WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ SSS-Class Revival Hunter ◈
Chapter 196: Erosion (1)
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1.
Of all the Constellations I had met, the most powerful was unquestionably Preta.
The Demon King of Autumn Rain.
The saintess of the monsters could pile up mountains of corpses with a single slash. At the tip of her blade, the continent was dyed by crimson rain: blood-drenched mountains and rivers, the ranges submerged in pools of blood and the waterways heavy with its scent.
“Hahaha!”
However, today my heart's ranking might change.
“As expected of Daddy! You dodge like a slippery eel!”
A fist missed just in front of my face. Bwhoooooong! The air split with a roar far too violent to be merely the sound of displaced wind. Thank goodness I braced my legs; otherwise, I would have been swept away by the air pressure.
“Ah, son!”
“Speak! Daddy!”
“Do we really need to do this among ourselves!”
I shouted with earnest desperation.
“We’ve only just reunited after so long. We could catch up first and enjoy a pleasant conversation as father and son….”
“This is the most fun for me!”
“Are you trying to kill your father!”
“If you die by my fist, it just means Daddy’s abilities were only so much. Don’t blame me, blame your own frailty!”
An explosion resounded.
Turning back, I saw a part of the snowy mountain collapsing due to Uburka’s aura.
“This is insane.”
While not quite at the level of severing the world’s edges with a thought like my teacher, his destructive power was immense.
What would happen if I got hit by that fist? Considering whether my skull or the mountain peak was sturdier, the calculation was clear.
“Spare your Daddy!”
I cried out.
“People of the town! Here’s a disrespectful son trying to crack open his father’s skull! After teaching him Aura Manipulation and passing down the Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven, this ungrateful brat now seeks my death!”
“I! Show filial piety with my fists!”
Spouting such nonsensical words, Uburka readied himself. It was a posture all too familiar to me.
Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven.
The First Form.
Sword of Starving Death.
Aura erupted from all around, engulfing my body. I opened my eyes wide. The mastery of aura was incomparable to the old days.
-Ho.
The Guardian Spirit let out an exclamation, which stretched endlessly in my prolonged perception. His voice sounded like 'Hoooo' to me, and before the snowstorm could catch the end of his words, I launched a counterattack.
‘If we clash head-on, I'll lose.’
I drew upon the aura from my entire body.
It was a situation where even a second's lapse in concentration meant defeat.
‘Can I do it?’
As time crawled, I came up with a counter-strategy.
‘Let's try.’
My movements were quicker than my decision.
I stepped forward. Crunch! The snow under my feet shattered. My aura rapidly infiltrated the finely broken snowflakes.
Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven.
The First Form.
Sword of Starving Death.
I did not meet Uburka’s attack head-on.
Instead, I seized control of it.
The Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven ultimately depends on the caster’s memory, the mental image. No matter how many directions it attacks from, if one thoroughly understands the caster’s mental image, it can be unraveled.
‘It depends on how well you understand the art.’
I quietly observed his offense.
To my eyes, the flames of aura appeared as vivid gestures.
Uburka chose two main attack paths.
‘Let's see.’
One breath.
I first broke the most violently rushing flame. Hunger’s agony. It was an attack filled with a child’s scream.
‘Classic.’
I skillfully maneuvered the art. Recalling the gestures of a mother who has to hear her child's screams right before her eyes.
Pain and agony clashed. My aura twisted Uburka’s, like hands wringing a neck.
The direction of the attack reversed.
"......!"
Two breaths.
Uburka’s eyes became ferocious. He grasped my intention to fight not with physical strength but with the understanding of martial arts.
“Daddy always picks the most irritating ways!”
Uburka packed aura into his voice.
To an ordinary person, what Uburka had just said would have sounded like nothing but ■. Just a meaningless, single syllable.
But aura bent and warped the ■. Only within our endlessly prolonged time did it spread out flat. It was a sonic art requiring a considerably advanced realm of mastery.
“Are you trying to make me look like an ignorant boar who is only good for brute strength?”
“Exactly.”
We, father and son, proudly displayed a high-level conversation.
“If you don’t want to lose, release the Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven first.”
“Never! I will defeat Daddy with the divine art too! I want to flatten the nose of a father who lives off his martial arts, send you tumbling miserably into the abyss, and finally make you acknowledge me from the deepest foundation of your heart!”
“After three hundred years, you've only learned bragging. Just succumb to my grasp.”
“Ugor!”
Ugor in the Earth Spirit Tribe’s language roughly means 'No', 'Not really', 'Enough', 'Go away', 'Damn this guy', and carries a variety of other rich meanings.
“I've waited for over 360 years; I can’t lose again!”
“Whether it is three hundred years, three thousand years, or thirty thousand years….”
Three breaths.
I began to dominate the Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven unleashed by Uburka. It was like adding colors to a sketch he drew, or more precisely, adding my impromptu performance to his music.
“This father has no intention of meekly handing over the seat of Cult Leader.”
As Uburka embedded a child’s pain, I painted the image of parents feeding only their child while starving themselves.
Which hunger more aptly depicted universal screams?
Two Swords of Starving Death became entwined around a single divine art.
“My child.”
“What!”
“Since you've reached a substantial level, we can now have a more profound conversation.”
I deflected Uburka’s punch with the back of my hand. It wasn’t a forceful deflection. Anticipating his attack, my body was already prepared to evade. The backhand strike was merely the final motion needed for evasion.
Ugor!
Uburka, his anger reaching its peak, lunged at me.
“A martial artist is a profession too, especially for a follower of the Demonic Cult. If all you want is to contemplate the world’s pain, renounce the world and enter a temple. The Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven is the will to remain amid pain. We make our home among people.”
Each punch Uburka threw demolished parts of the mountain.
However, none of his strikes hit me.
Rumble-
Centered between us, avalanches erupted in all directions.
Like petals blooming around pistils and stamens.
Blood Blossoms.
The snowstorm collapsed into a white cascade.
“Good heavens…”
Twenty steps away from us, Black Dragon Master murmured dumbfounded. Was she astonished by Uburka's immense strength, or was she in awe of how I deftly handled such a precarious situation?
I continued talking to Uburka, paying no heed.
“Be careful. Our Demonic Cult can easily degenerate into a showroom of pain. At any time, all too easily.”
“A showroom of pain?”
“Do not fight over who suffers more. Watch yourself again and again so that your pain does not become a source of power for your own benefit. I know you are not that kind of child, but I am telling you anyway.”
Four breaths.
I successfully occupied all of Uburka's attack routes.
Though Uburka was moving, the paths his aura could extend were limited.
“Ugh!”
Uburka clenched his teeth. His red aura fiercely flared up in an attempt to break free, but I skillfully caught the tips of the flames and directed them where I wanted.
“If you endure all the pain alone, the people around you will wither. The more someone cherishes you, the more they will wither. They will want to tell you to stop, but how can they object when you say you will shoulder the pain of the world? If pain is what proves a person human, you will be the only human among them.”
I wondered if Uburka was keeping up with me.
There was no certainty.
Yet, I continued to weave through the flames.
It might be too early for such advice, but as Black Dragon Master said, it's much better to be early than too late.
“Don’t make those you care for miserable while claiming to act for the world. It’s a contradiction.”
"......."
“Find companions. Find people to walk beside you. Persuade them with your convictions. If you attained enlightenment by climbing the mountain, now it is time to descend. Find people to entrust with your heart and people who can serve as your mind. Talk with them often. If you would become human, become human together with them.”
“That kind of person…”
“There’s already someone.”
Five breaths.
I spread out my aura.
“Look, child!”
My reflection appeared in Uburka's eyes.
Like mirrors reflecting each other, our eyes endlessly captured each other.
“Why do you think I passed on my will to you!”
Aura burst forth.
Not from my power.
It was the torrent of aura released by Uburka.
I merely steered the flow.
“To share the same sky!”
And then, I painted the long-dreamed scenery with red brushstrokes.
Uburka was the infinite palette, and I was the brush.
The same aura manipulation, the same Demonic Art, the same mental image, a feat only possible when shared, descended on the white mountain top.
Demonic Formation Art.
The First Method.
Wandering Mansion of Flames.
Six breaths.
The landscape changed.
Red aura swirled, forming various shapes.
Candlesticks. Candles lit on the candlesticks. Even the melting wax.
Lavish floors, stairs, decorations adorning the mansion, all made of aura.
“Wait. This place is…?”
Black Dragon Master was astounded.
The scene seemed familiar to her.
Hundreds of candle flames rose, and between each candlestick and candlestick, shadows made of aura hid.
-Hehehe.
A familiar sound.
A laughter that slithered like dripping candle wax.
-Are you it?
-Who…
-With us…
Then, the scenery crumbled.
It probably lasted only about three seconds.
Despite Uburka's immense aura and my precise manipulation, maintaining objects, sounds, and an entire space was difficult.
But we did it.
Even if it was fleeting.
I successfully recreated the hellfire mansion.
"......."
Uburka looked around, dazed.
The scenery had returned to the snowy mountains.
But everyone present knew that what they had just witnessed was neither a hallucination nor a fantasy.
“Uburka.”
I gathered the little remaining aura in my body.
“That formation I mentioned to you 363 years ago, this is it. It’s not just about embedding mental images into the aura and shooting them. It’s about bringing those images to life with aura.”
Passing down the Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven to Uburka.
Making the Blood Flower Plays bloom and spreading them among the Earth Spirits.
It was all to unfold a realm of existence impossible to achieve alone.
“No matter how hard I struggle, I cannot sustain it alone for even one second. My aura would run dry in an instant, and the formation would fade before it could even reach ten paces. Even with my aura layered over yours, three seconds is the limit. But what if twelve more warriors joined us?”
"......."
“Twenty-four, hundreds, no, a thousand Earth Spirit Tribe members performing the formation together. What then?”
Uburka imagined the scene I described.
His gaze traced some landscape.
“It's an impossible feat, normally. But over the past few centuries, the Earth Spirit Tribe has shared and refined these images. Only we can accomplish this. We are musicians sharing the same score.”
“That’s…”
Uburka began to speak.
“It’s singing the song of pain…”
“But it will be beautiful.”
“Ugor. It will be beautiful.”
An exciting prospect.
“Descend the mountain with me.”
I smiled.
“Even if we sing of pain, our lives will still be joyful.”
“How is that possible?”
“This father is a remarkable man. You are remarkable too. I acknowledge you, and you acknowledge me. When someone who gives his utmost and races toward being the best acknowledges and likes me, how could my days not be joyful?”
I extended my right hand to Uburka.
“I become a little happier because of you, and you'll smile a bit more because of me.”
“…….”
“Let’s go down, my unfilial son.”
Uburka took my right hand.
[You have created a new skill!]
Just then, the Tower's voice echoed.
[Creating skill card!]
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