SSS-Class Revival Hunter-Chapter 355: The White End (6)
After taking care of everything related to the Mad Swordsman, I had nothing left to do anymore, so I looked at the far end of the world.
[You can leave the stage at any time.]
After I waved my hand, the letters faded like grains of sand. I stood in the middle of the world. Well, since the world moved with me, I could only stand in the middle anyway.
Idiot: What are you doing? Aren’t you going back to the lobby?
Me: I suddenly had the thought that I might fail the ninety-ninth floor.
Idiot: ...
Me: I think I’ve grown strong. With my current level, I would even be able to duel with Teacher before she found her enlightenment. You’re half a step ahead of me and Teacher, Mr. Sword Emperor. Yet you died on the ninety-ninth floor.
I couldn’t imagine what could have possibly killed the Sword Emperor on the ninety-ninth floor. My anxiety spiked.
Me: What’s on the ninety-ninth floor? Can you still not tell me?
Idiot: ...
Me: If you tell me, I can prepare and make a plan, can’t I?
Idiot: Hmmm. Well, there’s death...
The Guardian scratched the back of his head.
Idiot: The description is vague, but that’s all there is.
Me: What the heck are you talking about?
Idiot: I just don’t want to tell you the truth about the ninety-ninth floor. That’s all.
Me: How old are you?
Idiot: Forget it. Let’s walk.
Me: Walk? Walk where? You’re a ghost. You can’t walk—
Then, for the first time since meeting the Guardian, I saw something that was surprising yet also very ordinary. The Guardian, who had always floated in the air, was walking steadily on the ground.
Idiot: What are you waiting for? Why aren’t you following me?
Me: You aren’t supposed to have a physical body. How...?
No matter how I looked, the Guardian seemed to be actually walking.
Me: Did you gain a body? The higher I climb the Tower, the more body parts you gain. Is that it?
Idiot: You idiot, you’ve become so strong, yet you’re still so clueless? I’m just pretending to walk.
Me: What?
Idiot: Tsk, tsk. It’s no use explaining. Just follow me.
The Guardian turned and walked away. As if bewitched, I followed him.
.,,.. ⊂;⌒;⌒;,つ
,,: ;: '': : : ': : : : ,,
,,: : : : : '': : : : : : : : : : : : : '': : : ,,,
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The mountain stretched out, and the clouds drifted by. The world was silent, just like the Guardian.
After walking for a while, the Guardian finally broke his silence.
Idiot: That stupid swordsman said the gap between you and me is only half a step. Zombie, what do you think that half a step really is?
Me: I think it’s Mind Sword.
Idiot: Correct. It is Mind Sword. I can use it, and your teacher also mastered it just before she died. How do you think one can awaken Mind Sword and use it freely?
I realized that this conversation was very important. Yes, the Guardian was trying to teach me something, just like when he taught me how to use my aura.
Me: Mind Sword is quite literally the sword of the mind. Wouldn’t it be enough to carve one’s will into the world with the sword? 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢
Idiot: You’ve already mastered the Demonic Heaven Arts and even created your own formula arts. In terms of carving your will into the world with the sword, there is no significant gap between us.
Me: Then is it a matter of how I do it?
Idiot: Don’t be stupid. Be more specific.
I was following the Guardian only for me to realize he was far away, much farther than I initially thought. He hadn’t started sprinting or anything, but, for some reason, he was faster than before. I had to speed up to keep up with him.
Idiot: Most warriors train their whole lives and never get to experience Mind Sword. Actually, I’m being too generous. 99.99 percent of people fail to witness it. You’re very lucky to have seen it twice, so you should have gained some insightful clues from your experiences.
Me: Twice...
Idiot: Yes. Well, you can forget about my Mind Sword since I didn’t demonstrate it in reality, but what about your teacher? She showed you Mind Sword before dying, right?
The Guardian kept drifting away from me, even though he was walking at the same steady pace. I had to speed up once again.
Idiot: Let me ask you something. Did your teacher have any qi left when she used Mind Sword?”
I remembered the last time I held Teacher in my arms and how I felt her lifeforce leaving her body. It was a difficult memory to recall. After all, remembering someone’s death was always difficult.
Me: No.
Idiot: Your teacher also used her vital force. Did she have any left at the end?
Me: ... No.
Idiot: What about her stamina?
Me: No, Teacher had no strength left.
Idiot: Right. She had no qi, vital force, or stamina. Then how did your teacher use Mind Sword? How was the snow mountain cut down? Did it split open out of respect for the leader of the Heavenly Demon Cult?
I gritted my teeth. Before I knew it, the Guardian had become so fast that if I didn’t run at full speed, he would disappear from my sight. Clenching my jaw, I had to use the Lightness Art to keep up. The landscape rushed by us.
Idiot: Your teacher had nothing left, so...
Me: She drew it from somewhere else. If there is no qi left within oneself, then one has to use the energy from elsewhere.
Idiot: Yes, that is the only possible conclusion.
Clouds, mountains, and woods passed by. We passed many villages, the residents watching us in awe. The Guardian and I slowed when we passed through the villages. Once we left, we sped up again.
Idiot: What counts as outer energy?
Me: Nature... Force of life... Something like that?
Idiot: That’s impressive. You sound like a caveman.
Me: You stupid ghost...
Idiot: Qi is another way to call aura. It’s the manifestation of your will, like writing your manifestation on paper. If paper is the world, then words are aura. What about outer energy? What can you call the will of a world?
My tongue moved on its own.
Me: A Constellation. Constellations set the laws of a world. Well, some of them do when they decide to rule a floor. If a floor is a world, then they rule that world. When they express their will, it’s as if the world becomes the manifestation of their will.
As soon as those words left my mouth, I realized the truth.
Me: Outer energy can’t be used just because a person happens to be near nature. It has to be a place where the Constellations exist and rule. Only then can outer energy be drawn, and that outer energy is none other than the Constellations’ aura. Mind Sword is about tapping into a Constellation’s aura.
The Guardian’s laughter echoed softly around us.
Idiot: Correct. Only by becoming one with the ruling Constellation of the world can one use Mind Sword. A world without Constellations has no will, and a world without will can’t lead to Mind Sword. In the realm where your teacher lived, Constellation Yellow Dragon of the Great Lake ruled. Because his heart was stabbed with the Constellation Murderer’s sword, the Constellation was cursed, so he couldn’t die despite the wound being fatal. The Constellation’s grudge of not being able to die had set the world’s rules, turning the people of that world into creatures who could not die. You call them jiangshi or zombies.
As we raced across the land, the villages grew sparse. We passed through regions where people had once lived in large settlements, then went further into the empty wild.
Idiot: Winter is the same. Eternal winter is simply a manifestation of the Constellation’s mind. A world buried in permafrost may exist, but it allows no sign of life. A zombie-like domain. That was the world where your teacher lived.
After passing the last village, we reached a place where mountains, forests, and clouds stretched far before us.
Idiot: How can we use the Constellation’s aura in such a world?”
For some reason, I felt like I knew the answer.
Me: We have to become more like the Constellation than the Constellation themself. Because of Kim Yul’s sword, that one Constellation was tormented and cursed to die, but my teacher undeniably suffered more. To use Mutia’s power more freely, one had to obsess over time more than she does. If someone wants to regress more than Mutia does, they can freely use Mind Sword in Mutia’s world. It’s the same if I want to freely use Hishimit Kritz’s power, not just by commanding them as I’ve been doing now. I just have to obsess more on the secrets of humans than Hishimit Kritz does.
Becoming more like the other person than that person themselves was how one could use Mind Sword.
Me: To kill winter, one has to be more winter than winter itself.
⊂;⌒;⌒;,つ
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After running for who knew how long, the mountains flattened into the horizon. The forests grew smaller and collapsed into the ground. Only a few clouds remained in the sky. As I chased the Guardian, the world turned white. Suddenly, I wondered if this world had an end, too.
Me: Mind Sword isn’t the ultimate weapon one can use at any time. Only when we understand the world better than it understands itself can we use this Skill, but, if that’s true...
I stopped in my tracks. The Guardian did the same and turned to look at me.
Me: How did you use Mind Sword in Teacher’s world?
We found ourselves at the end of this world. Even the clouds had disappeared.
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Only the horizon remained. There were no mountains or trees; only the base of the world stretched out endlessly, a thin line of black surrounded by white. I amplified my senses with aura and tried to see as far as possible. The stronger my aura, the wider my perspective. That way, I saw a world ten, thirty, a hundred times wider.
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Even so, the world was still white. It was beautiful. A silent, pale, and boundless ocean stretched before my eyes. In that place, even breathing seemed to be banned, or rather, the scenery was so calm that I didn’t want to interrupt it by breathing.
Faces, voices, tones... Everything let go of their breaths... and faded...
I wondered how someone would call this place heaven, and how this place had what it took to become their heaven.
The Guardian was watching me. He raised his arm.
Sword Emperor: Look closely. I’ll show you for the third time. The next time you see this, it’ll be when you and I are fighting.
And then...
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... without a sound, the world split.
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I blinked. In these short moments, the silent gap grew wider and wider. The bigger it became, the more it ate away at the world’s time.
━━━ ━━━
The white gap grew fast. The world wasn’t falling nor breaking. It was simply being erased after being cut down by a sword.
The master of the world spoke up.
[The Faceless Conductor has noticed the disturbance on the stage.]
[The Faceless Conductor asks you to leave the stage at once.]
[An eviction request has been sent to the Primordial Staff.]
[The request has been approved.]
[Teleporting you back to the seventieth floor by force.]
Everything distorted before my eyes. The black faded, the white grew more vivid, and many colors swirled around. My mind spun, making me nauseous. My senses, once used to the flat world, were pulled back to my original world by force.
“What the hell did you do?”
It had been a very long time since I heard another person’s voice. The Primordial Staff’s voice was as loud as thunder.
“Do you know what almost happened? If you cleared the stage, you should have returned at once. On top of that, someone who isn’t even a challenger dared to...!”
I forced my eyes open and witnessed the Primordial Staff’s face stained with bafflement and anger.
“Did you two really have to prove that you’re one of a kind when it comes to troublemaking, too?!”
There were times when one had to speak, no matter how difficult it was. Despite the nausea, I forced myself to say, “That’s wrong. Since there are two of us, we are actually two of a kind[1]—”
Twack!
The mage swung her staff and hit me on the head.
1. Wordplay on a Korean expression. The raw is 이, 천하의 둘도 없는 골칫덩어리들아! (Literally: There won't be another troublemaker like you two in this world!) Gong-Ja directly refutes this by stating that there are already two troublemakers (himself and the Guardian), so it's correct to say that there won't be other troublemakers like them. ☜
