Chapter 63 - Episode 10. The Rebirth War (1)
Chapter 63: Episode 10. The Rebirth War (1)
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“The Rebirth War is a name I coined. I hold absolute copyright over it. What? Proof? Hmm. How about I tell you the origin of the name?
“That’s right. Most people think it was named that because they fought the 《Palace of Rebirth》, just like you do. What a stupid thought. Use your heads a little. Think about where that war took place. And try a little harder to consider what truly underwent regeneration through that war.”
Poet Euphrates.
* * *
The Three Fortresses Meeting, which had devolved into a chaotic group brawl, ended in victory for Gorgon Fortress.
A trainee reporter who happened to be stationed in Gorgon covered the event, and the results of the Three Fortresses Meeting appeared in 《Chaos This Month》. The news quickly spread throughout Chaos.
* * *
Aisa Lindcroft, Fortress Lord of Dryad, found another Fortress Lord’s office unfamiliar. It was her first time entering one.
So this is the office of Gorgon’s Fortress Lord.
As if reflecting its owner’s personality, the room held almost nothing beyond two tables, two chairs, and a couple of bookshelves.
“...Only the necessities.”
She had been taken hostage by Gorgon Fortress immediately after losing the Three Fortresses Meeting. Yet not all hostages received the same treatment.
Strictly speaking, Aisa Lindcroft was the only person gathered for the Three Fortresses Meeting who had been treated as an official envoy.
Right after the meeting broke down, Cayman, the South Sea Hall Master, had called her aside when she was about to be imprisoned. They had spoken for a long time.
At the end of that long conversation, Aisa Lindcroft had finally said this.
“If you truly believe that, Cayman, then I’ll try trusting you too.”
Despite Cayman’s efforts, Aisa Lindcroft was the only envoy who had changed her mind.
Aisa sighed as she looked over the cover of 《Chaos This Month》 on the table.
“Shocking! The Jade-Faced Lord, Lieutenant General of the Fifth Zone, suffers a mysterious defeat! The victor revealed to be Cayman, South Sea Hall Master...”
“The emergence of a new Awakened One? What will become of Chaos’s fate...”
The envoys who had come with her understood the terror inspired by the Lords better than anyone.
Even if Cayman had defeated a Lieutenant General-class Lord, everyone knew that fact could not alter the greater current. Aisa had thought much the same. Still, she was curious.
What had changed them?
Cayman constantly spoke of the “Abyss Expedition,” but she had never once believed he would truly carry it out.
Creating the “Abyss Expedition” meant fighting the 《Palace of Rebirth》.
If Cayman had truly intended to set out on that expedition, he would have attacked the 《Palace of Rebirth》 long ago.
Yet Cayman had done nothing of the sort for at least nine hundred years.
“Cayman, do you really intend to fight the Lords?”
Could someone who had lived for nine hundred years change?
Aisa Lindcroft, who had lived for nine hundred seventy years, could not easily answer that question.
But she now knew the answer. A man who answered that question simply by existing stood before her.
“That is my intention.”
The changed Cayman felt unfamiliar to her.
She had thought she knew him well.
Fifth Seat of the Ten Halls of Chaos. A solitary man whose Hall faction was based in his own Fortress.
The Cayman she knew had been an Adapter plagued by inferiority. He had been scorned for not being an Over-Adapter. He had been a man of the Great Sea Zone who had collapsed in despair before a wall that effort could never overcome.
Now, there was not even a trace of that former shadow in Cayman’s expression.
“The 《Palace of Rebirth》 is an enemy beyond comparison to Geumcheon Hall.”
“I know.”
Aisa had watched Cayman defeat a Lieutenant General of the 《Great Realm》. Still, both she and Cayman knew that Lieutenant Generals were not the strongest beings in the 《Great Realm》.
Lieutenant Generals were astonishingly powerful, but among the three commander ranks, they were the weakest of the strong.
Cayman silently looked toward the Tower of Nightmares behind the Inner Fortress.
“Nine hundred years ago, we ran away once. We cannot do so again.”
Outside the window, new recruits, including several Hall Masters from the Adaptation Team, could be seen entering the Tower.
Law Horn Lord Karlton was among them. Watching the scene beside Cayman, Aisa doubted her own eyes.
“You... Were you cultivating people here?”
“Cultivation... I can see why it might look that way.”
Cayman smiled and continued.
“But that is not cultivation.”
“But that is clearly the Tower of Nightmares...”
“No one becomes a 「Product」 in that Tower. Because there is no 「Cultivator」 in it.”
A Tower without a Cultivator? Aisa looked as if she had been struck in the head with a blunt weapon.
“Could it be that the reason you became as strong as you are now is...”
Under the Hall Masters’ guidance, the stream of people heading toward the Tower did not stop.
Then Aisa noticed that ordinary Gorgon residents were mixed among the volunteers entering it. She was startled. Ordinary residents were going back into the Tower?
“Chaos can stand on its own now.”
Those who had once been cast into nightmares against their will were now walking into another nightmare to overcome this world.
Every face was grim with resolve.
Then Aisa noticed a man walking toward the Tower. As though a bad memory had surfaced, he clutched his own trembling shoulders and panted for breath.
He is this afraid, so why...?
Even so, the man did not stop walking toward the Tower. The people clenched their jaws and led their weary souls toward it.
No one had forced them, yet the residents of Chaos were choosing all this for themselves.
A choice.
The man with trembling shoulders looked back again and again as he gasped, but he gritted his teeth and refused to give up. When the Tower’s control device activated a moment later, his expression became complicated.
Aisa knew what he was seeing. No one in 《Chaos》 could fail to recognize that message.
Soon, the man’s lips formed words.
His body was enveloped in brilliant light. In that final moment, not the slightest trace of unease remained on his face.
Having watched the entire scene, Aisa murmured, “I see.”
“...”
“You... have decided to trust yourselves once more.”
When had any of them last made a proper choice?
They could talk about freedom all they liked, but they all knew it. Nine hundred years ago, 《Chaos》 had been stripped of true freedom. And that freedom would mean nothing unless they reclaimed it through their own strength.
Aisa suddenly became curious about the man who had returned freedom to 《Chaos》.
“...Where is Gorgon’s Fortress Lord now?”
* * *
An endless desert.
It was the desert region in the east of 《Chaos》, where Manticore Fortress stood.
After running for a long time with the sweltering heat at their backs, Cheongheo spoke in a blunt voice.
“...Slow down a little.”
Their pace did not lessen.
“You bastard, how long are we going to keep running?”
They had not used a teleportation station even once on the way here.
Using a station left a record. A record could allow information to leak somehow, and if information leaked, their operation could be exposed. That was Jaehwan’s reasoning.
“The Three Fortresses Meeting should be over by now.”
“I suppose so.”
“Are you really fine not going? They must have brought some formidable fighters too.”
“Cayman will have handled it.”
“Tch, with that guy’s skill...”
“Cayman is probably stronger than you now.”
“What? It’ll take that guy a hundred years to beat me!”
Cheongheo scowled and shouted.
“I had already undergone Awakening before that guy was even born!”
“You started over from the beginning this time too, old man.”
“That’s true, but...”
Cheongheo’s voice grew quieter.
Jaehwan was right. As a member of the Awakening Team, Cheongheo had joined the training with the mindset of starting everything over. He had discarded all the Awakening keywords he once possessed and succeeded in acquiring new ones.
“Come to think of it, I haven’t asked until now.”
“Asked what?”
“Why did you insist on starting over, old man? You must have been on the verge of your third Awakening.”
“Because my way was wrong.”
“So starting Awakening with different keywords changes its direction considerably?”
“...You knew?”
“I knew your way of seeing the world was different from mine.”
Cheongheo let out a groan.
The “path of Awakening” Jaehwan walked was certainly different from the one Cheongheo had walked.
「Doubt」, followed by 「Understanding」, followed by 「Selflessness」.
Cheongheo was an Awakened One, but he had never thought in concrete terms about doubting or understanding the world.
“Doubt” meant questioning the reason for one’s own existence. “Understanding” meant agonizing over the reason for the world’s existence.
But the “Awakening” Cheongheo had known until now was not so profound.
Every Awakened One of 「Rupture」, including Cheongheo, had obtained the first keyword, 「Dismantling」, then reached the third keyword, 「Selflessness」, through the second keyword, 「Assembly」.
「Dismantling」 did not question. 「Assembly」 did not agonize. They had reached Awakening without questions or anguish.
Jaehwan’s path, in contrast, was a road covered in thorns.
A path that demanded endless questions and endless anguish.
A path that required one to continually examine the validity of one’s own Unique World, even after obtaining it.
Cheongheo had only realized this after achieving his third Awakening with the same keywords as Jaehwan.
The two stopped only after running for another hour. It was a desert rest stop with a vivid blue oasis.
A few traveling merchants were chatting with their bundles spread out before them. Some stole glances in their direction.
Jaehwan looked around at the scenery and spoke.
“Let’s rest for a bit.”
As he said that, Jaehwan dropped down beside the oasis. He took something from his clothes and tossed it to Cheongheo.
“What is this?”
“Food.”
Jaehwan answered curtly, then tore apart the jerky in his hand. It was dried Horned Beast meat.
“You said eating makes you feel like you’re alive.”
Cheongheo’s body stiffened for a moment at those words.
Jaehwan ignored it, tore off another piece of jerky, and scooped up some water from the oasis to drink. Cheongheo watched him for a while, then followed suit, tearing into the jerky and drinking water.
It was a little disappointing that there was no alcohol.
Having devoured all the jerky in an instant, Jaehwan shaded his eyes with his hand and looked into the distance, as though gauging the remaining distance to their destination.
Cheongheo quietly watched him.
After completing his third Awakening, Cheongheo could see Jaehwan with new eyes.
He had thought reaching the third stage would let him properly see Jaehwan’s realm, but it had not. Cheongheo still could not grasp Jaehwan’s limits.
To be exact, there was something in Jaehwan beyond simple strength.
How would he compare to that girl Seolha?
Cheongheo recalled Yu Seolha, Rupture’s Second Commander.
Now that he reviewed her Combat Power, he knew for certain. Yu Seolha was at least a fourth-stage Awakened One.
Jaehwan, on the other hand, defied any clear judgment. At times he seemed similar to Cheongheo himself. At other times, he seemed stronger than Yu Seolha.
I have no idea how strong he really is.
Excluding the time he had spent outside the Tower, Cheongheo had trained inside it for around two hundred years. It was a long time, and training so harsh that even Cheongheo, who had lived for a thousand years, had nearly lost his mind.
Yet he had not stayed with Jaehwan the entire time.
“Kid, let me ask you something.”
“What?”
“How old are you now?”
“You’re going on about age again?”
“I heard something from Meikal.”
“What?”
“I heard the Tower’s third floor was completed a few days ago.”
Jaehwan’s lips twitched.
Cheongheo continued.
“As far as I know, you were absent from the Tower’s second floor for several decades. In 《Chaos》 time, it was exactly two days.”
“...”
“Meikal said the third floor’s time density is more than a hundred times greater than the second floor’s.”
Around the time the Tower’s third floor had been completed, Jaehwan had been absent from its second floor for two days. Where had Jaehwan been during that time?
The implication was obvious.
“...Just how many years have you trained, you bastard?”
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