VIP Chapter 520: Its Despair (3k)
Reyel woke up.
The “battle” between the two beings inside the Dungeon was a “rehearsal,” a test of whose spirit could defeat the other.
As long as the spirit did not perish and even a trace of desire remained, there would be no death.
It was about seeing who could overcome the other’s desires with their own demands.
Reyel’s heart still harbored thoughts of victory.
This was her two-hundred-year persistence; how could she give up because of Treya?!
Reyel, who had just woken up in the Banquet Hall, was as if being guarded at the resurrection point by Treya, who gave her no chance and struck her heart.
A demon that had never felt its heart ache before spat out a mouthful of bright red blood.
[Demon gains the sense of pain.]
“So… it hurts… how is this possible… I can feel pain too?!”
She looked up and saw the colorful ceiling, torn open by Treya’s re-wielded sword, revealing the black and white curtain.
It was so dazzling it hurt her eyes.
Then—
Reyel began to shift her battle line.
She ran to the 333rd floor, wanting to turn the tide in this training ground made of Treya’s memories.
After all, with 333 swords, if it were a real duel of sword skills…
Treya would surely lose to her greater numbers!
Yes, yes, she… she would definitely win!
But…
These swords had already struck Treya, yet…
They couldn’t stop her advance at all.
Nor could they stop her killing intent.
“You… you don’t think you can… can defeat me with just one sword?”
She spat out harsh words, but Treya, even with wounds all over her body, still walked towards her step by step.
[Demon glimpses killing intent.]
“Third time.”
At some point, Treya was already standing before her, looking down at her half-raised head.
*Thwack.*
Her sword tip, from top to bottom, pierced straight through her from the crown of her head downward.
Bloodstains, like crushed tomatoes, spread across the white tiled training ground.
…
“Fourth time.”
Listening to the numbers that sounded like a “countdown,” Reyel experienced “fear.”
Experiencing “pain” like a human, would she also feel fear?
In the room where Treya had arranged various dolls, she shaved off her skin with her sword, one by one, like a lingering death, splattering this trace of blood onto each doll of a different color and type.
[Demon tastes fear.]
…
“Fifth time.”
Without relying on a “sword,” she directly split the undead’s body in half with a hand chop, scattering towards the highest point leading to the Heavenly Realm in the meeting hall.
Treya’s body was riddled with holes.
Her blood seemed to have drained out.
Her nerves and brain were constantly experiencing pain that she could no longer distinguish the origin of.
But even so, she would not “die.”
Only because she “did not want to die.”
She wanted to personally kill this demon named Reyel thirteen times.
To make her give up her existence, to make her hand over Zero Demon City.
As long as she still had “desire,” she would stand here and continue.
This was the rule of “Zero Demon City,” a rule she had understood after a long time.
She looked up, watching the Undead Swordsman advance to the next floor of Zero Demon City.
“…I… I am not afraid of you… If we are to compete on desire, can you outdo a… a demon who has persisted for two hundred years just to survive?!”
…
The Shadow Nightmare Sword scraped along the stone wall of Zero Demon City, making rhythmic knocking sounds and coloring the wall anew.
Treya, sword in hand, walked backward through Zero Demon City, from the 333rd floor forward.
The initial demon kept walking forward.
As if moving forward would lead to the outcome it desired.
“Speaking of which…”
She looked at the Dungeon, which turned colorful with every step she took.
“Why did it become like this? What made these black and white disappear, and what made the colors appear?”
For a long time, she had been contemplating…
What did the “black and white” and “color” she perceived around herself signify?
…
Floor 315.
“Heh… Have you forgotten? You once had a happy family here, everything a princess should have, but in the end, you abandoned it all.”
Reyel stood on the black and white lawn.
Only Treya was colored, her light blue eyes gazing at the lawn before her.
When she was very, very young, when her mother was still alive, when her father was still a “good father,” and when her sister was still a “good sister,” they would play together on that lawn.
Back then, for the innocent princess, the entire world was colorful.
The color back then was the entire world.
So, now…
“Because they never loved you, they never wanted you to live, do you understand now?!”
*Riiip.*
Treya ripped open her “belly”—even though the undead’s abdominal cavity was destined to be empty, she returned the color she had swallowed.
Everything returned to the colors of her youth.
“You seem to have misunderstood something. If not for all this, I would never have signed a marriage contract with Will…”
“!?”
“Besides, didn’t Father, Sister, and Mother already give me the entire Entak?”
At that moment, the entire lawn burst into lush green, with flowers everywhere.
“So, even now, it should be colorful.”
Reyel’s undead body had no “viscera,” but the moment Treya made her move, her transparent blue intestines and other organs all fell out from her belly.
“Sixth time.”
…
Floor 310.
“Do you see this church? The church atop the Royal Palace—that’s right, it’s the place you know best and hate the most, the place where we met…”
Reyel’s voice seemed to have lost its former “firmness,” sounding slightly trembling.
She supported her body—even though the undead had no physical form, at this moment, she truly felt her weakness.
It was as if she had gone from a state of輕鬆ly floating in the air to falling to the ground.
—Could it be that she truly couldn’t obtain this Zero Demon City?
Floor 306.
“You had your Coronation Ceremony here, you met me here, and then… you completely understood how bloody and sinful Entak was…”
“Yes, you are right.”
Treya remembered that after discovering the pathetic nature of her circumstances, after gaining the power of Zero Demon City, and after being forced to participate in the royal struggles…
Her color was reduced to only Will, who had saved her at the time, while the rest… especially regarding the entire world, turned black and white.
The color back then was Will, and the black and white was the entire world.
*Bang—*
“I didn’t give up anything; here, I gained enough power to obtain Will.”
Her sword tip “specter” was sent flying, Reyel spun in the air several times, and fell to the ground, her bones scattering everywhere.
“So, this should also be colorful.”
The heel of her black crystal high-heeled shoe stepped firmly onto the undead’s now materialized skull, crushing the bones piece by piece.
“Seventh time.”
…
Floor 270.
“…Do you still want to continue? Look, you never truly received his love, did you? Until the end… you both never completed that wedding…”
Reyel stood in a place that was indeed a “nightmare” for Treya.
The flying swords behind her were becoming fewer and fewer; even she could barely control them. The swords scattered all over the ground, leaving only a few suspended in mid-air.
“Give up. He’s not yours alone; you know that maid took him from you…”
But…
For the current Treya, who had confirmed Will’s feelings, confirmed her goal, and confirmed her desire, what did color signify? And what did black and white signify?
She hadn’t found the answer yet.
Her sword tip had pierced Reyel’s crimson heart, making her blood an adornment to the roses beside the wedding.
“…”
Treya’s fingers trembled.
Perhaps it was because she had returned to this place; she looked at the witness stand for their wedding, her light blue eyes never so clear.
Standing in Reyel’s pool of blood.
The wounds on her body began to heal, and the tattered dress she wore slowly transformed back into the perfect state of a formal gown.
Color…
Was it desire? Lust? Dreams? Hopes? Aspirations? Wishes? Longings? Beauty? Sweetness? Illusions? Happiness? Romance? Warmth?
Black and white…
Was it fear? Evil? Abandonment? Disgust? The dark side? Despicability? Betrayal? Cruelty? Treachery? Hatred? Enmity? Contempt? Stupidity?
“I am no longer swayed by such simple words.”
But she gripped her sword.
Reyel seemed to regret bringing Treya here at this moment…
Because she sensed from Treya’s eyes that she was on the verge of awakening, and standing here, she had already understood.
“?”
“No matter what colors I see before me, they only… signify ‘my’ feelings, ‘my’ emotions, ‘my’ thoughts, ‘my’ contemplations… and, ‘my’ love.”
As if a beat late.
Although her actions were already like this, her thoughts lagged behind.
She gripped the black sword inserted into Reyel’s heart and forcefully pulled it out with a scrape.
“…I have already felt love, I have felt the feeling of being loved, I have felt his reciprocation, and now I have finally broken through this mist…”
At the wedding scene, accompanied by the flow of blood…
The spread-out grass regrew lush green.
“I want him to save me, to rescue me, to teach me what a good princess is, to teach me how to stand in the royal family.”
The adorning roses bloomed fragrant red again.
“I want to offer him my best sword skills, eliminate all obstacles for him, and let everyone see his true and capable side, to admire him as I do.”
The bursting streamers scattered colorful patterns again.
“I want… to hold his hand, step by step to the wedding vows, and hear him say ‘I do’.”
And finally, no longer seeing “colors.”
Treya, who could now express the colors in her heart and offer her love, made the demon feel the fear of “concept.”
The “heart” on the ground sensed—
The power that could kill it…
Coming from a place contrary to the “selfish demon”…
[Demon feels the approach of death.]
“So, I will not be misled by what I am feeling at this moment… That’s right, even I hadn’t understood my ‘love’ for Will myself… he has already conveyed it to me.”
“I want to have it all now, I want to enjoy this beautiful world with him, I want…”
“To make you cry and beg, to hand everything over.”
“This is the eighth time.”
The gushing blood stained the entire wedding stage red.
