Chapter 458: Who Comes First: The Many, or the One?
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 458: Who Comes First: The Many, or the One?
This was insane. How did things end up like this? I’d expected to be cooped up for a while, but a vampire’s “while” could mean years…
I had to find a way out.
“But I can’t just sit here and do nothing, can I?”
[What are you planning now?]
The moment I said I was going to do something, she glared at me with suspicion. I definitely couldn't say I was planning on going anywhere. Instead, I moved closer and gently wrapped an arm around her. I could feel some of Tyr’s tension ease.
In the past, she would have scolded me for daring to touch her so indecently. Tyr really had changed.
“There’s not much else to do. I’ll just stay here and play with my doll. And what a perfect doll I have right here.”
[If you mean that, it is yours to do with as you please.]
“I tried, but it seems to have separation anxiety.”
[That depends on how you use it. Does not everything have its proper use?]
I sat Tyr down on my lap and began to comb through her hair with my fingers. Even for a vampire, it seemed a fierce battle inevitably left her hair tangled. I gently worked through each knot, then asked, as if to confirm.
“Tyr.”
[Speak.]
“You want me to change, don’t you?”
I had already changed Tyr. Even if it was her own desire, the fact that I was the one who changed her remained. This, too, was only possible because I had lost my power and become ordinary, but…
Tyr turned her head slightly and asked.
[If I wished it, would you change?]
“I’m sorry.”
The Beast King is the herald of all beasts. It might not be the perfect analogy, but the Beast King is like the personification of a poll taken of all beasts. That’s why he must be strong. Though for some reason unknown even to me, I had lost my strength…
At my apology, Tyr turned away from me again.
[There is no need to apologize. Just as you are, I too am merely acting on my own stubbornness.]
“I’m really sorry.”
[I said there’s no need.]
“For more than just that.”
Her hair was untangled. With a hand crackling with static, I pulled Tyr into a hug from behind. Even though my hands were on her chest, she accepted it without resistance.
This way of binding Hu… this isn’t the ideal relationship everyone would envy.
Tyr placed her own hands over mine, lost in thought.
But even the worst cohabitation is better than being parted from Hu. I am sorry, Hu, for making you suffer because of my greed.
“…For using your affection for me like this.”
The Divine is an enlightenment that brings great change to the species of humanity. Something that gives form to the highest knowledge.
And the enlightenment that deals with the human body itself may seem trivial compared to the grand principles of nature… but to humans, nothing is more important.
“Set, Franc.”
Lightning crackled in my hand. The flashing pulse of light resonated with Tyr’s heart.
Tyr felt her body suddenly stiffen. For a moment, she lost control. Sensing something was wrong, she tried to use her Bloodcraft to quickly restore her body and regain command.
But she failed. The Ace of Hearts, the card embedded in her heart, resisted her Bloodcraft, if only for an instant. Her hands went astray, trembling uncontrollably. I held her tighter, channeling the lightning in my hand into her body.
Tyr’s body was functioning perfectly. In fact, it was functioning too well—that was the problem.
‘—!!!’
“The shock would be too much for an ordinary person… but you’ll be fine, Tyr.”
The senses are the windows through which we perceive the world. The light, the sound, the temperature, and the vibrations that flow through those windows change us.
But… those windows aren’t wide open.
All life is born with the instinct to protect itself. The world is death. Sickness, insects, blades, sunlight, curses—everything that can alter and break the body comes from the outside.
Life is the act of maintaining the difference between myself and the world, and death is when the world and I finally become one. To resist change is to be alive; to stop is to welcome death.
The human body created windows to respond to the changes of the outside world. But it also installed glass panes to prevent those changes from coming inside. The world we perceive is nothing more than harmless, processed information, filtered once through glass.
And that follows the law of lightning.
The lightning I held flowed through the pathways. The paths of lightning carved throughout Tyr’s body were of my own making. She couldn’t resist. Her body may be her own, but I was the one who carved the paths. I was the one who installed the windows in their frames.
The Homunculus' Dilemma. If you build a body by borrowing another’s power… this can happen.
That’s why I never wanted to do this. I was afraid I might one day use it like this.
‘—!!!!!’
Tyr’s thoughts stopped. A tsunami of sensation rushed into the void. Senses amplified to such an extreme cannot distinguish between pleasure and pain. It overwhelmed her thoughts with its sheer presence, dominating her body.
The last time I touched her, I only used the power of the Divine. The scale was similar to the lightning flowing through my own body. But what I was using now was Standard Magic. It was a weak electric shock, hardly an offensive spell… but when channeled directly into the nerves, it inflicted sensations thousands of times more intense than normal.
Bloodcraft, her powers—none of it could be used without consciousness. A relentless assault that left no room for thought rendered even the most formidable power meaningless.
She could stop it now by stopping her heart and returning to a dead body, but I knew Tyr would never choose that path.
[—!! —!]
I cupped her face with one hand. With the other, I held her body tight, filling her every sense with my own. Her senses were amplified thousands, tens of thousands of times over.
Tyr’s soft body went rigid like a block of wood. Her muscles, tensed to their limit, forced her upright. Her back arched like a bow, and she gasped for breath as if hyperventilating. With each desperate gasp, she inhaled my scent and trembled even more violently.
Right now, all her senses were in a state of extreme amplification. Touch, taste, and smell would drive her mad. Her tongue lolled limply from her foolishly agape mouth.
[Hah, huah. Hhng, hhhngh!]
A torrent of sensation that would drive an ordinary human insane washed over her. But as a vampire capable of regenerating her body, she would inevitably heal even her burnt-out nerves. Trapped in a pleasure she could neither escape nor grow accustomed to, Tyr wept and shuddered.
She was already neutralized, but Tyr was too strong to let my guard down. I tormented her senses to a degree that felt a little excessive.
This would be my first and last chance.
How much time had passed?
When I came to my senses, my body was drenched. Tyr, who had never shed anything but blood, was now leaking sweat and tears from the torrent of sensation that filled her entire being. A sound that was neither a cry nor a scream escaped her parted lips.
Fortunately, there was no damage to her body. After all, I had only amplified her senses; the shock itself was minimal. The power was far too weak to harm the Progenitor, Tyrkanzyaka.
Without letting my guard down, I carefully lifted Tyr. Perhaps because I had amplified her senses too much, the mere brush of her clothes against her skin sent a spasm through her body. A foolish moan escaped her lips along with a trail of saliva.
I laid the exhausted Tyr on the bed and whispered.
“I was holding back then, too.”
Tyr stared blankly with unfocused eyes. I thought she was looking at me, but her pupils didn't follow my movements. She was completely unconscious.
It couldn’t be helped. If she were conscious, she would have stopped me. This was the best I could do.
“Thank you. But… I can’t grant your wish to change me. I’m the Beast King, too. The moment I change must be the moment humanity changes.”
To wish to change oneself. That desire is fine. If one has sufficient will and ability, I can grant it.
To wish to change another. That desire has nothing to do with me. Others have their own desires, independent of one’s own will or effort. The only way is to persuade them. I do not interfere.
But if that other person is me, I resist.
Because I am a mind reader. Because a wish can actually change me. That’s why I must resist. Otherwise, I’ll be swayed back and forth until I become nothing at all.
It sounds complicated, but it’s simple. Imagine someone wished for me to die. I can’t just kill myself to grant it, can I? Protecting myself is the top priority.
…A wish to be loved isn’t quite on that level, but it changes me all the same.
Heave-ho. Well, I did beat Tyr this one time. Not something I can brag about, though.
What? A cowardly victory that relied on my power? Then Tyr should have come at me without her Bloodcraft.
In any case, there was no one else around. Tyr had wanted a place with no people, so she’d brought me to a villa a short distance from the castle. That was fortunate for me, too. It would take some time for her to regain consciousness and grasp the situation.
I turned my back on the dark room, opened the door, and stepped outside…
[Don’t go.]
The voice came without any presence, without any thought. Startled, I spun around, but Tyr was still unconscious. My mind-reading couldn’t pick up any thoughts.
But Tyr’s shadow, alive and moving like a person, was holding me back.
[Where are you going? Don’t go.]
Tyr’s shadow. A manifestation of her Bloodcraft, created in her image by her power, was clinging to me and whining like a child.
I couldn’t read its thoughts. This was not human. It was a collection of power, a being Tyr had created by reinterpreting her own body as a power, in order to wield that power. It was too much like her to be called a familiar, and too… changed to be called human.
“But can I really say this isn’t human?”
I reached out a hand to the shadow. I could feel the blood pulsing beneath its skin. I couldn’t read the shadow’s thoughts… but I could tell that an immense power was contained within its form.
A homunculus? No, it was slightly different. A homunculus structurally replicated a human, but this shadow functionally replicated one. Its red eyes were clearly fixed on me, and its blood sent power throughout its massive body. The power it held was beyond comparison to any homunculus.
“Humans are beasts. They can do anything they are capable of. I just didn’t know they were capable of this.”
A manifestation of power created so Tyr could wield her full strength. When manifested outside her body, it appeared almost human. As it was ultimately a created tool, it was quite different from a human.
But one day, this power would reach humanity. When that day comes, distinctions of beast or species will truly become meaningless.
I tried to shake off the shadow.
“Let go.”
[You can’t go.]
“I’m going.”
[Do you hate being with me?]
“No, I like it. But I hate being only here.”
[I hate it too. I don’t want to be alone.]
Damn. I had a feeling, but I never thought the shadow could move on its own. I took out the Eight of Spades and pressed it against the wall like a stamp. The wall caved in, and a cascade of cards poured from the opening.
The cards were nothing more than thin scraps of metal. A trivial result for the power of the Divine. But… the power of the Golden Lord begins with these trivial pieces.
Alchemy. I swept my hand over the cards, which flowed like a liquid under the influence of the mana that changes all things. An alchemical glow flashed, weaving and binding the cards together.
The cards are the material. The Golden Lord’s enlightenment began there. Diversity arises from differences in structure, not from the constituent elements, which are all the same. Therefore, what matters is not one’s origin, but how one is put together.
The cards, which should have scattered, instead formed a single saber. I aimed the hastily made sword at the shadow.
“I have to go.”
[To do what?]
“To catch up to humanity.”
[Why?]
“They’re getting further and further away. So I have to run hard, too. Otherwise… a being on the borderline like you will be left behind.”
Could I defeat the shadow with my power? Impossible. If I used all the powers of the Divine, I might be able to escape somehow… but I’d save swinging the sword as a last resort.
The shadow didn’t seem to feel threatened, but it clearly understood my intent. Tyr’s shadow retreated slightly.
[You’re trying to abandon me.]
“I’ve never done that. I won’t abandon Tyr, and I won’t abandon you.”
[You really won’t?]
“I haven’t. I know Tyr. And I know you, her power. I will never forget.”
A thousand years of Bloodcraft, researched and refined by the Elders and vampires. Tyr’s power, the culmination of it all. The shadow of the Divine, possessing all the functions of a human.
It was missing something to become a Divine, something very minor… but I wasn’t sure what. I guessed it might be an issue of the power’s specificity. Tyr used her power for herself, so her enlightenment was never meant for all of humanity. It was her very specialness that prevented her from becoming a Divine.
Because it wasn’t meant for all of humanity, I couldn’t use it either. Same as Qi Art or mana. It was a shame, but this, too, was a discovery.
[Then.]
It was then that the shadow lunged toward me. I didn’t sense a presence, not even a hint of movement. I was pathetically weak without my mind-reading—a fact I was realizing far too late. By the time I reacted and tried to swing the saber, the shadow was already swallowing me whole.
Darkness wrapped around my arm, pulling me somewhere. Its head met mine, our lips touched, and then it was gone, as if sucked away. Darkness flooded my body through every orifice. It felt as if the shadow was merging with me.
My vision went black. My body floated. With my mind-reading useless and darkness enveloping me, I couldn’t feel a thing. The only world permitted to me now was my own pathetic body.
Just as I was steeling myself for the end in this breathless world, a cold energy flowed through my veins.
A chill coursed through blood vessels so fine that comparing them to threads would be an insult. The cool energy melted into my bloodstream, seeming to declare, Your blood is here. The blood, having made a swift circuit from my fingertips to my toes, returned to my heart. As my heart reacted violently to the cold, the chill surged like a torrent toward my lungs.
And then the darkness receded from my body.
My vision returned in a flash. As I staggered backward, the shadow flickered before me. The girlish shadow, modeled after Tyr, had left ‘something’ inside me before separating again.
The shadow spoke.
[Take it with you.]
“Take what? What did you put inside me?”
The shadow didn’t answer. It melted back into the darkness like a sinking object and returned to Tyr’s side. With no thoughts to read, I would have to figure out what it had done on my own. It was cruel to give a problem to solve to someone whose life revolved around cheating.
Fortunately, what the shadow had left behind wasn’t too difficult to understand. Which made it all the more puzzling.
“This is… me?”
The body Tyr knew best was her own. The fact that the shadow she modeled after herself could speak and act on its own was a testament to her deep understanding.
And the second body she knew best was mine.
I am not a vampire. Tyr has never controlled my blood.
But Tyr was the Progenitor. Living together, watching over me, sharing our bodies. Tyr had observed me quietly. She had felt the blood pulsing beneath my skin. She had felt the heat my body radiated and heard the beating of my heart.
Tyr had the ability, ample opportunity, and a will greater than anyone’s to learn about my body. Though it wasn’t planned, Tyr had come to understand my body as well as I understood hers.
What the shadow had delivered was my body, sculpted from Tyr’s love and attention.
However.
“But this isn’t human. It’s my body.”
It was knowledge so deeply personal that it could not belong to humanity. The King of Humans couldn’t use it. There was a reason I couldn’t use Qi Art or mana. Those two powers, the pinnacles of self-cultivation, were the powers of an individual, forbidden to me as the Beast King.
So, while I was grateful for this knowledge Tyr had given me, it was completely use…
Suddenly, my left wrist grew hot. Something had entered the Bio-receptor engraved there by the Military State. When? How? There was no time to think. Despite the dizzying pain, I carefully pulled out the thin card that had been inside. Stained with my blood, the card’s familiarity only made it feel more out of place.
This shouldn’t be a Divine, so why is it here?
I slowly turned the card over. The Six of Spades. On the Idol of the Divine, red letters were glowing.