Chapter 752: Whispers (3)
“Right now…”
Chaos understood what Crescent Moon meant. But understanding it and accepting it were two different things.
“You’re saying you’re going to use the Transcendents drawn to that pseudo-Source to fill it.”
“Most will send subordinates or incarnations. But some won’t want to miss a chance that may never come again, so they’ll force their way in themselves. A weakened Transcendent is still more than enough to fill a moon that’s almost complete.”
“They’re still Transcendents, weakened or not. And you think they’ll take that risk?”
“No matter how powerful someone’s sense of self may be, if they’re torn down again and again and left drifting rootless for long enough, they wear away in the end. But that child changed.”
And even so, he still chose to live. Silver eyes lit faintly in gold curved into a smile.
“When something has accumulated far beyond what even it can bear, it gains a depth not even a Transcendent can touch. So long as that little moon wants to live his own life, I will neither lose him nor let anyone take him from me.”
Before, it had been different. Even then, Seong Hyunjae would not have chosen death as an escape. But if he were completely taken from himself, completely lost, then he would have chosen one last freedom. He had already tried before the regression. He had kept Eclipse at his side, something that could swallow him whole, and meant to inherit that power.
That was why Crescent Moon had hidden Seong Hyunjae so carefully. A moon piled high, nearly at full, was something even Transcendents could not destroy. But if he cooperated, that was another matter. They could have carved and carved away at him until he became something like death. Eclipse alone had already been dangerous enough. The Transcendents could never be allowed to lay hands on him too.
“But now even Eclipse can’t threaten him.”
Because he had decided to keep living, no matter what. Young Chaos’s eyes sharpened coldly.
“If he wants to live, then let him live on his own terms. You don’t have the right to interfere. None of us do. No matter the reason.”
At the hard edge in his voice, Crescent Moon looked down at him. Her gaze was warm and utterly indifferent.
“Don’t waste your breath trying to persuade me. There are only two ways to stop this. Overwhelming force, or another solution in its place. It is not that reason cannot reach me. I am listening.”
She simply had no intention of moving the way others wanted. She heard everything, saw everything, felt everything.
“So if you can offer a better way to stop the Source from swallowing the world… then I will let the little moon go without a trace of regret.”
Even if, at the final final moment, she had to give up everything. Even if the long ages she had spent came to nothing, Crescent Moon would feel no lingering sorrow. She only—
“wish for the world I love not to be devoured.”
“And for that, you’ll trample part of that same beloved world?”
“That, too, is part of the world I love.”
Only the Source lay outside her world. Everything else, she embraced without distinction. Lush green forests and withered wastelands crumbling into dust. Peace kept by morality and order, and merciless darkness steeped in chaos. Under Crescent Moon’s gaze, there was no difference between them. They were all simply the flow of the world.
There was nothing one had to do, and nothing one must never do. Things mingled, clashed, killed and saved, exploited and helped, hated and loved. That whole current was the world she loved.
“…You.”
Young Chaos fell silent. He had faced countless Transcendents, and every one of them had still been, in the end, a person with some line they would draw. They had lived different lives and carried thoughts shaped by them. Their ideas of good and evil could be reversed, their cultures could collide, and each held a completely different standard—but a standard was there.
The moonlight before him had none.
“You’ve changed a lot.”
The words left him, stripped of anything but emptiness. Just as Crescent Moon had said, there were only two paths left: offer an alternative, or stop her by force.
“I didn’t expect you to step in like this either.”
Crescent Moon still spoke gently, as though she were receiving an old guest rather than facing a Transcendent who had come to stop her.
“The system is your old friends themselves. Even if other Transcendents abused it, you could never tamper with it at the root. You could only preserve it as it was in the first world, just as it had been in the beginning.”
“How was I supposed to tamper with anything when I didn’t know enough to start with? Besides, I’ve got bindings of my own.”
“Is this guilt, after keeping your eyes closed for so long?”
Chaos laughed once, short and dry.
“If I let something like guilt push me around, I’d have died a long time ago. I’ve just always had a soft spot for kids clawing to stay alive.”
Especially when the kid in question was desperate enough to cling. He couldn’t help but look. Couldn’t help but care.
“I survived that way too. Back when I was still in my own world, I took in plenty of kids like that and raised them. It’s just an old habit.”
The little ones who used to trail after him, calling him Master.
“Even a Transcendent is still someone from the world they originally lived in. It’s their hometown, their home. They can leave it, they can lose it, but they can’t escape it. It’s the foundation that makes them who they are.”
You could stand on that foundation and climb higher. You could grow beyond it. But if you tore the ground itself away, all you’d do was collapse.
“So this time too, I picked up a kid clinging to life. And I intend to take some responsibility.”
“Then do.”
There was nothing more to say. Young Chaos turned away. His figure vanished into the moonlight. Crescent Moon lifted her head and looked toward the darkness rippling beyond.
“A new cup, for new water.”
Even if a new law arose to replace the Source, chaos would follow at first. A Transcendent would be needed to calm it. That, too, was why she had hidden the little moon. If a struggle over a pseudo-Source broke out before the full moon was complete, she would lose too many useful pieces.
But now, that no longer mattered. Even if many were spent, they could be replaced.
“It will become what you wished for.”
Droplet. The now-sleeping Mermaid Queen. The cradle of new Transcendents she had wanted to create—a world no longer devoured whole. That child, too, was being prepared.
Golden eyes opened slowly. An unfamiliar face reflected in them. The face leaning over to peer at him jumped in surprise.
“Oh, you’re awake! Wait, are you seriously dead? You’re the Sesung Guild Leader.”
“…What are you?”
His voice was still thick with sleep. Hwang Rim helped Sigma sit up and answered,
“It’s kind of a long story, but the quick version is I’m basically a double agent. Wow, though, your Korean’s really good. Doesn’t look like you’re using an item. Skill?”
“I learned.”
“From your guardian?”
“Guardian?”
“The Puppeteer.”
Sigma frowned as if the very idea made no sense. He hadn’t liked the man at first sight, and hearing someone describe things that way was even more irritating.
“I’m the guardian.”
“You?”
“He’s my doll.”
He belonged to Sigma, and Sigma had cared for him all this time. He had even given him a new name because he disliked being called Han Yujin. So naturally, that made Sigma the guardian. Hwang Rim shrugged and glanced around. The carefully decorated bedroom was dim in that perfect, drowsy way that made it ideal for sleeping. On the ceiling, little star-shaped nightlights glowed faintly. It was quiet for now, at least.
“The second you woke up, your location got exposed. So we need to move immediately.”
“Move? Exposed to whom? More importantly, where is this?”
“There’s no shortage of people after you, but the main problem right now is the Gardener. The Puppeteer basically scammed him, one way or another, so he’s probably pretty pissed.”
“…Again?”
“Again?”
“The original is probably the one most to blame.”
Sigma called up a memory that felt both distant and recent. That bastard had intended to con him from the very beginning. The doppelgänger doll might have only copied outward appearance, but there was no way it had left no influence behind. Hwang Rim hummed, nodding, and pulled out the plastic map the Puppeteer had given him.
“I think I know who you mean. Anyway, the Gardener’s going to try to collect you. Maybe he’ll send butterflies.”
“I was under the impression it wouldn’t be easy for the main body to move. If it’s only a subordinate, I can handle it.”
“Yeah? Well, you’ve been around a while, so I guess that makes you something close to a quasi-Transcendent. Still, since there’s no telling when you’ll fall asleep again, better safe than sorry. Though if it comes to a fight, maybe you’ve got a chance.”
As he searched for a relocation point by feeding mana into the little plastic map—barely bigger than his palm—Hwang Rim kept talking. Sigma’s gaze slid away.
“…It’s not.”
“Hm?”
“I’m linked to him, so I’m S-rank. I used to be SS-rank. I was even stronger than that at one point.”
When the timelines merged, his current rating had dropped to match Seong Hyunjae’s.
“…Don’t tell the C-rank. …Or Lambda.”
“The C-rank? Who’s Lambda?”
“I have no intention of telling you.”
“…Wow, what a little prince. Looks like the Puppeteer raised you nice and soft. Still, if you’re around the Sesung Guild Leader’s level, maybe you can put up a fi—”
Hwang Rim snapped his mouth shut. Sigma frowned too, then muttered,
“Something’s wro—”
He fell asleep again mid-sentence. Hwang Rim hurriedly caught him as he slumped over and hoisted him up.
“I have no idea if I made the right contract here!”
The map lit up with the location of another bedroom, and a crushing pressure began to bear down from all sides. Flutter. A black butterfly drifted in. Then another. Then a third. A dozen became dozens.
Whoosh—
Flames erupted. In an instant, black fire melted through the walls of space itself, tangling with the butterflies as it came pouring in like a wave. Barely dodging the inferno sweeping up everything in its path, Hwang Rim followed the map and shifted through space. The terrifying heat vanished, and a new bedroom appeared. Letting out a long breath, Hwang Rim laid Sigma down on the bed.
“Black flames, huh. Reminds me of Jin’s little brother.”
Though the color had changed now. Not that Han Yujin’s younger brother would be in a place like this. Anyway, for the moment, they had gotten away safely.
“Sleep tight, princess.”
At least until his guardian, his ward, or whatever prince charming category applied showed up to wake him.
Slowly. A steady beat reached me. The heart that had been shattered was beating again. I clenched my teeth without meaning to. A dim light flickered in the golden eyes that had never quite closed, then they slid shut at last. He was reviving. Seong Hyunjae would not die.
But—
“A–are you okay?”
Yerim hovered awkwardly in the air as she asked, careful and tentative. Yuhyun stood frozen nearby with the look of someone desperate to run to me that instant. I opened my mouth to tell them he was alive again.
No sound came out.
I let out a rough breath and waved a hand to show I was okay. The hand was still red. My chest lurched.
He won’t die. He’s not going to die, but—
“The sky…”
Moon Hyunah tipped her head back. I looked up too. At some point, the moon had retreated. And yet stars now burned around the enormous moon still hanging above us.
No. Not stars.
I had seen that sight before.
The Transcendents. Their gazes. I remembered the stars falling one by one beneath Crescent Moon’s chains.
The Transcendents had noticed a being that had piled up power enough to rival the Source. They still couldn’t come in. They could only watch. But it felt like the moment a path opened, they would all come pouring through. My throat closed tight. Not knowing what else to do, I clutched the body that had come back to life.
‘…I should have…’
I should have been more careful. I should have suspected it.
Everyone was staring at the newly emerged stars, but I could feel my brother’s worried eyes on me. Heat flooded my chest. Was this all just my greed? The harder I struggled, was I only making things worse? Should I have stayed quiet from the start? Done nothing at all? Just stood still?
…But how could I?
“You weren’t being controlled completely. It was closer to hypnosis. Or suggestion.”
The Puppeteer’s voice cut in. He let out a long sigh, then looked over Park Hayul, who was still sitting there in a daze.
“I didn’t expect Crescent Moon to play it this way. For now, this one’s clean. That’s the problem—she gave up on him and shoved everything into you instead. If she’d done the opposite, I could’ve just put him to sleep and called it a day. This is much more annoying.”
“…!”
I still couldn’t speak. Only a harsh breath came out. Maybe Yuhyun noticed, because he finally stopped holding back and pressed the Puppeteer.
“Can I go to my brother? I can’t let him get hurt too.”
“That kind of thing looks for openings. It’s fine now.”
“Hyung!”
The instant the words were out, Yuhyun rushed to me. Chief Song, who had already come outside the wall, approached too. The two of them tried to pry Seong Hyunjae away from me. I tried to loosen my arms myself, but they wouldn’t move properly.
“Hyung, look at me. Okay?”
“He’s breathing, Mr. Han Yujin. His heartbeat is stable too. He’s only unconscious. Leave him to me.”
“…”
I knew I had to let go. I couldn’t.
Yuhyun slowly wrapped his hands around mine, stroking them as if to ease the tension out of them. Chief Song kept soothing me too. Hyunah stopped Yerim and Soyeong from coming closer, and the others backed away as well.
I kept dragging in long breaths. Bit by bit, my curled fingers loosened. Yuhyun caught me as my strength gave out. I saw Seong Hyunjae being taken into Chief Song’s arms.
It felt like I had to grab him again.
Yuhyun’s hand covered my eyes.
“Let’s keep you apart for now. At least until Seong Hyunjae wakes up.”
“Yes. That would be best.”
Hyunah’s voice and Chief Song’s drifted farther away. Only then did my body start to shake.
Crescent Moon’s whisper brushed my ear.
[There is not much time left now.]
Until the moment the full moon rose.
–TL Notes–
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