Chapter 397 (1/2)
Act 10
Samsara is a Buddhist concept where a human repeats the cycle of death and rebirth through six different “worlds.”
Rather than calling it one’s ability, it was far closer to being a religious concept. Su-hyeun didn’t know much about it, but he still got deeply puzzled by the fact that his supposed unique ability was related somehow to a Buddhist concept.
And at least in this very moment, he was deeply taken aback after realizing what his unique ability was capable of doing.
“It distorts the chain of Samsara.”
The name of one’s unique ability was not set. The system was actually responsible for coming up with a suitable name, and the assigned name would be based on the language, knowledge, and terms that Su-hyeun was familiar with.
Samsara was basically the link that connected death and rebirth, and Su-hyeun’s ability—his unique ability of “Samsara”—distorted that very link and returned him to the past.
[Samsara – Heavenly Ways of Reincarnation]
<ul>
The authority of Samsara, which allows one to go against one’s fate, can defy death and is also capable of distorting the chain of time itself. It can be used only once.
You can return to the period you wish.
Number of uses left: 0
Has already been used.
</ul>
The first authority of the Six Paths, the Heavenly Ways of Reincarnation, was the ability that could not only return him to the period he wished for but also even defy death itself.
Su-hyeun became stupefied by that explanation. Never before in his whole life did he imagine that there would be such an OTT cheat ability like this one, and he would be the one to possess it.
On top of that, to think that he had already used that ability up…
“Is this the reason why I was able to return to the past?”
Regressing to the past—such a thing should normally be impossible to pull off.
No matter how transcendental the abilities of the awakeners were, interfering with the flow of time to return to the past and messing with the future could not be that easy to pull off.
But now, he was told that such an ability was actually his, to begin with.
“The Six Paths, is it…?”
Even though this was supposed to be his own ability, it kind of felt like a tale from a distant galaxy or some such.
“The authority for one-time use only…and there are six of them as its name suggests.’
And this “Heavenly Ways of Reincarnation” had been unlocked just before Su-hyeun’s death.
He didn’t want to die. No, he wanted to go back instead.
He wanted to go back to the time when the world hadn’t been destroyed yet. He wanted to go back and start everything anew.
That desire of his activated the Heavenly Ways of Reincarnation.
“But…something is still off.”
He was suddenly overcome with an unexplainable discomfort.
Fine, let’s say that things now made some sense at least up to this point.
But why…?
“Why not my previous body and this current one instead?”
Since he was going back in time, it would have been fine to simply regress to his old self, but he regressed to the past of this person named Su-hyeun. At the same time, the existence of Kim Sung-in was wiped out from this world.
This was what he found so strange.
“Just what on earth is—?”
Just as his thoughts reached this point, his point of view suddenly shifted.
This new POV couldn’t have been Su-hyeun’s. He seemed to be somewhere far, far away—an unknown space.
He had no way of knowing where he was exactly, but it was definitely not Earth.
It even seemed different from outer space. Never mind the stars, there was no trace of the sun, either.
Pitch-black with nothing in it—it was that kind of place.
Although there was no light, Su-hyeun’s eyes spotted a single silhouette nevertheless.
“Fafnir?”
Why was he seeing that creature?
Su-hyeun had no memories of seeing a scene like this before. If everything he saw up until this point was based on his own past memories that happened before the activation of the Heavenly Ways of Reincarnation, then yes, he’d be convinced by that explanation. But this scene of Fafnir all alone, floating around somewhere? Su-hyeun couldn’t recognize it at all.
“Why am I seeing the past of this bastard—?” Su-hyeun began wondering, only for his brain to come to a standstill.
“No, it can’t be.”
<hr />
Around one month had passed by since Su-hyeun’s disappearance. He went away while saying he would only take a short while, but now…
Lee Ju-ho was currently sitting side by side with Hak-joon, worriedly fidgeting with his smartphone.
“That punk, he still hasn’t come back yet, I suppose,” Lee Ju-ho muttered.
He came to work early in the morning and waited in the Jongno Tower, but unsurprisingly, there hadn’t been any reply from Su-hyeun yet.
Could something have happened to him?
Hak-joon had come from an early dawn raid of a dungeon found in the countryside. While sitting next to Lee Ju-ho, he asked with worry showing on his face, “What did he say before leaving?”
“He was like, I’ll be going somewhere for a bit, along with this ‘younger brother’ of mine.”
“Wait, ‘younger brother’?”
“Yeah. That guy was a bit peculiar…But also really strong—strong enough to raid an indigo-colored dungeon all by himself, no less,” Lee Ju-ho said as he turned to look at Hak-joon. “At the very least, he should be around your level.”
Hak-joon, who hadn’t returned from the tower in a long while, had improved by a remarkable level in terms of strength, so much so that he was now strong enough to solo raid an indigo-colored dungeon, as soon as returning from the tower, too. Lee Ju-ho knew that the younger man had the talent for it, but he still didn’t expect the latter to develop this quickly.
“Maybe Su-hyeun has something important to do with that person?”
“I can’t tell. In any case, that weird fella didn’t come across as a normal awakener, that’s for sure. Even I’m wondering who he could be.”
“I’m sure nothing has happened to Su-hyeun. We shouldn’t worry about him.”
“Even though you said that, why do you look more worried than me?”
“Because I haven’t seen him in a long while, you know?”
Unlike Lee Ju-ho who stopped climbing the tower, Thomas and Hak-joon, as well as Su-hyeun, didn’t have a lot of opportunities to meet up with each other.
Except for a few days, all of them devoted most of the months trying to climb the tower, so they simply didn’t have many chances to run into one another on the outside.
“Well, it’s not like this matter can be solved by us worrying away, anyway. Since Su-hyeun said something before leaving, it shouldn’t be something major. Okay, let’s not mind that. Can you tell me more about the next request instead?”
“Why don’t you take a short break before going, though?”
“But didn’t you say it’s urgent?”
Lee Ju-ho merely groaned when Hak-joon asked that. Then, he took out a tablet, switched the screen on, and then handed it over to Hak-joon.
“The request this time came from Australia. The explanations are on the tablet, so study them in detail,” he said.
“When will I be heading out?” the younger man asked.