WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby
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◈ I Returned as a God ◈
Chapter 130: The Crossroads of Choice (2)
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The god Beritaas had been keeping Jung Hyeonseong as its demigod.
If it had just been a means of boosting its forces, persuading him the way it had done with Seo Jihoon would've been the smarter move, not kidnapping him.
Every time I swung my sword, eyeballs stuck to the skin burst apart.
The skin split open, and lips grew where the eyes had been.
The mouths all spoke at once.
[That.]
[You don't.]
[Know.]
[Pathetic.]
[Brat.]
Different words spoken at the same time made it confusing, but not so much that I couldn't follow.
Jung Hyeonseong was an unaffiliated Awakened, someone who carried potential.
The god Beritaas must have needed Jung Hyeonseong.
Now that he was dead, whoever could fill that spot...
"No way."
When I struck at Gross far off in the distance, the god Beritaas blocked my Meteor Strike.
[Too late.]
[Kihihihihi.]
[Hehehehehehe.]
I cut through Beritaas's mouth and hurried to reach Choi Suhyun.
"Hyung! Noona's..."
[The comms room is being dissolved.]
Something must have happened to Gangwoo hyung, who'd been managing the comms room, because it shut down.
The air around me shimmered, and a temple gate the god Beritaas had created opened up beneath my feet.
[You.]
[Jung Hyeonseong.]
[Strength]
[Suspicious]
The god Beritaas had planned to keep noona sealed inside its temple indefinitely.
It was my power that had pulled her out.
Since I'd only used it for a brief moment, it seemed like it could only guess at what had happened.
The one who bothered the god Beritaas wasn't Jin Sangbyeok, or Choi Suhyun. It was me.
It was planning to trap me inside its own space, its temple.
The ground turned to a swamp beneath my feet, and black pillars rose from every direction, swallowing me up.
Nothing else for it...
Just as I was about to use divine power to break free, a thought crossed my mind.
I set down the sword in my hand and lifted my head.
When the comms room cut out, Choi Suhyun, sensing something was wrong, used Blink to appear beside me.
"Kang Hangyeol!"
Choi Suhyun reached his hand toward me as I got dragged into the temple gate.
I slapped his hand away.
His eyes shook, genuinely startled.
"You... what are you..."
"I'll be right back."
"What is this..."
"Hyung, find Yu Chaeyoung. You can't let noona and Yu Chaeyoung meet!"
My body sank completely into the temple gate.
The moment I passed through it, my body went weightless, then plummeted downward like something had gone insane.
I couldn't see anything around me, and I had no way to tell how deep this temple even went.
Bracing for whatever might come, I activated Mana Detection.
Something enormous stirred right below me, and I used Meteor Strike in a hurry.
A flash of light split the open-mouthed monster clean in half.
I landed on top of the fallen monster's corpse.
"Dark. It's so dark."
I hadn't expected it to be this bad.
I genuinely couldn't see a single thing ahead of me.
I used Mana Detection to piece together the terrain around me, just barely.
I climbed down off the monster's corpse.
Squelch.
Every step made a thick, sticky sound.
I followed the path leading deeper in, then stopped walking.
Not long after, a faint light appeared.
I didn't even need to approach it. The light drifted over to me on its own, as if by some agreement.
It was that item Lee Eunyheui had mentioned, the Porongi.
The glowing lump lit up the space between me and Yu Jihan.
Yu Jihan held a sword with an unusually long blade in his hand.
The moment he saw me, his face twisted with open displeasure.
The bloodlust rolling off him was strong enough that swinging that sword at me right then wouldn't have been strange at all.
I'd heard about him from noona, but this was the first time I'd actually stood face to face with the transcendent Yu Jihan since that first encounter.
Back then he'd just charged straight at me and I hadn't had time to process anything, but seeing him again now, something about it felt off.
His face was clearly the same.
But the air around him belonged to a completely different person.
I had no idea what could've happened to him inside the tower to leave his expression this hardened.
The other difference, if I had to name one, was that he looked a bit older. And I had no clue where he'd picked up those clothes that made him look like some special forces operative.
Yu Jihan closed the distance until I was well within his sword's range.
It was an awkward, uncomfortable reunion.
I raised a hand and gave a small wave, forcing a smile.
"Hey, hi."
Yu Jihan's blade stayed raised, sharp and wary, watching me.
At least he hadn't just attacked outright like last time, small mercy...
Yeah, no, of course not.
Yu Jihan, clearly furious, drew his sword and lunged.
"You dare use me?"
"That was, uh. There wasn't a choice."
"W, wait a second! Just listen to me!"
Everywhere his sword passed, it left devastating marks behind.
I couldn't tell if he'd decided there was no point holding back like last time, or if he was just genuinely furious.
I managed to block his sword several times as he came at me.
Yu Jihan's mouth fell open, apparently surprised he hadn't expected me to actually block it.
"You've gotten a little better since I last saw you."
"That's not the point right now, I'm actually going to let you out this time!"
"You planning to stay trapped in here your whole life?"
"I can get out without you. It'll just take a while longer."
"Not a while, an agonizingly long while!"
"That's none of your business either!"
Yu Jihan turned his body and swung.
Every time he did, the temple shook violently.
This temple was basically an empty shell.
It only kept the shape of a temple. Almost nothing was left inside it.
Yu Jihan's swordwork moved with brutal force.
This guy's sword is similar to...
"Don't kid yourself."
"My sword isn't like yours."
Yu Jihan spun and kicked.
I blocked hastily with the Sky Sword, but my body still got pushed back.
Switching his grip on the sword from two hands to one, Yu Jihan reached his free hand overhead.
A second sword appeared from his inventory.
A black-bladed sword with an antique feel to it, one I'd never seen before in my life.
The moment I saw both blades in his hands, I couldn't help frowning.
I already knew Yu Jihan alternated between using two swords.
I'd been careless.
Someone skilled with a sword didn't carry two of them around for no reason.
The situation had given me more than enough warning that Yu Jihan might use both blades.
"And you're going to die right here!"
Unfortunately, I don't know how to use dual-sword technique.
Actually, what caught me off guard was something else entirely.
His stance.
It resembled someone I knew, frighteningly closely.
Before I could even process the strange feeling, Yu Jihan's whole presence shifted.
"H, hey! Even so, that's a Transcendent Mode skill, isn't it!"
"I told you I didn't come here to fight! You chuunibyou bastard!"
Yu Jihan's form appeared at my side.
Both swords grazed past the Sky Sword at incredible speed.
They'd barely touched, but the vibration traveling up through the blade felt like it might snap my wrist.
"Using a needlessly good sword, aren't you."
Crazy bastard.
He'd clearly meant to just break my sword outright so I couldn't fight back.
I set my stance and moved into a form from the Heavenly Dragon's Peerless Sword Style.
Yu Jihan threw the sword in one hand high into the air and used the exact same form to cancel out my attack.
"You son of a..."
Between him and An Seojun, this really wasn't a moment that could go without some cursing.
They kept saying it was some secret manual, that not just anyone could learn it.
Secret manual my ass, everybody and their mother knows it!
Yu Jihan caught the falling sword and lunged at me fast.
An Seojun at least used a similar style of swordsmanship, something I could work with, but Yu Jihan's dual-blade technique was a nightmare to deal with.
This fight was clearly one where I had the disadvantage.
This guy.
He's not the Yu Jihan I know.
His sword doesn't resemble mine. It resembles that guy's...
I knocked every one of Yu Jihan's blades aside and drove into the opening.
The Sky Sword grazed across Yu Jihan's cheek.
His eyes flickered, just slightly.
Before I could get another word out, the next attack was already coming.
Every strike carried heavy killing intent and aimed straight for vital points.
It felt like a sword style built for one purpose only, to kill.
"What did I even do to you! What did I do wrong!"
"Are you saying that seriously?"
"That's... uh..."
Everything I'd done to Yu Jihan up to this point flashed through my head.
Before I could scrape together an excuse, his blade was already right in front of my eyes.
Dangerous...
Just as the sword closed in near my throat, Yu Jihan suddenly yanked it back and swung his leg in a wide arc.
He struck down my arm, knocking the Sky Sword out of my grip and onto the ground, then twisted his body and kicked me square in the chest.
I flew backward and slammed into some kind of wall I couldn't identify.
Yu Jihan's sword passed by my throat and buried itself in the wall.
My wrist, where he'd hit me, throbbed like crazy.
Might be broken.
Under that murderous glare, I raised both hands slightly and smiled bitterly.
"Don't laugh, it's obnoxious."
"You're one to talk, after breaking someone's wrist."
"I saved your life."
When I tried to move my hand toward my throat, Yu Jihan twisted the sword.
Man, what a rotten personality.
A chill ran up my spine.
Not joking, that last one was actually dangerous.
My throat probably wouldn't have been cut clean off, but that attack was absolutely not one I could've avoided a serious injury from.
A broken wrist was, relatively speaking, cheap.
Something I'd started noticing recently.
My eyes and mind couldn't keep up with my hands and body anymore.
Yu Jihan's finishing blow was proof enough of that.
I'd judged that I could block it fine, but my body reacted a beat too late.
I'd known the transcendent Yu Jihan wouldn't be easy, but if I was honest, I'd unconsciously been picturing the tower's Yu Jihan the whole time.
Getting hit by someone I'd thought was leagues below me stung my pride.
"So what? You came at me like you wanted to kill me, and now, right when it matters, you're changing your mind? Why?"
"Don't get smart with me."
"I'm the one asking questions here."
Apparently not satisfied with just the sword lodged by my neck, Yu Jihan pulled out a dagger and pressed it against my throat.
"What question, geez, fine. I'll shut up."
Yu Jihan's dagger left a shallow cut on the side of my neck.
"What's your relationship with the god Soter?"
"Just a follower."
"Doesn't seem like just that."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Yu Jihan stared at me with unsettling intensity as I kept playing dumb.
Unlike the tower's Yu Jihan, who couldn't see me at all, this transcendent version had a presence that made facing him uncomfortable in some way I couldn't quite place.
Maybe I should just kick him in the face already.
After a long pause, Yu Jihan finally spoke.
"Strange."
"What's strange?"
"Been a while since I ran into someone my Mind-reading technique doesn't work on."
"Your what technique?"
I couldn't believe what I'd just heard.
Even setting aside the fact that I couldn't see his full status window.
Realizing he'd been staring at me that intensely just to use a skill was absurd.
What technique?
Mind-reading technique?
"Hey! You think you're Gung-ye or something?[1] Using a mind-reading technique on a guy like you, Amitabha's gonna wake up and stroll right back out of paradise in shock!"
[1] Gung-ye — a rebel warlord in medieval Korea who claimed the power of mind-reading to accuse and execute followers on mere suspicion; Kang Hangyeol is comparing Yu Jihan to this paranoid tyrant.
Gung-ye was a real historical figure, a rebel warlord in medieval Korea who claimed to possess the power of mind-reading (관심법) to accuse and execute his followers on suspicion alone. Kang Hangyeol's jab compares Yu Jihan to this paranoid tyrant.
Footnotes:
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