To capture me—one person—thirteen killing puppets had sharpened their swords for a month. The Constellation Murderer, the definition of fear among the Constellations, saw me as someone stronger than usual and had made preparations to hunt me down.
“I give up the memories of the past thirty days.”
This was the result.
"Guh, ugh... Keough...!”
I coughed up blood. This was the cost of using my aura to protect my fox god and Hwia. They were safe, but the aura that had once flowed through my veins was exhausted, and that included the aura in my heart.
God, I feel like I’m dying.
I fell to my knees. Blood dripped down from my mouth.
Actually, I should die. I’ll die and go back a day. I now know what his strategy is, so I can prevent it. I have to die. It’s the only way to survive.
Even as hellish pain seemingly squeezed my brain, I searched for the one path to survival—no, to death.
I don’t have any aura left to block the next strike anyway. I’m not going to block it. Let it hit me! I’m going to die!
I vomited a mass of blood and waited for the sixth blow to end me. I never imagined that a Hunter of the Constellation Murderer’s skill would see himself as weaker than me and launch a full-scale ambush. However, the ambush would only work this time. This time, I was unprepared. Next time, I was going to…
I kept on coughing and gasping, but for some reason…
“What… are you doing…?”
… the next blow did not come.
“Kill… me…”
I looked up with difficulty. Nine pairs of blue eyes surrounded me, looking down from all sides.
“I won’t kill you.”
“What?” I asked back in disbelief.
“I won’t kill you, Scream-Gathering Sky.”
Five of the nine killing puppets approached. Right arm, left arm, right leg, and left leg—one by one, my limbs were seized. Even the acupoint at my nape was pressed and shut.
The puppets sealed all my movements.
“I’ve been investigating you quite a lot.”
With my acupoints pressed, I could barely move my mouth, let alone breathe. In fact, the puppets shut down my acupoints just enough to let me breathe.
“Many Constellations took an interest in you, so I searched for them one by one to learn what they knew about you. Only after destroying the ninth Constellation did I have an idea of what you were like.”
I realized it now. Not only did he mobilize all his thirteen bodies to capture me, but he also slaughtered nine Constellations just to gather data. This crazy bastard.
All I could do was gasp.
“You are strong and also grew strong in a limited timeframe. That could mean you have immense talent, but I have a more reasonable guess. It’s just that you have unlimited time.”
Freaking hell. I remembered the talk I had with the Constellation Murderer before the fight began.
“You and I have definitely met before and shared the same time, but you won’t find any record of me in your diary.”
“I see. You have an ability related to time.”
At the time, the Constellation Murderer reacted calmly. I hadn’t given much thought to it, assuming it was just his calm nature. Now that I thought about it, it looked like he had already expected for me to have an ability related to time even before the fight, hence the weak reaction.
“Of course, I couldn’t tell how you manipulated time. There are simply too many possibilities, but whatever the answer is, it’s clear that time is your resource and strength.”
In fact, the Constellation Murderer was a hunter by nature. He only fought after he knew his foe—what they were like, their strengths, their weak points. The Constellation Murderer had also made similar remarks while hunting monsters on the fiftieth floor when I met him for the first time. That felt like a lifetime ago.
“To kill a Half-Split Death, you have to split it exactly in half, as the name suggests.”
“The true nature of a Screamer lies in its screams, so you have to smother them with something louder than that to kill it.”
He was a strategist who studied every weak point of his enemies. That was the nature of the Constellation Murderer. This time, he had studied every part of me before coming to hunt me.
“Therefore, I won’t kill you, Scream-Gathering Sky. I’ll merely seal time from you.”
“Ho… w…?”
“It’s simple. I’ll sever this space and time from the outside universe. After that, I’ll trap you in ice and leave you here, but this is no normal ice. This ice will never melt. You’ll be trapped in ice and time. I’ll make sure of it.”
Fuck.
“You say it… so calmly… but you’re… basically saying… you’re going to torture another human being… forever…!”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.” The Constellation Murderer tilted his head and drew a dagger. “You’re not human.”
Stab!
A cold feeling cut through my chest and pierced my heart.
[Replica: Frost-Dyed Claw has begun to seal you away.]
The dagger that the Constellation Murderer plunged into my heart was made from ice. Having wandered worlds for a very long time, he’d probably found many odd items. This ice dagger seemed to be part of his collection. The moment the blade pierced my chest, it affected me strongly.
[Warning: After the sealing is done, only your consciousness will remain awake.]
[The eighty-first floor stage will be sealed soon.]
[Remaining time: 61 seconds.]
Crackle. Crack, crackle.
Ice began to form where the dagger pierced me. It first took over my chest, then my collarbone and shoulder. Like a blooming blue flower, ice spread across my body.
“Even if you send a Constellation message to your allies to request help, it’s already too late now,” he warned.
My senses were fading.
“Arriving here within sixty seconds to save you is impossible. After one minute, this floor will be isolated. I will make it so.”
As my senses faded, I knew that I had felt this sharp coldness before.
“Wi… nter…”
“What are you saying?” he asked.
“From murim… The seal you used… on the Yellow Dragon of the Great Lake. Is this it?”
The Constellation Murderer tilted his head. “Yes, I’m surprised you know that much. I found this item while searching for a way to defeat you. I used many items to seal the Yellow Dragon of the Great Lake, and the records show that this dagger is one of them.”
How could I forget this chilling sensation? This snowy ice was freezing Teacher’s realm forever. The Yellow Dragon of the Great Lake was the Constellation that ruled Teacher’s world. With Sympathy—the Goddess of Protection’s sister sword—piercing his heart, the dragon had been doomed to never truly die, only to decay forever. It was the Constellation Murderer’s doing.
I learned now that when the Constellation Murderer had sealed the dragon, he didn’t just use Sympathy but also the dagger piercing my heart. The winter that killed Teacher’s world was now trying to kill me.