Chapter 66 - Episode 10. The Rebirth War (4)
Chapter 66: Episode 10. The Rebirth War (4)
──────
Jaehwan moved with ease, as if he did not even acknowledge Heintz's stabs as stabs.
Rage and inferiority soon filled Heintz's mind. Those negative emotions touched the darkness buried deep in his heart, which in turn became the Deadman's power and strengthened his spear attacks.
Faster.
Stronger.
Whenever an explosion rang out, Heintz felt pleasure wash over his entire body. Whenever he became drunk on power and lost his reason, it felt as though his peripheral nerves were melting away.
As if he were drunk.
It was the side effect that came with wielding greater power. A cascade of emotions accompanied by rage and pleasure paralyzed his reason, while every cell in his body gradually changed into something like that of a Deadman.
The stronger they became, the closer they came to becoming Deadmans. That was the true nature of the Nether Ghost Envoys.
The spear attacks filling the space ahead blackened his vision like fog. It was a strike no one, not even the Fortress Lord of Gorgon, could evade.
This was my power.
The power I gained by trampling on my convictions and giving them up.
The power I earned through my effort.
Then someone spoke.
"That's enough."
As if by magic, the rain of spear attacks stopped. Through the torrent of spears, a man looked calmly at him.
It was Jaehwan.
"How...?"
The moment Heintz looked into the man's eyes, his legs buckled. He thought it could not be, but his soul was honest.
Perhaps this sensation, as though his brain had gone numb, was his instinctive attempt to avoid meeting those eyes.
Then the world flashed before him.
"Ugh..."
As he groaned and staggered, Heintz realized half his body was gone.
A burning pain pierced his entire body.
Barely holding onto his fading consciousness, Heintz concentrated spiritual power into the missing half of his body. Squirming tentacles sprouted out, and his body began to regenerate.
"Gasp... Gasp..."
Even for the strongest of the Nether Ghost Envoys, regenerating half his body was difficult.
His soul had been strengthened by the power of a Deadman. He possessed several times the Strength and reflexes of an eighth-stage Adapter, along with spiritual power approaching that of a ninth-stage Adapter.
Yet he had been unable to evade it or block it.
There was no doubt.
The attack he had seen was a Stab.
Jaehwan looked at him impassively. Even after witnessing someone regenerate half their body before his eyes, he did not feel the slightest fear or dread.
If anyone was afraid, it was Heintz.
"Deputy Hall Master, I believe we should attack together."
A lean man using Dual-Wielding stepped forward. Other than Heintz, this was the strongest of the Nether Ghost Envoys, Geumcheon Hall Master's assault captain.
Heintz gritted his teeth and shouted.
"Attack him! All of you!"
At his command, every Nether Ghost Envoy charged Jaehwan at once. A black wave of Nether Ghost Envoys swung their swords, trying to seize and tear him apart.
There were well over a million souls in the fortress of Manticore alone. If that many Nether Ghost Envoys attacked, even that bastard would not be able to win.
As if they had read his thoughts, Nether Ghost Envoys came rushing in from every part of the street, letting out strange cries. A few could no longer overcome their instincts, and their Mutation progressed as tentacles began to spill from their bellies.
"Kwaaaah!"
"Kyaaaah!"
The outstretched tentacles dripped foul fluids as they rushed toward Jaehwan.
The Spiritual Pressure of the Deadmans was enough to rival that of seventh-stage Adapters.
"Are all the people in Chaos the same?"
Jaehwan lightly swung his sword.
That casual strike sliced through dozens of Deadmans at once.
"That one talks about effort. This one talks about effort. All of you do is say how hard you tried."
A second strike.
This time, nearly a hundred Deadmans were cut down. It was a sight perfectly suited to the word slash.
But whether he cut down ten or a hundred, the number of Deadmans did not decrease in the slightest.
Looking at them, Jaehwan finished.
"Whether it is just talk or not, you have to fight to find out."
The Nether Ghost Envoys' assault was like an enormous wave.
A wave that came crashing in a hundred times, a thousand times.
For ages beyond human comprehension, it repeated itself without end. That was the instinct of a wave. No matter how often it was split apart, it surged forward again, a force of nature no single human could ever overcome.
That was the law of waves.
Jaehwan's stance changed completely.
Even Cheongheo, watching from beside him, felt chills run down his spine.
Jaehwan's sword shot in a straight line toward the charging Nether Ghost Envoys.
It was neither Normal Stab nor Hard Stab. It was the absolute limit of Stab, something that could finally be called the ultimate essence of Stab.
A Stab powerful enough to crack the shape of the world.
The true limit of a technique that possessed form.
The world trembled beneath its wind pressure.
The earth recoiled from its terrifying might.
Heintz's eyes widened.
...What the hell is that?
An endless path of light stretched toward him in a straight line. Hundreds of Nether Ghost Envoys who had rushed in like a tidal wave split apart and scattered into white light.
Kwoooooom.
The spirits vanished without even being able to scream. Souls that had struggled, souls burdened with resentment. Souls of Chaos that had endured a lifetime of suffering were finally freed from desire, offering themselves to a single path.
「Path of the Wave」.
Whenever the waves came crashing in, the man repeated his Stab.
Again and again.
As if he could repeat that Stab forever.
And so, the Stab became a path.
Like moths to a flame, the Deadmans rushed toward the Path of the Wave. As if something precious they had lost was waiting within that path, they rushed in again and again.
Heintz was one of them.
Dragging his tentacles and bursting with fluid, Heintz charged onto that path. When the brilliant flash swallowed him, he felt his short life condense into a single moment.
Then Heintz was in another world.
A world seen by one man.
The world of someone who would not submit to the world.
Heintz had heard of this world before.
Is this a Unique World?
Countless corpses. Crows pecking at those corpses. And a massive eye floating in the sky.
When the eye looked at him, Heintz looked back.
An eye that reflected everything in the world, defined it, and kept it under surveillance.
When he faced that eye head-on, Heintz understood what it symbolized. At the same time, he understood what the man was trying to fight.
I see. This man...
Before that will, Heintz felt moved. He fell into despair. Then he found a hope that had come far too late.
If I had not given up back then.
If I had remained the Justice Seeker.
Could I have followed this man's dream on this path too?
As his consciousness faded, Heintz murmured without realizing it.
"Just a little more..."
His world slowly closed its eyes.
Rumble...
The explosions faded, and the thick haze settled.
The groaning Nether Ghost Envoys and those with severed tentacles all scattered away as silver dust.
A considerable number of Nether Ghost Envoys remained, but they could not recklessly charge in. The previous strike had wiped out every top-ranked Nether Ghost Envoy, including Deputy Hall Master Heintz.
And that was not all.
The path Jaehwan had created pierced through the tidal wave of Deadmans and ran straight through the Inner Fortress. In the distance, the Inner Fortress, split in two, collapsed along the fissure in the earth.
"...What a monster. He split Manticore's thousands of years of history in two in an instant."
Cheongheo muttered with his mouth hanging open.
"At this point, we should call it World Stab instead of Hard Stab."
"Stop talking nonsense and let's go."
"It is not nonsense. What the hell did you just do?"
Cheongheo had seen it, if only for a brief moment.
Wherever the Stab reached, the laws of the world twisted, and the world took on the form of Jaehwan's Unique World.
Putting aside the destructive power of the technique, even members of the Rupture had never seen a technique like that.
"I just stabbed with all my strength."
The world split apart because he stabbed with all his strength?
Cheongheo looked dumbfounded, but Jaehwan, despite displaying such a shocking technique, did not look satisfied at all.
He looked down at his right hand, the hand holding Dokbul.
Ever since leaving the Tower, Jaehwan had repeated Stab without resting for a single moment. Stabbing, stabbing, and stabbing again. At some point during those repeated Stabs, he realized that further Stabs held no meaning.
He could no longer grow through simple Stabs.
After hearing many things about Awakening from Cheongheo and guiding South Sea Hall Master Cayman onto the path of Awakening, that thought became even firmer.
Awakening could not be achieved by simply repeating one action.
The purpose of repeating a Stab or a slash was to make one's own actions unfamiliar. The concept of Stab or slashing that one knew would collapse, and that collapse would eventually lead to Doubt about the world.
In other words, repeating Stabs or slashes could make Awakening easier, but it could not advance someone through the stages of Awakening. Repeating countless Stabs was only one method of forgetting the self fixed within the world and entering a selfless trance.
There must be another realm beyond Selflessness.
According to Cheongheo, a very small number of Awakened Ones had progressed beyond the third stage of Awakening. Yet even Cheongheo did not know how they had entered that realm.
Throughout his training, Jaehwan had tried to find a clue to the next realm. But the clue always seemed within reach, only to slip away. The fourth stage was not a realm one could reach by simply investing more time.
Cheongheo looked toward Manticore's Inner Fortress, which was collapsing with a roar.
"Thanks to you, this will be much easier. It seems Geumcheon Hall Master was badly injured by that attack too. I cannot feel any Lieutenant General-level Spiritual Pressure at all... But are you all right?"
Cheongheo looked Jaehwan over.
It had been an attack powerful enough to split the world. There was no way he could release that much spiritual power and remain mentally sound.
Yet Jaehwan waved it off as though it were nothing.
"I am fine. I can use it a few more times."
The Nether Ghost Envoys let out frightened groans and slowly retreated. Like an ebbing tide, they all moved out of Jaehwan and Cheongheo's path.
That was when they heard someone's voice.
"Well, I am terribly late."
The space ahead warped, and a woman appeared.
She had pink hair, small horns, and wore a black tank top.
"...You really did a number on this place. You scared the Nether Ghost Envoys. What on earth did you do?"
Cheongheo's expression changed the moment he saw her.
Spatial interference?
Skills that allowed their user to merge into part of space or transform their body into mist were rare, but not impossible to find. But a skill that appeared by warping space itself, like this one, did not exist even among all highest-grade skills.
That was only true for highest-grade skills.
This world possessed supreme skills that surpassed even highest-grade skills.
The transcendent-grade spatial movement skill, Warp.
Cheongheo knew the only race capable of using that skill. Nine hundred years ago, he had seen that skill manifest several times.
Footnotes:
Chapter discussion