Chapter 28
Chapter 28
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 28
Chapter Title: The Great Question from the Highest Place
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"Looks like we've finally nailed down the body's form."
In a pitch-black place resembling a slaughterhouse, devoid of even a single light, a woman with black skin and red hair gazed at a corpse and spoke.
She, with skin like a snake's, clad in something akin to a black robe, prodded the corpse here and there before speaking again.
"Blue Moon werewolf's left arm, Red Blood Savage's right arm, demon's heart, wings of the heavenly tribe already rotted away and gone, beastkin's skeleton overlaid with lich flesh, left foot ground from a Mountain Giant and right foot from the Sun Fairy guardian captain, a bogeyman's head propped up by dwarf tendons atop which sit even the Demon King's horns. No wonder He called it a masterpiece. To blend races to this degree, your manifestation of that violet sword must have been essential."
As she said, the corpse was not merely grotesque but utterly horrifying. Especially the pair of horns, granted directly by the Great Demon King himself-broken like a snapped sword from above the ears, jutting forward at an angle into the line of sight-proclaimed that this corpse too held the Demon King's authority, just like her.
The Queen of the Bogeymen, with goat-like horns curving backward along the nape of her neck in both directions, lifted the corpse's chin. Its eyes opened, and she whispered to it.
"King made from all races upon the will of the Demon God, what voice do you wish to have?"
But bound to iron bars, the corpse merely stared into distant emptiness, ignoring her seductive question. It thought of only one thing.
"Oh dear, how pitiful. Well, after five years of endless collapse and regeneration, it's hardly surprising your mind is no better than a worm's. Newborn Demon King, born by Neshef's command."
She tore off the corpse's jaw and laughed maniacally. The corpse, unable to utter even a scream laced with pain, gazed at the Queen of the Bogeymen before it with eyes filled only with the abyss. Only then did she-Demon King Kirumin Jai-cry out the corpse's name.
"Iven van Ivelhac!"
Madness, or perhaps fury, flickered in her eyes.
"You are the wretched horn destined to slay the Saintess by our long-cherished wish. So from now on, you will listen carefully to what I say! This is the forgotten myth, the secret of the world guarded by Tehom's seers."
And Kirumin Jai began spilling the world's secrets to Iven.
"All tragedies began with the filthy jealousy of the arrogant goddess Miflas."
It was truly the primordial truth known only to the demons.
***
Miflas devised a single ploy so that all things would serve her.
Miflas enthroned the king of her choosing. He was the first goddess's proxy, the world's first Saintess.
The Saintess sought out next the king chosen by Or, the first and last proxy of Or. He was the world's first Hero.
The Saintess sought out after the Hero the king chosen by Neshef, the proxy of Neshef who lives even now. He was the world's first Demon King.
Whenever the three proxies gathered, Miflas shared her power, granting the Saintess-who wielded memory-the abyss to spread to the other proxies.
Thus the Demon King did not succumb to loving and cherishing Iveldra, the eternal Mir.
But the Hero, loving and cherishing the Saintess, was consumed by anxiety and fell into the abyss.
In the end, the Hero slew Iveldra, and death was born into the world for the first time.
Thus Iveldra came to symbolize not eternity but death; this was the first tragedy.
Through the grief-stricken Demon King, Neshef struck Or's radiant heavens, exterminating the heavenly tribe and cursing the sun to be veiled; this was the second tragedy.
With Or dead, the enraged Neshef and his proxy the Demon King-to smite them, the vile Miflas gathered the remaining Mirs and forged the essence of the world, the sin of the world: the primordial myth's great sin, eternal death itself.
Neshef, the will of dawn, accepted that sin and fell, and naturally the great sin sought to vanish. To halt her tool for subservience from disappearing naturally, the goddess secretly commanded a dwarf to divide and seal the weapon that slew gods-that great sin, eternal death.
One the great flame in the Holy Brazier, the other the flame of sin in the wretched eyes.
Miflas sent the Saintess once more to deliver the brazier and eyes to the Demon King and Hero left bereft of gods, and these two inherited sword and horn respectively, compelled by that power to fight eternally; this was the final tragedy of this world.
Henceforth with Or dead and Neshef gone forever, sorrow would come. Harmony fled this world, all things praised the goddess, and Miflas laughed.
***
"What the hell are you even talking about?"
Each time the sinner spoke after Miflas's jealousy, massive thunder crashed amid the storm, and the Hero's party couldn't make out the words properly.
Instinct told them some being greater than themselves willed this truth remain hidden.
"So even my words won't reach? Am I doomed to remain the one who wrought this world's death, forgotten here alone once more."
"No, sinner. I couldn't hear much, but I caught that the three gods we thought were El weren't what we imagined, and that you gathered the Mirs' power to create the great sin, splitting it to make the Holy Brazier. And that demons have something similar... those wretched eyes..."
"Ah, it reached you. It reached even you. What you call demons are merely those serving the vanished Neshef. Miflas, fearing the great sin's disappearance, divided and sealed it, inherited separately by demons and non-demons alike. Ah, my sin is finally reuniting. Ah, great El."
Bulki pondered amid the storm. If he believed this, even the tragedies were Miflas's will-the one he served. What could he do? No, what must he do? What was a Hero supposed to be?
"In Tehom, the seers send themselves here to forge with their bodies the black thread to loose my chains. But I'must remain imprisoned. Only thus can I atone."
Though the storm garbled much, Bulki grasped that this sinner, wielding Miflas and Mir power, created the Holy Brazier and wretched eyes, using that power to set demons and humans to eternal war.
But.
"Hero, light of Or, do you now see a little? The Holy Brazier merely imprisons the great flame. If great flame and sin's flame unite once more to birth death anew, it gains even power to slay gods. Then colossal sorrow would visit the world again. Thus I'must remain imprisoned forever, lest anyone recreate death."
If the great sin reunites, another crisis to erase the world descends. Even goddess Miflas feared it, splitting the sin and imprisoning this sinner here, no?
Then what must Hero Bulki do for this world?
"If I just gloss over what I cannot do... surely the world stays as is. The succession of sword and horn, this endless war."
Indeed, if this era's Hero Bulki did nothing, waiting for the next, people would keep hoping for harmony, and the world would roll on.
'You'll lead this world to a better place.'
But was that truly right? Like his friend said, did the world not need improving?
"Have you realized something, Hero?"
"Hero..."
"Hero, what in the world does this mean?"
Bulki met the eyes of his companions, wrestling inwardly.
"I am the Hero. But must I be the Hero who perpetuates sword and horn, the war? What would you have done? If..."
The doubt buried deep in Bulki, the urge to change the world, swelled ever larger.
The great question from the highest place.
"If... if I gather the demons' wretched eyes and the Holy Brazier to recreate the great sin, and I, yes I'myself, destroy it utterly-could that end the war begun at the dawn of time, sinner?"
Bulki had finally realized it. The world's distortion. And he knew not that in this instant, his own abyss had awakened.
"Bulki! What are you saying? Dividing the sin was the gods' will too, wasn't it? And if you do that, even as Hero, it's tantamount to severing the sword's succession!"
Gil stood by Bulki, restraining him. Seeing this, the sinner wept once more and spoke.
"No! Hero, you mustn't! If the great sin reappears, this time the veiling of the sun may not suffice! This world might end in ruin! Oh no! No! The great sin that can slay gods must never be reborn!"
In the end, Bulki shook off the sinner's wail and his friend's plea, turning back resolutely.
"Let's head down first. We need to hear straight from the dwarves' king why he revealed this world's secret, guarded by this pitiful sinner."
***
"Now do you understand? Wretched horn, Iven?"
Kirumin Jai finished her tale and unshackled Iven. In an instant, the massive nails and sword embedded in him clattered to the floor, drenched in blood.
Iven stared blankly at his two hands, then twisted painfully to clutch his torn-off jaw and throat.
"Ughhh."
"What are you saying?"
No words came. His beast-like groan Kirumin Jai did not understand, but
"Li... je..."
for the first and last time, he voiced what he had always desired, unforgotten.
"What? Hurry up already?"
At her words, the wretched horn Iven van Ivelhac rose to his feet.
"The Mountain Giant's king has already set out. Wonder if he's arrived by now."