What?
A dream?
In that instant, the world flipped on its head and brought him to a different location.
Where was this place?
It wasn’t Unit 301 – he was in the corridor of the cruise ship.
Lifting his head, he found Kaeul. Drenched in blood with an amputated arm, Kaeul was blinking her only remaining eye while looking into his eyes.
“…”
That eye slowly started to close. After firmly shutting her eyes, Kaeul stopped breathing.
He couldn’t move.
Turning his head, he found Bom and Yeorum lying dead. Bom had her neck snapped and twisted in a weird angle whereas Yeorum had a hole in her chest.
Where was Gyeoul?
He soon found Gyeoul covered in blood stuck at the corner of the room. She was still breathing.
Unconsciously, he rapidly ran up to her and raised the child.
“…?”
Seemingly from pain, her eyes were in a frown as she looked at his face.
He couldn’t say anything. Words weren’t coming out of his mouth.
Because of that, he hoped Gyeoul would say something. He wanted the subsiding rate of her breath, the weakening pulse of her heart and the extinguishing light of her life to bloom back up.
However, Gyeoul did not say anything.
“…”
While simply gazing up into his eyes, she moved her lips that were contorted from the pain to slowly surface a smile.
Soon, when her eyes lost their focus.
The child,
She stopped breathing.
.
.
.
Filling his vision was a familiar ceiling.
Unable to comprehend what just happened, he had to look around the surroundings.
He was on a bed, lying down with the pillow under his head.
Currently, he was in his room.
Was that a dream?
Was everything just then really just a dream?
That was my first dream in 200 years?
When did I fall asleep;
And why did I go to sleep?
It took time for him to perceive the odd turn of events. Heaving a dense sigh, he covered his face with his two hands. As his head finally started to acknowledge that as a fact, he felt a scorching heat rushing out from inside his body.
“This bloody—!!”
Yu Jitae went out to the living room. Everything entering his sight seemed unbearably disgusting. He flipped the table upside down and lifted the damned refrigerator and threw it at the wall. The fridge was crushed alongside the walls of the living room, revealing Yeorum’s room on the other side. That wasn’t enough to satiate his fury and he continued breaking everything around him.
If he didn’t relieve his temperament like this, he didn’t know what he would do after leaving the house. He stopped moving only after breaking down everything inside his once precious house.
He had to regain his rationality. He had to gather his mind back together and avoid being pulled around by his emotions. A situation had to be rationally analysed as a situation.
At this point, he couldn’t help but admit it. The agony that had been soaring higher and higher ever since the baby dragons left was becoming thicker as he got closer to death.
Right now, even his rationality was being shaken and he was feeling less and less confident about his death. He couldn’t even control his thoughts and his emotions.
At the same time, the sense of crisis that popped out of his body was now suffocating him by the throat like a hunting snake.
This was the current situation at hand. If so, what did he have to do?
He left Unit 301 in a hurry. Even though he was a planning person that drew hundreds of plans in his mind, he hadn’t prepared for a situation where his mind was too shaken to die.
It was like how coaches wouldn’t devise a plan against a nuclear attack during a soccer match, because that should obviously never happen!
Regardless, that was what was happening. In order to achieve his objective and die, he had to empty his mind.
Yu Jitae quickly flew to Mexico.
At San José del Cabo was the headquarters of the world’s biggest illicit drug traders. He walked down the back alleyways while anxiously throwing his gaze everywhere. His aura wasn’t even being hidden and those at the end of his gaze were all frightened. Some of them even wetted their pants and fainted.
He walked forward in an exceedingly urgent set of steps.
“Oi. Y, you over—”
Thud–
The man who tried to stop him was flung off until it crashed into the wall. He did not chat with anyone stopping his march – there was no time to spare.
In possession of the boss of this place, ‘A.D.A.’ was the world’s strongest drug in existence. It was the treasure that came over from the alternate dimension of ‘Lamdiaran’.
The strongest drug across all dimensions made to comfort the tears of the Queen who was left alone after her two beloved sons killed each other out of their blind thirst for power:
“Hand over [Defrost].”
Yu Jitae said after rushing into A.D.A.’s office. The guards protecting the office were either unconscious or dead.
“…”
A.D.A., the boss of Cartel, was a woman with an appealing dot under one of her eyes. Black hair was flowing down her back and a cigarette was in her hands.
Even though it was a sudden turn of events, the woman who became realistically clever throughout her life at the battlefield quietly opened the drawer and threw him a small bottle.
[Defrost] was the heirloom passed down her household, and no-one was supposed to know about it outside of her knowledge.
She curiously asked him.
“Do you even know what that does?”
“I do.”
Yu Jitae shook the container as more than a hundred pills clinked inside.
“Do you really know what it is? You are being very reckless with it though.”
“I know, so shut your mouth.”
Defrost. This drug was such a ridiculous item that the amount of pills inside the container could theoretically immerse the entire global population of 3.2 billion into a 10-year illusion. Plus, the lethal dose amount for a normal superhuman was merely 0.07 ng.
Usually, it would be used by grinding a sliver of it into a bathtub of water but he had no time for that. Due to the sense of urgency grasping him from the tip of his toes to the top of his head, Yu Jitae opened the lid and tilted the container to pour several pills into his mouth.
A few of the pills ended up dropping on the floor due to his shivering hands while A.D.A. watched him a twitch in her eyes.
After pouring pills into his mouth, he crushed them with his teeth.
Crunch–
‘Kuhk’ a groan left his mouth as his body immediately came to a stop. Twisting his neck in an odd direction, he deeply breathed out. His body started shivering like crazy because all of his blessings related to abnormal state resistances were disabled.
Although his mana that reached the limits of an existence instinctively tried to protect him, the effect of [Defrost] was just too powerful.
A black flower bloomed inside his muddled mind, and they soon increased in number. From one to ten; from ten to a hundred; and from a hundred, it became a garden of flowers.
The land drenched in blood was slowly being covered by those flowers.
A dry groan left with his breath. No pleasure in this world would ever be as great as this. The pleasure was even larger due to his blunt senses recently having become clearer by living through a daily life.
While slowly breathing out, he gave a satisfied smile.
“Crazy…” A.D.A. who had been quietly watching him pour pills into his mouth gasped in admiration.
“Very stunning. But, oh well,” she added.
“…”
“What is your name? And where are you from. That is what I want to know about.”
Running her fingers down her black hair, she walked up and stood next to him.
“You suddenly came here and took my belongings away from me. I’ll forget what happened, but instead, how about we have a little chat?”
There was greed flowing out of her eyes. She appeared to be thinking of this as an opportunity. When Yu Jitae turned his body, she blocked him from the front so he slapped her unconscious.
“Haa… haa…”
A rushed exhale left his mouth.
Meanwhile, the black cat was sitting on the windowsill staring at him.
<The Authority, [Key (EX)] states there is a relatively high chance that the [Dimensional Cruise] would be at risk.>
Constantly, it tried to push him away from death.
Thus, he had to die immediately.
<The Authority, [Key (EX)] states there is a relatively high chance that the [Dimensional Cruise] would be at risk!>
If it was now, he could.
Before waking up from the intoxication.
.
.
.
.
.
.
[Shallows of the Abyss (S)]
I sunk into the inner dimension. When I reopened my eyes, I was in a deep darkness.
Gazing up, I headed to the top. No matter how deep an ocean was, the water was bound to end and there was bound to be land above it.
This place was the same and soon, the scaffold appeared before my eyes.
<Current Level of Overload… 9999.9%>
The Overload that had been cast three weeks ago had already reached its limit and was unable to go any higher.
It looked like the guillotine was having trouble suppressing its explosive amount of power. There were cracks on the pillars while the world was twitching next to it.
Underneath the huge guillotine that was 200 metres wide, that could thus even snap the neck of the Dragon Lord, I threw my arms out wide and laid myself on the ground.
Soon, the white hands of the abyss approached me. Even though I had been using them like my subordinates to help move things in and out of the dimension, this was their original job – grabbing the existence for them to be executed properly.
Dozens of white hands held onto my body. They grabbed onto my limbs and raised their nails to pierce through my neck. Like that, they wholeheartedly fixated my physical body from movement.
I tried moving my body. It didn’t work.
It was done. I was fully fixed on the ground.
I commanded the ignition of the guillotine.
Then, the blade of the device that had been scattering the excess mana into the surroundings started gathering the aura back together.
At last, my end was here.
Beneath the amplifying blade of mana and the golden blade of the guillotine, the black cat appeared like a shadow and stared at me. A message appeared in my head. It was trying to stop me, telling me to not die and go save the baby dragons.
I scoffed.
The drug that made my head into a mess was still at work and because of that, I was able to ignore it. The pleasure of a climax was melting my body and when I came to myself, I was letting out a hearty laughter. I could not stop myself from laughing.
It was my wish ever since I was young.
I hope the sun will not rise tomorrow when I open my eyes. I hope the curse of regression will be dissolved tomorrow when I open my eyes. No – in fact, it would be great if I didn’t open my eyes. If I still opened my eyes tomorrow – if I ended up opening my eyes, then tomorrow—
An unwanted life was the same as death. I was dying everyday. The monster called life had its disgusting mouth wide open as it stubbornly held onto my ankle. In the morning, I felt like a lamb being brought to the slaughterhouse and at night, it felt like I was being decapitated. That repeated itself, because life did not come to an end and I was restricted from death.
If only I was not selected by the Vintage Clock. If only I died with my parents at the hands of the monsters. Or, if only I was not born in the first place… That was my desperate wish over the countless iterations of the past.
At this moment, I was falling. Falling meant I was being led somewhere. Even though I was always brought to the original place and constantly shoved into the pit of despair, today was different. I was now heading to freedom.
The deeper it was, and the darker everything became around me, I couldn’t help but rejoice at the fact that I was reaching the conclusion. Because living was the same as death, it was instead only at the face of death that I was finally feeling alive.
Black cat, go away. If you understand me, then get away from my sight forever. Which narration in existence would possibly change my mind? What feeling in existence could push me into the ditch of hell?
O white bird.
Have you earned your freedom?
I too am going to your side.
I wish to be happy with you through death, so the happiness you mentioned must be freedom. Is that correct?
Your last words are finally going to be achieved.
[You will. Definitely. Become happy.]
That was what you said. You were correct. Through endless trials and tests, I am finally standing at this place.
I will become happy through this, right?
Because I am finally laying my hands on freedom!
—–!
The blade of the guillotine departed.
That blade shone brightly like the sun. It started to brighten up the darkness of the abyss around me.
It slowly became bigger. The blade turned unfathomably enormous.
I laughed.
I was so uncontrollably excited.
At last, I achieved it.
I have accomplished it with my own hands.
I laughed even louder.
I’m free—-!!
But at one point, the necklace was crushed from the unbearable pressure of the falling blade of mana. That was the last present Gyeoul had given him. Not only had he reduced his resistance against mana to the bare minimum, he had also made his internal blessings take in all the surrounding mana without fail for death.
When the memory crystal shattered,
Everything the baby dragons had filmed with him as the protagonist during the last trip dug deeper into his head.
No narration in existence could possibly change his heart – that was what he thought. Someone crying their eyes out, someone pleading that they would die upon going back, someone whispering words of love into his ears, as well as someone’s pinky finger promising for a re-encounter. None of them were able to change his mind.
He wasn’t wrong there.
Gentle and soothing memories seeped into his brain – his crooked smile vanished from his face.
Bright and chuckling voices reached his ears – his heart thumped all the way to the ribs.
Their encounter with the falling stars appeared in his mind – his fingertips turned numb.
The dying kids in his dream resurfaced in his head – his closed mouth opened a little.
The tiny hands, smiling lips, their eyes looking at him, and the confession of a girl who had stayed with him the whole time ever since their first meeting,
When they vividly reappeared in his mind,
He felt stifled.
As death was falling from the highest heavens,
As it neared him while brightening up the world,
All the emotions that he had avoided and disregarded started rapidly removing the maddened thoughts in his heart.
A detailed narration wasn’t what was needed to shake him.
A small daily life was enough.
That time which should be more trivial than anything else was yet smashing his conviction to pieces.
“…”
Yu Jitae wanted to live.