Chapter 98
Bubble, bubble. Sizzle.
The deeper he sank, the hotter the pain became, but it meant nothing to him now.
The process of his flesh burning away and reforming, the pain that felt so vivid each time his body was restored.
All the repeating cycles in this seemingly endless hell.
The flames that flickered on and off at regular intervals.
– ‘Kyaaaaaak! No! I don’t want to!’
It was all far better than that moment of hell he heard whenever the world went dark.
– ‘What is all this blood!? You vicious bitch, did you bite your tongue?’
That moment, when she was dying.
And now, as he repeated life and death countless times within the magma.
– ‘You fucking bitch! Vicious bitch! Kehehehek, you can’t bite it now, can you?’
– ‘Dammit, why is this bitch getting so cold? I’d better finish this quickly.’
Even when he covered his ears and tried to cloud his mind, those disgusting voices and Elina’s screams echoed vividly, making his whole body twitch on its own.
Twitch.
Jang Bokdong’s fingers, and No Death’s fingers, twitched.
“It’s over.”
– ‘It’s over.’
And at the moment the voices of the dark No Death and Gani Habah overlapped.
Jang Bokdong’s brows, and No Death’s brows, twitched.
At that instant, every other voice faded, and one voice came through with perfect clarity.
‘Jang Bokdong.’
And the moment he heard that voice, the brows soaked in blood and the brows burned beyond recognition moved in unison.
He knew it the instant he heard it.
Every year, every month, every day, every hour, every minute. Every second.
‘Jang Bokdong.’
The voice that had once become a scream and tormented him had now returned as a beautiful voice full of longing.
He wondered if he had finally gone mad.
Whenever his eyes closed and darkness fell, he would hear the screams.
The screams he never wanted to hear would arrive like uninvited guests, shaking No Death’s heart every time.
Whenever that happened, he would beg someone unseen.
‘Not the screams! Her beautiful voice! Let me hear that voice!’
‘Jang Bokdong.’
Did such a being truly exist?
Now that everything was coming to an end, it seemed that whoever he had always been pleading to had finally granted his wish.
What a shallow, mischievous, unknowable being.
Smirk.
His burnt lips curled faintly.
‘Yes, this is the voice. The voice of the Elina I loved sounded exactly like this.’
‘Did you miss me?’
‘I missed you. There was never a moment I didn’t miss you.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘What are you sorry for? This was what I wanted, what I chose.’
It was a moment when Elina’s screams could no longer be heard.
The day hell began.
Wondering what [System’s Blessing] even was, Gani Habah had shouted to the heavens in a mad, laughing voice, telling it to hurry and come to him.
Perhaps it was finally time to leave this world, because even that voice was slowly beginning to fade away.
[Ting.]
[A class change is available.]
[Class Change Conditions]
[- The true love of ‘one with the System’s Blessing.’]
[- The death of ‘one with the System’s Blessing.’]
[- The choice of ‘one with the System’s Blessing.’]
[Having met all of the above conditions, you may change to the Hidden Class ‘Revenant.’]
[Upon changing to the Hidden Class ‘Revenant,’ you will become immune to the death state and can be resurrected.]
[Would you like to change your class? [Yes / No]]
(T/N: The conditions are harsh. Damn. You get to be immortal but you will see your loved one die…)
A System message appeared in Jang Bokdong’s world, which was on the verge of shattering and disappearing.
What use was that now, when he was already dying?
He had failed to protect Elina, had witnessed her death, and had even seen the vile things done to her. How could he possibly go on living?
‘No.’
Unable to move even a finger, Jang Bokdong answered ‘no’ in his mind without the slightest hesitation.
[Changing class to Hidden Class ‘Revenant.’]
‘I said no! I’m not changing my class!’
But for some reason, the System did not follow Jang Bokdong’s choice.
He denied it and rejected this absurd situation so fiercely that his dying body twitched.
Even as he shouted and screamed, the forced class change eventually…
Whoooosh!
[[Resurrection] is complete.]
Regardless of Jang Bokdong’s will, it resurrected him into a perfect body.
“Ah… Aaaaaah!!!”
His voice returned, and all his senses came vividly back to life.
He no longer felt the stabbing pain in his side, and even the creaking aches left over from his long years as a mercenary abroad had returned to their original state.
Everything had been restored to its peak condition, except for one thing…
“I said I wouldn’t do it! I said I wouldn’t change my class! Why the hell… why!!!”
His broken, shattered mind and soul had not been restored.
He pounded the desert sand and screamed at the cruel moonlit night sky, thick with the smell of blood.
He poured out all his anger and resentment, but his shattered soul did not mend in the slightest.
Bang!
Thud!
A gunshot rang out, and excruciating pain seized his chest.
Forced to stop his frantic struggle, Jang Bokdong looked down at his chest.
He could feel the front of his shirt slowly soaking with blood and his heartbeat gradually losing its strength.
He raised his head and looked in the direction of the gunshot.
Shudder, shudder, shudder.
The terror of Gani Habah and the Qudus Army sniper was reflected in his empty eyes.
Thump.
His vision blurred, and with a sudden snapping sensation, Jang Bokdong’s body fell backward.
But…
“H-Hiiik!”
“Wh-what is that…”
The life that soon began again showed Gani Habah and the Qudus Army sniper an even greater horror.
Jang Bokdong’s empty eyes slowly lowered.
Only then did he see someone collapsed behind them.
“Ah…”
The moment he saw those familiar clothes, still flickering before his eyes, Jang Bokdong unconsciously rose and started toward them.
“Elina…”
“D-don’t come here!”
Bang! Bang, bang! Bang!
The sniper’s bullets stole Jang Bokdong’s balance.
Holes opened here and there across his body, and a bullet lodged in his leg made him collapse.
Even so, Jang Bokdong did not stop moving, his eyes fixed only on Elina’s corpse.
“I said don’t come here!!”
After emptying the rifle, the sniper even pulled out a pistol and kept firing.
But even after using all his ammunition, he couldn’t stop Jang Bokdong.
Six deaths and six resurrections.
At the end of it all, he was finally able to reach the touch he had longed for so desperately.
Elina’s corpse, already dead.
“Elina…”
His tears would not stop.
He buried his face in Elina’s dead body and cried for a long time.
“Is he insane?”
“What do we do?”
“You saw it too. How are we supposed to fight that zombie…? We have to run.”
Then he heard the voices of those disgusting bastards.
“Let’s get out of here. I’ll start the vehicle right away.”
He slowly raised his face from Elina’s body.
He couldn’t understand a single word they were saying, but one thing was clear.
“Stop…”
The reason he had been resurrected…
Was to tear those bastards apart and kill them.
“The reason I was resurrected…”
He closed Elina’s eyes, which had remained open even in death, and shouted,
“Is because Elina!! Asked me to kill you!!”
Fwoooosh.
[The Hidden Class ‘Revenant’ Skill, [Spirit Materialization], is activated.]
The black smoke pouring from his entire body made not only Gani Habah but even the sniper doubt their own eyes.
It was a Skill they had never seen before, never even heard of.
A sinister energy pouring out of a human body as pitch-black smoke.
Just looking at it made their entire bodies tremble like leaves.
Vwoom! Fwoooosh!
The black smoke that rose into the air rode the desert sandstorm and instantly swept past the sniper.
“Keuk!”
Gurgle! Gurgle!
The sniper clutched his throat, blood spraying from it, and coughed up mouthfuls of blood.
He fell to his knees, and his face slammed into the cold sand.
“No! N-no!”
Right in front of the sniper.
The black smoke gathered into one and took the form of Jang Bokdong.
Jang Bokdong, who had become the incarnation of rage and murderous intent.
At that moment, Gani Habah’s eyes widened, and he remembered the words of Sorcerer Katarma, the one who had made the Qudus Army strong.
‘Young Master, you must never step forward. The moment you become greedy, [System’s Blessing] will become misfortune, a calamity.’
‘Nah, I’m not interested at all. I plan to just live like this.’
‘I see… Please, I pray that you do not meet the incarnation…’
Incarnation.
The sight of Jang Bokdong walking forward in billowing black smoke was exactly that.
With every step, Jang Bokdong pressed his killing intent into the sand, and with every footfall, Gani Habah’s heart sank lower.
‘It’s over~ It’s over.’
He remembered the song Katarma used to sing like a habit.
‘It’s all over. The war is over.’
At the time, he thought it was just something she said because she wanted to win.
“Th-that wasn’t it.”
Now he understood it had been meant for the Qudus Army.
More precisely, it was about the end brought by the karmic fire born from Gani Habah’s love and greed.
‘The blessing has become a curse~ A war with no winner will come to an end~’
Tap.
And so Jang Bokdong’s two feet, now those of an incarnation, stopped in front of the resigned, dazed Gani Habah.
Then, with the beautiful moonlight he had once seen together with Elina at his back, Jang Bokdong became darkness and gifted Gani Habah a perfect hell.
“G-Guaaaaaah!! Save me! Save me!!”
Flash!
‘Jang Bokdong.’
As Gani Habah’s scream echoed like something from an old notebook of memories, No Death’s eyes flew open.
All he could see was the inside of the magma, filled with nothing but orange.
And then, the nostalgic voice that had made him recall those memories, as if from an old notebook, spoke to him again.
‘No Death.’
For a moment, No Death’s brow furrowed.
No Death was a nickname he had only gained long after Elina died.
It was a name Elina could never have known, never could have called him by.
‘How…’
‘You can stop suffering now.’
‘What does that…’
‘It seems you’ve spent so long living in hell because of me.’
The more they spoke, the stranger it became.
It felt as though Elina were truly alive.
No, it felt as though she had been watching his life from the side ever since that incident, and slowly, the hair on his body began to stand on end.
He was about to ask what all this meant.
At that very moment.
Whoooosh!
Inside the magma that burned everything away.
He felt a sensation as if someone had grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.
Dragged by an overwhelming force, No Death shot upward, burst out of the magma, and landed squarely on the target point.
“Cough! Cough!”
The pain that had tormented his whole body as his burnt flesh repeatedly reformed vanished.
In the distance, he saw the dark No Death lying comfortably atop the magma.
“Huh!? Wh-what the!”
The dark No Death, visibly startled, scrambled to his feet.
Then, just as the dark No Death, who clearly had no idea what was happening, was about to run toward No Death, who had reached the target point.
Fwoosh!
Black smoke billowed up before No Death’s eyes and tightly wrapped around the dark No Death, holding him in place.
“Wh-what the!!”
The clumped black smoke slowly began to take shape.
And a familiar face appeared.
The one holding the dark No Death in place, preventing him from moving, was none other than Elina.
“You are a curse I created. Now, let my man go.”
“Why are you here…”
The dark No Death, as if he already knew of Elina’s existence, showed a deeply shocked expression.