Chapter 809: Dio Valsesis (3)
Even though it was the middle of the day, the area around the golden dragon felt dark as night. Like when you looked straight into a blinding light and every ordinary glow around it seemed to blacken and fade. Amid countless glittering sparks, long wings shifted. They filled with wind and beat wide.
“…Noah!”
As if in answer, the dragon bared his teeth. With a single flap of his wings, he shot up to a dizzying height, then came plunging down toward the World Tree like an arrow loosed with a short, ferocious roar. Just before impact, a golden barrier spread out in front of Noah.
Boom!
The massive tree shook violently. The earth where its roots were planted split with a groan and sank more than ten meters. Its branches lashed out like whips, but the golden dragon slipped away as swiftly as a hawk. Each sharp beat of his wings sent him changing direction freely, like a beam of light bending through glass, and in the blink of an eye, he soared back into the sky.
It was different from before, when he had learned to fly from Blue but still hadn’t been able to fully erase the habits of a human born to walk on two feet. Now he cut through the wind as naturally as if he had been born with wings.
The sight closed up my throat. Even with my Willpower stat having shot up thanks to Final Recompense, I couldn’t fully suppress the grief that swelled up from inside me, forcing its way out.
“Noah!”
Liette. Liette had—
After breaking out of that subspace like this, Noah must already know too. I drew in a deep breath. I had to tell him. I had to tell Noah what Liette had thought and felt.
The golden dragon turned in a wide circle. His size diminished, and he shifted into a winged human. Between the pair of wings, hair grown long swayed in the air.
Time had… at least two or three years must have passed for him. His appearance didn’t seem to have changed aside from his hair. But in his movements, in his expression, I could feel the years that had made him more mature.
Noah folded his wings. He dropped straight down, then just before touching the ground, gave a light flap and landed as gently as a falling feather.
Right in front of me.
“How long has it been?”
His voice carried a low dragon growl beneath it. It was a voice holding back a warning, the sound made right before sinking teeth into an enemy.
I realized what he meant and answered quickly.
“Not even an hour. Probably not even thirty minutes!”
At most, it had been around ten minutes since Liette died. The long, long memories had poured into me all at once, dulling my sense of time, but Yuhyun’s My Kid Is The Best skill still hadn’t ended.
At the same time, I remembered what the Puppeteer and Liette had said.
‘They said dying doesn’t mean that existence disappears right away.’
They had said the root of a being remained, that it could be reincarnated, and that if not much time had passed since death, reviving them wasn’t all that difficult. Even Byeol had preserved her magic stone and been born again with some of her past memories intact.
“Noah! There’s a way to save Liette, isn’t there?”
If he was asking how much time had passed, then maybe.
My heart pounded with hope. The coolly settled light gray of Noah’s eyes softened slightly.
“Sister is a primordial origin, so as long as a day hasn’t passed.”
“There’s still plenty of time! But how—”
“Then we’ll have to deal with that first.”
Noah cut me off and turned around. Even if bringing the dead back to life was possible as long as the timing was right, that was from a Transcendent’s point of view. Surely it wasn’t some method that would put Noah in danger.
“Noah, Liette kept thinking about you. You know she was trying to protect you until the end, right?”
“Yes, I know.”
Noah gave a short nod, then glanced back at me once more.
“I can feel Sister’s presence from you right now.”
…
Final Recompense.
While I hesitated, Noah spoke.
“Don’t worry. I won’t say anything. But you should be careful in front of Hunter Han Yuhyun.”
Liette had died, and I now carried her power. He probably didn’t know the keyword, but he seemed to have roughly guessed the kind of skill I had.
“I can’t explain the details of my skill, but I received Liette’s abilities and some of her memories. Her stats came over at double effect. The memories are mostly things connected to me, and not all of them, just some, but first of all, I’m sorry! It’s like I saw them without permission…”
“Sister won’t care.”
Well, Liette probably wouldn’t, but still.
Compared to when it had happened with Yuhyun, the amount was much smaller. But I had known Liette for more than half a year, so aside from Diarma, Dio Valsesis, and her worries about her relationship with Noah, quite a few memories had still flowed into me.
And among them were…
“There were some, uh, personal things too…”
Even though this really wasn’t the time for it, the back of my neck grew a little hot. Liette had been kind of, well, like that with me from the moment we first met. So of course she could have thoughts like that, and… but why was Seong Hyunjae involved? The three of us? What the hell was that supposed to be?
Forget it. Just forget it.
Meanwhile, the World Tree recovered its broken roots and lifted itself upright. Noah looked up at it coldly.
Thung! Thuung!
The World Tree’s branches came flying. Noah’s barrier blocked the attacks. Small cracks appeared in the golden shield, but it did not break. Just how high was that skill’s rank?
“I am still a healer and support type.”
His voice was calm, as though that were the most natural thing in the world. I couldn’t feel even the slightest trace of anxiety about his own abilities. Orbs of light rose around Noah. I felt my stats climb, and the wounds covering my body began to heal. Golden wings spread wide again.
I used the Teacher skill on Noah.
“We have to tie its feet down first! If we leave it alone, it’ll attack the others before us!”
Noah grabbed me and flew upward. Vines chased after us, but they couldn’t catch him. To make it easier for Noah to fly, I transformed into a Delroux cub. With a sharp spin, we slipped between the World Tree’s roots.
– Noah and Liette are definitely different. Just like Yuhyun and me.
Liette had thought of our relationship as brothers and agonized over it. From the outside, we probably hadn’t looked like we had any real problems.
– If they stayed together, they would’ve kept clashing with each other.
Not only when they were young, but even recently. I had only seen an extremely small portion of Noah and Liette’s three months together. During the ninety days I hadn’t seen, they must have collided many times too. Without those clashes, they could never have become so accustomed to each other.
“I was afraid of Sister, and I hated her.”
Noah tossed me toward a root and twisted his body in a half turn. A barrier spread, deflecting the attack coming down from above. At the same time, I shifted into dragonkin form and swung my sword at the root. The blade of Severance, sharpened further by Noah’s buff, cut deep into the tree root.
Tap. As the recoil threw me back, Noah snatched me up again.
“I couldn’t understand it. Why she did those things to me.”
‘I don’t understand Noah.’
Liette’s voice rose in my mind. Fierce wind brushed my cheek.
“But even so, Sister was…”
Drrrrrk—
The blade, carrying Noah’s speed as well, scraped long gouges into the roots one after another.
“She was the strongest and most incredible person in my world. Always.”
I thought of Yuhyun.
Before the regression, I had always looked up at my brother. Like staring at the top of a tower so high I could never reach it.
“That was why it was even harder. If she had been a stranger, it would have been fine. If only.”
“If only Sister had…”
Yuhyun, me.
“Never loved me.”
If I hadn’t had those memories of him smiling beside me.
If not for that, then maybe we would have let go before holding on for so long. Maybe we would have stopped struggling and kept to a reasonable distance.
But young Yuhyun had looked at me with affection in his eyes.
And Liette must have always looked at Noah with eyes brighter than anything.
“I wanted to catch up to Sister. I didn’t want to follow Sister.”
A golden trail climbed along the tree trunk. Noah’s magic mixed into the poison that I, that Liette, was pouring out. It slowed the recovery of the roots we had cut away.
“Because no matter how hard I tried, I could never reach her.”
“We’re different.”
I could not do as Yuhyun wanted and hold only my brother in my arms while letting the flames close around us. Noah, too, could not become the unwavering, solid combat type Liette wanted him to be. He hated standing against his sister, was hurt by her rough words, compared his talent to others, worried, wandered, and lost his way.
And because of that, Noah walked a different path from Liette.
Liette was the same.
“The roots on the other side are growing back!”
Noah shouted. The poison couldn’t completely stop the regeneration. We had cut away nearly half of the roots, but any more than that would be difficult.
“Plant types are often resistant to poison! And World Tree species stand at the very top, so of course the effect is weak. In that case…”
We needed fire, its natural counter.
At that moment, through the Teacher skill, I sensed movement approaching our side.
“Noah, let’s pull back!”
I shouted as I struck away a thick root. Noah immediately grabbed me and made a sharp turn. As we escaped through the barrage of branches, I felt a familiar presence in front of us.
“Yuhyun!”
Blue willow leaves carrying flame scattered through the air. My brother came gliding down over them.
“Hyung…! That presence.”
“It’s Liette. It can’t overlap, and from the beginning, you… can’t. So don’t even think about doing anything stupid.”
“Because I’m already dead.”
Yuhyun quickly understood my condition as well. The “cannot overlap” in the skill description was a lie, but it would be better to tell Yuhyun this. Yerim still hadn’t woken up. It seemed he had left Hwang Rim where Hyunah was as well.
“Yuhyun, can you stop the World Tree from regenerating?”
“If I focus only on the poison in Black Blood Flame, probably. Even if it’s poison, it originates from fire, so it’s strong against plant types too.”
“Good. Get ready. You don’t have to force yourself to hold out. It’s fine if you widen the distance.”
“Dodging isn’t difficult.”
Blood gathered at Yuhyun’s fingertips. A blacker–than–black flame rose.
I immediately looked back at Noah.
“Let’s go up.”
As high as possible.
Noah transformed into a dragon. He grasped me and spread his wings. Yuhyun’s figure grew distant in an instant.
“Sister was always standing in front of me.”
The dragon’s head pointed straight toward the sky. Clouds caught on his golden wings and scattered.
“She was a wall I couldn’t cross. She blocked me. She stood in front of every path I had and stirred everything up however she pleased. Because Sister didn’t know any other way to be with me.”
They had been things he hated, feared, and resented.
But the Noah of now had come to know more about Liette than before. Just as I had taken a long time to try to understand Yuhyun.
Far below us, the gigantic World Tree looked small. Feathered wings beat the air. We changed direction, heading downward.
“But at the end, Sister put me in front.”
Noah smiled.
“For three months, she tried to stand beside me. And on the last day, she tried to stand behind me.”
I transformed into a dragon. Mixing in Delroux’s power, I changed into a pitch–black dragon. With the power of Severance held throughout my entire body, I became a massive blade.
“She was selfish until the very end.”
I fell.
“But I was happy.”
Noah’s eyes filled completely with the sight of the black dragon plunging toward the World Tree. The golden dragon’s magic protected me and pushed my falling speed even higher.
I bared my fangs. The World Tree layered its branches over and over, creating a defensive wall.
I drilled straight into its center.
S—
Lice—
There was no sound of collision.
I simply cut.
Dozens of branches split in two, and beneath them, the trunk tore open in a long vertical line. At the same moment, flames leapt in. Black fire dug into the cross section of the split trunk.
Just before I crashed into the ground, I transformed into a Delroux cub. Yuhyun’s hand caught me.
– Grrrrrrr!
The World Tree, nearly half of its trunk split open, let out a pained sound. Noah landed in front of us.
“I sent Sister away like that, but I intended to return.”
Noah’s eyes were strong and steady. By his own will, he had stood against Liette and sent her outside.
But it had not been a sacrifice.
It had not been surrender.
Noah, in the moment he became able to fully acknowledge himself, would never have done that.
“Even if it took a long time. That was why I asked the twin dragons to make time flow even faster. I was trying to build the strength to undo the curse.”
Noah said that originally, it would have taken decades in real time. His gaze sank for a brief instant.
“…Though I ended up returning far too soon.”
Noah glared fiercely at the World Tree. Black flames burned the cut surface, blocking regeneration. But it still had not fallen completely.
I returned to human form, lifted my sword, and approached the split trunk. Inside the gap, I saw something like a large core wrapped in even tougher layers. Was the magic stone inside that?
Plants didn’t die easily in the first place. Not only a single branch—even a single leaf could sometimes put down roots.
Tap. I jumped into the split branch. Black Blood Flame surged around me, but it did not burn me. It only felt warm.
I gripped the sword in both hands and struck the round core with all my strength.
Kaaang!
Even though I had filled the blow with the power of Severance, all it left was a scratch a few centimeters deep. Well, of course. It had survived that attack just now too.
“I wounded it earlier, so it should weaken more as time passes!”
Noah said.
But I didn’t know how long Yuhyun’s fire would hold out. I hammered the core again. A little deeper. Deeper still. Could we make it in time? If the trunk regenerated again, we would be right back where we started.
I struck it with all my strength again and again.
Craaaack.
At last, the outer shell barely split.
Fwoosh—
Suddenly, my vision went black.
What is this…
‘…Me?’
I, my body, had used a skill on its own.
Diarma’s power, the one that burrowed into another person’s consciousness.
Was it because I had taken the abilities of Liette, a fellow Venom and Curse Dragonkin? I slipped into someone’s consciousness even more easily than before.
Was this the World Tree’s consciousness?
I blinked.
Someone stood in front of me.
“Who are you, hyung?”
It was a young child with black hair and similarly black, round eyes.
It wasn’t Yuhyun.
Who was he?
“Uh, I’m Han Yujin. Who are you?”
“I’m Song Taewon.”
Song Taewon said—
What?
–TL Notes–
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