Chapter 356: Ascension to Immortality (12)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 356: Ascension to Immortality (12)
When I came to, it was so dark that I could barely make out my surroundings.
I was slowly adjusting thanks to my Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils, but without them, I probably wouldn’t have been able to see a single thing.
…But where am I?
I remember escaping the Nimbus Cloud in a rather embarrassing fashion and falling down what looked like a fairly deep cliff.
I knew I’d lost consciousness from the impact and that I was pretty badly hurt from the fall, but other than that, I had no information.
“…Damn, this hurts like hell.”
Still, I suppose I should consider myself lucky to be alive after falling from such a height without any Reinforcement.
…Wait, how did I survive?
Sun Wukong hasn’t said a word. Did something happen while I was falling?
“…Should I try to move, even if I have to force it?”
Honestly, I didn’t think I could, but I couldn’t just stay here forever. The moment I muttered to myself about trying to move somehow—
“Ha-neul, what are you talking about? Where do you think you’re going with those injuries?”
A voice answered my monologue, which shouldn’t have happened. I turned my head, and a shadow was standing in a spot that had definitely been empty a moment ago.
It was a flickering shadow with an indistinct form.
Yet, the voice was one that remained vividly etched in my brain.
It was the voice that called me Ha-neul—the voice of the woman who had looked at me with such pity until the very day she finally abandoned me. It was my ‘mother’s’ voice.
“My little Ha-neul, it hurt a lot, didn’t it? It’s okay now.”
A thick sense of revulsion washed over me as the flickering shadow reached out its hand.
“Why aren’t you answering, Ha-neul? Is it because Mommy came too late? Did it take too long to buy the things? I’m sorry Mommy’s late.”
What had initially looked like a flickering shadow began to mimic the mother in my memories with increasing precision and plausibility.
It changed not just its voice, but its very shape.
The flickering hand gradually turned white, and the face transformed into a near-perfect likeness of the woman I last remembered.
She looked to be in her late twenties—exactly as she had appeared on the day she left me.
My head felt a bit dizzy. Was there some kind of hypnotic effect at play?
If I didn’t have the Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils, I might have actually been fooled.
But to my eyes, which could pierce through to the essence, I could still see the flickering, grinning shadow beneath the facade.
“Mommy’s so sorry she’s late…”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Since I’m sorry for being late…”
The shadow slowly shifted its form again, becoming the limp corpse of a woman hanging by her neck.
“Can you forgive me if I do this?”
I didn’t know if it was a Yokai or what, but I couldn’t believe it was poking at someone’s painful memories like this.
“If you’re going to try and trick me, at least be consistent. First you ask where I’m going with these injuries, and now you’re sorry for being late? Did you think I’d be shaken if you suddenly showed me a suicide?”
Perhaps because I remained unmoved despite the sight, the shadow that had taken my mother’s form put on a sorrowful expression, and another shadow appeared beside it.
“So-hyun. Our So-hyun, you missed Mommy a lot, didn’t you?”
…Oh, so since ‘Mother’ didn’t work, now it’s ‘Mommy’? This feels like being hit with a back-to-back combo of parental insults. It’s a pretty shitty feeling.
“How did you get so hurt? Should Mommy blow on it to make it feel better!?”
Right. It seemed to be the type of Yokai that peeks into memories. It was a decent attempt, but surprisingly, I didn’t feel much of anything.
“So-hyun, things have been so hard for you lately. Let’s get some rest with Mommy. This time, Mommy will stay by your side.”
“…Is that so?”
But soon, the shadow began to bleed from its mouth, its form losing all vitality.
“Mommy’s sorry for lying again.”
“No, don’t be sorry. You’re not my mother, and you’re not anything else to me either.”
Beside the shadow that had frozen in its dying state, new shadows began to emerge.
Lilac with his abdomen pierced by the Demon King; Lee Yu-na glaring at me while wreathed in flames; the Sword Ghost dying as she smiled at me; Professor Cathy falling after being stabbed by my sword; Kim Ga-eul being brutally devoured by poisonous insects; Cheon Yu-hak possessed by an outer god; Master, whose very tears had hardened into mana stone; Aisha, who died trying to stop me; and Baek Seol, who gave a bitter, regretful smile after our duel.
Shadows mimicking countless deaths that haunted me filled the area, as if intending to remind me of my sins.
“…Shit.”
I thought I was much better now. I thought I could handle this.
But as the memories of death reached out to expose my guilt, my hands began to tremble slightly. Disgust and a cold chill washed over my body.
It was partly due to the physical pain and mental instability, and partly because there was no voice nearby to reassure me.
If I could use my power, I would have tried to erase them, shouting that they were just illusions.
The constant, unending parade of deaths felt like it was suffocating me.
The voices of loved ones, screams filled with curses, and the myriad of gazes fixed upon me were so cloying that the resolve I had barely managed to form felt like it was wavering.
“…What a load of bullshit.”
Well, I said it felt like it was wavering.
I had to think of what was precious to me and tighten my grip on my sanity before it slipped away.
“If I’m going to apologize or get on my knees, I’ll do it to the real ones. I can’t do it for pieces of shit like you.”
For the sake of those who loved me, and even for those who truly hated me, I couldn’t let myself be shaken by these things.
As I forced my unmoving body to stir, the creatures seemed to reach their limit and began to approach me directly.
“We are the real ones.”
“This is Hell, after all.”
“Do you really think something like Regression is possible?”
“You’ve been living in an illusion this whole time.”
Were they getting desperate?
No longer even trying to hide the fact that they were fakes, the monsters—who shared nothing but the voices and forms of my acquaintances—lunged at me.
“Yeah, no.”
“No, you were being punished in Hell. It’s the thing you hate most. Did you hallucinate that you were forgiven?”
“That’s right. It’s the same punishment you gave the Demon King. A sentence of repeating and then losing a happy dream.”
“This is the Hell where you receive the punishment that makes you the saddest…!”
…Honestly, it was a bit scary seeing Ha-ni and Cathy Noona act like that, but it didn’t matter because I was certain they were wrong.
“The warmth you felt, the touch of skin—it was all a lie…!”
“Hey, you, the one looking like Lilac.”
“…Hm?”
The shadow mimicking Lilac looked flustered, as if it hadn’t expected me to address it.
“Watch your mouth, you son of a bitch. Besides, how would Lilac know who I’ve slept with? You’re out of your damn mind.”
I swung my dagger down, and the shadow resembling Lilac crumbled.
I hadn’t been fooled from the start, but the moment their acting faltered, they proved they were nothing more than monsters who were just slightly good at impressions.
“Get lost if you don’t want to end up like him.”
I have to go meet the real people, not things like you. I don’t have time to waste in a place like this.
The shadows hesitated for a moment at my reaction, but they soon merged into one spot, transforming into a giant shadow monster that opened its maw wide before me.
“…I didn’t see this coming.”
Right. If everything could be solved with just spirit and willpower, there wouldn’t be any problems in the world, would there?
* * *
“I lost him.”
Meanwhile, the deity Sun Wukong, who was slowly ascending from the very bottom of the 10th Hell, was listening to a report from the Nimbus Cloud she had sent.
She had sent the cloud to protect him because he seemed to be in a very dangerous state, but she hadn’t expected him to resist that much.
Even within the Hell of Darkness, where all five senses vanish, Sun Wukong relied on her perfected Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils and her sixth sense to move toward the exit. She felt a sense of curiosity regarding the boy who had cast her into this place.
“Why does he resist so fiercely?”
Having lost most of her emotions, the feeling she held for the boy was a type of responsibility. That was why she couldn’t understand why he resisted despite her trying to be as considerate as possible.
In truth, her expression of it had been a bit extreme, but she felt a significant amount of responsibility toward him.
To think someone would appear who took both of the lingering attachments she had left behind.
He had even manifested the Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils in those eyes on that unstable body.
It was because of those eyes that the boy had caused this accident.
Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils. The eyes that pierce through to the essence.
They allow one to see things that shouldn’t be seen, and once mastery reaches its peak, all manner of falsehoods become meaningless before them.
It sounded impressive, but in reality, these eyes were closer to a calamity.
A world without lies is uglier than one might think, and seeing things that shouldn’t be seen is hardly a positive experience.
One must witness all sorts of hideous things and things that one has no need to see in a normal life. In exchange for seeing what shouldn’t be seen, one feels intense fatigue.
If he continued to hold the Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils and his mastery increased, it meant he would surely be unable to lead a normal life.
That was why she had intended to extract the power of the eyes and return them to normal, but she hadn’t expected such resistance.
“He probably doesn’t know the danger of the Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils.”
…Of course, in reality, he had resisted violently because he understood her intent as wanting to pluck his eyeballs out, but Sun Wukong, approaching with pure goodwill, had no way of knowing that.
“To help that boy, I must first get out of here.”
Thinking of the boy whose future was filled with suffering because of her own lingering attachments made her feel strangely stifled.
She was making steady progress, but the slow pace was starting to get on her nerves.
“…Should I just break it?”
For a brief moment, Sun Wukong considered the annoying task and wondered if she should just smash through the ceiling with the Ruyi and leave. But in the next instant, the image of Great King Yama, whom she had met at her retirement ceremony, flashed through her mind.
— I’m only saying this now, but honestly, do you have any idea how much of a pain it is to repair Hell once you break it?!
‘Hmm, then can’t I just fix it myself?’
— No, are you crazy…? Ah, right, you are crazy. I thought you’d changed a bit after achieving enlightenment. What about the people living there if Hell gets destroyed?!
‘That is true. I promise not to break it unless it’s an emergency.’
— Does that mean you’ll break it in an emergency?
‘Depending on the circumstances.’
— Shit, I’m moving. I’m not living in Hell anymore.
‘That’s troublesome. What do you plan to do about the Golden Hoop?’
— I’ll leave it to my successor! I don’t care! I’m just going to live off my pension now!
Ending her recollection, Sun Wukong sighed and decided to give up on smashing the ceiling.
Since she had already gotten the hang of it, it would be better to grasp the laws of this place rather than causing unnecessary trouble for Hell.
* * *
“Wow, this is getting a bit tough.”
They had been holding their own against the army of Hell, but the moment four of the Ten Kings appeared before them, their advantage was overturned quite easily.
No, actually, it wasn’t easy.
Park A-ram, wielding her true power, took on one of the Kings to keep him in check; Cathy, Kang Ha-ni, and Kim Ga-eul teamed up to handle another two; and Baek Seol and Lee Ha-ru also successfully tied down a Great King.
However, this left only Lilac and Lee Yu-na to handle the rest of Hell’s forces. If the army had been a mere rabble, it might have been different, but it was impossible for just two superhumans to hold back a perfectly organized legion of Hell.
It was inevitable that they were being pushed back.
Of course, that didn’t mean they had given up.
“Just why are you doing this…?! Do you truly intend to wage war against Hell?!”
Cathy answered Great King Jingwang as he roared at them.
“We have to meet our companion who fell. Please move aside.”
“We told you that if you surrender peacefully, we will find and secure him for you!”
Those words probably weren’t a lie, but if they did that, there was a high possibility they wouldn’t be able to find the item So-hyun needed.
“…We have our reasons.”
And so, they chose to continue resisting without stopping.
“Well, you certainly wouldn’t cause this much of a mess without a reason!”
In the midst of the intensifying battle, since both sides had their own justifications and refused to back down, one side would eventually have to lose.
They had done well for living beings, but perhaps they weren’t enough to face the Kings and armies of Hell after all.
Just as the shadow of defeat began to loom over them, a divine communication reached Great King Chogang.
“…What?”
Everyone else, wondering what could possibly make him so flustered in the middle of a fight, tilted their heads at the words that came out of his mouth.
“Don’t capture the intruders? What do you mean by that? What? An order from above? No, what does that…? Yes? Yes? What kind of crazy talk is that?”
Honestly, they were curious about the content, but they weren’t foolish enough to miss the moment their enemy was distracted and immediately prepared a surprise attack.
“What do you mean, a high-ranking god told us not to bully her daughters-in-law?!”
If it hadn’t been for the word ‘daughters-in-law,’ they probably would have actually attacked.