#35 The Lifted Nightmare
#35 The Lifted Nightmare
Overwhelming magical power surged, and killing intent stabbed through my whole body. Even so, the extreme poison that had been gnawing at me subsided, and calm returned.
Flames blazed without end, consuming the entire park. As their killing intent clashed, Broken Finger detonated his magical power.
The ghoul wreathed in a storm of violent mana focused magic into the soles of his feet and launched himself upward.
'......!'
I saw it. I saw it, and even with the foreknowledge of what was coming, I still got hit in an instant. The moment I frantically slipped into the shadows, Broken Finger's deformed hands tore through the empty air and scattered poison. Howling like a beast, he clawed deep into the ground, digging into the shadow itself. I had to escape through another shadow before those twisted hands dragged me out.
"There you are?!"
He'd said he had no retreat. True to his word, the bastard used his magical power without reservation. His mana churned wildly, crashing against the gale. The gale was pushed back at every turn, and the black flames scattered. Just as the enormous hand closed in to rip Wolf apart, the fire swelled. Ghost Flame (C) surged high, roiling to swallow Broken Finger whole.
"......?!"
He retreated in a panic, but the flames still touched him. This black fire does not go out— the ghoul made a snap decision and twisted off the burning finger.
'How, all of a sudden?'
Unable to comprehend the black flames that had flared so abruptly, Broken Finger scrutinized Wolf. The magical power that had clearly been scraping the bottom was still there, still present. All this time, the magical power Broken Finger had sensed from Wolf was, at best, hovering around C-Class. He'd simply been running it recklessly, without restraint. But now, Wolf's mana had suddenly surged.
'No.'
It hadn't surged. The floor had gotten deeper.
Broken Finger narrowed his eyes and looked at Wolf again as though the whole thing defied reason. Weak. That's what he'd been until moments ago. A pitiful, scraping-the-bottom magical power had shattered its own ceiling and unveiled the mana lying in the depths.
'How in the hell!'
To Broken Finger, who could not grasp what Wolf had accumulated, Wolf was an incomprehensible existence. Even the mana that had revealed its depths was insufficient to reach him— yet Broken Finger, without realizing it, allowed a sliver of defeat into his calculations.
More than anything, the fact that he had no stock left weighed on Broken Finger heavily. The very idea of having to stake his life was, to him, irrational. It wasn't worth it— just as he was about to turn away, his eyes shot wide open at the glimpse of the "unfinished product of incidental results" inside the subspace Wolf had revealed.
***
'The imitation Elixir.'
A counterfeit of the Elixir, the Prodigal Sons' ultimate goal. A miraculous elixir the likes of which this world had never seen— even those flesh heaps were merely unfinished products of this imitation. Given their fanatical obsession with the Elixir...
"You! Where did you get that...?!"
Broken Finger's eyes scattered a green glow. The imitation Elixir. Counterfeit god's blood. This item, seized from Blind Spot's hideout, had originally belonged to them. There was no way he wouldn't be worked up, having it thrust before his eyes. They must have been hunting for it with burning urgency all this time. Maybe the whole reason he'd gone this far, thinking he'd been cornered, was because of this.
—If he couldn't even set off the Witch's Calamity, he'd have no choice but to step forward himself.
"It was you!"
A voice thick with rage seethed, accompanied by a gurgling rattle. Any thought of retreating had vanished from the bastard's mind. —And the same went for me. I had no intention of that either. Here and now, I was ending this, no matter what.
"You were the one interfering at every turn...!"
Broken Finger planted both hands and feet on the ground. Beast against beast. The moment Wolf and the ghoul locked eyes, each probing for an opening— the ghoul vanished.
His speed was nearly impossible to track with the naked eye, but his explosive magical power betrayed his position instead. The instant I pinpointed Broken Finger, wreathed in violent mana, countless tentacles erupted from Wolf.
"This measly—!"
He tried to summon his magical power and smash through them, but it wasn't so simple this time. Reinforced with Hardening and given rigidity through Change, the tentacles were annoyingly tough.
"———!"
Making a beastly noise, the ghoul chewed through the tentacles. Tentacles. Their essence was transformed fur, so no matter how much he ate, false immortality was out of reach. Beneath the grinding teeth, the tentacles' shadows rose. Transformed into sharp thorns, they chased the ghoul but couldn't match his speed.
'Too fast.'
The bastard closed in and opened his mouth wide. When I hurriedly summoned the gale and Ghost Flame (C), he bore through all of it and lunged. Risk and all, his eyeballs were crushed by the gale. As if it didn't matter, he opened his mouth even wider.
'......!'
His sight was also manifested through a skill. Even with his eyeballs pulverized, he could still use it without issue. His wrecked eyes cast a green glow. Facing the ghoul charging with jaws agape, Wolf opened his jaws as well.
The exchange from earlier— remembering how his magical power had been stolen, Broken Finger hastily pulled back.
"You!"
He put distance between them, his face twisted as though his pride had been wounded. At that, Wolf, wrapped in a black gale, broke into a sprint. Wherever Wolf passed, black flames roared up fiercely. A jet-black flame demon that burned everything was slowly closing in on Broken Finger.
'I will kill him here. No matter what.'
I couldn't let him live. When I thought of the lives he would take in the future— and the ones he'd already taken— letting him walk away was simply not an option. Seething fury pumped through Wolf's heart.
—The matchup favors me.
Endurance contributes to the body's resilience. The bastard's Endurance, not even reaching 400, was abnormally low for the Strength he possessed. The reason: he was a chimera. Thanks to that, tentacles and shadows could serve as genuinely threatening weapons against him.
Ghouls are, by nature, monsters that crave corpses. Until now, false immortality had covered for his deficient Endurance and made him seem deathless— but the very special circumstances they themselves had engineered had now become the snare around their own ankles.
'Which means.'
This was my one and only chance to kill him, me, who hadn't even reached A-Class yet. That was why I had shown him the imitation Elixir. I'd created a situation where both of us had no choice but to burn our boats and charge forward. The moment the two beasts converging on each other crossed paths, the ghoul's eyes went wide and round.
"Huh?"
That dumbfounded noise— it was about the arm he'd just lost. And for Wolf's part, his left scapula had been torn clean off. That is, he'd lost a leg. With each of them down a limb, the ghoul tried to chew and swallow Wolf's leg in one bite— but Ghost Flame (C) burned Wolf's leg away in a blink.
By its nature, Ghost Flame (C) does not burn Wolf.
However— just as a leg severed from Wolf can no longer be called Wolf, the black ghost greedily devoured Wolf's leg. The ghoul, left empty-handed with his chance at false immortality snatched away, let out a hollow, disbelieving laugh.
"Ha...?"
Meanwhile, Regeneration was rapidly restoring Wolf's leg. The gash that had split his abdomen, the extreme poison of the Poison Claw— even the wound that had torn his jaw apart was nearly completely healed. And Wolf, as if to drive the point home, chewed and swallowed the ghoul's arm. The surging disgust was swallowed up by an even greater fury. The magical power taken through Snatch Devour, combined with Change, reconstructed Wolf's lost leg— much as Agail had once shaped a wrist out of mana.
"That... that's my arm. That's my arm. That's my..."
He tilted his head sideways, broken, and asked the same thing over and over. Wolf did not answer this time either. Broken Finger crooked his neck and looked up at the sky. At the same time, he judged this fight to be irrational. Now that he knew the imitation Elixir was in play, running wasn't an option either. What if the bastard drank it while he fled?
'Even my attacks won't work.'
The Alluring Evil Eye was useless— it only made him shoulder the recoil himself. The Poison Claw's extreme poison was, for some reason, noticeably weakened in effect. He couldn't even use the most crucial false immortality. Just how many penalties was he fighting under? Had he ever faced a situation this disadvantageous?
'Never.'
The sheer irrationality of it made his anger boil over.
As if refusing to give him a moment's opening, Wolf lunged. Having stolen the ghoul's magical power through Snatch Devour, Wolf bared his fangs. The storms of mana collided once more, and in the instant they neutralized each other in a violent crash, Wolf's enormous jaws filled the ghoul's vision. Just as he tried to retreat, tentacles and shadows— same as before— latched onto his feet and stretched, holding him fast.
By now, the entire park was Wolf's domain. With the bridge's great shadow cast across it, spreading his spiritual field had been easy.
"That! That! It's my arm! Give it back! Give it back!"
His crushed eyes blazed with bottomless madness and an intensity of killing intent that hadn't been there before.
Cadaver Consumption— the act of devouring the blood and flesh of others. To a ghoul who had spent his whole life taking, having something taken from him was the pinnacle of irrationality. His deformed hand, seething with fury, swung as if to kill Wolf.
"It's! My arm!"
Faced with that obsessive tenacity, Wolf gave up the leg he'd worked so hard to rebuild. Broken Finger seized Wolf's leg— what had once been his own arm— with a face full of joy, a bright smile spreading across it. But his body locked rigid and refused to move.
"H-huh? Ha...?"
Horrific killing intent, and demon energy worse than that— and above all, the shadows that had, at some point, blanketed the entire area had him in their grip. The ghoul, realizing the thing behind him was a monster, struggled— but the shadows forcibly wrenched Broken Finger's head around, and the ghoul saw the black ghost grinning behind him.
"———!"
Fed by stolen magical power, Ghost Flame (C) blazed beyond its limits. It engulfed Broken Finger in an instant, and— the raving ghoul was, at the last, incinerated along with a shriek of the damned.
***
It was an incomprehensible World— but Baek So-yul thought, with genuine feeling, that it was truly beautiful. A sea suspended in the sky. Mysterious creatures in flight. Ever since she'd come to this space, the throbbing headache seemed to have vanished, too.
'The density of magical power is...'
Incomparably dense. At first, she'd thought she'd been plunged underwater— her breath caught and choked— only to realize it was all magical power. After staring blankly upward for a long while, Baek So-yul quietly wondered.
'Am I... okay now?'
A purple dragon with wings soared upward. The dragon that had brought her to this World scattered a beautiful dust of light. It felt as though her body, which had been so hard to move, was healing. Without thinking, she clasped her hands together, and the dragon settled down, curling its body into a circle.
"Kyururuk."
A fantastical World devoid of any sense of reality. After staying like that for some time, the dragon flapped its wings as if to say it was time to go. Then the beautiful World began to crumble, little by little. The sea vanished, clouds formed, the beautiful phantom beasts disappeared, and the lit windows of buildings took their place. The sense of loss, like waking from a dream, pulled a small sound from Baek So-yul.
"Ah..."
When she returned to reality, she shut her eyes in fear.
What if she was going to be dragged away again? What if Yoo Chang-baek was still alive? And most of all— what if all of this was a dream?
Just imagining it was terrifying. She was trembling without realizing it. She didn't want to open her eyes. If this was a dream, her heart might shatter. She might not be able to endure any longer. Just as she thought she wouldn't be able to withstand it—
"—You will never become the Witch now."
At the voice that reached her, Baek So-yul's eyes opened.
A low tone that seemed to bore into her mind. The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was a rippling shadow. And when she saw Wolf's form shrouded in those shadows, Baek So-yul swallowed without meaning to.
"......."
Her voice wouldn't come out. Meeting those chilling red eyes froze her in place— she couldn't move.
"Your Calamity is over."
At Wolf's declarative voice, something knotted inside her chest came crumbling down. She realized, at some point, that she was crying. The Young Dragon licked her cheek as if to comfort her, catching the tears. Unbelievable words— that the shackles which had bound her entire life were now gone. A declaration full of certainty that the dreams, the nightmares, would never come again. At that, Baek So-yul burst into wailing sobs.
"———!"
She didn't even know what she was saying— words that spilled out without passing through her brain. A strange sensation, as though she was watching herself from far away. She wanted to stop herself, but Baek So-yul was already holding Wolf in her arms.
Then the illusion faded, and the sense of reality returned. My dreams— the ones no one ever believed. The nightmare I couldn't even believe in myself, the one that came true in the end.
—Wolf, who had swept away the nightmare that had stolen me whole.
I cried and screamed and clung to Wolf.
"Am I, am I really allowed to live? If I, if I...!"
My throat closed up and the words wouldn't come out.
Would I someday end up killing someone, just like the nightmare that had eventually become reality? Would the terrible nightmare repeat itself? If that was the way it was going to be, wouldn't it be better to die right now?
To the worries and fears she'd carried all her life, he answered calmly.
"The Witch's Calamity will not happen."
"—Because I will stop it, over and over."
Meeting those red eyes, I felt as though my very soul was trembling. Seeing me frozen in place, Wolf— as if his business here was done— faded away into the darkness beyond.
'Wait...!'
My voice wouldn't come out.
I was terrified of being left alone. I wanted to go with him. I wanted to shout for him to take me. If I could be at your side, I wouldn't have to be the shepherd girl. Wolf, who had swept away the nightmare no one believed, never once looked back and vanished into the darkness.
And so, left alone, she stood staring blankly at the spot where Wolf had disappeared until Lee Eun-ha, who had belatedly come chasing after her, finally arrived.
***
"Kyururuk."
The fairy dragon made a sulky, plaintive sound. It wasn't often the little thing whined. Baek So-yul must have really taken to him.
'Nothing I can do about it.'
I couldn't exactly take Baek So-yul along with me. She has her own World to live in. Still, clearly not quite over it, the fairy dragon tapped me with its tail and fussed. While I was letting out a sigh, the System sent a message.
[Destruction Probability 97.93% → 96.19%]
[Karma acquired: 1.74%]
[Karma (業) 2.71%]
Whether it was because I'd killed Broken Finger or because I'd stopped the Witch's Calamity, the destruction probability had dropped. And—
[Experience Points at maximum. Lv.9 → Lv.10]
I'd been waiting just in case, since I hadn't hit Level 10 yet, and now the condition was fulfilled.
'That's that, then.'
Stopping the Witch's Calamity was the condition. Which means the future where Baek So-yul becomes the Witch will never come to pass. —I don't know what lies further ahead, but at least for now.
The chaos that had engulfed Seoul seemed to have settled down, too. Honestly, the fact that they'd managed to keep causing this much disturbance in a city where Dawn and Gowon were holding the line— that in itself was a feat of persistence.
'Broken Finger...'
And thanks to those circumstances, I'd been able to bring the bastard down.
He was strong, no question— as befitting a Prodigal Sons executive. Those things dangling from Broken Finger's belt were probably the heads of Academy instructors. Just as I'd been hunting the Prodigal Sons, he'd been hunting the Academy's teaching staff.
Which is probably why dealing with the flesh heaps had been delayed... and that naturally raised one question.
'What the hell was Muno doing?'
***
"......!"
Gwanghwi shot to his feet without warning and loosed an arrow. The arrow, packed with magical power, sliced through the air and flew toward something at a vast distance. Unable to make sense of the sudden outburst, Gu Jin-ha frowned.
"Gwanghwi. What is—"
Before he could even finish asking, Gu Jin-ha broke out in a cold sweat. The arrow had flown an enormous distance. That presence, which should have been kilometers away, had already closed to visible range and revealed itself. Someone clad in black-blue Gapju wreathed in blue-burning flames.
"Why are you here?"
Gwanghwi glared at him through bloodshot eyes, his teeth clenched. As Gwanghwi's magical power steadily rose, the figure's cloak rippled like a shadow.
"......."
To the one who offered no answer, Gwanghwi once more poured magical power into his bow and drew the string. An arrow loosed by humanity's mightiest archer, shimmering with a halo of light. Whoever he was, there was no way he could block that arrow— or so they thought, right up until an infinitely vast magical power pressed down on them all. Gwanghwi's arrow was stopped with disappointing ease.
"......!"
The overwhelming mana sent every last one of them collapsing to the ground. Only Gwanghwi held on, eyes blazing with fury.
"Answer me! I asked why you are here!"
"...Do not worry."
The figure's words resonated low, as if spoken directly into their ears.
"Your father is not dead."
He swept his hand over a crack in the Gapju, and an immense surge of magical power restored the armor.
"As expected of Changseon. Unlike Muno."
What did those words mean? A chill ran down their spines as they swallowed hard.
It was absurd. If what that man was saying was true— did that mean he had killed Muno? That Muno— the Martial Elder, head of the Academy and one of the Seven Heroes? It had to be a lie. But Gwanghwi, as if there wasn't a shred of doubt in those words, slumped down where he stood.
"Why would you do this? Why you? Why, of all people, would you go this far..."
"We simply wanted different things."
"...You've lost your mind."
"Your father said the same."
When the man swept his gaze across them once, cold sweat ran down every back. If the claim about killing Muno was true— if he had the mind for it, not a single person here would survive.
"......."
But soon, as if losing interest, the figure walked away into the distance. Only after he vanished beyond sight did the pressure lift, and the group gasped violently for air, as though they'd just been released from a stranglehold. Gu Jin-ha, having caught his breath, grabbed Gwanghwi by the shoulder and demanded.
"Who... who in the world is that?"
"......."
"Who in the world is he! How can a— a being like that...!"
Gwanghwi kept his mouth shut to the very end and said nothing. No— as if he couldn't speak. As if he mustn't.
Gwanghwi's tightly sealed lips did not open even after they arrived in Seoul.