Chapter 525 – Following the Starlight Beyond the Border.
A past conversation comes to mind.
“That’s well etched. How’s it feel?”
“It hurts like hell…”
This is a brief story that was left untold when I got my magical power tattoo.
“Still, you got the weapons you wanted engraved, so isn’t that good?”
“But I asked for 11, why did you engrave 12?”
12 triangles extending around a circle.
“The one at 12 o’clock is sort of an insurance. I give one to my contractors.”
“Insurance? What’s that about?”
It was positioned just like the hour hand on a clock.
Of course, that position held no special meaning.
“Overload.”
Pointing to midnight and the hour.
Except for that one spot.
“Is it something like going wild?”
“Similar. With this, you can use magical power without limits for a short time. Your physical abilities also go up for a bit.”
“Oh, I could just use it whenever I need it! And I can even use it twice since it’s for both hands.”
12 o’clock.
“Seriously, don’t use it unless it’s absolutely necessary. Especially if you lose an arm or a leg.”
“Why not if I lose an arm or a leg?”
“It’s fine while you’re using it, but when it’s done…”
“When it’s done…?”
That’s the last unit in time.
“You die.”
“Are you serious?”
That place is the end of all time.
“I stake my mom on it.”
“Did it happen?”
“Do you really want to get smacked, you piece of shit?”
It’s also the beginning of a new time.
“Anyway, if you forcibly use magical power when the circuit is broken, it’s just common sense.”
“Does that mean I’d die even if my limbs are intact?”
“You won’t die.”
“So, there are side effects?”
At the same time, that position is a boundary line.
“Yeah. If you use it once, the amount of magical power you can use permanently decreases by half. After it’s over, the backlash will hit hard, so be prepared.”
“Is there any other side effects besides that?”
“Oh right. You’ll live in suffering from aftereffects for the rest of your life.”
“……What if I use it a second time?”
The boundary between morning and afternoon.
“You won’t be able to use magical power again. The aftereffects will be more severe this time. You might as well be considered dead.”
“Then it might be easier to just die right after using it.”
“Don’t worry. Each time you use it, your lifespan gets cut short, and after using it twice, you won’t live long.”
The boundary between one day and another.
“What kind of insurance is that, you piece of shit? It’s just a suicide switch.”
“So, just use it only in emergencies.”
“I’ll never use it, fuck.”
And just like that, it became a boundary line for me.
A broken path and a new path.
The past and the future.
The terminus and the starting point.
Life and death.
In fact, I nearly crossed it once before.
I wanted to carve a path for Caressy in the Beastman Kingdom, buried under the wreckage.
If I’d done that then, with no arms, I would have definitely died.
Luckily, fortune smiled, and such a situation didn’t occur.
However, now I had no choice but to cross this boundary line, whether I wanted to or not.
I was scared. The pain I would have to bear immediately after crossing.
I was worried. That I’d have to struggle through a lifetime of aftereffects.
It felt strange. To have to give up life to grasp onto life.
Yet, without hesitation, I steeled myself and crossed that boundary line now.
Soon after, my empty stamina and magical power soared rapidly.
I wondered if I might overflow and explode.
Then, I gathered all the starlight into the hand that held the existence before me.
What erupted was a far more profound starlight than the one that barely illuminated the path moments ago.
The light bloomed brilliantly.
However, it wouldn’t last long.
Stars disappear quickly the brighter they are.
Thus, before this starlight extinguished completely.
I desperately made a wish to the stars.
I would give anything.
I would gladly offer it.
I would readily share.
I would create a path with everything I had.
All the karma I’ve built.
The roads I’ve walked.
The life I will live.
So please, drive away this darkness and illuminate the path.
Then, the star responded to me, shining even brighter.
It stabbed numerous glints of light into the darkness.
Tearing it apart and beginning to devour it eagerly.
No, that was far too weak a word for consumption.
Not just the darkness that the light was directly chewing on.
The monsters within the reach of the light around the darkness.
Even I was being slightly consumed.
That was pure greed.
Before the greed of that star, each showed different reactions.
Me, gritting my teeth and bearing the pain.
The darkness, crying out in anguish for the life that was fading.
And those monsters that resisted until the end.
Were the prey trying to show their last respect to the overwhelming predator?
Were they screaming for revenge for their master?
Or were they simply acting according to the instinct of their existence?
Even as they were being devoured and disappeared, they attacked me.
To completely trample my anxious life.
To penalize the light that touched their master.
To end the one-sided predation.
To extinguish the starlight.
What followed was a variety of attacks as diverse as their kinds.
The heavy tail swung mercilessly, striking my shins repeatedly.
I thought I heard something. A dangerous sound that should never come from the body.
That sound faded quickly, but the pain from my legs became vivid.
But it’s okay.
Even with my creaking legs, I could still stand.
Flames erupted, covering entirely from my elbow downward.
After the fire disappeared, I couldn’t feel my senses at all.
As if my arm had stepped fully into the realm of death before me.
But it’s fine.
Even if I was stiff, my fingertips still touched.
The deadly claws brushed against my left eye, slicing it cleanly in two.
With pain, my vision shrank by half, and the sense of distance vanished abruptly.
Now, it was hard to confirm the regression, and even if I treated it, I would no longer see the light.
But it didn’t matter.
With just one eye, it was enough to capture everything.
Various sharp teeth mercilessly embedded themselves into my back and sides.
The agony from where the teeth pierced was filled with boiling blood.
I felt my breath slipping away, as if I were a balloon with holes.
So what if that happened?
My breath hasn’t stopped yet.
It went on.
Repeating.
Repeatedly.
The monsters poked their weapons into me as they faded away.
The darkness screamed madly, struggling desperately.
Countless stars blossomed, shining and vanishing.
As much as they disappeared, even more stars blossomed brightly.
Eventually, change came in the midst of that repeating process.
Indelible injuries on my body increased in number.
Now, there was hardly anywhere on me that wasn’t hurt.
Yet, the number of monsters kept increasing instead of decreasing.
It was as if they wouldn’t yield to the ever-blossoming stars.
And the darkness in front of me couldn’t escape change either.
Now, its face contorted without a sound.
As if there were no longer any organs to scream out.
The body that had been writhing passionately no longer moved.
In fact, it couldn’t move. Its body was half gone already.
The darkness was gradually disappearing as it was buried in the light.
And as the darkness was pushed back, the light grew larger.
The overwhelming light boasted its presence to an extent that my vision blurred.
With light, there’s a shadow, they say, but this outright denied that.
The overwhelming light declared it wouldn’t even permit a small shadow.
In that moment, the light suddenly vanished.
A star disappeared in an instant.
I tried to call that star back, but.
What answered my call was my own body.
I couldn’t even stand, let alone kneel.
Blood gushing from every part of my arms awakened the lost sensation.
Blood flowing from my eyes obscured my single vision halfway.
Even though I ate nothing, heavy chunks of blood gushed endlessly from my mouth.
Time had come.
The power borrowed was mismatched to the moment.
Having swung heedlessly while forgetting the subject.
Now it was time to pay the price for that.
It hurt.
Even gathering all the pain I’ve experienced so far, it wasn’t anything compared to this.
Instead of adapting, the limits of pain kept rising again and again.
It felt as if my life was being chopped up in real-time.
Wouldn’t it be much better to enter hell alive than this?
I even forced myself to suppress the urge to bite my tongue to commit suicide.
But.
Even with this bone-deep pain I felt.
I couldn’t erase one surging emotion.
I felt so wronged.
How long has it been that it’s already over?
And why now, of all times?
Just a little bit longer than this. Just a few more seconds.
No, even less than a few seconds.
If only I had just that little bit of time.
However, no matter how much I wanted to pour out these feelings, I couldn’t.
What came out of my mouth were not even words, but metallic sounds and blood chunks.
– “You’re being a pain in the ass… you piece of shit…”
Saying that, the darkness reached out with my completely unusable left eye.
It merely pushed a chunk of black towards me.
Yet to me now, that looked like.
A kind of death.
If I touched it, it would probably take away everything I had.
Not just the last piece given to me, but my life as well.
I tried to use the last overload to overcome this.
But it was impossible.
Was there a law that made it unusable while experiencing backlash?
Or was it that my flickering consciousness from pain couldn’t even give a command?
Or was my instinct that had been paralyzed stopping me from doing this?
I didn’t know.
Whether it was because of some reason.
Or because of everything.
Meanwhile, death had drawn near.
Whispering that everything I did was merely thrashing around.
Declaring it would crush any resolve.
Scoffing that promises would be reduced to mere words.
Staring into the approaching death with my lone eye, I silently screamed inside.
This can’t be the end.
I need to stand up right away.
I have to return home.
I made a promise.
But despite my cries, nothing changed.
Only the speed of death approaching grew faster.
Thanks to that, the path I had walked until now was completely severed.
Last night.
Whispering with them.
With tearful promises.
It was the end.
“Hey, you piece of shit!!!”
At that moment, a star descended upon me.
– “What, who sent you-”
“Your mom did.”
That instantly drove away death.
Forcing the broken path to reconnect.
A tiny red star.
No.
I must correct myself.
It wasn’t just one.
“Master! We’re here!”
“You’ll get your mouth twisted sleeping outside.”
“It’s time to wake up.”
Four stars descended upon me.
They were smaller compared to the stars I emitted.
But not at all lacking.
Each shining brightly in their own colors.
They were beautiful stars.
“Shinwoo, are you trying to sleep more?”
“The light’s too bright… I can’t sleep…”
To keep the promise.
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