized control of everything he was.
At that moment, Janya was a slave to complete freedom.
Then Janya saw a man.
Laughing, Janya tried to extend his tentacles toward him.
But a cold sensation brushed against his soul.
How could a ‘human’ exist in this world?
Janya looked around.
There were no humans anywhere.
Only corpses.
Then how did that man still have the form of a human?
Intense revulsion twisted Janya's body.
That being should not be here.
How could something like that...
Janya reflexively moved his tentacles to kill the man.
Yet what was this?
His tentacles would not move.
The man looked at him.
The eyes of one who was neither human nor Deadman stared at him.
Janya's tentacles trembled.
I am afraid? Me?
Something like that could not exist.
With a monstrous scream, his tentacles moved. To deny what he saw, to silence all this fear.
Then the man raised his sword and pointed it at him.
It was as though the world itself had turned against him.
The next moment, Janya saw the world around him distort. Something like a powerful flash of wind passed by, and as his entire body seemed to tear apart, the world spun.
Before he could even scream, terrible pain consumed his whole body. His reflection showed in the man's blade.
Tentacles scattered through the air poured endlessly from the sky.
Within that destructive scene, Janya glimpsed the lonely end he had long wished for.
...Is it raining?
That was the last thing Janya saw.
Footnotes:
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