Chapter 373: Star, the Children of the Emperor’s Seat (8)

‘Yes, this is it. This is it!’ Balor smiled confidently, baring his fangs.

His eye occasionally acted as a poison eye with the ability to kill the target in his view or forcibly cancel an action. Of course, if he tried to control someone stronger or possessed a higher Divine Class, the rebound could put him in danger, but he wasn’t afraid of it at all. He wouldn’t have acquired the Divine Name of Magic Giant if he weren’t capable of detecting the difference.

It was no different now. Balor normally couldn’t have subdued the Incendiary Burial Whale, especially its core due to its high Divine Class and size. It was so big that it could make Balor ill. However, the biggest problem was that he wasn’t the main personality, which was why he was waiting for Chang-Sun to let his guard down…

The moment Chang-Sun pulled out the core, Balor made a move, his goal being the core itself, not Chang-Sun. After all, his true objective was to swallow the Anomaly whole.

Woosh, woosh, woosh!

The particles that were created after the core was destroyed were fiercely absorbed into Balor in a vortex.

Kieeeeeeeeh!

It was Balor’s first time for the ominous ghost wails to sound like a comforting lullaby, so a smile of contentment spread on Balor’s face.

“You…!” Furious, Chang-Sun glared at Balor, having just lost the girl right before his eyes.

Balor couldn’t help but feel refreshed.

Rumble!

The Cataclysm Celestial’s upper body showed up above Chang-Sun and threw a lightning bolt, but it just disappeared in the air before it could reach its target. Not only did Balor have his poison eye, which canceled any action, but he also had a wall rise from the ground, destroying the lightning bolt.

Rumble!

The ground, linings, ceiling… tentacles also spread out from all over the Incendiary Burial Whale and connected to Balor.

Pzzzzzzz―!

At the same time, the space bizarrely changed. The tentacles coiled around Balor, pulling the wall toward him. Having merged with the Incendiary Burial Whale, he grew dozens of times bigger than before.

With his transformation completed in no time, he now looked hideous. His dozens of eyes tried to find Chang-Sun as things that didn’t look like limbs anymore came out of him and struck the ground.

Booooom!

Countless ghosts’ thoughts and emotions poured into Balor, allowing him to use omniscience with his one eye and giving him a taste of omnipotence. Having become the Incendiary Burial Whale’s Anomaly itself, Balor failed to hold himself together due to the feeling of fulfillment emerging from deep in his soul.

『Hahahaha! What in the world are you doing?! You talked all big and cocky, yet you can’t even lay a finger on me?!』

Koooooo―!

Balor’s confident laughter shook the entire subconscious realm. The world that Balor looked at through his omniscience was completely different from the one he always knew. The Cataclysm Celestial enveloping Chang-Sun was surely big, but they were just ants from the perspective of Balor, who was dominating the subconscious realm.

“Balor!”

“Give us the power you promised!”

“Don’t forget about us!”

The other reincarnations who standing behind Balor shouted uproariously. They were all promised to receive their share of power depending on how much they contributed to killing Chang-Sun, so they wanted Balor to keep his end of the bargain.

『Oh, right. You people were here.』

It wasn’t clear if it was on his face or body, but Balor opened up a mouth, revealing hideous saw-like teeth. When the personalities’ faces brightened up, the ground underneath them suddenly sank, and a bottomless pit with saw teeth around the edges opened up, looking just like the mouth on Balor.

“Huh…?”

“What are you doing—!”

Crunch! Crunch, crunch―!

The reincarnations realized that something was wrong, but the bottomless pit closed before they could talk about it or escape. The pit then chewed like an actual mouth, horrible sounds and screams echoing from within it.

『They don’t taste good, but that’s probably because they’re all small fries. I sincerely hope you will.』

Balor turned to Chang-Sun, his dozens of eyes looking at him. Over ten mouths opened up on the ceiling and the linings. Some even flicked their scarlet tongues as if they were smacking their lips.

『Let me eat you now, Twilight!』

Thump, thump, thump!

Balor moved dozens of parts that seemed to be either arms or legs, shaking the subconscious realm hard with each step. Balor and Chang-Sun weren’t really that far away from each other, so it only took several steps for him to reach Chang-Sun.

Kieeeeeeh!

Balor opened his mouths wide to swallow Chang-Sun, smelly discharges dripping through the gaps between his teeth. Nevertheless, Chang-Sun just stayed still.

As Balor was about to close his mouth, he suddenly stopped. ‘What in the world…!’

The vigorous Balor suddenly felt so sluggish it was as if he was carrying a boulder. His dozens of eyes danced uncontrollably, making him dizzy, as unrefined information and emotions poured into and muddled his mind. He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs, but for some reason, he couldn’t.

―Diediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediedie…

―Diewithusdiewithusdiewithusdiewithusdiewithusdiewithusdiewithus…

―Whatareyoudoingwhatareyoudoingwhatareyoudoing. Diediediediediedieddiediedie…

Balor trembled.

“All those grudges must be driving you insane.” Chang-Sun coldly smirked, looking at Balor as if he already expected this to happen.

Balor wanted to ask what he did to him.

“I didn’t do anything. You’re the one who voluntarily swallowed the poison. Did you really think becoming an Anomaly is easy?” Chang-Sun scoffed, finally making Balor realize that he had a good reason not to intervene as Balor swallowed the core.

“It’s going to drive you crazy. You’ll hear too many voices that speak out raw emotions, completely preventing you from controlling your senses. When you listen to them quietly, you’ll feel like you’re going crazy, but if you disregard them and don’t put them under your control, your body will be destroyed. You’re feeling all of that now, don’t you?” Chang-Sun asked.

『H… o… w…!』

“How do I know that?” Chang-Sun chuckled. “Because that is what you people do.”

Balor looked surprised.

“You’re always busy talking about yourselves, never listening to others. You all can backstab me at any moment, though, so I can’t really ignore you people.” Chang-Sun’s smile deepened, which Balor found scarier than his furious look.

Had Chang-Sun always been living in this intense sense of crisis? Did that mean he never once put his guard down? Even though Chang-Sun was a Celestial, it still sounded impossible. A life without a break and living alongside death were just figures of speech. People had to take breaks every now and then to prevent mental exhaustion. Not even a machine could do that. They would eventually break down if they operated at their maximum output nonstop.

The same thing applied to transcendent beings with high-dimensional cognitive ability. Although Balor had always targeted Chang-Sun’s throat, he had no idea what kind of suffering Chang-Sun went through every day. Now that he was feeling this horrible pain, he couldn’t help but wonder how Chang-Sun was maintaining his sanity.

“That is what an Anomaly is.” Chang-Sun stroked the edge of Balor’s mouth.

Krrrrrrrr!

Chang-Sun was simply stroking his mouth, but Balor found it so terrifying that he growled and activated his poison eye again, thinking that ripping Chang-Sun to shreds would somewhat free him from the pain. With his poison eye, Balor looked into Chang-Sun’s [Gnostic Eye]. As their Authorities clashed in the air, they infiltrated each other’s minds in a race to devour the other.

Balor entered Chang-Sun’s subconsciousness, which was where he originally was. The realm was now empty because all of its inhabitants were out on the Incendiary Burial Whale to fight the Anomaly.

‘For how long…!’ he bit his lower lip as he headed deeper and deeper underground, surprised to learn that the subconscious realm went even further down where he used to be. Eventually, he floundered as hard as he could to get out, a sense of crisis telling him that he would never be able to get back up if he kept going.

Swallowing the Incendiary Burial Whale’s core made Balor bigger, yet this darkness in Chang-Sun’s subconscious realm still looked as if it could swallow him with ease. In fact, it was so thick that swallowing him wouldn’t really make much of a difference.

A void? An abyss? Balor wasn’t sure how to describe it. Although he spent his living days as a wizard who studied gnosis, learning that a place like this was deep in their soul still stupefied him.

Gurgle!

Balor couldn’t escape the darkness. The more he resisted, the harder it pulled him back in. By the time he entered the world of nil, he couldn’t even hear the Incendiary Burial Whale ghosts screaming anymore.

At that moment, Balor heard a voice.

『What is this?』

Balor gasped despite not being able to make a sound. Something colossal was in this darkness, which was deeper than a void or an abyss. Crouching in the soul’s very bottom, the being quietly looked up—no, he felt as if it did. He had no idea how the being was moving. All he could tell was that it would consider the Incendiary Burial Whale the space whale trivial, and that it saw him.

There was an overwhelming difference between Balor and this monstrously strong being. He had never met anyone with such a Class. Even Odin, who wished to obtain freedom by becoming an Emperor someday, could never reach its level. Balor had met countless people and even seen Mephistopheles through Chang-Sun’s eyes, but he felt as if even Mephistopheles couldn’t be compared to it. It would probably have to be compared to to even find an equal to it.

『Judging from your brand… you’re from #801. It seems they have successfully met before the turning point. However, the time is not right to reach this place yet. 』

Balor strangely felt as if the voice was Chang-Sun’s. If it hadn’t been for the power in it, he would actually have mistaken it as Chang-Sun mocking him.

『Being seen like this is detrimental for both of us… so let’s bury the trace for now.』

The darkness undulated. Although Balor still couldn’t see anything, he could feel a huge hand coming for him. It was as if the being was trying to kill a bug he didn’t like. Realizing that he would die if he got captured, Balor tried to escape, but a raging ocean would sink even the greatest swimmers into its depths.

Despite his efforts, Balor didn’t get very far before he was captured, caught in between the being’s thumb and index finger. He screamed and asked it not to kill him, but he remained soundless. Since he always treated mortals like vermin, being treated the same way struck him with dismay.

At that moment, A memory flashed across his mind. Some time ago, Chang-Sun watched Ithaca’s memory through the mirrors in R’lyeh and saw an Outer Celestial who looked exactly like him. However, the power that the Outer Celestial exuded was very different.

Why did he remember that now? He desperately wanted to ask who the being was. Was it another past reincarnation or Chang-Sun from the far future?

Smack!

Before Balor could ask any of his questions, he exploded with the Anomaly.

Pzzzzz….

The being pulled back his hand and disappeared into darkness. As if nothing ever happened, everything turned quiet again.