WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 716: In Heaven - 1

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An aurora descended over the polar sky.

Bands of light held hands and danced softly. The fairies' dance scattered powdered yellow and blue light across the sky.

People named it after the goddess of dawn and admired the divine glow blanketing the sky like a curtain. Scientifically speaking, it was a luminous phenomenon caused by solar wind from far away cutting diagonally through the atmosphere.

But how was that any different from a god?

The curtain of light dancing in the distant sky slowly descended. The aurora came down so close I worried it might brush the ground, then gently covered the Floating Castle. It was as though it had embraced the castle in the hem of its skirt.

They called the Celestial God our parent, and it turned out our parent wore skirts too. I should respect Father's tastes...

Wait.

Could an ordinary aurora cover the Floating Castle? Did auroras normally appear that close to the ground?

Of course not.

I hurried to the top of the Floating Castle. As expected, the layers of aurora seemed to have cut it off from the rest of the world. Shei had succeeded in summoning the Celestial God.

"The Celestial God? You really summoned the Celestial God? If you thought it might work, you could've at least warned me..."

As I spoke to Shei, I stopped mid-sentence and flinched.

Shei was looking at me with a calm smile, like a saint.

I hurriedly read her mind. There was no particular change in Shei. She was still the hero with memories of thirteen regressions, trying to stop this apocalypse. My mind-reading was unchanged from before.

But something was different.

"Look, Hughes. I summoned the Celestial God! It's the first time I've actually succeeded!"

"How could you be certain you could summon the Celestial God when you'd never succeeded before?"

"Certain? I wasn't. But if I'm a Holy Maiden, I figured I could manage it somehow."

"That's awfully casual..."

I felt something strange as I watched the excited Shei. Her consciousness and intellect were clearly unchanged, yet something about her was different.

It felt similar to when the Heaven-Reversing Boundary reacted. More precisely, the Heaven-Reversing Boundary seemed to be holding back a body that kept trying to burst free. My mind-reading read minds rather than bodies, so I couldn't tell what had changed.

"Here's the Stairway to Heaven! Come over here... Ah!"

Shei, who had been about to guide me, suddenly stumbled and fell.

I had no idea how a qi master who had learned the Water Qi Art and possessed the greatest qigong technique of all time, the Heaven-Reversing Boundary, could possibly stumble over her own feet.

Yet it happened. Shei lost her footing and fell toward me. I hadn't even read her mind before I instinctively caught Shei.

It ended up looking like I had embraced her.

"Ah?"

Shei startled and pulled her upper body back. Strange. Before, she would've been the one who ran into me, then pushed me away. Now she was blushing like a demure young lady.

"Are you all right?"

Shei's eyes widened. Avoiding my gaze, she muttered, "Y-yeah. I'm okay? Maybe I'm dizzy from using the Seven-Colored Eyes for too long."

"Rest for a moment. I'll go in and take a look."

"No. I have to be here for you to climb the Stairway to Heaven... Normally, you can only reach it from the top of Holy Mountain Yulim, but the Heavenly Eye of the Turning Wheel, the final legacy of the Church of Light, always shines upon that place... Just know that what I summoned wasn't the Celestial God, but the Celestial God's temple, which doesn't exist in this world..."

Shei rambled as though trying to hide her awkwardness, and that only made me feel more suspicious.

What was this?

Even when I read her memories, there was no information about how she had summoned the Celestial God. In Shei's memories, all she had done was activate the Seven-Colored Eyes and stare blankly at the sky. Then, at some point, the Celestial God had descended.

She had probably hidden the memory deliberately. The abnormality in her body now was likely a side effect of concealing it. Fine. I understood that there had been a side effect.

What I understood even less was Shei's emotions. Even while I openly stared at her with suspicion, she fidgeted and watched my reaction.

"H-hmm... Why are you looking at me like that? Is there something on my face?"

"I didn't know you were this capable. I thought you were the most incompetent Holy Maiden of all."

"Shut up. I didn't know the King of Humanity would be as weak and useless as you!"

Her verbal response was the usual Shei. I wondered if I was imagining things, but...

"If it weren't for me, you'd have died dozens of times over. You can't even thank me! I summoned the Celestial God for you again this time, and you still won't say thank..."

She glanced at me and twisted her body as she spoke. There was clearly something she wanted to hear. I knew exactly what it was, but for some reason, I didn't want to say it. Looking away from Shei, I answered, "You promised to show me the Celestial God if I helped with your work. If anything, you fulfilled that promise far too late. I worked myself sick waiting for it."

"...Tch."

This was strange. We had grown close while traveling together, but this reaction was clearly strange!

She was hiding a memory, in a way even she herself didn't know. Should I press her? I wasn't sure about that either. Shei was obviously conscious of my mind-reading. If she showed me only what she wanted me to see, I had no choice but to be fooled.

"I'll go see the Celestial God first... The Celestial God won't strike me down with divine punishment, will he?"

"Hmph. That depends on what you do."

"Are you coming with me?"

"I want to, but I have to maintain my observation of the Celestial God. I need to stay here."

Then I had to go alone. Maybe that was better.

Before Shei stood a staircase leading into the distant aurora. The Stairway to Heaven. With no pillars or walls to support it, steps molded from light stretched so far into the sky that they seemed to touch it.

People were wrong when they said you had to be good to go to heaven. Wasn't I, the man who had committed every petty crime in the world, the first to set foot on it? Thrilled by the sense of transgression, I climbed the staircase toward the distant sky.

I passed through the curtains of aurora. Each time I lifted a layer, the world brightened as though soaked in light. Before long, clouds lay beneath my feet, and magnificent stone pillars held up the world. After climbing endlessly, I reached the end of the staircase.

Before me stood a massive golden gate. I slowly reached for it. Before my hand could touch it, the gate opened with a heavy sound.

Then heaven deigned to show me its precious face.

It was a space so vast I couldn't take it all in at a glance. Pillars imbued with the golden ratio supported a roof as expansive as the sky, while unknown letters were carved into the distant walls like a landscape painting. A gentle radiance flowed from the entire structure, dyeing the world gold.

How could anyone build such a structure in midair? It was magic, no, a miracle. The sight could inspire faith in someone who had none.

But this was a magic trick.

In other words, a deception.

The walls and floor were clouds. Their structure was similar to the cloud stairs Shei had created with Skywarbler. Their components and traits had been preserved, while only their properties were changed. You could call them cloud bricks.

The glittering golden light came from lightning. The instant lightning shone brightly had been stretched out and used as illumination. The clouds used as bricks were both the light source and the lamps. That was probably why heaven itself glowed so softly.

It was an overwhelmingly grand and beautiful deception. What could it possibly be trying to hide?

"Is anyone here? Is heaven empty?"

It was so quiet that even my voice didn't echo back. As I walked on, I faintly heard a hymn from far away.

[Our Father Celestial God, our Father who art in heaven. You grant us our daily bread again today and forgive us our sins, so Your name shines holy.]

It sounded as though tens of thousands were singing in chorus. A hymn filled only with holiness and devotion endlessly covered the world.

Countless echoes shook my body and mind at once. Humans could be affected by even one person standing beside them. So what happened when the hymn of tens of thousands, even hundreds of millions, rang out at the same time? My very existence was diluted and buried beneath it. I felt as though I should enter that chorus immediately and sing with them.

But.

I stood still and focused on my mind-reading. The sound that shook the world gradually fell silent, leaving only minds behind.

There were no minds in those voices. They must have entrusted their hearts somewhere else already. Having entrusted their souls to heaven and found rest and peace, they had no need for me.

Then I had no reason to grant their wishes either.

I walked through the voices. A single discordant note amid a harmonious chorus. It felt as though someone like me should disappear at once, but I shamelessly walked through heaven alone.

Then one voice, the clearest of them all, split away from the rest.

[King of Humanity.]

The moment I heard it, I understood instinctively.

It was a Demon God.

The clouds churned. At that Demon God's single word, the clouds and wind responded. Clouds slowly gathered in the air and formed the shape of a person.

Probably the first Demon God to cooperate with the Sanctum, and the one on whom this heaven had been based.

[We laid our bodies in this heaven to escape barbarity. Why must you insist on finding us?]

The clouds changed into the form of an old man with a long beard. The enormous old man, large enough to fill heaven itself, directed dark, deep eyes at me.

"Because I need to use you for my purpose."

[Even knowing that doing so is barbarity?]

"I don't know what barbarity means to you, but if using your power is barbarity, then yes. I'll do it."

[Do not. Humans must not defy the course of heaven and try to control the weather.]

"Why not, Chiwoo?"

When I called his name, the old man of clouds swirled silently.

Chiwoo. An ancient god said to have ruled rain and wind. An immortal said to read the course of heaven and see the future. Some claimed he was only a fictional being modeled after someone else, but that was not true.[1]

[Look.]

Worshipped as a god, and once truly a god himself, he had given up that position and entered the Celestial God's embrace.

[See what tragedy unfolds when a human is granted the power to control the weather.]

He gathered clouds and scattered them across the earth. Crops grew lushly, and people swam in joy. Clear weather continued throughout autumn. Under the sun's grace, grain ripened full and golden.

All of it came from one person.

Chiwoo's power.

Chiwoo had once led the Celestial Weather Bureau. He spent his life reading the traces of clouds and wind, divining the course of heaven. This was before the Sanctum had gained power. The Celestial Weather Bureau, which read the weather and predicted the climate, was treated with respect even by the kings of every nation.

Among the Celestial Weather Bureau's members, Chiwoo had mastered the course of heaven and touched the will of the sky. He received the name Chiwoo, meaning "Ruler of Rain," because he controlled rain and wind. Chiwoo had never been wrong.

More precisely, he made sure he was never wrong.

He read the weather. He sensed the disposition of clouds panting as they climbed mountain ridges and watched two winds mingle to give birth to rain and lightning.

To him, wind was no different from a river. The raging winds each bore different colors, and when they collided and mixed, they produced every kind of phenomenon.

Who could have known that floods, droughts, lightning, and rain, believed to be the will of heaven, were all the result of winds mixing together?

Chiwoo became a Demon God and rewrote the course of heaven. He was truly a god. He controlled the climate once believed to be the course of heaven, so what else could he have been?

Where drought struck, he brought rain. Where floods came, he brought sunlight. Chiwoo was revered by all.

Kings and lords were no longer needed. Under the sky, they too were only human. Chiwoo became a being above all others and ruled the world...

-Take back the rain, Chief of the Celestial Weather Bureau.

But what of the truth hidden beneath that?

-The course of heaven distorted by the chief of the Celestial Weather Bureau will return as an even greater karmic burden.

The weather grew increasingly distorted, and the changes grew ever larger. The southeast wind that should have come vanished, replaced by torrential rain that continued for seven days and nights. He twisted it and sent it elsewhere, only for three nearby regions to suffer severe drought.

-The raindrops the chief of the Celestial Weather Bureau dropped on Silver Branch Forest should have flowed into Haeri Lake. When the lake's water level fell below its usual level, the King of Beavers hurriedly raised the dam. The higher it is, the more easily it will collapse. If even one more stream of water seeps in now, the dam will break and sweep away three nations.

He was powerful, but he was alone. He could not read the weather patterns flowing across the entire continent, nor could he control all of them at once. Because of the moisture he had drawn in years ago, the perennial snow melted and flowed away, while forests and fields that could not adapt to the sudden climate changes withered. When he drew water from the sea, a massive typhoon struck the continent six months later.

Whenever Chiwoo made even a small mistake, thousands starved to death without knowing why.

Chiwoo was a Demon God, but he was not truly a god. One small mistake killed thousands and dried out the land. Restoring it required an even greater cost, and that too would return as a future backlash.

Defy the course of heaven, and a greater disaster will come.

The one who came to Chiwoo in his anguish was the Butterfly Holy Maiden. She controlled the climate by a different method than Chiwoo, and she showed him a path.

-You cannot bear the sin of distorting the course of heaven. It is too vast, too great.

Then the Butterfly Holy Maiden gave a small flutter of her wings.

Her actions were very minor. She removed a few branches from the dam built by beavers and carried ash tree seeds elsewhere to plant them. She left a forest fire alone for three days, then doused it with water on the final day.

The blocked course of heaven began to circulate, and the world returned to normal. The dam collapsed a few days earlier, the grown trees redirected the waterway, and clouds raised by the forest fire soaked the world.

It was as though a butterfly's tiny flutter grew larger and larger until it overturned the world. The Butterfly Holy Maiden returned every part of the weather Chiwoo had distorted to its proper place.

What did it matter that he had led the Celestial Weather Bureau, or that he was Chiwoo? He was a sinner who had nearly destroyed the world, and he had prevented it with the Holy Maiden's help. The Butterfly Holy Maiden held out her beautiful hand to him as he knelt before her.

-Sinner who distorted the course of heaven, entrust your Demon God to the Celestial God. Within the Celestial God, you will be forgiven for your sins.

Chiwoo had no choice. He entered the Celestial God's embrace.

Footnotes:

[1] Chiwoo's name here sounds like “governing rain” and alludes to Chiwoo, a legendary figure in Korean tradition.

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