The sea.
The deep sea.
That place, endlessly dark and gloomy, yet teeming with countless lives.
Swoosh-
Splash!!
In the midst of the dense abyss, a burst of light revealed two figures, a man and a woman.
“You, you just, what is this……!!”
“Your expression is quite entertaining. What, are you seasick?”
The time had finally come to sever the long, tenacious, and sticky ill-fated relationship.
Natsuko, unable to grasp what had just happened to her, experienced a moment of confusion before finally understanding the situation.
“I see, from the beginning, you knew everything.”
“Did you really think I wouldn’t know?”
Natsuko pondered Seo Sunwoo’s words for a moment, then laughed.
“I was foolish. Of course you would have known.”
Crack!!
Before she could finish speaking, Natsuko’s hand turned red and lunged towards Seo Sunwoo.
She already knew that fighting underwater would give her no advantage.
If that was the case, she had to kill Seo Sunwoo right now and surface before Parang could catch her.
It was the right decision, and a quick one.
Natsuko’s arm pierced straight through Seo Sunwoo’s chest.
She had aimed precisely for the heart. Any normal human would have died instantly.
However, Seo Sunwoo was far beyond Natsuko’s expectations.
“Cough, hack……!!”
He coughed up murky blood.
In the water, the blood spread like a fog.
Astonishingly, he was still alive.
Natsuko’s pupils dilated.
“I knew… you would… do something like this…”
Suddenly, Natsuko felt a strange sensation in her hand that had pierced Seo Sunwoo.
Not the soft flesh of a human, but the hard, cold sensation of steel.
“Habits are… truly… terrifying. Cough.”
Hardening.
It was Seo Sunwoo’s skill.
Even with his heart pierced, he had hardened his body.
Natsuko tried to pull her hand out in panic, but as if caught on something, her arm wouldn’t budge from inside Seo Sunwoo’s body.
“Your habit, Natsuko. Always starting by piercing the heart, that habit.”
He struggled to breathe as he spoke. Even if he had hardened his body with his skill, his heart was already pierced.
Both Seo Sunwoo and Natsuko clearly felt his life slipping away quickly and surely.
But along with his death, victory was also certainly approaching.
‘This can’t be……!!’
Natsuko’s demeanor visibly grew more anxious.
‘Am I going to die? Here?!’
That’s impossible.
Natsuko gritted her teeth.
It was obvious that even at this moment, the monster was swimming towards her.
‘Right. I need to escape first.’
Natsuko tried to swim without removing Seo Sunwoo’s body, keeping her arm impaled through him.
It would be impossible for a normal human, but Natsuko was a monster.
For her, it was entirely possible.
However.
Boom-!
“Ugh……!!”
Feeling a sudden, intense pain in her arm, Natsuko bit her lower lip hard.
Her pupils contracted, and her expression turned to shock.
“Not so fast, my friend.”
As she turned to look, Seo Sunwoo was smirking.
The weight of his body impaled on her arm felt tens, no, hundreds of times heavier.
And in reality, it was.
Seo Sunwoo had made his body heavier.
Natsuko struggled desperately to rise, but her body began to sink deeper and deeper.
‘No, no!!!’
Her expression grew more desperate, and her movements became more frantic, but.
Nothing changed.
Natsuko continued to sink deeper into the sea.
Like a witch thrown into the sea with shackles.
If there was any difference from history, it might be that Natsuko, despite being a real witch, couldn’t rise to the surface.
She looked at Seo Sunwoo with a shocked expression.
Even as his breath was steadily fading, his face bore an incredibly satisfied smile.
As the situation reached this point, the fear that she might actually die became firmly etched in Natsuko’s mind.
And this fear, experienced for the first time in her life, was far more terrifying than Natsuko had ever imagined.
“L-let go. I said let go of this!!”
She struggled desperately to pull out her arm with an anxious expression never seen before.
She even tried to cut off her own arm, but even that wasn’t easy.
Clang!! Clang!!
Natsuko’s arm, far from being cut, only produced sparks with a metallic sound.
Seo Sunwoo watched Natsuko silently, without saying a word.
As if he wanted to engrave this moment in his memory without missing a single detail.
“Why, why are you doing this? Why!!!”
Natsuko screamed with a trembling voice.
“If you knew, then, that day!!! You could have just killed me!! Why, why now, why are you doing this now of all times!!”
Her frantic voice was tinged with a hint of crying.
Seo Sunwoo opened his mouth and spoke calmly, as if he had been waiting for this moment.
“Yes. I could have killed you that day. In that burning building, when you devoured Eunha who had run to you for protection.”
His voice was wavering precariously, like a candle about to be extinguished.
But the content was not.
“But I didn’t. Can you guess why?”
Natsuko said nothing and stared at Seo Sunwoo with her blood-red eyes, looking eerie.
Natsuko had no way of knowing what the reason could be.
After all, Seo Sunwoo’s strategies had always been a step ahead of hers.
But the words that came out of Seo Sunwoo’s mouth were beyond anything she could have imagined.
“Because I wanted you to trust me, Natsuko.”
“What…?”
Her pupils dilated.
“I wanted you to trust me. It’s exactly as I said.”
Seo Sunwoo, as if letting go of the last lingering attachment to life, revealed his true feelings to Natsuko for the first and last time, with a sense of relief.
“Don’t you understand? You’re not just dying by my hand. At this moment, you’re dying at the hands of the ‘me’ you trusted.”
He bit his lower lip.
“Just like that child died at the hands of the ‘you’ she trusted that day.”
Only then did Natsuko realize the true nature of the fierce fire burning in Seo Sunwoo’s eyes.
Fire Wheel.
It was Fire Wheel.
A burning chariot that sets itself on fire and rampages through enemy lines until it burns to ashes without a trace.
“For such, such a trivial reason, you’ve been acting your entire life? For such, such a reason…?”
“Are you joking, Natsuko? What do you mean I devoted my entire life? That’s nonsense.”
In this cold sea, Seo Sunwoo was burning the hottest.
Burning Natsuko, and burning himself.
“My life, you devoured it that day.”
At those words, something snapped inside Natsuko.
“Ah, aah, aaaaaaargh!!!”
Natsuko finally let out a despairing scream, unable to control her erupting emotions.
And Seo Sunwoo saw something approaching over her convulsing shoulder.
The waves of judgment were rushing in from far away.
“Well then, let’s meet again in hell. My friend.”
Only then did Seo Sunwoo close his eyes peacefully.
At the same time, a notification window popped up in front of Natsuko.
[ You have eliminated the Awakened, ‘Seo Sunwoo’. The target has killed a total of (71) humans. ]
[ You have absorbed (32) skills. (24) skills conflict with your existing skills. ]
Simultaneously, Seo Sunwoo’s body changed back into a human form.
His flesh became soft, and Natsuko could easily pull out her hand.
She took rough, heavy breaths.
Her heart was pounding.
Seo Sunwoo had passed judgment on her just before his death.
A judgment to meet in hell.
Now, it was time for execution.
An overwhelming presence was felt behind her.
Natsuko turned around to face the blue before her.
Whether it had automatically healed upon entering the water, the numerous wounds from earlier were nowhere to be seen, and her ear had grown back perfectly.
Beautiful blue hair swaying in the water caught her eye.
Shining blue eyes pierced through Natsuko.
Natsuko felt stripped bare before her.
It felt like confessing every sin she had committed in her life.
If one were to be judged by God after death, would it feel like this?
“You still won’t apologize, even at the end.”
Those blue eyes saying this were also burning fiercely.
More purely, clearly, and cleanly than anything else.
And Natsuko also saw her own reflection in those burning eyes.
There was no one with grandiose titles like predator or supreme being.
There was only herself, transformed into a monster.
Looking into those eyes, Natsuko instinctively knew.
If there were a protagonist in this world, it would be that girl.
Of course, Natsuko had no intention of falling here either.
Her fist began to glow red.
“Are you ready?”
“No.”
“That’s too bad. I am.”
Behind her, the silhouette of a massive tentacle appeared.
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