WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 556: A Story from the Past. Man and Sin - 1

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In the distant past, on some day before Year One, so long ago that even the facts and history have weathered away.

The world belonged to humanity.

In a world where every kind of beast ran wild and tore one another apart with teeth and claws, humans swept across the world with their wits and sheer numbers. The weak died miserable deaths, but the strong survived, devouring the dead's remains and gradually growing stronger.

It was an age when humans wielded sorcery, made contracts with spirits, tamed beasts, and gradually grew stronger.

They were a god.

A dense jungle. A land of life and death, where venomous snakes bit humans to death, insects sucked the blood of every kind of creature for food, and all sorts of diseases raged through damp, filthy places. Countless lives writhed and intertwined there.

Death was all the more common because life was so abundant, yet humanity overcame and conquered even that place.

They were the chief of the strongest tribe among them, the Ankha tribe, and the master of the Bone Altar. A high chieftain who had made the jungle's ninety-two tribes their colonies.

The sole human permitted to devour a thousand people a year, Ankra the Thousand-Eater.

Today, too, they were enjoying a delicacy in their palace.

"Urgh, ah, aaagh."

What did a buffalo feel as a lion tore its body apart?

Anyone curious could ask the person whose thigh Ankra was tearing into right now. They would get a clearer answer.

If that person could answer, that is.

Ankra's delicacy was tearing apart living humans and eating them as they were. Before their lives ended, while their hearts still beat. Ankra loved taking a bite and having hot blood burst forth, flooding their mouth.

That was why every one of Ankra's meals unfolded alongside a life ending.

"Ghk, guuugh. Gurgle."

The human being eaten alive finally died. Whether from shock, blood loss, or simply because too much had been torn away, no one knew. Once the vividly pulsing blood stopped, Ankra irritably threw away the "meat."

The lifeless corpse flew out the window, scattering blood. Its chewed-up limbs snapped and broke apart, scattering in every direction. The lump of human flesh rolled down beneath the Bone Altar like trash, meat still clinging to its bones.

The hungry people's eyes turned to the "meat." Even scraps left behind by Ankra were precious flesh to someone. Humans missing an arm and a leg after being eaten by Ankra desperately climbed the slope of bones to fill their stomachs.

It did not matter that it had once been a person. If they could not digest it, they would end up the same way. Afraid someone else would take it from them, the parasites tore into the corpse still dripping blood atop the pile of bones.

The Bone Altar, built from countless piled-up bones, was made from Ankra's leftovers. It was a tower of sin built by their peculiar appetite.

Some would see that sight and feel fear. Others would feel disgust.

To Ankra, though, human flesh was a staple food, and bones were nothing more than an irritating chore. They ordered the Rag Soldier standing beside them.

"Bring another."

In this wild land, people easily lost arms and legs to injury, illness, and infection. Ankra's close followers were different.

Even if an arm was cut off, a leg was broken, or part of their body was eaten away, as long as they still breathed, Ankra attached flesh and bones taken from the "livestock" to them.

That was why the Ankha tribe was invincible and unyielding. Despite making countless tribes their enemies and exploiting them, they reigned as the rulers of this land. The Ankha tribe's Rag Soldiers were brave warriors who did not fear even when their own arms and legs broke.

The Rag Soldier presented a cage full of humans before their god.

Ankra took a living human from the cage. The human screamed and struggled, driven mad by terror, but fell silent once Ankra tore out their tongue and snapped their bones. Ankra tore off an arm and chewed on it as they sank back into thought.

Ankra had always been an object of fear, never one who felt it. Yet lately, they had one concern.

"The King of Humanity. The King of Humanity..."

It was because of a prophetess who had brought news of the King of Humanity.

'Ankra. God of the jungle. The most extraordinary human in this world. I have seen your future.'

The prophetess had appeared one day without warning and whispered as though she had read their heart perfectly.

'The King of Humanity is the king of all people. The cries of those you killed and devoured have reached the heavens and seeped into the earth. Now the King of Humanity will heed them and come for you.'

It was not that they felt guilty about killing humans. Still, the prophetess's words lingered in their mind.

As she said, they ate a thousand people a year. It was a policy meant to spread Ankra's authority and terror across the world while weakening neighboring tribes to maintain the gap in power, but it came with its own difficulties. Humans often fled and resisted in groups.

'No matter how extraordinary you are, you are still human. To the King of Humanity, the thousand who died and you are no different.'

Some prey firmly believed that the King of Humanity would punish Ankra and kept cursing their captor until the moment they were eaten. They said the King of Humanity would come, that their tribe would become Warriors of the King and cut off Ankra's head. Even if Ankra killed them all, their will would remain and bind Ankra's heart, they shouted as they spat blood.

There was no need to consider the position of prey, but the hateful looks in their eyes as they were torn apart were unpleasant enough to ruin Ankra's appetite.

'That is because the King of Humanity still reigns. If you truly wish to become extraordinary, you must challenge the King of Humanity.'

The prophetess who had come to them saw straight through their heart and foretold the future.

'When the King of Humanity crosses the steppe this time, that will be your only chance.'

She was a prophetess who read the heavens, sang of the stars' movements, and traced the paths of rain and clouds. A mysterious shaman who had accurately predicted nine nights of torrential rain that would come to this jungle, then carved channels for the water.

After proving before tens of thousands that she was a prophetess, she accurately "foretold" the King of Humanity's arrival and departed.

Remembering her back as she briskly left before they could even eat her, Ankra sucked the marrow from a bone and said,

"Yes. That's right. Isn't the King of Humanity just a Beast King at most? I've devoured everyone who called themselves king. Even a Beast King would be no different."

Ankra tightened their grip. The muscles and bones in the right arm they held crumpled under pure grip strength. They sucked the human juices leaking through their fingers and rose.

"Come. It is time to hunt. Rise, my soldiers."

Behind them, a thousand Rag Soldiers stood up. The jungle's strongest undying host, which did not die even in death, raised their weapons at Ankra's command.

To devour the King of Humanity.

...It was the most foolish decision of their lives.

Huff, huff, huff.

Ankra ran wildly through the vast jungle. Since becoming the jungle's ruler, their breathing had never once grown ragged. Now it rose to their throat and choked them.

"Me! Me, being hunted!"

The thousand Rag Soldiers who had followed them had become rags in the literal sense. They were hung everywhere as lumps of flesh that could never be revived. Ankra had no time to rage at that. They had to flee desperately.

There was no need to preserve their dignity or pride. Their opponent was the King of Humanity, humanity's representative.

Ankra might have been a cruel ruler, but they were human too. Even their cruelty was part of her. The wicked power they had gained by devouring thousands was only one among the hundreds of millions of powers wielded by the King of Humanity.

"Prophetess...! You deceived me! I could never have won from the beginning!"

Seething, Ankra raced through the jungle. With every leap, their body shot forward like a leopard.

Ankra, king of this jungle and devourer of thousands, could crush trees with their bare hands and leap across ravines in a single bound. Even this vast jungle, where hundreds of millions of trees stood tall, was too small for them.

Still, Ankra was human.

Their strength was human strength.

"If I can just hide in the forest's shade...!"

Then their survival instinct screamed.

Ankra desperately twisted their body. An old hand axe swept past their eyes. Blood faintly gleamed on its dull blade. A moment later, the axe shot past them at an incredible speed.

The trees caught in its path split apart at once, and the undergrowth was severed. Primeval trees that had stood for more than a hundred years became firewood, leaving only their stumps behind. The spinning hand axe crushed everything in its path as it fell.

Then an explosion erupted.

Broken branches were caught in the storm and whipped around. Leaves and fruit flew in every direction. The axe blade embedded in the ground crushed roots and branches, leaving a huge scar across the earth.

Wrapped in the storm, the axe flew on for some time before converging at a single point. Then the earth shook. An enormous impact swept through the forest and sent Ankra flying.

"Ghk!"

It had not even hit them directly, yet it carried such power. Gasping at that terrifying force, Ankra hurriedly searched for somewhere to hide.

There was not a single patch of shade around them. They were completely exposed.

Feeling something strange, they looked up at the sky.

The sun was shining on them.

Direct sunlight did not reach the jungle, which was densely covered in trees. Light filtered through the thick leaves and branches of trees that had grown in competition with one another, softly illuminating the forest. That was why the forest was both bright and dark.

It should have been.

The King of Humanity's strike had turned the jungle into a grassland. She had felled every tree that had ruled this land and returned light to it.

She had only thrown a single hand axe.

Ankra stood there blankly, then flinched as fear rose from their toes.

That thing had found Ankra, laid bare in the open.

It was a girl wearing a wolf pelt over her head. Her large eyes brimmed with curiosity for her prey, while her innocent smile carried both cruelty and purity. Her small body held a violence from who knew where, as though she could smash the whole world apart.

A woodcutter, a hunter, a shepherd, and a warrior.

She was all of those things. The most capable woodcutter, a relentless hunter, a savage destroyer, and the strongest warrior.

The King of Humanity had come to hunt down and kill Ankra.

"Found you!"

Having spotted Ankra in the sunlit clearing, the King of Humanity laughed with savage innocence and shouted.

Footnotes:

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