A Regressor's Tale of Cultivation
C800 Chapter 796: Future King (1)
Chapter 800 Chapter 796: Future King (1)
"Hoho...our sir Heuk Sa~."
Squish, squish—
Heuk Sa returns to the village.
And what greets Heuk Sa is the touch of his young wife, one year older than him.
Westy—no, now having received the name 'Yang Hwe', she ambushes Heuk Sa's soft, squishy cheeks from behind and kneads them like crazy.
Having now turned fourteen even though they held the wedding and he became her husband, she pampers Heuk Sa, who is still a thirteen-year-old child, to her heart's content.
"Where did you go, my cutie?"
"Uu...lugu..."
Saying 'let go', Heuk Sa barely escapes from her touch and then tells her where he went.
"Westy—no...dear, I went to meet a high person to receive your name."
"Wow, really? But I like being Westy too..."
She seems happy yet conflicted.
But in the end, she hugs Heuk Sa tight enough to crush him and smiles beaming.
"Then what is my name?"
"Your name is...Hwe. Yang Hwe."
"Hwe...Yang Hwe..."
Now that she has the name 'Yang Hwe,' she beams and plants kisses all over Heuk Sa's cheeks.
"Oh my, you adorable thing. You went to get big sis a good name."
Heuk Sa barely wriggles free of her hands.
It has already been years since they began living together.
Now Yang Hwe no longer fears Heuk Sa as she used to. Rather, eating whatever she wants and learning whatever she wants, she's grown.
Unlike before, she did not contract leprosy.
It's because Heuk Sa popped and killed all the germs by her side.
"Um...Heuk Sa."
"Mm? What is it, Hwe-ah?"
"Hey. Not 'Hwe-ah,' you should call me something like 'honey' Don't keep treating me like a kid when you're the younger one."
At the address 'Hwe-ah' that calls her young, Yang Hwe's mouth puffs out and she pulls on Heuk Sa's two cheeks.
"By any chance...can I also give you a name?"
"Uh...?"
"It's just...'Black Snake' and all...it's a bit, you know...so I'll find a better name and give it to you."
Heuk Sa ponders Yang Hwe's words.
He of course likes it.
Far better than a name like Black Snake given amidst betrayal by an old friend is a name given by the one he loves.
Even if she names him Dog-dung or Cow-dung, he would feel grateful.
Therefore, though he naturally wants to say okay, he looks up at the sky.
Countless threads of causality stir and determine the future.
It is a history that has already passed once.
"..."
Yang Hwe's lifespan still has not changed.
'Do I have to kill them after all?'
Following the threads of causality, he senses the place where the god who decides lifespans is, and he considers killing them.
"Then...give it to me a bit later, Hwe-ah."
"Eeeh, I told you not to call me like a kid! I'm going to name you and call you like a kid too!"
Heuk Sa looks at Yang Hwe, who throws a tantrum in front of him, puffing her cheeks and kneading his cheeks all over, and thinks.
To give a name directly influences connection.
The internal energy method Darkness World he attained is the result he obtained by cutting all threads of connection and standing alone.
The thread of connection between him and Yang Hwe is what he gained by deceiving causality until now.
In other words, if Yang Hwe directly gives him a name and he accepts it, Heuk Sa's internal energy method will weaken.
'If I am going to kill a god...I must be in the best state and make thorough preparations.'
To kill a god, he must always stake his own life.
Even for a trivial lower-ranked god, it is the same.
For a mortal body to kill a god always means facing death.
Because he did not fear death in his previous life, he faced death while wearing mortal hide and hunted down and killed gods.
But...
'Now...I am afraid.'
He can no longer stake his life recklessly.
Because there is now something even more precious than life.
Yang Hwe has become Heuk Sa's weakness.
Therefore, he does not want to grow that weakness any further.
He does not want to face death.
'Without facing death, I must kill gods.'
With his talent, he can do it.
With his insight and potential, it is enough.
'Even now, the time of fate keeps drawing near...'
History keeps flowing.
Thus, he plans to twist fate and history themselves to protect Yang Hwe.
"...Just wait a little, Hwe-ah. Until the time I can receive a good name from you..."
Heuk Sa hugs Yang Hwe and soothes the whining her as he speaks.
In his eyes, he sees countless causalities beyond Yang Hwe.
The gods who dwell on this star.
Only after he kills all those gods can he feel even a little at ease.
From that day on, Heuk Sa goes about hunting gods to extend Yang Hwe's lifespan.
The very first he kills is the god of lifespan.
: : O Mortal Being! What could possibly change in the world if you kill me alone? I am merely one who records lifespan! The flow of history and fate cannot be changed! : :
"It can be changed."
As Heuk Sa organizes his killing techniques that are beginning to reach the apex of slaughter, he speaks toward them.
"For if it does not change, I will annihilate fate and history."
Even if he must destroy both Heaven and Earth, he will protect what he must protect.
When he cuts down the god of lifespan, countless people's lifespans jumble into a mess and great chaos comes to the world, but he does not care.
Because, more than some world, his one connection is more precious.
After the god of lifespan comes the god of disease, the god of calamity, the god of misfortune, and so on.
He hunts down and kills gods who could suddenly kill Yang Hwe.
: : What have we done that you murder us!? : :
: : O Mortal Being! Do you not know that we are not only those who scatter misfortune, but also beings who hold disaster and suffering in check? : :
: : Because of your ignorance, the world will sink into misery! O Mortal Being! No, you must not, you must not kill us! : :
"No."
With eyes like frost, Heuk Sa looks down on them and kills them.
"Because of you..."
He still remembers.
In his first life, Yang Hwe died because of them.
Wretchedly, and miserably...
"She..."
She contracted leprosy...
And without even being able to find medicine, and while Heuk Sa disappeared to find medicine, bandits robbed her of wealth and burned the house down, killing her.
While bearing Heuk Sa's child...so wretchedly, so miserably.
"...died...you know."
Killing all the gods who became the prime culprits who killed Yang Hwe, Heuk Sa clutches his chest.
He treats the present Yang Hwe well.
But why is it?
Whether the Yang Hwe of the first life and the Yang Hwe now are the same being or not...
Whether the Yang Hwe he truly loves is the Yang Hwe of that time...
He cannot know.
From childhood he discovered her and prevented her from suffering leprosy, and she did not leave the noble household on her own feet to drift through the village corners, living a life picking up garbage...
She, who brightened to the utmost and dotes on Heuk Sa.
Whether she truly is the one Heuk Sa wanted to save...
He cannot know.
Small currents can change, but great currents do not change.
Because Heuk Sa's very existence is a great current, the connections related to him also do not change.
Therefore, the Yang Hwe who loves Heuk Sa now is also that unchanged Yang Hwe.
But if so...
'If I extend the present Yang Hwe's lifespan...is she still the Yang Hwe I know? Or does she become another Yang Hwe?'
He cannot possibly know.
As he kills countless gods, Heuk Sa eliminates every possibility of Yang Hwe's death.
Starting with the gods of ill omen and sudden death, he hunts down and kills, one by one, even the divinities who govern heart attacks, meteor impacts, and lightning.
But the more gods he kills and kills,
The more Yang Hwe gradually grows differently than in the last life...
The more the anxiety and doubt dwelling in Heuk Sa's heart gradually grows.
And at last,
On the day Heuk Sa kills every god of the star where they live.
Yes, on the very day Heuk Sa turns exactly twenty.
He finds the answer.
Huarururururur—
The entire village burns.
And, centered on the tiled-roof house Heuk Sa has built in the village, hundreds of corpses lie in rows.
Heuk Sa's subordinates.
They are people of the Heuk Sa Society.
"...What...is this...?"
To remove the very possibility of her death...
He came back after killing innumerable gods.
Sometimes, after killing gods and coming down, he stopped by Yang Hwe, shared love...
Felt happiness...
Checked her condition, read books together, ate together, and kneaded each other's cheeks.
Huarurururuk!
Pushing through the flames that incinerate the whole village, he heads for the house.
From the inside of the house, a familiar smell comes.
The smell of a burning corpse.
Yes...
It is the very smell Heuk Sa smelled when his wife burned to death in the last life.
"Chief...we couldn't...stop it..."
One of Heuk Sa Society's subordinates, dying, lets out a groan.
"...You did well. Rest."
Leaving his subordinates behind, he heads to the inner quarters where Yang Hwe would be.
There...he can see a monster with countless spears and blades stuck into it.
With a black body hissing breath, gathering fire energy, it lies with its strength exhausted, dying right in front of Yang Hwe.
It is an imoogi.
"You..."
An imoogi that did not obtain a dragon pearl and so could not become a dragon.
For that reason, it went mad with rage and frenzy and became a monster that brings drought and disaster.
And Heuk Sa recalls who that monster was in the first cycle.
"You...!"
A being who was a divine Dragon King.
They, this time, failed to obtain the dragon pearl and became a monster, turning everything Heuk Sa has gathered into nothing.
[O evil god who brings ruination.]
The monster, which would originally have become a sacred dragon, looks at him as it dies.
[Because your subordinates fought desperately, they ended up bringing me down...yet in the end, you too failed to protect what is precious.]
The monster laments as it looks at Heuk Sa.
[Do you wonder why it has become like this...? O evil god. All things are of cause and retribution. As the divinities you have been killing died, the entire world fell into misery. In the end, to save a world drowned in misery, I came to know that this was the only way.]
"..."
Heuk Sa passes the monster and approaches Yang Hwe.
Her whole body is burning.
Her belly is swollen.
[The resentful grudges of the gods flew into me and told me to kill you. All of this is what you brought upon yourself. O evil god...]
Crunch—
With a sweep of his hand, he smashes the jaw of the jabbering imoogi.
Heuk Sa carefully lifts Yang Hwe into his arms.
Yang Hwe, burning to death, opens her mouth toward Heuk Sa.
Thanks to the breathing method Heuk Sa taught her and the health exercises that make one healthy, she, even as she burns, did not die at once.
But within the fire dwell the grudges and pain of countless gods, so death is inevitable.
"I...thought...of a...name..."
Yang Hwe smiles brightly and speaks.
"I saw...your real name..."
The name Heuk Sa's mother, passing by a school, picked up because she thought it looked respectable and gave him.
In a way, Heuk Sa's true name.
"Gu Ju (九疇)..."
It is a name Heuk Sa himself has forgotten for far too long.
"To fit...that name...I found a good...name..."
Yang Hwe's hand touches Heuk Sa's cheek.
Chiiiii—
Heuk Sa's cold energy puts out the fire clinging to her body, and his will calls wind and summons rain across the area.
Rain falls and the fire subsides.
"Hong Fan (洪範)...how about it...?"
The name his mother, passing by a school, gave him: Gu Ju.
To match that, the new name Yang Hwe gives him: Hong Fan.
"You took it...from the Great Plan Nine Categories (洪範九疇)."
"Yeah...do you like it?"
Hong Fan smiles brighter than ever.
"...Yeah. I like it so much."
"That's...a relief."
She smiles at Hong Fan's reaction and closes her eyes.
That is the end.
Yang Hwe dies.
Tsuaaaaa—
At the same time as her death, something gushes out from her flesh and enters Hong Fan.
It is one of the powers of Darkness World that Hong Fan has lent her until now.
A power that divine descents a portion of history and reads the information of the past and causality.
It was so through this, if the Law of Causality shuddered and ill fortune descended, she could at least evacuate by herself.
But she did not use that power to evacuate.
Rather, she used it to find a better name for Hong Fan, and sat still in this place, facing head-on the ill fortune that enveloped her.
The reason was but one.
Feeling Yang Hwe's lingering thought contained in the power that returns to him, Hong Fan grits his teeth.
— I cannot evacuate alone.
—Because...the Heuk Sa Society family. This village. This house. All of it...are what he gifted me. They are...
"Why...?"
—The greatest blessing.
"Why...did you not run away...?"
— If we endure just a little, he will come to save us. As he always has...
[All things are of...cause...and retribution...]
"Why...did you believe in me...!?"
— So, everyone. While this disaster focuses on only killing me, join forces and block it. If it is you all who have received his teachings...then you can definitely stop it.
The imoogi whose jaw is shattered opens its mouth.
Hong Fan grabs the imoogi's head with one hand, tears it out, and shouts.
—For you whom he has raised are, at this very moment, nothing other than the light of our village.
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"Why...why on earth...!? Why am I always like this...!?"
Hong Fan weeps and laughs.
He doubted her.
He thought she was not the 'she' he had thought of.
She was.
For no matter how time was turned back, she was still a being with a fixed ending.
"I committed evil deeds and so she died... If so...then why did she die in the first life...!?"
He remembers the first life.
He did not live a life like now, stained with great massacres and blood.
But even then, she died.
More wretchedly than now.
"Why must a person die wretchedly!? O God! Someone answer! I'm saying, someone answer!"
Hong Fan cries out.
"Why is this world...filled only with such miserable things...!?"
His wife died again.
He vowed that he would protect her no matter what, and with his own hands handled all possibilities that could kill his wife.
But in the end, an unforeseen variable twisted history into the same way.
Hong Fan's heart, this time too, was not repaid.
Beuduk...dududuk...
Hong Fan clutches his chest.
And with trembling hands, he gouges out his own eyes.
They are the eyes he kept until now because he wanted to see his wife's face, because he wanted to hold her smiling face in his eyes.
Eyes that failed to protect his wife are utterly useless.
He becomes blind again.
"Why...do humans...die so easily...?"
He buries with his own hands his wife's corpse, and the entire Heuk Sa Society that diligently protected his wife.
He also buries with his own hands all the innocent villagers who burned to death because of his undeserved self.
"Why is the world filled with suffering...?"
Where is the answer to this world?
Why did he receive a fate to suffer like this?
Why did he come to suffer again and again even though time was turned back?
Why can't he change anything?
"An answer...I need an answer..."
Hong Fan, blind once more, claws at his chest and sets out to seek an answer.
"Lord Heavens..."
He decides to go seek the Lord Heavens whom he could not even dare to visit before his wife died.
He wants to ask for the answer to everything.
Thus, the boy who has become a youth, in order to obtain an answer as to why the world is filled with suffering and why he must suffer like this...
For the first time, he completely steps off the path he has followed in his previous history and begins to go seek Lord Heavens.
Whioooooo—
Hong Fan, now blind, leaves the star he was born on and looks back.
'This time...I did not split the star.'
He also did not let his own heart be split.
He did not allow a strand of Heart Demon that slipped out from his body to gain form and dare to act as his wife.
In this life, no fox was even born.
For the heart of the fox that dies facing its old hill (狐死首丘) that seeks to be born, yearning for Yang Hwe as the homeland of his heart.
That tender and confused Heart Demon...
He strangled it to death with his own hands.
Thus, even though he killed gods, Hong Fan leaves the star without splitting his homeland.
And at that moment, beyond the Law of Causality, he sees the world undergoing division.
'This is...'
A single world splits into two worldlines.
Hong Fan enters one of the worldlines, and there he looks at the other worldline that has split.
'Ah...I see.'
Hong Fan smiles.
'The cause of all misfortune and suffering...was it myself...?'
Beyond the split worldline, in the other worldline, he can see 'the self of the first life' again gets bewitched by the Heart Demon, and, clutching the keepsake of his dead wife, go mad and rampage, only coming to his senses after cutting the star in half.
That was his first life.
He realizes how this bizarre regression is carried out.
'If I walk along a similar flow of history, the timeline itself does not change, but within that timeline, countless inevitabilities bunch together and somehow reproduce the history I experienced... But if I choose a completely different flow of history, then at that moment the worldline differentiates and heads toward another result.'
Kiiiiiiing—
Indeed.
The reason Hong Fan of this life became unhappy again was that he followed the trajectory of the first life and tried somehow to change things within it.
"Rather...if I had not met anyone...I would not be this unhappy...!"
If he had not met the old friend.
If he had not met Yang Hwe.
They would not have been entangled with him and become so unhappy.
"You all became unhappy because of me...!"
Realizing that fact, Hong Fan laughs like a madman.
Indeed.
From the beginning, he was the source of misfortune.
"...I must...meet you."
At that painful realization, Hong Fan swears to meet Lord Heavens no matter what, and he begins to sail the distant sea of stars.
He sails the universe to meet the Chief God of this universe and meets countless gods.
He also meets an imoogi who, though already having reached divinity, gathers dragon pearls excessively and thus cannot ascend.
The imoogi asks Hong Fan, saying that if he is going to meet Lord Heavens, to also resolve its question and find out how it can ascend.
The imoogi reminds him of the Dragon King, and at the same time the imoogi's desire that cannot discard its dragon pearls brings to mind his own futile, modest happinesses.
Annoyed and ashamed of himself, he bisects and kills the divine rank imoogi that has gathered ten dragon pearls.
He also meets a divinity in the aspect of a young master who cultivates a colossal Dragon Flower Tree whose roots spread through the entire galaxy, and who laments that the Dragon Flower Tree does not bloom.
The divine young master asks Hong Fan, who is going to meet Lord Heavens, that if he does meet Lord Heavens, to find out why the Dragon Flower Tree does not bloom.
When Hong Fan looks closely, he observes that countless fortune and virtue crowd together at the roots of that Dragon Flower Tree, so the Dragon Flower Tree cannot breathe properly and thus cannot flower.
Seeing it bawl while failing to make use of its own fortune and virtue makes Hong Fan feel ashamed as if he is looking at his own past self, so he cuts down and kills the Dragon Flower Tree, and also tears apart and kills the divine young master as well.
And after passing through countless time, just before Hong Fan at last reaches Lord Heavens—
He hears the voice of a certain divinity seeking a partner.
Tormented by countless Heart Demons and dreaming of Yang Hwe on his way here, Hong Fan tries to kill the owner of the voice.
But since he cannot p