Chapter 254
Chapter 254
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 254
Chapter Title: Reminiscence (1)
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Four days had passed since that day.
In those four days, an incredible number of things had happened, but in another sense, nothing had happened at all.
In truth, I had spent most of that time doing virtually nothing.
I took care of various loose ends, rested, and the meals prepared by Phantom Hyeon were still delicious as ever.
I even set aside a day to visit a psychiatrist for a consultation (not Paju Central Hospital, but a completely ordinary clinic that had never appeared in the game).
Even amid all that, I observed, confirmed, pondered, reflected, researched, and analyzed a great many things.
And I dwelled at length on the events of that day. Yes, that day.
The incident I had witnessed and experienced in Cheon Tae-dong. It took a full four days to organize those scenes in my mind.
The reason I'm committing it to writing now is to record what I've sorted out in my head with a "sound mind," allowing me to trace it all objectively once more.
Before diving into the main account, there's something I must make absolutely clear. It might not matter to anyone else, but it's of utmost importance to me.
Today's date is June 14th.
My name is Kim Shin-hwa.
No need to doubt that.
And one more crucial point.
To avoid any misunderstanding, I state it plainly.
Right now, I am writing this with the clearest and most sound mind I've had in recent times.
This isn't the uncertain self-diagnosis that madmen often make. The integrity of my mental state has been diagnosed and confirmed by authorities in the field. (I'll explain who later. But it's unlikely I could secure greater authority than this.) To reiterate: I am in the most "normal" state I've been in lately.
Moreover, the grunts and rustles from those things—whether they're my duplicates, alternate personalities, or fragments of my shattered mind—have been completely silent for these past four days.
Thus, I am writing this entirely under my own mental faculties and will, free from any external (or internal) influence.
However, the events in Cheon Tae-dong that day were so bizarre that they defy complete description in words.
Even I, the sole witness at the epicenter, was in such a broken state at the time that I couldn't comprehend or analyze the situation coldly and objectively.
Therefore, utmost caution is required when reading this later.
I'm not considering other readers.
This is essentially a diary, after all. I don't expect anyone else to read it.
But based on past experience, there's no guarantee that the me who reads this later will be in a sound state, so I'm adding these layers of warnings.
So, have you understood everything up to this point?
If you're in a state where you can read and interpret this, that's a highly encouraging sign. If you stay careful not to break further, you might even find a way to improve.
Good. Now, onto the main story.
Let me see, where should I start describing the scenes?
Come to think of it, this morning, Jang Hyun-deok asked me:
"Wizard, you okay in the head?"
He immediately followed up with, "Oh, slip-up," and corrected himself: "I meant to say, 'Are you feeling alright up there?'" I pressed him a few more times on what made him think that, but he seemed clueless about why he'd asked.
I tried the same question on the Blood Marquess, but all I got back was, "You saying my head's gonna explode?"
Right.
Best to start with the head talk.
The moon waned, and a colossal message window appeared in the sky.
Before the shock could even fade, the sky tore open, revealing "it."
Just before I could fully perceive the form of the thing that had appeared.
There was a splorch from my left, and something exploded.
A shoving shock hit me, along with a disgusting, slimy fluid that drenched my left side. Lukewarm liquid trickled down my arm and neck, sticky mucus clinging.
And something like tough, bright-red clay.
Ridiculously, the impact made me lose focus momentarily, tearing my gaze from "it" to see what had pushed me.
There stood the Blood Marquess.
But I didn't realize it was her right away. I must have just stared blankly at her form.
Probably about one breath's worth. Only then did I realize her head was gone, and the stuff splattered on me was fragments of her head.
Had the shock made her head explode?
Or perhaps some ability of the Abyssal Being [Predator of the Mountains].
Maybe the Blood Marquess, unable to accept its true form, had blown her own head off in suicide.
Whichever it was, it doesn't matter much now. At the time, though, I thought she'd killed herself, and with a vague surge of rage and the impulse to do the same, I lifted my head again.
Back then, my thoughts were on the level of "It's in the sky? Flying? Uh, that pisses me off?"
Recalling that scene now brings to mind what [The One Who Waits Silently] once said to me. It went exactly like this:
"Kim Shin-hwa, do you know how deeply I have to stoop just to speak in a form you can comprehend, recognize, and understand? How do you converse with an ant?"
Yeah, something like that.
Stooping down. But that day in Cheon Tae-dong, the [Predator of the Mountains] wasn't stooping. It was entering this [Cthulhu World] with its full power.
The [Predator of the Mountains] is a mighty Abyssal Being. But if we compare how it's depicted in this game, [Cthulhu World], to other Abyssal Beings...
It's a bit high for low-tier, maybe mid?
Lower-mid tier would be accurate.
There are countless Abyssal Beings capable of greater miracles and powers, and I've witnessed their feats in this game countless times, gazed upon the forms of destruction they wrought.
But what the [Predator of the Mountains] showed that day wasn't the power as expressed in the game.
Not the crude, childish rendition through the limited medium of a game.
It wasn't some trivial thing like the [Blood Demon King], [The One Who Waits Silently], [The One Who Drinks Fear], or [Headless Buddha] as depicted, nor some absurd thing that could even be called the [Predator of the Mountains].
Its true name...
True name... . . ... ... .... ← I'm noting this so that a less sound future me doesn't mistake it for some code. It's just a pen mark I jabbed.
Still, no matter how hard I try, I can't recall it.
I definitely shouted its true name back then.
But I can't remember it now.
It's not just a matter of lost memory.
It feels like its true name has been erased from this world.
That must be the penalty declared by the thing beyond the message window.
Ah, writing the conclusion first might confuse me later.
My thoughts keep drifting, which means I'm still resisting the recall of what I saw.
The overwhelming presence as it revealed itself. Its form was truly awe-inspiring, inflicting irreparable wounds on my soul and mind.
Describing concretely what I saw then is impossible.
Delirium had kicked in.
[Abyssal Madness]?
Yes, that trait activated.
The [Abyssal Madness] trait unleashed the most powerful spark yet, forcibly repairing my crumbling mind.
But the true form of "it" kept shattering my mind faster than it could repair, driving me into a horrific delirious state.
It was agony so terrible that death would have been preferable.
Or at least total insanity beyond repair.
But the [Abyssal Madness] trait clung to my mind like a tenacious demon holding the soul of a prisoner in an endless hell.
The horrific scene before me splits my mind and crushes my soul. Then the trait repairs the broken mind and soul, forcing me to confront the horror anew.
Merciless destruction and cruel restoration repeating endlessly, producing indescribable torment.
The thing approaching me—so that scene I saw, or should I say "it"? No, [Abyssal Being]?
Their true forms that must not be revealed?
Good call putting it in writing. Feels like I'm inching closer to the source.
But abstract descriptions like this might confuse my future self, so even if it's not precise, I'll keep calling it the [Predator of the Mountains] for now.
If I must express in words even a fraction of the [Predator of the Mountains]' true form, it goes like this.
Forgive the absurd phrasing and abstractions. Hell, it's hard enough just to picture it properly, let alone write it.
The first thing I registered about the [Predator of the Mountains]' form was the massive eye.
An eye bigger than the moon.
And next to it, another eye bigger than the moon.
And beside that, yet another moon-sized eye.
Then another eye, more eyes, more, more. Endless giant eyeballs forming a massive path of eyes.
No, not a path—a "line"?
I called it a "line" because grasping the whole was nearly impossible, but it was probably a ring of enormous scale.
Each eyeball even had its own eyelids, blinking or rolling independently as they pleased.
Those linked eyeballs formed a circular ring vast enough to blanket the world, and inside that ring was another ring of eyeballs, and inside that one, yet another.
How many rings made up the [Predator of the Mountains]?
I don't remember well.
Somewhere between 10 and 100, probably.
Each ring rotated or shifted in its own direction, and clearly, every single eyeball held vast knowledge, wisdom, authority, power, dominion, mana, and an absurdly immense weight.
At the same time, a message appeared in the sky.
[System: Further violation of the rules will result in penalties.]
Thanks to that message window, I learned one fact.
Laughably, at the time, I was just fixated on the [Predator of the Mountains] as a "huge thing floating in the sky" = flying? Pisses me off? That level.
It was only the day before yesterday that I used the position and size of that message window to calculate just how massive the [Predator of the Mountains] was.
If the me reading this has forgotten its size and weight, pay close attention to what follows.
My earlier description of "eyes bigger than the moon" was no metaphor.
That colossal ring of eyeballs—the [Predator of the Mountains]—hadn't even reached Earth yet at that point.
It was still floating in space at roughly lunar distance. Each eyeball the size of the moon or larger.
Imagine rings made of tens of thousands or billions of such eyes. And hundreds of those rings.
Can you calculate the overall size from that? If your Intelligence stat is working properly, it shouldn't be hard.
And the next moment.
With a shock so immense it felt like the entire Earth was crumbling,
It slowly approached the planet.
At the same time, another massive message window appeared.
Like a barrier formed to block its advance, positioned across the [Predator of the Mountains].
[System: Do not approach further. This is the final warning.]
But the [Predator of the Mountains]' movement didn't change. In an instant, it shattered the message-window barrier and drew even closer to Earth.
And in the next moment, I realized that massive body exerted gravity.
With a grinding zzzzzzt, everything in Cheon Tae-dong surged toward the [Predator of the Mountains].
Rocks scattered across Cheon Tae-dong lifted into the air, fluids from the Valley of Exhaustion sprayed skyward, makeshift cult structures crumbled to dust and were sucked in, and headless cultist corpses flailed their limbs as they flew up.
I was no exception to the pull of gravity.
On the verge of delirium, I spewed curses at the sky, resisting the gravity it generated.
Because it was "flying."
Back then, I had a fear of flight.
I couldn't accept flying.