Chapter 97 - Episode 13. Catastrophe (11)
Chapter 97: Episode 13. Catastrophe (11)
──────
It felt as if his blood vessels were swelling and his head was about to burst.
An explosive sensation unlike anything he had ever experienced swept through his entire body. Without any rhetorical exaggeration, Jaehwan could describe the feeling clearly.
I am omnipotent.
A thrilling shudder ran down his spine. It was a terrifying ecstasy that went beyond awe and reached something like rapture.
This was the power of the Sole King.
It gave him goosebumps. Even though the power was manifesting through his own soul, it did not feel real at all.
It was not simply a power capable of tearing the sky apart or splitting the sea.
It went beyond destroying part of a world. It was the power to rule that world.
That was the strength of the master of Chaos, an ancient god.
Jaehwan understood. The authority Catastrophe was wielding now was the realm at the very end of the path he needed to pursue. He would have to struggle for the rest of his life just to surpass this experience.
What was even more astonishing was that this was not all of Catastrophe’s power. Even Catastrophe had been defeated by Big Brother and sealed here.
How much stronger did he have to become?
When he had first reached 「Hypothesis」, the fourth stage of Awakening, Jaehwan had been confident. A world on another level had opened before him, and his soul had burned with the conviction that he could do anything.
Even Jaehwan felt an enormous wall before him today.
It was so far away.
By the time his thoughts ended, the battle was nearing its conclusion as well. He felt the soul of the Sole King, which had descended into him through the Deadman Link, withdrawing.
A brief voice rang beside his ear.
“You can only call me forth three times in the form of Descent of the Deadman, not as a Vicegerent. Remember that.”
“You have used one this time, so two remain.”
“You will need to call me once when you meet 《Big Brother》. Think of it as having only one chance left to summon me.”
“Your vessel could normally contain me only twice... Consider it the benefit of having a good Companion.”
The one-sided voice cut off there.
A moment later, the link severed, and horrific pain seized his entire body.
His five senses warped, and his mind collapsed. It felt as if cracks were spreading through his soul. Jaehwan realized that his soul had reached its limit.
Through barely opened eyes, he saw the world. Faces appeared through his blood-red vision. He saw the darkness rippling from his body, and the tentacles emerging through it.
Tentacles.
Only then did he realize what he had become.
I see. Have I become a Deadman?
During the time the Sole King had descended, Jaehwan had gained some knowledge of Deadmans.
The definition of a Deadman was simple.
Nonexistence.
Those who existed were the ones who turned time into memories. Deadmans were not permitted memories. Therefore, Deadmans did not exist.
My memories are disappearing...
Jaehwan felt his memories flowing into the void. They had once been Jaehwan, but they were becoming something that was no longer him.
Grrrrr.
To lose oneself. Even if one remained alive, it was no different from death.
He desperately wished someone would kill him. Before all these memories faded away. He wanted to die while he still existed as a whole, complete “self”...
Then, the next moment, he heard a soft rustling sound from somewhere.
Something like a brush, or soft down, touched his entire body. Something was tickling him.
Stop.
But the brush did not stop. It continued to move as if caressing his entire body, as if tenderly stroking him. Thanks to those brushstrokes, Jaehwan realized that he was not vanishing. Someone was holding him in this world as he tried to disappear.
Memories flooded back.
“I told you. Ten billion times.”
He remembered himself speaking calmly as he released his killing intent. It was from when he had first fought Cheongheo.
Old man.
They were the memories of Cheongheo, the Divine Doctor of Despair.
Cheongheo’s memories firmly held Jaehwan’s existence together as it tried to scatter. The images of “Jaehwan” remembered by Cheongheo seeped into Jaehwan’s soul. Some memories were unfamiliar, while others felt strange.
“Those people are dying because the “sea” exists, right?”
“I suppose so.”
“Then I’ll split the sea.”
He was there in those memories.
A reckless, childish man. A child with neither consideration nor manners for others.
Even so, Cheongheo’s gaze upon him had been warm.
At times, Cheongheo had been mischievous. At times, cranky. Yet Cheongheo had never hated him, not even once.
Feelings without the slightest falsehood. Bathed in those feelings, Jaehwan felt warmth filling him from within.
“Brat, brat! Come to your senses!”
Everything was a mess. His ears rang, and his entire body hurt as if it were burning.
“Brat!”
A voice came from far away.
The old man’s voice.
“Brat!”
That damn brat.
How long are you going to call me that?
“Jaehwan!”
Only then did Jaehwan manage a smile.
When he opened his eyes, old man Cheongheo was there, his eyes red despite being over twelve hundred years old.
You did it, old man.
The tainted energy of the Deadman Catastrophe had left behind still remained within his body. But perhaps because Catastrophe bore him no hostility, it stayed quiet without causing any particular rejection.
“What were you thinking, becoming a Deadman? Do you even have a brain in that head of yours...!”
Jaehwan watched Cheongheo struggle to continue and barely raised the corners of his mouth.
“...I trusted you, old man.”
It was not flattery. He meant it sincerely.
Cheongheo was the reason Jaehwan had been able to boldly undergo Mutation. He believed Cheongheo’s unique technique, Deadman Slash, could calm him after he became a Deadman. It had been half a gamble, but that gamble had paid off.
In the distance, Samyeong Hun was gasping for breath. The descent had ended just as Jaehwan was about to strike the final blow, so he seemed to still be alive. His soul had nearly collapsed, though. He would probably die even if they left him alone.
Jaehwan looked around at the ruined surroundings.
Other than Samyeong Hun, none of the Lords were anywhere to be seen. Only the expedition members remained, glancing at him from time to time.
“It’s over...”
A belated sense of release swept through his body.
It really was over.
The Lords would no longer be able to concern themselves with 《Chaos》. They would be busy enough trying to restore the balance of power that had collapsed in the 《Great Realm》.
Now, 《Chaos》 would find true freedom.
...Hm?
Something about the mood around him was strange.
The expedition members should have been drunk on the joy of victory, but their expressions were anything but normal.
Samyeong Hun’s final words crossed Jaehwan’s mind.
“Not everything will go the way you want.”
Samyeong Hun had looked somewhere at the very end. Translucent fragments of a barrier were embedded there. They were pieces of the barrier Samyeong Hun had created.
The barrier had shattered when Catastrophe descended. Fragments of the ceiling that had been playing the footage in particular had cut across the expedition force and embedded themselves in the ground in large pieces.
Hummm...
The fragments had apparently not lost their function yet. They continued replaying the footage they had shown Jaehwan.
Footage showing Jaehwan’s living body.
Every expedition member was watching it. At first, only a few people noticed the scene. But it took no time for two to become three, and ten to become a hundred.
As everyone focused on the footage, Samyeong Hun, whom they had thought dead, slowly lifted his head. A blue light gleamed in his eyes as he looked at Jaehwan.
...In the end, you will be alone.
The expressions of several members watching the footage began to take on an odd hue. It was not the joy of victory, but a completely different kind of emotion.
Samyeong Hun knew exactly what humans called that emotion.
“Fortress Lord.”
The first to speak was James, the chief of the northern checkpoint.
“I apologize, but what exactly is that footage...?”
His voice was stained with uncertainty.
“I once vaguely heard a rumor. That the Fortress Lord was not actually dead, but a living being... I thought it was absurd nonsense...”
“Wait, what does that mean? The Fortress Lord is alive?”
“You mean he isn’t one of us?”
The expedition members began murmuring.
Before Jaehwan could speak, Cayman stepped in.
“Hey. That is not what matters right no-”
“It matters to me.”
James’s voice was cold.
“Whether the Fortress Lord is dead or a living being is an extremely important matter to me.”
What did it matter to the expedition members whether Jaehwan was dead or alive?
Cayman looked around the expedition members, hoping to change the mood. But what Cayman found were more people like James.
“Fortress Lord, we want to know too.”
“Please tell us!”
The mood was growing stranger.
Some of them even asked questions like this.
“...When the Fortress Lord visited the 《Palace of Rebirth》, you obtained the 「Fruit」, didn’t you? Where did all those 「Fruit」 go?”
“Wait, do you think the Fortress Lord gained life through those 「Fruit」?”
Cayman’s sharp voice rang across the battlefield.
“Then how do you explain that footage?”
“The Fortress Lord did not eat the Fruit! The Fortress Lord-”
“...Then what happened to all the 「Fruit」?”
Cayman fell silent.
He could not explain it.
“Cayman! Answer us! You were there too!”
Complaints erupted from every direction. Strangely, Cayman felt as if he could understand the expedition members at the center of those complaints.
I see. They...
People like Cayman, Cheongheo, and Karlton understood what kind of person Jaehwan was. They knew what Jaehwan pursued, and they had vaguely sensed the path he wanted to walk. It would be too much to say they understood Jaehwan, but at least they could accept Jaehwan as a person.
But what about the other expedition members?
To them, the 「Abyss Expedition」 had nothing to do with lofty ideals of changing the world.
They had temporarily united before the terrifying enemy called the Lords, but in truth, they were no more than a ragtag collection of people chasing their own desires. And the desire that drove them had only one name.
「Life」
Therefore, all they sought was the 「Fruit」. But what if they learned that the Expedition Commander leading them was a being unrelated to that desire?
What if their emotional pillar was actually a being entirely different from them? A being that could not understand their suffering, one that could not even share that suffering with them from the beginning?
What if he was a living being?
Cayman turned toward the Fortress Lord with grim eyes. He could not begin to fathom what Jaehwan felt as he calmly met everyone’s gazes.
“Fortress Lord! Please answer us!”
“Fortress Lord!”
The doubt that had gradually spread began turning into something fanatical.
At the center of that madness, Samyeong Hun smiled sinisterly, blue light shining from his eyes.
「Disruption」
The reason people’s emotions had changed so rapidly was actually the transcendent-grade skill 「Disruption」, which he had scattered bit by bit through the barrier fragments. Yet 「Disruption」 could not activate without a trigger. Incitement-type skills could serve as a catalyst, but they could not be the cause.
The darkness buried deep within people’s hearts.
Jealousy and doubt.
That was where every cause lay.
People had relied on Jaehwan, but they had never truly trusted him.
Footnotes:
Chapter discussion