Chapter 133: The Slanted Ceiling and the Mountain of Laughing Corpses - 5
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 133: The Slanted Ceiling and the Mountain of Laughing Corpses - 5
A faint voice escaped the Regressor as she barely managed to pull herself up.
“I... didn't want... to kill you either. I thought... there might be another way.”
She was a complete wreck, no matter how you looked at it. The Regressor seemed in no condition to fight any longer, but...
Drip, drip. The flowing blood reversed its course, drawn back by her Bloodcraft. At the same time, a gust of wind wrapped around her, brushing away the dirt and dust. For a moment, her body looked pristine.
Of course, that was only on the surface. Inside, her body had accumulated significant damage from the Earth Dragon's direct hit. It must have been difficult just to stand on her own two feet.
But the Regressor had a talent for turning pain and despair into righteous fury.
“I... just. I wanted to do well. Because no one else could do it. Because if I don't change, nothing changes... I thought if my intentions were good, if I tried with all my heart, everything would get better.”
In the early days of her regressions, when she could see things gradually improving, the Regressor had believed.
She believed she could appear wherever a problem arose, resolve every conflict, and create a peaceful, beautiful world. That if she just repeated it, again and again, things would eventually get better.
There was a time she believed that.
However.
“But why! Why, why! Whyyyy!”
The futures she couldn't change. The hearts she couldn't move. The firm beliefs, the stubbornness, the pride.
Corrupt organizations, wicked individuals, and the few good people among them were always the first to die in a crisis.
Those she trusted to help all had their own hidden agendas, leaving the Regressor to play the fool alone in their midst.
The one person who truly offered help would, their promise rendered meaningless, shake their head in the next timeline.
“Why won't anyone help me?!”
Filled with anguish, the Regressor lifted her head. A seven-colored rainbow flickered in her eyes.
The Crimson Eyes that saw temperature.
The Amber Eyes that looked down from above.
The Golden Eyes that saw the unseen.
The Jade Eyes that saw through all.
The Azure Eyes that saw depth.
The Indigo Eyes that saw afar.
The Violet Eyes that saw power.
The Seven Colored Eyes, Mystic Eyes so powerful that even one could shake the world. And now, all seven lights shone at once.
They weren't mixed, nor did they appear in sequence. The seven lights existed distinctly, yet flickered in unison.
A halo materialized in the Regressor's pupils, shimmering like stars in the night sky. It was hard to tell if what streamed from them were tears or trails of light.
All Seven Colored Eyes, open.
The Revolving Wheel of Heavens.
The power that could only be achieved when all seven Mystic Eyes gathered witnessed something beyond reason.
“If you're that desperate to die, then just die already! I'll worry about whether I can save you or not after that!!!”
The seven Mystic Eyes that saw the unseen—their collective will, the Revolving Wheel of Heavens, saw possibility.
The eyes that judged one's own potential, once known as the Eyes of Fate.
They were Mystic Eyes that had been shunned and torn asunder because of their ambiguity, their uncertainty, and the many who had been ruined by their obsession with fate. But for the Regressor, it was different.
For her, the fruits of possibility already existed, as numerous as her regressions.
She looks at herself.
She brings forth the potential of the human named Shei.
It was not prophecy, nor was it foresight. It was a power obtained in a past timeline. By reading and observing the potential she had realized in that timeline, she could replicate that power, if only for a moment.
The price was her lifespan.
But for the Regressor, that was something she had in abundance.
“Skyblade Art, Draconic Ascension!”
A storm raged behind the Regressor. Energy shot out in all directions, swirling violently. Kicking off the ground, she soared into the air and unleashed a massive slash wreathed in wind.
“You leap again. Do you have no capacity for learning...”
She would trap her with Dimensional Force and tear her apart with the Earth Dragon. Earth Sage clenched her fist and twisted it.
Kkigigik. The Earth Dragon's concrete body twisted with an ominous groan, like a pillar bearing too much weight.
“Hyaaaaaaah!”
“Earth Dragon.”
Springs weren't only made of metal. As long as it doesn't break, concrete can be a spring, too.
And the Earth Dragon, moved by Earth Sage's power, was more than qualified.
The earthen dragon surged forth, appearing before the Regressor in an instant.
And at that same instant, it was split exactly in two.
At the point where one became two, the Regressor cleaved the Earth Dragon vertically and closed the distance. Wreathed in the storm, she swung Chun-aeng at the defenseless Earth Sage.
It was a blow with enough force to split the clouds in the distant sky had it been swung on the ground.
Shwaaack.
Earth Sage's body was deeply cut. Blood poured from the wound, which could not be closed. It was a fatal blow, carving a line from her shoulder to her opposite hip.
But despite landing the strike, the Regressor didn't let her guard down. She immediately took a defensive stance and gritted her teeth.
Earth Sage's kick exploded upon her. The Regressor's body was sent flying like a ball.
Immediately after.
Crack. Earth Sage's right earring split. The crack perfectly mirrored the wound on her body. As the shattered earring fell to the ground, the gash on Earth Sage sealed shut as if stitched.
“Preceding Funeral...! How annoying! Why do you just come back to life even when you're on the verge of death?!” the Regressor snapped.
It wasn't healing, nor was it restoration. It merely postponed the injury. A technique for continuing the fight, Preceding Funeral worked by creating a voodoo doll of clay, transferring the impact to it, and 'acting' as if one's body were unharmed.
That's how it was described, but to see someone revive with it in the middle of a fight was just infuriating.
Of course, Earth Sage was even more bewildered.
“...How strange. Prophecy cannot change reality, and one cannot improve their skill without practice, even if they witness it. And yet, just now, it was as if your very skill had changed...”
The moment the kick landed, she had leaped forward to disrupt the point of impact. At the same time, she had extended an arm to brace against the leg, reducing the shock. That fluid movement and the flow of her Qi were completely different from before.
Her Qi Art, her physical abilities—everything was overwhelmingly superior to what it had been. Earth Sage could feel it.
“However. It is like you are wearing clothes a size too large; your disordered energy leaks out from the gaps. I do not know what it is, but this borrowed power will not last long.”
“Borrowed?! This is my original skill! Without this, I could beat you in just three more years... if it weren't for Jizan!”
Her rapidly depleting Qi weighed down her body. Still, the Regressor burned with indignation as she shouted.
“Surrender! This is the last time I'm asking nicely-!”
“I should be the one asking. You seem to be in a precarious state. Do you truly intend to fight on?”
“That's rich! If it weren't for your Preceding Funeral, you'd already be dead once!”
“You will have to kill me two more times.”
Jingle. The clay doll on Earth Sage's left ear swayed. An extra life.
And the last life was her own.
They exchanged a brief glance, confirming each other's resolve.
The Regressor raised her sword again, and Earth Sage cloaked herself in concrete. It had become a battle against time. The outcome would be decided by whether the Regressor could defeat Earth Sage before her time limit ran out.
As the Regressor glared up at Earth Sage with her shimmering eyes, she suddenly noticed a human figure moving atop the mountain of corpses in the distance.
The sight was so absurd she nearly fell over.
The Regressor's eyes widened.
'What is... What is he doing over there?!'
When the Undying thrust his fist through a corpse's stomach, the corpse didn't fall. Instead, it blankly stared down at the Undying's right arm buried in its torso.
A weak voice escaped the impaled corpse's lips.
"Soil."
Soil?
Another corpse reacted to the voice. The murmur flowed from corpse to corpse until, soon, all of them began to mutter the single word, "Soil."
Immediately after, their heads creaked as they turned. Their eyes rolled back. And they began to charge madly toward the Undying.
“Whoa! Callis, stay back!”
Before being swallowed by the wave of corpses, the Undying lifted Callis and threw her far away. Thrown so suddenly, Callis executed a breakfall and rolled across the ground.
After that, the Undying was swept away by the tide of corpses.
“Rasch!”
Callis's scream was buried beneath the corpses' chanting.
Bury, must bury.
Must honor the souls.
A frantic chant. A cry left with only its mission. The corpses in their loose-fitting clothes charged like thirsty beasts.
Callis gritted her teeth. Their numbers were already beyond what she could handle. Cursing her own powerlessness, Callis knelt before Tyr.
“Progenitor! Please! Save Rasch!”
“...I understand. Wait a moment.”
Tyr was just in the middle of levitating a host of blood droplets into the air when the Undying's booming voice echoed from within the swarm of corpses.
“Wait! Something is strange!”
The corpses swarmed like ants. A normal person would have been torn to shreds by now, but the Undying's voice was perfectly fine.
“They have less hostility than I thought! Perhaps they aren't trying to attack us...!”
And then the Undying's body rose from the mass of corpses. As if carrying a coffin, the corpses lifted him above their heads and began walking toward the summit of the mountain.
The Undying shouted from atop the corpses.
“Haha! I feel like a king!”
And then BOOM. The blood droplets Tyr had flicked out swept through the area beneath the Undying. It was an attack more like a plane than a line. The corpses were blown to pieces, and having lost his support, the Undying fell with a thud.
As the Undying rubbed his backside, Tyr muttered.
“That is no reason to leave them be. In any case, these vengeful spirits are nothing more than the echoes of the final screams of the dying. Eradicating them beforehand is, in fact, a mercy. Is it not, Hu...”
As she said this, Tyr turned her head.
Where I had been standing, there was now a corpse wearing my outer coat.
Tyr tilted her head, and upon belatedly grasping the situation, she turned pale, then horrified.
“Hu?!”
While the startled Tyr frantically looked around for me,
I was already riding one of the vengeful corpses, ascending the mountain of the dead.