The Sky Is Still Beautiful
Liv, startled, whirled around.
Her eyes sharpened the moment she spotted Deciever smiling faintly. She shot a silent glare at Altare, who was leaning against the wall. He merely shrugged, as if to say there was no stopping a Half-God.
Meanwhile, Deciever strolled toward Raven and spoke in a casual tone.
“It took far too long just to deliver a message. I was worried my dear brother and sister might conveniently forget to pass it along, so I came up uninvited.”
“……”
“You’ll understand, won’t you?”
After all, he had given each association an enormous amount of mana stones.
The four disciples, excluding Deciever, had cut off all contact between their master and him as punishment for hiding their teacher. To lift that restriction and meet Raven, he had poured mana stones into the four associations without restraint.
“You ran away from home, and yet……”
His gaze swept the room before returning to Raven, laced with mockery.
“This is what you’ve become.”
“……”
“You should have stayed in the palace I prepared for you.”
Liv immediately fixed Deciever with a glare.
Deciever responded by forming a circle with his thumb and forefinger and wiggling it, palm up—an unmistakable demand for value received. Both association presidents frowned deeply and left the room.
Raven watched the door close with a reluctant expression, then stroked the crow and muttered,
“I didn’t run away. I was kidnapped.”
“You allowed it.”
“……”
“For the record, I had nothing to do with this incident. I didn’t even warn my brother or sister. On the contrary, I hid your existence and ended up dealing with nothing but trouble.”
“……I know.”
He wasn’t foolish enough to miss something so obvious.
After gently stroking the crow, which had given up struggling as if resigned, Raven lifted his gaze to Deciever. His clear green eyes seemed to take in the demigod before him, then slowly narrowed as if recalling something.
“Do you know?”
“……”
“Father no longer smiles at me with pure affection. The only time he smiles at me now is when I say something unpleasant about ‘Deciever.’”
Deciever raised an eyebrow, sensing something ominous.
“You’re no longer my youngest disciple.”
“……!”
“I’ve taken in a new disciple. A cute one who will never forget me as long as he lives.”
So you are nothing to me.
No matter what you do, you will never become someone valuable to me. I won’t allow it.
Raven had taken away the place Deciever once held as his disciple. The demigod’s black pupils rippled dangerously—he knew it all too well.
“……So that’s the owner of the Sculpted Soul you’re holding.”
Quick on the uptake, as always.
“If it dies, the problem will be solved.”
“……Ha.”
Deciever’s eyes changed.
Darkness spread from his black pupils across the whites, revealing the true nature of the Half-God. The pressure rose gradually rather than exploding all at once, as if testing how much Raven could endure. The air grew heavier by degrees. Raven pushed the crow in his arms behind his back and whispered inwardly.
‘Don’t, brother. Don’t come out.’
A red glow blazed from the center of eyes now completely black. Raven’s green eyes flickered like a candle in the wind. Gray irises surfaced briefly before being swallowed by green again.
Once he confirmed that the Guardian Spirit’s presence had quieted, Raven drew his dagger, fixing his wavering gaze on his opponent.
“No. Nothing will be solved.”
Even if he killed this child, he would simply find another way.
The crow’s Sculpted Soul had finally fainted. If the fragment lost consciousness, its owner would too. Raven needed to finish this before Dan woke and heard whatever reckless words might come from the demigod’s mouth.
“The kid’s going to die.”
After coughing up blood, Raven closed the distance in an instant and pressed the dagger to Deciever’s throat.
“Withdraw your power. Now.”
A Sculpted Soul was sensitive to the weight of power.
If this continued, Dan’s fragment would shatter. The death of a Sculpted Soul meant the death of its owner. Raven had no intention of watching that happen.
“I’m doing this so you’ll die.”
Deciever did not avoid him.
As if the threat were no mere bluff, he made no move even when Raven drove the blade into his neck.
Of course. His attacks wouldn’t work anyway.
“Damn it……!”
The dagger trembled against Deciever’s skin, unable to pierce it.
It wasn’t that Raven hadn’t tried. He had poured every ounce of his strength into the strike.
Yet he couldn’t even leave a scratch.
“You’re still far too lacking in power to kill me, Father.”
Deciever smiled pleasantly as he watched Raven grit his teeth.
What Raven was attempting was no different from trying to drive a toothpick into a diamond. How foolish to persist despite knowing that.
He raised a hand and grasped the blade, pinning Raven in place while increasing the pressure of his power.
Raven’s head snapped toward the back. His murky gray eyes reflected the darkness.
“To close the gap in power and kill me, you’ll need to learn the Guardian Spirit’s name at the very least.”
“Withdraw your power.”
“Only then will a path open.”
“I said withdraw it.”
The Guardian Spirit’s name was mentioned again, but that wasn’t what mattered.
Though invisible, a shaman’s senses warned him: a soul was dying. Raven glared at Deciever, who paid him no heed, then turned his eyes toward where Dan’s Sculpted Soul lay and ground his teeth.
Even before considering that the boy was his disciple, he could not allow an innocent life to be lost because of this man.
‘He won’t actually kill him since he wants something from me……’
But he would push him right to the brink.
Whether for emotional or physical reasons, neither of them could truly harm the other.
Unless Raven gained the power to kill him or Deciever lost interest, this situation would repeat endlessly.
In the end, pushing it to the limit would only bring loss.
‘Right…… I landed a hit, so it’s my turn to step back.’
Raven lowered his weapon and raised his bare hand.
His fingers touched the boy’s curly, fluffy hair.
‘Damn it.’
Long ago, when Deciever had still been nothing more than his adorable youngest disciple, Raven remembered the first time the boy had called him “Father.”
“Um…… Can I call you…… Father……?”
The sight of him asking shyly, with a slightly pale face, had been so endearing that Raven had answered with a gentle smile, his eyes wide with surprise at the unexpected address.
“Of course—”
The one who still called him Father, clinging to that old attachment, would surely respond to this.
To think that all he could do for his disciple in danger was something like this. Swallowing his disgust, Raven opened his mouth.
The same words, yet in a different tone, a different atmosphere.
“—my son.”
“……!”
“Good boy.”
If you don’t intend to go all the way with me, withdraw your power right now, you bastard.
Deciever’s eyes widened at the hand stroking his hair.
Only for a moment. The red glow faded, and the blackened whites returned to their original color. The darkness that had pooled in his pupils compressed back into ordinary black irises.
A cheerful emotion seeped into those eyes. Deciever’s gaze curved with delight.
He paid no mind to the fact that Raven had spoken as if cursing him, nor to the horribly twisted expression on his face. He ignored the look in Raven’s eyes that said he wanted to cut off the very hand touching his hair.
“Ah…… As expected. Father.”
As if it had been a lie, the oppressive power vanished from the space.
“Do you have no intention of living a long life?”
“I’ve already lived long enough.”
One hundred seventy-four years must seem short to him. Though perhaps not to this man.
Green light rose over gray irises. The moment his vision cleared, Raven clenched his fists, turned his back, and first checked the condition of the crow’s Sculpted Soul.
Fortunately, it had only fainted. There was no serious damage.
“Then what about living a little more enjoyably? You have to keep living anyway. Wouldn’t it be better to enjoy it while you’re at it?”
“In the end, you’re telling me to find the will to live. I thought we’d already finished that conversation.”
Besides, this extended lifespan went against the natural order of the world. The longer he lived, the more it disrupted the world’s balance.
“If I cling to life, it becomes a threat to the world. So I can’t.”
He was already acting selfishly enough. He couldn’t afford to be any greedier.
Deciever tilted his head, unable to understand.
“What does it matter if one world is destroyed? It’s not like there are people here who properly remember you anyway.”
“……”
“A Half-God can cross between worlds. If you make me a complete Half-God, I could take you to another world. Wouldn’t that be better?”
“……You want me to abandon this world.”
The calm murmur lingered in the room.
Raven set the crow down on the pillow and looked back at Deciever. His serene eyes, devoid of anger or irritation, met the demigod’s.
Deciever flinched at the quiet reaction that revealed nothing. Then Raven spoke.
“How’s the weather today?”
“……The weather? Ah, there are no windows here, so you wouldn’t know. It’s raining outside. The sky is overcast.”
“Is that so? The sky must still be beautiful today.”
“……”
The sky, which changed color with time and weather, would remain beautiful nonetheless.
He could feel a smile forming on his lips at the mere thought. It was probably the first gentle smile he had worn in a long time.
After briefly tracing the empty air as if reaching for the sky hidden by the ceiling, Raven turned his gaze to Deciever and asked,
“Have you ever been in love?”
“Love…… are you asking about love?”
“Yes, love. It doesn’t have to be a person. Anything is fine.”
This would be a rare lesson. One Deciever would likely never understand in his lifetime.
Why was he even answering something that could simply be ignored?
His straight fingers tapped the bed, as if revealing an impulsive feeling within an eerily calm emotion.
“People fall in love while living. They love family, lovers, friends, themselves. They love organizations, their own beliefs or others’, and even material things like money.”
“……”
“Love holds more power than you’d think. It makes cowards step forward and turns cold people into melted butter on a pancake. It can turn the living into the dead.”
“That last part seems a bit strange.”
“Well…… In a peaceful world, maybe not. But in this still-chaotic world, love is perfect for killing someone.”
Raven chuckled softly after saying that much.
“That’s how strong it is. Love is powerful enough to kill yourself or someone else. The reason I’m telling you this is……”
“……”
“Because I’ve fallen in love too.”
Raven knew how to love.
The night sky he had looked up at for the first time on the day he went to install the portal connecting the surface and the Abyss had been dazzlingly beautiful.
That was why he had ended up loving this hopeless world.
“How could I abandon it?”
The memory of the first time he had seen the world again through the Guardian Spirit after losing his eyes surfaced. He had stared endlessly at the sky. Even after the sun rose, passed overhead, and set in the west, he had kept watching.
At night the stars and moon were beautiful, and during the day the sun and clouds were beautiful. On clear days without a single cloud, just looking at the blue sky brought happiness. On overcast days filled with dark clouds, he could observe the beauty hidden by the glare more clearly. On rainy days the falling droplets were mysterious, and on snowy days the drifting snowflakes were nothing short of wondrous.
He remembered spending the first year constantly looking up at the sky whenever he had the chance.
‘I even watched it while coughing up blood.’
Lending his eyes was ultimately a dead person intervening in the lives of the living. Even if the special nature of the “Sculpted Soul” mitigated it, every action of the dead intervening on the surface inevitably brought karma. He knew overuse was unwise, yet he couldn’t bring himself to stop.
So even when the accumulated karma finally exceeded its limit and demanded urgent settlement, he had wiped away the blood he coughed up and never taken his eyes off the sky.
“……You love this world.”
“I suppose I do.”
“Even if the people of this world don’t love you?”
“Even if they abandon me.”
Raven, unfortunately,
knew how to love.