Seventy Seventh Seven
Chapter 69: Cringe

Chapter 69: Cringe

The aberrant jumped downwards with fangs bared wide, aiming straight for his neck.

Hff...

Seven knew he could not dodge, could not think, and could not win through.

All he could do was raise the saber in both hands and brace for impact, even if it meant every bone in his body would break.

Cra— Crackle!

Dark and black zaen crackled from the aberrant’s body.

While.

Bright and cyan zaen surged from the soles of his feet and raced upward like lightning veins, threaded through muscle and bone and wrapped around the saber as if begging to be unleashed.

Clang!

Black and cyan collided.

The pressure from the impact shook the shallow lake beneath them.

Neither moved as if stuck in a lock where the beast’s strength pushed down like a collapsing sky while Seven gritted his teeth and held on with everything he had.

The cyan zaen did not crackle anymore.

It poured through him in waves until blood began leaking from his eyes first, then his nose, then finally his mouth.

But.

He still did not let go, even when his arms buckled and his vision darkened at the edges and the saber vibrated in his grip like it was going to explode.

Clang!

The clash shattered and the impact kicked water into the air in wide arcs as if a mountain had fallen into the lake.

Grrr—!

Both of them were thrown back from the blast, though Seven flew farther and tumbled across the shallow surface of the lake.

Urkhh—!!

When he finally stopped, he panted as his whole body pulsed with pain while his fingers were still wrapped around what used to be a saber.

Except now...

It was just a hilt with a broken blade, jagged at the middle like it gave everything it could and simply split in two.

Grrr—

The aberrant landed nearby, snarling, stepping forward, only to pause with one paw on a dark rock near the water’s edge not because of pain but in hesitation.

The reason was simple, and obvious after seeing the lake that remained not frozen despite the peak winter cold season.

Liquefied zaen.

This was the content of the bubble found in the roots of the trees of Umbral Wilds, because the tree seeps water from below and mixes it with zaen energy for them to survive during winter.

And this lake is one of the places where the pure liquefied zaen is abundant.

’But why was the aberrant, when it consumed one for it to be in its current state, scared of pure liquified zaen?’ or at least, that was what people would usually ask if they encountered the predicament.

In all honesty, the answer is simple.

Instinct.

It was not scared of stepping onto it, but scared that it might enter its mouth and accidentally consume it. After all, it was not sure if its body could adapt to it given that it barely adapted to the mere bubble it took. So what more if it was pure?

Grr—!

It only stared at Seven for now.

On the other hand... Seven was barely standing.

Blood streaked his torn clothes, dripped from his ears, nose, and mouth. Even as his body trembled under the weight of it all, but he still stared forward.

"Why am I trying this hard?"

He mumbled with a hoarse voice.

"’This story won’t end before I get a fudging arc’ ...Fudge that."

He scoffed.

"...Cringe.

"Do I really want to reach the end of this shitty story?

"Is it because I want to go back home?

"Or is it..."

His eyes slowly lifted. Shoulders slumped. Knees bent slightly inward. He looked at the aberrant only a few meters ahead— watching him, motionless, and hesitant.

It was almost like it was listening to his blubbering.

But he did not know the aberrant feared the water. He did not know it was hesitating because of the liquefied zaen.

In his mind, there was only one explanation:

"...It’s playing with me. Again.

"A... ha... ha..."

He forced a laugh.

"Is it... because... I’m weak...?"

His gaze shifted.

He was no longer staring at the monster, but inward.

At himself.

At the boy once called Seojin.

A boy who used to flinch at every raised voice, who obeyed every word from a mother who treated him like a puppet, who was beaten by his stepfathers who came and went.

A boy who, even in this world, was still hunted and hated by fate.

Haah...

His fingers twitched on the hilt of the broken saber as cyan zaen stabilized around him. Instead of a crackle, it flowed just above his skin slowly as he tried to straighten his posture.

In that moment, he did not care about returning to Earth nor getting to the end of the story like he had always muttered those cringe phrases.

Just...

"Stronger."

As if defying gravity, his blackish-brown hair slightly bowed upward as if guided by the upwards wind.

He locked his gaze into the aberrant’s.

The zaen gathered.

Pooled.

Then surged out in full as he released everything at once as if every ounce of power channeled into the broken saber, forming a jagged blade of cyan light.

Right after, his left eye turned gold.

"I must become stronger."

Step.

He shifted his weight onto his left foot and dropped into a stance sharpened through repetition: training against Eden, against the doppelganger, and the deadly duel with Lythian where he never quite got it right.

Step.

The aberrant moved too.

Its hesitation vanished the moment it sensed killing intent. With a low snarl, it lunged with no more playing and no more circling.

This was a charge to end it.

But.

Mid-lunge, the aberrant froze in place with claws extended forward and jaws halfway open.

The snowflakes in the air held still like glass beads caught in sunlight. The wind silenced. The ripple on the lake’s surface remained halfway formed.

Everything... paused.

Except Seven.

He stood calmly at the center of it all, eyes closed, breathing quietly, a single drop of blood trailing down his chin along with his saber pulsing with cyan light that flickered like fire.

He vanished.

Crsskkk—!

He reappeared just behind the aberrant, the flame-like zaen that had wrapped around his broken saber now extinguished as a thin line had formed along the creature’s body from shoulder to hip.

But nothing moved.

The aberrant stayed frozen mid-pounce.

Even Seven did not seem to notice what had happened when he opened his eyes slowly, dazed, while swaying slightly where he stood.

"Was that me... moving in the future?"

Or so he believed.

He remembered it during training with Eden, the artifact once showed him a future not just one second ahead, but seventy, where he saw himself move in that moment and did countless attacks through Eden.

Just like this.

Where he never moved in real life.

He thought of it as the choice he could possibly make.

No.

It was more like a simulation.

Looking around, he noticed that everything seemed to paused. But having experienced death before, he thought of this as the time slowing down for him to enjoy his last moments.

He looked ahead.

There was a silhouette, blurry at the edges, with a pair of golden, celestial eyes watching him from above.

Thud.

He collapsed onto the shallow water, but even then, the water beneath him made no sound. It did not splash nor did it ripple as if it, too, had not yet resumed.

’...Guess I’m seeing that fudger again...’

The doppelganger.

The realm.

After all, if the system was not lying, it means upon death, he would face a trial set by himself. He had no idea what ’himself’ in that phrase meant, but he knew he would be back to that void with the grinning doppelganger.

And also Euryphaessa.

"Fudge."

He finally closed his eyes.

Right after, the world returned.

The snowflakes fell again, the trees rustled faintly, and the lake rippled around his sunken form.

And.

Grrrr—!

The aberrant let out a strangled growl, one final sound that barely left its throat before...

Thud.

Its body split cleanly down the center and collapsed into two halves, splashing softly into the shallow water as it died in perfect silence.

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