Chapter 162
Once again, I had a dream.
The Coffin Boys were performing tap dance.
Familiar EDM music was playing, and the people around were happily shaking their booties along with the rhythm.
“Woohoo!”
For some inexplicable reason, it was raining in this dream. But I didn’t care much about it.
Why not? Because this was the best dream I’ve ever had. I don’t even know why I’m feeling so good.
I just wanted to do the coffin dance in sync with this upbeat song.
“…Huh?”
At a certain moment, I noticed something strange. The ones carrying the coffin were not the neatly dressed black brothers in mourning attire.
They were hooded figures cloaked in robes.
“Eh, eh…?”
They were stepping in perfect unison, slowly approaching me… and my cheering group.
I don’t know why, but amidst this overwhelming happiness, I instinctively felt repulsed by them.
I took a few steps backward as they came closer.
“Shh… shhhhh…”
And from inside the coffin they were carrying, such a sound could be heard.
The euphoric feeling I had earlier vanished instantly. I stared at the massive coffin that was trembling.
Then I realized – I had definitely seen this before. I knew what was inside that coffin.
“Shh….”
As expected, the lid of the coffin opened, revealing someone.
A hooded figure making metallic sounds, holding the Extermination Sword in one hand.
Slowly rising, the figure wriggled out of the coffin and came to stand unsteadily in front of us.
“O, don’t come….”
The upbeat rhythm of the EDM began to distort. The lively bass sounds turned into the pounding of my heart.
In sync with the loud thumping sound, the heart-stopping rhythm increased as the hooded figure came closer. The people started moving toward this figure as if under a spell.
“Hihihihahaha!!”
Acquaintances were laughing their heads off, though I don’t know why. Those laughter noises sounded familiar.
I had to stop this. Everyone would be killed by this guy! I tried to warn them by turning my gaze.
“…What is this?”
The surroundings had become an ocean of blood. The people were disintegrated and scattered all over.
Pieces of arms and legs were scattered everywhere, and I couldn’t even tell what belonged to whom.
“Guh… ack… phew.”
I clamped my mouth shut. I collapsed where I stood and curled into a ball as much as I could.
Am I sad? Am I about to throw up? No.
“Guh… hah… hahaha… hihihihi!”
It’s because I couldn’t stop laughing.
Only then did I realize. The laughing noises I’ve been hearing since a while weren’t from my acquaintances.
It was from me. I was the one who was laughing.
I stopped laughing and looked at the corpses of my acquaintances.
Ade-lang, Carhalas. Grenade. Seseona. Seop Baek. And Gena and Zenon, too.
They were all dead.
…Wait a second. Zenon?
Why is Zenon lying there?
Then, who is the hooded Extermination Sword figure walking toward me from the opposite side?
“How many times do I have to tell you before you understand? Park Jeong-yong.”
At that moment, the man who slowly approached me removed his hood.
It was me. My bulging veins, the grotesque face twisted in agony, the flames swirling around my whole body – all of it was laughing as me slowly approached.
“There’s nowhere… to run, you know?”
With a gurgling voice, I lunged at myself all at once. I tried to run away, but my body wouldn’t move.
And then came the squelching sound of tearing flesh.
“……”
I couldn’t comprehend what was happening right before my eyes for a moment.
Drip. I wiped the blood splattered on my face with my fingers. It was a vivid crimson red.
Her blood is the same color as mine. That was my first thought.
“…Why, are you wearing this expression?”
Suddenly, Ruci appeared in front of me.
Her face distorted with pain, she asked me, seemingly trying to smile but instead violently coughing up blood.
“…Ruci.”
I stupidly called out her name.
The Extermination Sword was embedded in Ruci’s stomach. It was the one plunged by my other self to kill me.
I could only let out a vacant sigh. Then I closed my eyes tightly.
“Open your eyes, you dumbass of a hero.”
Ruci’s fading voice scolded me. I opened my eyes again with a start.
Boom. The world started collapsing from the ceiling. The coffin disappeared, and all the scattered bodies vanished too.
The other me who had stabbed Ruci disintegrated with a tearing scream and turned into ashes.
All that remained in front of me was…
Ruci, the person bleeding and smiling sadly.
*
“Kek!”
I woke up from the dream.
It seemed I had lost consciousness standing up. I breathed heavily and looked around. It was Ade-lang’s mansion garden.
Is this reality? It must be. While checking the condition of the garden, I suddenly widened my eyes.
“What… what is going on?”
The garden’s condition had worsened since I lost consciousness.
All over the wide garden, massive fissures ran everywhere, as if a huge beast had raked its claws across it. Red flames flickered through the cracks.
It was an underworld fire. The mansion’s garden had lost all its original form.
This was a scene of devastation that even a Breath from Grenade couldn’t compare to.
‘People…!’
In a panic, I looked around.
But no one was in sight. All I could see were the squashed carcasses of the Cassas group.
“What is this… What’s going on?”
The mysterious dream I had just had came back to mind, filling me with unease.
Looking around aimlessly to find my companions, I suddenly realized I had something warm cradled in my arms.
“…What kind of sleep… did you have for so long? Irritating… kek.”
It was Ruci.
Ruci was looking up at me, struggling to smile even though it was hard for her.
More precisely, Ruci, with an Extermination Sword stuck in her stomach, gushing rivers of blood, was leaning on me, breathing heavily.
“…What is this?”
Wasn’t I already awake from the dream?
Why is this happening? Why is there a sword sticking out of Ruci’s stomach?
Is this a dream? It feels so vivid it seems real, but is this all just a dream?
…
….
… No. Shit.
Why am I doing such a bullshit reality escape?
This is undoubtedly reality. A 100% reality with no place to escape.
‘What happened?’
While I was knocked out, what exactly did I do?
Though I knew all of it already, I still asked myself that question.
Suddenly, I felt a sensation on my cheek. Ruci’s blood-soaked hand was gently touching my face.
“Hold your promise. You may not… die without my permission. Never.”
Ruci barely smiled.
It was a cruel smile that surpassed sadness.
“I’ve… kept my promise too, haven’t I?”
Just as Ruci finished saying that, with a light thud, her hands dropped lifelessly.
Ruci’s body pressed closer to me. Perhaps because she had lost her strength, her weight felt much heavier.
In the stunned silence, her words kept echoing in my mind.
—Then, make a promise. Promise to survive no matter what. Don’t let yourself be eaten by the dark force! Now, promise me!
It was Ruci’s words that reached out to me right after I had resurrected in this life and was about to go insane.
I promised her. The promise she mentioned is that.
If the promise she wants me to keep is that, then what is the promise Ruci believes she kept?
—If I get eaten by the dark force and turn into a crazy man… do something to make me come to my senses.
My own voice echoed in my head. At the moment, I understood everything.
Why this situation has occurred. Why I was eaten by the dark force but managed to return.
And who exactly stabbed a sword into her stomach. I knew clearly now.
“Did I… do this to others too?”
I looked down at my bloodied and scorched hand.
Ruci shook her head weakly.
“…Your worry’s all… part of destiny. I poured my leftover dark force… to contain you. I… made sure everyone else escaped.”
“…”
“I could do… so much if I used my full power. Don’t treat me like useless trash… urr, hehe… kek!”
Ruci gave a mischievous laugh and spat out blood.
As my blood ran cold, I suddenly thought of Eter and fumbled in my pouch.
Oh no.
“…It’s gone.”
There was no remaining Eter of Water left.
I remembered belatedly that we had shared it among four of us: me, Ade-lang, Grenade, and Seseona.
“Suicide… suicide quickly! Hurry!!”
I searched frantically for Vestark, which was rolling on the ground far away. I stretched out my hand to grab the sword.
Ruci clung to me.
“Don’t you dare… break our promise?”
But before I could even respond, she tightly embraced me, stopping my movements.
She was babbling strangely. In utter madness, I screamed at her.
“Shit! I need to commit suicide! Let go, shit! Hey! You’ll die if you keep doing this!!”
In a half-deranged state, I ranted nonsensically. I might not have been this disoriented even when I received a message of my father’s death one week before the end of my military service.
But Ruci still shook her head calmly.
“Even if you go back, it’s the same. Right now, I barely… managed to suppress you temporarily.”
“What the hell are you talking about!”
“Hero. Your dark force… hasn’t diminished at all. If you return like this… the remaining dark force will accumulate and you’ll go berserk like earlier. At that time… I’ll be too exhausted to stop you.”
“…Wha…?”
“That’s why… this is the right way. Both you and I… can keep our promise like this.”
A perfect no-win situation.
My hand, reaching for Vestark, fell helplessly.
I stared blankly at Ruci, who looked back at me at the same time. Her red eyes, about to dim at any moment, were struggling to smile while looking at me.
“Dark and… cold. I’m familiar with it. Maybe it’s because my power is weakened, but I feel death so vividly than before.”
Ruci coughed violently mid-sentence, spewing out blood.
Ruci’s breaths weakened as if they were about to stop. The sound of her heartbeats, felt through our pressed bodies, gradually faded.
“Listen, Hero. This life was… the worst one ever.”
After coughing for a while with her face buried in my chest, she finally raised her head. Her entire face was covered in blood.
She gave a slight twist of her lips upward.
“Having a lunatic hero like you as a guardian… made world domination go awry. Now I even die in your place… such an embarrassing situation. Hehe.”
Was it because of the coughing or the pain? Ruci was laughing while simultaneously shedding tears.
Her eyes slowly closed. The focus in her pupils blurred. She could no longer meet my gaze.
The murmurs continued.
“Because of you, I’ve experienced so many things I’ve never encountered before. Combined, my 140 years of monotonous life feels shorter than this one.”
“…”
“…That’s why… I can’t possibly forget it. It was… so much fun.”
While Ruci was making her dying words, I could do nothing to help her.
A feeling of helplessness seeped deeply into my bones.
Ssssss. A sinister sound arose.
It was the sound of Ruci’s body gradually turning into gray ash and scattering into the air.
I gulped and widened my eyes.
“Ah.”
Ruci, as if in a trance, stared at it too, then sighed.
She looped her arm, already half turned to dust, forcefully around my back.
“Living is… something like this, I suppose. I… never wanted to die like this before.”
“…”
“Hero. When I open my eyes again, remember…”.
Ruci couldn’t finish her sentence.
The erosion that began from the extremities consumed Ruci in an instant. Finally, it turned her tearful face into gray ashes.
“…”
I twitched the futilely extended hand.
My grip filled with just gritty dust remained. The remaining warmth I could feel moments ago had vanished. I slumped and fell on the spot.
[The Contract of Immortality has been voided.]
Bam. A black panel popped up in front of me.
[Time – Continental Calendar, Year 1108, January 23, 04:20]
[Location – Markeuteuriseu. Capital Crossfade, Shrine of the Unbeliever]
[Details: The Immortal Demon King, Rustica Asmodeus, has died. If the surviving guardian re-signs the contract, the egg of the Immortal Demon King will regenerate. The hatching time is affected by the total amount of dark forces the guardian has accumulated.]
The death sentence for Ruci.
As my mind went blank, I passively imbibed the letters one by one. Another panel followed closely after.
[Contract of Immortality – Fork Choice]
[1. Re-sign the contract with the guardian and accept the egg of the Immortal Demon King.]
[2. Terminate the contract with the guardian and proceed with the extinction of dark forces and regeneration points.]
The guardian of the Immortal Demon King… no, the former guardian was forced to make a choice.
Will I continue walking through this infernal landscape by Ruci’s side? Or will I leave Ruci and erase everything as if it never happened?
My choice will decide it all.
“…”
There was almost no hesitation. I slowly raised my hand.
I…
