Chapter 750

**Episode 31: Yoo Joonghyuk (2)**

Did he intend to claim the other one?

The instant I meant to shout back, demanding to know what he meant—

“Dokja-ssi, over there—”

It was the voice of Kyung Sein.

We turned our attention to the red sorghum field simultaneously. A familiar figure was standing there.

“Why—”

Perhaps I had suspected it. But I hadn’t been certain.

「 Besides me, there was another who had signed a contract with the Tiger Eating Rice Cake. 」

My comprehension, as usual, was a step behind.

It was only then I understood why the Constellation ‘Tiger Eating Rice Cake’ had expended a slightly excessive amount of probability in this place.

「 The Tiger Eating Rice had invited two incarnations to the ‘Zodiac Ball’. 」

“Hyunwoo-ssi!”

There, in the middle of the red sorghum field, Ye Hyunwoo’s entire body was radiating a brilliant light.

I immediately launched myself into the field using [Way of the Wind].

His tiger fur was fluttering.

Ye Hyunwoo raised a hand, a clear signal for me not to come any closer.

“Hyunwoo-ssi!”

Ye Hyunwoo nodded, as if he already knew what I was about to say.

“I am aware it might be a trap.”

The clever Ye Hyunwoo had already figured it out. Even knowing, this was the choice he had made.

As I prepared to ask him why, he answered me first once more.

“I cannot become who I wish to be if I remain at your side.”

Ye Hyunwoo’s gaze shifted to the group behind me. They were all watching us with confused expressions.

The Killer King was the one who spoke.

“Seventh Apostle. Do you truly intend to make that choice?”

Normally, he would have offered a retort, but today Ye Hyunwoo seemed different. He wore a bitter smile, or perhaps it was a mask of sorrow.

Within the circle of light, Ye Hyunwoo’s feet slowly began to dissolve.

The summoning was being executed through the power of the ‘Tiger Eating Rice Cake’.

Finally, Ye Hyunwoo looked at me directly, his expression resolved.

“To be honest, I am not the sort of person who forms attachments easily. You likely know that already.”

I did know.

Even Gong Pildu, his partner in the duo, had sensed it.

“But for the first time, I believe I understood what it means to care deeply for someone.”

Ye Hyunwoo, now halfway gone, was smiling.

“I am frightened now. I do not want to witness someone dear to me die again. But I will see it. We have entered that world. What I mean is—”

I realized what he was going to say.

“Kim Dokja will become me.”

I understood why he wanted to become Kim Dokja. And that was precisely why I had to stop him.

But Ye Hyunwoo had almost completely vanished now.

The moment the Killer King lunged toward Ye Hyunwoo, someone else moved even faster.

I looked up with a sense of dread and saw Yoo Joonghyuk, emanating a pitch-black aura, standing directly before me.

Yoo Joonghyuk’s palm was directed at the fading neck of Ye Hyunwoo.

[Puppet of the Oldest Dream.]

The voice of the ‘Tiger Eating Rice Cake’ echoed around us. A voice that held an ominous laugh within it.

[I will show you the agony of falling in the sorghum field.]

A minor explosion sounded in front of us, and then the area was engulfed in smoke.

Our startled companions covered their mouths and retreated. But Yoo Joonghyuk and I were within the radius of the billowing smoke.

[You have been exposed to ‘poisonous fog’.]

Poisonous fog.

It was a small mercy. Though it was a lethal poison, this concentration could be endured for a short time.

“Yoo Joonghyuk!”

I called his name into the fog. Yet, Yoo Joonghyuk was nowhere to be seen.

My intuition screamed a warning. This fog would not dissipate so simply.

“Yoo Joong—”

I spotted something glinting brightly within the mist. A beautifully shimmering object was floating precisely where the tiger and Ye Hyunwoo had disappeared.

I knew immediately what it was.

Yoo Joonghyuk, his eyes completely empty, was reaching out his hand toward the object.

“Yoo Joonghyuk! Don’t!”

[‘Unidentified fragment’ begins its storytelling.]

The world was flooded with a brilliant light.

「 Kim Dokja’s Fragment. 」

Damn it.

It appeared the ‘Tiger Eating Rice Cake’ was aware of what had transpired at the ‘Washington Dome’.

And what had happened to Yoo Joonghyuk when he came into contact with the ‘Kim Dokja fragment’ there?

Yoo Joonghyuk could not be allowed to possess that. He would become a ‘black beast’ once more.

I had to absorb that fragment before he could.

“Yoo Joonghyuk!”

But Yoo Joonghyuk’s hand touched the fragment first. The scenery of the world wavered and dissolved into a blinding beam of light.

A message followed in the next moment.

[You have entered the ‘Snowfield’.]

The last occasion the ‘Snowfield’ had opened was when I encountered Kim Dokja.

Kim Dokja, who enjoyed leaving footprints in the snow, drinking tea, and who exuded a gentle yet strangely cool aura.

“Kim Dokja?”

But no matter where I looked, Kim Dokja was not there.

The snowy landscape I remembered was absent. All I could perceive was an abyssal black darkness.

“Yoo Joonghyuk?”

[The exclusive skill ‘□□’ has been activated.]

[The exclusive skill ‘□□’ resists the laws of the Recycling Center.]

A sudden realization struck me. When I considered it, my first entry into the ‘Snowfield’ had not been to meet Kim Dokja.

To be precise, it was when Kim Cheolyang’s ‘next action’ was being described at Geumho Station.

This was from a time when I still possessed the ability to narrate the empty spaces within a story.

However, as I recalled, this skill only activated under very specific circumstances.

「 ‘□□’ is a skill that activates solely during a crisis of ‘survival’. 」

Did this mean I was currently in a life-or-death situation?

So what words should I write?

Should I try to persuade Yoo Joonghyuk to discard the ‘Kim Dokja fragment’? Or, perhaps use additional probability—

[You cannot write sentences.]

I can’t write?

Why—

“Kwaaaaaaaa!”

Someone’s head exploded right before my eyes. As I stared dumbfounded at the geyser of blood, the environment around me began to shift.

「 Acrid smoke rising from everywhere. The thick, metallic smell of blood permeating the battlefield haze. 」

That was not a sentence I had written. I was suddenly standing in the middle of a warzone, swept up in a torrent of narrative I did not control.

I could smell my own flesh burning.

When I regained awareness, both of my arms were completely charred.

What is this? Why am I suddenly like this?

Raising my head with a sense of dread, I saw even more terrifying things hovering in the sky.

[The Constellations of the Nebula <Asgard> are showing hostility towards you.]

I felt my sanity beginning to fray.

[The Constellations of the Nebula <Vedas> laugh at your struggles.]

I was certain I had been at the ‘Recycling Center’. Those beings could never enter the center.

So why?

[The Constellations of the Nebula <Olympus> are watching your final days.]

Why could I see those damned Constellations looming above me now?

Perhaps it was my state of mind, but the sun in the sky seemed to be growing larger.

No, it was not an illusion.

The sun was drawing nearer.

Its blazing corona became visible. Beyond that corona, a distant, immense entity was gazing down upon the Earth.

[The Constellation ‘The Noon Sun’ burns everything on earth!]

A solar wind swept across the land. A scorching inferno consumed every living thing on the surface.

Right before my eyes, someone burned alive in real time and reached out to me.

«Save me—»

Then he perished.

[You cannot change this ‘story’.]

As magma erupted, I held his hand.

[You have died.]

I died without even understanding why it had to end this way.

When I opened my eyes again, I was sprinting down a darkened road.

[The Constellation ‘Master of the Department of Killing’ spits out quiet anger.]

I sensed a colossal presence writhing behind me. The ground beneath my feet turned soft, and then hands emerged from the soil, grasping my ankles.

Kyaaaaaaa!

「 The stench of death was everywhere. The smell of things long dead and forever lost. All the souls who had lost their stories reached out to cling to the narratives of the living. 」

I knew instinctively where this was.

[Catch that one.]

A cold voice commanded from behind.

Without knowing why, I was clutching a book I had never seen before.

「 Department of Killing 」

Department of killing?

In that moment, something came to me.

「 King Yeomra’s Killing Book. 」

The Book of Revelation that records the ‘lifespan’ of every soul in the world.

I was now running for my life with that very book in my hands.

[This is the one whose name was inscribed three times in the death book. Ensure you capture him.]

Damn it, I don’t understand.

Regardless, I couldn’t die here. I ran and kept running.

But soon a cliff edge appeared.

[You cannot write sentences.]

This time, I was unable to write a sentence.

[You cannot change this ‘story’.]

With the sensation of a sharp dagger piercing my stomach, I plummeted a thousand miles down the cliff face.

[You have died.]

When I opened my eyes again, I was seated in a chair.

This time I wanted to act, but for some reason, my body refused to obey. Someone had bound me tightly to the chair.

A chain forged from ‘Sulwha metal’.

I wondered who could have done such a terrible thing—

«Have you come to your senses?»

Looking up, I saw the face of Anna Croft.

I desperately tried to speak. But my mouth was gagged.

«Tell me a secret.»

Yes. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything, just undo this.

«Everything you’re hiding.»

I had never seen Anna Croft like this before. Her eyes were filled with madness. She drew a long nail from her sleeve and held it near my heart.

«Otherwise.»

No, wait—

«You will experience a pain far worse than death.»

The first nail was driven in right beside my heart. A cold, heavy sensation pierced my chest, and I felt on the verge of blacking out.

Anna Croft promptly produced a second nail.

«Say it.»

And she hammered it in.

«Say it.»

Then she took out a third nail,

«Say it.»

And she drove it home.

And.

[You cannot write sentences.]

[You cannot change this ‘story’.]

…

[You have died.]

I felt myself slowly losing my mind. No one could maintain their sanity after dying so suddenly, over and over again.

Is death some kind of joke?

How can a person die like this repeatedly?

«You.»

When I opened my eyes again with this thought, someone was slapping me.

Once, twice, three times, four times.

The powerful blows threatened to shatter my consciousness. No, I was actually losing it.

Blood was already streaming from my ears.

«I have no use for worthless disciples.»

Wait.

[You cannot write sentences.]

[You cannot change this ‘story’.]

Please, let me speak.

[You have died.]

I died five, six, seven more times in that manner.

Something is terribly wrong.

Why am I being subjected to this torment?

What did I do to deserve this fate?

When I opened my eyes again, I was in utter blackness.

But it was a different darkness than before. A darkness far denser and more desolate. A darkness where the very fabric of time seemed distorted.

In that darkness, I was thrusting a blade.

Once, twice, three times.

After the thrusts came the cuts, repeated in a cycle.

Once, twice, three times.

A monotonous task of stabbing and cutting in a steady rhythm.

I continued without cease.

In the lonely darkness, with no one else present, I kept stabbing and cutting, envisioning invisible foes. Ten thousand times, a hundred thousand times, a million times… The training persisted as if to rend the darkness itself.

How long did I continue like that?

When I regained awareness, I had lost all sense of time, forgotten my own body, and eventually, forgotten who I was.

「 Perhaps that talent was not innate. 」

A sensation of mental impurities being purged and spiritual clutter falling away.

「 A talent achieved by one person through carving away at his own soul across an immense span of time. 」

I could stab without needing to make contact, and cut without needing to swing.

「 Transcendence. 」

A monumental epiphany washed over me.

I recognized what this realization was.

This was the very sense of transcendence that Yoo Joonghyuk had described.

But as if something was amiss, a searing heat rose from the base of my skull. The heat flashed my consciousness into pure white, hurling me into ecstasy.

[You cannot write sentences.]

You have got to be kidding.

[You cannot change this ‘story’.]

No, really?

[You have died.]

I was beyond words, utterly dumbfounded.

And now I could articulate exactly what was happening to me.

「 I was currently experiencing the ‘regressions’ of ‘Yoo Joonghyuk’. 」

A black despair perpetually weighed down on his shoulders.

An ending of death, no matter what course was taken.

A hell from which there was no escape, regardless of effort.

It was agonizing, but I endured that hell, time and again.

I was able to persevere.

Because I knew his eternity was not truly eternal.

No hell lasts forever.

Someday, this hell would conclude.

And at the end of this hell, Yoo Joonghyuk would reach his resolution.

Therefore—

「 There is an ending to this world. 」

How many times did I die, how many times did I live, how many times did I run?

Even though I knew an end existed, I was beginning to feel I could go no further when the surroundings gradually grew brighter. I had finally broken free from hell.

「 A snowfield was there. 」

A pure white snowy expanse. For a while, I simply observed the end of that desolate world where delicate snowflakes drifted down.

Then I noticed something pale shifting in the distance. I instinctively raised a hand and moved to approach, but halted abruptly.

Until now, only three people had been able to move within this ‘snowfield’.

Myself, Kim Dokja, and Han Sooyoung.

But what was that?

A small creature was crouched on the snowfield. As I drew nearer, it resolved into the form of a child. A child huddled on the white, ashen snow. The moment I met the child’s lifeless eyes, I understood who it was.

「 There was a man who had to live an interminable story to save a single person. 」

Until this moment, I had believed the ‘Snowfield’ was Kim Dokja’s domain.

「 It is not the reader who exists within the unwritten lines. 」

Snowfield.

The unmarked grave of a being.

「 There was only one being who could ‘survive’ within those lines. 」

A place where all stories are composed, yet perhaps where nothing is written.

This snowfield,

«Yoo Joonghyuk.»

From the very beginning, it had always been one person’s world.