WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Returned as a God ◈
Chapter 135: Resolve and Determination (3)
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Judging by how Choi Jaebyung reacted, it wasn't hard to guess what had happened.
Yeah, this had gone on long enough as it was.
The sense of responsibility Park Siyu carried, and the helplessness of having power but being unable to do a single thing when it actually mattered, that combination was hard to put into words.
Light flashed not far from where I stood.
Park Siyu's doing.
He wasn't the only one missing from the scene.
Yu Chaeyoung was nowhere in sight either.
"Hey, Kang Hangyeol. Go."
Choi Suhyun kicked down an avatar over three meters tall and landed beside me.
I'd figured he'd be the first one to move if anyone was going to stop Park Siyu.
"Hyung, are you okay?"
Choi Suhyun fired a round of magic bullets straight up.
The bullets split into dozens of branches midair, then rained back down.
"Honestly, part of me wants to fly over there right now and grab him by the collar. But I know myself. If I actually see his face like this, it's not going to stop at the collar. And besides."
Choi Suhyun used Blink above an avatar's head and twisted his foot, popping its skull.
[Hand her over. The woman.]
"This bastard seems weirdly obsessed with Song Eunyoung, for some reason. Standing in for Jung Hyeonseong, maybe? Whatever it is."
Choi Suhyun cut down the avatars around him at brutal speed.
He'd already lost sight of Song Eunyoung once before, right in front of him.
"I'm not watching that son of a bitch drag her off a second time."
"Hyung, I need you to cover for me."
I left the rear to Choi Suhyun and sprinted toward Park Siyu.
I pulled something wrapped in hanji paper out of my jacket.
Inside was a rolled-up brown lump.
Yu Jihan had tossed it to me right before I tore open the dimension to Beritaas's temple.
"What is this? Some kind of elixir?"
"It's Elixir of the Six Spirits. You think I'm crazy enough to hand over a real elixir? I've got nothing to gain from you dying on me!"
"Kind of a grand name for something that isn't one."
"How would I know what the guy who made it calls it? Just eat it. Go out there like that and you'll drop dead before you even get a swing in against Beritaas. A zombie'd put up a better fight than you right now!"
"If I die fighting Beritaas, that works out fine for you, doesn't it?"
"I've got questions for you first. Killing you comes after that. If you eat that and die anyway, guess that's as far as you were ever going to get."
"Ah. Sure, fine."
I put the thing Yu Jihan called Elixir of the Six Spirits in my mouth and chewed.
Tasted like chewing on a dense rubber ball.
I knew Yu Jihan's personality well enough. He wasn't the type to lie or scam someone in a moment like this.
What the hell, does this guy's inventory work like some pocket dimension? How much stuff is he even carrying around?
Yu Jihan the Transcendent really was impossible to figure out.
The effect of the elixir wasn't bad at all.
My body had nowhere left untouched by the string of fights I'd been through.
As the medicine spread through me, the pressure crushing my chest eased away.
In the distance, I could see Yu Chaeyoung fighting Park Siyu.
Park Siyu had killed Yu Chaeyoung seven years ago, and became a Transcendent sometime after.
Even someone like Yu Chaeyoung had no chance against the Park Siyu standing there now.
The closer I got to the two of them, the more Beritaas's avatars multiplied around me.
Ironically, none of them attacked the pair directly.
Almost like they were waiting for Park Siyu to kill Yu Chaeyoung with his own hands.
The moment I approached, the avatars swarmed me all at once.
[Danger. You are.]
As the avatars pulled back, Beritaas's massive leg came crashing down over my head.
[You are currently in a state of Descent.]
Attacks tore through space alongside that giant leg, raining down on me.
I raised the Sky Sword high and set my stance.
It felt like wielding dozens of blades at once.
I moved the sword, tracking every incoming attack.
A sword faster than anyone's, more precise than anyone's, and without a single margin of error.
Wave after wave of blade strikes appeared without a hint of hesitation, cutting down every attack aimed at me.
Radiant Eighteen-Hand Sword.
I turned my body, aiming the sword's edge toward where Park Siyu and Yu Chaeyoung were fighting.
The leg tried to wedge itself between me and the two of them.
I ran without stopping, moving through the forms of the Sun-Felling Sword Technique.
The strike shot out, severed the creature's leg, and I landed right between Park Siyu and Yu Chaeyoung.
I blocked Park Siyu just as his blade reached for Yu Chaeyoung's throat.
Park Siyu stepped back and spun the Light Saber once.
"I expected Choi Suhyun to show up."
"You should be grateful it was me instead."
"Move."
"Come at me."
Park Siyu's eyes went wide, like he was asking if I'd lost my mind.
Did he think I'd try to talk him down with words?
Seeing the state Choi Jaebyung was in, I already knew talking wouldn't do a damn thing here.
"What, you think I was gonna flinch? You'll have to try a lot harder than that to scare me."
I couldn't let Park Siyu kill Yu Chaeyoung.
If he did, he would carry that hatred toward Beritaas for the rest of his life.
Beritaas wanted exactly that. Wanted Park Siyu to break his Taboo.
Park Siyu couldn't be allowed to kill Yu Chaeyoung.
If he wouldn't come to his senses on his own, then I'd just have to make him.
I caught my breath and charged straight at Park Siyu.
"This has nothing to do with..."
"Shut up, it has everything to do with me!"
Choi Jaebyung had probably already talked himself hoarse trying to get through to him.
If it really had nothing to do with me, I wouldn't be going this far either.
The Sky Sword moved wild and violent, like it meant to swallow Park Siyu whole.
"Listen to the people around you for once, you stubborn bastard! You know how much trouble you cause everyone by never listening?!"
Ju Seohye had lashed out at Park Siyu, furious that he showed not a shred of emotion over his dead friend.
If that was how she saw it, then maybe that really was the kind of man Park Siyu was.
I didn't know the full story from back then.
But I knew one thing for certain.
Park Siyu carried an almost excessive sense of responsibility.
Whatever anyone thought of him, he was nothing like Choi Suhyun, who'd quit on his god and lived however he pleased regardless of appearances.
"Why are you shouldering all of this alone?!"
Park Siyu believed everything that had happened was entirely his own fault.
If Park Siyu were the type to act purely on impulse, the way Choi Suhyun did, he never would have taken in Yu Seyeon and Seo Jihoon in the first place.
"If that's the choice those two made, then I did everything I could. This is my problem to deal with."
"Suhyun-hyung told me, right before sending me over here, that if he actually saw your face it wasn't going to stop at grabbing your collar. Knowing his temper, he probably would've broken an arm or a leg. Oh, wait, you're closer with him than I am, so you'd know that better than me, huh?"
"Now that you mention it, you call Choi Suhyun hyung and use polite speech with him without fail, but you talk down to me."
"Why, you suddenly want honorifics now? You wanna know why I started talking casual to you right off the bat?"
Park Siyu's Light Saber and my Sky Sword clashed without pause.
I kept the swordwork flowing, never letting up.
I caught Park Siyu's flank and swung the sword in a wide arc.
"Because you seemed like a robot the second I met you, and I didn't like it!"
The blade cut fast and clean past Park Siyu's cheek, without leaving a mark.
Looking closer, it seemed someone had already landed a punch there.
I kicked off the ground and drove straight at Park Siyu.
I'd used Transcendent Mode, sure, but.
If Park Siyu didn't use his Transcendent Ability, I had a shot.
Even if it came to that, between the two of us...
"Whoa, hold on, wait a second..!!"
Thousands of blade edges materialized above my head.
"Your rate of growth is genuinely abnormal, I'll give you that. But that's no reason not to use my Transcendent Ability against you."
"I'll die!"
"You won't die. If you're lucky enough to keep breathing, Choa will save you."
Park Siyu moved his hand, and part of the blade swarm shot toward Yu Chaeyoung as she charged in.
She managed to block over a dozen of the blades, but a few still buried themselves in her shoulder and thigh.
Park Siyu turned his body.
"Not... giving up, are you."
Thousands of glowing blade edges hung suspended in the dark sky, like an aurora.
If only they weren't all pointed at me and Yu Chaeyoung.
"Do you even know what it means to break a Taboo?"
"Becoming an incursion entity, you mean? Honestly, it doesn't quite feel real to me."
"Two things happen. First, you fall outside the law of causality. Second, obsession."
Falling outside the law of causality meant wandering forever, belonging to no dimension for the rest of your existence.
Obsession meant clinging to whatever price you paid to break the Taboo in the first place.
Beings who broke their Taboo lost their purpose at some point and became nothing more than ghosts chasing the means, with no end left to reach.
There's no way to stop a train once it's already derailed.
"For Beritaas. Are you willing to sacrifice everything for revenge? You want revenge badly enough to kill Choi Suhyun, to kill Jeong Choa with your own hands?! Think about everything you've held back for, up until now!"
There was exactly one thing that set Park Siyu apart from the other two.
To sever the chain of revenge.
What was the point of holding it together this whole time, if it all fell apart at the very end?
Park Siyu wanted revenge for Yu Chaeyoung, who'd been used by Beritaas even in death.
"Don't do something this stupid!"
"Don't talk like you know everything about me."
Park Siyu snapped his fingers, and the blades circling overhead all plummeted toward the ground at once.
I can do this.
Honestly, I had no idea if that was true.
Guess I'll just have to try.
Park Siyu himself had said I might survive if I got lucky, so wouldn't it work out somehow?
I closed my eyes, pictured a clear blue sky, and thrust the sword forward.
KWAAAAAAAAAAANG.
I felt the mana I'd only just recovered drain out of me in an instant.
The blade edges shattered into pieces and scattered in every direction.
This is bad.
Not exaggerating, there was no end to them.
The hand gripping my sword shook uncontrollably, and my legs felt ready to buckle under me any second.
I hadn't even noticed when I'd started coughing up blood, but my clothes were soaked in it.
This bastard actually meant to beat me half to death.
KWAAAAAAAAA.
Something pitch black broke through the storm of light.
Mana completely different from Beritaas's presence, swallowing every last trace of light in the world.
Light and darkness mixed together in one place, and dissolved into perfect nothingness.
Blood ran down from a gash across my forehead, blurring my vision.
I planted the Sky Sword in the ground and gasped for breath.
In Yu Jihan's hand was a sword wound tightly in bandages.
Not ordinary bandages either. Strands of them drifted and coiled around the blade on their own.
"Hey! Cough... You show up now, of all times?!"
"I clearly sent that bastard Choi Suhyun or whatever his name is. Why are you the one standing here instead?"
"Does that even matter right now?"
"Rag."
"Hey! Don't call me a rag!"
Yu Jihan looked me over and clicked his tongue.
I steadied my breathing.
"If you're out here already, at least move fast."
"I had one guy to deal with first."
"Who told you to go fight An Seojun? Why the hell did you even go after that guy in the first place?"
Mana Detection had let me keep rough tabs on where Yu Jihan was and what he was doing.
Thanks to Yu Jihan holding off An Seojun, Suhyun-hyung and Choa had been able to make it here in time.
Given how badly Eunyoung-noona had been hurt, Choa arriving on scene when she did was nothing short of a miracle.
"Personal grudge."
"Personal grudge?"
"Not your business."
Yu Jihan scowled, clearly not wanting to talk about it.
Ugh, this guy. Way too many secrets for someone like him.
Having overheard the exchange between me and Yu Jihan, Park Siyu approached, Light Saber still in hand.
Park Siyu only knew that Yu Jihan had been trapped inside Beritaas's temple along with Eunyoung-noona. This was the first time he'd actually seen his face.
"Seems like something happened that I don't know about. Why are you two together?"
"Not your business."
Half-expecting the worst, I reached a hand out toward Yu Jihan.
Yu Jihan shoved my hand away with the one holding his sword.
What's with that look, like you're staring at something filthy?!
"Hey. Whitebread."
"I mean, calling Park Siyu whitebread feels a little..."
"You want some too?"
"If you're looking to die, I won't stop you."
Before I could even think to intervene, Park Siyu and Yu Jihan both lunged at each other at the same time.
A personal grudge against An Seojun?
A gruuudge?
Don't give me that grudge nonsense.
You're just a battle junkie!
God, I'd trust Satan before I'd trust Yu Jihan.
Footnotes:
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