EP.217 Traces of disaster (4)
Red Palace.
The place where the madman stayed.
If you break through countless illusion spells, barriers, and hundreds of spells and head to the deepest place… there is a hell created by humans.
The saint who faces hell groans.
“It cannot be purified.”
The first saint, Gleria.
The saint, who even purified the swamp created by hundreds of years of accumulated filth, realizes her incompetence in the face of hell created by mere humans.
“They are already broken, their souls are distorted… they can no longer circulate. “They are beings that have escaped from providence.”
Gleria bit her lip.
Blood dripped from her tightly bitten lips.
“It’s a terrible thing.”
“These people cannot be saved. I’m just tied here forever, forever. If you want to save them… you have to kill the being that their souls are tied to.”
Who is that being?
There was no need for such questions. Because all of humanity learned about its existence. Because the land of death it swept over pointed to the name of existence.
“···Devil.”
A disaster was born.
The one who uttered that name was Ganichalt. Ganicalt tightly grasped the hilt of the holy sword. He glared at the devastation before his eyes.
“How many humans were needed to create that being that was born out of resentment and malice? “I’ve thought about it.”
The answer is right in front of you.
Ganicalt slowly raised the holy sword.
The first hero swings his sword to cut down the hell that unfolds before his eyes. However, there is nothing to cut at the tip of the knife. No cuts. The tip of the knife doesn’t even touch.
A sword that cuts everything.
A swordsman with swordsmanship that can cut through everything.
Even with Ganicalt’s sword, the hell in front of you cannot be cut down. Because it was outside of providence. Ganicalt cannot cut something that is not subject to any laws.
“…At least, let’s keep him locked up.”
The Great Sage stands before Hell, groaning.
Isolating this place from the human world with hundreds of barriers was the best they could do right now.
“In the future, when we defeat the Demon King… we will come back here and save them. I’m not giving up, so don’t look so distressed. Gleria.”
“but······.”
“There is no way for us right now. There is no way for us to save them, or at least annihilate their existence.”
So, the great sage patted the saintess on the shoulder.
“I’ll come back after I finish everything.”
“Yes, definitely…”
While they were making a promise in front of hell, the dragon shaman who had been silent all along opened his mouth.
“so.”
Belial looks to one side of the Red Palace.
There is a man dying there with a sword stuck in his heart. Belial continued speaking while looking at the human.
“I guess you’re the one who planned this.”
Master of the Red Palace.
A madman who lived in secret in the deepest part of the royal palace.
A magician who created hell.
“Of course not. I guess I’m the only one who owns this place. Are you asking because you don’t know? Dragon Shaman.”
Even though he is dying, he is still smiling.
He burst into laughter at the warriors who were looking down at him. Cardi frowns at the wild laughter.
“What were you thinking when you did this?”
The elf, unable to understand human madness, asks:
“Did your sister hate the person who would become the next king of this country so much? Couldn’t he forgive? “He’s done this to the point where he needs to be dragged down to the ground?”
I don’t understand the motive.
I couldn’t understand it, so I asked a question, but what I got back was an even more incomprehensible answer.
“at all. “I love my sister, revered Great Sage Lord Cardi.”
The madman burst into laughter.
“Because I love him, I wanted him to shine even brighter. If you were a magician like me, you would understand, right? Because he loved that child…
He spread his arms wide.
“I just wanted that child to become an eternal being. So, what did it look like in your eyes?”
The sound of twisted human laughter echoes.
The madman smiled as he looked at the hero who would have faced the devil. It was a strangely distorted smile.
“Isn’t it truly beautiful?”
Gleria’s expression crumples. “Snap,” Belial grits his teeth. Even Ghani Kalt looks at the madman with her eyes wide open.
“Ganikalt.”
And, the great sage refers to the madman.
“Cut it down. “I don’t think it’s worth talking about further.”
“I thought so even if I didn’t say it.”
Ganicalt swings his sword.
Starlight sets the madman on fire. Until that moment, when his body and soul were reduced to a handful of ashes, the madman did not stop laughing.
2.
“There are two main things you need to know here.”
Cardi raised her hand.
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“One is the origin of shade.”
Raise your index finger.
“Two, understanding of shade.”
He pointed to my heart with his raised index finger.
“To be precise, it is about understanding the ‘curse’ that is eating away at your heart.”
“···curse?”
“okay. Have you ever thought it was strange? Why does the shadow place a curse on humans? Just by scattering it around, it will eat away at the body of a wizard as big as you.”
“that···.”
I didn’t have much of an answer.
Since he has been vaguely a demon lord and a being outside of providence, anything is possible. Because I’ve always thought of it that way.
‘I tried to find a solution to the curse…’
Why can the devil put a curse?
I never thought about that part any differently. As I remained silent, Cardi opened his mouth.
“This is not possible simply because the Demon King is an evil being and a chaotic being. Understand the origin of shade. Then, you will naturally understand.”
Saying that, Cardi took off her bracelet and handed it to me.
It was a bracelet with the symbol of the Gray Magic Tower engraved on it.
“It is a magic tool that allows you to enter the barrier. “It will also play a role in protecting you from those things.”
I bit my lip while taking the bracelet.
‘···The devil was created in Arcadia.’
All circumstances pointed to that fact.
The altar that was believed to have created the Demon King stretched out beyond the barrier. According to the context, the madman who created the disaster is the owner of this Red Palace.
‘then.’
Countless speculations fill my mind.
However, there was nothing to know right away.
“Whoa…’
A long sigh.
A thin breath escapes through the heavy air.
And then Cardi asks me a question.
“What do you plan to do?”
Are you going to do it or not?
He asks that.
click.
I responded by wordlessly putting the bracelet on my wrist. In the end, there was only one path for me to choose.
‘I guess I’ll have to hit it first.’
Because that is the only answer.
“···I have to do it.”
Looking beyond the barrier.
I took a slow, deep breath as I saw the hell unfolding there with my eyes.
A forgotten history that does not remain anywhere else.
A path toward a history that should have been forgotten lies before our eyes. There is an answer beyond what is reminiscent of hell. The answer I’ve been looking for all along.
‘The origin of the devil.’
Origin of shade.
‘What process led to the birth of this unknown entity that is eating me and eating away at the history of humanity for hundreds of years?’
A truth not recorded anywhere.
widely.
I walked to reach it.
The barrier fluctuates and surrounds my body. A series of gray lights kept flashing before my eyes, and I closed my eyes for a moment.
Flash.
When I open my eyes again, what greets me is the hell created by humans. With hell in front of me, I pulled down my gloves.
3.
It may have once been a corridor of the royal castle, but the corridor made up of human corpses is nothing more or less than a magic world. Ran El caught his breath and narrowed his eyes.
What you see are numerous corpses.
It is a terrible sight that makes even Raniel, who has seen all kinds of things on the battlefield, inadvertently take a step back. There was a disgust there that couldn’t be expressed in words.
Crushed and broken things.
However, they are still alive.
『■■, ■. ■■■■■■■■.』
Letting out unintelligible sounds, they claw at the floor. Even though everything is crushed, their black hands remain intact. Human hands are clawing the floor.
The floor, scratched for hundreds of years, is pitted.
Raniel looks at it. I look at the procession of humans who have escaped from providence, neither dead nor alive. Listen to the moans they make.
It’s just noise.
That sound doesn’t seem to have any meaning.
However, you can understand that it is a moan.
Although they escaped from providence, those who were once human continue to groan in endless pain. It was a wail, someone’s cry.
‘pain.’
Raniel does not turn his eyes away from it all.
‘Constantly inflicting pain.’
Among the things she cannot understand, she searches for things she can understand one by one. Calmly, she just looks at her surroundings with infinitely cold eyes.
Crack, cluck.
The sound of the floor dragging.
Raniel looks at the floor. There was a reason why his hands were scratching the floor endlessly. They want to erase the letters on the floor.
Letters engraved with old paper.
Although he cannot read it, Raniel realizes that it is part of a circuit. In some parts, Raniel imagines the circuits that fill this place.
It’s as expected.
The circuit exists to inflict pain on the traces of humans that exist here, neither alive nor dead. Why do you cause them pain?
“reason.”
What is the reason?
What can be gained by constantly inflicting pain? The answer was ringing in Raniel’s ears.
『■■ ■■■ ■■■.』
『■■, ■ ■■■, ■■■■.』
moaning.
‘Moaning in pain.’
And then Raniel comes to mind.
What I want to create with this is a shadow that stands in opposition to the star. What did the shade want?
‘I hope to bring down the stars.’
That’s why the shadow hates the stars.
I resent everything related to stars.
That is the characteristic of shade.
『■■, ■. ■■■■■■■■.』
Raniel thinks as he listens to the moans.
If you listen closely, it is almost like the prayers of believers. Believers of the Delohim Church borrow the star’s divinity by praying to it. The stars would sometimes answer their earnest prayers.
“Stars are beings that answer to prayers.”
Saint Sarah once said so.
“If we pray, hope, and earnestly hope, you will answer our questions. That is why it is an existence of origin.”
Raniel sees stars as objects of trade.
However, not everyone is like that.
Since ancient times, it has been expressed as a god-like being, and stars have been described as beings that answer human wishes.
‘Can a wish become a good?’
Raniel suddenly thinks like this.
Can a person’s earnest wish become a commodity for trade? It seemed like there was nothing that couldn’t be done.
‘The stars and the shade are opposites, yet they are similar.’
If stars are the answer to the origin of humans.
The shade may also have such characteristics.
‘origin.’
Hoping, praying.
『■■, ■. ■■■■■■■■.』
Raniel looks at the floor.
The hands clawing at the floor and the noise ringing in my ears seem as if they are cursing something. It looks like resentment and hatred.
Resentment and hatred.
The pain of pulling it out.
How do you express the language used to express resentment and hatred towards something? He didn’t have to look far. Raniel opened his mouth and muttered.
“curse.”
The essence of shade.
“An altar for creating curses.”
That is the essence of this place.
Raniel feels the curse settling in his heart. Although it is now suppressed to the limit, the once unsuppressed curse clawed Raniel’s entire body.
Scrap, crack.
The scenery unfolding before your eyes is also the same. It’s essentially the same. Raniel comes to understand the nature of the curse that resides in his body.
‘I pray with resentment.’
By using hatred as a commodity, one gains the power to destroy something. That is the essence of the curse. The moment Raniel understood that, he also understood the nature of shadow.
“Human scream.”
Try pronouncing it.
“The screams that humans make in pain, resentment, and the strong emotions of hating something.”
The origin that comes from that.
‘What is the object?’
Naturally, the person the curse inhabiting his body hates is Raniel himself. And the shadow created by the gathering of curses has always been one thing to resent.
“star.”
I hate the stars.
“how?”
All that remains is the question.
What unfolds before your eyes are countless human corpses. Many, many hands. Does this mean that they all hated the stars until they died?
While suffering endlessly.
It is used as a material to create shade.
And yet, I hate the stars.
‘why.’
I don’t even know the reason. Because he didn’t know, Raniel walked. Raniel senses that there is only one step left to the truth.
A path built by those who were human.
Walk along that path. They walked tirelessly toward the place where their origins were headed. And at the end, Raniel encounters something.
At the end of the road is a throne.
“Oh, that’s faster than I thought.”
Sitting on the throne is a shadow.
“Welcome to my palace, Gray Wizard.”
The shadow laughed.
Raniel asked the name of the shadow.
The shadow answers the question.
“First Prince, Isaac.”
or.
“The first madman. “The one who lost his name.”
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I’m a little late trying to figure out how to express this, sorry!
Oh, and it will also be serialized regularly during Lunar New Year…!
