Chapter 177

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The Diver IX

“Wait.”

I paused. A strange realization, almost like a premonition, brushed my awareness.

’From Leviathan’s perspective... Yo-hwa is just a bug, like a mosquito, in its eye, right?’

Eye. Bug. Mosquito. These keywords were oddly familiar. I felt like I was on the verge of a great idea. If only I could sit quietly in a café and have a cup of Americano, I would surely catch it, but this was not the time to find a nice café with a good view.

“Ah, all my fingers have turned into bugs... Teacher, I feel like I’m slipping inside its eye. See you in the next life.”

“No, Yo-hwa!”

With a leap, I dashed forward and grabbed Cheon Yo-hwa’s hand. She grabbed my hand tightly with both of hers and pulled, yet it felt like her body was stuck in a crevice, completely immobile.

“Ouch! Teacher, my arm! It’s going to come off!”

“What the hell are you caught on? What’s in there?”

“Bugs! Millions of water bugs are clinging to my calves and thighs, pulling me down!”

It was true.

Squirm, squirm.

Transparent bugs the size of a human arm were wriggling, pulling Cheon Yo-hwa downward. Leviathan’s body, including its eyes, was entirely made of water-shaped bugs. Inside its eye was a pit filled with these bugs, unrelinquishing of any and all intruders.

“Release the seal of Infinite Void!”

“I’m trying! But Infinite Void demands six hours of my time every day in return for lending its power!”

“No, we can’t! Last time, six hours turned into twelve, and twelve turned into twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes!”

“Right... Ah, I’m really getting pulled in. My aura is being devoured. Maybe we should just let this be a double suicide...”

“You’re not Infinite Void, are you?”

“Not yet!”

Boom!

I stomped my foot onto the surface, using my aura to turn Leviathan’s eye into an actual hole.

-ROARRRR!

Leviathan writhed in pain, but my initial goal of rescuing Cheon Yo-hwa failed. As soon as the water bugs evaporated from my aura, they were immediately replaced by new ones. There were simply too many water bugs composing Leviathan’s massive body, like it was the ocean itself.

“Damn.” I drew my cane sword, Do-hwa, and sliced at Leviathan’s neck.

Slash!

Even then, bugs swarmed the slashed surface, reconnecting the severed parts. There seemed to be no end to them.

To save Cheon Yo-hwa, I might have to burn Leviathan in its entirety.

“Teacher, maybe we should just give Infinite Void six hours...”

I grabbed Cheon Yo-hwa’s hand firmly instead of answering. The intense grip silenced her.

We couldn’t let Infinite Void take over. In a previous cycle, Infinite Void had deceptively taken over Cheon Yo-hwa’s body and manipulated her friends, colleagues, and subordinates. Yo-hwa, trapped in her own consciousness, had to watch helplessly.

I couldn’t let that happen again.

‘Think, Undertaker.’

While desperately burning the never-ending water bugs with my aura, I tried to think of a way to save Cheon Yo-hwa from the eye of the storm.

‘Why is Leviathan so desperately protecting its eye?’

‘Did it sense Infinite Void within Cheon Yo-hwa and is trying to digest it?’

‘Does Leviathan have the power to devour even Outer Gods? No, that can’t be true. If it were, Infinite Void wouldn’t have been so relaxed about raising the stakes...’

At that moment,

Thud.

however strange,

Thud.

the sound of footsteps echoed, cutting through the tsunamis and chaos brought about by Leviathan’s thrashing.

Thud, thud, thud.

Everything around me froze. Cheon Yo-hwa holding my hand, the guild members bombarding Leviathan, the foam from the waves—it all stopped.

“―――”

I also froze, my consciousness and thoughts unaffected yet unable to even blink.

No matter how focused I became, this situation was beyond odd.

Thud, thud.

Thud.

Only the sound of footsteps approaching from behind reached my ears.

Thud.

The footsteps stopped right beside me as a smaller shadow blanketed me.

『Guild leader.』

The sickeningly sweet scent of rotting apples filled the air. It was Go Yuri’s scent.

『I told you, didn’t I?』

Arms came on either side of me to wrap around my face, fingers intertwining like a spider’s web across my vision. Beyond the mesh of fingers, I glimpsed Leviathan’s eye.

The scent grew closer, whispering directly into my ear.

『That’s a dragon, you know?』

As soon as she whispered, the world resumed.

Cheon Yo-hwa thrashed. The Baekhwa High School guild members fought. The waves pummeled the ark’s deck.

Splash!

A wave drenched me.

I turned to look behind me. Go Yuri was gone.

Maybe she was never there.

Slowly, I mumbled, “The eye.”

“What? Teacher?”

“Yes, the eye!” I shouted, struck by inspiration. “Leviathan, this monstrous sea dragon, must protect its eyes because it’s a dragon!”

A legendary painter had once drawn four white dragons in a temple. Despite the praise, he left the eyes unfinished. When asked why, he replied:

“If I draw the eyes, the dragons will fly away.”

Skeptics demanded proof, so the painter added eyes to two dragons. The dragons broke free from the temple walls and flew into the sky.[1]

From a modern perspective, this “Dragon’s Eye” concept was like a seal binding the anomaly breaking.

‘A blind dragon can’t fly!’

The eyes represented awareness, identity. Without sight, a being couldn’t recognize itself or its surroundings, remaining earthbound.

If this story applied to the dragon before us, then blinding it might render it powerless.

“Saintess!”

[Yes?]

“Are you in the study in Yongsan? Do you have Kafka’s The Metamorphosis?”

[Yes? Oh, I have it...]

“Don’t ask why! Just bring out The Metamorphosis and read it to Yo-hwa! Every word!”

[Got it,] the Saintess replied less than a second later. She had likely paused time to act.

My instructions weren’t finished. I looked at Cheon Yo-hwa. “Yo-hwa! The Saintess will read something to you. Repeat every word.”

Despite the dire situation, Cheon Yo-hwa remained calm. Her expression and voice turned cold.

“Loudly?”

“Volume doesn’t matter. Just keep reading without stopping.”

“Understood, Teacher.”

While the Saintess and Cheon Yo-hwa prepared, I raised my left hand to the sky and unleashed my dark aura. Instead of attacking Leviathan’s eye, I used my aura to shield it, covering the entire eye like an eyelid.

-......!

My dark aura encased both of Leviathan’s eyes. It was as if I had put blindfolds on the dragon, cutting off its vision entirely.

-ROARRRRRR!

Leviathan howled in agony. Its struggling began to sputter out.

[......!]

[The enemy’s movements have slowed!]

The once-rampaging beast rapidly calmed.

Squirm, squirm.

The bugs clinging to Cheon Yo-hwa’s legs surged, trying to bite through the protective aura. But just as I couldn’t burn all of Leviathan, Leviathan couldn’t consume my aura, not immediately at least.

“Ugh.”

The bugs attacked me, crawling into my eyes, mouth, and fingers, biting wherever they found a gap. I used my defensive aura to fend them off, repelling their disgusting advances.

[As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning...]

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning...”

Then.

[...from uneasy dreams...]

“...from uneasy dreams...”

The synchronized voices of the Saintess and Cheon Yo-hwa echoed through the bug-infested pit.

Growl!

The bugs biting me all turned toward Cheon Yo-hwa, charging at her en masse.

I couldn’t let them pass. I raised my aura to dangerous levels, burning them away.

Growl! Growl!

Despite my efforts, the swarm of bugs kept attacking Cheon Yo-hwa. In the darkness of its creation, my black aura shone faintly, continuously blocking the suicidal onslaught of the bug army.

‘If this super monsoon anomaly is related to bugs...’

My aura reserves dwindled rapidly.

‘Then the same thing that happened to the Saintess must happen to this anomaly.’

The Saintess had turned into a potato just because a bug entered her eye. The nature of these bug-related anomalies wasn’t fully understood, but one thing was certain.

‘Anomalies can’t deny their essence.’

An anomaly couldn’t escape its own nature. If it had the power to transform humans, it would face the same fate under similar conditions.

Super monsoon, Leviathan, Jörmungandr.

This ruthless white dragon treated humans as mere parasites. If a parasite entered its eye...

‘Leviathan must transform into something close to a bug, just like the Saintess!’

The bugs desperately tried to silence Cheon Yo-hwa. I protected her with all my might.

As the unbreakable spear clashed with the unpierceable shield, the incantation was completed.

[...he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.]

“—transformed in his bed into a gigantic—”

At that moment,

“―insect.”

the world shook.

Footnotes:

[1] This is the painter Zhang Sengyao, whose paintings were said to be inhumanly realistic and life-like sans the absent eyes that he refused to complete. The story is meant to convey the importance of adding the final touches or a work of art, or more simply, “the devil is in the details.”

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