Chapter 516
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 516
Chapter Title: The Awakened Abyss (6)
Tower of Hubris.
The starting point of everything.
No, perhaps the place that should have been the end of everything.
Back then, she was the nameless Witch of Death.
The Black Witch, wearing the crown named 'Death' that her own mother had placed upon her.
A being burdened with the fate of sitting upon the throne of eternal solitude.
Her world was filled with a curse that killed everything it touched.
Her breath became plague, her touch summoned apocalypse.
Her gaze stole the light from all living things.
Orc Master Kankun.
The last king of the orc tribe, barbaric yet prouder than anyone.
Their inevitable final battle.
In Adora's memories, Kankun's roar echoed as if shaking the earth itself.
―Great Witch Adora, who massacred our tribe! I will tear you limb from limb and avenge my kin!
Kankun hated her.
In his eyes, she was an unforgivable butcher who had burned their homeland and danced atop the screams of children.
Even if it hadn't been her will.
Even if it was a tragedy committed as a puppet of the Black Witch, a tool representing the will of the Abyss.
The result remained unchanged.
Thousands of orcs had died by her hand.
Adora silently accepted his hatred.
She believed it was her destiny, the karma she rightfully had to bear.
In her colorless world, the emotion called 'guilt' was a luxury.
Rather, her death was slowly eating away at Kankun's heart.
The axe of vengeance he swung was truly aimed not at her, but at himself.
Watching his self-destructive rage, she thought.
Dying here and ending it all wouldn't be so bad.
If her death could assuage his grudge and sever this exhausting chain of enmity, she would gladly accept it.
But then.
An unexpected variable appeared.
A single human suddenly severed the threads of fate that bound her, without hesitation.
-Greetings, descendant of the 'Black Witch'.
-Do you know 'our mother'?
-As one who studies truth, how could I not know the sovereign of all demons?
At first, he approached mentioning the Black Witch.
-Begone.
-Witch of Death. I know well that you have been abandoned by the 'Black Witch'.
Yet, he spoke unknowable truths beyond a mere witch.
-I'll resolve it for you.
-Resolve what?
-The death magic engraved in 'Kankun's' heart.
-……?
-I sensed something off about it.
-What are you talking about?
-Could it be... you love Kankun?
Ridiculous.
As if she even knew what an emotion like love was.
Love for a witch.
-I'll resolve it.
-……Why are you extending your hand?
-It means 'let's get along from now on'.
-No one has touched me and lived.
At first, she thought he was some madman.
Death wasn't something to control. It simply existed.
It was her essence, the law of this world.
For a mere mortal to dare touch the realm of death?
But he made that mad claim reality.
By throwing himself into it.
In her memories, Park Chan-woo walked toward her.
Without any protection.
He took her hand.
He entered the chilling aura of death's authority emanating from her body, the one that flayed flesh.
The energy of death burrowed into his skin, rotted his flesh, and stole his life's light.
Mana blazed wildly, and his life flickered like a candle in peril.
But the man did not stop.
Again and again.
Falling, then rising once more, persisting endlessly.
Before that reckless and tenacious obsession.
Adora's death glimpsed a 'path' for the first time.
The rampaging torrent halted momentarily before an unyielding boulder.
In that fleeting instant, Adora could finally view her own death 'objectively' for the first time.
She became able to control her death.
The cursed fate where everyone died just by approaching her.
He had broken that horrific chain, at the cost of his own sacrifice.
Furthermore, he even altered her relationship with Kankun.
Instead of mocking the dying Kankun, Park Chan-woo awakened the true warrior's pride dwelling in his heart.
And in the final moment, when he himself stood on death's threshold.
Something astonishing happened.
-Offer this warrior my heart as sacrifice. Then slay the 'Black Witch' together. I entrust my tribe's vengeance to you.
Kankun willingly handed his own heart to Park Chan-woo.
Kankun abandoned his hatred toward her.
All those changes had been wrought by Park Chan-woo alone.
The possibility of forging her own destiny, escaping all that oppressed her.
That was the one hope she had yearned for across eons.
The Park Chan-woo in her memories had gifted her a new world.
No.
He had become her world.
Following him was a journey of constant wonder.
Leaving the Tower of Hubris, Adora's world began filling with the name 'Park Chan-woo'.
She became his shadow, silently following him.
And she witnessed it.
With a human body—no, with the vessel of any mortal—he accomplished feats impossible for any.
In the 'Mountain of Practitioners', he drew forth the ultimate essences of martial arts from the Arhats, and in the 'Tower of God', he subjugated even the five wills, the tower's masters, inheriting their stigmata.
His journey seemed limitless.
When walls appeared, he shattered them; where no path existed, he carved one.
Feats of world-creation that even gods dared not dream.
The scale of his miracles grew ever grander, and watching, Adora often felt her own existence infinitely small.
Her past fears of the Black Witch crushing her, her solitary fate as a witch—all seemed trivial.
His agonies always transcended himself, reaching humanity, and ultimately the fate of the entire Abyss.
Watching him, her own petty worries felt like nothing.
He never rested.
Achieving one feat, he pressed on to the next without even a moment to catch his breath.
Driving himself relentlessly, ceaselessly creating miracles.
Adora felt awe beholding him.
Pride.
A swelling thrill in knowing the lord she followed was such a great being.
And reverence.
How much weight did those small shoulders bear?
How much solitude had he fought through to walk that arduous path alone?
Every time she saw his back, Adora was seized by a fierce urge to protect him.
But she was always behind him.
A step apart.
Like a mere spectator watching his great myth unfold.
She was content. She thought that was enough.
But at some point, a dissatisfied voice began rising from a corner of her heart.
'I want to stand beside him.'
Not as a mere shadow, a loyal retainer.
But shoulder-to-shoulder with him, at eye level, beholding the same world as an equal.
Sharing his burdens, lightening his load, yearning to be a companion on his path.
So she resolved to become sovereign.
Transcending the Black Witch, reborn as the true queen ruling the realm of night and all witches.
Believing that was the only way to stand equal to him.
She ascended to the throne of sovereign at last, but reality betrayed her expectations.
Park Chan-woo had advanced far beyond.
While she battled the weight of the crown in the realm of night.
He had already shaken the foundations of the Abyss, drawn even the transcendents to his side, and created a new world.
His pace was too swift.
With every desperate step she took, he was already opening new horizons far beyond.
The gap did not close.
If anything, it widened.
Before long, more people gathered around him.
His master, the transcendent Lil, who had taught him the truths of magic.
She shared Park Chan-woo's 'past', something Adora could never have.
What of the God of Offerings?
She knew the 'secrets' entwined deepest in his journey.
The countless queens and powerhouses he had saved.
They shone brilliantly in their worlds still, pillars upholding his vast empire.
Adora realized.
Unbeknownst to her, he had connected to even more worlds.
Sharing stories she didn't know, forging bonds she couldn't comprehend, his world grew richer by the day.
For some reason, she felt alienated.
Like an outsider peering at the lights of a joyous festival from beyond the walls, while all reveled inside.
'I'm anxious.'
That unfamiliar sensation began strangling her heart like the vines of poisonous weeds.
Would he forget her?
Among countless stars, would her faint light no longer catch his eye?
What was this emotion?
Pride in becoming sovereign mingled with the wretchedness of still being unable to reach him.
……Creating a vortex of chaotic feelings she had never known before.
Jealousy?
His smiles and warmth toward others burned with resentment.
Or obsession?
A selfish desire to confine him in her world alone, to be his sole confidante.
Terror surged that this might be the curse of the witch the Black Witch had warned of, its beginning.
At the end of all that turmoil, Adora finally confronted one truth.
The single name at the root of all these emotions she felt.
It was 'love'.
Not blind faith in her savior, nor a sense of debt to repay.
Simply, the pure and selfish heart one being feels for another.
She rejoiced with him, ached when he sorrowed.
Proud of his expanding world, yet fearful she had no place in it.
This contradictory, complex, uncontrollable emotion.
It was what mortals called 'love'.
She had no choice but to acknowledge it at last.
But that realization brought not salvation, but deeper despair.
'A witch... cannot attain love.'
The Black Witch's curse was no mere malediction.
It was the shackles of fate no witch had broken across eons.
The moment a witch loves, she loses everything.
Burning in the fever of unrequited love, or falling into vile hatred's demonhood when betrayed.
The end was predetermined.
Adora lifted her head.
In her memories, Park Chan-woo flickered, seated on the throne, smiling with other women.
She knew.
She could never be the owner of that smile.
His world was too vast, and too many suns already shone at his side.
She was merely a dim moon orbiting them.
She yearned for the unattainable.
She had fallen into an impossible love.
Tears fell from the Adora in her memories for the first time.
She had rejected the witch's fate, yet ultimately drifted down that sorrowful river of destiny.
Thus, she became the Abyss.
Park Chan-woo reached out his hand.
And firmly grasped Adora's hand within the Abyss.