Chapter 120. mories That Do Not Exist
As soon as Yul returned to the Island of Boundaries, he took out the things that had been inside Beru’s bag.
Sheets of paper filled with massive amounts of information, and a diary. At the bottom of the backpack was a fist-sized stone shaped like a regular octadecagon, emitting a brilliant light.
“What could this be?”
It was a diary left behind by the future Yul. He opened it first.
The contents were quite shocking and interesting, and he beca absorbed in them for a long ti.
[If the letter was delivered, you must have read this diary as well. This is simply for record-keeping.]
[I said that countless versions of began to exist in the future, right? There was a certain branching point.]
[Manhyangcho. A purple flower bud that looked so beautiful that I touched it. But that was the problem. From the mont I touched that flower, I spread infinitely across parallel worlds.]
“Manhyangcho?”
Yul checked the diary and saw that the flower had been drawn in great detail. It clearly said never to touch it.
[Yeah. After that, everything turned into a complete ss. Can you imagine it? Spread across the world.]
Countless UV Thermal Guns.
Countless Krelsite spears.
Countless awakeners of the Demon Eyes of the Deep King Tribe.
Yul felt goosebumps rising. I multiply into hundreds and thousands? My equipnt too?
[When Yuls gather in one place, they explode with a bang. The mont we saw the first two who encountered each other die, every Yul went into hiding and desperately tried to avoid eting one another. Countless Yuls spread across every corner of Dragon Land.]
“Ugh, that’s horrible.”
[The interesting thing was that the awakening of the Demon Eyes of the Deep King Tribe was different for everyone.]
“Huh?”
[The first and second Demon Eyes were the sa. That was before the branching point. But it didn’t take long to realize that the Yuls who awakened the third Demon Eye had all awakened different ones.]
[Thinking about it, we had no comrades of the Deep King Tribe, no teachers, no friends, no seniors. We didn’t even recognize the possibility of a higher species, and we only vaguely understood the abilities of the Demon Eyes through the status window.]
[Demon Eyes bloom through different experiences. Each one awakened in a different direction depending on the experiences of the individual. Many Yuls thought that perhaps, by using these Demon Eyes, it might be possible to escape Dragon Land.]
[And then the first victim was discovered. I don’t know which Demon Eye that Yul possessed, but what I saw was only his corpse. He had died miserably. Seeing that made us realize that a ‘Yul’ with malicious intent had been born. A Yul who had completely lost his sanity and gone mad. And then, in order to protect ourselves, we began killing each other.]
[Do you know the Dark Forest Hypothesis? Yeah, the one from that SF movie. We began a ‘war of all against all.’ After that, the Yuls hid in the darkness and completely stopped communicating with one another. Anyone who was discovered was imdiately eliminated.]
As Yul read the record, chills ran down his spine. A war of all against all.
In an unknown, dangerous, dark forest, there is a hunter. Hiding silently—then if sothing appears, it might be a threat, so you shoot it first.
Because they know each other too well, they cannot trust each other.
It was certain that the Yuls must have fought a battle royale within that place.
[Among them, a unique individual appeared. It was one who awakened the Demon Eye of 「Distortion.」 Using the Demon Eye of Distortion, that Yul was able to break through the storm of ti and go beyond the event horizon of the incident. That must have been about 5,000 years later.]
“Insane…….”
[The Yul with the Demon Eye of Distortion went outside Dragon Land and ca back. The reason was unknown. As he returned, he left these words: 「The whole world is nothing but darkness.」]
Was he talking about the future 5,000 years later? Or sothing else? What happened after that could be guessed.
[You understand that I noticed the existence with the Demon Eye of Distortion, right? In the silent forest, anything exposed outside is eliminated instantly. The Yul who went outside was exposed to all other Yuls and was imdiately eliminated. Stupid bastards. If we had only possessed his Demon Eye of Distortion, we all could have escaped.]
Perhaps there were Yuls who no longer wanted to escape, or ones who were afraid of exposing themselves. Or perhaps soone intended to use the Demon Eye of Distortion but was killed by soone standing on the opposite side.
[Anyway, after that, I gave up hoping for Demon Eye awakenings. I awakened all six Demon Eyes, but I did not obtain the Demon Eye of 「Distortion.」 The abilities of the Demon Eyes that I discovered are as follows.]
After that, Yul wrote down the information that the future Yul had discovered.
Demon Eye of 「Reflection」: Returns the damage you receive, ignoring physical or magical laws. The user of this Demon Eye died after receiving a fatal wound from another Yul, but took revenge through Reflection.
Demon Eye of 「Stasis」: Stops the ‘movent’ of a target within your field of vision. If the gaze is not maintained, it is imdiately released. Using that weakness, the future Yul eliminated the user of Stasis.
Demon Eye of 「Severance」: Cuts everything within sight regardless of distance. The user of this Demon Eye died after his own eyeball was severed.
Demon Eye of 「Gravity」: Explosively increases gravity wherever the gaze reaches. However, the user receives the sa amount of gravity as well. The user of this Demon Eye was crushed to death.
Demon Eye of 「Void」: Replaces a point within the field of vision entirely with a portion of the Void. It was the strongest ability the future Yul had seen, but the user was killed by soone with the Mirror Demon Eye.
Demon Eye of 「Mirror」: Copies Demon Eye abilities exactly. However, that Yul possessed too many abilities and ended up being consud by his own penalty and died.
Demon Eye of 「Ray」: The ability to fire rays from the eyes like the rays of a UV Thermal Gun. This was the one the future Yul possessed.
So of these Demon Eye owners were killed by the future Yul, while others died due to the side effects of their abilities.
“A Demon Eye battle royale…….”
One thing was certain: if Yul ever encountered soone from the Deep King Tribe, they would inevitably clash using these Demon Eye abilities.
In that sense, the combat records of the Yuls were extrely vivid—and an important guideline.
[Well, in the end, I survived together with a few other Yuls. What happened after leaving that place, I don’t know. Everyone probably lived their own lives. Or maybe they died. Anyway, since escaping using Demon Eyes had no hope, I decided to leave and search for another thod.]
[That thod is using divinity. Perhaps, just like the quest says, if one were to beco a “Lower God,” escape might be possible.]
[To strengthen my divinity, I searched for intelligent beings. If I found one, I even intended to polymorph into that species and produce descendants.]
[But I failed. There are no intelligent beings in Dragon Land except dragons. It’s nothing but a bunch of stupid dinosaurs.]
There are no intelligent beings in Dragon Land……
[I created Beru because I thought that if I kept infusing souls into mindless dinosaurs, perhaps an intelligent being might eventually appear. Except for the fact that it could write its own na, the dinosaur was still stupid. At the very least, it wasn’t intelligent enough to recognize faith and believe in a god. Faith is a unique ability possessed by intelligent beings like humans.]
[That is the entirety of my story.]
Yul closed the diary and thought for a mont.
The knowledge possessed by the future Yul was extrely useful. It even gave him room to think about which Demon Eye he might awaken.
Yul then went to Kaiman, who was still staying on the island.
* * *
Kaiman was living inside the Island of Boundaries, having built a mansion of his own there.
“Drink the tea first.”
“What happens if I don’t?”
“…The tea gets cold.”
“Anyway, you heard my story, right?”
Yul had already told Kaiman a moderately edited version of everything that had happened so far. Kaiman, who had been bringing the tea toward the darkness inside his hood, stopped.
“It’s quite bizarre, I’d say. A Sky Island……”
“Did Sky Islands exist in your era, too?”
“I don’t know. Our race lived in the Deep Sea, so unless we had a reason to leave, we never even went to the ocean surface. Especially since I had the profession of a researcher.”
“So you’re saying you only conducted research underwater.”
“Explorers might have known about the Sky Islands. But all the Turusain explorers are dead. Your story is very interesting. A place where spaceti becos tangled, and parallel worlds intertwine.”
Clack.
Setting down the Silver Moon Tea, Kaiman spoke.
“So, what exactly do you want to ask?”
“According to the letter, a fragnt of the soul that my future self implanted inside Beru flows within his bloodline. If that’s the case, could he revive in this era through that fragnt of soul?”
“Don’t you think that’s an unnecessary concern?”
“I think so too, but I felt I should at least confirm it once.”
“It’s exactly as you expect. Even if you gather fragnts of a soul, it can’t return to the original soul.”
Hearing the firm answer reassured him. That Yul had lived in Dragon Land for ten thousand years.
If the diary was correct, he had killed at least dozens of other “Yuls.” The fact that such a dangerous being would not resurrect here was a relief.
“One more thing I’m curious about. Regarding skills.”
“The ability to divide the soul, you called it Soul-Splitting Art, right?”
“Soul-Splitting Art is designated as a skill. And as you know, skills can only be used if there is a Seaborn and a Sinker. But he used it naturally.”
“Have you ever seen another Seaborn with the skill Soul-Splitting Art?”
“No, as far as I know, there isn’t.”
As Yul spoke, he felt like he understood the reason.
Soul-Splitting Art was originally a unique magic he had learned while using the Great Balance.
‘Devour and Isolation… If the technique I learned beca a skill called Soul-Splitting Art, then even without Lucian, I might eventually restore it myself.’
“No, I think I’ve found the answer.”
“It seems like there’s nothing left to do on the Island of Boundaries. May I go back and focus on my work?”
“Yeah. I’ll call you later once I’ve gathered resources into piles like mountains.”
“Then make sure you’ve prepared the designs for what you want to build.”
“Alright.”
Right now, only wood and stone were available, so the completed buildings were simple. But if he obtained other materials, he could construct buildings made of various materials.
“Oh, and before you go, I have a few requests. I want to manufacture an Infinite-Series Dinsional Perceiver. What do I need?”
“That? Why?”
“They say it’s necessary in Dragon Land.”
“A place terrible enough to require that device… Truly frightening.”
Kaiman said this while sipping the Silver Moon Tea again.
“Anyway, that equipnt cannot be made. You can obtain all the other materials, but the most important one cannot be acquired.”
“What is it?”
“A Primal Aether Stone. You can think of it as a magic stone from a very distant, primordial ancient era. It contains a special energy called the Storm of Ti, which cannot be obtained in the present age……”
“Oh, if it’s that, I have it. Here.”
“…?”
Yul took out the stone he had found in the backpack on Beru’s back.
It was a Primal Aether Stone, shimring in five colors.
The future Yul, driven mad by obsession, had managed to obtain the materials to create the Infinite-Series Dinsional Perceiver, but had struggled because Kaiman, the very craftsman needed to make it, was not there.
“…Even if you have that, it will take at least a year, including gathering the rest of the materials. And it will require a considerable amount of Karma. I’ll calculate it later and bill you.”
“Got it. I’ll place the order for now.”
“Good. I can work on it little by little while restoring Syrendron.”
Kaiman drank his tea with a sowhat uneasy expression.
“Oh, one more thing.”
“What is it?”
“I have sothing I’m curious about regarding the Abyssal Polyhedron.”
Kaiman spat out the tea he was drinking.
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