Chapter 508
Chapter 508
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 508
Chapter Title: Sniping Park Chan-woo (4)
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The Black Witch's words lingered in her ears like poison.
"A witch cannot attain love."
She finally vaguely understood the true meaning of those words.
It wasn't that she couldn't achieve it—she didn't even know it from the start.
Witches were born that way.
Unable to comprehend or possess the emotion called love.
For them, born amid the abyss's curse and sustained by death and resentment as nourishment.
That warm feeling which sprouts life might simply not be permitted.
Then, was all of this just a delusion?
Tower of Arrogance.
The sole being who appeared before her as she nurtured the power of death alone in the frigid darkness.
He did not yield to her strength, nor fear it—instead, he reached out a hand.
He taught her not how to wield "death," but how to live "life."
Park Chan-woo's repeated salvations. Those memories flashed through Adora's mind.
Like a single ray of light in the darkness.
He freed her from the Black Witch's oppressive yoke and gave purpose to her otherwise meaningless existence.
She wanted to grow strong for him, to stand by his side.
She believed the sum of all those feelings was "love."
But this pitch-black darkness mocked that belief.
Wasn't this emotion closer to faith?
Blind devotion to a savior.
Absolute submission to an infallible being.
A pitiful soul lost in the dark, offering everything to the one guiding lantern.
Wasn't it a venomous "dependence" disguised as love?
The terror that without Park Chan-woo's brilliant light, she was merely a frail being who would lose her way and fade back into the shadows.
Was she merely wearing the mask of love to ignore that fear?
The darkness relentlessly probed her most vulnerable depths.
—Without him, you're nothing.
No.
—Queen of the Night? Sovereign of Witches? All of it is just a hat he tossed you. Without his permission, you'd still be rotting away, trapped in the Tower of Arrogance.
I have my own power...
—Your power? Even your authority over death wouldn't have fully blossomed without him. You're nothing but a vine parasitizing him, Adora.
Stop...!
A faint moan escaped Adora's lips.
The doubt aimed at herself ignited into an uncontrollable blaze, burning away all her pride.
Yes, perhaps the darkness's whispers were right.
Everything she had stemmed from him.
Then this emotion might not be love, but a sense of debt—the obligation to repay what he gave.
The anxiety that failing to do so would erase her very worth.
She began to be consumed by negative emotions.
Realizing her heart wasn't love shook her world to its roots.
She had endured everything because she believed it was love.
But if it was false, what remained for her now?
She had lost her way.
With the essence of the emotion that guided her shaken, she was regressing to that lonely witch trapped in the Tower of Arrogance.
The darkness enveloped her soul even more deeply, as if satisfied.
Adora was slowly sinking into it.
'I need to find the light.'
A small voice echoed in her mind.
The sole condition to escape this wretched Abyss.
But no light was visible.
The primordial light that had faintly gleamed in the distance.
It grew hazier as darkness eroded her heart.
Now, she couldn't even sense its presence.
How much time had passed?
In this pitch-black space, the sense of time was meaningless.
A second felt eternal, eternity a fleeting instant.
She had no idea where her comrades were, if he was safe—nothing.
She merely wandered aimlessly through the endless void.
Like her hollow heart.
How long had she walked?
Her numb footsteps suddenly halted.
Something alien appeared before her.
A small spring emitting the only faint blue glow in the darkness.
Its waters were crystalline, like melted starlight, its surface perfectly still without a ripple.
Yet contrasting its beauty, an aura of profound, icy oblivion emanated from it, as if ready to swallow everything.
—Drink.
It wasn't the Pitch-Black Monarch's voice.
It felt more primal, ancient—like the voice of the Abyss itself.
—This is the Spring of Oblivion. If you seek the primordial light, drink from this spring. Then, the one clue leading to the light shall be granted to you.
Salvation.
The only hope to end this endless wandering.
But Adora did not move rashly.
This cunning devil wouldn't show the way without a price.
—Of course, there is a price. Whoever drinks this water will forget one memory they hold most dear.
As expected.
The most precious memory.
She didn't even need to think what it was.
Forgetting it meant losing the emotions tied to it—and the current self born from that memory.
The spring forced a choice upon her.
Press on toward the light, or remain in this darkness forever to preserve her past self?
The old Adora would have hesitated.
The memory of Park Chan-woo.
It was everything to her.
Losing it would be agony akin to carving out her soul.
She slowly approached the spring.
Her face reflected on the blue surface.
It was unfamiliar.
Gone was the feverish queen aflame with love's delirium; only a pale witch stared down with empty eyes.
No different from her past self, imprisoned in the Tower of Arrogance.
'Is this... my true essence after all?'
She quietly cupped the spring water in both hands.
The cold liquid wetted her palms.
Memories flashed by.
The warmth when she first held his hand.
His back, willingly sacrificing for her.
His voice calling her Adora, not Witch.
They flickered through her mind like a lantern show, pleading not to fade.
But her mind had cooled coldly.
'...Sniping Abyss.'
A space cunningly designed to kill the sniping target, Park Chan-woo.
The two escape conditions presented by the Pitch-Black Monarch.
Find the "primordial light" or kill "Park Chan-woo."
Yet these two were never truly separate options.
Thus, Park Chan-woo himself could never find the primordial light.
No opportunity to open the door to salvation would be given to the sniping target.
She had to find the light in his stead.
If they failed, he too would be eternally trapped in this darkness.
In the end, she had to choose.
Her most cherished memory, or Park Chan-woo's life.
A cruel scale.
'I... want him to live.'
Adora finally confronted her true heart.
She realized the form didn't matter—love, faith, or obsessive attachment.
A world without him held no meaning for her.
Thus, she could gladly surrender this paltry memory.
If it meant preserving even the tiniest spark of possibility.
Adora gazed resolutely at the cold spring water trembling in her hands.
And.
Gulp!
"......"
She drank.
Park Chan-woo gripped his sword tightly in the darkness.
The faint auras of shadows nearby.
Their emotions were twisted by curses, yet none dared rush him recklessly.
They were still torn between the distant, hazy "primordial light" and the "Park Chan-woo" before them.
'Pitch-Black Monarch.'
He now clearly understood what the bastard desired.
It wasn't simply to kill him.
He had turned the Abyss itself into a massive prison designed to torment him.
Here, none of his abilities or wisdom mattered.
'He eliminated my options entirely.'
Since entering this place, Park Chan-woo hadn't taken a single step.
No—he couldn't.
Though the goal of "primordial light" was presented, that path was forbidden to him, the sniping target.
In this infinite darkness, all he could do was fend off attackers.
Save them, or inevitably kill them.
The enemy had stripped away every element allowing other actions.
He had sealed off Park Chan-woo's unpredictability—the very variable that always overturned the board with impossible miracles.
Out of fear.
Fear of what absurd miracle he might pull off again.
'Certainly, his intent is succeeding.'
Park Chan-woo had to admit it.
He couldn't get a read on it.
No fitting method to shatter this darkness or the absolute rules the bastard had imposed.
Right now, he could do nothing.
Just endure here, hoping his comrades found the "primordial light."
Passive waiting.
The type Park Chan-woo despised most.
But no other recourse now.
Then.
"Hm?"
Swish.
A small, faint light seeped from his chest.
With a puzzled expression, Park Chan-woo felt around his torso.
His fingertips touched something soft and small.
'Dawn's Tear?'
The tiny dewdrop flower the village chief of some obscure minor race had offered him during the festival.
The "Dawn's Tear," said to bloom only once every millennium in the "Silent Night Forest."
In this perfect darkness crafted by the Pitch-Black Monarch, it alone was permitted light—like the sole exception, emitting a pure, unquenchable glow, small but steadfast.
...Why?
Why did only this shine?
His top-tier artifacts, even the "Dawn Star," a fragment of a god, had lost their light in this darkness.
Yet why could this insignificant little flower resist?
He pulled it out and peered closely.
The light like a dewdrop on its petals.
Within it, Park Chan-woo saw.
Pure longing.
A wish for peace, hope for a new era, and a small being's innocent faith in him.
In that instant, a revelation flashed through his mind like lightning.
This "primordial darkness" created by the Pitch-Black Monarch strips everything away.
Sight, hearing, trust in comrades, even faith in oneself.
But there was one thing it couldn't take.
Unconditional goodwill.
This flower wasn't a product of transaction.
Not a token of alliance or oath of loyalty.
Simply a humble being's pure gratitude and respect toward one greater.
A heart unmixed with calculation or selfishness.
The Pitch-Black Monarch's world was built entirely on egoism and distrust.
Thus, he couldn't factor in the value of this pure goodwill he could never comprehend.
This tiny flower's light was surely the sole flaw, the crack in his perfect darkness.
'Found it.'
The bastard's weakness.