Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint - Chapter 275

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 275: Episode 51: Great Fable (2)

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Surya, who had leaped into the sky, looked down at the ground with conflicted eyes.

The brightly lit 73rd Demon Realm was sending the crests it had woven to a single being. Before an enormous destruction hurtling in from space, the world was choosing its master.

Surya muttered.

[Someone who gained a Great Fable in only the twenty-fifth Scenario... Has there ever been anyone like that in the Star Stream?]

Even Surya, who had lived for so long, couldn't think of a name. Only Heracles of Olympus came to mind. But even he wasn't a complete human, but a demigod.

Oedipus King shouted.

[Surya, it's all right. Now that it has only just sprouted, we can readily crush it!]

A Great Fable was a story on a completely different level from ordinary fables.

It was the sum of countless fables, while also being a story that guaranteed an overwhelming amount of Plausibility on its own.

Yet no matter how great a Great Fable was, that fable was only a story that had just sprouted. And the Demon King of Salvation, who would possess it, was nothing more than a lowly human who had risen to the rank of a Constellation through luck.

Even so, Surya couldn't easily feel certain.

[Surya, what's wrong? You should finish this quickly...]

Every Great Fable implied the beginning of the end.

A story moving toward the final period of this grand Scenario.

Still, obtaining a Great Fable didn't mean everyone gained the qualification for the end. Some Great Fables were connected to ■■, while others vanished without even coming close to ■■.

“Because you, Surya, haven't gained the qualification for the end.”

Surya couldn't easily forget the words Asmodeus had left behind. Amid the quiet fury, he heard a message.

[A new Scenario has been assigned to you!]

[You will become the Destruction of the 73rd Demon Realm.]

Surya frowned at the role he had never wanted.

'Star Stream. What do you want from this old body?'

He had lost one of his twelve suns to Cheok Junkyung and expended a considerable amount of mental strength fighting Asmodeus. On top of that, he had already used up most of the Plausibility permitted to him.

[Surya. We don't have to do this by the book. I have an idea. A way to make them submit miserably without even fighting...]

Surya frowned.

[Oedipus. Are you planning to use another underhanded trick? Against mere humans?]

[Th-that isn't what I meant...]

[I am Surya, the Exalted God of Light.]

The crests of great Veda gleamed within Surya's halo.

[Even if I can't use my full power, I will never lose to humans.]

At that overwhelming display of Status, Oedipus fell silent. When Surya raised his hand, the chariot, which had hesitated for a moment, resumed its fierce charge.

* * *

Rumbleee!

The locomotive that tore through the sky and entered the atmosphere let out a deafening roar. Red and blue flames burst from its blazing front. Junghyeok, whose voice had recovered, spoke first.

"It doesn't look like 135,000 kilometers."

If a train that large had really appeared, it would have looked like a giant planet crashing toward us.

Cheok replied.

[The descendant's words are right. At most, it is around eighty ri long. Still, it is large enough to destroy this place. Demon King of Salvation, what happened to the Great Fable?]

"It has only just begun its story. The crests are gathering too slowly."

We had safely gained the 73rd Demon Realm's Great Fable, but gaining it didn't mean everything was over.

"It needs more time before it can properly use its power. We have to slow the train down."

That train was probably everything Surya could mobilize right now. If we could stop it, we still had a chance.

When I turned around, Cheok had already prepared to leap.

"I'm counting on you, Goryeo's Top Swordsman."

[Trust me.]

Cheok sprang forward and shot into the air like a cannonball. Junghyeok and I followed him, while the others came after us aboard Yuseong's Chimera Dragon.

Thunder-Eating Bird and Monstrous Bird of the Nile flew in to obstruct us, but Predator of the Hasty Swamp tore at their wing joints.

[Leave these bastards to me.]

The closer we got to the train's front, the more I understood Veda's enormous scale. The front car alone was several hundred meters wide. It was a scale that even most Outer Gods couldn't hope to match.

[Huaaaaaaah!]

With a battle cry, Cheok unleashed the Three Sword Forms.

Second Form: Two Swords Cleave a Mountain.

Cheok's sword form, capable of splitting mountains, struck the train head-on. The front car collided with Cheok's Status and let out a strange sound.

The horses at the front were startled and veered off course, but the train didn't slow down at all. Amid the terrifying heat, Cheok's blade was the one melting instead.

Cheok didn't stop and continued the Three Sword Forms.

Third Form: Three Swords Cleave the Sea.

A strike that cleaved through the sea. With the sensation of tidal spray scattering through the air, the train finally slowed by a tiny amount. More importantly, the front car exploded, creating a route inside.

[It will be easier to advance through the interior! I will slow it down from outside!]

Cheok stood at the front of the train, pouring out fierce Mana. No matter how powerful he was, it was difficult for him to handle an object moving at such speed alone.

"I'll help too, Uncle!"

Yuseong's Chimera Dragon clung to the front car beside Cheok. As the second-grade beast species generated intense wind pressure, the train slowed even further.

Cheok shouted.

[I can buy us around twenty minutes somehow. Surya will be in the last car at the rear. Defeat him, and this fable will disappear too! Hurry!]

We nodded and entered the train.

The inside of the train resembled a subway built for giants. Having adjusted somewhat to the inertia, we immediately pressed the button leading to the next car.

[The door cannot be opened.]

[This train may only be used by Constellations of Veda.]

Junghyeok activated Sky Splitter Sword Art and struck the door without hesitation. The door only dented and refused to open.

"...It's sturdy."

Contrary to Cheok's expectations, the train's interior was no less durable. Junghyeok and I could break through if we truly unleashed our Status, but the train was thirty kilometers long.

We had no choice but to consider how to distribute our strength.

That was when the first sentence of the Great Fable reached us.

「That story began on the subway.」

Crackle!

As sparks surged toward us, the fables I possessed spilled into the air. It felt as though waves were rolling in from far away. It was a trace of a very old story.

When I looked back, the others seemed to feel something similar.

[Your Great Fable has begun its first story.]

Junghyeok, Hyeongseong, and Sangah looked at me at the same time. The sparks flowing in like a tide were changing the scenery around us completely.

Hyeongseong muttered in awe.

"Th-this is..."

Every Great Fable contained a different story.

Some held the tale of a hero's birth, while others contained a world's birth fable. But our story was neither the biography of a hero nor a creation fable.

It was the record of our survival.

The number [3807] was written on the train's rear door.

Sangah looked around and sighed.

"...That subway train."

Every fable activated 「Stage Transformation」 when a place or person connected to it collided with the fable.

Car 3807 of the Bulgwang-bound 3434 Train.

I had accepted Sangah and Hyeongseong as Companions there, and I had met Junghyeok. All our stories had begun in that place.

Hyeongseong, who had clenched his fist beside me, spoke with a tense expression.

"...I remember that time."

"It wasn't a good memory at all, but..."

Sangah looked at me with a faint smile.

"Still, I thought about that day sometimes."

It wasn't a memory we could recall fondly. People's deaths, and the hell of those absurd Scenarios. It was a time that could be neither longing nor memory...

Even so, it was undoubtedly a history in which we had survived.

Hyeongseong smiled as if he might cry and placed his hand over the door.

"For some reason, I think I can do it."

「There was a soldier there who wanted to be righteous.」

In the end, everything becomes a story. The difficult things, the sad things, even the things we want to forget. Once they pass, they all become stories.

"Huaaaaaaah!"

I couldn't know whether that would comfort us now.

There was only one thing we could know.

[The Constellation Prisoner of the Golden Headband watches your Allies.]

[The Constellation Secretive Plotter listens to your fable.]

In a world where sorrow and joy were useless, we had to keep telling that story.

Craaack!

The door that hadn't opened even under Junghyeok's Sky Splitter Sword Art began to open under Hyeongseong's monstrous strength. The Great Fable dwelling throughout Hyeongseong's body was exerting its power.

[The character Lee Hyeongseong has activated the Stigma Mount Tai Shove Lv.10!]

Come to think of it, Hyeongseong had opened the door to our escape back then too.

"Go. Quickly!"

The others rushed through the gap Hyeongseong had forced open. We had only opened one door, though, and there was still a long way to go.

This time, Junghyeok took the lead.

"I'll break through the next one."

The memory of that day returned to me once more.

The regressor who had wiped out the other Incarnations on the train and charged at us like a merciless tank. Junghyeok stood before me.

「There was the strongest and loneliest man in the world,」

Junghyeok put away his sword and focused all his Mana into his fist. Now that I thought about it, he had broken the door with his bare hands back then.

Booooom!

The door of the train car, which hadn't even budged under a sword, tore apart like paper beneath his bare fist.

That was the effect of 「Stage Transformation」.

It was unfortunate for Surya that his main fable was this train.

"Dokja-ssi! I don't think we need to break this car!"

Sangah shouted after discovering something. Just as she had found the door mechanism back then, she found a way to open the train car without force this time too.

「There was also a woman there who had hidden herself for others.」

One car at a time, we began to advance.

As if we were living through the history we had survived again.

The sound of naval cannons battering the train came from outside. Jihye seemed to be struggling to slow the train down as well.

「They met the Scarred Sword Demon, wounded after losing her bonds.」

The Chimera Dragon's roar rang out. Biyoo, who had been in my arms, raised her head and looked out the train window, toward where Yuseong was.

「A child born in the gap between the past and future cried.」

The next moment, the Chimera Dragon let out a terrifying roar and exerted its strength.

The train swayed for an instant, then slowed down even more.

Grrrrrr!

I couldn't be sure, but I wondered if Biyoo had conveyed something to the Yuseong here.

"We haven't even reached the halfway point yet. Hurry."

As Junghyeok said, the end of the train was still far away despite everyone's efforts.

More than ten minutes had already passed. Even if we had reduced its speed, at this rate the space-time around the industrial complex would be completely destroyed.

To make matters worse, we ran into an obstacle when we opened the next car.

A spear shot out like a flash. Hyeongseong, who had blocked it for me, collapsed while clutching his shoulder.

[You can go no farther.]

Manu, the Progenitor of Humanity, and a few Constellations had been waiting there.

Junghyeok immediately unleashed Sky Splitter Sword Art and faced them, but he couldn't break through the Constellations' defensive formation.

Crackle!

It was as if they knew all they had to do was stall us here.

Just as I gritted my teeth and tried to use the Mana I had saved, the train's ceiling began to crumple.

Someone was destroying the train from outside with immense Mana.

[W-what...? What the hell is that!]

Unless it was at least a Fabled-grade Constellation with power comparable to Cheok's, it couldn't have destroyed the train's outer shell.

"Moooove aside!"

Jang Hayoung's voice came from outside the train.

"Kim Dokja! I'm here! They're here!"

The next moment, the entire ceiling was torn away, and Jang Hayoung appeared with two beings.

[The small constellation of a small planet is watching you.]

One was a small man wrapped from head to toe in white-blue radiance. The other was a huge woman giving off a dark blue aura.

Ridiculously, I felt as though my vision might blur for a moment.

"Where is my disciple?"

「He had the strongest small person in the world as his master.」

"It seems I was a little late."

「He saved the world of the strongest giant.」

They were powerful beings with strength no less than Cheok's, beings who could help us.

[Transcendents...!]

Before Manu, who was grinding his teeth, two Transcendents competing for the title of strongest in the First Martial World descended.

Sky-Splitting Sword Saint Namgung Minyeong.

And Paradoxical White Purity Kyrios Lordgrime.

Minyeong glanced at us.

"See this through properly. Otherwise, you're getting a spanking."

Kyrios glared at me.

"You'll pay the price for deceiving me. Until then, I won't permit your death."

Kyrios and the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint unleashed their martial techniques at the door of the next car. The power of Sky Splitter Sword Art and Electrification gathered, creating terrifying wind pressure.

For a moment, even the Constellations shrank back from that force.

Crashhh!

A terrifying wave of Mana smashed through every door blocking our path and surged forward. A straight path had opened all at once.

The moment our eyes met, Junghyeok and I ran.

[Exclusive Skill Way of the Wind Lv.11(+1) has been activated!]

We ran, supporting one another with Way of the Wind and phoenix walk used at full strength.

Before long, we reached the train's final car.

「And there was a man who knew the ending of every world.」

This was a fable that had not existed in TWSA.

A story that had never existed before.

That was why it was finally the fable that could lead me to the ending I wanted.

I flung open the train's final door.