Chapter 32
Chapter: 32
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>Translator: penny
>Chapter: 32
>Chapter Title: Channeling (2)
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>“Your Highness!”
>“Are you alright, Your Highness!”
>The young prince, who had been performing the feat of stabbing his sword into the rampaging monster and holding on like it was a rodeo, let out a rough breath.
>“I’m… fine.”
>Kurt clicked his tongue. He’d thought from the start, watching him come and go from the training grounds, that he wasn’t your average human, but where the hell did that tenacity come from—clinging to its nape with a sword until it died?
>And look at that. Those calm eyes, like it was nothing.
>Anyone would think he was a battle-hardened veteran who’d exterminated sea beasts a hundred times over.
>Instead, it was Knight Captain Sir Masain—his face pale as a ghost—who was frantically tearing off the disgusting tentacle-like things wrapped around the prince’s body with his hands.
>Where had all that ferocity gone from when he was beating down the palace knights? Now he looked like a lost puppy making a fuss. As if hands could solve that.
>Kurt raised his sword and sliced through a few of the tough tentacles pulling at the prince’s body.
>He didn’t know what the hell had happened, but it seemed to be over for now. That’s what he thought.
>So when the prince’s body suddenly pitched forward, Kurt didn’t immediately grasp what had happened.
>“…Your Highness?”
>Sir Masain, who had instinctively caught the collapsing Prince Mores in his arms, called out to him in bewilderment. After quickly checking the prince’s condition this way and that, his voice turned desperate.
>“Your Highness!”
>Sensing something ominous, Kurt swiftly severed the remaining tentacles and knelt before him.
>“What happened, Sir Masain?”
>“Sir Kurt……”
>Sir Masain looked up at him, his face utterly vacant, as if his soul had fled.
>“…His Highness isn’t breathing.”
>* * *
>[Lee Seongjin…….]
>It was a call he could not ignore.
>[Lee Seongjin…….]
>Before Seongjin could even recognize it, he responded to the voice.
>No, it wasn’t so much a response as his soul automatically reacting to it. Like how one reflexively turns an ear to a familiar voice without conscious thought.
>Whoosh.
>A strange floating sensation came over him, and his consciousness rapidly detached from reality. A dull feeling, like sinking into water and gazing at the sky through a vast membrane.
>-Your Highness?
>He thought he heard Sir Masain’s voice ringing in his ears, but it faded away in an instant.
>His vision warped, and in that moment, his soul was helplessly sucked somewhere.
>Oh… crap, I think I messed up?
>Seongjin realized his soul had left Mores’s body. Compared to his old anxiety about being exorcised by high priests or the Holy Emperor, this was an absurdly anticlimactic end. A sigh was in order.
>This easily?
>Even for possession, could a soul slip out of a body this simply?
>Plunging through thick clouds, through cozy mists at tremendous speed, his soul was soon flying through a pitch-black night sky.
>Somewhere, music drifted in. Tiny notes like a music box or xylophone stretched out into five distinct lines. Seongjin couldn’t tell if he was hearing or seeing it.
>[Lee Seongjin…….]
>The faint call continued.
>He had no idea how to return to Mores anyway, so he decided to focus on what was in front of him. Tuning in to the voice, his soul—responding to his will—began racing at an incredible speed.
>He shot between the stars. The twinkling stars in the distance elongated like rain streaks.
>Even as he flew, Seongjin felt dumbfounded. Those were insanely far away, yet they stretched like that? He wasn’t deep into physics or astronomy, but if this was space, he was flying way past light speed.
>See? No need for studying crap. After death, everything just becomes clear.
>How much time passed?
>The last scattered stars vanished, and now his soul floated in an endlessly deep, black void. An instinctive terror gripped him, as if his very existence might dissolve.
>It wasn’t darkness there—it was black because there was nothing. Was absolute absence this piercingly cold?
>Without the faint light encircling his soul, without that tenuous call linking him, Seongjin’s soul might have frozen and shattered in moments.
>And there it was.
>A tiny light, precarious as a candle about to flicker out.
>[Lee Seongjin…….]
>Now a mere speck, the small soul blinked red, occasionally sighing his name.
>Yeah. Who else would be worth calling by name?
>Feeling a twinge of pity for its pathetic, ready-to-vanish form, Seongjin carefully cupped the Demon King’s soul in both hands.
>Well, no body, so were these hands? Whatever.
>[Le…e Seongjin?]
>Suddenly enveloped in unexpected warmth, the soul blinked rapid red. Bewilderment flooded through.
>[Yeah.]
>[Lee Seongjin?]
>[Yeah.]
>[The real Lee Seongjin?]
>Say it one more time and I’ll chuck you.
>His fierce intent transmitted, and the Demon King’s soul shivered. Then its next words:
>[Why are you here?]
>What the hell, man? You’re the one who called me here.
>But pure misery emanated from the Demon King’s soul.
>[You’re supposed to call me from there! What if I get summoned here?]
>[…]
>[We’re screwed. It’s over for us.]
>Then why’d you keep calling me nonstop? I was fine until you yanked me here.
>The Demon King sniffled at Seongjin’s grumbling.
>[I had no choice. This is a void space where everything scatters in an instant. Without the Holy Emperor’s barrier, I’d have vanished the moment I arrived.]
>So the Holy Emperor’s barrier had preserved his soul. Seongjin nodded, eyeing the white light around him. That must be it.
>Sure, the Holy Emperor had flung him here too, but no need to remind him when he was grateful now.
>[You’re the only bond holding my soul now. So I kept repeating your name to keep my memories alive. Otherwise, I’d have dispersed long ago.]
>[…]
>[I don’t even know how long I’ve been doing this. Time feels warped here.]
>That’s why you kept crying. The Demon King didn’t say it, but Seongjin sensed what he held back. Recalling the occasional sorrowful sobs in his sleep, he felt a pang.
>And surprisingly, the Demon King’s next words were an apology to Seongjin.
>[Sorry. I didn’t mean to drag you in.]
>[Uh…….]
>Seongjin didn’t know what to say. He’d expected something like, ‘I won’t go alone, muahaha,’ with arson and clinging.
>But only pure guilt came from the Demon King.
>In the end, Seongjin mumbled an “Uh, whatever” and fell silent. They drifted wordlessly in the dark for a while.
>Oddly, the crushing void-terror from arriving lessened just from having someone to share thoughts with. Staring blankly at the Demon King’s soul blinking red, Seongjin muttered to himself.
>[If I flew here like this, what happens to Mores?]
>[No soul? He’d just die, right?]
>Ah, yeah. Really dead, huh. Sorry to Sir Masain and Sir Kurt who came as escorts.
>As he thought that, an odd peace settled.
>The Demon King seemed to feel the same.
>[This was how it was meant to be from the start. Our souls, wrapped in karmic flames, flying here to scatter into true death.]
>[Yeah. I see.]
>Suddenly remembered: Gehenna’s karmic flames evolved, dragged to the main world. Vague memory of the Demon King ranting about flying to the void.
>[We haven’t fully left Mores’s main world yet. This is like the border between dimensions and the void.]
>No one to hear, yet the Demon King whispered low.
>[Not to scare you, but Delcross’s dimension is about to face big trouble.]
>What now?
>Like Sigurd 34’s demon gate opening?
>But the Demon King’s explanation was grave.
>[High Demon Kings and otherworldly lords are watching this place. I feel terrifying gazes fixated on Delcross.]
>The Demon King’s soul trembled in fear.
>Their stares were so exalted, even drawing attention could flatten a soul. That’s why he whispered.
>Without the Holy Emperor’s barrier, feeling them indirectly would’ve erased him.
>[I don’t know their names well, and even if I did, I couldn’t speak them. But I know a bit about some high Demon Kings.]
>Here’s what he explained.
>Unlike otherworldly lords eyeing direct invasion via gates like Gehenna, high Demon Kings enjoyed subtly infiltrating, spreading their essence.
>Ravaging the world into ruin before full assault.
>And their essences were the problem.
>[They’re the lords of ‘Famine’ and ‘Plague’, and of ‘War’ and ‘Death’.]
>Yeah. Sounded like a massive headache just hearing it.
>So famine, plague, war, death on a massive scale in this dimension.
>Then, after the disasters, high Demon Kings and lords would open gates and invade. Total crisis.
>The Demon King’s soul blinked curiously. Like cocking his head if he had a body.
>[Never seen this much attention on one dimension before, honestly.]
>More interest, more brutal end. Got it.
>[When does the invasion start?]
>[Dunno? Their time sense is nothing like the human world.]
>Seongjin grew serious. He’d lived as Delcross’s prince a while, grown attached—didn’t want it ending like his old world.
>Faces flashed: Sir Masain, Empress Lisbeth, Edith, Amelia, the twins, Sir Kurt, Pearl Palace knights.
>And Father, His Holiness the Holy Emperor.
>Did he know?
>[Come to think of it…….]
>Seongjin wondered.
>[This dimension definitely has gods, right? Why’s the god letting them eye it like this?]
>Back home, Seongjin was near-atheist—not disbelieving, just indifferent. Too busy fighting monsters for unproven stuff.
>Sure, some comrades prayed harder in tough times.
>But this world was different.
>Divine power as proof, Holy Emperor as proxy.
>Plus, he felt his soul now, learned of demon lords rivaling gods.
>Hard to stay agnostic.
>[Why’s the god watching over this dimension just let those guys scheme?]
>He asked the Demon King, but the answer came from elsewhere.
>[Because Delcross’s chief god isn’t a personal god, my son.]
>What?
>Turning, Seongjin saw a radiant figure, arms crossed, gazing at him. Its light spread so vast, it buried Seongjin and the Demon King’s souls.
>He noticed the soul-chilling cold had eased.
>[You wanted theology and philosophy lessons, but it was all talk? You know nothing.]
>Uh……
>Why’s this guy here?