Chapter 129. Hatred of the Celestial Race.
Chapter 129. Hatred of the Celestial Race.
—Crrrack—!
The sound of wing muscles straining, of flesh tearing, reached my ears. I pulled just a little harder.
—Riiip!
One wing tore clean off, and an enormous fountain of blood erupted from the wound.
"Grrrgh...!!!"
As the bastard gasped for breath, his face twisting in unimaginable agony, I kept my tone flat and even.
"A long time ago, I dreamed up a god I didn't even believe in, and I begged it on my knees, crying, to send me home."
I ripped off each wing, one at a time, slowly enough for the pain to truly sink in. In that pristine white space they'd made their home, the only sound was the wet, tearing noise of wings being ripped from flesh.
"But as it turns out, you're just one more race, no different from humans. You bleed the same."
The other Celestials seated at the round table could only watch, frozen with terror at the overwhelming sight.
"Now then. If this god you believe in is truly all-powerful, get down on your knees and beg it to save you. Beg like a dog."
"..."
By the time I had finally ripped away every last wing, a staggering amount of blood soaked the floor. A race like this wouldn't die from shedding a little blood, of course. But the light had gone out of the bastard's eyes, and he stared dazedly at the tattered remnants of wings that had once been so brilliant.
For the Celestials, wings signify not just their origin and power, but their very identity. The Demonkin, whose origin lies in their horns, can regrow a broken horn—though it takes an immense amount of time—but a Celestial's wings stop growing the moment they are broken.
With his wings gone and his origin scattered, this bastard was now nothing more than an ordinary adult man. Nothing more, nothing less.
"How does it feel right now?"
"..."
With trembling hands, he gathered up the fragments of his wings, then looked up at me.
"Why... why would you do this? What did we ever do to you?!"
"You were a latent threat."
"For such a ridiculous reason...!"
"Then tell me, was burning a child who hadn't yet learned to speak to death for a lack of manners a justifiable reason?"
"...!"
"And what about this—you exiled a fellow Celestial for the sole sin of caring for humans, but that wasn't enough. You brutally murdered them. Was that ordered by the Heavenly God too?"
"..."
The Heavenly God had never issued such commands. All of it was the result of their own excessive worship. Though, of course, the Heavenly God knew of every situation and did nothing to stop it—simply let it happen.
"Do you still not know why I let you live back then, when you were hiding among the corpses on the battlefield?"
"That is..."
"I thought, 'Surely they aren't all like that.' I spared you because I thought maybe you, who were trembling in terror back then, might be just a little different."
Those who recognize their own wrongdoing are rare. Those who admit their wrongs and seek forgiveness are rarer still. And those who then actually change their actions—they are the rarest of all.
"From now on, live as weak and powerless as the humans you so casually looked down on. If you manage to survive, that is."
They were always parading their God around, prioritizing their own interests above all else, treating the sacrifices they forced on others as if they were the most natural thing in the world. And I broke every last one of the wings they were most proud of, that they thought were so brilliant.
"Everyone, drag these bastards outside."
My companions were just as stunned by the overwhelming display. They must have sensed it too—that I had handled this with far more emotion than necessary, with deliberate, brutal cruelty.
We dragged all of them out and threw them to the ground in front of the Ryugyeong Hotel. The people, little more than half-corpses themselves, had flinched in fear at the sight of Celestials. But once they saw the state they were in, the fear vanished.
"These are the ones you feared. The ones who caused you pain. Do with them as you wish."
Slowly, hesitantly, they crept forward and surrounded the Celestials.
"Consider this a final courtesy, since we at least share a language and a common Korean heritage. Revenge should be taken by the victims themselves, shouldn't it?"
I held no ill will toward the North Korean people. They, too, were victims brainwashed from childhood. The Celestials probably wouldn't see a very pleasant fate now. Fitting for beings who styled themselves angels, they were all beautiful, whether male or female.
I watched the residents rush at the Celestials for only a moment before turning my head, turning on my heel, and walking back into the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun.
"Representative, do you... have some bad history with the Celestials?"
"Yes."
My answer came out more curt than I intended, and the Special Forces Commander who had asked immediately tensed up.
"My apologies. I didn't mean for my tone to be so sharp."
"No, not at all... If it's not impolite to ask, may I inquire what happened?"
"I'll tell you if I get the chance sometime."
"Yes, understood..."
We hadn't had a proper shower the whole way from Paju to Pyongyang, so we took our time washing up. Just as we'd finished and were about to have a simple meal, Chaeyeon, who'd just remembered something, asked me.
"Come to think of it, they mentioned there were other Celestials. I completely forgot to ask about that!"
"It's fine. They'll have been summoned to one general area, and it's obvious they're in China, not far from here."
China was a massive landmass, and it bordered North Korea, where they'd been summoned.
"Still, if I had to call it lucky, it's lucky they wound up in North Korea and China."
"What do you mean by that?"
"A race that grows stronger the more they're worshipped would have been a lot more troublesome if they'd been summoned into an extremist country."
"Ah... right."
"They might have strapped on bomb vests, thrown their lives away without a second thought, and carried out suicide attacks."
"That's horrifying..."
"Fortunately, nothing like that happened. This place is safe now, so let's call the helicopter in to the Palace of the Sun."
* * * * * * * *
When I called in the helicopter via the satellite radio, they acknowledged our hard work and a chopper quickly arrived. The group, who'd been marching and camping out for quite a long time, were so exhausted that they collapsed into dead sleep the moment they got on board.
"Nnngh...! We've arrived!"
"Unni, I'm so tired too..."
The President approached us and said,
"You've all worked hard. Get some good rest today and we'll gather again tomorrow."
Everyone agreed fervently, skipping dinner altogether and surrendering to sleep. Just like that, we all slept for well over twelve hours, then gathered at the assembly hall the following morning.
After hearing the detailed operational report from the Special Forces Commander, everyone was lost in their own thoughts.
"Angels... I can't even... what the..."
In a country as religious as Korea, it wasn't easy to swallow. The angels who protect the weak and do good deeds had actually committed brainwashing and slaughter that would make even demons blush.
Once the final report—that we'd dealt with the Celestials in Pyongyang and that the rest were likely in China—was finished, the President looked at me with a question in his eyes.
"Representative, did something happen between you and the Celestials?"
"You're asking the same thing the Special Forces Commander asked."
"Yes. To be honest, I was curious, hearing that you—someone who rarely wears his emotions so openly—reacted this way."
He wouldn't have asked such a personal question early on. But now, if something piqued his curiosity, he asked about it with honest candor. It must mean that we've grown that much closer over the time we've spent together.
"In the very early days after I fell onto Titan, I wasn't hunting—I was surviving by tearing into animal carcasses."
"The early days..."
"One day, I was tearing into a carcass as usual. I didn't even know that wolves had left that meal behind."
"I'm sorry, what are you suddenly...?"
Back then, I'd run to escape the wolves—got bitten, tumbled head over heels down a slope, had my lower back jammed against a rock, my knee stabbed by a branch. I scraped by with my life and nothing more.
"I raged against my lot in a cave, cried my eyes out, and swore that if I ever got strong, I'd kill every last wolf in the whole world."
It was utterly wretched. I slammed my head against the cave wall, dredging up even the pettiest bad things I'd done in the past, thinking, 'What did I do to deserve this?'
I even remembered that time I littered a silver gum wrapper on the street.
"Do you know what 'genocide' means?"
"...Are you referring to the slaughter of a specific race or religious group out of prejudice?"
"Precisely."
"I know of the policy of national extermination Imperial Japan carried out against us, and Hitler's mass slaughter of the Jewish people, as acts of genocide..."
"Yes. My hatred for the Celestials was on that scale."
My companions all knew the vague facts—that I'd wandered countless storm-like battlefields, killed countless lives, and endured alone. I killed to survive. Mercy in that place was no different from turning your back in the face of blade and gunfire.
They didn't just have a simple understanding of me. They'd actually absorbed my memories and experienced it all indirectly.
"Representative... what on earth happened?"
At the President's cautious question, I lowered my eyes for a moment and hesitated. Then, without any real answer, I simply changed the subject.
"I couldn't trust anyone, or anything. A stranger stranded in a wasteland would open his eyes the next morning, pat himself down to see if his limbs were still whole, and only then let out a sigh of relief and carry on."
Whether it was because of my attitude, quietly skirting around the issue, the President and my companions didn't press any further. They just listened and waited for whatever I had to say.
"Do you know how I returned to Earth?"
"I understand that you defeated the rulers of each continent, gathered the Divine Artifacts, and returned."
"Among them, there was only one I had no direct entanglement with."
"That being...?"
"The Heavenly God, the Father of all angels and the king of the Celestials. And by that time, I had already gathered all the Divine Artifacts."
They mulled over what that could mean, and then a look of utter shock spread across their faces.
"Wait... then, are you saying you went out of your way to find and kill the Heavenly God purely out of hatred?"
"..."
As if to confirm it, I said nothing and just met the President's gaze.
"I'd already gathered all the artifacts and holed up in a remote place to compose myself, preparing to return to Earth."
When I looked outside through the window of the assembly hall, the sun was already high in the sky. That was how absorbed everyone had been in my story.
"I was with a girl I'd met while wandering."
"By 'girl,' you mean..."
"That girl was the very picture of what people imagine when they hear the word 'angel'—caring for the weak, healing the sick. She truly deserved that title."
I glanced at Yuna, who'd been listening with a grave expression, and smiled as I stroked her hair.
"She was about the same height and build as Yuna."
"That girl, is she..."
"She's dead. Killed by her own kin, brutally."
"..."
"The moment she drew her last breath, I made a vow. That I would rip apart the very wings all Celestials so proudly boast of, and kill every last one of them."