EP.130 The Slanted Ceiling and the Mountain of Smiling Corpses - 2
It was a simple conclusion. They were the first to reach the Bottomless Pit, and this sight was a trace that no one could fabricate.
In other words, Seonghwangcheong had murdered the Daoist of the Earth Mother Goddess, the one known as the Grand Master.
Both the history of the Military Empire and the folktales of the Immortal were wrong.
It meant that Tir's story was the closest to the truth.
As expected, was time the element that distorted history the most?
Or perhaps, Seonghwangcheong's influence had seeped into all the references the Military Empire used when compiling their history books.
As if feeling empty, yet enraged, Ji Seon contained all her indignation within like a volcano slumbering deep within the earth, trudging along before coming to a sudden halt.
Then, with a tranquil smile, she looked at the silhouette blocking her path.
"I knew it. I knew it would be like this. That fleeting sense of presence I felt from the moment I first saw you... The stench of those who live without their feet touching the ground. It is a stench only that wretched race gives off, the ones who try to justify all sins merely because they can see the future."
The person blocking Ji Seon's path was, naturally, the Regressor.
The Regressor stood facing Ji Seon, their blue and red eyes gleaming. Ji Seon's tranquil smile shifted into an even more benevolent one.
"Even after hearing of such a tragedy, do you still intend to block my path, youth?"
Wrapped in solemn resolve, the Regressor stood facing Ji Seon, and uncharacteristically for her, swallowed nervously before asking.
"...Let me ask you one thing."
"What is it?"
"If you take her 'keepsake' from here and return to the surface."
At the peak of the mountain of corpses, the pitch-black staff gently held in the woman's hands.
Pointing at it, the Regressor asked Ji Seon once again.
"What is the first thing you will do?"
Ji Seon did not ask. She didn't ask what that staff was, nor how the Regressor knew of it.
She simply accepted it and nodded.
"Isn't it obvious?"
As if stating a truth that was naturally self-evident, Ji Seon answered with a broader smile.
"I intend to hold Seonghwangcheong accountable for their sins."
A calm declaration. In the concept of religion, a powerful organization that virtually ruled the world. A group that held all sorts of secrets and mysteries—Seonghwangcheong.
At Ji Seon's declaration of war against them, the Regressor asked again.
"That's in the past."
"It is a present holy deed."
"Many will die."
"They will not die as many as they have killed."
"And you will eventually die, too."
"I am not afraid."
The Regressor knew that this much wouldn't persuade her. Instead, the Regressor threw another question.
"What if that act leads to an even greater tragedy?"
Ji Seon scoffed. The Regressor's question, rather than throwing Ji Seon into agony, only seemed to solidify her resolve.
"...That precious future again. You speak as if you've seen it yourself. How bizarre. A man cannot become a saintess."
She must have heard it from someone, Ji Seon muttered, asking nothing further. She seemed to place not an ounce of value on the words 'greater tragedy.'
The Regressor spoke desperately.
"In just a few years, an existence that threatens the world will appear."
"Is that so."
"Even if Seonghwangcheong falls, even if the era of the Earth Mother Goddess Cult and the Vampires comes. He will appear. No, he will descend upon the world even faster, having grown even stronger."
"It seems so."
An apathetic response. Growing urgent, the Regressor confessed a fact she had hidden away carefully, fearing it would cause people anxiety.
"The King of Sins. A judge who commands the power of the Demon God to judge human sins. Neither the Saintess of Seonghwangcheong, the Demon Lord of the Demonic Federation, nor the Sword Saint who guards the Empire. None can last even a single second before him. He is a mighty existence that all of humanity combined cannot defeat."
"The Demon God, you say. That's a name Seonghwangcheong would love."
"He is born from all the vices of the world. If Ji Seon, whose fame is renowned and who receives the respect of the people, wages war against Seonghwangcheong. If she alone inflicts a blow on Seonghwangcheong and dies a heroic death. That alone becomes the spark of war. The world will be engulfed in the flames of war, and amidst it, sins will bloom. Those who disrupt the world in the chaos will appear. And in the midst of that..."
The King of Sins is born.
Harboring all the despair and vices committed by humanity.
The Regressor tried to speak of the terrible disaster that would occur in the future, but.
"So what."
"...Huh?"
She could only foolishly ask back at Ji Seon's single statement. Facing the Regressor who asked back in bewilderment, Ji Seon replied with a perfectly clear and resolute expression.
"I asked, 'so what'."
Crunch.
Her foot stepped on a corpse. Having undergone a phenomenon akin to coagulation and sedimentation for over a thousand years, the corpses were as solid as packed earth, supporting her body without a tremor.
"If they committed persecution to prevent a tragedy, it means they must have the confidence to endure even that resistance. If they suppress even the struggles to survive, move forward, yet lack the strength to defeat the approaching disaster. They should not have committed it in the first place. In the future they painted, we did not exist."
Even if it weren't so, Ji Seon would not have fallen.
She was a Seeker of the Way. One who walks on without falling.
Even if someone blocked her path, they would not be able to stop her.
"That's not what I meant! Instead of fighting each other, we should cooperate and overcome the crisis...!"
"If you sent a Champion to stop me, that must mean you have the confidence to do so."
"No! I don't necessarily intend to stop you! If you take the Earth Sword, Jichan, but promise not to use its power, I am willing to concede that...!"
The moment she heard those words. Ji Seon contorted her face like a fierce god and shouted.
"Concede?!"
Veins bulged in her neck. The sound of rocks crushing came from her tightly clenched fists. Swish—as she scattered her hand, five rings clinked, letting out a rough metallic sound.
Like that, Ji Seon shouted as if vomiting her very soul.
"That is ours! It is our land, and our tomb! What right does a mere Champion of Seonghwangcheong have! To concede the keepsake of the Grand Master--!"
Rumble.
Her shout echoed as it struck the mountain of corpses and the slanted Tantalus. It was so resonant that the corpses at her feet shook.
"Do not act arrogantly as if the future belongs to you! Even if you take that in a future without me! It will not grant you the qualification--!"
Crack.
Ji Seon clenched her fist and pulled her arm back. Her muscles bulged, and the five rings became one, wrapping tightly around her right arm.
Having steeled her body and mind like that, Ji Seon glared at the Regressor with a fearsome momentum and shouted.
"Draw your sword, Champion! I will advance! Holding her keepsake buried in the ancient tomb, I will hold Seonghwangcheong accountable for their sins! I am the apostle of the Earth Mother Goddess, and the scream of those who die alongside her name! If you wish to bury this question in the earth, then kill me and bury me in the Bottomless Pit--!"
She had failed to persuade her. The Regressor of this iteration, too, could not stop her.
A now-familiar sense of defeat. The Regressor bit her lip and lowered her head. Then, she finally locked eyes with me, who was at the bottom of the slope.
'If the one persuading her wasn't me, but someone else. Yeah. If it was that guy, would things have been different?'
No way.
I am just someone who listens to the wind. There's no way I could block the fierce gale of a Seeker of the Way.
Even I didn't know. I knew how much indignation and desire was inside her. But I never expected such intense hatred to appear.
Because I'm a mind reader, not a prophet.
Sighing, the Regressor spoke slowly, as if drained of energy.
"The future has never once been mine. It has always been my enemy. Trying to ruin me in the most bizarre ways."
The Regressor reached her hand up and grasped her sword. The Sky Sword, Cheonaeng, which had always been by her side.
A compressed space saved and cherished solely for this day. Undoing its latch, the Regressor grasped the surging power in her hand.
"Let me correct one thing. I'm not a mere Champion of Seonghwangcheong. I've never prayed to a god in my life, and no god has ever listened to me. Let alone fighting and cursing each other."
'At first, I was relieved by the fact that I came back to life, the second time I was happy to gain a strange ability, and the third time I was excited. I thought I had become a special person. But this specialness is not a blessing, but a curse. For someone as... ordinary as me... it was just too overwhelming...'
Briefly self-mocking, the Regressor raised her sword once again.
The distant Bottomless Pit shook.
The slanted ceiling and the mountain of corpses. Between them, a wind swirled. It was as if the Bottomless Pit had reclaimed the sky and called the wind back.
Roar.
The howl of the wind flowed over the corpses, wailing sorrowfully. The wail soon converged to a single point and was sucked into the Regressor's sword.
Wrapping an immense power around her sword, the Regressor shouted.
"Fuck! Still! I have to stop the world from being destroyed, don't I!"
The Regressor kicked off the floor of corpses, and Ji Seon slowly pulled her right foot back. The ground behind her foot packed solidly, firmly supporting Ji Seon's body.
The invisible sword and the five rings clashed.