Chapter 220
Chapter 220
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 220
Chapter Title: Your Name Is, You Are the Seed of Hope (3)
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6.
"It's Berkensia. That person... died in that battle."
Berkensia...?
It was strange. Did that mean Kim Baek-jun was the successor of 'that friend'?
How?
He died in that battle, yet left behind a successor? Arishel'rap continued speaking.
"Berkensia is the embodiment of humanity. He restored humanity, emotions, and memories to those who had lost them."
Arishel'rap smiled quietly.
"Thanks to that, we were able to reclaim it. Fragments of the past..."
A memory suddenly surfaced. The sight of her father sprinkling golden water on people by the lake...
"Then that time, it was..."
"Yeah. That's why his subordinates came to cherish Arishiel like their own little sister. They all started to dream."
Arishel'rap hugged Do Ye-jin from behind, stroking her hair, her voice dreamy.
"Of turning everything back... to before they were toyed with by the Outer Universe's schemes."
A dream...?
Do Ye-jin, who had been listening intently to Arishel'rap, paused for a moment.
"That guy Yujulem... he didn't seem like that."
Yujulem. The master of the Jongno-gu Central Library. Even thinking of him now made her skin crawl.
The archenemy of the First Hunting Unit...
Sensing that tremor, Arishel'rap spoke in a pained voice.
"Yujulem... must have ultimately succumbed to the temptation of divinity. Divinity is addictive, like pleasure."
If it had only been Yujulem... Do Ye-jin suddenly felt afraid.
"Then, Mom... does that mean I've been killing the people who cared for me all this time?"
"Don't hesitate, dear. It's the path we chose."
Arishel'rap spoke tenderly yet firmly, like any mother would.
"So that you can walk this path to the end... as the minimal atonement we can offer the world..."
"......?"
"They were empty shells to begin with, without divinity or humanity."
Minimal atonement...?
Do Ye-jin fell silent for a moment. An ominous sense of dissonance lodged deep in her mind, refusing to budge.
No, that can't be.
But... Arishel'rap was also an empty shell... which meant...
"Mom... you're not... are you?"
She had to not be.
Please, she had to not be.
But Arishel'rap only gazed at Do Ye-jin with sorrowful eyes.
"No. No, no! Tell me it's not true! It's not, right, Mom? Please tell me it's not..."
"Listen to me, Arishiel."
She had finally found it.
What she had searched for her entire life.
The place she had longed to return to her whole life, but could not.
"The thing before you now is a fragment of my soul... Once I pass on what I must convey to you, who has become human, it will vanish."
And she had to lose it again?
Had to leave that place again?
Arishel'rap tightly embraced Do Ye-jin, who began sobbing desperately.
"But Mom will still be here, right? I'm so happy... to meet you like this again..."
7.
"Charging again?"
A pure white tentacle sliced through the air, wrapping around the jaws of Arishel'rap as she lunged forward.
"HU......UUUU......UUUU...... UUUUUUUUUUUUUUU─────!"
Her forcibly clamped jaws strained to open solely through the power of her jaw muscles—it was no different from a beast.
The problem was... that strength actually worked.
Shealzbel's tentacle slowly tore apart as Arishel'rap's maw gradually pried open.
"Fall back for a moment, Shealzbel."
At Saitonan's command, Shealzbel retreated slightly.
"If we let her rampage any longer, she'll demolish my house."
With a fluidity unimaginable from such a massive frame.
"PHA─────────?"
Arishel'rap broke free of her restraints in an instant.
─────Kwaaaaang!
Unable to control her own momentum, she slammed her head into an innocent outer wall.
"Whirl into chaos, Phaehullarichron."
In the blink of an eye, Saitonan chanted an Extreme Position incantation into the Bingnyunhwan.
Shhzzzt...!
Shealzbel's carapace split into over a hundred fragments.
And then.
They hurtled toward Arishel'rap, transforming mid-air into enormous sea slugs.
And then.
They adhered to Arishel'rap's body, spewing an eerily pale demonic energy.
"It's Cold Poison."
That white aura.
It blanketed Arishel'rap's limbs like frost, soon spreading ferociously throughout her entire body.
"Heh heh heh heh... You'd better stay put. Unless you want your limbs shattered."
Cold Poison was Ikilasa's deadly toxin that froze concepts themselves. Even a transcendent body was meaningless against it.
The effects were already manifesting.
Arishel'rap yanked her left hand free from where it had frozen to the ground. In that instant, it snapped off at the wrist like shattering ice.
"Too late. The poison has fully spread to your other limbs."
Now all that remained was mental erosion... but it still wasn't over?
Just as that doubt arose.
Arishel'rap stared straight at them and gaped her maw wide. Something filling her mouth sloshed and began leaking out bit by bit.
"What is... that?"
A chill ran down Saitonan's spine.
Abyssal acidic fluid...?
Ssshhh... The dark blue liquid melted the ground hideously the moment it dripped.
This was different from what the Pope had described.
Could she concentrate such overwhelming divine might into a single shot? Was this beast intending mutual destruction?
"Dodge! Dodge, Shealzbel!"
8.
"Something you have to pass on to me...?"
Do Ye-jin sniffled, her voice nasal and choked.
"I don't need that... I don't need any of it...!"
She even rejected Arishel'rap's gentle attempt to wipe the tears from her eyes.
"Why? Why? Why did I have to become human after being a god?"
A sudden curiosity struck her.
Or perhaps it was something she'd wondered her entire life.
She couldn't understand why she had to live such a wretched existence.
"If you and Dad were so strong... couldn't you have protected me from the beginning?"
"......"
"If we'd fought together with your divine subordinates from the start... we wouldn't have had to part...?"
"No, Arishiel... We did fight."
"Then... why... did we fail...?"
"......"
"If we hadn't failed... I could have always been with you and Dad..."
Arishel'rap shook her head with a pained expression at Do Ye-jin's murmur.
"We didn't fail."
"......?"
"We received divinity from 106 subordinates and fought Yotiatos alongside 12 'Exalted Ones.'"
"And...?"
"The result was victory. We succeeded in extracting the fragment of Berkensia that Yotiatos held in his soul."
Berkensia had a fragment in Yotiatos too? But Yotiatos was an absolute god. How could he have humanity?
"We achieved our goal... but the losses were immense. Now, all that's left of us are scraps of soul."
"What are you talking about! You won, didn't you? If you won, then why...?"
"Absolute gods are different from other stars. You can't kill them with just one victory."
It was absurd.
Of course, her tone implied they'd need to kill him thousands, tens of thousands of times.
"That victory was the foundation."
"What foundation?"
"To completely end the Outer Universe's games. To sever all connections between this creation world and the Outer Universe..."
Outer Universe connections...? Lady Dragon Kserinia's world was surely destroyed because of that.
Which meant...?
Do Ye-jin drew in a breath. Did the [Nameless Demigod] aim for the true end of the nightmare?
"That's not the answer I want! Why... why did I have to become human...?"
"......"
"Where is Dad now, the one who beat an absolute god?"
Aside from the time he hurriedly passed on Arishel'rap's power and vanished.
[Nameless Demigod].
Do Ye-jin's father had never once revealed himself.
"The answer to your second question will also answer the first."
"Just tell me straight. Explain it simply. Unlike Dad, I'm not very smart."
Suddenly, she felt unfairly aggrieved.
Was Do Su-jin so clever and beautiful... because of Dad's genes?
"He left. To find a miracle that could completely end Yotiatos."
"And...?"
"First one."
Arishel'rap raised her index finger. Her hand was truly long and beautiful.
"The world you're in was created to draw attention during that time. Using the power of the seized Berkensia."
"......The Sixth Temporal Axis?"
The Sixth Temporal Axis.
A temporal axis that shouldn't exist.
That axis, and I, were existences that shouldn't be.
"Where did you hear that?"
"The Pope and Saitonan..."
She seemed unsure who they were, but for the sake of smooth conversation, Arishel'rap nodded.
"I see. In any case, because it's such a world, the stars can't interfere unless through apostle contracts."
So that's how it is... It made sense as she listened.
I was an existence that shouldn't be.
For such a singularity, it wouldn't be strange if the stars stepped in to kill me.
"And second. Your world is one for reassembling the shattered Berkensia into one."
Do Ye-jin froze for a moment. Su-jin unnie's words echoed in her mind.
- Baek-jun oppa is gathering fragments.
Right! Once they're all collected... everything would be restored!
"Arishiel. To accomplish what he planned, you became human."
If that didn't shock her, it'd be a lie.
My mission.
The reason I came to this land... was that? But she couldn't accept it at all.
"No, no no no no! I don't get it! What? Why? Just send me as a god!"
"......"
"I'd have been incredibly strong! Born between you and Dad!"
Of course, right?
She should have been born with divinity rivaling absolutes. Strong enough to crush small-time gods like Saitonan with a single punch...
"But why? Why did I have to come in such a weak body... a body with nothing?"
Arishel'rap fell into a long silence.
Do Ye-jin waited, her heart a tangle of complexity and grievance.
"There are two answers to that. But I can't tell you here and now."
"Huh? Why? Why not?"
"Not here."
Arishel'rap suddenly took Do Ye-jin's hand and stood.
"Come. He left a gift for you."
The place Arishel'rap led Do Ye-jin to... was a mystical ruin.
"Where... is this?"
Do Ye-jin paused in her steps.
"Do you remember?"
Arishel'rap turned back with a gentle smile. A throbbing headache hit, and scenes of memory overlapped her vision...
A grand temple.
With five towering pillar gates.
A temple with corridors and colonnades intricately carved from starstone, gleaming brilliantly.
But now.
Everything lay destroyed and collapsed.
Eroded by roots of nameless trees, infested only with grotesque insects crawling about—a mere ruin.
"This is the main divine palace where he resided."
Arishel'rap stepped into the darkness amid the ruins, and Do Ye-jin hesitated briefly before following.
"Now the master is gone, and everything's crumbled..."
Do Ye-jin glanced back at the half-collapsed corridor.
What she witnessed there was an illusion.
A vision of young Do Ye-jin walking hand-in-hand with a man.
"............"
Feeling an inexplicable nostalgia, Do Ye-jin turned away.
"Mom... why did this happen?"
"Because of one god, Yotiatos's sin, the Outer Universe entered this world."
As they ventured deeper into the ruins.
Arishel'rap suddenly began recounting an old tale.
"After that, many people committed the same sin as Yotiatos and began communing with the Outer Universe."
"What sin?"
"Desire. Whether they could sacrifice everything else for themselves."
Do Ye-jin nearly stopped in her tracks. The [Nameless Demigod]'s tooltip flashed in her mind.
Right.
He destroyed a world for his own greed.
A dizzying silence.
Saitonan had said. Do Ye-jin's father... was a sinner who filled a grail in one world.
"Do you know what separates creation gods from absolute gods? They're both primordial gods at their root."
"...What?"
"It's whether they pity the powerless and weak. Extreme egoism. That's the essence of the Outer Universe."
Egoism...?
By then, the mother and daughter had reached the deepest part of the ruins, underground.
"The problem is that even those who didn't commit such sins got swept up in the Outer Universe's schemes."
Pure people?
Shin Tae-yeop and Kim Baek-jun's faces flashed in her mind. Why should people like that suffer?
"It's weird."
"......"
"Isn't it weird? Such unfairness should be corrected to be normal, right? Why... why has it continued?"
Arishel'rap turned to Do Ye-jin and gave a bitter smile.
"Everyone says it easily."
"......!"
"But most people choose the path of Yotiatos at the moment of decision. I did too."
"I... I wouldn't! I'd never do that!"
"Really? If so... you can take your father's gift."
Father's gift?
There, Arishel'rap finally stopped. Do Ye-jin could hardly believe her eyes.
"This is his gift."
Before a crumbling pedestal.
Stuck into it... was a bizarre sword over three feet long.
What... is it so huge?
The blade was taller than Do Ye-jin. Even bigger than Arishel'rap.
"The Holy Demonic Sword, Sharholin."