Myths Reawakened

Two days later.

At the card table by the cliff, four people sat across from each other.

“Damn it, you cheated again!”

“If you’re so terrible at cards, practice. If you can’t deal with losing, don’t play.” From behind a mountain of chips came the voice of the gambling freak.

“How dare you...”

Darienne furiously grabbed the table with both hands, about to flip it with enough power to overturn a mountain, but Wayne did it before she could.

Flip the table so that others can’t.

(눈皿눈)

Darienne was so angry that her hair lifted. She drew White Night Creed to teach Wayne a lesson. Wayne fearlessly drew the inner world’s White Night Creed. They pushed their faces so close that their noses were one fingertip away from pressing together.

William cocked his head. At this rate, the other her would have another big sister.

Filomina watched the farce play out with an expressionless face, her eyes glinting red every now and then. Without a divine artifact protecting her, the negative information had too much influence on her. She was severely compromised.

Knowing that the world would end one way or another, and she couldn’t escape, her jealousy for her other self evolved into hatred. She wanted to keep Wayne here so that her other self would die alone.

Darienne and Wayne stared at each other. After a moment, she turned to the abyss below the cliff with delight. “It’s full. Mission accomplished. We can get out of here now.”

William’s face dimmed, but he still stood up and congratulated them with a smile. Filomina, on the other hand, clutched Wayne’s sleeve with a deep frown.

“How about... we play cards for two more days?” Wayne suggested.

“I don’t mind.” Darienne shrugged. She jumped into the abyss, and when she returned, there was a silver bottle in her hands. The sacred container looked like a clear moon with smooth lines and a slightly tapered neck. It was etched with complex, intricate patterns. From the light reflected by the patterns, one could see a phantom figure holding a container.

Darienne was the Moonlight Knight, so the figure represented the Goddess of Moonlight.

She put the container in her personal storage and created another table and more chips to start a new card game. She didn’t urge Wayne to leave with her. She could tell how conflicted he was.

She didn’t comment on it. She could teach her successor to use White Night Creed and a variety of fighting techniques, but the young man would have to find his own path forward.

Everyone’s life followed a different path. What applied to her might not apply to Wayne.

You’re destined to lead a longer life than those around you, Wayne. It’s not a good thing for future you to form too many attachments. Sooner or later, you will learn to keep your emotions under control, becoming numb and heartless to protect yourself.

She didn’t say those words. That would be too cruel and selfish. She liked how Wayne was now.

Young people should be lively.

The card game continued. Though there was still chatter and laughter, the atmosphere grew ever more oppressive. In the end, even though Darienne won a game off Wayne, she felt no joy in washing away her humiliation. She gloomily tapped the table with her chips.

The mood was so depressing that she wanted to go elsewhere as she waited.

Rumble!!!

A strange rumble came from below the abyss like a behemoth beast had woken from its prolonged slumber. The terrible energy soared toward the sky and shattered the spatial rampart, conjoining the space beyond the Ocean of Mist and Route 114. As the world seemed to spin, an ocean of power poured down from above.

The four felt their hearts stutter. The thick air made every breath difficult, leaving them panting with an unspeakable fear. Even Darienne, a demigod, gaped with wide eyes. Or it was precisely because she was a demigod that she could tell how frighteningly powerful the awakening abomination was.

“There’s something like that in the inner world...” Darienne looked at the abyss in disbelief. “What is it? Is it a sign that the inner world is crumbling, or is it what causes the inner world to crumble?”

Her eyes glowed with silver light as her gaze penetrated layers of space to see beyond the abyss. In the impossibly faraway depths of the inner world, a concentration of dark clouds hovered. The darkness was mixed with red threads, and it writhed and morphed into ever-changing forms. Black tendrils stretched outward and pierced into the land of the inner world, drawing on the endless supply of negative information.

While she was still reeling from the shock, Darienne got hit by a violent wave of thoughts that made her go still. Blood streaked down her pale face from her nostrils.

“It has thoughts. It’s alive...”

Without hesitation, Darienne made a waving motion and hurled White Night Creed to shatter space into shards. She grabbed Wayne by the shoulder.

“We can’t stay in the inner world any longer. Let’s go.”

Wayne was about to say something when a hand gripped his wrist. He looked to the side and met Filomina’s crimson eyes.

“Don’t hesitate. They can’t leave this world. If you don’t believe me, I’ll show you.” Darienne refused to have a tearful departure. It would take too many paragraphs, and the monster would catch up with them.

She sent Wayne, William, and Filomina into the spatial tunnel with a punch and a kick before jumping in herself, flying toward the light at the end of the tunnel. It was a colorful, constantly morphing dreamscape filled with countless vibrant shards that slowly rotated to form a variety of patterns, like a kaleidoscope. The patterns changed every moment, with infinite possibilities.

It was beautiful, but dangerous.

The tunnel led to numerous exits. A misstep could lead to a one-way doorway to despair. Darienne’s White Night Creed was anchored to the surface world, so they didn’t have to worry about getting lost with her leading the way.

Wayne, William, and Filomina followed her closely. Wayne memorized everything with his thoughts to collect new knowledge and broaden his horizon, while William and Filomina ran as fast as they could. Both were ready to face the reality that they could not leave the world, but the way to escape was right there. They couldn’t help but feel hopeful.

What if they could leave?

No one wanted to die when survival was possible.

The tunnel led to a distant, seemingly unreachable light. From the back of the tunnel, black tendrils were catching up to them.

The frightening pressure and thick negativity made Darienne break into goosebumps. She reached out to grab William and Filomina, going thirty percent faster.

Wayne was right after her, keeping pace.

Though the two were fast, the black mist behind them was faster. Wherever the mist reached, the kaleidoscope lost its colors, and the sound of a mirror shattering echoed.

They were running for their life!

Fear and anxiety filled their hearts. Wayne extended a tentacle from his back with an eyeball opening at the tip, attempting to see what life lay beyond the darkness. If there was a monster consisting of pure negative information, perhaps he could make it dinner with the Book of Greed.

He might not be dinner!

He saw nothing but a pair of crimson eyes and a hazy black figure at the depths of the abyss. It wasn’t a brainless monster consisting purely of negative information, but a living being, as Darienne had observed.

It was incredibly powerful.

Wayne heard a voice that told him that the monster was after him because he had been letting the Book of Greed feast to its heart’s content in the inner world over the past few days. The book had taken the monster’s food from it, and, still hungry, the monster wanted to eat Wayne.

Darienne has taken negative information, too, and she’s filled up a massive bottle. Why aren’t you after her?

Wayne didn’t understand. It wouldn’t make sense for the monster to be after him just because it saw him as a weak pushover who deserved to have a gun pointed at him. Judging by how hasty Darienne had been fleeing, she was no less of a sitting duck than he was facing the monster.

If it wasn’t about the amount of negativity, then it would have to be the quality of the negativity. The Book of Greed never ate the same dish twice. The book might have stolen food that mattered to the monster.

Clack!

Crackle—

The cracks in the mirror extended past the four of them and reached the distant light. Wayne quickly divided a large volume of white foam to block the tunnel behind them.

As soon as the black tentacles swept over the white foam, it devoured everything.

Wayne reached out with his thoughts and realized that he had lost contact with the white foam. The devoured tissue had been consumed thoroughly, with no chance of parasitizing the entity to procreate.

Is that thing’s existence that advanced?

Wayne’s heart stuttered. Following his instinct, he decided against battling the entity and accelerated further. The light in the distance was getting closer. As they moved toward it, Wayne noticed swathes of blackness shedding from William and Filomina. The closer they were to the surface world, the less negative information their bodies contained. The redness in their eyes faded as they regained rationality like their surface world’s selves.

Their bodies also grew translucent and reflected light like mirrors.

They couldn’t leave.

Wayne didn’t waste time sighing. He put his hands on their backs and tried to reforge their bodies through corruption. Then, however, William suddenly broke out of Darienne’s grip. While passing by Wayne, he stepped on Wayne to accelerate himself while speeding up Wayne’s retreat.

Wayne turned around in shock, seeing a blindingly bright golden sun.

William, who had chosen to sacrifice himself, no longer reflected light like a mirror, and his weakened body reclaimed the power of the Sun Knight. He endured five seconds before the infinite darkness overwhelmed him.

Wayne stopped, eyes wide.

Darienne put an arm around his neck and forced him to keep rushing toward the exit, like she had anticipated his reaction. “Don’t do anything stupid. Even I can’t do anything about the monster. You’ll only be throwing your life away.”

With clear eyes, Filomina cut off her reflective arm and stopped advancing.

Wayne turned to her in confusion, reading her lips as she spoke silently with her now mirror-like face.

“I’ve shown an unbecoming side before and disappointed you. The other me in the surface world is certainly different. She won’t be any worse than William, so don’t look at her like you do me.”

Without the influence of the negative information, Filomina chose to stay, and she wished her other self a life of happiness.

Four moon phases flickered into life. After a soft sound, darkness swept over her.

Boom!!

Before Wayne could react, the world suddenly brightened up. Darienne had dragged him out of the tunnel into the surface world.

Hovering in the sky, White Night Creed stopped glowing. One second before the black tendrils could touch the surface world, the spatial tunnel collapsed and disappeared.

Everything returned to normal.

Wayne stared at the empty space where the tunnel had been for a long, silent moment, clenching his fists.

“Darienne,” he said stiffly. “I’m too weak, am I not?”

“You’re still young. I’m centuries old, and even I could do nothing but run. What could you possibly do?” Darienne patted him on the shoulder rather than offering platitudes.

If you feel weak, grow quickly. You should know that without me telling you.

Wayne silently looked at the empty spot in the air, the tragic faces from the inner world flashing through his mind. He made a promise to himself.

“One day, I’m going to change the world!”

***

Inner world.

The destruction that Darienne had expected didn’t happen. The mirror remained, and setting aside the desolate wasteland, the world seemed serene. The weather was even quite nice.

At the bottom of the abyss of darkness, tentacles consisting of negative information danced around randomly. Looking closely, it would become clear that the tentacles were struggling to break out.

In the heart of the darkness, a vague figure rode on a black horse, hazy like mist.