Chapter 609: Regression is a Bitch After ???? Tries
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 609: Regression is a Bitch After ???? Tries
The Heavenly Counter Domain was created to defy the heavens.
Talent is a gift from the heavens.
You are emotional, simple, and rash. A child as untalented as you should never have learned Qi Arts in the first place. The foundation of Qi Arts is to distinguish the self from the world, to imbue one’s will into the flesh and unleash it. It is a garment that does not suit you.
When others take ten steps, you will struggle to take one. When others leap forward, you will crawl on your belly like a newborn.
However, the Heavenly Counter Domain is fair, even to one as untalented as you. It is honest with everyone.
Regardless of heaven-sent talent, as long as you possess a human body, you can achieve mastery by engraving experience and effort upon that body.
Without conscious will, with only pure experience and sensation, you will move by controlling your body through the subconscious. If you master the Heavenly Counter Domain, you will become a mighty warrior whose name will echo throughout the world.
…However. To reach the Axiom with a Qi Art devoid of will, for a dullard who chose the second-best path to reach the pinnacle, it will require effort many times, tens of times, hundreds of times greater than others. An eternity of experience and effort that can never be contained within a single human lifetime.
For you, who regresses each time you die, perhaps… you might be able to reach that state.
But I wish for you, Shei, that you never reach that state.
That so many scars are not etched upon your fragile body and mind.
That you save the world before the infinite cycle grinds you to dust.
…That is all I can hope for.
*
Nevida felt no great emotion despite having killed Shei. The woman had been quite sharp and impressive, but she was just one of many powerful foes Nevida had faced in her long life. She wasn't that exceptional.
Still, one thing bothered her.
“Wasn’t she a Saintess?”
Fighting Shei had felt like fighting a Saintess.
Occasionally, a combat-specialized Saintess like the Saintess of Steel would appear, but fundamentally, a Saintess was not a warrior. The power of a Saintess was to see the future and twist its flow.
Politics, strategy, schemes, coincidences—the true nature of a Saintess was to seize ‘victory’ through any means necessary. That was why a Saintess’s victory was promised the moment she appeared. Everything that followed was merely a pointless struggle, irrelevant to the outcome of the war.
Paradoxically, the only way to fight a Saintess was to ignore such things and resist anyway.
“…”
After a moment of thought, instead of returning to the Human Regime’s floor, Nevida moved to confirm Shei’s death. She had decided that the threat of a Saintess outweighed all others.
Finding the trail was easy. Shei’s flying body had left a path of destruction as if a bulldozer had plowed through dozens of trees. Nevida landed lightly upon it.
At the end of her gaze, she saw a blood-soaked hand hanging limply. It was Shei’s. The rest of her was buried under rocks and logs, invisible. But the blood seeping out from beneath painted a gruesome picture of her end.
She was certainly dead. Even the King of Hell would have ruled it so. Nevida thought the same. All that was left was to return and grind the druids who dared interfere with the King’s resurrection into fertilizer.
“Born from nature, to nature’s embrace.”
Offering a perfunctory eulogy as a druid, Nevida prepared to leave. But as she turned, a small groan reached her ears.
“Ah.”
It was far too clear and pure to be a death rattle. The utterly alien quality of the voice made Nevida turn back instinctively.
It was Shei.
She looked like Shei, and she was in a place where no one but Shei could have appeared. So Nevida understood the being to be Shei.
“So this is it. The bookmark I placed.”
And yet, she was so very different from Shei.
There is a toy called a thaumatrope. It’s a disc with different pictures on each side, attached to a string or stick. When spun rapidly, the afterimages of the two pictures merge into one.
Shei’s form looked just like such a picture.
Her bleached-white hair shimmered like light. It was impossible to tell if it was long or short. Her face, which seemed transcendent and detached from life, sparkled with an overwhelming vitality.
Infinitely transient, as if she might vanish at any moment, yet Shei was clearly there.
Disappearing, reappearing, laughing, crying. Shei was both, and she was neither. It was an unknown phenomenon, the likes of which even the worldly Nevida had never seen.
If there was one point where the two afterimages overlapped, it was Shei’s gaze. With eyes shimmering in seven colors, Shei was staring at the very top of the Tree of Genesis.
“Is Hughes still up there? Waking the King of Humans? There’s still a little time left, right? It’s okay if I watch, right…?”
Her excited, plaintive voice was thick with emotion.
There had been no sound, no presence. Nevida looked at the pile of rocks that had crushed Shei moments before. The rocks were still there, as natural objects should be. Only Shei had vanished from within.
“Were you hiding your power?”
Shei answered, her gaze still fixed above.
“No. I was hiding my memories.”
“…Your memories?”
“Yes. If Qi Arts can control the body, and memories are just signals etched into the brain, then it means Qi Arts can be used to block and hide parts of those memories. The Heavenly Counter Domain is a Qi Art that governs the subconscious, so as long as I’m using it, it even blocks the possibility of subconsciously recalling those memories.”
Nevida wouldn’t have known, but this was the enlightenment of the Lightning Thief. Shei was casually applying the realization of a Divine who, fearing his discovery would be misused, had turned himself over to the Sanctum.
“Though, if I take a shock strong enough to break the Heavenly Counter Domain, like now, they flash before my eyes like a dying panorama.”
When a shock strong enough to cause instant death shattered the Heavenly Counter Domain, the consciousness of Shei trapped within would awaken, like hatching from a hard shell.
Nevida looked at the transformed Shei and asked, “Why would you do such a thing?”
Memories were accumulated experience. To block them? Nevida asked as if she couldn't comprehend it. Shei had no obligation to answer, but she smiled brightly as if she had been waiting for that very question.
“Because Hughes can read minds.”
She said it so casually, the fact that even her thoughts could be invaded, and even laughed as if she were happy about it.
“…What?”
“You know? Hughes always helps me. It doesn’t matter when, where, or how we meet. The fastest way to meet him is to enter the Abyss, but even if I don’t, Hughes ends up helping me. Even if I don’t say anything, even if I don’t want anything. He reads my desires and acts!”
Shei didn’t seem to care about Nevida’s reaction at all. With a dreamy voice like a girl in love, Shei chirped happily. Then, her expression suddenly darkened, and she muttered.
“Except for one time… when I knew about his mind-reading. That’s the only time he doesn’t.”
It was sudden, but it was new information. Nevida asked her, “The King can read the hearts of humans?”
“Yes. Hughes reads desires. And he asks. Is that desire worth sacrificing your life and killing everyone around you to achieve? Hughes dislikes desires that disregard life, but he respects them. So he gives them a chance to fulfill their desire until the very end, and if they still choose to give up their life, he fulfills that desire for them to complete it. On the other hand, he doesn’t acknowledge desires to save others in the same way.”
Even when veiled by lies and deceit, swept away in a ceaseless inner monologue, only the cold, emotionless result reveals the direction of a desire. After dozens, hundreds of repeated regressions, Shei had a sudden realization.
“It’s not barbaric. Hughes is merciful. He gives everyone a chance to fulfill their desire. Whether they’re good or evil. Then again, maybe that itself is a form of barbarism.”
One could say she was too slow to realize, or that he had hidden it well. Perhaps a mercy that was impartial to all had little to do with goodness. So much so that it couldn't prevent the world's destruction.
Having poured out the emotions hidden within her shell, Shei let out a small sigh and said, “Maybe that’s why. When I know my mind is being read and I cling to Hughes, entrusting my desires to him… he always ends up leaving me. I had no choice but to hide my memories. Otherwise, he would eventually leave me.”
It was hard for Nevida, who had no context, to empathize. But in this situation, Nevida realized one clear truth.
“You are a Saintess after all.”
Only a Saintess speaks incomprehensible words with an incomprehensible foresight. And a Saintess was Nevida’s enemy. The druid, who had lived since time immemorial, knew the truth that simplicity was the wisest form of thought.
Shei glanced at Nevida preparing for battle and let her words drift.
“Maybe. But I don’t think that’s important. What’s important is Hughes. Even memories that repeat meaninglessly, that don’t accumulate no matter how hard I try, that vanish in vain… when I’m with him, they eventually connect. The memories that have unilaterally built up inside me ride my heart and build up inside him too.”
Nevida, who had wandered for thousands of years after losing her king, must have been in a similar position. Perhaps even worse than Shei. Nevida’s king could not have laughed and talked like Shei’s.
Shei empathized with Nevida a little. And she was certain that Nevida would understand her, too.
“I will get him back. The one and only person who can share my journey.”
Shei reached out her hand.
Just like that, her hand was already inside the Little World Tree. It passed through the dense leaves and thick branches, grasping Jizan, which was trapped inside.
‘Passed through?’
Even the expression ‘passed through’ wasn’t quite right. To Nevida’s Qi Sense, it seemed as if Shei’s hand had skipped the process of reaching for Jizan and simply appeared there.
Nevida reacted by swinging the Little World Tree. In a fraction of a second, the overgrowth, fed on vital essence, exploded outward, engulfing Shei.
“Ouch.”
Pushed back by the green explosion, Shei stumbled, losing her balance. But she had already achieved her goal. Jizan, which had been sealed in the roots of the Little World Tree, was now held firmly in Shei’s hand.
It was an alien power. It was probably related to the faint flickering that appeared all over Shei’s body. Nevida observed Shei carefully and said, “A phasing ability.”
“It’s a little… different. It’s called Stair-step. It limits the world’s unit of movement, letting me walk through the gaps between them like stairs.”
“What?”
“The world is a slope, not a set of stairs. If you can take one step, you can take half a step, and a quarter of a step. A sixteenth of a step… you think you can walk in infinitely divisible steps. But you’re wrong.”
Flicker, flicker, flicker. Shei’s movements stuttered and resumed several times. Just as she said, it was an unnatural movement, as if she were climbing stairs, catching on some kind of ledge.
“The world is actually made of countless stairs. When you look down on billions, trillions of stairs with the eyes of a giant, it looks like a slope. But we are all living on those stairs. I just leaped up a few steps at a time.”
“What a convoluted power.”
“It’s fine. To be honest, I don’t understand it either. It’s a Divine discovered by a once-in-a-miracle genius who was lucky enough to find it amidst countless reincarnations, and it doesn’t exist in the present. There’s no guarantee I’ll ever find it again.”
A Divine was an Axiom of the world that could only be discovered when a historical genius, with crazed obsession, encountered a miraculous opportunity.
Even across countless regressions and countless futures, Shei had discovered only a few new Divines. But she didn't feel it was insufficient. A Divine was difficult to handle, even just a few of them.
“I’ve only just learned it with this body.”
No matter how hard Shei tried, studied, and learned, she could not replicate the Divine. The throne of a Divine was strict and would not grant a seat to a dullard like her.
But does one think of levers when using scissors? Does one consider pulleys when drawing water from a well? There is no need to understand the principle to use a tool.
And Shei, through sensation alone, had learned the Divine by engraving countless marks upon her body.
It was too base, incompetent, and foolish to be called an Axiom. An Axiom like a blank slate, with no ability of its own.
But after countless regressions, Shei had reached the Axiom.
The Infinite. The other extreme that the Heavenly Counter Domain reached through regression.
An Axiom that engraves a Divine not in the mind, but in the flesh.
Nevida, who had tried to capture Shei, realized it was hopeless and changed her plan.
“Then, I will crush you whole.”
There had to be a limit to phasing through matter. Nevida extended roots from beneath her feet and linked with the Tree of Genesis. Roots touched, intersected, and coiled around each other until Nevida became one with the Tree of Genesis.
Using a plant, which cannot move and has no senses, as a familiar is a useless and dangerous act.
But Nevida was a Divine, and the Tree of Genesis possessed the essence of the World Tree. There were no limits to the Tree of Genesis, whose branches and leaves could transform into any existing plant species.
The earth surged upward. A sea of roots, hidden beneath the ground, was revealed to the world. The roots became legs, stomping upon the earth, and the branches became arms, clenching into powerful fists.
The Tree of Genesis rose like a giant from the book of creation.
“The Genesis Colossus.”
Did geosu mean giant beast, or giant tree?
The Tree of Genesis, no longer a tree, let out a great roar and raised its branches high. The movement alone created a storm, sweeping away the surrounding trees in an instant.
It seemed the giant of genesis was about to stomp its foot. This could no longer be called an attack. It was a force comparable only to a cataclysm.
Pulling its branch back to gather power, the Tree of Genesis fell toward Shei, putting all its weight behind the blow.
The branch, possessing overwhelming mass, fell. The displaced atmosphere exerted enormous pressure. Shei felt the air pressure crushing the very space around her and smiled with a sense of nostalgia.
“…It’s been a while since I’ve seen this, too.”
Muttering to herself, Shei once again recalled the Axiom engraved on her body.
The enlightenment of a Divine from a now-vanished future, one who had explored the distant void beyond the sky to uncover the Axiom. A miracle and a disaster so simple yet so powerful that it could only be indirectly replicated by clashing the relics of the sky and the earth.
The flickering intensified. The Heavenly Counter Domain replicated the Axiom recorded in Shei’s body. Shei gripped Chun-aeng and Jizan in each hand and brought them together as one.
Jizan, a condensation of mass. Chun-aeng, a compression of space. Two relics symbolizing the earth and the sky.
Shei had always overlaid Chun-aeng upon Jizan. The sky is blue only when it covers the earth, and the earth is peaceful only when it embraces the sky. Like this life-filled planet, the two transformed in myriad ways, causing all sorts of mysterious phenomena.
But to kill someone, the reverse was better.
Even the countless stars floating in the universe meet their end. A star at the end of its life lets out a final cry, expanding greatly one last time before gradually shrinking and dying.
Condensation. Compression. Contraction. Gradually shrinking, collapsing inward, until even the composition of matter disintegrated. The relic of the Mother Earth followed the exact path of a star’s demise.
The Black Dwarf Sword.
An incredibly small and diminutive black sword.
The end of a single world unfolded in Shei’s hand. The collapsed Jizan was no longer a sword or a club. It was too much to even call it a skewer, or a needle. It converged into a one-dimensional line, reaching the apex of collapse.
Wind orbited around it. Particles of air, drawn in solely by its gravity, collided and burrowed into each other, creating sparks. The ionized air glowed, creating an electromagnetic storm.
Even as the surroundings flashed with light and noise, the eye of the storm remained black and silent.
“I can’t use this sword for long. It’s dangerous for the planet. Let’s bet everything and end this quickly.”
Nevida swung the Genesis Colossus. A colossal slash tore through the atmosphere and twisted the earth as it descended. A mythical strike, as if the giant of genesis were expressing its fury toward the Mother Earth.
The opponent of this force, which seemed visible from the other side of the continent, was a thin line that was barely visible even up close. The difference in size was so vast that the expression ‘facing the World Tree’ didn't even seem to apply.
But if size or weight were what mattered, why would it be called an Axiom?
Shei put her right foot forward and planted her back foot. The earth, as if unable to bear the weight, was not just dug into but crushed and melted by her foot. On the ground that had turned to rock, Shei firmly anchored herself and gripped the Black Dwarf Sword.
From the surface of the star that had met its end, a final breath burned white-hot. Shei seized that power and swung.
Aerith Blade Supreme.
Nova.
A tsunami of coronal light, which should only appear on the surface of a star, swept across the land.