Chapter 545: 545
Han Su-Yeong yelled out .
"You stupid bastard! Did you forget already?? This world-line's ark has already-!"
Yu Jung-Hyeok's sword thrust dug into her opening . The moment she gasped out, her dagger was already flying away . Blood spluttered from the cut wound .
His sword was now pointing straight her neck .
"Jung-Hyeok-ssi! Please stop!"
"H-hold on, master! Are you mad!! What's gotten into you!?"
The companions arriving belatedly approached them to stop the fighting .
However, Yu Jung-Hyeok didn't even look behind at them as he swung his sword . The gob-smacking level of magical energy wave shot out from the [Dark Heavenly Demon Sword] and drew a line of roiling flames one step in front of the companions .
"No one crosses that line . If you do, I will cut y . . . . "
Smack!
Han Su-Yeong's left foot rising up in the blink of an eye accurately kicked his wrist . The [Dark Heavenly Demon Sword] gripped in his hand flung away, drew circles in the air, before stabbing into the ground .
Han Su-Yeong growled at him . "Yu Jung-Hyeok . I'm sure you already know this, but . . . I really, really hate to see a rotten apple spoiling the whole barrel . "
" . . . . . "
"You know, I was feeling pretty good up until a few minutes ago . Specifically, before you started doing this crap, that is . . . I guess the peace of the past two years have been too sweet for me, seeing how I've completely forgotten about what kind of a bastard you are . "
It was hard to tell just who her boiling rage was directed at .
Han Su-Yeong recalled the faces of her companions reading her novel . The faces that grew at ease as they read the story .
The companions, everyone else, even herself . . . . they were about to feel brave enough to finally take that one step forward, away from 'that day' . Yet . . .
Han Su-Yeong stopped both Jeong Hui-Won and Yu Sang-Ah about to cross the burning line . "You two, stay back . Looks like today is finally the day I pound some sense into this guy . "
As soon as those words ended, both the figures of Han Su-Yeong and Yu Jung-Hyeok vanished . The place they met again was in the air dozens of metres off the ground . The thunderclap-like explosions rang out and their fists collided against one another .
Ruuuumble, kurururung!!
The blade of Han Su-Yeong's hand slammed hard into Yu Jung-Hyeok's waist, while his right kick landed on her solar plexus . The exchange of attacks and defences that even Constellations' eyesights found hard to keep up continued on . Blood trickled down her lips, while large, bloody bruises formed on his arms raised up to guard him .
Yi Ji-Hye watching the fight unfold couldn't hold back and reached for her own sword . It was Yu Sang-Ah who stopped her .
"Eonni? But why?"
"Let them be for the time being . "
Perhaps she had predicted something, because while stopping the companions, she spread out her lotus pedestals, as well . She was planning to protect the civilians from the storm of aftermaths soon to visit them .
Right next second, the atmosphere up in the sky began to change .
[Great Fable, 'Torch that Swallowed the Myth', has started its stammered attempt at storytelling . ]
[Great Fable, 'Liberator of the Forgotten Ones', is waking up from the darkness . ]
The clash of these two managed to awaken the old Fables . Han Su-Yeong summoned all of her strength to broke through Yu Jung-Hyeok's fist and shouted out .
"Speak up! Why today, of all days? Why have you been staying quiet for the last two years only to start this crap today?!"
"None of your business . "
"Aha, is that so . "
She didn't plan on going this far . However, looking at the expressionless face of Yu Jung-Hyeok acting like a damn stubborn mule, she simply couldn't rein in her boiling anger anymore .
"I always hated you . And regretted it, too . Why did I write the story of someone like you with my own hands?"
She'd never have said these words in any other times . Even then, she continued to spit out everything anyway .
"I cursed my other self . If this story didn't exist, none of these things would've happened . No one would've died . And Kim Dok-Ja might have . . . . !"
Yu Jung-Hyeok's fist finding that brief window of opening cut her words short . He kept his mouth resolutely shut and continued to fight . Though she hadn't heard a proper answer yet, Han Su-Yeong knew why he was trying to get a hold of the [Final Ark] .
"We already failed . Since we came home with our tails between our legs, you should've quietly accepted it and moved on . Have you really forgotten everything [The 4th Wall] said to us?"
She knew the truth, and that was why she just couldn't stand it anymore .
⸢You shouldn't have been greedy . No, y o u sh oul d've be en con te nt wi th 49% Kim Dok Ja⸥
[The 4th Wall]'s voice from that day, the one she had never forgotten until now .
Yu Jung-Hyeok finally opened his mouth . "Spoken like a true loser . You simply gave up, that's all . "
Every time their fists collided, the worn-out Fables scattered in the air . The fragments emitting faint rays of light settled down on his cheeks .
It was only then did she spot his messed-up appearance . The unkempt, stiffened hair, and his rather unsightly-looking unwashed face .
Han Su-Yeong sucked in her breath and took a step back in that instant . Some memories brushed past her head just then – Yu Mi-Ah, showing up one day while crying her eyes out and saying that her oppa had just disappeared, and Yu Jung-Hyeok, walking away from the pro gamer job he barely managed to earn back, and vanishing into thin air .
⸢Should I have started off with how he had been doing all this time?⸥
Golden aura was focusing on his right hand . That was the beginning of the [Breaking the Sky Force Punch] . He was being deadly serious here . Han Su-Yeong hurriedly unfurled her right hand .
[Stigma, 'Character Summon', is activating!]
At the bare minimum, if she used this skill to fling him far away, then . . .
[Applicable individual is no longer a 'Character' . ]
She belatedly realised it – the 'Yu Jung-Hyeok' standing before her eyes was not the character from the 'Ways of Survival' she had written .
After Kim Dok-Ja's final act had arrived, and after the 'Ways of Survival's story came to an end, Yu Jung-Hyeok had completely broken free of the position of the 'Character' .
A punch wrapped in pure golden light scythed the air and flew in . She activated every single evasion skill she could .
The attack brushed past her shoulder with the thinnest margin imaginable . The storm of aftermath from that improbably powerful punch pricked her painfully .
Yu Jung-Hyeok muttered out . " . . . . Your skills have barely lost any of their original powers . Is this due to the system's grace?"
The only reason why Han Su-Yeong's skills could still exhibit such power was because she received the Bureau's Fable from the 1865th turn's Bihyung .
Yu Jung-Hyeok asked her with an emotionless voice . "This world no longer needs the system . Yet, why did you receive that Fable from him?"
"Obviously to maintain Kim Dok-Ja's life . "
They went through with the [Group Regression] because Kim Dok-Ja's Avatar was increasingly getting weaker . And she received the Bureau's Fable just in case something similar happens to Kim Dok-Ja .
"Why did you do something like that? You should know this . That fool cannot wake up again," said Yu Jung-Hyeok .
"Kim Dok-Ja isn't dead y-!"
"If you really believe that, then why are you stopping me?"
For a moment there, she became speechless .
Yu Jung-Hyeok then flashed right behind her, and slammed down on her back . Han Su-Yeong crash-landed on the ground . She coughed out thick dust and stood back up, then shouted at him while tottering unsteadily .
" . . . . Yu Jung-Hyeok, wake the hell up! You think this is what Kim Dok-Ja really wants? He told you, didn't he? He told you not to abandon this world . And you also agreed!"
"That's right . I agreed not to regress . "
"Don't make me laugh! You can't regress anymore, that's what . If you still could do it, you'd probably have gone back!!"
"I may have . "
Yu Jung-Hyeok's golden eye began to glow brightly within the thick dust cloud . And that eye was now questioning Han Su-Yeong .
"Are you any different?"
She couldn't answer back . But in her stead, Kim Dok-Ja's Fables still remaining within her grasp replied .
[Fable, 'One Who Opposes Miracles', is lamenting in sorrow . ]
These were words that she just couldn't let go . She wrote them down somewhere sometimes to endure her life . Telling herself not to regress, to live in the present . She continued to reflect on those obvious-sounding words of the past, and continued to endure moment by every moment . That was her past two years .
"It seems that you too couldn't forget anything . "
"Shut up . "
Han Su-Yeong dashed forward in an instant and punched him squarely in the face . Every time their fists flew out, the Fables they shared and compiled together writhed violently .
[Fable, 'King of Kaixenix', is being agitated . ]
She believed that she worked hard to endure . She believed that a lot of time had passed by now, as much as all the sentences she had written down . She breathed, she ate, and she slumbered – Han Su-Yeong survived in that manner .
⸢You are not a regressor because you regress . ⸥
However, could she really say she had been living a life that way?
⸢Some people would live their entire lives inside the already-ended past . ⸥
Every time bones in her fists were crushed, Fables scattered away little by little – Fables, the raw memories preserved as was without any revisions . Han Su-Yeong reflexively began retrieving these scattering Fables .
She didn't want to let go of any one of them . She didn't want to forget about a single thing .
⸢For the past two years, she hadn't been able to take a single step forward . ⸥
Han Su-Yeong panted breathlessly and spoke up . "What do you think will change if you do this now?"
" . . . . "
"Even if you leave, you won't find Kim Dok-Ja . And you can't even go anywhere . "
" . . . . "
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