Chapter 132
Chapter 132
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 132
Chapter Title: Nightfall at Noon (8)
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"...What nonsense are you spouting?"
Cheon Do-yoon scowled, glaring at Oh-jin.
The sun was still beating down, hot enough to sting his skin. How could he possibly say it was dark?
"Have you gone blind...?"
As he narrowed his eyes and looked up at the sky.
"Huh?"
Cheon Do-yoon could see it.
The clear blue sky, once cloudless, was being swallowed by darkness.
Night was falling in the middle of the day.
"W-what is this! W-what have you done, you bastard!!"
Cheon Do-yoon cried out in a panicked voice, stumbling backward.
It wasn't because the blue sky had been stained with darkness.
No, in fact, the sky itself was still shining a brilliant blue.
What had been plunged into darkness was not the sky.
"Hah! Hah! Hah! W-what in the world is happening...?"
He fumbled at his eyes, his shoulders trembling.
He couldn't see.
Anything.
Even if it had grown dark, a man with a superhuman body like his shouldn't have lost his sight.
It was as if he'd gone blind.
A thick darkness that obscured even an inch in front of him had stolen his vision.
-*Crackle, crackle.*
Just then, a crackling sound echoed from within his sightless world.
When he frantically turned his head toward the sound.
"Ah, ahh."
A pair of blue will-o'-the-wisps burned in the darkness.
Like goblin fire, only the ominous blue light flickered in the deep gloom.
"Damn it, damn it, damn it!!"
Cheon Do-yoon flailed his arms, his face a mask of confusion.
Among human senses, sight accounts for over 80%.
Instantly robbed of 80% of his senses, he fell into a panic.
-*Thud, thud.*
Footsteps echoed softly in the darkness.
Like the sound of dripping water in the dead of night, the eerie footsteps made Cheon Do-yoon's face turn pale.
"D-do you think I can't handle a punk like you just because I can't see?!"
Putting on a clumsy show of bravado, he recklessly fired his feathers toward the flickering blue lights.
*Shushushushuk!!*
The sound of the feathers flying was faint.
Perhaps it had some effect; the blue lights burning in the distance vanished as if blown out like a candle.
"Hoh, hohol!! Didn't I tell you?! I can handle a mere brat like you even without my sight!!"
He burst into laughter, shouting toward where the blue lights had disappeared.
He couldn't be sure if the attack had landed, but considering Oh-jin's precarious state—on the verge of death just moments ago—he was confident he had finished him off.
"Hohol!! Ho..."
But why?
The ominous blue lights were definitely gone.
The crackling sound and that insolent voice were no longer heard.
Why, why, why.
Is the world still—so utterly dark?
"Damn it! Why, why can't I see yet!!"
Cheon Do-yoon cried out impatiently, fumbling at his eyes.
"Hah! Hah!"
Anxiety spread like poison.
Maybe, just maybe.
He would remain blind—forever.
Trapped in an endless night.
"Damn it! Dammit all!!"
He writhed as if having a seizure.
*Thump!*
Did his foot catch on a loose stone? He momentarily lost his balance.
"Kuh...!"
He quickly righted himself, barely avoiding an unsightly fall.
'What... is this.'
An eerie chill ran down his spine.
The strange sense of wrongness he'd been feeling grew clearer.
"It's not just... my sight."
Even with his vision gone, he was a 9-Star Awakened, a being considered to have transcended humanity.
His senses weren't so dull that he would stumble over a simple stone.
Yet, the fact that he had just tripped on a stone meant one thing.
'My other senses... they've all been dulled.'
Smell, touch, hearing. Perhaps even taste, for all he knew.
They weren't completely gone like his sight, but he could feel his other senses had been significantly blunted.
"Hah, hah, hah!"
His own breathing sounded as if it were coming from far away.
A suffocating fear, as if he'd been cast adrift alone in space, pressed down on him.
-*Crackle.*
Then.
A faint sound echoed in his ear.
"Kugh!!"
He frantically turned his head toward the sound.
Only the impenetrable darkness was there.
"Wh-where are you!!"
He screamed, but there was no reply.
"Where are you, you baaastaaard!!!"
*Shushushushushuk!!!!*
He drew upon his Stigma's power, firing feathers in every direction.
Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of feathers swept the area like a storm.
"Hah! Hah! Hah!!"
Was it his imagination?
His stamina was draining rapidly, as if he were struggling violently underwater.
'No.'
It wasn't his imagination.
"Gasp! Gasp!"
Like parched earth soaking up water.
He could feel the power of his Stigma being depleted at an alarming rate.
"Where are you!! Where the hell are youuuu!!"
But he couldn't stop attacking.
In this thick darkness where he couldn't tell front from back, up from down.
The only thing that allowed him to endure was the power of the Stigma on his left chest.
The moment he stopped attacking with his Stigma—an unbearable premonition that he would be trapped in this endless darkness forever tightened its grip on him.
"Gasp! Hah! Gasp!"
His breath came in ragged gasps.
The vast reserves of power he had gained as a 9-Star Awakened were vanishing as if absorbed by a sponge.
'This should be enough...?'
He didn't know where the hell he was hiding.
He had unleashed enough attacks in every direction to obliterate a mountain without a trace.
With this much power, even if the bastard had been in perfect condition, he would have been swept away and killed.
"There was no place to hide..."
As a faint smile touched his lips and he unconsciously glanced around.
-*Crackle.*
There it was again.
A clear sound.
"—Ah."
Unlike before, when he couldn't tell where it was coming from, this time he knew exactly where the sound originated.
And for good reason.
It came from right under his chin.
"Wha, t."
He frantically lowered his head.
Close enough for their noses to touch.
A pair of ominously burning blue will-o'-the-wisps.
"Ah, ahh."
*Stumble, stumble.*
He staggered backward.
A horrifying chill ran across his skin.
If those flickering blue lights were coming from the bastard's eyes.
Then while he had been rampaging, madly spewing feathers.
The bastard had been.
All along, all along, all along, all along, all along.
"U-ah."
His face turned deathly pale.
The thought that he had been standing there the whole time, close enough to feel his breath, sent an unbearable wave of terror through him.
"Uwaaaaaaaah!!!"
Casting aside all semblance of a king's dignity.
Cheon Do-yoon fell disgracefully on his rear.
He felt a warm wetness spread between his legs.
"Y-you baaaaaastard!!!"
Having lost his reason, he flailed his arms forward.
He rained black feathers down upon the ominous blue lights.
"Bla-Black Wing Bloom! Black Wing Bloom!!!"
It was a pathetic attack, unleashed while pissing himself.
But he was an Awakened who had reached the 9-Star realm, a level said to be attainable by only a chosen few among the countless stars in the night sky.
The storm of black feathers, imbued with destructive power, descended upon the blue lights.
However.
-*Bzzzzzzzt!!!*
With a sound like sparking electricity, lightning erupted.
Not the blue lightning Noerang had used until now, but black lightning, as if woven from darkness itself.
*Patter, patter.*
The feathers, flying with destructive force, suddenly lost their power and fell to the ground.
"Eek!!"
Cheon Do-yoon gritted his teeth and extended his arm forward.
*Zap.*
A bolt of black lightning grazed his outstretched arm.
-*Crumble.*
"...Huh?"
The sensation below his left elbow vanished.
"Ah, ahh."
A suppressed groan escaped Cheon Do-yoon's lips.
A distant terror spread like ink in water.
"Why... how, why...?"
Because his arm had been severed so futilely?
Because blood was gushing from the stump?
"Ah, ugh."
No.
The reason he was trembling in such terror.
"Uwaaaaaaaahhh!!"
Was because, despite his arm being severed.
He felt no pain at all.
"S-stop!!! Stooooop!!"
He screamed, engulfed in a maddening fear.
"I-I surrender!! The Dragon's Eye! The Dragon's Heart! I'll give them all up!!"
They were treasures he had coveted so desperately.
But now, they didn't matter.
"S-so please!! Pleaaaaase!!"
He didn't need the Dragon's Eye or the Dragon's Heart.
To hell with the Queen of the Serpent's orders.
"J-just let me out of here!!! Please!!!"
If he could just escape this maddening darkness.
None of that.
Mattered at all.
-*Crumble.*
The black lightning flashed, and this time, the sensation in his right arm disappeared.
Still.
There was no pain.
"Ah, ahh. S-stop. Stop..."
Have you ever imagined it?
In a darkness so complete you can't see an inch in front of you.
The terror of your body's senses vanishing one by one, as if a switch were being flipped.
As if your very existence is being erased from the world.
This maddening despair.
-*Crumble.*
The sensation in both his legs vanished.
-*Crumble.*
The sensation below his waist vanished.
-*Crumble.*
The sensation in both his shoulders vanished.
"No... no... please..."
Cheon Do-yoon begged, tears streaming down his face.
"You want to get out of here?"
Just then.
A low voice spoke from the impenetrable darkness.
Cheon Do-yoon's eyes widened as he nodded his head frantically.
"Y-yes! Please let me out!! I'll do anything you say! S-so please!!"
He had no idea why Vega's Apostle possessed such a horrifying ability.
But what did that matter?
If it meant being freed from this maddening darkness, he would even lick his feet.
"Then let's make a deal. You like deals, don't you? Right?"
*Flinch.*
Cheon Do-yoon's shoulders shuddered.
"Do one thing for me, and I'll let you out."
Like a demon's temptation.
The voice echoed sweetly.
"R-really? You'll let me out of here?"
A glimmer of hope appeared in Cheon Do-yoon's eyes.
Like a man clinging to a rope lowered from a cliff's edge, he prostrated himself and looked up at the demon.
"Of course. It's true."
Below the eerily burning blue lights, a set of pearly white teeth was revealed.
"I don't know how to lie."