WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈
Chapter 282: Episode 53: Demon King of Salvation (2)
──────
[Hidden Scenario - Escape from the Demon Realm has begun!]
At that time, every dokkaebi in the Administration Bureau was focused on the panel screen.
“Are you kidding me? A Scenario has appeared, so why isn't there a single dokkaebi to run it?”
The other dokkaebis of the Administration Bureau stopped Bihyeong as he raged alone. After the Demon King Selection ended, every dokkaebi operating channels had withdrawn from the 73rd Demon Realm.
“Where's Baram-nim? And damn it, Dokgak, you bastard!”
“...”
“Why the hell is the guy who was so desperate to take over the Demon Realm channels here? If this was going to happen, you should've let me go instead!”
“Bihyeong, do you really think that place is in any condition to broadcast?”
Even Dokgak, proud as he was, had given up on running this Scenario. It was understandable, since the Administration Bureau had spent more Plausibility than permitted during the Demon King Selection.
Of course, that wasn't the only problem.
Baat!
The cry of a baby dokkaebi who knew nothing. Some dokkaebis sighed and turned away, while others fixed their eyes on the screen as if refusing to look away until the end.
A distant being that had crossed the universe of the Star Stream was covering the skies of the 73rd Demon Realm.
Not every being lived by parasitizing Scenarios.
If Constellations lived by consuming orderly stories, Outer Gods lived by relying on the shadows of chaotic stories. Beings born from the unconscious of stories. Monsters that wandered the deep sea of Scenarios unnamed by dokkaebis.
‘That isn't a proper Scenario.’
Watching ‘it’ open its enormous mouth, Bihyeong clenched his fists in despair.
‘Run, Kim Dokja.’
* * *
“...What is that?”
Jeong Huiwon noticed ‘it’ several minutes later.
The hairs all over her body suddenly stood on end, and cold sweat ran down her back.
Looking around, she saw industrial citizens collapsing unconscious or vomiting blood. Beside her, Jihye clawed at her own shoulder with unfocused eyes.
“Jihye! Snap out of it!”
Only after Huiwon shook Jihye by the shoulders again and again did Jihye barely come to her senses and lift her head.
“Ugh, ah, ugh... Unni...”
Her nails had already dug into her shoulder, drawing blood. Huiwon turned toward the plaza. Sangah was already moving.
“Everyone, gather over here!”
At the sound of her Mana-filled voice, the Allies came to their senses one by one.
“Wha-what is that?”
Hyeongseong and the children looked up at the sky. Gilyeong staggered and sank down, while Yuseong clung to Hyeongseong, trembling.
At that moment, everyone in the plaza shared the same thought. It didn't matter how many books they had read or how many words they knew.
‘Indescribable.’
Sangah, Hyeongseong, Huiwon. Every word humanity possessed was powerless before the being drawing near.
A pitch-black ‘something’ that completely covered the sky.
They couldn't understand what they were seeing in the slightest, and so they had no idea how to respond to it.
When a typhoon came, they could stick newspapers to the windows. When a tidal wave came, they could enter a sturdy high-rise building. When fallout began, they could hide in a basement behind thick walls.
But that thing.
What could possibly stop that?
Could it even be stopped?
That was when a man appeared in the lightless sky.
A being shining brightly as he expended Plausibility. A trace of relief crossed Huiwon's face when she spotted him.
Most of the Constellations who had attended the banquet had left the Demon Realm two days ago. But not all of them had.
With dazzling sparks bursting around him, a man stepped onto the battlements.
[Hah! Get a hold of yourselves!]
Goryeo's Top Swordsman, Cheok Junkyung.
As his magnificent Lion's Roar echoed throughout the walls, a few Incarnations with strong mental energy barely seemed to regain their senses. They looked toward Junkyung.
They didn't know what was approaching.
But Junkyung was here.
And Junkyung had fought an Outer God before.
[Outer God! Why have you come here? This is not your Scenario!]
His Lion's Roar rang out toward the sky. Hope began to appear on the faces of the Incarnations as the force within his voice washed over them. Junkyung shouted again.
[Having become a great Outer God, is devouring nothing but excess Plausibility all you choose to do?]
Yet the sky gave no response, no matter how many times he called out. Like an elephant unable to see an ant, ‘it’ didn't even spare Junkyung a glance.
Junkyung's expression hardened.
If an elephant couldn't see an ant, then he would make it see him.
[■■■■■! Indescribable Distance!]
At that moment, something looked at Junkyung.
Sparks exploded all over his body. His outer shell blackened, his hard muscles ruptured and bled, and constellation artifacts shattered by the sparks scattered through the air as ash. That was the price for merely calling its name.
Even so, Junkyung didn't retreat and drew a new sword.
[...This sword has cut mountains, seas, and even the sun. This time, I will use it to cut you.]
A vastness that couldn't be bound as ‘one’ filled Junkyung's vision.
A boundless expanse where he couldn't tell what to cut, nor where its beginning or end lay. In that distance so infinite that not even a shred of possibility existed, Junkyung moved.
[Oooooooh!]
Junkyung shot forward like a ray of light and pierced the heavens.
With one stroke, it cut down a thousand men.
With two strokes, it cleaved Mount Tai.
With three strokes, it cleaved the sea.
That sword, gleaming like a meteor shower, slashed across the vast darkness. For a brief moment, a thread of light streaked across the abyss of the sky. The Incarnations who saw it trembled.
The greatest warrior of Goryeo was fighting an Outer God.
The next moment, a strange sound came from the sky. It sounded like a star in a distant galaxy reaching the end of its life cycle and fading away.
Then something fell from the sky.
“Ah, ahh, ah...”
Someone with sharp eyesight spotted it first.
A severed arm and legs that had burst apart. An Incarnation body with only half its body left was falling toward the ground. Shock and disbelief. Even those who couldn't see Junkyung's face understood what he felt.
A sword that had cut Mount Tai, the sea, and even the sun. Yet even such a sword had something it couldn't cut.
It had been something uncuttable from the beginning.
Hissssss.
The Sky-Splitting Sword Saint caught Junkyung's Incarnation body.
[...Remember the mark left by my blade.]
Leaving those words behind, Junkyung's Incarnation body vanished.
It was the Incarnation body of no less than a fabled-grade Constellation. He had destroyed Surya's train and cut off an Outer God's leg. Yet such a Constellation had become unable to fight and lost his Incarnation body in an instant of combat.
“U-uaaaaaaah!”
The screams of industrial citizens rang out amid the fear invading their minds. Darkness filled the horizons in every direction. The ground writhed as something moved, like a creature stirring in the womb.
It sounded as though a huge insect was devouring enormous prey. In the distance, the horizon gradually drew closer. The light illuminating the ground slowly faded.
[The 73rd Demon Realm groans in pain!]
The Sky-Splitting Sword Saint and Kyrios had already witnessed this sight once in the First Martial World.
Kyrios spoke.
“...That crazy disciple might get us killed here.”
“It seems neither of us has any luck with disciples.”
The world screamed. Darkness filled with nothing but greed approached, devouring everything in the 73rd Demon Realm.
Grinding his teeth, Kyrios concentrated all the Mana of White Pure Star Energy.
“This is why we should've kept Plausibility in check.”
Indescribable Distance. This divinity called the Catastrophe of Stars was, in a sense, the Plausibility Backlash itself.
A cleaner born from the chaos that governed the laws of the Star Stream when they went astray.
“What has already gone astray can't be helped. I'll twist it toward the worst possible outcome with all my strength!”
With the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint's cry, the Status of the two Transcendents shone brightly.
The sky-shattering sword of Sky Splitting. The Ultimate Technique of the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint, god of the martial world, shot toward the sky while embracing the power of the First Martial World.
Sky Splitter Sword Art.
Ultimate Technique.
Sky-Splitting Meteor Sword.
The very sword technique Yu Junghyeok had once used. The Ultimate Technique of the Sky Splitter Sword Art, which had beaten down and cut countless Constellations.
Rumble!
The fierce sword technique of Sky Splitting burst forth, decorating the heavens. Explosive Mana painted the air brilliantly, and meteor-like sword techniques spread through the sky in dazzling patterns.
Yet ‘it’ wasn't even scratched. The sword strikes faded away futilely, like dust drifting through space. Her sword could shatter the sky, but it couldn't shatter the universe.
“Kyrios!”
Receiving the signal, Kyrios stepped on the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint's shoulder and leaped.
With dazzling radiance, Kyrios accelerated with the power of [Electrification], pierced the atmosphere, and flew into the heavens. An endless universe. In that unfathomable darkness, Kyrios sensed the darkness covering the sky and the gazes of stars watching from beyond it.
[The Constellation Prisoner of the Golden Headband emits a golden gleam.]
[The Constellation Abyssal Black Flame Dragon roars!]
That was where the stars resided.
A place no short human arm could ever reach.
Kyrios knew that too.
Crack!
That was why Kyrios struggled. Again and again.
Crack! Crack!
Stepping on the fragments of the Meteor Sword left behind by the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint, Kyrios leaped higher and higher. Like one running toward an unreachable star, a mortal being who had built a history through ages of arduous effort finally reached the Seat of the dazzling stars.
Having reached that universe, Kyrios was finally in a position to see ‘it.’
Something resembling a massive fog.
Fog without a definite form greedily devoured the planet known as the 73rd Demon Realm.
At the center of that fog was the faint blade mark Junkyung had left behind.
The power of White Pure Star Energy, condensed to its limit, gathered in Kyrios's right hand.
[The universe originally began with the smallest thing.]
With a fierce shout, Kyrios's right hand moved. As if the Big Bang had erupted, White Pure Star Energy drove into the center of the fog.
Boom!
With a flash that dyed the sky white, every industrial citizen shut their eyes. For an instant, the power of two Transcendents overwhelmed the universe and covered the world's darkness. When the light went out, a vast crack had appeared in the darkness covering the sky.
The industrial citizens cried out.
“W-we did it.”
“We did it! The Transcendents did it!”
But the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint's expression was grim. Watching Kyrios fly toward her through the heavens, she gave a faint smile.
“This is as far as we go.”
Beyond the falling Kyrios, the sky was splitting apart.
Something was awakening within the pitch-black darkness.
It was an eye.
A massive eye gazing down on the world. A pitch-black pupil within a pure white crystalline lens followed Kyrios's falling back. The Sky-Splitting Sword Saint gasped in shock, and Kyrios turned around.
The Mana of the Transcendents collided with an irresistible Status.
Hissssss.
Kyrios's long, tightly bound hair was turning white. The Sky-Splitting Sword Saint's bulging muscles were wasting away. As if they were aging, the bodies of the two Transcendents were dying before unfathomable time.
The Status of the universe was different.
They had surpassed mortal limits and become Transcendents, gaining power that could even scorn Constellations.
But compared to the history of that cosmic being, the history of their brutal training wasn't even dust.
[Indescribable Distance looks upon the 73rd Demon Realm.]
The industrial citizens who had gone mad began to rampage.
“Escape! Escape!”
“Wheeeeeeeek!”
Not even knowing what they were saying, the industrial citizens let out cries like wild beasts.
[Portals cannot be used due to the intervention of a powerful being.]
“What is it, wha-wha...”
“Wha-wha-wha-wha-wha...”
“Wak-wak-wak-wak-wak-wak-wak...”
The bodies of industrial citizens, swollen all over, burst apart. Some transformed into grotesque beings, while others spewed tentacles from their mouths.
The world was going mad.
But not everyone was like that. Even before the gaze of that impossible being, someone still hadn't let go of her sword.
“...Not yet. I can still fight.”
It was Jeong Huiwon. Gasping for breath and fighting back nausea, Huiwon didn't fall to her knees. The Allies gathered one by one and stood beside her.
The reason they could endure was simple.
[The Great Fable Spring of the Demon Realm protects the Incarnations.]
Because this world refused to be destroyed.
Because they were the history of this 73rd Demon Realm itself.
[The Constellation Queen of the Darkest Spring cries out for you to run!]
[The Constellation Abandoned Lover of the Labyrinth screams.]
[The Constellation One-stroke Scholar closes his eyes in pain.]
The Allies knew as well.
Every power they possessed was insignificant before that mighty being.
Clutching the Sword of Judgement, Huiwon vomited blood and shouted.
“Uriel! Please!”
The Demonic Judge of Fire didn't respond.
Neither Pildu Gong's Defence Master nor Hyeongseong's Master of Steel responded to their Incarnations' calls this time.
No, they couldn't respond.
[All the stars in the night sky remain silent.]
The Constellations in that sky didn't utter a single rebuke.
Just as no one could condemn thunder, lightning, or a storm, ‘that thing’ wasn't something that could be condemned in the first place.
Frightened, O-su urinated. Jang Hayoung, retching, sank to the ground, while Pildu, out of his mind, began building meaningless walls. Trembling, Myeongoh dropped his prosthetic leg and searched for somewhere to place his one remaining leg.
But his foot couldn't move.
Before that being devouring the world, there was no ground for him to stand on.
“Dokja-ssi!”
Then there was Kim Dokja.
At Yu Sangah's cry, everyone looked up at the same place.
At the top of the unfinished clock tower, Kim Dokja stood at the edge of slowly passing time.
[The Constellation Demon King of Salvation looks upon the night sky.]
The only star illuminating the darkened night sky.
The Demon King of Salvation was there.
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
