Chapter 58
Chapter 58
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 58
Chapter Title: Neshef's Will
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Iven had exploded, and as Demon King Bulki gazed at the remains, he chuckled softly.
"Why did it have to be me? You probably never even troubled yourself with a question like that. You just kept agonizing over why my most beloved friend had to shine like the protagonist of some story! Haah, Iven... filled nothing but with jealousy...."
The remains blazed away, and Demon King Bulki turned his back.
"Nothing's left for you anymore, friend."
The childish pranks between friends were now over.
"Come on, Iveldra. I'm your Demon King now."
He had become another Great Demon King to carry on this tale, and all that remained was for him to leave Haba through Iveldra.
"Death hasn't come for you yet."
But Iveldra didn't open the portal. She merely pointed at the spot where Iven had once been. Demon King Bulki slowly turned back once more.
He had remade this world in flames of sin and literally detonated Iven. Yet just like that, Iven had pieced himself back together with those same flames of sin and risen again.
Flames, blood, or perhaps horns.
A being with nothing else opened his eyes once more.
"Why...."
Demon King Bulki raised his sword again. After all, just as he had become the Demon King for failing to become the Hero, if he could exist in this story, then so could Iven.
He had definitely found a way. That's right-my friend was always that kind of guy.
Bulki smiled pleasantly and said,
"There's just one thing left. All you have remaining is me."
Iven, who had only just reconstituted his body, caught on to Bulki's words. Literally speaking, the only remnant of Iven left in him was guilt, and even from the current situation, it was clear that Iven's will to live stemmed solely from saving Bulki, born of that guilt.
"I am you. The Demon King who fell after failing to do anything."
Demon King Bulki gripped his sword with both hands and ignited sword-purple karmic flames.
"Now, die already. Body and soul. Forever."
Bulki's karmic flames surged from the broken tip of his sword like unrecognizable lightning, crackling wildly. It looked incomparably more dangerous than before. And so, flames darker than the abyss itself scorched the sky as they descended.
"Yeah, maybe I really am a coward."
Perhaps dying to these flames right now would be fitting. Iven, drenched in bright red blood that seemed to have lost all will to fight, stared at the karmic flames as if that moment stretched into eternity.
"But I...."
And then, like a moth drawn to flame, he flung himself at the Demon King's karmic blaze.
Boom!
But cleaving through the roaring karmic flames, the human Iven rose up.
"Even if my very soul crumbles away."
He recalled that exact moment when he had risen from death with his own sword impaled in his throat-the feelings from then, the misery.
And the vow to save Bulki.
"I will one day be the one who saves you!"
Even as he burned away, Iven fiercely thrust out his sword, channeling all of Bulki's swung karmic flames into himself through his blade. His body boiled like blood aflame, hellish karmic fire seeping into his very heart, making it hard to even hold onto his sanity.
"Die!"
Bulki didn't panic and summoned even greater karmic flames to incinerate Iven. Iven continued to burn, his red form vaporizing, struggling to maintain shape. Yet even so, Iven did not die. Amid the blazing red, he existed as sword-purple energy and seized Bulki's sword.
"What?"
Something like black smoke billowed up and gripped his sword, leaving Bulki no choice but to panic. Iven, who no longer had anything resembling a body, revealed only those wretched eyes as he linked his sword to Bulki's soul.
Merely existing as sword-purple, fading away.
That was Neshef's will.
For a fleeting moment, dawn appeared in the world.
That existence devoured his own sword, pressed against Bulki's, and thrust it straight into himself-his soul entirely. Iven's sword sucked in all the world-scorching karmic flames.
In that instant, the entire world was dyed black.
'The sword that connects me and cuts me.'
And Iven cleaved his foe. For that foe was himself, just like his past sins.
"How...."
The severed guilt crumbled and scattered into the air.
"Because you are me."
Iven's answer, manifesting as black form, was correct. In the end, since it was a sin he himself had spewed forth, Iven had reconfigured his body from his own flesh before-and now, he had attached that sin to himself in an instant and pierced his own self.
Ultimately, this backlash could only end with him killing himself, so the form that had appeared as Demon King Bulki fully dispersed into the air.
And so, everything that was Iven vanished from Iven.
"Wait just a little longer for me, friend."
When he opened his eyes again, in this unknown Haba where no one knew, only Demon King Iven remained.
This duel, unknown to any, was later sung by bards of the distant future like this:
「אָוֶן כֹּהֵן שָׁוְא לָחַם (Aven Kohen Shav Lacham)
The Demon King chews and devours evil.
אָוֶן כֹּהֵן לֵבָב אֲנִי שָׂרַף (Aven Kohen Levav Ani Saraf)
His will consumes himself.
הוּא נֶשֶׁף מָצָא (Hua Neshef Matsa)
It obtains Neshef.
אָוֶן כֹּהֵן כֹּל חֹשֶׁךְ שָׁטַף עַל (Aven Kohen Kol Choshech Shataph Al)
Even if the Demon King possessed all hardships overflowing,
אֵל יַקִּיר עֹז יָרַשׁ (El Yaqqir Oz Yarash)
He inherited my steadfast strength.
שָׁוְא מְדִינָה (Shav Medinah)
Realm of evil.
כֹּל נֶפֶשׁ שָׂרַף עָרוּץ (Kol Nefesh Saraf Arutz)
Place that devours all souls.
מִדְבָּר עֵמֶק (Midbar Emek)
Valley of Midbar.
יַד נָגַע אֶפֶס קֵץ (Yad Naga Epes Ketz)
The unreachable end touched by hand.
נָבָל נֶפֶשׁ מְתַלְּעָה נָגַע עָרוּץ (Nabal Nefesh Metal'ah Naga Arutz)
Place where the fangs of the wicked reach.
הֶבֶל זקח (Hevel Zakach)
My Demon King.
שָׁוְא שָׂרַף (Shav Saraf)
Devour evil.
לֵבָב עָבַר עָבוּר נָתַן (Levav Avar Abur Natan)
Devoting to pass on the will.
יָחִיד (Yachid)
Wretched.
אל עֶלְיוֹן (El Elyon)
O Great One.
אֲנַחְנוּ יָבַל (Anachnu Yaval)
Look upon me.
עוֹלָם יֶשַׁע יָבַל (Olam Yesha Yaval)
Bestow eternal mercy.
יָאַשׁ מוֹאל (Ya'ash Mo'al)
Before despair.
חֹשֶׁךְ מוֹאל (Choshech Mo'al)
Before darkness.
חָיָה סָבַב קוּץ (Chayah Savav Kutts)
Rise from death.
עֶלְיוֹן מָשִׁיחַ (Elyon Mashiach)
To become the supreme one.
עֶלְיוֹן חֵטְא אל מִן (Elyon Chet El Min)
From the eyes of horrible sin.
חָיָה סָבַב קוּץ (Chayah Savav Kutts)
Rise from death.」
"Can you hear my voice, Demon King?"
And Iven rose once more.
"You're back."
Iven, cradled in Iveldra's arms, was shedding tears. Not from any sense of loss, but from the emptiness of having cast aside his entire self.
"How did I win... no, what even was I, Iveldra?"
Iven remembered the moment he had engulfed Demon King Bulki at the end. He had definitely existed as something other than flesh. A sword-purple form with horn-like protrusions sprouting like wings from his head. He had taken Neshef's shape, without a doubt.
"That is the authority of a Great Demon King. He can summon death itself. Iven, you kept dying and rising again without even knowing it. That endless cycle manifested as the authority of Neshef, which the primordial Great Demon King once accepted, if only for a moment."
It was a hard story to comprehend. Like oil spilled on water, sticky and weightless as a shadow in a forest swamp. Like some abstract concept beyond words, manifesting as a form of will or intent.
"That was the will Neshef left behind."
Iveldra explained what Iven had done-without Iven realizing it-as nothing more than 'will.' And rightly so, for in a place other than this empty valley of Haba, it would be impossible for Neshef, who had already vanished, to manifest directly. Iven caught on and replied.
"Only possible in Haba, then. The authority I usurped-the power to summon death-sustained me. Well, it doesn't matter now anyway."
Iven looked back at Iveldra and asked the most important question from here on.
"What happens to me now, Iveldra?"
"You're asking the same thing he did."
"Him? Lucifer? Did he lose himself entirely too? What on earth did he do wrong to bear such wretched sin?"
Iveldra stroked Iven's head and said,
"He loved me, and he summoned death."
There was no change in her expression or tone. But in that instant, through the feelings flowing along the Great Demon King's horns, Iven sensed she truly pitied him.
"Iveldra."
Because she had only summoned death-she wasn't truly alive.
From the state in which he himself had manifested by summoning death, Iven could infer her condition. She wasn't alive; she merely existed.
"You have taken on sin once more. The more you do, Iven, the more you'll lose yourself. Just like that Lucifer, becoming a doll that moves solely on the single-minded drive to kill God, no longer knowing what it even wants. Not even you will be able to stop yourself now."
Iven squeezed his eyes shut and answered.
"It's hard to stand tall. Really hard. I can barely remember why I even tried to stand tall anymore. The me from when I was human, doubting the Holy Brazier-there's none of that left inside. I have to lead the Demons... this time, I'must...."
Iven brushed Iveldra's cheek.
"Iveldra."
Iveldra leaned into Iven's hand.
"I killed the one who loved you, yet you don't hate me?"
Iven's tone suddenly echoed the pure Lucifer from those days. Iveldra replied,
"Because he remains within you as will."
Only now did Iven fully understand the will of the Demons. Even if I vanish entirely, my will is fully inherited.
What had manifested in him wasn't Neshef, but his will lingering through the Great Demon King's horns.
Thoughts, beliefs, even ultimate goals may fade, but will endures. And it is inherited. All for the Great Demon King's will.
For the Demons.
"Now then, shouldn't you give orders to the Red Blood Savages, Iven?"
"I should. Thank you, Iveldra. I think I get why he loved you. You're like the abyss itself-drawing everything in and making it forget as it sinks."
Iven rose from death once more.
"Let's go now. For the will of everyone, not just me."
The Demon King devoured himself again and grew. Now, there was nothing left that could stop him.
And in this story, the Hero's turn approached once more.