CHAPTER 352: RESOLUTION (5)

0% —And here I was, wondering what he was up to.

Spinning Fire Wheel thought so with a smile.

This space he was falling through was somewhat familiar to him.

Image World.

The place where human minds were materialized and projected.

However, strolling around in someone else’s space was a first even for him. Such things could only be done by transcendental beings, after all.

Well, it isn’t often I’d get a chance to enter this kind of place.

If he were to know that there were people who could waltz around these Image Realms as if they were their own backyard, he’d definitely be surprised.

Like Dowd Campbell, for instance.

Although, even that guy ended up wandering around for a while the first time he came here. The Boy King’s Image World was like a freaking maze, after all.

Spinning Fire Wheel frowned as he looked around.

An inverted sky, rising ground, multicolored energies rippling everywhere...

Deceit, malice, resentment, despair, obsession, delusion.

Various things, like colored threads, woven like a spider’s web, covering everything.

It was suffocating.

The grudges Valkasus had built up over an eternity were so intense that even an ancient sorcerer like him could feel it.

“...”

Spinning Fire Wheel took a deep breath, donning an unpleasant expression.

He knew how an Image World worked; everything here flowed according to the owner’s will.

Physical laws and phenomena didn’t mean shit in this space.

So, it was natural that even he felt this way.

—So fucking annoying.

But...

Such a rule only applied to small fries who’d never reach his level.

“Let’s see...”

He whistled as he removed a few talismans from his body.

As the melodic tone left his lips, the talismans started resonating with each other.

The funny thing here was...

Despite all the evil he had done, whenever he was focusing on casting his spells, his mind would turn unbelievably pure. One could even describe it as ‘noble’.

-Mighty beast.

-Resentful spirit.

-Retreat from the mountain.

-Flow with the natural order.

Become Buddha.

Exorcism.

His exorcism swept away all the lingering emotions nearby.

While it was pale in comparison to the Holy Sword which was able to erase all supernatural abilities, its power was still considerable. After all, sorcerers were practically a hard counter against this kind of energy.

One could say they had a natural compatibility for these sorts of things.

Ah, now I remember.

As he glanced around, his memories started to come back.

Indeed, this was the country he had sacrificed a while back. As for why he did that...

...Why did I do it again?

He didn’t remember.

In the countless years Spinning Fire Wheel had lived, this particular deed wasn’t even worth mentioning compared to all the evils he had done.

“Wasn’t it to refine those talismans of yours?”

A voice suddenly rang out.

Spinning Fire Wheel chuckled as the booming voice echoed through the space.

“Ah, was it really?”

“All those talismans on your body—weren’t they all made using others’ souls and bodies as vessels?”

“Yep, yep.”

“...”

“What?”

“Don’t you have anything else to say?”

His indifferent answer continued.

“I mean, that’s just how it is. If you’re weak, it’s only natural to get fucked over. What, am I supposed to feel something about it?

“...”

Indeed.

This was the kind of person he was.

Born and raised in a world where might-makes-right, survival of the fittest. He became someone who believed that the weak didn’t even have the right to stay alive.

Which was why...

The moment this person stepped into this space, he had already turned into a living corpse.

“When you’re alone in a place like this, you come to realize quite a few things.”

With those words, strange things began to happen.

Thanks to Spinning Fire Wheel clearing away all the energy earlier, only darkness remained in this space.

Then, something appeared.

An eye.

One became two, two became four, four became sixteen...

They multiplied like a virus, and soon they filled every corner of his vision.

It was as if someone had ripped out countless people’s eyes, magnified them dozens of times, and plastered them everywhere.

“-What the fu—”

But, cheap tricks like this were useless—such energy was no match for a sorcerer.

That was what Spinning Fire Wheel thought as he tried to raise his talismans again.

He deemed the ‘phenomenon’ he was facing as laughable. Until he realized how wrong he was.

“...?”

His whole body froze.

A kind of ‘prohibition’ that even his pure mind couldn’t defend against coiled around his brain like a python.

“Truth is, when I was asked to come up with a way to kill you in one go, I had to think quite hard. After all, you’re Spinning Fire Wheel, the Millennial Sorcerer—the most powerful sorcerer and Cursed Speech User in history.

As Valkasus said all that...

“-!”

Spinning Fire Wheel dropped to his knees, feeling like his heart turned to stone.

It was as if someone had shoved their hands into his chest and squashed his heart like a stress ball. He couldn’t breathe properly, and his vision grew blurry.

“This was your first murder, wasn’t it? You killed your master who was trying to steer you away from the wrong path.”

“...YOU... WHAT—”

“Cease talking. The second one is coming soon.”

Before he got the chance to catch his breath, pain like no other exploded in his head.

It was as if his skull was being crushed. He could feel his brain matter ooze out. Such a horrific sensation was etched into his nerves for what felt like an eternity.

“The second person you killed was some random civilian you used to ‘test’ your first Cursed Speech. Am I right?

“-UGH, URK—!”

As Spinning Fire Wheel barely held back from puking his guts out, Valkasus calmly continued.

“Dowd told me this should let me give you back exactly what I experienced. He certainly kept his promise, that man.”

The textbook definition of revenge was to give the other person exactly what was done to you.

And this was the method that Valkasus’ chose.

It was something only the Boy King, who had been stuck on the path of revenge for the longest time, while remembering every single death, could pull off.

The most primal punishment one could give to someone who treated both life and death as light as a feather in the face of power.

“Millennial Sorcerer Spinning Fire Wheel. As your leisurely attitude suggests, your arrogance isn’t entirely baseless.”

In terms of raw power, this guy could be called the strongest mortal alive. Even Saints probably couldn’t match him.

Moreover, against souls, which he naturally countered, one could say he was at an ‘absolute’ advantage here.

But...

That was exactly why Valkasus chose this method.

Because in this way, it wasn’t him who was punishing him directly.

“I’m not the one who’s doing all this to you. It’s just the ‘karma’ you’ve accumulated up until now.”

Ironically, the technique Valkasus utilized, with just the most basic strokes of alchemy—‘Inner Exploration’, was the most fundamental technique of sorcery.

Originally, it was supposed to be a technique to refine one’s mind, and to accumulate virtue and energy. It was the first step to understanding principles of the world so that one could strive to make it a slightly better place.

In Spinning Fire Wheel’s case, since he grew through all sorts of ‘shortcuts’ and ‘evil deeds’, he made himself able to fabricate such a mental state that required one to cultivate great virtue. A talent that was outright devilish.

It was so much so that no one would be able to refute his claim that he’d achieve great things.

But...

“Facing your ‘essence’ after so long is a little painful, isn’t it? So, how does it feel, remembering all those murders you forgot?”

“-SHUT... UP...!”

But, no matter how talented of a sorcerer he was, he still couldn’t avoid his ‘origin’.

As Spinning Fire Wheel writhed in the agony of death, Valkasus’ merciless voice echoed through the Image World again.

“You got... About 200 years left.”

The duration of the pain ranged from a few dozen seconds to several months.

200 years, that meant 73,000 days, 1,752,000 hours, 105,120,000 minutes...

For that duration, the Cursed Speech User would writhe under the weight of all the deaths he had caused.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to achieve great things, Cursed Speech User?”

Valkasus calmly declared.

Having achieved his revenge, he didn’t feel it was sweet or bitter.

Instead, he just felt a sense of relief of having accomplished a task centuries in the making and that was evident in his voice.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to go down in history? To carve your name into the world in the grandest way possible?”

Ironically...

...This was exactly what Dowd had said to the pope before.

Those with the grandest dreams often had the most forgettable end.

“—You should’ve tried to become a proper human being first.”

With those words...

Tens of millions of deaths began to consume Spinning Fire Wheel’s mind.