While gasping for breath, the purple pair of eyes filled with hatred glared at him.
After wiping the spit that was on his cheek, Yu Jitae raised his hand.
Slap!
Her head turned to the side as her two arms instinctively tried to push him away. Grabbing both of her wrists with one hand, he pressed it down onto her chest and indifferently raised his other hand again.
Slapp–!
Her head turned to the side as blood and saliva flowed past her torn lips. The inside of her mouth would probably be in a mess right now but she didn’t do anything besides retaliating. Indifferently, he raised his palm yet again.
Slapp–!
It echoed across the isolation room. Blood flowed from her nose and her eyes were also tainted in red due to one of the nearby vessels popping. She wriggled her body in pain.
Up to here was a reaction he had expected.
However, Myu’s gaze remained unshaken despite the slaps and her emotions were stable. Even dragons had hierarchies and tended to crawl before the strong but she was different.
Therefore, he raised his hand again.
Slapp–!
His hand was like a whip.
Slapp–!
It made her bleed all around her cheeks.
Slapp–!
The pain accumulated. Myu crouched her body and wriggled and shivered to break free but in response he grabbed her by the hair and pulled it up. “Uhk…!” The only thing the powerless adult dragon could do was to thresh its legs around.
Pushing her into the wall, Yu Jitae raised his foot and kicked her and continued with the violence.
After endlessly hitting her for a few minutes, her struggle began to subside so he similarly stopped his movement.
That was when Myu slowly raised her body. Despite her face being covered with wounds, she looked at Yu Jitae with a clear unwavering gaze.
While spitting out blood, she wiped her face with a shivering hand.
Myu was still very composed.
Yu Jitae on the other hand knew that he was barely holding on thanks to a small string. His rationality threatened to snap on its own anytime and the reason he excessively attacked Myu is because he felt the need to unleash the impulse lest it accumulate into accidentally killing her.
Slowly, like a cat licking its wound, she licked the blood off her lips. Then, her lips curved up into a mocking sneer.
Seeing that, Yu Jitae almost lost his rationality.
<[Key (EX)]: …>
It was then.
The gaze that was always on him suddenly became bigger.
Vintage Clock’s friend: the black cat or the large mechanical monster. [Key (EX)] was a being that allowed Yu Jitae to confirm and see his emotions.
Yu Jitae had no idea why its gaze had suddenly thickened but after noticing it, he began to reflect on his actions. He inhaled and exhaled in order to suppress his impulsive thoughts.
“My, Nemesis.”
That was when Myu opened her mouth with a cracked voice. The composure could still be felt from her voice.
“I thought about it. I have been hostile to you and I have attacked humans and yet you left me alive. Why would you do such a thing? There must be a reason. Although I wasn’t sure about the reason,”
Myu placed her hand on her chest.
“It is probably even more priceless than the value of this heart.”
Huk, huk… she had trouble breathing. Myu right now was like a normal person who was involved in a big car crash so speaking should be painful already and yet her voice was still clear.
“And your words just then have convinced me. Cooperation. Vivissection. Experiment. There is something you want from my body and that exceeds the value of this heart.”
“And what about it.”
“Until now, you have placed my life on one side of the scale when threatening me, even though you have more to place on the other side of the scale. You must have thought that I would value my life.”
He squinted his eyes. It was true.
According to his research, the focus in life of everything in creation across all dimensions was the transmission of their genes. In other words, the biggest objective in the life of an organism was reproduction. Whether it be bugs, dogs, cats, humans or even orcs, that was how it was because life was limited yet genes would continue down forever.
However, things were different for dragons who lived up to 10,000 years. Their lives were seemingly endless and they thus attached more meaning to their own life than the reproduction of their race. The most important thing for dragons was their individual lives and dragons tended to be more and more obsessed with their own lives with age.
This was recorded down in a certain researcher’s essay as a ‘weird situation’. The essay mentioned that if that was the case, wouldn’t the bizarre race of dragons inevitably meet its end with time?
“It’s not just once or twice that I’ve seen you guys struggle desperately to survive.”
Yu Jitae knew the answer.
Because of their worrisome trait of attaching more importance to individual lives than the continuance of their race, the [Ancient One] had attached a device that would make them avenge the deaths of the hatchlings into the Origin Fragment. If not for that authority called [Protection of Infant Dragons], dragons would not spare a single glance even if the hatchlings were to be killed somewhere else.
“Right, right. I assume it wasn’t an empty bluff that you met several dragons… but do you know what? I am a mutant.”
Her purple eyes bent like bows with a gaze profound enough to absorb the world.
“Living long was never my intention. Lead a decent life, enjoy a decent lot and have a decent death. Life is not precious to me in the first place. How dare you try to threaten me with my life and arbitrarily assign me this ‘position’?”
Myu gave a crooked smile. It was the smile of a person who was in control of the negotiation.
“My Nemesis. The reason you didn’t kill me is because I have to stay alive, for that vivissection and experiment of yours. But if you make me suffer anymore than this, I will die without any hesitation.”
“Do you think you can easily kill yourself in front of my eyes?”
“It’s as simple as stopping my heart.”
“The heart cannot be stopped unless the pain reaches a critical threshold.”
This too was one of the authorities inherited down the Origin Fragment.
[Heart Suspension]
The reason why he couldn’t stop BY of the 4th iteration from stopping her heart; the reason why even the green hatchling of the 6th iteration was unable to stop the blue dragon from stopping its own heart despite being next to it.
Dragons, upon their suffering reaching a critical limit, could stop their heart and kill themselves.
“That is exactly correct. But haven’t I mentioned it? I’m a mutant. I can decide my own death even if there is no pain.”
Yu Jitae couldn’t say anything in response. He couldn’t believe it but what surfaced on the Eyes of Equilibrium was ‘true’.
“What? My position?
“Know my place?
“How laughable.”
Her slow tone of voice specified who it was that was in control of the situation. It was due to a variable that he hadn’t expected, that stemmed from her mutation.
“If you want my body, do as I command you to.”
“…”
“Why are you silent? Isn’t this similar to the cooperation that you were talking about?”
“…”
“But I am not going to stay holed up in here and there’s no reason for me to follow your words either.”
However, being able to kill herself was different from dying. The black dragons in particular were more obsessed with their lives.
“No. You will not be able to die.”
“Me? Why not?”
“A dragon forcing their heart to a stop is only when death is seen as the better future. Are you telling me that’s how miserable your life is?”
“Who knows. Being locked up and bashed by a mere human might be a miserable life for some.”
I will die if I am not the one leading the negotiation – that was what Myu was saying.
“I do not believe there is a single black dragon in the entire world that would end their own life.”
However, the moment he talked about the black race, the smile vanished from Myu’s face.
“Do not pretend like you know anything about my race. Is that not what I have said before?”
“You seem to have no idea about how your race is living because you’ve been wandering all your life. You don’t know the disgusting measures they resort to to simply survive, do you?”
“How dare! Shut your mouth right now!”
Yu Jitae considered this extreme reaction of Myu to be a positive sign. He had sensed it before but Myu appeared to have some sort of pride and attachment to her race.
“What. I’ve told you. There were tons of such dragons out of the ones I’ve met. Each and every one of them were underhanded, disgusting and stubbornly hung on to life in hideous ways.”
“Shut your trap My Nemesis, unless you want to see me end my life right now.”
“You will not die. From 150-year-old hatchlings to 7,000-year-old dragons. Every black dragon pollutes the world and tarnishes everything around them and yet values their life so much that they want to be the only one living an eternal life. Am I wrong?”
“Stop–”
Myu blocked her ears, refusing to hear his words.
Therefore, Yu Jitae walked up and forcibly pulled those hands away from her ears. “Uht!” She desperately threw a fist but he grabbed it and continued.
“Cooperate and don’t create a fuss. Or pretend like you’re cooperating and betray me later. You can do what all the other dirty black dragons do. Even if you do so, I won’t be disappointed because I already know you guys are always like that.”
“Stop, stop–!”
A shredding scream echoed across the isolation room. In the blink of an eye, Yu Jitae pulled his body back as her sharp claw slashed through thin air.
There was now a gap between them as silence filled the room.
With an expressionless look on her face, Myu heaved a sigh. The look of composure soon returned to her face as she faced Yu Jitae and smiled while biting her lips.
“Well. Let me see you try…”
Before long, the mana changed starting from the heart of the black dragon. The pulsations of the heart gradually began to slow down.
Thump, thump… thump…
Yu Jitae twitched his eyes.
“You. What are you trying to do.”
“What do you think?”
“Are you suddenly trying to kill yourself? Is this supposed to be a protest?”
Seemingly thinking that she was the one leading the negotiation again, Myu smiled.
“I’ll say it one last time. Give me my freedom and do not stop me. Then I will cooperate with you to some extent.”
Myu’s dragon heart began to slowly lose power. Her eyes lost focus as the blood flow started to slow down.
Her scattered black hair wavered as her purple eyes dimmed. Her breath became faint. Even the hand that was placed above her stomach lost power and slipped down.
“Nn…”
With a faint groan, she closed her eyes. Myu gradually began to die and her heart tremendously slowed down.
“I’ll give you 60 seconds… Weigh your options…”
In that instant, what Yu Jitae had placed on one side of the scale became useless and a heavier weight was added to her side of the scale.
“Or I’ll die–…”
Still with her eyes closed, Myu smiled; it was obviously a provocation. The composure in her voice was quite unfitting of her current dying state.
“And you can do what you want, with my corpse…”
He closed his eyes as a hot impulse rode down his vessels. He found it laughable how he had to make it survive within 50 seconds despite wanting to kill it immediately.
There were 50 seconds remaining.
“Are you trying to negotiate with your life on the line because nothing else is going to work? Do you think that would work?”
“The one suffering a bigger loss… will have to move, right…?”
Yu Jitae frowned.
Myu could not die here.
Over a thousand iterations. Over hundreds of years in time.
It was the first mutant he found that had a cracked [Will of the Ancient One] out of dozens of dragons that he had seen.
This was an opportunity he got because of Hostility running amok in the 7th iteration. He had no idea when he would be able to meet a similar entity after this iteration.
There were 40 seconds remaining on the clock.
However, there was one thing that Myu didn’t know.
“The one suffering a bigger loss, is it.”
Myu did not know the number of black dragons that Yu Jitae had met in the 5+ iterations.
“Alright. Just die.”
“Nn…?”
“Die. If that’s what you want to do.”
Myu did not know how Yu Jitae knew the locations of all the black dragons in the nearby dimensions.
“But before you go, have a look at one of my memories.”
And did not know that all those black dragons had been killed by Yu Jitae.
With less than 30 seconds left, Yu Jitae approached her again and grabbed her hand. It was a small and white hand.
She resisted with her feeble remaining power but could not stop his fierce grip.
Despite nearing her death, the innate ability built into their mana of assessing the emotions and memories of the one in contact moved.
Memories of 5+ iterations appeared in Yu Jitae’s mind. Although there were countless holes due to not being identified as iterations, they were more than enough.
In that instant, her hazy eyes widened in a flash.
“You, you…”
Shaking her powerless arm, she tried to push his hand away.
“Let, go.”
“Why should I.”
“L, let go–!”
In a fit, she shook her hand and tried to push his face away. However, she was stopping her heart in her already weakened state so she could not push him away at all.
Memories that were too painful to watch endlessly flooded in.
Those were the memories of when Yu Jitae was massacring the dragons of the black race. Towards Myu who held pride and affection for her race, Yu Jitae opened his mouth.
“It was a stupid dragon.”
A memory of the 3,700-year-old dragon, Alikkan of the dimension Gyogre, losing its head to his attack.
“How amusing it was seeing it thrash around on the floor.”
A memory of the 1,800-year-old dragon, Kiriuga of Umutuna, left wingless from his ambush.
“This one was quite stubborn.”
A memory of the 150-year-old hatchling, Allan of the public dimension Hamkan, whose heart was ripped out by his hand.
“It was old and sluggish.”
A memory of a 7,700-year-old elder dragon, Aian of Katriarka, who had its skull crushed in one strike.
Everything was sent to Myu except for their ‘death’. Despite killing all of them, for some reason, there were holes in his memories in the exact moments of their death.
However, that was enough to get the meaning across.
There were 15 seconds remaining.
“…”
Myu was silent but through [Eyes of Equilibrium] Yu Jitae spotted her mind undergoing a rapid change.
Her emotions and her hatred were reaching the limit.
Her feelings were that of a girl who saw their parents being bashed to the brink of death and her mana sharpened like glass fragments.
There were 10 seconds left.
“You…”
Her voice trembled.
Why was it that Myu was overly attached to the black race? Was it because they were in the same boat as her? But for that to be the case, other dragons of other races appeared different.
Perhaps it was related to her being a mutant.
“Do you know your place now?”
There was a memory of a black race’s hatchling mixed in his memories, and Myu would have sensed that that hatchling was not dead yet in this timeline. How would that make her feel?
The Regressor knew the exact answer.
“You can go.”
There were 5 seconds left.
“But if you do.”
Yu Jitae released his grip.
3 seconds.
Her small hand wriggled in the air.
“Expect all of them to follow you one by one.”
A beastly growl resonated across the isolation room.
……Thump.
…Thump.
Thump, thump…
1 second.
The weakening heart began to beat again. Although it was still weak, it meant that the death had stopped.
“…”
At last, Myu yielded.