Chapter 178 - The End of the Wait (1)
Chapter 178 - The End of the Wait (1)
1
Reygus was taken aback.
‘What the hell is this?’
He had never seen this place before. He had no idea why he was here. He had no memories that could give context to what he was seeing.
‘Did someone manipulate my mind?’
Could someone who could do that to him really exist?
Soon, he decided to give up on such train of thought. He hated thinking about complicated thoughts.
If he found something he didn’t like, he would just smash it.
Gee-eee-eek, ggee-eee-eek…….
Rain was falling hard outside, and the old door swayed back and forth in the dark room. It produced a harsh sound to the ears.
Reygus could see through the darkness as if it was daytime. The sight in front of his eyes was horrifying.
The humans, who had been alive and talking only moments before, had turned into gruesome corpses. None of the corpses were whole, and an incredible amount of blood had painted the interior of the building.
“Ha-ah, ahhhhhhh…….”
In the midst of this scene, a girl was collapsed on the ground. She was letting out a tortured moan. Reygus had approached her before he knew it, and at the same time, he realized one thing.
‘Is this a dream?’
He wasn’t there. His body wasn’t present. He could only watch the scene from a certain point of view.
Was he under the influence of a magic that caused hallucination? Or maybe he was having a bad dream?
“Haaaah, ahhhhhk…….”
The girl continued to be in pain. Reygus realized that the girl was dying. She was the only one alive in this horrible scene, but that distinction would become useless soon. Her body wouldn't’ be able to survive its mangled state.
“…I was a step too late. So this is the reason why I regained consciousness.”
At that moment, he suddenly heard a calm voice.
Reygus flinched in surprise. It wasn’t, because he hadn’t been able to sense the owner of the voice approaching them. This person hadn’t tried to hide his presence, so Reygus was able to hear his approaching footsteps in the hallway.
The part that made Reygus surprised was the voice itself.
‘Atein?’
It was the voice of a man that he couldn’t forget even in a dream.
Soon, the man revealed himself. He was camouflaged as a human. His horns, ears and Dragon Demon Stone was hidden with magic. However, Reygus recognized him. His long black hair looked as if it was made out of jade. His eyes had a far away look, and his face was blank. The man was Atein.
“Who……?”
The girl gasped in pain as she asked the question. She raised her head from the ground, and her pupils weren’t focused.
Atein spoke.
“We’ve met a long time ago. I’m Atein.”
“The Dragon Demon King…….”
“That is what they call me now.”
“…how……?”
It was unclear as to what the girl was asking. However, Atein immediately understood what she was asking.
“I heard what happened to your tribe. Afterwards, I set up a detection magic to capture the moment you awakened.”
“Did you perhap put this over the entire continent……?”
“That’s right.”
“Ah-ha-ha. You really are an absurd person…...”
“I hear that quite often.”
Atein spoke indifferently. He had a vacant look, so he didn’t reveal any of his emotions. It was hard to guess what he was thinking.
Atein spoke.
“Still, it is fortunate that my technique wasn’t a complete failure. If you died before I found you in your awakened state, even I would not have been able to find you afterwards.”
“Why……?”
“It is, because I need you.”
Atein brought up a finger infused with his magical energy. He pressed his finger against her forehead, and she spoke her name. It was a name she hadn’t known in this life. He spoke her true name.
“Kayalia.”
2
<…mmmm?>
Reygus raised his head in surprise.
When Atein called out Kayalia’s name, his consciousness was brought back to the present. He realized he was walking down the cold corridor of the Dragon Demon palace.
“What’s wrong?”
An old Dragon Demon was walking next to him. It was Chanes, who had been Reygus’ lieutenant during the Dragon Demon war. Reygus raised his hand, and he covered his face. There was only his skull there.
<How long have I been out?>
“You were walking with me?”
Chanes had no idea what Reygus was talking about.
Reygus spoke in a baffled manner.
<It seems I was daydreaming.>
“Daydreaming?”
<It seems something like that can happen even with this body. That is why…..>
In mid-sentence, his surrounding became dark. The change made him suspicious as to whether he was having another dream, but he became confident that this incident was occurring in reality.
<I bet Chanes will be bewildered.>
-He can be bewildered for all I care.
Kayalia’s ghost-like figure appeared in front of him. She had copied the Vitan’s Maze to separate Reygus into a secluded space.
<You are very mean. What was that, Kayalia?>
-Oppa peeked into my dream. You violated a girl’s privacy. You are a pervert.
<That isn’t fair. I had no desire to do that.>
-It doesn’t matter if it was intentional or not. In such a situation, you have to shut up and apologize.
<I feel extremely wronged by the accusation, but I’ll do as you say. I’m sorry.>
There wasn’t a hint of sincerity in his apology, so Kayalia snorted.
-All right. We both have roots in the Great Darkness, and since I’m staying close to oppa, it seems we became connected like this.
<I see. So that was you memory?>
-Correct.
<It was the memory of you meeting the king. However, you were…..>
She hadn’t been a Dragon Demon. She had been dying as a human girl. In Reygus’ opinion, she hadn’t been disguising herself with magic. She really had the body of a human.
-I was human.
<How?>
-Until the king came looking for me, I lived as a human.
<…I’m having a hard time understanding this.>
-You already know what kind of being I am.
<You were the head of your clan until you became engaged to the king. You used a secret technique to continue your existence from you past life. This secret technique was crucial in developing the technique that revived Almarick and me.>
Kayalia’s tribe were unsociable. They created their society in a perilous land, and they had lived for a thousand years in a closed society.
The tribe was started by a 1st generation Dragon Demon, and the Dragon Demon had created the secret art of Transmigration. One could live beyond their allotted lifespan. This magic made them practically immortal. Kayalia had been worshipped as the goddess of this tribe. This was Kayalia’s identity.
When she felt her life nearing its end, she performed a ritual to be reborn as her own descendant. However, it was hard to differentiate which descendant she was transmigrated into. It required time and opportunity for her to awaken from her transmigration.
-Even if the secret technique could allow me to pursue immortality, it wasn’t perfect.
After several transmigration, small problems started to pop up.
There were omissions to her memories, or she had some mental problem. There was a time when a curse made her suffer from ill health. It shortened her lifespan…...
-The soul is influenced by the body more so than people think. If one is reborn as a new existence several dozen times over the long years, the quality of the original soul degrades.
Small breakdowns starts to happen, and crucial problem starts to occur.
<What kind of problem?>
- I became two people.
<Mmm?>
-I was supposed to awaken as a single entity, but I was awakened in two people.
She awakened within siblings, who were identical.
It was Kayalia and her twin brother Kaydika.
The divinity the tribe had absolutely believed in started to break down at that point.
-The tribe was divided into those that advocated for me, and those that advocated for Kaydika. Both sides fought each other. Moreover, Kaydika and I loved each other, but at the same time, we hated each other.
Before the awakening, Kayalia and Kaydika were twins that had boundless love for each other. However, after the awakening, their hatred for each other became boundless.
It wasn’t the influence of the other people around them. Her soul had been split into two, and the two siblings were in pain when they realized that their own uniqueness was undermined by each other’s presence.
-We knew it by instinct. The only way to escape this torment was to kill the other. There could be only one.
The tribe broke into two, and they fought. It spurred a codestruction.
-Before my last moment came, I started the ritual for transmigration. However, it was unstable. I didn’t have the luxury to prepare the whole ritual.
She had lived for a very long time through transmigration, but her existence came to an end with Kayalia and Kaydika.
That was what everyone had thought.
However, Atein was of a different mind.
-The king knew my ritual was incomplete, but he thought there was a possibility of it succeeding.
This was why he had done something ridiculous. He placed a detection magic over the entire continent. It would alert him the moment I awakened again. He had done this while he was conducting a war against the whole world.
Kayalia had been unaware of his efforts. She had lived her life after being transmigrated into a human girl.
-I was treated with contempt as a cursed child. In the end…..
A bitter smile appeared on her lips.
She had died at the hands of the humans she had trusted.
After she was transmigrated into a human, she had lived an unassuming life. She lived in a city where there was an institution that trained magicians. The magicians were very closed in terms of teaching their secret techniques. However, they had no choice, but to open themselves when an enemy of humanity had appeared. They couldn't discriminate in their teachings when faced with the threat of the Dragon Demon king’s army.
However, the war continued to deteriorate, and the magicians had nowhere to run away. Their city was put under siege.
Since the city had many magicians, they were able to mount a fierce defense, and they planned on holding out for the day when they would get rescued….. However, in several days time, their enemies poisoned the lake. The city was sealed up, and the only source of water was the lake. This drove the residents of the city into despair.
They had thought the city was safe. When this flimsy belief was destroyed, it dawned on them that their deaths were imminent. The humans lost all sense of reason.
The teenage magicians, who had studied under the same teacher as her, subdued and violated her. She had been someone with no background. It was horrendous, but their actions served as a catalyst that had awakened her.
<Mmmm…….>
Reygus felt awkward, so he scratched at his helmeted head. Then he realized his gesture was meaningless, so he awkwardly asked his next question.
<You met the king when you were about to lose your life as a human. What happened afterwards?>
He didn’t know how he should console her, so he chose to ignore the whole thing. At Reygus question, Kayalia let out a laugh.
-Pfft! .
<What’s so funny?>
-It just is. As expected, oppa is cute.
<Mmmm…….>
When Reygus first met Kayalia, she was already a Dragon Demon girl.
If she had died and transmigrated during that time period, the timeline didn’t match. Moreover, she had been at the brink of death, so she couldn’t have made preparations for her ritual.
-The king had made preparations a long time ago in an attempt to persuade me.
<If it’s the king, he would be able to do it. Is there really a secret technique that allows a human to be made into a Dragon Demon?>
-No. Such a technique doesn’t exist. At the very least, it doesn’t exist as far as I know.
<So how did he do it?>