Chapter 132 (2/2)

Shu-sususu-

The dark magical power soon enveloped the entirety of the arena Su-hyeun and Thomas were fighting in. The former stopped his rapid movements and scanned his vicinity.

<< Isn’t this… that skill? >>

His eyes widened in surprise. He had no idea that he’d stumble into this very skill in this place.

[Black Forest]

Ranked as one of the very best among all the spatial-type skills out there.

No, not just among the spatial-types. It easily qualified as one of the top ten skills ever to exist in the world, even after including all the skills yet to appear in the future. That’s how high-grade the skill was.

“….So, it was this bastard?”

Thomas Mathiras.

Su-hyeun had only heard that name in passing a couple of times, but, other than what he’d seen in the competition, he didn’t know anything about him. His first and last public appearance was during the Ranking Wars.

His whereabouts afterward were vague, to say the least. There wasn’t even any news about his death either, so people often wondered if he had literally vanished into thin air.

But such a man had activated the skill, ‘Black Forest’.

-Please don’t hit me, don’t hurt me…

Thomas’s voice came from somewhere in the air. It was filled with palpable fear. But, it didn’t seem to be directed at Su-hyeun, somehow.

<< What’s wrong with this guy? >>

Thomas definitely made his way onto Su-hyeun’s blacklist just by being able to use the ‘Black Forest’. There would be a news story a few years in the future—this skill got invoked in the middle of a city and caused the deaths of thousands in the process.

<< It’s a relief that I got to learn early who the culprit is, but… >>

Su-hyeun raised his sword, then swung it down on the floor, just like that.

CLUNG-!

The blade simply bounced away.

A sword collided against another sword. And his opponent’s weapon just so happened to be exactly the same as his.

<< Reflect? No, did he fold the space, instead? >>

Su-hyeun wasn’t sure about the specific effects of the Black Forest. He only knew that thousands of people would get swept up in the skill and lose their lives. As such, he didn’t know of a way to cancel or invalidate this skill.

-My dear Sung-in.

A voice suddenly came to him. A gentle voice that he had forgotten about until now. The name being called out was different, too.

The current him wasn’t Sung-in, but Su-hyeun.

-S-Sung-in… Please, please save me, your mother.

-There was no one beside you, but… Why did you….

-Why did you do that! Why?! If only you were here, my dad would still be alive!

-Hero? Don’t make me laugh. You’re just pretending to be one!

The voices changed with every passing second.

Su-hyeun remembered all those voices. The ‘voices’ buried deep within his memories were leaking outside of him.

It was like a nightmare.

Rumble-

Suddenly, the image of a burning city appeared before his eyes. But it changed in an instant. Now, it showed the pitch-black skies and the destroyed cityscape.

The voices from his past stopped plaguing him. Su-hyeun had been living on, forgetting about the life of Sung-in.

<< Attacking one’s trauma, is that it? >>

No matter how bright your personality was, the past memories you didn’t want to remember were bound to exist. People without a reverse scale didn’t exist. No, the difference between them simply had to do with how much that reverse scale could painfully affect you.

The ‘Black Forest’ attacked that very reverse scale. In other words, it forcibly dragged out the past the targets didn’t want to remember and crushed their minds in the process.

The scene currently laid out before Su-hyeun’s eyes was the most horrifying image he had ever seen in his life. The sight of a devastated, ruined world, and the voices of people crying out the words of resentment that squarely blamed him.

-I’m sorry.

A man knelt in front of Su-hyeun.

It was none other than his past self, Sung-in.

-I’m truly… sorry.

Su-hyeun remembered himself from back then. He couldn’t forget even if he wanted to.

Back then, he had to choose between two outbreaks occurring in Tokyo and London. Regardless of which one he chose, it’d be too late to help the other one.

In the end, he chose to save the one nearer to him, Tokyo. And that’s how countless people ended up dying in London.

<< Yeah, they really resented me back then. >>

Many people died because of me—that’s how he blamed himself.

My family’s dead because of you, they said.

He was subjected to curses and denunciation several hundred times the level of resentment he had been receiving all his life until that point. That caused his previous feather-light body to suddenly feel heavy like a ton of bricks. For a while, back then, he couldn’t eat anything and even forgot how to smile.

It was the worst memory Su-hyeun possessed.

Unfortunately…

“Sorry about this, but…” Su-hyeun wasn’t even remotely moved by the illusion before his eyes created by his old trauma. “I’ve reflected on it for so long that I can’t even feel anything particular about it anymore.”

Ever since this life began, Su-hyeun had been moving tirelessly to change the future he knew. And, in the process, he couldn’t help but retread his past.

If he was scared of the approaching future and tried to hide, then he wouldn’t even have thought of changing it in the first place.

He chose to confront the future since he had already faced it and knew it couldn’t be avoided.

And that’s how he got over it. The painful past was now nothing more than that—the past.

Shu-rururu-

The illusions disappeared from his eyes. It seemed that something or, rather, someone had realized Su-hyeun couldn’t be shaken by these things. Although he didn’t know whether Thomas or something else had made this admittedly rational choice, it was still a logical one nevertheless.

Rumble, tumble-

But that didn’t seem to be the end just yet. The black space filling up the battle arena began to quiver and wiggle around. He couldn’t be sure what else was in store for him, but he definitely wasn’t planning to sit back and let it happen.

<< Since I don’t know how to invalidate or cancel this skill…. >>

He couldn’t forget, the ‘Black Forest’ was a top-tier grade skill. Su-hyeun didn’t possess a higher-grade skill that could potentially overcome it.

<< The best thing to do is to cut down the space itself. Does that mean I have to resort to a somewhat unsophisticated method? >>

Rumble, ruuumble-

Flames lit up all around Su-hyeun. Pure blue flames illuminated his surroundings, their awakening causing the Black Forest to wriggle slightly and display hints of rejection.

It wasn’t enough, though.

Rumble-

The color of the divine Flame changed from blue to dark navy blue next.

RUUUMBLE-!

His entire body was soon wrapped up in divine Flame.

Light, to fight against the darkness.

<< In the end, there’s a limit to the total amount and density of the magical energy that can be contained by a single skill. >>

This couldn’t even be called a proper cancellation method. No, he was simply ‘experimenting’ on where the limits of the Black Forest currently trapping him lay, that’s all.

“Fine, then. Let’s have it.”

RUUUMBLE-!

The divine Flames sticking close to Su-hyeun gradually grew bigger and wider. The navy-blue colored flames were now forcing the darkness back.

The world of darkness.

This spatial-type skill was seen as one of the top ten best skills available, even after including the skills that would appear in the future.

He didn’t know how to counteract it. It wasn’t even known in the first place. But that didn’t matter.

The absolute difference in power would simply ignore everything, after all.