LIGHTNOVELSTORY Chapter 48
The moment the performance unfolded from the sky, my consciousness was momentarily cut off.
A sudden feeling of lethargy and emptiness.
Followed by an immediate blackout.
And then… it began to swell.
The empty bowl started to fill up in an instant, and the restraints that had unknowingly bound me began to unravel.
Generally, it’s natural for something to disappear if time is unwound before birth.
However, the peculiarity of a soul that has awareness of its past life, retaining its records, begins to rewind and call forth memories from the past rather than disappear.
A return of the essence of the soul.
Han Yu-seong’s body, which used to be fairly ordinary, starts to swell.
180
190
250
His body grew to a size that could hardly be discerned as either human or giant, as muscles began to fill him out, transforming his once ordinary appearance into a somewhat fierce one.
A human wielding power akin to that of a god.
All sorts of immoral deities began to tread upon the earth.
Worlds filled with monsters that were hardly distinguishable from demons roamed the surface.
The modern world called this the realm of Xianxia.
And in that world existed the entity known as the Demon Lord.
As energy coalesced within him, it began to form into a core, and simultaneously, horns started to sprout from his head.
Abandoned at birth due to a muddled soul, he fed on demons wandering the external realms, accumulating strength until he eventually became a demon himself and reached the peak of demonic power.
Perhaps it was only natural that someone who met death alongside the world would be destined to obtain the power to consume and seize things within this world.
This was undoubtedly a great feat engraved upon his soul.
“Damn.”
As Han Yu-seong regained his senses and opened his eyes, he spat out an expletive.
A sense of fullness surged within his entire being.
Overflowing power.
This was surely his best condition since reincarnating into this world; however…
‘If I move, it’ll be a disaster!’
There must be a limit to overpowered abilities!
Imagine this: a yellow-haired alien warrior falls into a martial arts comic and starts shooting energy beams.
It’s not merely an issue of winning a fight; the sheer force might shatter the stage (planet).
An extreme overpowered situation that defies the world’s context!
That was precisely the state Han Yu-seong found himself in.
In this sixth instance.
In the world of Xianxia.
A world where even the sense of human rights is utterly chaotic, where those with power act like the celestial beings from some pirate comic, behaving immorally.
This world, unlike the current relaxed one, had raised him from birth, abandoned and filled with rage, leading him on a path of bloodshed and destruction until he eventually became known as the Demon Lord.
The world’s end.
The adversary of the world.
Originally, they wouldn’t have been able to unite due to their inherently terrible nature, but they had to fight against the calamity itself.
In the end, facing the hero (the protagonist) led to his demise, and he ultimately self-destructed, bringing the world to its end—a genuine Demon Lord.
It goes without saying…
The weak nature of this fragile world was far too insufficient to accept such a transcendent being.
“Eek!”
The moment the power surged momentarily, the stage of the world began to crack.
Reacting in shock, he hurriedly tried to contain it.
Carefully, like folding paper that could tear easily when too wet.
“Phew.”
Restoration successful, for now.
He managed to recover the shattered boundaries of the world and cautiously looked beneath him.
“Aah…”
With a face that expressed extreme freshness, a long-haired gentleman emerged from a pit.
“I feel like my head has cleared.”
Maintaining the luxurious attire of a medieval noble and a refined posture, Salieri was oblivious to the presence hovering above him.
Refusal to acknowledge.
Even while existing in that spot, his instincts rejected and refuted that existence.
Could an ant perceive a human as a being of the same kind?
Humans might claim they could, but what if it were a giant?
Or even the planet itself?
What if it were a being that couldn’t even move a finger until the moment of death?
Could they recognize such an existence as alive?
The disparity between him and that entity was far greater than that.
Even though it existed right before him, he couldn’t dare accept it as existing.
Like an outsider to some novel, he would give up understanding upon seeing it and go insane.
The very act of recognition would be relinquished.
Honestly, although he had surpassed the balance of power excessively, that wasn’t the only issue.
As stated repeatedly, this world is excessively weak.
No matter how strong the body might be.
Even with special abilities.
Magic, ki, ether, chakra, Akasha, etc.—
Without these fuels that could be deemed transcendent power, it ultimately holds no meaning.
The only exceptions were the techniques used by the Alliance Leader or Jung Seong-min…
“I’ll minimize it as much as possible.”
His presence.
His power.
His status.
He concealed and hid them away, discarding and cutting them off.
“Alright… this should do.”
Han Yu-seong watched as Salieri began to direct his gaze toward the battle of others.
Had he mentioned his head was cleared?
Well, he could relate; after all, those burdens he had unknowingly carried had peeled away from his soul.
A bit excessive, but it felt good to have power filling him once more.
Still…
“Let’s land just one punch first.”
As Han Yu-seong gazed at Salieri, he flicked his thumb and index finger.
Snap-!
A cute sound echoed in Han Yu-seong’s ear.
Well…
“Gwaaaak!”
He wondered if that monster would find it adorable.
*
Rustle—
Rustle rustle rustle rustle—
Clearly cutting through the void where nothing existed, he felt something getting sliced, albeit it was not physical.
Something more primal.
It was uncertain what it was, but his gut kept warning him.
He must not come into contact with that thing.
“Gah… Gah…”
Jung Seong-min exhaled roughly, continuing to move his sore arms.
A girl in a school uniform with blonde hair.
The moment he laid eyes on her, a sensation began to overwhelm him.
‘To solve the situation, I need to subdue that girl first…’
“Ugh!”
The moment he inadvertently relaxed his concentration, something flew toward him through the gaps in his defense, and he hurriedly retrieved his sword to block it.
[Hero’s Sword]
The sword that embodied humanity’s hope for salvation and independence, held by the Alliance Leader, neutralizes the [Cause of Death] bestowed upon him.
Feeling something that had attached to him vanish, he once again released the sword’s [Abnormality] and started to sever it.
While he had received the Alliance Leader’s sword, he was still lacking and couldn’t wield it as freely as the leader.
All he could do was briefly unleash the sword’s power to dispel the [Abnormality] assigned to him.
In comparison with the Alliance Leader, it was truly meager usage.
Still, that power had kept Jung Seong-min alive until now.
“Kya ha ha! Oppa, you’re amazing! Is this how you don’t die?!”
The girl burst into laughter, looking at Jung Seong-min moving about as if he were untouched by what should have struck him.
[Yoo Da-hee]
A kind of meme that anthropomorphizes the “YOU DIED” message that appears when you die in a game with a hard difficulty.
Although it spread widely, it is merely a meme that only gained traction in modern times, not a ghost story.
An intangible concept that is hard to coalesce due to the absence of a clear subject.
A concept born out of the modern realm’s often absurd endings in games.
For this reason alone, the [Alliance] governed world could never have birthed such an [Abnormality].
But now, as restraints unraveled and the age of inundation approached, even such nonsensical [Abnormalities] began to manifest in reality.
YOU DIED
Or to put it more directly, a power that enforces a bad ending.
The very essence of her existence.
An entity that embodies the language appearing only on the screen following a bad ending.
Encountering her means one is already in a state of having faced a bad ending, hence it makes no sense to meet while still intact.
Thus, upon seeing her, it induces a bad ending.
In essence, it reverses the cause-and-effect sequence.
There must be a cause of a bad ending for one to see her.
That is the characteristic phenomenon.
Yet, this [Abnormality] in her form seems to live and roam the world.
One can see her without a bad ending.
Yet it remains impossible.
Seeing her is fundamentally a result following a bad ending.
Encountering her corresponds to facing a bad ending.
The world corrects such errors.
By attaching a cause that should have existed before the outcome to the outcome.
One must die before seeing her!
“Kwa ha ha ha ha ha!”
Resisting against her death, named her.
The girl gazes upon this display with rapture.
For the first time, she met a ‘living human.’
They hardly seemed different in age?
Wasn’t he quite handsome?
He seemed to have a commendable physique!
Look at him wield that sword!
It felt like he could protect her from anything.
Ah, this is…
“Is it… love?”
….
It’s amusing to note that despite such dreadful power, her personality consists of that of an ordinary high school girl.
….
More accurately put,
She is fundamentally a composite of “a high school heroine wearing a school uniform with blonde hair,” which is the base for her existence.
If one wonders why she takes such form…
Ask the gamers who combined the notion of a bad ending phrase with a high school girl image and dating sim meme.
In any case.
She fell head over heels for Jung Seong-min, the first “living and handsome young man of a similar age” she had met.
Initially intending to push the world to deliver a bad ending in pursuit of her existential purpose, she no longer cared about that.
Because she had found someone she loved!
Of course, she knew as well that Jung Seong-min would soon die.
Her power was absolute, a kind that could not be controlled.
But!
Even if death were to separate them!
“I will… aaah!”
At that moment, a flock of butterflies, as if drawn with crayons, engulfed her.
[Dream Butterflies]
Having finished moving the fallen individuals, Lumi spotted the struggling Jung Seong-min and decided to support him through [Drawing].
“Seong-min! Are you okay?!”
“Lumi?!”
He heard Lumi’s voice even through his obstructed view by the butterflies, and he responded.
“A female voice?”
Having been interrupted in his cherished moments with his beloved, [Yoo Da-hee] began to flip out upon hearing another girl speaking sweetly with Jung Seong-min.
“C-Could it be…!”
Something emanating from her began to manifest with a clear form.
It resembled tentacles made of black smoke.
“Is it already a storm?!”
The fury of the girl who couldn’t concede to harem was unleashed.
“What in the world are you babbling about since a while ago?!”
Jung Seong-min shouted in panic while dodging the tentacles.
Tentacles imbued with the power that brings death upon contact.
That was surely dangerous, but…
‘That’s fine! This is definitely easier to deal with than earlier!’
If the power had a clear form, he could dodge instead of indiscriminately slicing through it like before.
‘Lumi…!’
“Ahhh!”
A lump of fury.
[Hati] howled.
A barrier that excludes [Abnormalities].
Although it wasn’t perfect due to the lack of [Skoll], it was small enough to only protect the immediate vicinity…
Beneath [Hati]’s protection, Lumi opened her sketchbook and hastily drew.
“Lumi, please cover me!”
Upon hearing Jung Seong-min’s plea, Lumi raised the sketchbook that had just been filled with her drawings.
In that moment, a swarm of butterflies poured down once again.
“Kyahhhh!”
The swarm of butterflies obscured Yoo Da-hee’s figure.
With the visibility hindered, the control over the tentacles loosened.
Since the power that could slay everything by merely showing itself was concealed, it wouldn’t activate.
Still, the wildly thrashing tentacles had to be a threat!
Yet, Han Yu-seong, known as the ‘main character,’ drew Jung Seong-min up to a level above.
In an instant.
He crossed space.
Surpassing the storm of tentacles, he reached before her.
‘This moment is!’
The only chance!
To kill in one blow…!
Rumble—
Whooooooosh—
“Wahhh!”
In that moment, something struck down, and a fierce gust of dust began to sweep over the entire city.
Caught in the gale, Lumi’s hastily drawn sketches were all wiped away, and even Jung Seong-min lost his balance and fell.
“Gwaaaak!”
A bizarre wail echoed throughout the city.
And then.
“Hick.”
The girl who had been furious just a moment before slumped to the ground, paralyzed with fear, gazing up at the sky.
“Whew… uh… wheh… wheeeeeeng!”
In that forcibly paused battlefield, the only sound to resonate was that of a scared girl’s (three-month-old) cries, echoing pitifully.