Chapter 271
Chapter 271
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 271
Chapter Title: Blood-Stained Despair (3)
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***
After the two were swallowed whole, the only sight that greeted them was darkness.
The entire world was filled with it.
As if the light had suddenly vanished without a trace, they could see nothing at all, even with their eyes wide open. Fear naturally crept into Karite, and the incomprehensible change shook her to her core.
“…Han Cheon-seong? Where are you!?”
Calling out to him urgently, she felt an unwitting sense of déjà vu.
The memory was vivid.
The moment she had been engulfed in darkness by Leteia’s power.
…It felt as if the exact same thing was happening now, and her heart trembled uncontrollably.
As her wavering pupils darted through the darkness.
“Karite. I’m not that far.”
A low, calm voice echoed.
“Th-Thank goodness.”
Hearing his clear reply, Karite felt a profound sense of relief.
Gradually, as her vision adjusted, she began to make out shapes within the gloom.
“Han Cheon-seong… where in the world… are we? Why are we suddenly surrounded by this darkness?”
Her voice was laced with undisguised fear. The same woman who hadn’t flinched at the sight of a berserk gargoyle was now consumed by anxiety.
*Thump.*
*Thump….*
Her heart pounded, and her breathing grew ragged.
“First, listen to me… and try to regain some composure. I know it’s hard. But you have to pull yourself together, somehow.”
At his careful urging, Karite managed a difficult nod.
“Okay. I’ll… try.”
“I believe we’ve been caught in a domain manifested by the Apostle.”
“An Apostle’s domain.”
“…Yeah. An Apostle’s domain.”
Just as Cheon-seong replied with more gravity than ever before.
*Flash!*
A single streak of light suddenly spread through the deep darkness, beginning to illuminate the space.
It was an incredibly faint halo of light against the oppressive gloom, yet the difference between having it and not was incomparable.
And the scene that slowly emerged beneath the light was utterly bizarre.
It was like a viscous swamp.
A space where the darkness was a thick, sticky substance that reached up to their ankles.
Cheon-seong and Karite, who had been unconsciously looking toward the source of the voices, felt a bit more relieved upon seeing each other, but that relief was fleeting.
*Slither.*
“……”
Cheon-seong turned his head first, his eyes locking onto a strange being that exuded a powerful presence even within the deep darkness.
Then Karite saw it too. What they beheld was a ‘demon.’
The thought came to them both unbidden.
*—It was the very image of a demon from their imaginations.*
Two menacing horns sprouted from its head. Its form, revealed in the light, was covered in intimidating, blood-red skin.
Though it possessed human limbs, its wide, torn mouth and crimson-glowing eyes were horrifying.
It was a grotesque figure, as if a human had been bizarrely twisted into a demon.
“…Wh-What is that?”
As Karite stared blankly, shocked into a stupor, Cheon-seong gently reached out with his left hand and took hers.
*Shiver.*
As Cheon-seong’s strong hand enveloped hers, which was trembling from an unknown terror, the shaking quickly subsided.
“…Han Cheon-seong?”
Her dazed eyes met his.
“Stay calm. Don’t panic.”
Cheon-seong offered no other words.
With that short phrase, he raised the spear in his right hand, pointing it straight ahead.
*Shhhhhh…!*
A massive spiral of energy was already swirling around the spearhead, signaling he was fully prepared for battle.
“……”
As they stared down the demon-like Apostle, the Apostle in turn was watching them.
*Grin.*
The corners of its sharply torn mouth stretched even wider, and its crimson eyes, which shone eerily against its blood-red skin, curved into a bizarre arc.
It was an act of expression, as if attempting a smile.
“Sacrifices for Them… not bad. No, this is good. Very good, indeed.”
The Apostle spoke in a strange voice, then broke into a cackling laugh. As the faint light illuminated it, the Apostle slowly began to move its hand.
Its arm, so grotesquely large it looked like several human arms merged into one, began to move, causing both of them to tense up.
*Slide.*
But the Apostle’s movement was not an attack.
Its hand reached into the darkness, where the faint light did not touch.
*Thud.*
The Apostle lifted ‘something’ from the shadowed area.
Then, as if toying with them, it brought the object to its mouth. The scene was all too clear to Cheon-seong and Karite.
*CRUNCH!*
The sickening sound of flesh being crushed and the bones within snapping, followed by a great spray of blood that decorated the space and stained the Apostle’s mouth red.
“……”
“…Ah.”
As a wordless Cheon-seong and a dazed Karite watched on, the blood-soaked Apostle did not stop its ‘act of eating.’
*Crack, CRUNCH!*
It continued to pick up something from the darkness.
Each time, sharp teeth mangled flesh, and the bones within were broken before disappearing into its hideous mouth.
And… as this continued, the two of them naturally began to understand.
Unlike the first lump of flesh.
The subsequent pieces had a recognizable ‘form.’
Sometimes it was a pale arm, sometimes a leg. At other times, it was a head, or a torso gushing organs from its side. And they all bore similar, faint traces.
The student uniform.
The black uniform symbolizing a C-Class student was stuck to the chunks of flesh, matted and sticky with blood.
*CRUNCH!*
Yet the Apostle continued to consume them, as if savoring a delicacy.
In what felt like less than a minute, the Apostle had put on a show, as if to boast of its ‘act of eating a human.’
The Apostle, devouring the corpse of a student who had been alive and breathing just hours before, right in front of them, as if plucking a ripe fruit, displaying the blood and flesh for all to see.
And in that time.
“……”
Cheon-seong was no longer holding Karite’s hand.
Even knowing she was growing more terrified and tense, he couldn’t.
*Slip.*
He gently let go of the hand he had held to calm her… and narrowed his completely sunken eyes.
“…Karite. You need to deploy what you showed me in the training room last time.”
His voice now completely devoid of emotion, Cheon-seong took a step toward the Apostle.
*Thud. Thud.*
He had taken only a few steps away from Karite.
The Apostle, savoring the human flesh in its mouth, grinned and threw its head back.
*Gulp.*
Swallowing the contents of its mouth in one go, the demon looked down at its own blood-soaked hand in the faint light.
The demon’s hand, drenched in blood under the light, was a grotesque sight. Yet the Apostle, looking at its own hand, licked its lips in satisfaction.
“I was planning to kill the woman first, but this is a shame.”
Despite the chilling voice, Cheon-seong only narrowed his eyes slightly and slowly raised his spear.
And in that moment.
The change was instantaneous.
The spiral of energy that had been enveloping Cheon-seong’s body for some time suddenly converged, flowing into the spearhead.
*—!*
As the swirling energy gathered on his spear, the Apostle grinned and brought a hand to its mouth.
*Slurp.*
A gesture of sucking the blood from a piece of flesh.
Even with a spear aimed at it, the Apostle’s composure remained unchanged.
*SPLAT!*
The moment the viscous darkness splashed, a nearly colorless spiral of energy shot forward like a beam of light.
***
Why did this happen…
In the end, a situation like this…
‘…had to occur.’
In that instant, I had felt it instinctively.
Even before the explosive burst of darkness enveloped me, I knew the Apostle’s domain would unfold. A piercing sensation in my mind had warned me before I was ever swallowed by the shadows.
Perhaps that’s why my heart had been so heavy since entering the Apostle’s domain.
I had tried to shove Karite away at the last second, hoping at least she could escape the domain, but even that hadn’t worked.
*—The worst.*
Yes, the situation was always the worst.
Confronting an Apostle felt like an inevitability, and every moment became a crisis.
And I had seen it.
I had faced the deaths I feared, and I was aware that there would be sacrifices.
Knowing all that didn't make it any easier to accept.
Perhaps I… valued benevolence more than I thought.
‘The fact that people are dying…’
It was far harder to accept than anything I had experienced countless times in the lucid dream.
So much so that it was difficult to even maintain my reason.
*—Blood-Stained Despair.*
And now… I think I finally understood what Leonhardt must have felt as he overcame crises in the story.
I understood.
‘It was something that just had to be overcome.’
And so, I kept watching.
*CRUNCH! CRACK!*
The corpse of a once-living human, shoved greedily into its mouth and devoured by the demon-like Apostle.
Blood splattered around its mouth, and the sight of it casually tossing aside clean-picked white bones into the darkness was bizarrely captivating.
The scene of cannibalism was horrific and nauseating.
But I couldn’t bring myself to look away from the gruesome sight.
‘How many people died today?’
I didn’t know.
But judging by the number of student corpses within the Apostle’s domain, it was clear the count was not small.
*Tremble.*
I could feel Karite’s hand, which I held, shaking even more violently.
It must be hard for her to watch. No, she was probably already averting her gaze from the Apostle. It was not at all strange that she felt fear.
It was that horrifying of a scene.
And I knew that at times like this, I needed to be the one to support her.
“…Karite. You need to deploy what you showed me in the training room last time.”
But I couldn’t hold her hand any longer.
I couldn’t let the Apostle continue its horrific act.
It was one thing to be killed by an Apostle, but I couldn't allow a human body to end up in its mouth.
So I let go of her hand and stepped forward.
*Thud, thud….*
*—Asura Spiral Spear.*
The mere thought of the skill caused a massive spiral of energy to compress into my spear, containing an even greater power.
*!*
As the swirling azure energy turned colorless and condensed on the spearhead, I knew what I had to do.
I pointed the spear in my right hand forward and slowly came to a stop.
*Toss.*
“I was planning to kill the woman first, but this is a shame.”
A grotesque voice rang out.
*Slurp.*
At the sight of it greedily sucking the blood from a piece of flesh, my body reacted first.
Before my will…
could even be transmitted to my body.
*SPLAT!*
I was already lunging at the Apostle.