Chapter 291: Never Read This - The Reader and The Spectator
Chapter 291: Never Read This - The Reader and The Spectator
The Reader and The Spectator.
Their gazes converge.
Phenomena distort.
The natural becomes unnatural.
Causality twists.
For the gaze of one who has transcended possesses such power.
Interest creates a singularity.
However, this is, ultimately, a branch of possibility.
A distortion that allows the observing entity to tread the thinnest twig of an infinitely spreading tree.
This is not a forced addition, nor is it an imaginary branch that never existed.
The distortion caused by the gathering of gazes is the act of significantly elevating a choice that already held a sliver of possibility.
A world unperceived by an intelligent lifeform is a world undecided.
There was a possibility that the wooden staff would break.
There was a possibility that the Old Man, already in poor health, would suffer a flare-up of his alcoholism.
And, though neither of them knew it, there was a very high possibility that the building's security measure—a Restraint Magic—would trigger.
In that case, the target would not have been Liger, but the Old Man who was closer to the building.
However, those were merely unperceived factors.
The two Sentient Beings standing in that place—the two at the center of the converging gazes—know nothing of magic.
The Old Man does not even know the state of his own body or his weapon.
For a Martial Artist, such ignorance should be unacceptable, but for him, it was perhaps a blessing.
Because of it, he became an unperceived, indeterminate factor.
And as our gaze reached him, that indeterminate factor was either excluded or twisted.
That is the current result.
Something that had almost zero chance of happening, no matter what the Old Man did—stopping Liger in his tracks—was made possible.
Yet, we did not do this for him.
The one who made it possible was the Old Man himself.
Our gaze does not make the impossible possible.
It merely allows the possible to manifest.
This is the Old Man’s own strength and skill; it is merely a convergence of slight coincidences.
Through this, the Old Man showed his strength and drew the gaze.
Through this, a situation opened that transcended universal probabilities and choices.
And through this, the gazes of those who felt interest multiplied.
A gaze is like the currency they speak of.
It is difficult to gather at first, but once there is even a small foundation, it grows like interest.
The more foundational capital one has, the more means one has to increase the gaze.
The Old Man opened his own path.
Even if he will never know that it happened because the very entities he loathes intervened.
This distortion of the world...
Someone compared it to poison.
Someone compared it to a forced relationship, a barrier.
The one who unfolded her own world within that hollow and tedious realm—the existence with two names and immense power, The Queen of the World—hated it.
Despite loving it more than anyone else, she loathed her world being involved and tainted by poison.
She loathed her miniature garden being distorted.
Even though she herself enjoyed distorting other worlds and violating their rules.
How selfish...
Selfish...
【Hey.】
....
【Hey, you can hear me, right?】
....
Pardon me.
I shall step away for a moment.
* * *
It was resolved through dialogue.
Two martial artists stand beneath the bright moon.
Though both point weapons at each other, only one is moving.
A massive tiger, possessing many times the overwhelming power of his opponent, charges forward.
No one believes the Old Man will win.
That is an impossible future.
Just as a protagonist achieves his dream in a typical work of fiction, those who know the countless "natural" outcomes of the future often enjoy the process.
If someone were to intervene here...
Or if the Old Man were to desire the Blackness...
An impossible future would descend.
But no one desires that.
For this story, this is enough.
It is a very simple, famous process.
An old monster, a relic of the past, stripped of his power.
The weak overcoming the strong.
Exerting strength for the sake of one's beliefs.
Technique transcending power.
A wretched man hiding something.
The victor gaining something.
That kind of story.
Because no one within the gaze wishes to ruin this.
Because, at this moment, no one with a twisted sensibility is present.
This story moves forward without any interference.
Thud.
Liger moves with a light step that belies his massive frame.
The Old Man remains completely still, waiting for the moment to counter.
To any observer, the Old Man’s defeat is once again certain.
The Old Man is far too old and weak.
Regardless of the power he once held within, sorrow and despair have gnawed him away.
Unlike other martial artists, he left nothing behind and did not continue his training.
The only reason such a man exists within the headquarters is that before he despaired of everything, he too had protected the world.
Those who know his circumstances merely look upon him with pity.
Thus, the Old Man, who did not possess even a fragment of the strength from his prime, could not even track Liger’s movements.
‘Damn it, I really should have quit drinking.’
A thought uncharacteristic of an old monster flickers through his mind.
A long time ago, during his last check-up, the doctor had told him something along with the news of a malignant tumor.
A single sentence: stop drinking.
But that was enough for him.
He had nothing left to leave behind.
Even as the twisted fragments of cells fulfilled their sole, malicious role of reproduction and killed their host, the Old Man did not care.
He only sought alcohol to forget the pain.
How much time had passed since then?
Without a single proper treatment or check-up, it was a miracle the Old Man’s body was even still alive.
His organs were failing, his peripheral nerve cells had already reached the end of their lifespan, and he could drop dead at any moment.
The only things keeping him upright were the sturdy physique he had once forged and his Dantian, which held out until the very end even as his brain was being encroached upon by the tumor.
Though it had been cracked and eroded over an indefinite period, vomiting out what was inside, the foundation he had built still moved for him.
In a universal future...
Within an hour, before this day even passed, that Dantian would be destroyed.
With the collapse of the final breakwater, this Old Man’s life would end.
However.
Poison fell upon him.
By the gaze of those who could not tolerate such an ending.
The malicious tumor ceased its function.
And the Old Man’s body, which had spent a long time using its strength to block it, was able to vent its full power in the final moment.
‘I see it!’
The Old Man’s eyes caught Liger at his destination.
Liger had already thrust his weapon—his fist—and the Old Man had lost a beat because of it, but...
‘It’s fine.’
The Old Man thinks.
The essence of the spear and staff techniques he mastered lies in pure skill that requires no strength.
Even as I am now, I can do it.
Even if my body is weak, the opponent provides the necessary force.
Just like when the tiger slammed its own head into the staff.
The tiger himself doesn't know, but the tip of the staff that jammed into his solar plexus was actually half-driven in by the tiger taking another step forward.
But the tiger is different now.
The first two times, his heart wasn't in his fists.
But what about that tiger now?
The tiger rushing at me, clad in the power of a Martial Artist.
The tiger throwing both fists, his eyes filled with the light I once lost.
I know the timing.
I know how I must move.
The decades of training from long ago, before the world was distorted, tell me how to move.
But the body does not follow.
If only I weren't a beat late.
If only my body were even slightly normal.
‘Please, you damn carcass.’
I don't care if I lose.
I'm a body that will die soon anyway.
But shouldn't I show that tiger something?
Even if I leave nothing behind, I must show him everything I have built.
Am I to fail to show him because of my own faults?
Please, body.
No, it doesn't even have to be my body. Fine.
A coincidence, Buddha, anyone.
As the Old Man’s thoughts flowed thus, the observing gaze changed.
Among those watching, someone’s heart shifted.
Poison.
An overwhelming, wretched poison that transcended distortion struck down.
To grant a wish.
A twisted smile bloomed on the lips of those who had briefly set the limits of their ideology slightly higher than a human's to understand them.
This is not a violation of the rules.
For a wisher has appeared.
However, responding to a wish is a matter of individual judgment.
Some hate the resulting distortion.
Some simply aren't in the mood.
Some are just empty.
But this time, someone answered.
To grant the Old Man’s wish.
Even though the one granting the wish knew full well that the future held nothing but despair.
Because no one stopped them.
Because no one cared.
Everyone simply watched.
Creak.
Time stops.
The Entity with the Black Orb descended before the Old Man.
An entity with two hollow eye sockets, who repeatedly gave birth to a new, eyeless self by tearing through those very sockets.
Such a being made a proposal to the Old Man.
If you swallow this, your strength will return.
With a temptation and phrasing that was all too cliché.
The words were sweet.
But among those who received this proposal, none failed to sense the ominousness within.
For the power felt from that orb was the very power they had fought against.
Because not a shred of altruism could be felt in the emotions of the one offering the orb.
Yet, they hesitate.
Because the proposal is so very sweet.
Even if it isn't a Black Orb, their many proposals are always too sweet.
That is why the gaze is drawn.
To see what choice the Old Man will make.
Refusal, or acceptance.
It is something already witnessed countless times.
Will he accept and receive a brief moment of light at the cost of long despair?
Will he refuse and wither away according to the natural order, having accomplished nothing?
No one exists who would be swayed by such an outcome.
What matters is the process.
From what thoughts will the Old Man choose that result?
Within the frozen time, time flows.
The Old Man deliberates.
The fact that he does not refuse immediately speaks to how sweet an option this is for him.
The one offering does not rush him.
For the one proposing, this too is an event that has occurred countless times.
He simply wishes to see the process before him.
‘I don't need it.’
Ultimately, the Old Man refuses.
He wanted to remain himself more than he wanted a momentary light.
A familiar result.
With that, the one proposing vanishes.
He does not ask again.
He does not urge again.
Therefore.
At the moment he re-entered his own eye sockets to return...
‘Was it you who stopped time?’
‘…….’
The one who descended does not answer.
There is no longer any need for words.
He is merely in the middle of vanishing.
To such a being...
‘Thank you.’
The Old Man bowed his head.
And then he spoke.
‘I was able to clear my head.’
The Old Man smiles.
A bright, stainless smile.
As if the pain of being oppressed by the defects born within him was nothing.
In that frozen time, the Old Man took a breath.
An attempt to endure the pain.
But it was a meaningless act.
The Old Man in that space was not the real Old Man.
No matter what happened inside for the sake of the proposal, or how much time passed, he was merely the Old Man existing as a mental body so as not to affect what was happening.
Therefore, even if the Old Man took a breath and loosened his joints within that frozen time—which was, in reality, time sliced unimaginably thin—it should have no effect on the battle.
However.
Distortions are bound to happen.
The proposal ends, and the battle resumes.
Liger’s left fist flies toward the Old Man’s face.
And the Old Man moved.
Thud.
He blocked one fist with the end of his staff.
Even as his wrist was torn apart by the massive force of the fist striking the staff, the Old Man did not let go of the rotating weapon.
Returning that energy in its entirety, he struck away Liger’s following right hand, and then...
Whack!
He struck Liger’s jaw.
A probability that could have existed, but existed somewhere infinitely far away.
The Old Man had executed it.
Distortions... are bound to happen.