Chapter 199

Obro Denoebang’s Ars, ‘Purity’.

A power that summoned eight noble swords.

The straightest sword, ‘Will’.

The oldest sword, ‘Dream’.

The strongest sword, ‘Perseverance’.

The most splendid sword, ‘Laughter’.

The hottest sword, ‘Courage’.

The broadest sword, ‘Mercy’.

The most beautiful sword, ‘Temperance’.

The sharpest sword, ‘Brilliance’.

The eight swords together were ‘Purity’.

A symbol of the most brilliant past.

Now, they could no longer be summoned, the names of a soul that had been lost forever.

***

It resembled a centipede more than a serpent.

And yet, it was a serpent.

The large, black, and foul serpent bore thousands of faces instead of scales.

Each and every face moved as if alive, dripping with grief and sorrow.

A few of the faces were particularly large, with arms growing out of their maws.

The number of arms was sixty-six.

The serpent with sixty-six arms pressed the backs of its hands, not its palms, against the ground and tried to swallow the people.

The people, unable to resist the serpent’s temptation, slowly moved their feet.

Obro Denoebang stood among them.

“…….”

He held an iron sword.

It was old and dull.

Still, a single swing made the entire Underworld ring.

Obro Denoebang shed streams of tears, staining his beard and yet, he swung his sword.

It was powerful enough to make his eight-year hiatus seem meaningless.

[Ph-huhuhu…….]

But the black serpent was not wounded.

Obro knew why.

A sword was a sword only when it was sharp.

But he was not sharp.

Obro, holding the sword, was still caught in fear.

Since he could not bring himself to entrust his being, the sword could not be a sword either.

[Ph-hu-hahaha-!!!]

The grotesque laughter echoed throughout the Underworld.

As the black serpent brandished its sixty-six arms, shadows billowed up.

The billowing shadows became black weapons.

There were many spears and blades, and some bows and arrows.

Before the black blades, Obro faltered.

His groundless fear had lasted too long.

He had been submerged so deeply that he had created reasons where there were none.

No matter how much he steeled his will, his chest tightened and he couldn’t breathe when he actually held a blade and faced other blades and that was while he was still tipsy.

A black arrow flew.

The iron sword broke in half.

Obro did not retreat, even while holding the bisected sword.

But he had only not retreated.

He stood blocking the space between the eight hundred survivors and the black serpent, but that was all. He was still powerless.

[What commendable prey… to provide such amusement…….]

Spears and blades made of shadow aimed for Obro.

Still, Obro being Obro, he parried them all without a single hair on his beard being harmed.

The black serpent, realizing that spears and blades were useless against him, changed all its weapons to bows and arrows.

It shot arrows.

It shot them to a sickening degree.

Obro Denoebang could not block them all.

If he dodged, the people behind him would surely be hit.

If he couldn’t dodge, he blocked them with his body. He was soon battered and broken.

Obro’s alcohol-scented mouth was soon stained red, red.

Each and every tooth turned as red as if it had been so from the start.

His shaggy beard and hair also became sticky with clotted blood.

“…….”

He fell.

He fell time and time again, but he got up time and time again.

The sword that had been broken in half shattered further, and now only the hilt remained.

His eyes lost their light.

“…Just once…….”

A dazed mumble escaped him.

“…Just once, please appear…….”

He was continuously calling.

He was speaking to the distant past that he had closed with his own hands, that he had carved away and abandoned himself.

Asking if it was still there. Saying that even the dregs would be fine. So please, please…….

“…It is fine, if I fade away, now…….”

He stood with his back to the people he had to protect.

He could not see their faces.

But just the fact that they were there was enough.

“…No, for this life has already faded.”

It hurt.

It was not the kind of pain that could be endured with something like heroism.

It was chillingly agonizing and piercingly painful, so much so that he couldn’t possibly stand and bear it.

So he fell.

He fell countless times, banging his head on the ground.

He also knelt many times.

His tears were stained red from drying and flowing over and over.

“…The last…….”

A plea.

“…Lend me your final radiance, my soul.”

An arrow flew.

It was shot towards the people Obro was protecting.

The black arrow, cruelly, was aimed at Mariet.

Obro tried to block it.

He had to block it.

He jumped up to strike the arrow down, but it was not enough.

It was the same even when he stretched his hand out with all his might.

It doesn’t reach.

But it must reach.

And so, a radiance bloomed.

Clang, a sound was heard.

It was the sound of an arrow being parried.

He had reached the arrow that he could not possibly have reached.

It was because of a single sword that had appeared in Obro’s hand.

That sword was straight and strong.

It flashed white.

It was even beautiful, unfitting for this Underworld.

“…….”

Obro knew the name of this sword.

The sword’s name was ‘Will’.

The straightest sword.

One of the eight lost swords of ‘Purity’.

***

“…‘Will’…….”

It felt unfamiliar, even though it was his own.

He couldn’t tell how long it had been since he had last held it.

He realized that several swords had also appeared on his back.

“Out of eight swords…….”

One in hand, two on his back.

“…Only three.”

The straightest sword, ‘Will’.

The strongest sword, ‘Perseverance’.

The hottest sword, ‘Courage’.

“…….”

His body was a wreck.

He had lived as a drunkard for eight years.

He had also consumed deadly poison every day.

On top of that, he had been hit by black arrows, and his whole body was riddled with holes.

The Ars he had barely managed to summon, ‘Purity’, was also only three of the eight swords. Which meant…….

“This is enough.”

He knew which sword he needed most.

It was the hottest sword, ‘Courage’. When he grasped it, the blade caught fire.

It flared up as soon as it got hot.

When he held ‘Courage’ with both hands, ‘Will’ and ‘Perseverance’ circled him on their own.

He was charged with Courage.

The serpent with sixty-six arms could not stop him.

The flames burned its arms and beat upon the serpent’s scales.

But the scales did not break easily.

It was because each and every one of those scales was a thousands-of-years-old malevolent spirit.

He changed swords.

He let go of ‘Courage’ and grasped ‘Will’.

He held the straightest sword with both hands and pressed it down, as if stabbing, onto a scale. Prrrrr-!!

The black serpent writhed in pain.

Black blood flowed, then soon turned into smoke and scattered.

He quickly changed swords again.

This time, ‘Perseverance’ was needed.

He thrust the strongest sword into the gap of the pierced scale.

Then he held onto the hilt and endured.

The black serpent writhed, trying to shake him off.

But Obro did not budge.

This was Obro, who had survived years that were like a nightmare.

This was not enough to shake him off.

The serpent tried to shoot black arrows again.

But it couldn’t do that either.

Because Obro Denoebang steadfastly swung his swords.

Whether it shot arrows or not, he skillfully handled the three swords and whittled away at the serpent’s body, so there was no time to shoot arrows.

The black serpent’s body was so hard that it couldn’t be cut.

So Obro Denoebang carved the black serpent away.

He carved and carved again.

He became a dirty lump just like that dirty serpent, and covered in hot blood whose origin could not be discerned, he carved it away.

And so he dismembered it.

He simply and silently turned the black serpent with sixty-six arms into chunks of flesh.

“…Anymore…….”

The black serpent went limp.

“…It’s not moving.”

It was only natural, as it had been dismembered.

Then the three swords shattered with a crack.

The unbreakable swords broke.

Obro Denoebang realized that these swords were nothing more than imitations.

“…Empty inside, just like me…….”

Courage, Will, Perseverance. The insides of the three swords were empty. They weren’t the real ‘Purity’, but had merely mimicked the glory of the past. Obro Denoebang, having lost his strength, muttered with trembling lips.

“…Thank you, ‘Purity’……. My soul, for giving me your last strength even after being so exhausted…….”

He gently closed his eyes.

His eyelids were so heavy he didn’t know if he could open them again.

“Thanks to you, I was able to protect them this time…….”

[Ph-huhuhu…….]

***

[Ph-hu-huhuhu……!]

The laughter echoed.

[How amusing, Obro, son of Desep…….]

Obro Denoebang opened his eyes with a start.

The black serpent was still limp, but the voice continued.

The Ancient God, ‘Black Light of the Abyss’, scattered its ridicule.

[To think you’d fight so fiercely against just one of my tongues…….]

“…Tongue……?”

[It was amusing, but it’s sad to think back on it. Yes, sad……. To think that a mere serpent like that, you mistook it for this Black Light……. Ah, will time ever not be cruel…….]

Looking closely, there was a black cave.

The limp black serpent was sucked into the cave with a slither.

That cave was strangely large and strangely vibrant.

It seemed as if the shape of its entrance moved here and there whenever the voice rang out.

[How sad it is to be forgotten…….]

“…My goodness…….”

[Do you know how much the whole world feared this Black Light? Licking the land with six hundred tongues, stirring the sea with sixty hands, and defiling the sky with six eyes……. How can I be forgotten like this.]

The Ancient God’s name is ‘Black Light of the Abyss’.

No, it is the master of the Underworld.

No, no, it is Six-Hundred-Sixty-Six.

No, no, no, it is Abaddon. In fact, it didn’t matter which it was.

Since it was a name no one remembered, it couldn’t be wrong no matter what one called it.

“This Underworld… this entire horrific dimension…….”

A black light shone in the deep valley.

It was all him.

“……It was you, the monster of ancient times.”

[Do you realize now?]

The black cave put away its tongue and laughed, ha-ha.

[I am the Abyss.]

Six hundred of the black serpents he had barely managed to carve away by summoning ‘Purity’ shot out.

[I am the Black Light.]

Beside them, sixty hands emerged.

[Therefore, I, ‘Black Light of the Abyss’, am the master of the Underworld, and at the same time, the Underworld itself.]

Even higher above, in the black sky, six eyes were laughing.

Wrinkles formed in the black sky.

It was because the Black Light had laughed.

“…Ugh…….”

Before the majesty of the ancient times, Obro’s mind became hazy.

Facing a monster that used the sky as its face and the land as its body, he could not possibly remain in his right mind.

[Obro, son of Desep.]

“…Ugh, ughh…….”

[You’ve done well for a drunkard. I was going to swallow you too, but you’re sharp and it would be a bother if you got stuck in my throat, so I shall spit you out as a special favor…….]

The darkness pushed Obro.

[Return with the two outsiders who came bearing the face of light……. Live on in fear of this Black Light…….]

He was pushed away futilely.

Shadows became black waves and pushed Obro outside.

Obro lamented and reached out his hand.

Eight hundred people.

Those he should have protected but could not.

Eight hundred people whom he thought he could finally save after a long time.

They only grew more distant.

He had let them go again, dazed.

“…No… after coming this far…….”

[Give up. These are mine. They are my food for all eternity.]

“……Again, again…….”

How could life be so cruel?

If it wasn’t going to let him hold on, why did it keep letting him grasp it only to snatch it away?

Why did it keep making him misunderstand and hurt him so much?

Obro Denoebang summoned all his strength.

He tried to somehow fight through the black waves, but he could not.

He was dreadfully powerless.

The ‘Black Light of the Abyss’ was too powerful. It was a darkness he could never overcome.

It was a pitch-blackness that he could only wait for to pass, but it did not pass.

Despair always has a bottom deeper still, so just when you think you’ve gotten used to it, it bites the nape of your neck even more painfully.

Does pain make me stronger?

But why must it be painful?

How long must I be tormented and in pain?

“……Just, how long…….”

Obro was thrown down in the darkness.

He struggled alone.

There was never a time he didn’t struggle.

He hadn’t rested for a single day.

No, he hadn’t found respite for a single moment.

No, no, he had squeezed out his entire soul and tried his best, but it all futilely scattered and vanished into the darkness.

Saying he needed nothing anymore, that saving them was enough, he wrung out all his strength, so why did they only grow more distant?

He saw the faces of the eight hundred people.

He tried to get closer, but they moved away.

He was so sad he couldn’t bear it.

He didn’t want to let go, but the fact that he was gradually letting go was piercing.

And more than anyone, that child, Mariet.

“…Mariet, Mariet……!”

Denver’s daughter, my goddaughter.

A mumble lingering in his mouth.

The child I lost once due to my own stupid mistake.

Right before my eyes, holding her hand, and yet again!

“…This can’t be… no…….”

He saw Mariet.

‘Mister Obro.’

The girl, growing distant beyond the black waves, shook her head at Obro with a sad face. Her silently moving lips conveyed her will to him.

‘It’s okay now. You don’t have to try so hard anymore. Just you coming to save us is more than enough. Please don’t suffer because of us. Now…….’

Her words struck his ears with strange clarity.

Even though he shouldn’t have been able to hear them, blocked by the black waves.

‘……Forget about us and be at peace.’

“…I can’t do that, Mariet, I can’t…….”

Am I losing her again, again?

Am I making that young child say such things?

“…Not twice…….”

What kind of pain must a child of just nineteen have gone through to say such things?

How much must it have hurt?

How lonely and sad must she have been?

And you, Obro Denoebang, having just drunk yourself stupid during that time, have you still not come to your senses?

“……Not twice, no-!!!!”

***

“—I said not twice—!!!”

A shout tore through the darkness.

A demonic scream ripped the Underworld apart.

Obro Denoebang ran with his dirty beard.

He threw himself in with a desperate cry. He leaped boldly as if there were no black waves and rushed at the ‘Black Light of the Abyss’.

[How cute.]

“…Ugh, ughh……!”

[Bark some more. Your screams are delightful to my ears…….]

But he had no strength.

He could only cry out.

Even if he shot out streaks of demonic light from his eyes, there was no way to snatch the people from the Ancient God’s grasp.

Amidst the black haze, Obro Denoebang suddenly recalled his nickname.

‘…What kind of White Lord are you! How can a pathetic fool like you be the White Lord…!!!’

He felt disgusted by the name White Lord.

What good was a purity that couldn’t even become a handful of light?

What was pure about being crushed by darkness like this?

No, purity itself was not at fault.

It was simply his inadequacy.

He called himself pure, but he was not pure.

Then if not pure, what was he?

Obro Denoebang looked at his own hands.

The strong, dirty hands were empty.

Something that should be there was missing.

Then what should be there?

What was it that ought to be in his hands, really?

And he realized.

He needed a sword.

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