Chapter 246
Chapter 246
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 246
Chapter Title: Hundred Blossoms in Full Bloom
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Awakeners fighting on the final defensive line—no.
All the survivors still clinging to life in Busan were staring blankly in this direction.
-Weeeeeeeng!
On one side, the spear of death.
A red beam of destruction fired by the aberration that had devoured every city in the world except Busan.
“Hahahahaha! It doesn’t even itch!”
On the other side, the absolute shield.
Humanity’s last wing, which boasted pitiful mental strength but blocked any physical force no matter what.
“Behold! The aberration is mere trash!”
Was it the intoxication of single-handedly enduring a blow that could destroy the world? Today, too, O Dok-seo’s chuunibyou energy had reached its peak—no, the profound realm.
Regardless of that.
“Dang Seo-rin.”
“Yeah. I know.”
Ah— and Dang Seo-rin began to sing.
Amid the ceaseless barrage from the aerial battleships pounding the barrier, her song pierced through the noise and resonated.
It was a song everyone knew well.
The Fifth Melody, Mirror of Myriad Phenomena.
A masterpiece among masterpieces, synthesizing [Focus], [Absorption], [Reflection], and [Amplification] into a single song.
If you’re wondering when this song was added to the playlist, it was during the subjugation of “Meteor Shower.”
That’s right.
In the Meteor Shower subjugation battle, 700 awakeners sequentially gathered, compressed, and further compressed their auras to forge the first and final ultimate technique.
I, the Undertaker, received the final baton and fired the beam at Meteor Shower.
“Aaah—aaaaah—a——.”
That Song Enchantment had now descended once more upon this battlefield, dyed red.
However, there was a clear difference from the Meteor Shower subjugation battle.
As I said, back then, hundreds of awakeners had to painstakingly gather their auras like Resentment Jades, one by one.
Not this time.
-Weeeeeeeng!
Helpfully gathering the “beams” in place of humanity was that fleet densely packed in the sky above.
“Dok-seo! Spread your wings!”
“Aye aye, sir!”
O Dok-seo spread her fingers wide.
At her gesture, the barrier curved. The aerial battleships’ beams refracted off the barrier’s surface, their trajectories disrupted.
And then.
The beams that spilled outward arrived at the “mirrors” created by Dang Seo-rin’s Song Enchantment.
Chaaang—
The mirrors shattered, unable to withstand the overwhelming power of the destruction beams.
But it didn’t matter.
Before breaking, each mirror reflected the destruction beam toward another mirror, and the red light bounced from mirror to mirror.
“A——.”
In the 42nd iteration.
Long ago, the number of mirrors Dang Seo-rin had conjured was only around 700. It was impossible to produce more output, so the allied forces were inevitably limited in number.
“——A——aaaaah——.”
Now it was the 687th iteration.
In every iteration, Dang Seo-rin and I had pondered and consulted together, steadily advancing the Song Enchantment. Earlier than anyone, boldly hiring Dream-Writers to train even in simulations.
Thus, the number of mirrors that Three Thousand Worlds’ Dang Seo-rin generated in the sky was—.
A whopping 12,000.
Chaaang—chaaaang—chaang, chaaaaang—
The destruction beams bounced back by O Dok-seo split into tens of thousands of rays, endlessly, ceaselessly scattered by the mirrors.
All along precisely calculated paths.
Vivid red lasers reflected along countless paths, weaving a spiderweb across Busan’s sky.
Chaaaaaaaang—.
The beams that started from Haeundae soon adorned the entire sky, turning it into a shattered glass window.
The sky, defiled red by the aberration mocking Earth, was now overlaid with the red solid lines of fireworks launched by humanity.
From the origin of those solid lines, O Dok-seo shouted.
“Mister! Time’s almost up!”
The time limit on Dok-seo’s barrier was a mere 60 seconds.
We had to settle it within that, and so we did.
8 seconds, 7 seconds, 6 seconds, 5 seconds, 4 seconds.
“Dang Seo-rin!”
Relying on the clock in my head ticking precisely, I gave the signal.
In a world where electronic watches and spring watches alike risked contamination by aberrations, only my time sense remained sharp.
“Blast them away!”
The great witch sang.
The 12,000 mirrors simultaneously adjusted their angles for pinpoint aiming.
The target went without saying: straight up into the sky.
The aerial battleships numbering in the millions.
The death beams poured out by the aberration to destroy the world—
Reversed completely, hijacked by humanity, fired back toward the sky to deliver death to the aberration itself!
Kwarrrrrrrrrrrumble!
The 12,000 beams fired by Dang Seo-rin swept through the aerial battleships in the sky all at once.
Red lines etched across the hulls of the ships. Along those lines, the ships split into two pieces, three pieces, four pieces, and so on.
And then they began to collapse.
-Uh, uh, uh, uh.
-Clunk. Clang, clank.
The aerial battleships spun their springs furiously to avoid sinking somehow. Only now did they halt the destruction beams and begin self-repair.
However, the blow unleashed by the aberration that devoured all cities on Earth was indeed fatal.
Under Dang Seo-rin’s counterattack, millions of ships cracked along their seams and split apart.
Even an aberration that sneered at and ignored human attacks couldn’t escape suicide against its own ultimate technique.
In the end.
-Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh.
-Weeng. Clang, wheeeeeng, clack, cock.
The scrap metal rained down.
The spire of Tokyo Tower, the tip of Burj Khalifa, the framework of the Eiffel Tower, the hands of Big Ben, the antenna of the Empire State Building, smokestacks from countless factories, concrete.
Humanity’s past towers of glory.
Peeling off the aerial battleships like outer walls stripped from buildings—they fell.
-Uh, clang, whing, clack, uh, uh, uh.
Waves crashed.
Waves from the debris of civilization crashing down.
As if returning to the cradle where life began, humanity’s splendidly piled landmarks returned to the sea.
The grandest sea burial.
But the scrap wouldn’t be lonely. The aberration that dared devour them was sinking alongside.
-Weeeeeeuh, uh, uh, uh, uh…….
One last battleship, clinging desperately, wobbled in the sky, stripped of its epidermis, skeleton, exoskeleton, and endoskeleton.
Its true form was a “paper airplane.”
Scarred from Dang Seo-rin’s attack, burn marks marred the white paper.
It staggered and plopped into the sea.
Then, floating briefly on the surface, it was swept away by the waves, vanishing forever.
“…Ah.”
Wobble.
Dang Seo-rin’s body shook from the waves kicked up by the falling debris of civilization. I steadied her shoulders from behind.
I wrapped us in aura to shield against the waves, including O Dok-seo.
“Ah……. Undertaker.”
Dang Seo-rin leaned her weight on me and turned her head slightly this way.
Her face was etched with deep fatigue. Naturally. Though not as much as me, she too had been darting across battlefields nonstop for days.
A faint smile bloomed on her face.
“Really, really……. We did it. We killed that absurd aberration…… We did it.”
“Yeah.”
“From the Kingdom Project……. All that practice in dream simulations wasn’t for nothing. Ahaha. This isn’t a dream too, is it?”
“…….”
Squeeze.
Instead of answering, I gripped her hand and shoulders, hugging her. Dang Seo-rin closed her eyes, as if that was answer enough.
-Waaaaaaaaah!
Cheers echoed from afar.
-Dang Seo-rin! Dang Seo-rin! Dang Seo-rin!
-Long live the Undertaker!
-Literary Girl! We believed in you!
The battlefield mood, once resolved to drag even one more aberration to hell before dying, had shifted.
We can do it.
We might actually win.
We’d somehow overcome the undead, the city devourers, and other aberrations. And we were winning.
Meanwhile, humanity’s final bastion stood strong.
The awakeners were exhausted, but not a single one had died. Not even injured! The civilians in the rear supplied endless resources.
So.
Tick-tock—.
Exactly 61 hours, 11 minutes, and 32 seconds since the Final Defense War began.
People had no choice but to realize.
The miraculous tale of reversals unfolding like a dream up to now had, from the start, been established by one girl’s sacrifice.
The countdown ended.
6
The following is a compilation from events in other iterations.
“Huh?”
Joseph Awakener from Kang Baek Guild, holding B11 front line against the aberrations, suddenly looked down at his forearm.
The gash from the aberration’s claw just moments ago wasn’t healing. Crimson pulsed through the gaping flesh like fish gills.
Intense pain followed.
For the first time since the war began, the pain lingered long.
“W-What, what is it? Ugh! What?”
Park Ha-byeol Awakener from Goguryeo Guild, fighting at G01 front line, screamed at her leg.
Earlier, an aberration’s maw had bitten off her left leg. But she hadn’t worried. It happened constantly throughout the war.
Every time a limb was lost, the Saintess’s petals gently wrapped the wound, and new limbs regrew in the blink of an eye.
Not now.
Vines had grown, but they didn’t revert to human skin and muscle. Park Ha-byeol’s left leg was just a hole-riddled tangle of vines.
Thinking it an aberration, Park Ha-byeol swung her axe at her own left leg.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Agonizing pain hit.
Blood flowed from the vines. Absorbing it, new vines regrew, reforming Park Ha-byeol’s left leg.
“O, ooooh……?”
From Dongbang Divine Kingdom, A02 front line guard for Sim A-ryeon, Saintess Knight Joseph dropped his sword.
His palm began covering in flowers.
Bones became flower stems, skin turned to leaves, nails bloomed as single petals.
“Th-The Saintess’s blessing!”
Knight Joseph rejoiced.
“Our sinful souls, trapped in human flesh, have been redeemed by the Saintess! Brothers and sisters! Celestial ether descends, turning beastly hides to flower gardens—paradise realized in our souls! Amen! Amen!”
His teeth chanting amen became rose thorns, his tongue magnolia petals, his ecstatic eyes anemone stamens and pistils.
“A……m…….”
The awakener, transformed entirely into colorful flowers, soon fell silent.
That transformed tree of an awakener was not attacked even by aberrations. They passed the flower garden, heading to the next defensive line.
Those whose wounds didn’t heal.
Those whose wounds turned to plants.
Those whose bodies became plants entirely.
The degree of change depended on “how much they hated Sim A-ryeon.”
Whether they knew their hated target was Sim A-ryeon or not didn’t matter.
Sim A-ryeon’s [Collector of All Aberrations].
All rage toward that vile constellation counted as “hatred for Sim A-ryeon.”
Naturally, contempt for SG Net’s official member Goryeo Jang was no different.
Had they poisoned her? Mocked her? Blamed her? Thought it her fault? Wished she was gone, cursed her to disappear?
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
“R-R-R-Retreat! Retreat! Fuck, something’s wrong—.”
“Save me! I don’t want to become a flower! Ah, aaaaah! My skin! Peel off my skin! Please, ah, no, aaaaah, aaaaaah!”
All those curses, contempt, and maledictions—Sim A-ryeon received them as a lovely flower garden.
Petals, petals, petals.
On humanity’s final defensive line, merely a million petals danced.
Allow me to reintroduce.
This was the power of the northern Saintess… no.
The Fallen “Sacrifice.”
Hundred Blossoms in Full Bloom.