WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 133: The Slanted Ceiling and the Mountain of Smiling Corpses - 5

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A thin voice came from the regressor, who had barely managed to rise to her feet.

"I... didn't want to kill you either. I thought... there might be another way."

No matter how I looked at her, she was a wreck. She no longer seemed capable of fighting.

Drip, drip. The blood flowing from her body reversed course. She had drawn it back with bloodcraft. At the same time, wind wrapped around her body and swept away the dirt and dust. For a moment, she looked clean again.

Of course, that was only on the surface. Her body had sustained considerable internal damage from taking the Earth Dragon head-on. Standing on both feet had to be difficult enough.

The regressor had a talent for turning pain and despair into resentment.

"I... only wanted to do well. Because only I could do it. Because if I didn't change, nothing would change.... I thought that if my intentions were good, if I sincerely tried my best, everything would get better."

In the early days of her regression, when she saw things gradually improving from before.

The regressor had believed.

She believed she could appear wherever trouble arose, resolve every conflict, and create a peaceful, beautiful life.

That if she kept repeating it, things would gradually improve.

There had been a time when she believed that.

But.

"Then why! Why, why! Whyyyy?!"

Futures she could not change. Hearts she could not move. Hardened convictions, stubbornness, and obstinacy.

Corrupt organizations and evil individuals, while the few good people among them were always the first to die when a crisis came.

Those she believed would help had their own ulterior motives, and amid it all, the regressor merely played the fool alone.

Those genuinely willing to help her would shake their heads in the next cycle, making even their promises meaningless.

"Why won't anyone help meee?!"

Filled with resentment, the regressor raised her head. A seven-colored rainbow flickered in her eyes.

Red eyes that saw temperature.

Vermilion eyes that saw what lay below.

Golden eyes that saw what could not be seen.

Green eyes that saw through things.

Blue eyes that saw depth.

Indigo eyes that saw far away.

Purple eyes that saw power.

The Seven-Colored Eyes. Magic eyes that could shake the world even if only one appeared. All seven lights shone at once.

They did not blend together, nor did they appear one after another. The seven lights existed separately, yet flickered simultaneously.

A halo of light rose in the regressor's pupils and sparkled like stars in the night sky. I could not tell whether tears or light flowed from their edges.

The Seven-Colored Eyes had fully opened.

The Wheel-Turning Heavenly Eye.

The authority achievable only when all seven magic eyes came together beheld something beyond reason.

"If you want to die so badly, then die first! I'll think about whether I can save you after thattt!"

What the seven magic eyes that saw the unseen, the Wheel-Turning Heavenly Eye that united them, saw was possibility.

Once called the Eye of Fate, it was an eye that judged one's own possibilities.

Because of its ambiguity and uncertainty, and the people who had clung to fate until they were ruined, it had gradually fallen out of favor and splintered apart. Yet it was different for the regressor.

She already possessed as many fruits of possibility as the number of times she had regressed.

She looked upon herself.

She drew upon the possibilities of the person called Shei.

It was neither prophecy nor foresight.

It was strength she had gained in a past cycle. By reading and observing the possibilities she had achieved in that cycle, she recreated that power for a brief moment.

The price was her lifespan.

But the regressor had more than enough of that.

"Heavenly Sword Technique, Dragon Spiral!"

A storm raged behind the regressor. Energy stretched in every direction and whirled violently. Kicking off the ground in one burst, she flew into the air and unleashed a massive slash wrapped in wind.

"You have leapt again. Do you lack the ability to learn...?"

Catch him with Spatial Dust, then tear him apart with the Earth Dragon. Jiseon clenched and twisted her fist.

Creak. The concrete body of the Earth Dragon twisted with an ominous sound, like a pillar burdened with far too much weight.

"Yaaaaah!"

"Earth Dragon."

Springs did not have to be made of metal. As long as it did not break, concrete could become a spring too.

The Earth Dragon controlled by Jiseon's power was more than capable of it.

The risen dragon of earth writhed and appeared before the regressor in an instant.

At the same time, it split cleanly in two.

At the point where one became two, the regressor split the Earth Dragon vertically as she approached. Wrapped in the storm, she swung Skywarbler at the defenseless Jiseon.

Had she swung it from the ground, it would have seemed capable of splitting even distant clouds.

Slash.

Jiseon's body was cut deeply.

Blood poured from the gaping wound. It was a fatal injury, carved from one shoulder to the opposite side of her waist.

Yet despite landing that blow, the regressor did not lower her guard. She immediately took a defensive stance and gritted her teeth.

Jiseon's kick struck her.

The regressor's body flew away like a ball.

Immediately afterward.

Crack. Jiseon's right earring split apart. The mark on it looked exactly like the wound on Jiseon's body. As the shattered earring fell to the ground, Jiseon's wound closed tightly as though it had been sewn shut.

"A funeral held in advance...! So annoying! Why do you just come back to life even when you're about to die?!"

The regressor snapped.

It was neither healing nor restoration. She had only postponed the wound for a while. It was a technique for continuing to fight, one in which she made a voodoo doll from earth, temporarily transferred the damage to it, and acted out the part of someone uninjured. A funeral held in advance.

That was all well and good, but if someone resurrected with that in the middle of a fight, it was outrageously unfair.

Of course, Jiseon was even more dumbfounded.

"...How strange. Prophecy cannot change reality, and one cannot improve one's skill without learning it, even after seeing it. Yet what you used just now seemed as though your very skill had changed...."

The instant she was struck by the kick, the regressor leaped forward and shifted the point of impact. At the same time, she reduced the force by bracing against Jiseon's leg with the arm she had extended in advance. The natural movement and flow of her energy were different from before.

Her energy art, her physical ability, all of it was overwhelmingly greater than before. Jiseon could feel it.

"Still, like someone wearing clothes one size too large, your energy leaks through the gaps in streams. I do not know what it is, but borrowed strength cannot last long."

"Borrowed strength, my ass! This is my skill! Even without this, if I just had three more years, I'd beat you... if you didn't have Jizan!"

Her energy drained rapidly, weighing down her body. Even so, the regressor continued burning herself with resentment as she shouted.

"Surrender! This is the last time I'll ask nicely!"

"I would like to ask you instead. You appear to be in danger. Do you still intend to fight?"

"That's funny! If it weren't for the funeral held in advance, you'd already have died once!"

"Then you shall have to kill me two more times."

Jingle. The earthen doll on Jiseon's left ear shook. It was an extra life.

Her own body was the remaining life.

They looked at each other briefly, confirming their resolve.

The regressor raised her sword again, and Jiseon wrapped concrete around her body. Since it had come to this, it was a race against time. Whether the regressor could defeat Jiseon before her time limit ran out would decide the winner.

As the regressor looked up at Jiseon with shining eyes, she suddenly saw a human figure moving atop the mountain of corpses beyond them.

She nearly fell over from disbelief.

The regressor's eyes widened.

'What... what is he doing over there?!'

When the immortal swung his fist and pierced a corpse through the stomach, the corpse did not fall. Instead, it blankly looked down at the immortal's right arm digging through its body.

A weak voice came from the corpse with the pierced stomach.

"Earth."

"Earth?"

Another corpse reacted to its voice. The murmur traveled from corpse to corpse, until every corpse began muttering the single word, "Earth," in unison.

Then their heads turned with a creak. Their eyes turned too. And they began charging madly toward the immortal.

"Ah! Callis, stay back!"

Before the wave of corpses swallowed him, the immortal lifted Callis and threw her far away. Thrown without warning, Callis rolled across the ground as she broke her fall.

Then the immortal was swept away by the wave of corpses.

"Rashy!"

Callis's scream was buried beneath the corpses' chanting.

"Bury them. We must bury them."

"We must honor their souls."

Mad chanting. Cries with nothing left but their mission. Corpses in loose clothes rushed at him like thirsty beasts.

Callis ground her teeth. Their numbers had already surpassed anything she could handle. Blaming her own helplessness, Callis knelt before Tyr.

"Progenitor! Please! Save Rashy!"

"...Very well. Wait a moment."

Tyr had been in the middle of raising countless drops of blood into the air. From among the corpses came the immortal's booming voice.

"Wait! Something is strange!"

The corpses swarmed like ants. An ordinary person would already have been torn to pieces, but the immortal's voice remained perfectly fine.

"These people have less hostility than I expected! Perhaps they aren't trying to attack us...!"

Then the immortal's body rose from among the corpses. As though carrying a coffin, the corpses lifted him above their heads and walked toward the mountain of corpses.

The immortal shouted from atop them.

"Ha ha! I feel as though I've become a king!"

Then, boom. The blood drops Tyr had flicked away swept across everything beneath the immortal at once. It was an attack closer to a surface than a line. The corpses shattered to pieces, and the immortal, deprived of support, dropped to the ground with a thud.

As the immortal rubbed his backside, Tyr muttered,

"That is no reason to leave them alone. In the end, vengeful souls are no more than echoes of the final cries of those who are about to die. Destroying them beforehand is mercy instead. Is that not right, Hyu...?"

When Tyr turned her head as she spoke.

A corpse wearing my outer coat stood where I had been.

Tyr tilted her head, belatedly grasped the situation and went pale, then stared in shock.

"Hyu?!"

As Tyr looked around in surprise, searching for me after I had vanished.

I was climbing the mountain of corpses while riding atop a corpse possessed by a vengeful soul.

Footnotes:

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