Chapter 254
Chapter 254
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Chapter 254 - 고유색
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Unique Color
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Blood poured out without restraint, as if it were sweat.
His arms and legs seemed to gain weight with every step.
The warrior sensed it instinctively.
If he didn't stop now, irreversible consequences would follow.
He lowered his head. Turned his back. Humbly accepted his defeat.
That was the path to preserving the future.
The warrior knew this clearly.
"No..."
The warrior pressed forward.
Behind him stretched a cliff, leaving no room for retreat.
He held his head rigidly high.
As if even a bow would sever it.
The warrior thought.
Did a future attainable only by casting everything aside truly hold value?
Would the things he once let go still wait for him there?
"No..."
Thus, the warrior refused to release what he clutched now.
What he shed was his own lingering attachments and obsessions.
In that way, the warrior molted.
His form—burning everything within to bloom anew—was precarious. Foolish.
And brilliant.
The holy sword's master, Rishir.
The saintess had shared many stories with him, coming to know the upright and pure soul he possessed.
He was truly worthy of this place.
Worthy of passing the finicky fairy's scrutiny, and someone any of his comrades would approve of.
He was undoubtedly qualified to inherit the hero's legacy.
However.
To the saintess, he had paid far too steep a price to reach this point.
Shedding.
The forbidden power that seized a flawless present by sacrificing the future.
The sight of this man mentioning that power so casually stirred countless thoughts in her.
Purity. Uprightness. And normalcy. Virtues embodied in this young man.
His path here must have been anything but easy.
He had surely endured trials and tribulations beyond what most could imagine.
So, how exactly had he overcome them?
Precisely.
How many times had he resorted to that forbidden power along the way?
The saintess pondered.
Probably—no, certainly.
At least once.
Right at this moment.
Her uneasy premonition struck true, blatantly so.
"...Roughly dozens of times?"
Blatantly indeed.
The saintess and fairy's minds raced into overdrive.
They were recalling those who had wielded Shedding's power.
More precisely, the tolls they had paid for it.
'It varies by application intensity... but past three times, no matter how mighty or youthful, the future becomes untenable.'
A power demanding the forfeiture of one's future merely to invoke.
Unfair, perhaps, yet natural given its nature.
A force reshaping the body to perfection without limits or prerequisites, while elevating one's realm!
Only abandoning the future could balance such a price.
'And he said what?'
Dozens of times, roughly, up to now?
The fairy and saintess could only let out hollow laughs.
If true, his growth saga boiled down to one phrase.
-Levels up just by breathing.
An outlandish tale even to them, seasoned by hero-party eccentrics.
"That... has to be a joke, right?"
"It sounds exactly like one, yet precisely because it does, it's no joke."
Yet Rishir's demeanor remained steadfastly earnest—nay, profoundly serious.
'A chance like this doesn't come often.'
Finally, people treating his tale as gospel, not jest.
No way he'd squander it.
Stern.
Solemn.
Unwavering.
Rishir spoke in a tone brooking no digression.
"You all witnessed it clearly from there—the instant I abruptly 'shed.' Right!?"
Overborne by his desperate fervor, the fairy and saintess nodded.
"Precisely those symptoms! Phenomena! Effects! I've endured them repeatedly till now. Roughly dozens, as I said."
There the account ended.
Then, his eyes pleaded silently to them both.
-So.
-Some advice, please.
That man's conviction.
That man's hope!
Burdens few could shoulder.
Yet.
Worthily of the hero's party.
Legends from an era brimming with enigmas beyond this age.
They responded equal to their renown.
The fairy pondered briefly before addressing the saintess.
"Tara. What's on your mind right now?"
"A great many things."
Meaningful glances passed between them.
At last, both spoke in unison.
""Unique Color.""
That was the term invoked.
Unanimous accord. They nodded to each other.
Rishir's eyes widened watching them.
"Unique Color..."
A term both alien and familiar.
First to surface in his mind: his master's words.
'Now that I think... Master did say my power might be a 'Unique Color.'
Pamon, upon first beholding it, had cited 'Unique Color' for its inscrutability.
And that was all.
To a dark elf schooled in the forest's night, Unique Color was rarity incarnate.
Pamon knew it only from lore.
As did most of the world.
Thus, suspecting yet unable to confirm Rishir's as such.
The hero's comrades, however, differed.
"That monster then. Remember?"
"How could I forget? That nightmarish ability. That Unique Color."
"As I thought. You recalled it too."
Their inference went beyond guesswork.
Unlike the masses, they had encountered Unique Color firsthand—that extreme rarity.
Back then.
It.
That power.
Dialogue anchored in shared recollection.
Rishir could neither partake nor comprehend.
"Oh..."
Even so, his gaze upon them blazed undimmed.
To divine this power's essence via 'experience' and 'memory'.
A feat unmatched by any luminary he'd met.
An age overflowing with mysteries manifold this one's.
Feasible solely for those at its epicenter: the hero's party?
Rishir's legs danced with impatience.
As if stillness were impossible.
Thus he reined himself in, awaiting their conclusion.
"Then—"
At length, their exchange wrapped.
The saintess rose, beckoning Rishir.
"Rishir. Care to follow?"
Whoosh!
He bolted up, poised for this.
Rishir trailed them to the cathedral.
He surveyed its interior with fresh eyes.
'This place...'
From outside, he'd sensed it plainly.
The energy saturating within—its density.
Evoking his grand master's forest's profoundest depths.
Likely the village's core, the saintess's heart.
She halted amid the cathedral's intensest nexus.
Where stained glass hues converged.
There, she addressed him.
"Rishir."
Involuntarily, his eyes sharpened.
For an instant, those prismatic glories seemed to emanate from her form.
Sheer splendor.
"Now, I shall reveal a fragment of my memory to you."
"What... memory?"
"One concerning another who bore your 'Unique Color.'"
"...!"
Undeterred by his shock, she pressed on.
"What do you know of Unique Color?"
"A personal, singular mana property... isn't it?"
"Correct. Such singular properties bestow unique abilities upon their bearer. And those abilities born of Unique Color? They occasionally defy the world's laws. Simply put."
She beckoned him.
"Yours and his, for instance."
Then neatly clasped her hands.
"...!"
Rishir recoiled reflexively.
The surging energies evoked the prior 'forest assault.'
Grand master Lavella wielding the woods like limbs against intruders.
The ambient mana churned at her subtle motion.
Stained lights whirled.
Seeming to devour the space—yet confined instead.
A portal.
"That—"
Now she backed a colossal stone gate.
Prismatic radiance spilled from its cracks.
"Might you take my hand?"
She proffered it demurely.
Rishir clasped it; she faced the gate.
Suddenly, a faint weight settled on his shoulder.
Fairy Shuyen perched there, mischief in her gaze.
"Not to frighten—just don't let go?"
He gripped fiercely in alarm.
Grind—
The stone gate parted.
Dazzling radiance engulfed him.
-...!
Rishir felt ensnared.
No mere fancy.
Rishir grasped it at once.
The gravelly roar issued from his lips.
More precisely.
He had become its source.
Awareness dawned; sensory torrents crashed over him.
Then came the saintess's voice.
'Memory... immersion...'
He complied readily.
'Whoa—...'
Overwhelmed by the vista unfolding.
The hero party's onslaught.
One man swept in power's maelstrom.
His form fracturing, rending, lopping, detonating.
Ferocity taxing even swordmasters; wounds dire.
He endured bare-bodied.
Via recovery surreal, transcending the barrage.
Bones knit forthwith.
Flesh mends at once.
Limbs rejoin seamlessly.
Shattered skull rewinds temporally.
'What... in the world...?'
As Rishir blurted in horror, the fairy replied.
Now, Rishir stood amid the hero party unleashing it.
Thus he knew viscerally.
The Immortal's life force—its relentlessness.
Shown trumps told.
Unique Color's truth etched indelibly in him.
"Ah...!"
His sight reeled backward.
Body hurtling away sensationally.
Presently, back in the cathedral.
As he sifted the deluged data and sentiments, the saintess neared.
"Rishir."
Her tone rang faintly elated.
"You spoke of it: the realm-boosted full recoveries shown prior. Dozens endured."
"Yes."
"Shedding isn't panacea. Forbidden art siphoning future vitality. Repetition exhausts even the sturdiest life."
"Then I...!"
"Indeed. Ordinarily, dust by now from depletion. Yet behold: overflowing, not wanting."
"...Owing to Unique Color?"
"Yes. Else inexplicable. Yours akin to his—high likelihood. Its anomalous vitality shields you from Shedding's backlash."
"Oh..."
He regarded his hands.
"So... that's it..."
Breath ragged.
Doubt dispelled; anxiety quelled therewith.
That erratic, unnatural mending.
Fear of eventual reckoning—vanished alongside.
Thus.
One vast enigma plaguing Rishir resolved.
"Saintess!"
Momentum surging, he proclaimed to her.
His other powers.
The inexplicable by convention—no, Unique Colors!
Thus, Purification's grace invoked.
Spirits attesting his boundless inner realm conjured for display.
The guardian fortress tale recounted.
And—
"Hold on!"
The fairy thrust up a hand urgently.
They conferred heads close once more.
Unique Color: singular per bearer, by definition.
One form, one essence.
Thus confounded by Rishir's litany: 'This Unique Color thus, that one so, another...
Inevitably.
Prior verdict overturned.
His powers perhaps not Unique Color after all.
"Hah... Then what?"
The hero party mired in utter disarray.
"Hm?"
Then.
The saintess gaped at him.
"Wait. Purification power, you said?"
"Ah, yes. Cleanses profane energies."
"That power—how did you—"
Info overload, queries piling.
She gripped her head, distilling words arduously.
"Upon wielding it, what befell you?"
A honed query.
Purification's authority—hers abused till flesh dissolved in demise.
For her, intrigue: how he harnessed it unscathed, vitality intact.
Its toll: realm erosion. Infinite life insufficient.
To start with—
"Ah! Actually, it ties to 'Shedding'—truth is, purifying select targets triggers it sporadically. Hence I suspected Purification births Shedding!"
She: Purification eroded flesh, vitality waned.
Death ensued.
He: Purification invigorated flesh, realm ascended.
"Hey!"
The saintess lost composure.
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