WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ SSS-Class Revival Hunter ◈
Chapter 269: White Lion (2)
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2.
‘Rain.’
I observed the water droplet on my sword blade.
‘It's raining.’
Every movement of the slowly sliding droplet was clear to me, moment by moment. Due to the heightened concentration from drawing up aura throughout my body, my heart rate and senses were far beyond that of an ordinary person at this moment.
Thud!
I channeled aura into my sword blade and flicked the water droplet away. My red aura instantly enveloped the droplet. Should I call it coating? The droplet, now plated with my aura, I sent it flying directly towards Uburka.
Thwack!
The reddened droplet hit Uburka's cheek.
It burst.
Like a child playfully throwing a water balloon. Red paint smeared and ran down one side of Uburka’s face. He could easily dodge my strike, yet he jovially received it as a playful jest.
“At this point, showing off the mastery of your aura is uninspiring.”
Uburka grinned.
“You mixed aura into the droplet that landed on your blade, steeping it in the sorrow and resentment carried by that aura. And so the single droplet you threw at me is no longer merely one among countless raindrops that can be washed away, but a drop that makes me feel somehow filthy and gloomy, as if I ought to help someone. Remarkable. What a wondrous subtlety of aura.”
“Uburka.”
In the course of that brief exchange, trading compliments, I completely composed myself. Kim Gong-Ja’s habit of barging in whenever people felt awkward and somehow dragging out a topic of conversation, his habit of trying to win goodwill from every stranger he met, and so on.
I shed all the shells that made me who I am, one by one, focusing my mind solely on the [believer].
At this moment, the one wielding the sword is the Vice-lord of the Demonic Cult.
“Do you believe I created that?”
“What?”
“A raindrop is nothing more than moisture that has clumped together and fallen when it can no longer bear its own weight. There is no cause beyond physical forces. There was water, there was force, and there was gravity. And so there is a raindrop.”
Master.
I conveyed the teachings I received from the lord of the Demonic Cult, about snowflakes, to my believer.
“I infused the droplet with humanity’s grievances and rancor through my aura, turning it into a projectile. I mixed what was mine into something that originally lacked it, so naturally it was not wholly natural. Is that not a thoroughly Demonic Cult way to work mischief with aura?”
"......."
“But son, you are mistaken.”
To the orthodox, land is just land. Emulating the land means a martial artist themselves become a speck of dirt.
But to the Demonic Cult, what is land? It is an enemy you must dig at until your fingernails break in order to bury your younger sister’s corpse. It is the enemy that happened to be so quiet that day that it allowed your younger sister to catch the local magistrate’s eye. Though you, your parents, and even your grandparents have worked until your bodies broke, it never becomes yours. Hidden forever in the great landowner’s ledger, the bastard mocks you and forces you to recognize how insignificant your lives are.
Sword Emperor.
I shared the explanation I heard from another master with my offspring.
“I didn’t mix my own emotions into it.”
“Then whose did you mix?”
“People’s.”
All the grievances and resentments of people living in the world gather to form the sky, which we call Demonic Heaven.
“I am the Vice-lord of Demonic Cult, its representative.”
Therefore, the emotions mingled there are not mine. I dare not call them mine.
They belong to someone who once existed, someone who will exist someday. They are resentment, grief, hatred.
“This is the sword of the Demonic Heaven!”
I swung my sword.
Thousands of streaks of red rain flew horizontally at once. What I had been entrusted with. What I had to preserve. What I had to act on behalf of. Those precious things shot forth and struck Uburka broadside. Booooom...! With an impossibly loud crash, a sound better called a scream, Uburka was swept away. And the jungle shook violently.
3.
In the drenched forest, birds could not fly. Instead, water droplets hanging from tree branches flew all at once.
“Indeed.”
In the middle of it all, from a meteor crater carved in the heart of the jungle, Uburka spoke.
“Indeed. So it was.”
Uburka boldly laughed, then clapped his fists together with a thud!
“In that case.”
Uburka stood up.
Covered in rainwater, his figure flickering in and out of visibility, the white giant laughed, revealing gleaming white teeth.
“This time, let us show you our world.”
Meanwhile, the rain kept increasing.
This place, being the wettest jungle on the continent, made rain a daily occurrence this season. Drizzle, monsoon, misty and heavy rain. Nearby, a school of piranhas thrashed in the river, and river eels swiftly devoured them.
The jungle was engulfed in heavy rain.
-Uu…
In an instant, the jungle was wrapped in low-lying fog. Unable to see even a few inches ahead, the river flowed beneath the fog, where piranhas leapt up from the water only to vanish again. Below, the sound of flesh being torn echoed.
-Uu…
The bases of the palm trees were submerged in fog. With their lower portions hidden, the trees seemed suspended in midair, as though they hung from the sky rather than stood upon the earth. They were like temple pillars a sculptor had carved from wood in worship of some god. Hundreds of thousands, millions, tens of millions of trees were enveloped in fog, transforming the entire area into a dank temple of mist.
-Uu...
And from beneath the fog,
Half-concealed by the palm trees turned into temple pillars,
With me at the center, surrounding me without a single gap,
The Asuras were letting out deep burps in chorus: uu, uu, uu.
‘Indeed.’
I looked up at the sky.
Realizing that the dark clouds were not just sea-breeze-driven rain clouds.
Krrrumble... Lightning passed between cloud and cloud. The dark clouds rolled over one another, each swallowing the others’ thunder.
‘I wondered why Uburka, of all people, had not challenged me to a one-on-one duel and was coming at me as a pack... So he wanted to pit Demonic Heaven Formation Art against Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven.’
The moment I realized this, the entire jungle was already resonating with the sounds of summoning rain.
-Uu! Uu! Uu! Ugohr! Ugohr! Ugohr! Uu!
-Kerukke, Uu! Kerukke, Uu! Kerukke, Uu!
-Ugohr!
-Kerukke, Uu! Kerukke, Uu! Kerukke, Uu!
-Ugohr!
The Earth Spirit Tribe pounded their weapons on the ground, beat palm trees with their fists, and struck rocks with their feet, awakening the dormant sounds of the forest. It was a wild rhythm.
Having evolved, they became Asuras, and their auras burned red without exception. “Kerukke! Uu!” When one Earth Spirit struck a wooden drum, the aura mercilessly vibrated the wood’s core. The palm tree became a giant instrument, roaring noisily. Koooom! Kooom!
‘Impressive.’
The fog acted as an invisible, intangible wall separating this world from the other.
Thus, the river beneath the fog became the banks of hell, and the land that emerged from the fog became earth.
But with even the land obscured by fog, what is there to rely on in this world?
‘Excellent.’
The leaning palm trees.
Palm trees stretching lazily into the sky, piercing through the fog, were the only refuge from the shores of hell, making them pillars of a temple singing the grace and glory of gods. Small animals, snakes, squirrels, and spiders in the jungle all took refuge in the palm trees.
Demonic Heaven Formation Art.
Supplementary Method.
Ashen Cloud, Blood Mist.
Not yet perfected.
Despite merely bringing rain and thick fog.
The Earth Spirit Tribe transformed this space into a [strange stage].
“The pupil has surpassed the master.”
I admired the spectacle of the Asuras’ Demonic Heaven Formation Art taking shape.
“It’s beautiful.”
Heaven above.
The ash-colored sky spreads low with dark clouds. From one side of the cloud, a lightning bolt tries to strike, only to be swallowed by the neighboring cloud, and on the other side, a thunderstorm roars down.
And Earth below.
Endless fog covers the jungle. Flowing rivers, rocks in the river, rugged shrubs, insects chirping beneath the bushes. All hidden by fog. Now, they secretly whisper. Insects, birds, beasts, none can be seen beyond the fog, only occasionally passing as ominous shadows.
Zirrrrr… Krur, …Kiikiiki…Kii…Krrrrrrrrr…Grrr…Pii…
Incomprehensible noises.
Discordant cacophony made by the shadows.
"......."
My vision encompassed only the dark cloud-filled sky and the land covered in dark fog.
Between the half-lowered sky and half-raised earth, rows of palm trees, bent over, seemed to be hanging onto something desperately.
“Haha.”
I lightly swung my sword to cut through the fog. The density of the fog remained unchanged. Instead, more dense grayness gathered, forming a river of fog.
‘This isn’t ordinary fog. It’s made of aura.’
Further disrupting it, the fog began to take on a bloody hue. The color of the Earth Spirit Tribe’s aura was starkly revealed.
“To cover this entire area with fog... Consuming the Ki Dragon was worthwhile.”
Blood-red mist oozed from the fog cut by my sword. It flowed like a stream through the gray fog, eventually turning all the fog on the ground a bright red.
In an instant, I was transported into a different world.
“Is this my other shore?”
“No, Father.”
Splashing.
Stepping on the fog-covered river, making a sound more akin to a bell than water, Uburka approached me.
“This is our origin.”
“Origin?”
“Ugor. When we first opened our eyes and gazed at the world with tender sight, the world reflected to us was merely like this.”
Uburka looked around.
“The sky wasn’t blue. There was no reason to look up at the blue sky. For us to pay attention to the sky, it first had to rain, and a rainy sky was always ash-colored. Hence, to us, the sky was always a bizarre lump of clouds, rumbling with indigestion, spewing lightning.”
“.......”
“The earth? The earth was terrifying. We never knew what beast might harm us. Even a seemingly tiny insect was strong enough to poison our children. It was a place where demons large and small wandered... An unknown beast howled in the distance, and an adult who promised to return by night somehow never came back. Why? We did not know. We knew nothing. We did not know why the beast howled or why the adult failed to return. Because the world held nothing but unknowns, it was wrapped in the densest fog.”
"......."
"Only occasionally."
Uburka looked out over the primordial world.
A gray world infinitely stretching with ash-colored sky and earth.
“Sometimes there was something like those palm trees to cling to, and all we could do was set out in search of somewhere to hold on. Anything that saved me and became a home for my family was a god. We were nothing more than wanderers making our way between hell and the other shore, searching for spirits to cling to.”
“.......”
I smiled slowly.
“Raising you here was not easy. The only words you knew were water, sky, and earth...”
“Ugor. In a world that appears to us like this, why would we need many words?”
Rain fell.
Although the rain clouds were summoned by the Asura’s aura, the raindrops from the clouds seemed gentle. It was just rain. I opened my mouth wide and caught a few drops. It was refreshing. The rain, far cleaner than the old aura, soaked my entire body.
“Nothing happens if you dwell here.”
Uburka said.
“Father. You love us. Not one member of the Earth Spirit Tribe doubts that love. But was it not hard?”
“Hard? Well, facing this imminent collective parricide is difficult, but…”
“After you led us out of this primeval forest, there were many events. Progress, conquest, defeat, enslavement of all races. You can’t imagine there were no deaths.”
"......."
“Those tortured to death, those killed by accident, those killed by bad luck, those stabbed with spears while resisting the Mountain Snail Tribe, those who died dressed as gladiators while being mocked as mere entertainment for spectators, those killed while escaping, those who died because they could not escape...”
Silence lingered.
“Do you not feel that all of this is your responsibility, Father?”
Long silence flowed.
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