The voice echoed in my mind. I pushed my aura to the limit and slowed my sense of time. Regardless of how my own time flowed, the voice from the isolated basement floor, cut off from all other floors, echoed with calm detachment.
[Your apostle requests that you join him.]
[Will you descend?]
It was my first time hearing this message, but I didn’t hesitate.
“Yes!” I shouted, letting the nearby attack team members know that it was time to go.
Shadows climbed over my feet. If time had flowed normally, I would have merely perceived them as black light enveloping me. However, with time slowing down around me, I could take a closer look at the shadows. They looked like human hands. The arms rose from my shadow, and their fingers hooked onto my feet. A hand seized my ankle.
Countless black arms crawled on me. Though there were many hands, I could tell each and every one of them. They were the hands and arms formed from those who had killed me—the owners of the traumas I had watched. Among them were Kim Yul’s hands. I reached out and grasped his plea.
[You answered your apostle’s call.]
[Descending.]
Many more hands rose until they covered me. I teleported away.
Six seconds.
The next moment showed me a familiar garbage dump. Summoned in the sky, I gazed down upon the garbage dump stretching to the world’s end. Old scrap metal and plastic cans with spilled contents simply waited for someone to pick them up, but no one did, so the trash formed a grave as far as the eye could see.
[You have entered the Constellation Murderer’s holy ground.]
The sunset was dazzling. The evening light struck me at an angle, lighting the garbage dump below.
Seven seconds.
Like old graves in a ruined city, the trash was heaped in mounds. At the top of that huge tomb, a plastic bottle was hung like an abandoned orange after getting half peeled. The bottle’s label, once blue but now faded into gray, flapped in the wind. Scrap metal lay stripped of its metal skin, exposing its rusty flesh.
In this place where all colors had faded and all metal had rusted, people with the same silver hair and silver swords stood.
Eight seconds.
Yet the people weren’t the same. Thirteen killing puppets were charging toward one human. As they did, they sensed my presence and looked up. I met the gazes of thirteen pairs of eyes as I fell from the sky.
I drew my holy sword.
Nine seconds.
[The Scream-Gathering Sky summons his apostles and followers.]
[Multiple apostles have responded to your call.]
[Many followers have responded to your call.]
[The Scream-Gathering Sky’s apostles have appeared.]
[The Scream-Gathering Sky’s followers have been summoned.]
Jet-black shadows, eleven in total, formed around me. The shadows that had been cloaking my comrades slowly peeled away as the wind struck them, revealing their faces.
We fell like a shattered meteor, fierce wind lashing our cheeks. Some blinked in wonder, others frowned against the strong wind. There were also some who grabbed their sword hilts and gazed down at the ground.
“Teleportation!”
The Black Witch used her power immediately, gathering her falling comrades one by one. She was also a Hunter skilled in aura mastery. Without wasting time, she made the eleven attack team members hold hands.
The Black Witch reached out to me last. “Gong-Ja! Grab onto me!”
I had no reason to hesitate, so I grabbed her hand immediately.
Fifteen seconds.
The next moment, we were on the ground. The Constellation Murderer had assumed a defensive formation upon our arrival, but he was granted only six seconds.
At first, the killing puppets had a wide formation as they charged at Kim Yul. Once they saw me, they changed their formation to intercept me, but they had to move again to respond to the extra intruders.
Sixteen seconds.
Unexpected events took the Constellation Murderer by surprise three times in a row. That was how many times he lost the chance to reorganize himself.
Seventeen seconds.
My team and I weren’t weak enough to fail to hunt down someone who had left himself vulnerable three times.
Swooooosh!
My sword was the first to cleave the killing puppet standing nearest to Kim Yul. I slashed the puppet from three sides, crushing his limbs.
“Ugoooooor!”
Uburka was the next to swing his ax, crushing another puppet’s legs at once. Usually, the Constellation Murderer would have fought eye to eye with Uburka, but the Black Witch ambushed him using her Teleportation Skill. The Constellation Murderer fell before he could get into a proper stance.
The fight that began as thirteen people against thirteen puppets soon became thirteen people versus eleven puppets.
“I see,” said one of the killing puppets. “Scream-Gathering Sky, you’re a clairvoyant.”
The course of the fight changed fast. The eleven killing puppets had to spread out, letting us destroy them one by one. Uburka and Kim Yul joined forces to cut down another puppet.
It was thirteen people versus ten puppets now.
“Did you see the future where I planned to seal you so you struck me first?”
“No, I’m not a clairvoyant. I’m a regressor,” I answered.
Battles erupted everywhere. Kim Yul, Uburka, and Sylvia joined forces and charged at another puppet. The killing puppets barely regained their footing. The Black Witch’s sharp voice and the Paladin’s battle cries tore through the sunset.
“A regressor? Impossible. I already expected you to be the owner of a temporal ability and made a near-perfect counter plan.”
“If I had been alone, the plan would have been perfect.”
I lunged at the Constellation Murderer. Seeing me close in quickly, the Constellation Murderer bit his lip. What kind of calculations was he making in his head? How quickly was he making those calculations? I had no way of knowing what was going on in his mind. However, I could clearly hear the voice that came out when he opened his mouth.
“I give up the memories of the past twenty-nine days.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Translator's Thoughts