Chapter 362: The Scream-Gathering Sky (4)

“Last wave?”

“Yes.”

“What does that mean?”

The fisherwoman looked at me with eyes of a deep blue shade. They weren’t the eyes of a person from the modern age, more like those of an animal. Her gaze didn’t really distinguish between man and animal, nor between man and sea.

“I can understand all your sounds. From the second wave to the five hundred eighty-first wave, I can hear all the sounds you make,” I said.

This meant that I could understand the languages of the warriors she had led. Yes, I could have said that, but I spoke in the way she could understand me because I wanted to.

A village had been lost, swept by a tidal wave. It didn’t even leave ruins behind. No trace of their words was left. As I reminisced about their doom, I made the sounds that only two people in the universe now shared.

“You don’t need to search for small or big villages anymore. I’m your last wave, and this is the world’s last village.”

She continued to stare at me. Her blue eyes were clear, like water unperturbed by ripples. Doubt, confusion, panic—emotions would leave marks on anyone’s irises, but her eyes bore no such marks.

She asked, “Are you a god?”

“I want to become

your

god.”

From a short distance away, the Primordial Staff drew in a breath, but she didn’t look away, just like I didn’t look away from the fisherwoman’s eyes.

“Tell me your wish,” I said.

“Wish?”

“Yes, you can go anywhere you want. Which village do you want to go to? There are very big villages around here. Every village in the world is within your reach. I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

She blinked multiple times, like the rushing waves leaving the shore. She said, “Teach me the sorcery to trap sound.”

“Sure.” I turned around. “Could you bring me some ink?”

The Primordial Staff bit her lower lip. The Tower’s greatest mage, versed in all spells, had her eyebrows quivering. The one who brought the ink bottle in place of the mage was the Mirage-Walking Princess.

“Here.”

“Thank you.”

“But why ink, Death King?” the princess asked, looking up at me. “Wouldn’t it be simpler to bring paper and a pen?”

“She wouldn’t be familiar with a pen. Someone who has never held a pencil finds writing hard, so dipping her fingertips in ink and writing on the ground will be easier.”

After hearing my explanation, she nodded, her voice echoing softly around us. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

[Announcing the results of the majority vote.]

[Death King: 2 votes.]

[Abstention: 0 vote.]

[Primordial Staff: 3 votes.]

I thought I could hear the sound of waves in the distance.

“What is this?” the fisherwoman asked.

“Ink. It’s black water."

“Does it hurt?”

“It doesn’t. I’ll teach you the sorcery with it.”

I crouched on the floor, with the woman following my example. The Pillars stood around us, watching in silence. Without paying attention to the others, we used the white stone floor as our paper.

—A, E, F, H, K

“This is how you can trap sound,” I said.

My fingertips turned pitch black as I drew the black strokes on the floor. The woman stared at the black waves being painted on the white sea.

“You try it,” I told her.

Her fingertips also turned black. Half a day passed, and then a whole day. Her fingernails, fingers, and then palms turned black as strokes filled the floor and black waves endlessly spread across the white sea.

The Pillars watched us without moving.

The assembly chamber was wide, leaving us with almost an infinite amount of paper. Still crouched low, we shifted a bit and widened the black waves little by little. Fingerprints stood out on every wave in the sea she painted.

Three days passed. Perhaps it was four. In the depths of the underground, where time had no meaning, only the sea marks around us proved that we had been there.

When I looked closely, A, E, F, H, and K were all wooden planks. Wrecked boat fragments drifted and swayed in the water as she wrote the letters.

Splash.

She was a boatwoman who knew the currents of the dark sea.

Splash, splash.

She rowed with her own hands.

“Do you know now?” I asked.

“Yes. I know.”

That was how I could listen to the sound of the waves.

I asked the princess for a clay tablet. It hadn’t hardened yet, so its surface was soft and squishy. Seeing the clay tablet before her, the fisherwoman blinked, clearly tense. This was her somewhere, her shelter. Her home and many other villages had sunk in the sea, so this was the island she had been searching for. The small island was right before her now as she rowed[1].

—I love the sea.

A wave crashed.

—We love the sea.

And another.

—Because the waves cried.

Her fingerprints... slowly....

—We cried too.

She looked up at me.

—I still love the sea.

“Am I dead?”

I nodded and asked, “You reached the island village. Do you want to live?”

“I... I killed many people. They can’t live anymore. Many people died. I’m sorry. They can’t live.”

There were ripples in her eyes that resembled the sea.

“Thank you.”

I thought I could hear the sound of waves in the distance.

“Thank you.”

[You have saved a follower.]

[The First Wave has become your follower.]

The First Wave ebbed away among the ship’s wreckage. Only the black letters she wrote remained on the floor. Like the village she had left, she fell into the sea, sank and vanished. Finally, she could take a break in the sea she loved.

The Pillars were silent. After a long while—or perhaps just a brief moment—the Primordial Staff asked through clenched teeth, “Why? Why didn’t you assign her to one of the heaven floors?”

“I don’t assign floors. I only asked her where she wanted to go. Some people want to go to heaven. The First Wave went to the island she had always dreamt of.” I held the clay tablet, which had become someone’s small island, and carefully wrapped it in my aura.

Before my waves overflowed and drenched the fair beach of the island village, may no one burn anyone. If I were fire, may I only be the fire that glazed people’s voices.

“So, it’s done,” I said.

The Primordial Staff bit her lower lip.

[Announcing the vote result.]

[Death King: 2 votes.]

[Abstention: 1 vote.]

[Primordial Staff: 2 votes.]

There were still hundreds of shadows filling the vast chamber. I gave myself to each of those shadows, who were now nothing but screams that tore at my life.

[Announcing the vote result.]

[Death King: 2 votes.]

[Abstention: 1 vote.]

[Primordial Staff: 1 vote.]

They tore at my life and I cut down theirs. I summoned their lives, just as I had done with the First Wave, and talked to them.

“W-where am I? Where in the world am I?”

A merchant who had spent his life selling furs panicked a bit. He had been killed in an ambush by a nomadic tribe while traveling to trade in another city.

The merchant felt wronged. He would have paid the bandits to stay alive. Taking his life wouldn’t have helped the nomads much anyway, but those idiots didn’t see this plain fact. Why use swords instead of money? Why didn’t they trade with him? Why was the world so unfair?

“Who are you all?”

A paladin who had spent his life on battlefields was wary of us. Until his death, he had hoped that a god would appear. If there were a god in this world, they would come to the worst and most wretched places, so the paladin had only been at the worst and most wretched battlefields. If the god didn’t appear, he would go to a worse place again and again, believing that the god would appear someday.

The paladin screamed that the world wasn’t wretched enough for the god to reach out. Why couldn’t the world be saved?

“I don’t want to die! Please spare me. I-I can’t die yet!”

Many pleaded. Some had starved during droughts while others had suffocated in raging fires.

After one famine followed by another, some had ended up trading children among fellow villagers to eat human flesh, but on that very day, they burned down the village until the other villagers struck them down with axes.

One of the people had their sight blurred, so when she opened her eyes, she found a neighbor staring down at her as she strangled her.

Why? People held their cries. Why was the world so...

“It’s okay,” I told those who had an island to reach. “If you want to abandon this world, it’s okay.”

It was really okay.

“You can go to another world where you won’t have to abandon anything. Where do you want to go?”

The merchant wanted to go to the Golden Heaven Realm, wishing to breathe in the world of clear gold. He didn’t want a life where rationality had to be silenced under a foolish sword.

The paladin wanted to go to the Musical Heaven Realm. If everything sang, from a handful of wheat to a leaf, then he would feel that the god was everywhere around him. With tears falling down his face, he said he wanted to laugh in a world where a god could be found without him needing to search for them.

[Announcing the vote result.]

[Death King: 3 votes.]

[Abstentation: 1 vote.]

[Primordial Staff: 1 vote.]

As for the last step, I shared my gold[2] with them.

[Activating the Skill.]

Earthbone Dragon’s Skull

Class: SSS+

Effect: You can store memories of the living in a Box.

This Box can only be destroyed by you, the person who possesses the Skill. As long as the Box is not destroyed, you can create a vessel carrying the same memories over and over again.

This new vessel can travel around the universe, form new memories, and update those in the Box. Of course, they need your permission to do so. Even if the vessel perishes, the Box will not take any damage.

Grant the privilege of immortality to those around you.

※The memories of the perished vessel cannot be updated in the Box.

That was how I had revived those in my monster legion and breathed life into Sylvia Evinail, Estelle, the Four Demon Kings, the children of the Demonic Heaven, and Yoo Soo-Ha.

[The

Earthbone Dragon’s Skull

has been activated.]

[A Box has been completed.]

I gave bodies to the shadows, who were now part of my monster legion.

“You have chosen the world in which you will live.”

With the

Returner’s Clockwork,

I lived through their pain and gathered their memories.

Monster Legion Reincarnation

allowed me to bring them back with the memories I had gathered, and

Earthbone Dragon’s Skull

gave them their memories and bodies if they wished.

The chamber was quiet. The growling noises had stopped as hundreds of gazes stopped on me.

“You came to live in this world because you wanted to. Live in a world you can love. If you wish to abandon it, tell me. I’ll listen. You can also tell me when you want to leave for somewhere else. I’ll listen then too. But for now, you have picked everything. Every word, contempt, and feeling, they’re all yours. Please take the lives and responsibility for what you love. I’ll then be responsible for the inevitable deaths. May luck be with you.”

White light enveloped them as they went to the island they had chosen.

[Announcing the vote result.]

[Death King: 4 votes.]

[Absentation: 1 vote.]

[Primordial Staff: 0 vote.]

The chamber fell silent. The Primordial Staff’s head drooped, and she didn’t look up anymore. The Pillars turned their gaze toward their master without saying anything.

Tap.

The Tower master stood up and walked toward me. She took my hand and stroked it. “Mr. Kim Gong-Ja. Death King.”

“Yes.”

Finally, she looked up at me with her peering, purple eyes. “You’ll gain divine authorities and will be capable of giving out blessings. You’ll undeniably become a complete Constellation. From this moment on, you will be known only as the Scream-Gathering Sky.”

[Announcing the vote result.]

[Death King: 5 votes]

[Abstention: 0 vote.]

[Primordial Staff: 0 vote.]

[The Master of All Life has bestowed a blessing upon the Scream-Gathering Sky.]

From now on, that would be my name.

1. Wrote. ☜

2. A golden Skill. ☜