Chapter 187: Maintenance
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 187: Maintenance
“You brought this on yourself, so you deal with it.”
When Baeksan added his two cents, I opened my mouth to speak, but then just lowered my head.
I had known this would happen from the start, so I had nothing to say.
“Hey.”
Just then, Heuksan called out to me, her face scrunched into a deep frown.
As I looked up at her, Eunnamu began to tremble faintly.
Her grip on her scythe was so tight it looked like it might break. Biting her lip, she looked up at the sky.
“…It’s here.”
It was easy enough to guess what she meant by ‘it’.
My own head was about to turn upward.
“Don’t look!”
Eunnamu rushed over and wrapped her arms around my head, shielding me.
The soft sensation against my face made me freeze for a moment, and I could feel Eunnamu’s body trembling faintly.
I patted her on the back to calm her down.
“It’s okay, Eunnamu. I’m fine.”
Unlike in the worldline Eunnamu was made to see, I was no longer the same Kang Ha-chan who just needed to be protected.
I wasn’t strong enough to protect anyone on my own yet, but I could at least join forces with everyone to protect someone.
“You don’t have to worry so much.”
At my words, Eunnamu’s trembling slowly began to subside.
She pulled back slightly to look at my face, then nodded.
My gaze finally lifted to the sky.
There, a single, bright yellow eye stared down blankly.
The eye, which covered the entire sky, radiated an energy on a completely different level from the Deep Sea Monarch.
Just looking at it gave me the bizarre sensation of ants crawling all over my skin.
Even though I was defending my body with aura, I could feel it seeping through.
“Ugh.”
“Si-ho!”
Just then, Si-ho let out a pained gasp and started to collapse, and I quickly caught her.
Her breathing was shallow, her face deathly pale.
Being relatively weaker than the rest of us, Si-ho hadn’t been able to fully withstand the mental attack.
I quickly infused her with my aura, just as I had done for Eunnamu before, and her complexion gradually began to improve.
“…Ha-chan.”
“It’s okay. Just rest.”
I stroked Si-ho’s hair, and she closed her eyes, leaning against me.
“Baeksan, you?”
“I’m fine, obviously.”
“If you’re not, say something immediately.”
“Quiet.”
His prickly attitude told me he was fine.
BOOOOOM!
At that moment, the sound of an explosion echoed from the city center.
Startled, I turned my head to see black smoke rising from various parts of the city.
“You don’t have to worry about that side,” Baeksan said.
As soon as he spoke, a blue barrier began to form over the city.
“With how many of them are over there, you think they can’t handle one little thing?”
I immediately realized it was the work of the returnees.
“Then what we have to take care of is…”
My head turned back to the eye in the sky.
The one lurking on the boundary.
Our job was to crush that thing.
“Eunnamu, you know how to defeat it, right?”
“…Yeah.”
Eunnamu’s voice was tinged with anxiety.
I could tell it was filled with worry for me.
But her unwavering eyes told me she knew exactly how to kill it.
That was enough.
“Tell me.”
If she was afraid, then it was my job to end that fear.
And so, I asked Eunnamu for the way to save her.
When she looked at me, paused for a moment in silence, and then finally spoke…
I could only stare at her with wide eyes.
But seeing the resolve in her gaze, I eventually, reluctantly, agreed.
“You’re sure you’ll be safe?”
“Yes. I’ve been preparing for this day.”
Eunnamu said, offering me a smile.
It was a deeply unsettling smile, but I had to let out a long sigh and nod.
“Alright. Because no matter what happens, I’ll find a way to save you.”
I had no intention of letting her story end like this, so I spoke with conviction.
Eunnamu’s face lit up with a smile, as if my words had made her happy, and she lifted her head toward the sky.
“Then, I’ll summon…”
Eunnamu suddenly stopped mid-sentence.
When I turned to her with a questioning look, I saw her staring at the sky with a hardened expression.
My gaze followed hers.
And my own face stiffened.
Because the eye that had been in the sky until just a moment ago was no longer looking at us, but in a different direction.
And that direction was, of all places, the city center.
“Why…?”
A voice of disbelief escaped Eunnamu’s lips.
She had clearly used the Deep Sea Monarch to draw its attention, so why was it looking at the city instead of her?
“It’s Erebos.”
Just then, Baeksan spoke, as if he had finally grasped the situation.
“He’s the one summoning it.”
The moment I heard that, my eyes shot to Eunnamu.
“Eunnamu, we have to go to the city.”
We had to stop Erebos.
*
In the city center, black smoke billowed from all directions.
A single woman walked slowly through the area being ravaged by the appearance of dimensional entities from the Divine Realm.
Her red skirt fluttered as she adjusted her black outer robe, scattering camellia petals around her.
At that moment, the dimensional entities turned their heads toward her.
The creatures clinging to the windows of buildings spotted their prey and, transforming into inky black masses, immediately rushed toward her.
It was a scene that would look dangerous to any observer, but to the woman walking forward, they posed no threat at all.
“It seems you don’t even know your place.”
As proof, the inky black dimensional entities were instantly sliced into dozens of pieces and scattered.
The creatures were torn to shreds, ripped so finely that not even a fragment remained.
Witnessing her swordsmanship, the other dimensional entities were struck with fear and quickly began to hide.
Heavenly Demon, Cheon Hong-ryeon.
Befitting her name, she walked with a noble air.
She was on a mission to kill a certain god.
“How long do you intend to flee like a rat?”
She spoke, her question echoing into the distance. As if in response, something emerged from the shadows.
The being, whose face and hair looked like a compressed universe, stared blankly at Cheon Hong-ryeon.
Erebos, a deity from Greco-Roman mythology.
The being, who had already fled five times, refused to fight Cheon Hong-ryeon.
Because Erebos knew all too well that her sword could even cut down a god.
“The eye that appeared in the sky earlier.”
The sky was no longer visible due to the barrier the returnees had erected.
But Cheon Hong-ryeon mentioned the eye she had seen and asked him, “Is that what you’re after?”
However, Erebos seemed to have no intention of answering, and began to seep back into the shadows.
Growing increasingly irritated, Cheon Hong-ryeon was about to scowl.
But instead of frowning, she let out a snort.
Because a pitch-black shadow had already gathered in the darkness Erebos was trying to merge with.
Thud!
Erebos, who had been trying to seep into the darkness, was repelled and fell toward the building below.
“I did it! This is the last chance! Get him!”
A man’s rough voice echoed out.
Beneath the darkness Erebos had tried to enter, Song Hyeok-seo was drenched in a cold sweat within the shadows.
While Erebos was being chased by Cheon Hong-ryeon, he had relentlessly pushed his own shadow into Erebos’s darkness, and had finally succeeded, just once, in blocking it off.
Looking up at Erebos, who was righting himself in mid-air, Cheon Hong-ryeon smiled coldly.
“Did you think I would just keep chasing you forever?”
In that instant, Cheon Hong-ryeon’s silhouette vanished.
Just as Erebos cloaked himself in divinity and threw a punch, Cheon Hong-ryeon was already there, blocking his fist with the flat of her blade.
Her movements were so fast that even Erebos struggled to follow them—truly worthy of the name Heavenly Demon.
A moment later, as red petals scattered, Erebos crashed to the ground.
CRASH!
With the resounding crash, even before Erebos had fully hit the ground, Cheon Hong-ryeon was already standing on his chest, her sword pointed at him.
She could have taken his head right then and there, but to resolve this whole mess, she needed to make him call off the dimensional entities from the Divine Realm.
And that power lay with Erebos.
Somehow, this being had acquired the power of a divine immortal and was even controlling the dimensional entities of the Divine Realm.
“If you want to live, call off your dimensional entities at once.”
Cheon Hong-ryeon’s eyes turned crimson, glowing eerily.
Trapped within an intense killing intent so powerful it could make one collapse just from meeting her gaze, Erebos simply looked up at her.
[ Heavenly Demon. ]
At that moment, Erebos’s voice echoed in Cheon Hong-ryeon’s mind.
Given his appearance, it was doubtful he even had a mouth, so Cheon Hong-ryeon listened in silence.
[ Why do you think I summoned the dimensional entities of the Divine Realm? ]
Hearing this, Cheon Hong-ryeon snorted.
“As if I care. Your life is in my hands right now.”
Her reply was one befitting someone who believed herself the sole master of heaven and earth.
But Erebos paid it no mind.
[ The world must keep moving. ]
Erebos’s inscrutable eyes turned toward the sky.
Hearing his next words, Cheon Hong-ryeon’s brow furrowed for the first time.
Because she knew Erebos was not lying.
[ I am merely helping the world move for as long as possible. ]
“Wasn’t your goal to merge dimensions and take over another?”
At that, Erebos’s hair began to tremble.
It was his way of laughing.
[ We are all trapped in a tiny, little world. What would we do with another? ]
Hearing him directly deny the founding principle of Girasung, Cheon Hong-ryeon slowly raised her head.
Because even she could feel something ominous looming in the sky above.
[ A world abandoned by the Tower of Revelation cannot continue. ]
Erebos seemed to be looking at something far beyond the sky, beyond even the universe.
[ Then what is the Tower of Revelation? ]
Cheon Hong-ryeon could not comprehend what was reflected in his eyes.
[ We must not let the world reach its final chapter. ]
And then, the sky began to tilt.
[ So that we do not become those who, having reached their end, must chase after the Tower of Revelation. ]
SHATTER!
The sound of the barrier erected by the returnees breaking apart echoed through the air.
In that instant, the bright yellow eye from before could be seen in the sky, staring down at this very spot.
WUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNG!
In response, the dimensional entities of the Divine Realm let out a collective howl toward the heavens.
[ Because the story must not end. ]
As he finished speaking, a flash of light erupted from Erebos.