Chapter 210
Chapter 210
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 210
Chapter Title: The True Nature of Hell
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I bit my lip once.
“…You’re rushing because I’ve caught on.”
“Y-Yes? What?”
“The one spread over Gudeok Mountain is Blade Mountain Hell, and the one descending on the plaza is Boiling Iron Hell. They pulled out Valhalla from the crystal tombstones before, and now they’re summoning Buddhist hells.”
Even as I explained to my companions, my mind kept churning out strategies to break this hell only to discard them one after another.
‘Too fast.’
It had barely been a day and two nights since I’d witnessed the anomaly in Kim Ju-cheol’s dream and started moving in earnest.
The Exiled God, who had been lying dormant until now, launched a full assault as if it had prepared solely for this moment.
Right.
From the start, that’s why the Exiled God had holed up inside the crystal tombstones for hundreds, thousands of years, holding out patiently.
Just as I, the regressor, had honed my spear thrusts over multiple lifetimes to show these anomalies who’s boss.
This time, the Exiled God had succeeded in landing a perfect ambush on me.
“B-Bro. Something’s off.”
Seo-gyu, who usually bluffed his way through most situations, had a trembling voice.
Of course he did—right below the headquarters building, people were melting in boiling molten metal, screaming their lungs out.
“People aren’t dying. They should be, boiled in that molten iron… Huh. They keep regenerating.”
“It’s hell.”
I answered.
“The Exiled God has defined this world as hell. And in hell, no one dies.”
“Th-They don’t die?”
“That’s right. Because hell is where the already dead come. They just suffer eternally. From now on, no one can die—”
At that moment.
A bolt of realization shook my mind.
‘Ah. Aaaah!’
That’s why.
That’s why!
“—No one dies, which turned it into hell!”
“Huh?”
“Think about it, Seo-gyu! I’m a regressor! Because I regress, everyone in this world has been stuck in a ‘can’t die even if they die’ state for hundreds, thousands of years!”
I gnashed my teeth.
“The Exiled God turned that state against us! What kind of place makes everyone suffer through eons without dying no matter how many times they perish? Hell—not reality—that’s how it defined the world in its own way!”
“……!”
Yes.
A complete reversal of perspective. A Copernican shift.
From the anomalies’ viewpoint, the regressor called the Undertaker is an utter nightmare.
No matter how powerful the anomalies, the regressor just ‘clicks’ and resets time until they’re exterminated.
No matter what tricks they pull, the anomalies are fated to lose to the regressor. They can’t escape this end no matter how they struggle.
—But what if they turned the regressor’s regression against him?
Not because there’s a [Regressor] in this [Real World] does time loop eternally.
But because this is [Hell], where people [live lives where they don’t die even when killed], time loops eternally.
A mere difference in viewpoint.
A difference in interpretation and perspective.
Just assume this world isn’t ‘reality’ but ‘hell,’ and you can perfectly hijack the regressor’s regression.
That Exiled God, the Goddess of Night Nuit, didn’t deny the regressor—instead, it affirmed him and rode his regression.
As long as I don’t abandon my regression ability and keep cycling through reincarnations, [this world can’t stop being hell].
‘How could this be.’
My whole body tingled.
Shock. And chills.
‘It used me! Instead of devouring me, it planted seeds of malice in my power and tried to corrupt the world!’
Seeing me stunned, Sim A-ryeon and Seo-gyu grew even more agitated. Both were kids who depended on me psychologically a great deal.
Amid the ringing in my ears, the Saintess’s usual cool voice pierced through to my eardrums.
“Undertaker. Can’t you regress now and plan for later?”
“…Probably not. As I explained to Corps Leader No Do-ha, this Exiled God is parasitic on my ability itself.”
It burrowed into the crystal tombstones under [Time Seal] and devoured the sealed souls.
It used the world’s feature of [Regression] occurring to impose the concept of hell on this world.
In other words.
“Even… if I regress, the situation won’t improve at all. It’ll only get worse.”
“Why?”
“Right now, we’re at least united as the Regression Alliance. But if I regress, our relationships reset to zero. Meanwhile, Nuit’s hell realms…….”
“…will keep persisting. The crystal tombstones under [Time Seal] aren’t affected by regression and remain.”
“Yes. And as you see, Nuit can summon hells across the world in less than a day if it wants. Building bonds like ours now would take far more than a day.”
“…Regression was on our side until now, but against this Exiled God Nuit, it’s on the enemy’s side.”
“Exactly.”
Checkmate.
To break this checkmate.
“The only way is…….”
“What way?”
“The moment I regress, I head straight to Onyang and get infected by the World Tree Udumbara.”
Udumbara.
Infection by that virus called the New Buddha strips awakeners of all abilities.
Thus.
“I’d lose [Time Seal] and all my abilities, including [Regression].”
“…….”
That’s why I almost always head to Onyang right after regressing to exterminate Udumbara.
Because Udumbara has the potential to kill a regressor.
The Saintess fixed her blue eyes on me.
“Then… what happens?”
“I don’t know. Probably, I won’t regress anymore. The world stays as is, gets destroyed by some anomaly, and remains destroyed forever.”
“…….”
“The worst possibility is if the world still regresses anyway.”
“Huh? …Ah.”
The Saintess blinked.
“You mentioned someone named Schopenhauer. He was a regressor too…….”
Yes.
This world has [two] regressors.
If the regressor is the switch that regresses the world, even without me, there’s still another switch.
And right now, that switch is completely pressed down, locked in place with no room to touch.
On top of that.
“Perhaps [Regression Ability] and [World Regression] are separate things.”
In fact.
I’d kept a certain hypothesis in the back of my mind for a long time.
“No, in this case, it’s not [World Regression] but [World Repetition].”
Suppose time flows, and the world perishes.
Then the world restarts from the beginning. Universe formation from the Big Bang, birth of the first galaxy, Earth’s creation, life emerging from the sea and one crawling onto land—all of it.
Eventually humans are born, civilizations start, cities are built.
And one day, a human called the Undertaker is born and heads to Busan Station.
…As you all know, I have [Perfect Memory Ability].
In that example scenario, what if the Perfect Memory Ability [transfers memories upon awakening]?
Wouldn’t it produce a phenomenon perfectly identical to [Regression]?
“…But you said you awakened Perfect Memory Ability after the 4th round?”
“Awakeners’ abilities evolve. Maybe my ability fully awakened in the 4th round.”
And.
The scary part of this hypothesis is elsewhere.
“Let me sum it up.”
I voiced that point.
“If I get infected by Udumbara, first, everyone under [Time Seal] so far gets freed. And I start the Busan Station tutorial dungeon without memories from prior rounds.”
Time passes.
“Time flows on, Old Man Show finishes his vacation and returns. And countless events I don’t know about unfold again.”
Time passes.
“Then one day, Old Man Show suffers something that damages his regression ability. Gets infected by Udumbara, or becomes target of some anomaly beyond regression……. The world perishes completely.”
Time passes.
“And finally, in some distant future where even the meaning of ‘regression’ is forgotten, at Busan Station, my ability sprouts again.”
In other words.
Everything starts from the beginning.
“I perceive it as the 1st round.”
And. And. And.
“2nd round, 3rd round, then in the 4th I gain Perfect Memory Ability, eventually meet Old Man Show…….”
And someday.
“This moment, which I perceive as the 267th round, arrives again.”
“…….”
“…Maybe I’ve been repeating all these rounds up to now.”
This was the fundamental trauma the regressor called the Undertaker had harbored since long ago.
The agony I’d kept to myself ever since learning Udumbara strips awakeners’ abilities—never telling a soul.
The possibility that the 267th round is actually 267×2, 267×3, 267×267, 267×267², 267×267³.
The fear that my entire life is just one massive ‘failure story.’
A fear unique to regressors, only regressors.
If this hypothesis is correct, yeah.
The Goddess of Night Nuit’s definition fits perfectly.
Wouldn’t the world truly be hell?
-Aaagh! Uwaaaagh!
-I, I don’t wanna live! Kill me!
-Someone, please kill me!
Below the headquarters building, hundreds of people were still melting in the molten metal.
Their screams clung to my eardrums—the translucent membranes everyone is born with.
The hell realm descended upon the present was spreading rapidly. Now Busan’s trees and flowers had all become sharp swords, and plazas and alleys were filled with boiling molten iron.
Buddhist hells have no end.
Blade Mountain Hell, Boiling Iron Hell, Ice Hell, Scissor Hell, Spike Hell, Viper Hell, Lava Hell, Iron Bed Hell, Wind Hell, Dark Hell—then the Eight Hot Hells’ Reviving, Black Rope, Crowning, Great Crowning, Searing, Great Searing, Abyss, and finally the Eight Cold Hells’ Collapsing, Collapsing Heat, Screaming, Great Screaming, Howling, Great Howling, Blue Lotus, Crimson Lotus, Great Crimson Lotus. A being fallen into Great Crimson Lotus must spend 25 kalpas and 6 trillion eons in hell before reincarnation.
25 kalpas and 6 trillion eons.
Infinity.
Don’t regress here, and infinite hell unfolds. Regress here and infect with Udumbara, and the infinite regressor’s hell unfolds.
‘This is.’
I gripped the hilt of Do-ha tightly.
The cane-sword No Do-ha made for me exactly in the 100th round. It made me believe fate had coincidences in time, a pillar that would smile upon me.
The thickness of the world under that cane felt so perilously thin today.
‘Is this my epilogue?’
Squeeze.
Someone covered my hand. Another palm overlaid my hand gripping the cane.
I turned to look.
“Undertaker.”
It was the Saintess.
“There’s a flaw in that hypothesis.”
“Yes?”
“You’re not the one who makes hell. Even if the world is repeating, you’re not eternally cycling through lives. Or more precisely, relative to this moment, you’re not repeating an eternal life. Because there’s a fatal error.”
“…How can you be so sure?”
“Because.”
Water-colored eyes.
Eyes always one step removed from earthly clamor, quietly observing the world from underwater depths, now stared straight at me endlessly.
The well-like depth in those eyes made even the screams slapping against my eardrums feel somehow distant.
Instead, what enveloped my ears was calm waters. The voice of waves lapping at my toes.
That water hue said.
Because.
“I’m about to prove that hypothesis wrong.”
I blinked.
“Yes? What do you—”
“Farewell, Undertaker.”
Stroke.
Warm water temperature caressed the back of my hand.
As if being pulled into deep waters. As if sinking into fathomless depths.
“See you… soon.”
And.
Time stopped.
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Time stopped.
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Time□□ stopped.
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Ti□□ stopped.
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Ti□□ sto□ped.
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Ti□□ □□pped.
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Ti□□ □□pe□.
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Th□□.
The□n.
And.
“Hello, Undertaker.”
—It was truly an ordinary greeting.
Delivered in the most mundane tone, as if to someone just woken from sleep, the water-colored voice spoke.
Bright water light. Transparently shining on the beach, clear waves gently tapping toes.
The sea’s gentlest knock on the land.
At that sound, I opened my eyes.
An instant—just the sensation of having closed and opened my eyes—had passed, lightly brushing my cornea.
Yet why.
“…Saintess?”
“Yes.”
The voice caressing my eardrums felt like one I hadn’t heard in ages.
The Saintess’s hand still enveloped mine. But the temperature was different. The once-warm water was now cool.
Probably because of that temperature difference, I first sensed something was off.
After hearing and touch, vision’s turn.
The world was ‘stopped.’
“…….”
The swords blanketing the entire city held their breath. The molten iron tsunami surging through plazas and alleys had frozen solid.
People submerged in boiling molten iron, their screams, Sim A-ryeon anxiously scanning my face, Seo-gyu with his mouth agape, No Do-ha readjusting her leather gloves tightly.
This entire hell.
Had completely stopped.
“Ah.”
Intense sense of déjà vu.
I’d seen this exact scene somewhere. The hell Mu-geun showed me to break me, in the prison of time.
Thus, I could immediately pinpoint the cause of this ‘stopped world.’
I moved my lips.
“Saintess, by any chance…… Have you become a Fallen One?”
“Yes.”
“My god.”
The Saintess’s ability [Time Stop].
When extremely enhanced, it could wield even this absurd authority.
First time seeing it in reality.
In the past 107th round, the Saintess had come close to falling but hadn’t blossomed [Time Stop] this perfectly.
“But in this round, you haven’t trained your aura that deeply. How could you become a Fallen One…….”
“I did train.”
The Saintess said.
“With time stopped.”
“…….”
“At first, even taking a few steps was hard. Breathing continuously was burdensome. But I ignited my aura and somehow kept it up.”
The Saintess’s voice was so calm that others might think it a perfectly ordinary training method.
I knew better.
How monstrous that training was.
“No, that’s impossible. Aura would stop too, so you’d have to push every single movement manually. One breath taking 30 minutes—no, an hour.”
“Yes. It was incredibly hard.”
The Saintess nodded.
“So it took quite a bit of time.”
“Quite a bit… how much?”
“I didn’t count precisely, but over 2,000 years, I think.”
“…….”
My god.
The Saintess gave a small smile toward my gaping, shocked face. With a hint of playfulness.
A truly rare expression, one I hadn’t seen in ages.
She said.
“Now I might be around the same age as you, Undertaker.”