### Chapter 381 – Room 205, The Cursed Room – ‘The Absolute Master’ (30)
—
The old man’s eyes were filled with malice.
An overwhelming fear began to consume Seungyub’s heart.
However, Seungyub still had one last move up his sleeve.
In the next moment, the boy’s gaze shifted dramatically.
Fear, tension, anger, despair — all these emotions vanished in an instant, leaving behind the essence of the ‘Primordial Human.’
His eyes appeared as if he had just awakened from a dream.
As the expression of confusion crossed the demon’s face, the boy spoke.
“Um… so is it you, Lee Jasung? The Phantom? What’s going on?”
The demon’s expression wrinkled.
Realizing that the Primordial Human had been activated due to the information about the hotel party, he thought, “This brat is really making things difficult till the end!”
What to do? Brainwash him? Torture him?
Such things only work on humans.
From Kain’s perspective, what is the Primordial Human?
The term ‘human’ loses its meaning when compared to this entity, which is far removed from being human.
Let’s call it an over-idealized version of oneself, or maybe, a being close to an indistinct AI.
It is not devoid of desire or emotion.
However, above all else, it prioritizes ‘revelation.’
The temptation of the mirror room could break even the most seasoned agents of the Administration Bureau.
But such power had ‘no’ meaning to the Primordial Human.
“Can I brainwash something like this?”
Should I crush his fingers? Pull out his nails one by one? Or use the Reverse Sky Convergence technique to keep him alive while peeling off his skin—
“Ugh… Argh! This bastard!”
He suppressed the sadistic thrill rising from within him.
The desire for ‘survival’ overwhelmed the demon’s every longing.
It would be pointless.
If I inflict pain, he’ll scream and howl, right?
Tempting him with pleasure might throw him into indulgence like a beast.
In that process, odd phenomena would also occur.
But at the last moment, he would ignore all previous experiences and act according to ‘revelation.’
To the demon, the Primordial Human wasn’t an unpredictable existence but highly predictable—and that was the problem.
It wasn’t an infallible power.
Simply meet the end conditions to extinguish the Primordial Human.
That’s not a power that can be used repeatedly, as there’s a cooldown after each use.
So what are the conditions?
The disappearance of Room 205? The moment of choice?
No.
If I escape from the Cursed Room, the Primordial Human would automatically cease to exist, and there’s no need to create such conditions.
Or perhaps the demon’s death?
That also seems odd.
Due to the transcendental nature of existence, the demon’s death would be difficult for the Primordial Human to perceive.
So what conditions would there be—
Wait a minute?
Overthinking might lead me to the wrong conclusion.
Isn’t this kid a bit dim?
Simply trying to analyze things rationally feels like a mistake.
“Ugh, seriously! Your dull head makes predicting even tougher. Hey, what’s the content of the revelation?”
The boy replied, with an innocent expression, “He says not to tell you. But um, sir, who are you?”
“You little brat!”
“Why are you cursing at me?”
“Argh!”
“Why are you screaming?”
Annoyance seeped deep down into his soul.
Thanks to this, instead of nitpicking, I was contemplating just roasting this infuriating little brat.
Just then, my vision twisted, and flames began to rise all around.
At this moment, what the demon felt was not anger, but exhilaration.
“Yes! There you are!”
Breaking through the distortion of sensory perception as a demon wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t necessary.
Since I had already prepared ‘another body’ for this location.
Just as I had deceived everyone by manipulating both Mooksung’s body and Lee Jasung’s body fifteen days ago.
“Grrraah!”
Another warrior appeared in the emperor’s garden, immediately pinning Songee down within her protective suit.
“Hey, Miss! Don’t be scared. You know I’m not a bad guy, right?”
“…”
“I wasn’t planning on killing you, but I figured I could at least knock you out. This protective suit really is sturdy—good thing.”
“…”
Originally, I intended to charm Seungyub out.
Based on the consistent performance the hotel party showed during the moment of choice, they normally acquired legacies one after the other.
Accordingly, the next in line should be the lucky boy or the old agent.
Controlling Seungyub seemed much easier than dealing with the other one.
But…
If I had to deal with such irritating situations now, maybe the schoolgirl could be an alternative.
I could simply kill Seungyub to ensure that the ‘moment of choice’ wouldn’t even arise.
“Miss, I have some good news for you. You’re about to get your second legacy!”
“…”
“What? Don’t tell me you plan to play dead? I can hear you breathing—”
“Lee Jasung.”
Her voice carried surprise, horror, admiration, and curiosity.
Songee, in pure fascination, was way too curious.
“What’s your goal, really?”
“Aha! Miss, I’ve told you so far, haven’t I? I’m contained within the Soul Vessel—”
“Not you, you idiot!”
“…”
“Lee Jasung, you might have tricked the demon, but you can’t fool me.”
A sword appeared.
It was formless and didn’t exist anywhere.
A singular beam of light split through the void between formless souls, driving the demon’s soul away.
And then—
Lee Jasung awoke.
“How did you know I was awake?”
“Thanks to the bracelet. The principle is… argh! Just figured it out!”
“…”
The old man turned silently to gaze at the sky.
“Why were you hiding for so long? No, more importantly, how did you drive away the demon?”
“…”
“Lee Jasung? Please cooperate! Then—”
“Then what? Put me in the Soul Vessel and save me?”
Songee fell silent.
His current answer hinted at shocking truths.
“You… knew, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“You knew about the hotel.”
“I knew about the hotel.”
“…”
It was confusing.
I could actually grasp the demon’s psyche.
After all, he was a mad devil obsessed with survival.
But Lee Jasung?
“…”
“I realized I was rather narrow-minded.”
“Narrow-minded?”
“You must have found me rather amusing.”
“…”
“It’s foolish to regard all power obtained from the hotel as this or that.”
“So…”
“To make excuses, people are generally confined by the environments they are born and grow up in.”
He seemed like a sage who had attained some enlightenment.
Instead, this was making Songee even more afraid.
Because I had no clue what actions he might take next.
“What do you think?”
The old man shifted his gaze to the other body the demon had brought along.
“Ugh!”
“Are you beginning to come back to your senses?”
“Hey, Jasung! What the heck did you just do? You shouldn’t be able to do something like this—”
“I felt emptiness.”
An eerie silence descended over the room.
The demon venting its frustration, the now helmet-less Songee, and the dazed boy all listened intently to the old man’s voice.
“In the year 673 of Gyeongmyeong, born into the Lee family, with Lee Jihon as my father and Yoo Hayun as my mother. Born into a merchant family but harbored aspirations for martial arts, I ventured into the realm and became the disciple of the Great Sword Master, Do Jeongmyung. Later, in 713, I entrapped the demon, akin to a disaster, within Mt. Cheongjang.”
…
“How’s that? Not bad for an old man’s life, right?”
“That’s…”
“All that was a lie. A meaningless illusion, just a scribble of sentences.”
The old man’s endless feelings of emptiness spread around him.
At that moment, the only one who understood that emotion spoke up.
“So what?!”
“Yuseong.”
“Are you saying your entire life was fake? What does it matter? I think! Therefore I exist, and thus it is real!”
“How amusing. Is what you said really true?”
“Even if everything is fake… my desire to live is real. So what’s the problem, really?”
Songee felt a sense of wonder.
The demon, moments ago akin to a fiend or lunatic, felt like a philosopher contemplating life at that moment.
The old man nodded lightly.
“I see. That’s the path you’ve found. Since the will to live is real, everything else is meaningless?”
“That’s right!”
“I realized something a bit different.”
“… I’m listening.”
“It was all meaningless. The empire, the Heavenly Coalition, disciples, family—none of them matter anymore. I figured I don’t need to be tied down by anything anymore.”
“…”
“Suddenly, I thought to myself, I have no past.”
“…”
The demon wasn’t sure about this point.
After all, even those coming from outside had little knowledge about the hotel.
Perhaps Room 205 had existed for millennia.
Yet, such pondering was meaningless in itself.
The hotel could have created everything just a minute ago.
“Also, I’m fated to disappear within a day or two, so there’s no future either.”
Both the nonexistence of the past and the looming death left the demon unable to accept the latter.
“No! There is a future! There’s a future! If you use the Soul Vessel—”
“Yuseong. How do you trust that knowledge?”
“What?!”
In the next moment, warmth was infused into the old man’s voice.
“Knowing that one’s past life was all a lie, knowing about this ‘hotel’ that can twist our world like taffy, you still cling to the hope of the Soul Vessel?”
“Shut up!”
I understood what Jasung was trying to say.
And I didn’t want to hear it.
“Our information is fake, and their information is real? How can you be so sure of that?”
“Didn’t I tell you to stop talking?”
“If the creator is cruel, then he perhaps wanted to see you flail like this, by giving you the false hope of the Soul Vessel.”
The demon was no fool.
What Jasung had considered was something he too had experienced.
Is Room 205 fake while the hotel party is real?
Is the legacy the only thing that can take us outward?
How can he be so sure about this?
The hotel party could also be another fake that ‘believes it’s real.’
There might have never been a way to escape.
And even if one were to escape, is there any guarantee that the world outside is the truth?
Thus, as long as one obsessively clings to life, they can never escape the creator’s cruel jokes.
The painful realization swallowed the demon’s mind entirely.
“There is no past or future. Only this moment is the truth.”
The old man pondered.
If the past and the future are merely illusions, then only reality remains.
He crammed everything he had into a single breath.
No, he hadn’t filled with it now.
He realized that the existence of Lee Jasung had always been contained within the fleeting moment of lightning.
He wanted to show it.
The one who created the hotel.
The creator who observes everything and mocks all.
In his eyes, he might seem like a lowly insect, but even insects can bite a person at least once.
A sword appeared.
Because it had no physical existence, it thus did not exist anywhere.
In that sword, Jasung poured in everything he had.
… It wasn’t enough.
Everything of Jasung wasn’t enough.
At that moment, a man approached.
“Yuseong.”
“Pour yourself into it too!”
“…”
The old man slowly turned to view his dissolving body.
“The one caught within the formless sword is about to die.”
“Hey! You said that doesn’t matter! So pour me in right now!”
“…”
Another immense force.
One that doesn’t quite reach where Jasung is now but is the only comparable existence.
The demon entered the old man’s sword.
At this moment, the old man realized that the demon had finally liberated himself from the obsession with life.
And then—
A beam of light like starlight stretched toward the sky.
As the gap in the heavens opened, the truth that the creator had concealed finally revealed itself to the world.
It was a light that could illuminate the entire universe.
A power that could burn stars with just a tiny dot of strength.
The greatest being of all.
And—
A bound god.
Asha finally revealed its form.
“Ah…”
A being that one could not dare to gaze upon with mere human eyes.
Jasung realized his retinas melted away, rendering him blind.
Moreover, a vague realization seeped in.
This must be one of the ‘Prison Endings’ that the hotel party feared so much.
…
It didn’t mean anything.
This was Room 205, a place where the intervention of prisoners was restricted.
“…”
Even that immensely great being was merely a plaything of the genuine creator.
This was such a place.
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