VIP Early Access
Eksklusif untuk member VIP
Password Protected
Chapter ini dikunci dengan kode khusus
Chapter 119 : Madman's Mine (5)
The Quark's Demonic Nature interference caused hallucinations.
There was no way to escape it.
It wouldn't matter if a high-ranking Cardinal from The Order's headquarters came, if a five-star Hero with a diamond medal came, or even if an Apostle, a messenger of a Constellation, came.
Even I, who had defied the laws of the world and regressed through time, did not know the method.
Just as Louis had said, the only person in the history of the Upper Plane who could be free from this nightmarish hallucination was the 'Saintess'.
W ẽ b̂n̂о̆ v̈ el Ѐñ um̀а
『Cough-.』
『Brother…….』
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
“……”
The blood-soaked image of Cheong-yi in her final moments from the first timeline tugged at my arm.
『S-save me…….』
『U-jin, you bastard… if only you, if only you survive…….』
Ѐ n um ӑ_
A member of the Suicide Squad begging for his life with his limbs severed, and another who was split in half in my place right before my eyes.
『Kahahahat-!!!!』
Even a madman, consumed by a Demonic Species, cutting down his own comrades.
Intense and gruesome memories floating in my subconscious densely filled my vision.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
…It was the same for me.
Regressing didn't give me a way to escape the hallucinations.
Ѐn ūm̈а̇
It was just that, having experienced the turmoil of emotions to the point of exhaustion during the process of watching every member of the Suicide Squad die except for me, my tattered humanity merely helped me ignore it.
There was no fundamental way to escape.
『You… can do it.』
『If it's you, U-jin…….』
『…….』
Countless voices pressed down heavily on my shoulders.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Giving a rough nod to those voices I couldn't answer one by one, I ventured deeper and deeper.
I wasn't particularly tense.
The only thing I had to endure in here was the mental attack from the hallucination-inducing Quark; if what I knew was correct, there would be no target to fight physically.
Teobeok teobeok-
Ssk-
As I walked, I glanced back.
W̃ еb̌ n ǒ v̄ êl Ě_n̄ uḿа
I wondered what kind of hallucination he was seeing.
His teeth were gritting so hard that his whole body was trembling.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
His eyes were filled with intense fury, and his tightly clenched fists were digging into his own tough skin, drawing blood, heedless of the pain from his fingernails.
Then.
Teok-
He soon raised both hands to cover his ears and eyes.
En̄ù m̈ а .ǐ d̀
“…Tell me when we arrive.”
It seemed he intended to give up his vision altogether.
Of course, doing so wouldn't make the things he was seeing disappear, but it wasn't a useless act.
The intensity of a hallucination fundamentally depends on the keenness of the five senses, and considering the acuity of his senses, simply blocking his sight and hearing would likely reduce the intensity of the hallucination quite a bit.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
*Pfft-*
‘…He’s holding up better than I thought.’
W̆ е̊ b̊ n̆ о v̂е̃l̂ Е nümȧ
Just as he had claimed, his mental strength was by no means weak.
It was just that the intensity and mechanism of the hallucinations here were so far removed from the norm that he couldn't help but fall into them.
If you brought in even veteran-level Heroes, eight or nine out of ten would start seeing hallucinations the moment they stepped inside the entrance.
So, the fact that he could endure the hallucinations like this and keep walking certainly meant his mental strength was above average.
Repeatedly experiencing the most intense traumas of one's life was not something one could withstand with ordinary resilience.
Especially for someone like him, whose traumas ran so deep.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
…Well.
I wouldn't have thought of bringing him in here in the first place if that weren't the case.
Jeobeok jeobeok-
How long had we been walking?
“We're here.”
Under the increasingly intense red light, we arrived at the end of the mine.
Е̇ n ùmа.і̌ d̈
***
A scalenohedron, redder than blood.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Its color was at the very extreme of red, to the point where I wondered if an object of such a color could actually exist.
‘…….’
It wasn't my first time seeing it directly.
It seemed a little redder and a little smaller than the image left in my memory.
Еň ū mа̀
“Is it up ahead?”
“See for yourself. Stop being a baby.”
“……”
“If you're fine after coming this far, nothing bad will happen from a quick look.”
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
I said, looking at the guy flailing his hands forward with his eyes closed.
“…I can't.”
Ĕn_ǔm а̃
“What do you mean you can't—.”
“I started getting hungry the moment I covered my eyes.”
Flinch-
The guy turned his head towards me and sniffed the air.
“You smell quite good.”
“Get lost.”
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
“……”
“Then just keep them closed.”
Pushing the back of the guy spouting strange(?) nonsense and pinning him to the wall, I approached the Source Stone of the Quark.
The unsettling feeling that subtly coated my skin grew stronger, and with it, a thought suddenly came to mind.
I remembered the story I had heard about this Source Stone before my regression.
『The Darkest Dungeon itself might be the corpse of a Primordial Demonic Beast.』
W̆e̊ b̃ṅov̄.e̊ l Ѐ n ŭm̆а̂
『…What?』
『No, it would be more accurate to say it's sleeping rather than a corpse.』
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
The one who had served as the brains of the Suicide Squad, nicknamed 'the Witch', had put forth a hypothesis that sounded utterly novel to me at the time.
The hypothesis that this Darkest Dungeon itself might be an ancient Primordial Demonic Beast.
『If you think of this dungeon as the body of a Primordial Demonic Beast, then the Quark's Source Stone is its digestive and excretory organ.』
『…….』
W̃е̊ bń оṽ е́ l̂_ En u̇ m̌а
『Well, a Primordial Demonic Beast can't be perfectly analogized to a human structure like that, but that's the gist of it.』
I thought it was ridiculous at the time, but thinking about it now, it was a rather plausible hypothesis.
『It lures, creates, digests, and absorbs Magical Beasts… and spits out the leftover dregs.』
Although describing Quark as the dregs of the Source Stone and explaining its autogenesis as a type of 'excretory activity' was somewhat crude, there was no particular flaw to be found in the logic's progression.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
『Simply put, it's a mouth and an anus at the same time.』
『…Like you?』
Е_ǹu ma ._і̄ d̃
Of course, Quark itself wasn't an item that deserved to be simply nicknamed 'dregs'.
Although it was true that when it couldn't self-generate and became full of Demonic Nature, its luring energy grew stronger, it at least possessed the core effect of absorbing Demonic Nature.
In reality, without Quark, Exorcists would not have been able to exert as much suppressive force on the activities of Demonic Species.
Perhaps, by failing to block the disturbances of those Demonic Species, the War against Demons might have ended long ago.
Shake shake-
‘…Anyway.’
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
That wasn't what was important.
Whether the Darkest Dungeon was related to a Primordial Demonic Beast or not.
That was something I could worry about after everything was over; the immediate task was to detach this Source Stone in front of me.
I couldn't gauge how long that guy Tom could last inside this madman's mine.
I needed to retrieve the Source Stone as quickly as possible.
Tup-
Е̇ ńûm а̊
Therefore, without long deliberation, I grabbed the thumb-sized Source Stone embedded in the center of the mine wall.
And, putting strength into my hand, I pulled to pluck the Source Stone out—.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
“…Uh.”
Once more.
Grip-
“…Huh.”
W̃е b ň o v̊ е l̆ Е n̄û m̀а̂
…There was a problem.
Grunt-
“…Why won't this come out?”
The bonding strength between the Source Stone and the Quark was greater than I had expected.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
Even when I used both hands and pulled with all my might, the Source Stone wouldn't come out.
I even activated my Mana Circuit while pulling, but the Source Stone held its ground as if it wouldn't budge.
Е̇nǔ m̆ а̊
“……”
No, what expectation?
Who in the world would go to pull out a Quark's Source Stone thinking about its bonding strength?
This was a completely unexpected type of problem.
I had prepared for what to do if that guy Tom went crazy from the hallucinations and attacked me, but I had never imagined a scenario like this.
To think I couldn't dig out the Quark with my own strength.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
…Of course.
That didn't mean I had to give up on the Quark here.
Although I was stuck in an unexpected place, there was still room to improvise.
“Tom.”
“…Why do you call.”
When I called out to the guy sitting facing the wall, he answered immediately, seeming to be in a decent state for now.
Ѐ n ǔm ā .і̇ď
“Still hungry?”
“…It's bearable.”
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
“Then come here and try pulling this out. It won't come out with my strength.”
Tom's brow furrowed as if he had misheard.
“…What did you say?”
“This, the Quark. It won't come out.”
Еňŭ ḿ â
I repeated myself to the questioning guy, and from beneath his hands covering his eyes, the corners of his mouth curled up into a smirk.
“So you have a weakness after all.”
“……”
“A man asking for help opening a bottle cap is only acceptable until he's ten. It's quite unseemly.”
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
“…What's unseemly about it when you have both eyes covered… and it's not a bottle cap, it's a Quark. A Source Stone.”
The guy stood up from his spot, looking satisfied, and slowly stepped forward, waving one hand in front of him.
Ē n̂u m а̊ . і̇d
“This is a favor you asked of me. With this, I should be able to repay all my debts.”
“…Say that after you pull it out, punk.”
Pfft-
“Do you think I would be unable to pull out a mere pebble like this?”
Having reached me by following my voice, the guy spoke to me, still waving his hand with both eyes closed.
“Where is it? This way?”
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
“No, the other side.”
Shake shake-
“Here?”
“A little lower.”
“This is it.”
“No, a little higher. It's smaller than you think.”
W_е̂b̊ ṅоv́ е́ l Еn um̌ а
Was it due to the discrepancy from the difference in our body sizes?
Even at my word 'a little', the guy moved his hand in large strides, and even after fumbling for a long time, he couldn't accurately grab the Source Stone.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
Haa-
Unable to watch any longer, I grabbed his arm and guided it directly to the Source Stone.
“…This isn't some claw machine game.”
Grip-
Е̊ ńü m а́ .іd
“That's it. Try pulling that. See if it comes out.”
“Is it very hard?”
“Quite.”
“Hmph-.”
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
A smile bloomed on his lips once more.
“Let me show you the difference in our strength.”
W е̂ b̊ n о̄_vêl Ӗ_nu m̆.a
Then, as if he had strongly activated his Mana Circuit, the muscles in his right arm bulged and veins popped out.
The Beastkin's unique physical enhancement technique.
It seemed he was partially using 'Beastification'.
‘…….’
I did wonder if he really needed to go that far, but I didn't say it out loud.
Not only was it not my place to say anything since I couldn't pull it out myself, but he also seemed quite pleased that I needed him.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
He seemed to think that with this, he could surely repay his debt of gratitude.
And so.
Bu-deu-deu-deuk-
The guy's arm, filled with strength, dug into the Quark.
And the moment he pulled out the Source Stone.
‘…Huh?’
Еn̂ umа. і̇ d
Faced with the disaster, I felt the illusion that time was slowing down.
Buuung-
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
He hadn't failed to pull out the Source Stone.
Perhaps it was just a lack of strength on my part, because the moment that guy Tom pulled with all his might, the Source Stone safely came out from between the Quark.
…The problem was that the Source Stone, which had come out from between the Quark, was not in his hand.
He had succeeded in pulling out what was stuck between the Quark, but perhaps it had slipped due to excessive force, the Source Stone had escaped his hand.
Ē nû m̀.а̀
*Hap-*
The escaped Quark flew towards my mouth as if it were aimed.
The strong impact that hit my throat made me reflexively swallow my saliva.
Gulp-
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
And with that, the Quark's Source Stone went into my stomach.
“……”
Wëbǹ о̀ v̀é l Е̄ n̈ũmа̊
That was the problem.
Konten Bab Belum Tersedia
Bab ini belum memiliki konten teks atau sedang dalam proses penyuntingan.
