Chapter 126: Gods and Fiends[5]
“None? Then how come Yue was fine?” Andrei asked.
“My hypothesis is that mana is being actively sucked out of Malaysia by Hundun. And Yue and the rest of the 4…are immune to that. Because of how much they have.” Fei Xiang explained.
“But we should be able to feel such a drastic change in mana. We can feel very slight changes so why is this a different case?” Elena asked.
“Hundun’s true form activates your true power, Even without you realizing it your power is reacting to Hundun and protecting you from it with a mana layer that Hundun can’t absorb.” Fei Xiang responded.
Elena looked at her group worriedly. She was better off going in alone if that was the case.
“And as usual, the humans who spend time with you are always being pulled to your orbit…” Fei Xiang said this but he didn’t specifically look at Andrei when he said this.
“Though…the Ivanovs have other ways around this predicament, ways I still don’t understand….”
—
Viktor rushing. He was trying to end this fight as soon as he could so he could finally figure out what this was all about. He had to know everything. Whatever “answers” he had gotten in the world beyond were not enough for him.
He made some careless mistakes but they really didn’t matter because while he was unraveling from how quickly he had to move…Zhao Quingjue was unraveling for all sorts of other reasons.
IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE ME
I’M SUPPOSED TO KILL AZURE DRAGON
I’M SUPPOSED TO CREATE FATHER’S DREAM
Viktor could hear his thoughts so clearly screaming out that he nearly faltered but he kept going, slicing through, casting magic.
Zhao Quingjue avoided it well usually but Viktor could tell how much it wore him down. And soon enough…
He faltered.
Viktor didn’t hesitate with the chance he got, he did what he had to do, as gruesome as it was.
Zhao Quingjue even in the end was angry.
“…This is… all his…. fault! He planned this! To … To make me lose to you!”
Through gargles of blood and clutching of the sword lodged through his chest, Zhao Quingjue screamed and yelled as his body finally broke down, the blackness that covered his sclera dripping down his face, followed by blood.
Viktor pulled his sword out once he affirmed that Quingjue was really dead.
He expected just to see blood but he was a little shocked to see that his sword was actually stuck to Quingjue’s core, lodged right in the middle of it. And seeing that just brought an otherworldly feeling through him and suddenly he wasn’t where he was supposed to be.
“You asked for answers. Here they are.”
—
As they fought…the little boy with Xia Guiren’s face grew. From a child that Yue barely recognized, to the young teen Yue first met, to the teen and then young adult who all but raised him. Yue could just die of anger as he watched and fought. It was just something he could not accept.
His form grew unsteady as he watched the boy grow, every new change was another memory recovered and it just made it harder to stay sane.
“Yue! Can you really fight me like this?”
Yue clenched his teeth so hard it hurt, slicing through the boy’s defenses as if his words weren’t affecting him. The boy knew they were though.
—-
“You’re heavy,” Yue murmured, trying to push Xia Guiren’s head off from the top of his head. Along with Lian Bai, they were watching a wedding procession in the city to pass the time while they waited for nightfall. It would be Yue’s first night hunt.
“Weddings sure are beautiful.” Lian Bai smiled and looked at the procession the way many young girls did, with adoration and longing.
Yue didn’t quite get it and Guiren seemed to be contemplating it.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get married,” Guiren said and looked around.
“Why not?” Lian Bai asked, shocked.
“It seems pointless. To attach myself to someone forever under the will of the heavens… seems like something that would only stop me from attaining immortality.”
Lian Bai was surprised by his reasoning.
“You really think that way?”
“Too many possible immortals gave it up for women…and men,” Guiren murmured.
“You could be the first not to. First to figure out how to make a non-martial artist immortal.” Yue suddenly spoke, giggling a little.
“…what did you see Yue?! Who did he marry!?” Lian Bai immediately asked, she could tell by Yue’s tone that he had seen something.
Yue never did tell but when Xia Guiren met Chen Chunhua…he just smiled and watched.
Yue liked to play matchmaker like this at times, using his powers and all but when it came down to it, he didn’t understand love at all.
-
“What is this?” Yue asked, watching how Xia Guiren had carved ‘Chunhua’ into his sword.
“You’re naming the sword after Miss Chen?” Lian Bai asked.
“Or are you giving it to her?” Yue asked.
“Ah no…this is still my sword…that’s just a reminder.” Xia Guiren murmured. He seemed a little embarrassed.
“A reminder?”
“..that everything I do…all the creatures I kill, people I fight…it’s all for her. It’s all just so I can get home to her.”
Yue never forgot that.
—-
“Are you gonna show me? What happened in that dungeon?” Viktor asked, he was in what seemed to be a boss room suddenly.
He got no reply but suddenly he could see a figure kneeling on the ground with a sword in his chest—Vikentiy.
Then a large white wolf appeared out of thin air.
“Wow, I've never seen that before.”
Viktor recognized that voice, it was the thing that spoke to him in London.
Vikentiy turned a little, blood dripping from his lips, tears from his eyes.
“W-What…how is that possible—you died?!” He was frozen in shock, the dungeon boss was alive again?!
“Oh wow you’re more alive than I thought you’d be…it’s the first time I’ve seen humans kill each other in a dungeon…and the first time I’ve seen one get stuck here…alive that is.” Vsevolod chuckled.
“You..you mean half dead,” Vikentiy murmured, he really couldn’t move properly now, not out of fear but out of the life draining out of him.
“You must be angry. Angry that something like this was done by someone you loved.” Vsevolod egged him, on trying to lead him to a conclusion he wouldn’t say outright.
“I know what …..you’re trying to do.”
“Is it working?”
Vikentiy stayed silent for a while, “doesn’t matter…I’m gonna die anyway.”
“And if you don’t?” Vsevolod changed out of his wolf form, he instead became a humanoid cloud, moving toward Vikentiy.
“Then I’ll figure out the truth.”
“Hmm…I think the better choice would be…to kill them all.” Vsevolod giggled and then covered Vikentiy in his cloud body.
The scene soon changed a little. He was in the boss room still but now Vikentiy was laying on his back, fully healed and with his father’s sword in hand.
“What are you going to do to me?”
“Just a little test…”
Vikentiy—and Viktor who was watching— thought Vsevolod was going to experiment on him but instead, he turned into his wolf form and carried Vikentiy out of the boss room…and to somewhere he’d never been.
The island realm was different at this point. Or at least the place Vikentiy went to was different from where Viktor had been.
“What…What is this place?”
“This is…the scale. ” Vsevolod turned around allowing Vikentiy to look around, they were at the edge of a huge floating island. It was on the same level as the islands of the four but much much farther away.
“Where gods and demons roam.”
“Is that what you are?”
“I used to be. But like every other dungeon boss…I was killed by the gods and forced to work for the scale. To keep balance throughout the world..”
“Balance? You mean you appear in our world…destroy it and kill thousands for…Balance?” Vikentiy spat.
“Yes, balance. The calling of the universe, the reason for existence.”
“To outweigh the unintelligent life, there is intelligent life. To destroy evil there is good. To destroy demons there are gods. To destroy humans…there are dungeons.”
“Why do we need to be destroyed?!”
“Because you have broken the balance. Coveted power that doesn’t belong to you. Humans were never supposed to use magic.” Vsevolod explained.
“What bull—“
“Bullshit right? I agree. Why should we bow to some unknown force that makes such irrational rules? Why should we follow the rules?”Vsevolod left the island realm and returned them to his dungeon.
“My dungeon won’t be summoned again for more than 100 years. Until then the scale will leave me alone. That is enough time for what I want to try and teach you.”
Vikentiy gulped, “what are you going to teach me…?”
“How to be…a monster.”
The things Viktor saw from then on were horrifying, sped up and horrifying.
First, what Viktor could only call a demonic ritual with Vikentiy as the main sacrifice.
Vikentiy didn’t even know it was happening but soon enough he was surrounded by his own blood and Vsevolod had his cloudy hand through his chest.
Vikentiy’s hair turned white at that moment.
Next, Viktor saw countless episodes of Vikentiy writhing on the dungeon floor. From unknown pains, from pain from losing fights to Vsevolod, from losing fights to other dungeon bosses. Vsevolod killed him. Over and over and over again and revived him over and over and over again. He saw the complete emptiness of Vikentiy.
Vikentiy only fought and ate magic crystals, he did nothing else. He never slept, never rested. Magic crystals were the only thing available to him, humans weren’t supposed to eat magic crystals though so he suffered and he suffered a lot. Enough to become Vikentiy Ivanov.
And one day, Vsevolod showed Vikentiy the outside world. Everything that had happened after the dungeon break was shown to him. His mother being murdered, his father destroying every picture of him... His room being taken over by Sevastyan… and then… the thing that really sent Vikentiy into madness…. Vsevolod showed him his father’s conversation with Sevastyan before the dungeon.
Before this, Vikentiy had become a monster already. A monster one with powers no one, not even Vsevolod, could really understand but after that…Vikentiy really became Vikentiy. That hadn’t been what Vsevolod wanted but it was so much better. When Vikentiy first defeated him, his true self, not the role he played as a dungeon boss…Vsevolod let him go.
“I still don’t understand…why did you curse our bloodline?!” Viktor exclaimed, Vikentiy’s story had reached a point he recognized, his arrival back on earth.
“Because you need me to get rid of Hundun.”