[774] The Doubt of Emptiness (4)
"Uuuuuugh."
How much time had passed?
Sensation returned slowly, beginning with Arius's groan and the blood at his ear.
"Huu."
My whole body ached as if I'd been beaten.
'Miro?'
There was no time to check myself. Sein, who had regained his sight, immediately swept the battlefield.
As if the shock had taken shape, dozens of peaks around them had been carved into a circular ring.
"Buddha!"
The inverted cross that had been assembled into a sphere unraveled, and Shura was the first to fling himself forward.
"We're coming too."
Arius didn't hear him, but when he saw Sein leaving he followed at once.
Shura stopped on a peak four hundred meters from the battlefield and scoured the ground below.
Sein felt a chill of unease.
'Why?'
When he reached Shura's side, unease turned into reality.
'Is it really… the Buddha?'
Nane stood before Miro, who knelt in a trance.
"If I had no great vow…."
Her lips were split and bleeding, but her expression was calm, untouched by shock.
"I would have sung your praises."
"...."
Miro couldn't hear him.
Nane reached out as he watched her slump-shouldered, bowed figure.
"Sermon—Galhak."
A blue blade leapt free, shot into the sky, and struck her crown as a single bolt of lightning.
Miro, who had shuddered a moment before, slowly opened her eyes.
"Kill her."
Not a word of resignation, but spoken in a voice so exhausted she couldn't even lift a finger.
"It was a hair's breadth."
At the highest level, outcomes diverge to extremes over the tiniest causes.
"Perhaps you might have achieved your goal."
Miro sneered.
"Pitying me? You aren't a god either."
"True. But I am a little farther from humanity."
It was an inexcusable defeat.
"An impurity smaller than dust. Why didn't you cast it off? What keeps you clinging to humanity?"
Nane wanted to hear the answer.
"Kill her."
But Miro, as if she wouldn't speak, quietly closed her eyes and waited for death.
"...Sermon—Slaughter."
Twelve red blades sprang up behind Nane and arced like claws toward Miro.
"There will be no pain."
A killing intent that seemed capable of piercing Miro's torso radiated even to Sein four hundred meters away.
"No. We have to rescue her now—"
"It's already too late."
Facing the annihilation of Cheonsugwanseum, Shura did not smile.
"The one closest to Buddha has bowed. No one can leap ahead of Buddha's time."
The instant Sein launched himself and the moment Nane's sermon struck Miro—
"Damn it! Damn it!"
In the end Sein couldn't move another step; all he could do was try to delay Miro's death a little.
Nane did not wait.
"It's over."
The twelve swords shot at Miro.
As Sein and Arius's hearts coiled, preparing for one powerful beat—
"Posmeteri."
A gigantic, shining monstrous bird wrapped around Miro and shot into the sky.
When Miro vanished into another dimension, Nane's sermon, unable to contain its killing intent, detonated itself.
"Julu's summon?"
Sein hurriedly scanned the area and found Miro several dozen meters away from Nane.
"So… she followed after all?"
Julu and Gangnan sat on Kaidra, and on the ground Gaold stood holding Miro.
"Now!"
Sein and Arius teleported toward Kaidra, and Shura clicked his tongue and flew at Nane.
Miro awakened to a strange sensation.
'What is this?'
Two pieces of information hit her at once: she was still breathing, and she was cradled in someone's arms.
"...."
When she saw Gaold's face, the world tilted and a curse slipped out.
"Damn it."
Gaold smiled bitterly.
"Long time no see."
That was the extent of the reunion; Gaold turned back toward Nane.
"Is that the Buddha? He must've given him a hard time."
Miro ground her teeth.
"Put me down. Why are you here? This has nothing to do with you anymore."
Exhausted, she could barely move; Sein stepped forward to support her.
"Gaold, you—"
"Later. We'll do it later."
Sein fell silent at the change in atmosphere.
'Of course. He returned after enduring hell twice over.'
When Gaold focused on Nane, Miro finally stole a glance.
'You've wasted away a lot.'
Muscles honed by endless battle had withered; all that remained were wounds.
'This is the worst reunion.'
She had sworn there would be no second time, and yet again she owed her life to Gaold.
"Miro-nim."
Arius, curled beside her leg and relieved by his master's return, bowed his head.
'I can feel my heart pounding faster.'
A diver had entered Miro's mind.
Arius knew the single trauma etched into her near-perfect psyche.
'Mikae Gaold.'
A name she couldn't bring herself to abandon.
"Let's go back. For now we blocked the path to Heaven—Sion will handle the follow-up plans…."
Gaold said, then asked, "Why would the Buddha try to kill Miro?"
Sein frowned.
"What do you know? No time for long explanations. Help us evacuate Miro safely."
"That'll do. I'll ask him myself."
Gaold walked toward Nane.
"You idiot! Do you even grasp the situation—!"
Shouting wouldn't fix things, so Sein swallowed his anger and said to Gangnan,
"Go get her quickly. If he keeps that up, that bastard will actually die."
Julu answered, "If it were possible to stop him, he wouldn't have come here."
"Then she'll die."
Julu watched Gaold's departing back.
"For Gaold, reality is excruciating pain. But he came back after going through hell twice."
The mood grew solemn.
"We don't know what Gaold suffered. So we have no right to stop him."
"Buy us time."
Miro moved away from Sein and said, "Wait a bit. My mind will recover. I'll take her and run. Until then, protect Gaold."
It was their last option.
Sein clicked his tongue and turned back to Nane.
"Tch, persistent to the end…."
Nane, who had been watching Gaold, brightened his eyes.
"Shura."
"Yes—"
"Fall back. As far as you can."
"Huh?"
Shura asked, but no answer came.
"All right."
Even after Shura left, Nane calmly waited for Gaold to approach.
'I see my former self in him.'
Nane had become something like a Buddha by relinquishing his body in hell after experiencing every pain in the world.
"An ascetic?"
Gaold thought it not worth answering.
"Why do you want to kill Miro?"
"To close this world."
"Why close it? What wrong did it do to you?"
"Suffering."
Nane raised a finger and pointed at Gaold.
"And you are someone who understands this world. How about joining me in cutting the chains of desire?"
"You understand this world?"
Gaold stepped forward, twisted his hips, and swung at Nane's face with a full-force blow.
"How the hell would I know, you bastard!"
Sein's eyes went wide.
"That madman…!"
When Nane turned his head again, Gaold's eyes were rolled back as he thundered forward.
"Have you practiced some zen? If you're a Buddha, be one—what do you know about me, spouting nonsense?"
'It's Gaold!'
Sein looked back at the group as Gaold's old temper resurfaced.
"Begin! Everyone, get ready!"
Miro shouted.
"Wait a second!"
When Gaold pressed the air with Air Press, the ground heaved up and down like a rubber sheet.
"Waaaaaaah!"
Blood trickled from Gaold's eyes as he curled his ten fingers and screamed.
"T-that is…."
Gangnan went pale looking at Nane, who could not move under the air pressure.
'How much pain is he in?'
A pain scale of ten trillion times.
Having returned from hell a second time, Gaold's threshold had risen far beyond before.
'Is this the kind of pain?'
A strangeness came into Nane's eyes.
'Then why hasn't he died?'
Julu said, "He should've been dead already. But Gaold did not die. Once something like that happens…."
It just happened.
"So now he can't die."
Gaold, his hair gone white, staggered forward pouring tears of blood.
"Shall I tell you what real pain is?"
He had lost his mind.
"It's not something you can endure. You're just subjected to it."
"Sermon—Break."
The light blade born above Nane vibrated and shook the atmosphere that had stiffened like reinforced steel.
"No! Hurry, get to Gaold—!"
Just then, as Miro shouted—
"Trapped in a narrow body, all you can do is pitifully scream. And you—"
Unable to endure the pain, Gaold screamed and stamped the ground.
"Tell me about pain!"
A pain scale of one quintillion times.
"Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!"
A pain scale of ten quintillion.
"Foolish sentient beings!"
Nane pushed his sermon's power to the limit.
"I will erase your pain!"
"Waaaa! Waaaa!"
Consciousness had already flown; the only remaining thought was that it hurt.
'A pain of a thousand quintillion! Ten thousand quintillion! A gazillion times! Goddamn it!'
Where in the world does that exist?
'No matter how much you scream about how much it hurts…'
How could anyone else feel it?
The greatest pain is the pain one suffers oneself; thus the weight of pain is the same to each person.
'Yet they live on.'
Even knowing it won't change, they cling to the hope tomorrow might be better.
'Clench your teeth!'
Life is the will to keep living until the end.
"Playing at petty asceticism…."
Only Gaold could spit those words.
"Don't talk about others' pain!"
A pain scale of 10^20 times.
First, dozens of high peaks around them collapsed as if poured out, pressed down to the horizon.
'Ah, I see.'
In the instant astronomical friction took effect, Nane realized.
'That's why they couldn't cry.'
In the moment superheated air expanded—heat that could melt any substance—tears ran down Nane's cheek.
KWA-ANG!
Jungcheondong exploded.
"Kyaaaaaa!"
Taeseong's scream echoed through the Earth Temple.
'Another has transcended ten-thousandfold.'
Even with her eyes wide in shock, countless thoughts crossed her mind.
'What breaks the balance of the world is….'
Ultimately, it is humanity.
The monk's sanctuary vanished from the map.
"My god…."
The Jungcheondong Shura looked down upon resembled a pit as if a god had scooped the earth away with a spoon.
Gangnan coughed from the heat.
"Cough! Cough!"
If Miro hadn't poured all her spirit into holding herself, everything would have melted.
"Is anyone alive?"
Julu pointed to the center of the crater.
"There, there."
The faces of those looking down drained of color.
"N-Nane…."
At Gaold's feet, someone lay sprawled, coughing up blood again and again.
"You collapsed?"
Even seeing it, reality was hard to grasp. Only Miro faced the fact.
'Gaold, you—'
He had broken the Buddha.
(End of Volume 31)