WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Editor: LiteraryGirl

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◈ I'm an Infinite Regressor, But I've Got Stories to Tell

Chapter 249

──────

The Experimenter VIII

There will be no epilogue for this story.

However, if given the task of putting the scene after the world has ended into words, I could do it and describe it in some detail.

Below is an account of the world’s end, a substitute for an epilogue.

“The sky tore open.”

It wasn’t a metaphor, an exaggeration, or a distortion. Quite literally, the sky ripped like a sheet of plastic. Silently, too.

- Ahahaha.

From the fissure in the fabric of space appeared nothing other than a red eye.

It was the eye of Infinite Void.

The vivid red iris was larger than any known being. Its muscles shifted, resembling a crackling earthquake. Each rippling tendon made galaxies contract and expand in turn.

- Tiny!

Infinite Void's eye slit open even wider, and a dark pupil as deep as a black hole gazed “this way”—toward the earth below.

- Tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny! Kyahahaha!

Soon, from the rift in the sky, a hand stretched forth.

The hand approached this world.

It was a right hand. Only moments earlier, it had shattered an hourglass, and now bare shards of glass were embedded in its skin, with blood flowing down freely.

The right hand emerging from the rift was larger than a continent.

In an instant, the ground was engulfed in its shadow. The Tower of Babel, Haeundae, Busan, even the earth—flattened as it was—all of it.

Completely.

Blood from the giant's right hand dripped down like waterfalls in great torrents.

Craaash!

Each drop of blood formed a vast sea, cascading into the world.

- .........!

- ......! ......!

The earth was engulfed in a colossal flood.

The grotesque creatures scaling the Tower of Babel had no escape from this bloodbath. The escapees from SG Net, poised to break through the icy waters, were instantly submerged, struck by the tide of blood.

- Kyahahahahaha.

The sound of Infinite Void's laughter echoed through heaven and earth. It stretched out a thumb and forefinger and plucked the Tower of Babel.

Crack!

Like a child awkwardly snapping a chocolate bar, the tower shattered at its midpoint.

- Sunbae.

Infinite Void laughed. That eerily bizarre voice, if it were to be described more accurately, really sounded more like this:

- sunbae, sunbae, sunbae, sunbae, sunbae, sunbae, sunbae

- Suuunnnbbbaaaeeee

The voice of Cheon Yo-hwa (天寥化) and the mechanical tone of Infinite Void seemed to intertwine, pronounced simultaneously.

Yes. Infinite Void’s voice wasn’t just coming from the rift in the sky.

Now, it resounded from broken radios, from smartphones bobbing in the flood of blood, from every electronic device floating on the water.

The voices of the Outer God overlapped endlessly, echoing all at once.

- I’ll make an exception for you, sunbae. I’ll let you live.

- Sunnnnbaaaeee, huh?

- Kyahahahahahaha!

Infinite Void lifted me along with the entire Tower of Babel.

A forced ascension.

It seemed that the Outer God was inviting me beyond the rift.

The gesture of the grotesque hand was anything but gentle.

As I shot higher and higher in altitude, I had to cling desperately to the terrace railing to keep from falling.

Then, it happened.

--The҉re҉ it҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉

Schloooosh!

In the middle of this world, which had now been completely dyed red by an endless flood of blood, a colossal dragon suddenly sprang up and soared into the air.

In an instant, I knew what it was.

“Leviathan!”

The ocean-class Anomaly that had unleashed a super monsoon back in the 664th cycle.

Although not as large as Infinite Void's fingers, the Leviathan was still massive. After all, it was the beast described in myth as being larger than the earth itself.

‘I see. Super Monsoon and Great Flood are basically the same term. And now that the entire world has been flooded, it's an ideal situation for Leviathan. For any other Anomaly, it might be a disaster, but for it, it’s actually an opportunity!’

Even in the 664th cycle, subjugating Leviathan had been a grueling ordeal, but the dragon that had appeared now was on a different scale. Its body was large enough to wrap around the earth nine times over and still have room to spare.

It wasn’t only the size that had changed.

In the 664th cycle, the one who dealt the final blow to Leviathan was Go Yuri, not me.

No matter how relentlessly the Ark fleet pursued him, Leviathan still seemed to have one final means of resistance left.

- Beeehooold.

The dragon’s scaly body, covered in countless shimmering scales, suddenly flipped inside out.

It was its reverse scales.

All the scales transformed into eyes, each with a writhing tentacle sprouting from within.

The dragon’s appearance now seemed more like a centipede than a dragon, corrupted to the point it could no longer be seen as a divine beast. And yet, its sheer aura was chilling enough to make one’s spine freeze.

If this final form had appeared back in cycle 664, humanity, including me, would have perished without a chance.

- Ahahahahaha!

Infinite Void laughed again, as yet another hand—this time, its left—emerged from the rift in the sky.

- Tiny.

Crack!

With a simple grasp, the right hand snatched Leviathan.

Leviathan immediately tried to resist, but it was utterly futile.

Infinite Void clenched its fist.

Cr-r-rack—!

With a sound that was almost playful, Leviathan was quite literally crushed.

The head of Leviathan, which had opened its giant maw toward the Outer God, was flattened and fell motionless. Its body was fragmented, broken into tiny pieces like poorly handled candy sticks.

Thud, thud, thud.

The shattered remains of Leviathan’s body rained down into the sea, which was now one vast body of water—Panthalassa, where the distinction of the five oceans no longer existed.[1]

“......”

From my high vantage point, I looked down at it all, struck speechless.

The 664th cycle hadn’t been that long ago. My Aura, my skills, they were all nearly the same as they were now.

‘And yet, the ocean-class Anomaly that had driven me into a corner back then has been destroyed so easily, so utterly.’

My musings were irrelevant to the ever-ascending altitude.

The stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, exosphere―

Finally, I was pulled up into a realm that could truly be called space. It had all happened in an instant. For an ordinary Awakener, this alone would have been enough to make them lose consciousness.

“Oh.”

Though “thanks” didn’t quite seem appropriate, reaching this altitude allowed me to see a clear view of the earth, which had now become flat as a pancake.

The scene was so overwhelming and surreal that I muttered without realizing it.

“There are... two suns.”

If I were to put it into a drawing, it would look something like this:

○

〓〓〓

●

The earth was completely flat (〓〓〓).

And on one side was the original sun (○), while on the other was an identical sun (●).

‘The original sun has shrunk to nearly the size of the moon. It must be the influence of the geocentric model. And that sun on the opposite side... perhaps the influence of the Hollow Earth theory.’

At that moment, a revelation dawned upon me.

The heliocentric truth of the universe had shifted into a geocentric model, causing the sun to shrink. So where had the “extra” mass of the sun gone?

‘Aha! So that’s it! The shrunken mass of the sun was used to create another sun in the Hollow Earth below!’

It was astonishing.

If this theory was correct, then the geocentric model and the Hollow Earth theory—two seemingly unrelated Anomalies—were in fact united as one.

Further realizations kept coming.

‘And that’s not all.’

Look. How can the flattened earth remain balanced without drifting in space?

It’s because the two suns, positioned on opposite sides, were precisely balanced, holding the earth in place from both sides.

It was an incredible, nearly impossible feat. But that was only by human standards. From the perspective of an Anomaly, one such as the geocentric model, the Hollow Earth theory, or the Flat Earth theory, this must have been a perfect interpretation.

The universe had become nothing more than a playground.

‘Just what kind of Anomaly did this?’

My mouth fell open.

‘It must be an Outer God-class. Nut? Is it Nut’s power that Saintess has been sealing away? Or is it the Mastermind Syndrome-afflicted Outer God that Infinite Void just devoured? Or maybe...’

- Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh.

Then, something massive brushed past the Tower of Babel. It was so enormous that it took more than a second to discern its identity. But it just so happened to be a shape familiar to my eyes.

‘Yo-hwa's shoes?’

It was a pair of Air Jordans in a black and red colorway.

These were the very sneakers that Cheon Yo-hwa had worn when she first kicked at me in the corridor of Baekwha Girls’ High School. As a former ace of the basketball team, Yo-hwa cherished these shoes and would wear them whenever we met.

She had, of course, worn them during this Final Defense War as well.

Now, that very pair of sneakers appeared through the rift in the sky, descending upon the earth flattened by the Flat Earth Theory.

- Ughhh.

KRAKOOM!

The sneakers stomped down on the “Flat Earth Theory.”

It wasn’t just the flattened earth that was crushed. The two suns were also obliterated under the sole of the shoe.

The world, already submerged in blood, crumbled like a delicate cookie under the blow.

In a single kick from the Outer God, countless humans and even more countless Anomalies that had filled this world were obliterated.

“......”

- I’mm theee onne now. I’mmm theee onne nowww.

- I’mmm theee onne nowwwww. Meee. Meee.

In the geocentric model, Earth was the center of the universe. With the center erased, the only things remaining in space were the planets of the solar system and the constellations.

Crash! Boom! KRAKOOM!

Infinite Void unleashed its right hand and its foot, methodically destroying the remaining celestial bodies without hesitation.

The universe, stripped of its center, began contracting rapidly. Or perhaps it was “receding.”

Infinite Void’s left hand was still gripping me and the Tower of Babel, drawing us toward the rift.

The universe had now shrunk to a single dark speck, and I was pulled “outside” of it.

“Ah.”

Even amidst this, as a regressor, my mind processed information unceasingly, sorting and analyzing.

The world had ended.

The Outer God-class Anomaly, empowered beyond belief by merging with the Mastermind Syndrome-afflicted Outer God, had eradicated it all.

What had transpired beyond the rift was beyond my knowledge. Perhaps Infinite Void had consumed the Mastermind, or the two Outer Gods might have combined in some horrific fusion.

One thing was certain: that Outer God had grown incomprehensibly powerful, and as a result, the world was destroyed.

The Outer God overseeing the Monster Wave, the one who wielded Leviathan, all had been demoted under Infinite Void’s domination.

In short, this was Infinite Void’s final victory ending.

Released from the confines of Cheon Yo-hwa’s body, Infinite Void had become powerful beyond imagination.

This cycle could be considered a failure. Just like so many others.

‘I heard something...’

But the only failure was that of the current me in the 687th cycle.

By clashing Infinite Void with the Mastermind, my experiment to reveal the weakness of the Outer Gods had succeeded.

At least, the initial phase of the experiment had succeeded.

As seen now, Infinite Void had crossed “through the rift” and was pulling me along.

The sacrifices of my comrades—Saintess, Yu Ji-won, Dang Seo-rin, Oh Dok-seo, Noh Do-hwa, Sim Ah-ryeon... countless lives—they weren’t in vain.

No, I wouldn’t allow them to be in vain.

As the regressor, I scanned my surroundings, ever-vigilant for any scrap of information, any hint of leverage.

‘Even if the earth was destroyed, it’s still impossible for sound to reach me out here in the distance of space.’

Yet I had heard booming echoes as each celestial body was annihilated.

I checked to see if there was any air blowing nearby, like by moistening a finger, suspecting that “breath” from Infinite Void’s presence might be filling the vacuum of space.

But I felt no air. I wasn’t even breathing normally.

Yet still, there was sound—

‘A medium exists within space. In other words, ether exists, just as scholars of the geocentric era theorized.’

Ether.

A supposed element that fills the entirety of the universe, like air on earth, present everywhere, always.

Given my Complete Memory, as soon as I recognized the existence of ether, my mind was inevitably drawn to the next deduction.

And the reason was simple.

「Brothers and sisters! Since ancient times, fire has been the sacred ether! Fire’s essence is to purify the foul air of the earth and draw closer to heaven!」

A memory from long ago.

When Mo Gwang-seo Christ was still simply known as Mo Gwang-seo, I’d recorded in a corner of my mind his speech to his followers.

He had once said:

“But cleansing these foul airs is no easy task. As a soul who has penetrated the six spiritual realms, I will pave the way and guide you all to the heavenly kingdom above.”

“Each of you must break through this Path of Wind I open with your full might as one so that the souls left on Earth can easily ascend!"

Ether.

The Path of Wind.

The Heavenly Kingdom.

“......”

A thunderous epiphany shook my mind.

‘Was Mo Gwang-seo not just some mere fraud or demagogue?’

The ether was real, present in the void that had emerged with the Flat Earth Theory. The Path of Wind, connecting to the rift in space, was likewise real. Even now, as I was clutched by Infinite Void’s fingers and being drawn through it.

So, what lay beyond that rift? Was it the Heavenly Kingdom?

Without seeing it for myself, I couldn’t begin to speculate.

Only—

"Enter through the narrow gate."

A prophecy uttered to me by Mo Gwang-seo, the man who had always remained silent like a puppet, came to mind suddenly.

Though I’d initially dismissed it as Lee Ha-yul’s trickery, Ha-yul herself had insisted that she had never been “coerced into saying anything of the sort.”

"The gate to life is narrow, and the path narrow, and those who find it are few."

I was on the terrace of the Tower of Babel.

Clinging to the very structure humanity had built in their quest to reach divinity, I turned to look behind me.

The cosmic scenery had vanished entirely. Only the “rift,” growing closer, with Infinite Void’s enormous eye watching, remained.

The void, a tear in the fabric of the world.

"O, scribe."

"Enter through the narrow gate."

And so.

I entered through the narrow gate.

Footnotes:

[1] Panthalassa, also known as the Panthalassic Ocean or Panthalassan Ocean (from Greek πᾶν "all" and θάλασσα "sea"), was the vast superocean that encompassed planet Earth and surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea, the latest in a series of supercontinents in the history of Earth.

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