WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 139

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The Sky Comes Back Into View

The Abyss vanished, and the ground flipped over. On that day, the earth found its floor again, and the sky shone down into what had been the Abyss.

The evening sky was closer to dark than light, but everything in the world is relative.

Compared to the endless darkness of the Abyss, it was practically floodlighting, and the people inside felt they had gotten the sky back.

After lifting the ceiling with Jizan alone, Shei collapsed from exhaustion and fell backward. The Stepping Cloud, having spent all its power, disappeared, and her body dropped upside down.

Tyrkanzyaka caught her in darkness. Seeing Shei twitch weakly, she asked in a hurry.

"Where's Hyu?"

Shei felt a little wronged. She had just pushed up the whole ground, and no one seemed to care.

Still, she was just as worried about him, so she forced out an answer with a groan.

"...We need to find him. A guy like that wouldn't die..."

But she was in too bad a state to do anything else. Shei tried to raise her upper body, then flopped back down. Even when she tried to speak, only broken moans leaked out.

Only then did Tyrkanzyaka properly take in her condition. Looking a little apologetic, she carefully laid Shei on Rallion's back and said,

"You've done enough. Shei, rest for now. I'll go look...."

Right then, Rashy and Callis, who had been holding their breath for fear the ceiling would collapse, came over once safety was secured. Tyrkanzyaka urgently asked them,

"Good timing. Did either of you see where Hyu went?"

Rashy answered,

"Teacher? Didn't he go up first?"

"Go up first? The sky was blocked by earth.... I don't quite understand what you mean. Anyway, how would Hyu go up?"

"No idea! But when our eyes met, he gestured that he'd be up there first!"

"He gestured?"

Tyrkanzyaka looked up.

With the ceiling gone, the Abyss, no, the pit that was no longer an Abyss, had regained the sky, but it was still deep. Even from the top of the corpse mountain, reaching the surface would require something close to flight.

While Tyrkanzyaka still looked doubtful, Rashy added,

"That's right! He vanished after that, so I didn't see how he got up! But if it's Teacher, wouldn't he have had some way? Maybe he climbed up hanging from the ceiling like the beast ladies did!"

As if on cue, Azzy's cry came from the surface. Nabi cried out after her. The two beasts were howling in joy at finally being above ground again.

Even though they had been on the opposite side of the Abyss, they had stayed clinging to the ceiling, then reached the surface while hanging onto that flying ceiling.

Of course, only the Beast King could pull that off.

"If it's Hyu... nothing he does would surprise me. He could've climbed up hanging from a single thread."

"Wouldn't he? If not, are you saying he's here and just not showing himself? Even if Teacher likes jokes, no way."

Still, Tyrkanzyaka couldn't picture him flying through the sky, so she kept tilting her head.

"No. Hyu might be behind the mountain. I'll go there and look."

"Then while you're at it, ask Jiseon. She might know better, right?"

Rashy pointed at the top of the corpse mountain. Jiseon was there, kneeling before the Grand Master. It was an extremely reverent posture, as if she were trying to offer the memorial she had not been able to make earlier.

Her missing arm made her look pitiful, but that was slightly outside Tyrkanzyaka's concern.

She had dared oppose the Progenitor, and it ended with just one arm gone. That was almost mercy.

"I'll check."

Tyrkanzyaka quickly headed that way.

The earth had just flipped and the Abyss had just been freed from ancient confinement, yet none of it seemed to matter to Jiseon. With concrete rubble all over her hair and shoulders, she struggled to steady a cup with one hand and tilt a bottle over it.

Tyrkanzyaka walked up beside her.

First, Tyrkanzyaka checked the opposite side of the corpse mountain. There was not even a shadow of him there. After briefly looking around, she asked Jiseon,

"Answer me. Do you know where Hyu went?"

Jiseon answered without even turning her head.

"Why do you ask this humble one about his whereabouts?"

"Weren't you the last one who saw him? Just answer what I asked."

"Until just now, we were fighting each other."

"The result was clear, and the loser must follow the winner's will. You should answer more sincerely."

"...Heh heh. A farce...."

Jiseon gave a short bitter laugh, set down her cup with effort, and pointed upward.

"...He went up."

"How?"

"There was a rope. He drove it into Tantalus, then held onto it when the ceiling flipped and went up."

"Is that true?"

"Why would this humble one lie to you?"

After saying that, Jiseon calmly poured herself another cup. She looked detached, as if she had let go of everything, and Tyrkanzyaka did not press further. She only muttered to herself,

"Where did he go without saying a word?"

"If he left without words, then he left, did he not."

"Left?"

"If he stayed here, the military state would pursue him. He avoided that."

That was when it happened.

Noise erupted from every side. At the same time, familiar round beams shone in from all directions. Voices in panicked confusion got closer and closer.

"The ground! The ground rose up!"

"An earthquake...!"

"Corpses everywhere...!"

"All kinds of junk are falling from the sky! Major-nim, we need to evacuate!"

"Calm down!"

The angry shout cut off the chatter. Then one particularly booming voice rang out over everything else.

"When an abnormal situation occurs, we hold our position and send only minimum personnel to report! That's the iron rule of our search unit, isn't it!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Then hold your positions! We stop those demon bastards from that time in the Abyss from coming out again!"

At the commander's voice, footsteps scattered in perfect coordination. Soon they all appeared at once along the rim of the Abyss. Human silhouettes surging around the circular cut of sky looked genuinely imposing.

"Tch, can't see inside! Bring searchlights!"

The soldiers couldn't see through the darkness of the pit. Just as they started looking for searchlights,

"Oh! Soldiers!"

"...Tch. Rashy, I'll hide for a moment."

"Huh? Ah, right! You said we had to hide!"

While Callis hid herself, Tyrkanzyaka looked around.

Shei was drained and barely conscious, the Beast King had already gone outside and did not look like they would join a human fight, and the immortal was hard to kill but not especially useful.

She had to find Hyu.

But he was not visible inside the Abyss. He had probably gone out.

If the military state discovered him, things could get troublesome, so maybe he had hidden first, like Callis.

Then he was probably hiding somewhere nearby. Which meant what she had to do was clear.

Cut open a path.

After breathing out deeply, Tyrkanzyaka made stairs from darkness and climbed up step by step.

A round searchlight sweeping in tried to illuminate her. Just before the light reached her, Tyrkanzyaka frowned, pressed her fingertip, and flicked.

Crash, crash.

The moment those round lights came near her, every lamp shattered at once. The soldiers operating the searchlights fell backward.

The commander shouted,

"What is that! Something is approaching! Everyone, ready to fire!"

What greeted Tyrkanzyaka as she walked up wrapped in darkness was a force of roughly three hundred.

They had come with dozens of vehicles and all kinds of equipment, and they faced her head-on.

A beautiful young girl emerged from the Abyss, with long silver hair and vivid red eyes. Every military state soldier froze for a split second.

Then instinctive fear kicked in at that strangely beautiful being rising from the endless underground, and they gripped their weapons.

Tyrkanzyaka was tense too.

She knew nothing about their weapons or their skill.

Back when she feared no death, she would have beaten them back first and asked questions later. But now her heart was beating, and behind her were people who had not escaped yet. She had something to lose.

Should she try dialogue first.

The Progenitor, who had never known compromise, had gained a heart, and with it a small fear of loss. She took one step forward.

Of course, Tyrkanzyaka's tension was nothing compared to the soldiers'.

"Communications officer! Report the situation! Communications officer!! Damn it, after that ground flip, our line is...!"

The commander, shouting while clutching a golem collapsed like a kite with its string cut, threw it aside and clenched his teeth.

"Colonel-nim! What do we do?"

"What else! We handle it by the book!"

Saying rules existed for moments like this, the commander snatched a loudspeaker and shouted at full volume.

"We are the army! No matter how strong the enemy is, a single individual cannot defeat an army!"

It was a cry to raise morale.

Hearing that cry, Tyrkanzyaka grew even tenser.

There were two kinds of armies she knew. One was a ragtag mass, each person no more than an ordinary farmer with a weapon shoved into their hands, good for nothing but exhausting the enemy by numbers.

The other was a force where every member was elite, an army forged for battle like a finely sharpened blade.

Naturally, Tyrkanzyaka imagined the second kind. She had only recently awakened, and the impression left by those who entered Tantalus was still strong.

Jiseon, the lieutenant general, the colonel. People whose strength had reached frightening levels. After seeing only people like that, she had forgotten how weak the weak could be.

It was the trap of averages.

"Let's talk."

Rarely, the Progenitor who had once stained the world with fear took a low posture, completely unlike the Tyrkanzyaka of history.

Unfortunately, that became exactly what planted pointless confidence in a unit that had only just been frightened.

Naturally, the unlucky ones were the soldiers.

The commander shouted triumphantly.

"Surrender, trainee! Return to where you came from and await disposal!"

"What nonsense...."

"Obey orders! If you refuse, we open fire!"

Tat tat tat.

Warning shots struck at Tyrkanzyaka's feet. Faced with an attack carrying clear threat, her expression darkened.

"...So you are confident. Against me...."

She looked at weapons she had never seen before, at countless gun barrels aimed at her, and at rows of military state soldiers in matching uniforms.

She got serious.

"In that case, I will use full force from the beginning."

Night had already fallen after sunset. Earth filled with shadows was a vampire's domain. Her crimson eyes took in the darkness and unleashed her authority.

Black Knights rose in every direction. Shadows were their base and their supply line. Their number reached a thousand.

The soldiers panicked as the battle lines reversed without warning. The commander, face drained, pointed and shouted,

"Fire! Fire!"

Ratatatatat.

At his order, a storm of gunfire erupted. Bullets tore into the Black Knights.

But the Black Knights rising from darkness endured the bullets, or let them glance off, and kept advancing. Bullets were too small to sweep away darkness.

Against humans, those bullets might have worked somewhat. Against Black Knights, they were weaker than flails swung by farmers.

"T-they aren't going down!"

"The enemy keeps increasing!"

The commander shouted frantically.

"I-I get it! This is an illusion. No real body! Hold your positions! Don't waste bullets...!"

Then one approaching Black Knight pounced on a soldier. The soldier screamed and rolled on the ground.

The commander hurriedly changed his order.

"Close ranks! Back to back, tighten the fire net! And equipment! Hurry, bring lights and shine them!"

The soldiers followed his command while cursing him under their breath.

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