WeTried Translations
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Editor: BlueMangoAde
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 870: F-Rank Hunter Jeon Myeong-hoon (9)
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Jeon Myeong-hoon arrives at a temple with “Thunder God Religion” written across it in bright yellow letters.
“Hmm, just as I thought. I was a little unsure when I saw it on TV, but...”
As expected, the ants worship him.
Inside the Thunder God Religion temple, Jeon Myeong-hoon approaches the priest ants watching him with wary antennae.
“Lower those suspicious antennae. Who do you think you're acting like that in front of?”
“This is a sacred temple serving the Thunder God. Please leave!”
Though built in the style of a mosque, the Thunder God Religion temple is constructed in the oracle-bone-script style often used on Mount Sumeru.
Jeon Myeong-hoon looks over the strange temple and speaks.
“What is it? I might simply be interested in your religion. Does the god you serve teach you to be so wary whenever a new believer shows interest?”
“That is...”
“Guide me. Explain the god you serve, and tell me who grants you power.”
“...Understood.”
Jeon Myeong-hoon follows the priest ant deeper into the temple.
Then, he sees something rather surprising.
“This is... a Gate?”
There is another Gate inside a Gate.
The priest ant shrugs.
“The native species of this land often believe Gates only appear in their own world. That isn't so. According to revelations obtained through cross-verification with numerous Constellations, countless worlds were shattered and cracked by the ‘black power of destruction’ that arrived one day. The dimension we inhabit is no exception. It is covered in countless fissures and scars.”
‘The black power of destruction... Is it referring to the Emptiness Sword?’
The moment Jeon Myeong-hoon recalls that thing from back then, chills run down his spine.
It is already over, but it remains a memory he does not wish to revisit.
The apex of slaughter that relentlessly pursued him solely to kill him.
Jeon Myeong-hoon's memories of the Future King from that time are trauma for him, somewhat comparable to the Heavenly Punishment Supreme Deity's ‘Return to Thee.’
“This Gate leads to a sacred domain where one can meet the Thunder God. In truth, most other temples and religions are similar. Not the other religions believed in by the native species of this planet called ‘Earth,’ of course... But religions that worship Constellations from other dimensions usually have a space connected to that Divinity, in the form of a Gate, within each religious facility.”
Jeon Myeong-hoon silently approaches the Gate.
“How did you become believers of the Thunder God and join the religion? Who acknowledged you and accepted you as believers?”
“The model answer would be the Thunder God. But... in most cases, whether one believes or not is decided after entering. Some ants simply enter, gain several new powers within the sacred domain beyond the Gate, and come back out. Others receive clear salvation within.”
“Salvation... You say that Thunder God grants salvation? How?”
“Some things are difficult to explain with words. Would you like to experience it for yourself?”
“...”
Jeon Myeong-hoon looks at the priest ant, then surveys his surroundings.
The believer ants, with symbols representing Jeon Myeong-hoon embroidered on their clothes, watch him with tense antennae.
Wariness, concern, and...
Anger.
“Ah. Is that how it is?”
Jeon Myeong-hoon vaguely senses their gazes and heart essences.
And he roughly understands what kind of beings those who became his believers are.
“All of you must have once been consumed by intense anger.”
“...”
“I can guess what this salvation you speak of is. What you obtained was likely not salvation, but self-consolation. I know a little about the Thunder God as well. The being you call the Thunder God... isn't capable of granting salvation to anyone.”
“Whether one accepts it as salvation or self-gratification is a choice one makes for oneself.”
“Hmph.”
Jeon Myeong-hoon smiles bitterly and heads for the Gate.
“Fine. I will enter as well. Let me see what this salvation you speak of truly is.”
Sensing the encirclement of General Ant-level ants outside, he steps into the Gate within the Thunder God Religion temple.
Just as he passes through the Gate, he seems to hear arguing behind him about sealing it and blocking him in.
He snickers and arrives in a world with a familiar presence.
Rumble, rumble...
Wooooosh...
Jeon Myeong-hoon realizes he is falling.
He is falling endlessly through the clouds toward somewhere below.
Raindrops and hail batter his body, while red lightning rumbles between them.
“A familiar sight.”
Great Heavenly Rain of the Charged Lightning Veil.
It is the Thunder Rain Heavenly Realm, the part of Jeon Myeong-hoon's inner world that has become a Middle Realm.
[Your Highness! Oh, have we returned to Mount Sumeru?]
The lump of charcoal inside the plastic bottle cries out.
Jeon Myeong-hoon shakes his head as he falls endlessly.
“No. This is... probably inside my original body's inner world.”
[Ah...!]
Though they fall without end, the ground remains nowhere in sight.
They are surrounded by clouds churning with endless hail and rainwater.
Lightning continually rumbles and echoes around them.
[It's a Middle Realm, but its condition seems strange, Your Highness. Do people usually fall endlessly like this?]
“Yes. Being a Middle Realm doesn't mean living beings can laugh and live peacefully forever. Middle Realms are destroyed too, and new creations open. This is the era of primordial chaos after destruction, before new creation begins. Within this storm, the lightning energy of heaven and earth gathers and first creates a Chaos Realm region. Then, according to my will, a Stable Realm region is born within it.”
[Then that means...]
“Right now, I can't link with my original body. Those Merchant Guild bastards must have deliberately cut it off, so... we simply have to keep falling endlessly.”
[T-Then...! Is there a way back? Isn't this even more hopeless than the Hunters' world?]
“Hmm... Not right now, probably.”
Jeon Myeong-hoon senses the charcoal lump's intense dissatisfaction and snickers.
“Still, don't worry too much. Since we came through the Gate as guests...”
Rumble!
In the distance, lightning flashes within the clouds.
Jeon Myeong-hoon grips his spear.
“They'll welcome their guest...!”
Rooooar!
A lightning dragon formed of thunderbolts charges at Jeon Myeong-hoon in an instant.
[W-What is thaaat!?]
“Seeing something even you don't know about somehow makes me feel good.”
The charcoal lump knows most information about the Hunter world inside and out, but seeing that it is unfamiliar with Jeon Myeong-hoon's inner world makes Jeon Myeong-hoon feel oddly pleased.
“It's a lightning spirit. What else would it be!”
Jeon Myeong-hoon thrusts his spear at the lightning spirit rushing toward him.
[Activating the skill, ‘Lightning Garment’...]
Rumble!
Receiving the spirit's power with his entire body, Jeon Myeong-hoon cleaves it in two.
“I can use skills inside my own body... It looks like those Merchant Guild bastards turned someone else's body into a dungeon inside a Gate.”
He grumbles lightly, but Jeon Myeong-hoon's situation is not good.
Crackle...
The spirit he just cut down possesses a difference in rank that no Awakened person's skill could contend with.
If it were anyone other than Jeon Myeong-hoon, even with the same technique, they would have burned away completely.
Sizzle...
Even Grevolg cannot properly heal his injuries, leaving Jeon Myeong-hoon to hold his spear while reduced to charcoal.
[Your Highness! Aaaah, what are you doing right now!?]
“What else? I'm trying to cut lightning... until we can escape.”
Rumble!
The moment Jeon Myeong-hoon cuts down the lightning dragon spirit, lightning spirits of similar rank begin appearing everywhere.
A qilin-shaped spirit charges at him from within the clouds.
Whoosh!
With his skin charred black, Jeon Myeong-hoon reinforces his body with a skill and swings his spear.
Crack!
Jeon Myeong-hoon's body becomes a ray of light, cutting through the spirit's body as well.
[Your muscles are cooking! There is too much lightning energy, so even this demon spear can't heal your injuries! Stop drawing the spirits' aggro!]
The charcoal lump cries out in horror.
Yet even as his body turns to charcoal, Jeon Myeong-hoon grips his spear again.
A lightning spirit resembling a toad leaps at Jeon Myeong-hoon from the clouds.
Jeon Myeong-hoon takes a thrusting stance, steps on the hail, and leaps.
A thrust containing the principle of his Eighty Quadrillion Lightning-Tipped Spear pierces the third spirit's body.
The spirits scatter as streaks of lightning, only to gather again.
Jeon Myeong-hoon realizes that even his bones have burned away.
‘I've become charcoal too.’
He is only forcing his body to move with mana.
But if he pushes forward even one more time, even that mana will burn away completely, leaving him as a handful of ashes.
He is about to die by his own power.
The charcoal lump screams beside him, but Jeon Myeong-hoon forces his charred body to move and grips his spear.
Rumble!
The spirits change shape.
As though fascinated by the actions of Jeon Myeong-hoon, who has appeared from another world, they gather together and become a giant lightning humanoid in Jeon Myeong-hoon's form.
The spirits create a spear from lightning, point it at Jeon Myeong-hoon, and take a thrusting stance.
Jeon Myeong-hoon finds his spear in response and barely opens his mouth.
“Hey. Charcoal lump.”
[Your Highness! Stop! You'll die!]
“Quit being so loud. Hold my hand.”
[...What?]
Crack...
Jeon Myeong-hoon grips the plastic bottle containing the charcoal lump together with his spear.
He grips the charcoal lump and the spear in the same hand.
It feels as though he is holding the spear alongside a third party.
The charcoal lump screams, wondering whether the former Heavenly Venerable it must serve is about to die alone in another world.
The next moment.
Jeon Myeong-hoon becomes a streak of light and pierces through the giant-shaped spirit.
[Huff... Huh...? Why, why did we survive...?]
“Thank you. For holding my hand.”
Jeon Myeong-hoon speaks as he senses the trembling charcoal lump.
Jeon Myeong-hoon is now completely charcoal.
Even revival through Grevolg is impossible.
Yet the reason he remains as an existence and endures is because he accepts the power of lightning into his body and forcibly moves with it.
He is undeniably the sovereign of lightning!
All lightning in the myriad phenomena must submit to him.
Even if all his rank and connections are sealed, there can be no being capable of surpassing him in handling lightning.
The plastic bottle containing the charcoal lump melts, and the goro maple sap in which it had floated evaporates.
Holding the charcoal lump, Jeon Myeong-hoon feels his body forcibly moving through lightning.
‘This spear... Back then, many people held it with me.’
Seo Eun-hyun's hand.
The Enders' hands.
Golden Shaking Bird's hand.
The hands of the Golden Divine Heavenly Thunder Sect disciples.
Yeon Wei and Yeon Jin's hands.
Jin Byuk-ho's hand.
And...
Her hand.
Hands.
What has brought him here has always been someone's hand.
Rumble...
The lightning spirits take the form of an asura with three heads and six arms.
“Hey. Are you holding my hand?”
The lightning asura grips a Red Lightning Spear, points it at Jeon Myeong-hoon, and takes a thrusting stance.
Jeon Myeong-hoon speaks to the charcoal lump, which is trembling as though about to faint.
[Aaaah! Your Highness! Aaaagh! Jeon Myeong-hoon, you bastard!!! Instead of taking stupid risks, find the exit and get out if you have time for this shit!]
“Hehe... Keep holding on. Just stay attached to my hand.”
Someone's hand touches his.
That alone is enough for Jeon Myeong-hoon.
“With that, I can live.”
Treading Heaven Beyond the Path
Eighty Quadrillion Lightning-Tipped Spear!
Rumble!
Jeon Myeong-hoon's spear strike pierces the asura once more.
Treading Heaven Beyond the Path
Eighty Quadrillion Lightning-Tipped Spear!
What Jeon Myeong-hoon barely attained by holding hands is his Eighty Quadrillion Lightning-Tipped Spear.
“As long as I'm holding a hand. My lightning will never die.”
[A-Aaaah!]
The charcoal lump screams at the increasingly enormous spirits forming around them.
It curses Jeon Myeong-hoon madly in its heart.
This is a Gate that even ants had passed through without difficulty in the first place.
There is no way it should be this difficult.
Is this not all because Jeon Myeong-hoon suddenly stirred up the spirits without knowing his own limits? Why must it risk its life before spirits like gods, beings that seem capable of erasing its existence?
Yet why is it that the situation where it is held together with the spear in Jeon Myeong-hoon's hand gradually begins to feel stable?
Rumble...
Rumble...
The lightning spirits eventually cease taking the form of living beings and become one enormous spear.
A massive spear of lightning, vast enough to connect heaven and earth, pierces through the clouds and rushes at Jeon Myeong-hoon.
Though trembling at the terrifying force radiating from the spirit, and though it curses Jeon Myeong-hoon, the charcoal lump unconsciously...
Imagines that it is holding hands with Jeon Myeong-hoon.
At that moment.
The charcoal lump feels itself accelerating together with Jeon Myeong-hoon.
Sizzle...
Why is that?
The charcoal lump was simply born as a lump of charcoal.
It was born in a world where glass flames burned, then was picked up and taken in by a being named Ham Jin, a disciple of a Great One.
The charcoal lump's identity is that of a lump of charcoal.
It has never imagined itself living as any other being.
Yet why is that?
At this moment.
The charcoal lump feels as though it has become someone holding Jeon Myeong-hoon's hand and thrusting a spear alongside him.
Together with Jeon Myeong-hoon, who forcibly moves while accepting thunder and lightning despite his entire body having become charcoal, the charcoal lump endlessly thrusts its spear.
At some point, Jeon Myeong-hoon has become like a lightning spirit himself, and the charcoal lump realizes that it can no longer even feel Jeon Myeong-hoon's hand, which has the same charcoal texture as itself.
[Your Highness... Are you... recovering your authority...?]
[That can't be. I'm only enduring by relying on a single skill. The moment I deactivate it, I'll die at once...!]
Jeon Myeong-hoon smiles.
He asks the charcoal lump.
[That doesn't matter right now. What do you feel?]
[That is...]
The charcoal lump does not know how to answer.
In the sensation of holding hands with Jeon Myeong-hoon and thrusting the spear together, it shares the sensations Jeon Myeong-hoon feels whenever he cuts through lightning.
The charcoal lump feels that lightning has emotions.
‘This is... regret?’
Within the lightning, it feels endless regret.
Regret and remorse.
Anger.
Pain...
[The lightning of that Thunder God bastard, who supposedly gave the ants salvation, is like this. Lightning filled only with regret, remorse, pain, and anger. By overcoming this lightning, those ants must have felt a sense of kinship and gained some self-consolation. That is the true nature of the Thunder God they believe in.]
[...]
[Isn't it funny! The Thunder God isn't someone who grants salvation, but merely someone who must share the pain of mutual suffering!]
Rumble!
The charcoal lump and Jeon Myeong-hoon overcome another bolt of lightning.
[In the end, that Thunder God bastard is someone who only suffers and cannot move forward. Isn't that right?]
[...Is that so...?]
At Jeon Myeong-hoon's words, the charcoal lump slowly opens its mouth.
It is merely a guide.
It has no needless personal feelings.
Rather, it only thinks Jeon Myeong-hoon is bothersome dead weight.
But at this moment.
For some reason, the charcoal lump wants to say something to Jeon Myeong-hoon.
[But I don't think mutual suffering is necessarily bad.]
Crack!
Seeing another spirit burst apart before them, the charcoal lump speaks.
It and Jeon Myeong-hoon are holding hands.
[Facing pain.]
Rumble!
The charcoal lump thrusts its spear together with Jeon Myeong-hoon.
[Sharing pain.]
Jeon Myeong-hoon's Treading Heaven Beyond the Path Eighty Quadrillion Lightning-Tipped Spear is strange.
Though Jeon Myeong-hoon is clearly the one wielding it, the charcoal lump itself feels as though...
It is an experienced spearman thrusting alongside Jeon Myeong-hoon.
It is gaining the sensation of thrusting a spear.
It feels as though the charcoal lump has placed a hand upon it as well.
[Weren't there also those who obtained salvation!]
Rumble...
Squeeze...
The charcoal lump suddenly feels something it has never felt before.
A body that has spent its entire life as rough, brittle charcoal, easily broken apart.
Yet now, it feels as though it has gained something like touch.
As if someone's hand is warmly wrapping around its own...
[Can merely sharing pain become salvation?]
For one moment.
The charcoal lump feels as though it and Jeon Myeong-hoon have entered a pure white domain.
The charcoal lump feels something very strange.
Like dreaming.
It feels as though limbs it never possessed in its life have appeared, and for some reason, it answers Jeon Myeong-hoon not in the charcoal lump's voice, but in the clear voice of someone entirely different.
“Yes.”
Holding Jeon Myeong-hoon's hand tightly, the charcoal lump speaks.
“Even if only for an instant, having looked toward the same place is not a memory that can be forgotten, is it?”
The charcoal lump knows that it is charcoal.
All its life, it has known only that it is charcoal, and that it must follow the fate assigned to it.
When it first met Jeon Myeong-hoon, it had only been irritated.
When it separates from Jeon Myeong-hoon, it will likely return to being one of countless ordinary lumps of charcoal.
But this much is certain.
This moment, when it held hands with Jeon Myeong-hoon and thrust a spear alongside him, will certainly never be forgotten.
The suffering will not be forgotten either.
But neither will this memory of looking toward the same place.
Suddenly.
The charcoal lump sees that Jeon Myeong-hoon is crying.
How strange.
His physical body is completely gone within the lightning. How can he cry?
* * *
As Jeon Myeong-hoon cuts through lightning, scenes and pain from that time pass through him.
The nature of this lightning is obvious.
It is the anger rooted in Jeon Myeong-hoon's heart.
He is trying to cut down his own anger.
‘It can't be cut.’
No matter how much he cuts, it only returns as increasingly larger lightning spirits.
How can anger already carved into him be cut away?
He merely realizes that now.
“Even if only for an instant, having looked toward the same place is not a memory that can be forgotten, is it?”
Lightning is but an instant.
Our lives are also an instant.
The pain he received will not be forgotten.
But perhaps looking toward the same place...
Will not be forgotten either.
Only then does Jeon Myeong-hoon realize who has entered the charcoal lump and whispered those words to him, and he sheds tears.
“Thank you.”
It is not a great enlightenment.
Unlike his greatest friend, he has not attained supreme enlightenment and shattered fate.
What he gains is merely a small consolation.
That must be all.
But perhaps that alone is enough.
Rumble...
Jeon Myeong-hoon's spear changes.
Treading Heaven Beyond the Path begins to change.
Together with the being holding the spear with him, Jeon Myeong-hoon thrusts, thrusts, and thrusts again.
The lightning spirits that continue crashing into him grow larger and larger, until at some point they become a massive [wall].
“Back then, you surely...”
Bang!
Back then, he surely...
“Were looking at me... weren't you?”
He was looking at her hand.
Bang!
As everything burned within the lightning.
Trying not to let go of only that.
“You... were looking at me too, weren't you?”
Baaang!
“We... were looking at each other.”
A crack appears in the wall.
“Yes... That is enough.”
Baaaaang!
A hole opens in the wall, and it collapses.
Holding hands, Jeon Myeong-hoon flies beyond the fallen wall.
Crackle...
The surrounding environment changes.
The murmuring voices of ants.
Cries that he has broken through the dimensional seal.
The ants' panicked confusion, and the priest ant looking at him.
“Have you met our god?”
“...Yes.”
Crackle...
Jeon Myeong-hoon reconstructs his body amid the lightning and speaks.
“Did our god hold your hand?”
“...Yes.”
He smiles.
“It had been holding it all along.”
Much lighter than before.
And so.
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