WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Returned as a God ◈
Chapter 116: The Only Hope (1)
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The Sky Sword and Jung Hyeonseong's two arms, now blades themselves, collided.
I put weight into my feet, and part of the ground sank slightly under me.
Jung Hyeonseong's left arm split into two branches, trying to swallow me whole.
Watching from behind, Choi Jaebyung moved to raise his shield.
This much I could handle.
I twisted my body, set my stance, and drove my sword into Jung Hyeonseong's arm.
A blue arc traced the sword's path.
Fwoosh.
The muscle wrapped around the blade tore open, and blood spilled out.
Jung Hyeonseong's face went pale.
He gagged and spat out a mouthful of blood.
Jung Hyeonseong's sword clashed against Choi Jaebyung's shield as he ran in.
Choi Jaebyung swung his shield wide and shoved Jung Hyeonseong back.
At the same moment, I lunged in again.
The sword grew heavy, and moved fast.
"Why, why, why!!"
Bloody tears streamed from Jung Hyeonseong's eyes.
He and I crashed together, rough and unrelenting.
Every swing of the sword sent the nearby trees flying from the shockwave.
The instant my focus slipped even a little, he struck.
I couldn't hear the noise around us at all.
Right now, in this moment, Jung Hyeonseong and I were more focused on each other than on anything else in the world.
Jung Hyeonseong swung his arm, half severed and hanging by threads.
"This is the wrong choice!"
"I know, I know that! I already know!"
Jung Hyeonseong screamed like he was being torn apart.
The Heavenly Dragon's Peerless Sword Style finally sliced his arm off.
He didn't hesitate.
His other arm grazed my already badly injured shoulder.
"You think I don't know that?!"
Dark red blood poured from where the severed arm had been.
I gripped the Sky Sword tight and pressed forward.
Blood dripped from my hand, running down along the blade.
"Stop right here. What do you think noona Eunyoung would say if she saw this?"
At the mention of her name, Jung Hyeonseong flinched.
"What do you even know about Eunyoung-ssi, to say something like that?"
"If it were noona Eunyoung, she wouldn't have gone and picked the god Beritaas the way you did."
"If I hadn't accepted Beritaas, I would've died! You want me to just die, forgotten by everyone, like I never existed?"
With one arm gone, Jung Hyeonseong charged again.
I knocked the arm aside, and a sudden wave of dizziness hit me.
I planted a hand on the ground and flipped backward, barely dodging the follow-up.
Furious Charge was an ability that grew stronger the more wounds I took.
It came down to a race between the growing strength and how much my injured body could actually hold up.
I swung my sword at Jung Hyeonseong's arm.
More accurately, I just hacked down at it, one-sided.
"That's exactly why I'm going to!"
It wasn't some elegant technique, wasn't a skill worth naming.
Just the same one-sided downward slash, over and over.
My torn-open mouth tasted like blood.
Gods feared the rise of new rivals.
That was why they slapped labels like unaffiliated on anyone with the potential to become a god themselves.
It was clear now why Lachesis had been so desperate to kill me.
And this wasn't something I was only saying to Jung Hyeonseong.
"Change it!"
My grip on the sword grew stronger with every word.
My heart pounded like it was about to burst out of my chest.
I'd never told anyone this since coming to this world.
My world had no Hunters, no monsters, no Awakened.
I wanted to go back to how things used to be too.
There'd been more than a few times I felt like I'd been happier back when I was studying until my nose bled.
Spilled water doesn't go back in the cup.
If I could've given up my divinity and gone home, Lachesis would never have had a reason to come after me.
I'd have rather not known any of this.
I'd seen too much since coming to this world.
Jung Hyeonseong. Song Eunyoung.
And Yu Jihan, Lee Eunyheui, from the Tower of Trials back then.
Unaffiliated Awakened ones that no one's memory held onto anymore.
Some of them might have succeeded in ascending to divinity too, just like I had.
Every single one of them who carried that possibility had been erased.
All of it because of the selfishness the gods had created.
"I don't know what the hell his Dimensional Ruler Authority even is! Fine, I'll just take first place, that's all!"
The Sky Sword glowed a deeper blue and forced Jung Hyeonseong's arm back.
If it's really that great, I'll take it myself.
I'll become the winner of this cruel game and change the world.
Rizu had asked me once.
What was I so angry about?
The world that had driven Rizu into isolation!
Me, forced to push forward a kid who'd been too scared to even get goblin blood on his hands!
I was sick to death of all of it, this whole situation that had left Jung Hyeonseong with only one choice.
That was the conclusion I'd reached, living through the tower and this world.
Jung Hyeonseong's remaining arm was sliced clean through and dropped to the ground.
Having lost both arms, he swayed on his feet and looked at me.
"That's... that's insane. There's no way you could do that."
Jung Hyeonseong was losing his human shape.
His body had rotted halfway through, and more than half his face had caved in.
I'd survived on the Arbelisia Continent so I could return to my own world.
And this was what it had come to.
My heart sank, cold.
Jung Hyeonseong, still looking at me, muttered like he'd given up.
"It's... impossible."
"Better than giving up without even trying."
That was my will. No, the will of everyone who'd walk this path with me.
Losing his balance, Jung Hyeonseong's body toppled forward and dropped to its knees.
"Eunyoung-ssi... she said it. Said there was someone she wanted to introduce me to. I think I know who that was, somehow."
I raised the Sky Sword high, aimed at Jung Hyeonseong's neck.
Sensing the end, he lifted his head.
A blade bluer than anything else in the world filled his vision.
Clear tears rolled down Jung Hyeonseong's cheeks.
"I wonder... if we'd met just a little sooner, would things have been different."
The raised Sky Sword followed my hand down toward the ground.
At that exact moment, a black eye opened up from the ground beneath Jung Hyeonseong.
"Damn it!!"
I tried to activate a skill, but it was already too late.
A dark force washed over Jung Hyeonseong's body, and the shockwave threw me into the air.
My body wouldn't respond, like the tension had drained right out of it all at once.
If I hit the ground like this, this was going to hurt like hell.
Right as I braced for impact, something grabbed me by the back of the neck.
"Would you quit with the insane... cough... argh!"
Choi Jaebyung caught me and set me down on the ground.
The moment my feet touched down, pain shot through every bone in my body like they were all shattering at once.
I collapsed onto the ground and pulled out an Elixir to drink.
"Guess even an Elixir isn't a cure-all."
"You almost died just now! How many lives do you even have, seriously?!"
Choi Jaebyung, who'd been so reluctant to fight with everything on the line, shouted like he genuinely couldn't understand me.
He looked at Jung Hyeonseong.
Both arms severed, eyes gone, body half melted, Jung Hyeonseong looked nothing like a living person by any measure. And yet he hadn't died.
His body was still moving.
More precisely, something else was moving him.
[What do you, know.]
"So you finally showed up."
"Wh, what showed up?"
"The god Beritaas."
"What? A god? That thing?"
"Just borrowing half his consciousness for now, though."
It made sense that the god Beritaas's will would be present in Jung Hyeonseong, a demigod.
[Foolish, one. You... dare.]
Jung Hyeonseong was practically Beritaas now, so the thing had definitely overheard everything he and I had said to each other.
I spat out the blood pooled in my mouth and pointed the Sky Sword at it.
I'd lost count of how many times I'd said this line by now.
[You, know nothing. Pitiful. Die here!]
Shadows spread out from Jung Hyeonseong's center, scattering in every direction, wrapping around me and Choi Jaebyung.
In an instant, Jung Hyeonseong and I were trapped inside a dome the god Beritaas had made.
"Hey, wh, what do we do about this?! Kang Hangyeol!"
Choi Jaebyung gripped his sword, shaking all over.
The sight of him hastily raising his shield pulled a hollow laugh out of me.
[You cannot, leave.]
Black mana surged up through the walls and floor, all of it aimed at me.
The Sky Sword swept in an arc, knocking aside every attack flying in from every direction.
I closed the distance to Jung Hyeonseong in an instant.
I aimed the sword not at him, but at the empty air above his head.
I twisted my body and slashed, and a giant eyeball appeared where the blade passed.
"I."
Dozens of hands poured out all at once through the wound splitting open in the eye.
"You have any idea how long I've been waiting for this moment?"
I drove the Sky Sword into the wound, and Jung Hyeonseong, below it, screamed instead.
[What, what are you...]
I hadn't escaped Lachesis by dumb luck.
My power was strength enough to shatter a whole world.
And that world included the temples of the gods.
I'd lost most of my strength running from Lachesis, but in my current state, it was worth trying.
Especially since this thing's divine temple had already undergone serious corruption.
[You, what in the world are you... doing to my world!]
The blue force of the Sky Sword mixed with the black mana, tearing through the empty air.
If it's Yu Chaeyoung.
She'd notice the ripple in this space.
The black dome wrapped around me and Choi Jaebyung vanished, and a massive sword-shaped scar tore open in midair.
Through the split in space, I saw noona Eunyoung's face.
"Huh? Hangyeol-ah?"
Using Blessing of Wings, noona Eunyoung kicked off the empty air and leapt toward me.
I grabbed her hand, flung her up high, then came back down to the ground.
I must have overdone it. My vision blurred.
[How, did you do that! That power...]
"Hangyeol-ah! I missed you!"
Noona Eunyoung landed and threw her arms around me tight.
"Ugh, ow... it hurts. It hurts!"
I pushed her off, telling her to knock it off.
Not exactly the moment for it, and it genuinely hurt.
I hadn't seen noona in a while, but from the look of her, she seemed to be doing fine.
Tears welled up in noona Eunyoung's eyes.
"Hic, do you have any idea how much I missed you? Good grief, you're covered in wounds head to toe... huh? Where even is this, and who are you?"
"Ah, hello. I'm Choi Jaebyung, from Raon Guild. I, I've heard so much about you from Hangyeol. Noonim."
What the hell's up with this guy all of a sudden?
I frowned at Choi Jaebyung's weird behavior.
Having finally pried myself away from noona Eunyoung, I caught my breath, ragged.
At the mention of Raon Guild, noona Eunyoung eyed Choi Jaebyung warily.
Even noona knew that Raon Hunters didn't exactly think highly of Aria Guild Hunters.
Seemed like Choi Jaebyung and I would need to clear up the misunderstanding.
"He's not an enemy."
Choi Jaebyung quickly hid his sword behind his back, backing up what I said.
Noona Eunyoung's killing intent settled down.
At the same moment, an attack came flying in from a furious Beritaas.
"Look out..."
Before Choi Jaebyung could even get his shield up, noona Eunyoung swung her leg in a wide arc.
The red ring on her finger caught the light.
Ishtar's Ring.
A massive, blazing burst of flame rose where her foot passed.
Choi Jaebyung couldn't tear his eyes off the flickering flames, mouth hanging open.
Noona Eunyoung blocked Beritaas's attack, stamped her foot down, and clenched her fist.
"Well, at least now I know what I need to do."
Footnotes:
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