Chapter 435: Lies (8) |
Song Ha-Eun’s face twisted in pain as she forced out the words. “M-Me? Oh-Jin? Kugh! W-What are you talking about?”
The Heavenly Demon chuckled. “Ha. I already figured it out, but you’re still pretending?”
Did Kwon Oh-Jin really think he wouldn’t notice?
The Heavenly Demon clicked his tongue in irritation. “Tsk. What’s wrong? Upset that your cover got blown over a single word you used to address me?”
“Ugh… I-I called you Oh-Jin the way I always call you.”
“Then I guess I should point out all your other mistakes too.” The Heavenly Demon shook his head slowly. “If you really are her, then why didn’t she step in and help you fight?”
Song Ha-Eun possessed the Draconic Eye, allowing her to freely control draconic power. With the dragon’s heart and the Dragon God’s soul, her firepower could rival even Kwon Oh-Jin’s Open Heaven.
Of course, her joining wouldn’t necessarily have changed the battle’s outcome. At the very least, it could’ve prevented Kwon Oh-Jin’s overwhelming defeat.
“Kh… t-that’s…”
That excuse wouldn’t work either.
Even if the Black Heaven had consumed the Heavenly Demon’s consciousness, Kwon Oh-Jin knew that he would never attack Song Ha-Eun. He had even taken advantage of that fact once before when fleeing from Rome.
“And yet, even knowing that, you just stood there the whole time and did nothing.”
“That’s…”
“Why do you think that is? Or rather, why did it have to be that way?”
The answer was simple.
“Because you don’t bear the Stigma of Draco.”
Therefore, to pose as Song Ha-Eun, Kwon Oh-Jin had no choice but to watch the battle without stepping in.
“And most of all…” the Heavenly Demon trailed off, laughing mockingly as his shoulders shook.
It hadn’t just been the odd way she addressed him or that she hadn’t joined the fight. Something else ensured him that the Song Ha-Eun before him was fake.
“There’s no way I wouldn’t try to lie.”
Kwon Oh-Jin had lived his whole life deceiving others and would never engage in an honest fight.
“Well, it wasn’t a bad attempt.”
The Heavenly Demon had suspected it from the start, but hadn’t been sure. The fake Song Ha-Eun had been that convincing.
“You must’ve practiced hard for a month, huh?”
Honestly, he could’ve been fooled completely if it hadn’t been Kwon Oh-Jin fighting him. Some form of deception would definitely be involved since the opponent was Kwon Oh-Jin, or rather, another him.
“N-No… I’m telling you… I-I’m not Oh-Jin!”
The Heavenly Demon sounded irritated. “Haaa. You just don’t get it, do you?”
No, he sounded enraged. The ghostly blue flames in his eyes flared as if someone had poured oil onto them.
“A spoiled bastard like you won’t understand how shitty I feel right now.”
He didn’t hope for a miracle or expect salvation before the Black Heaven devoured his entire consciousness. While he was still Kwon Oh-Jin, he just wanted to see Ha-Eun’s face one last time.
The Heavenly Demon didn’t know where she was now, but he knew she wasn’t inside this rift. Otherwise, Kwon Oh-Jin couldn’t have played this fake version of her. He had probably come alone, insisting that she didn’t need to come, to carry out this pathetic little play.
“Haaa…”
Even if he saw her now, those memories would be lost to the Black Heaven soon. Still, he wanted his final memory to be of her.
“Was that… really too much to ask? Huh? Just to see her one last time?”
“Ugh… kuuughh!”
“You—!”
Thud!
The Heavenly Demon stomped violently as if in agony. “Because you’ve never lost her! Because you’ll keep being with her!”
Kwon Oh-Jin would never understand how cold, how lonely a world without her could be.
“That’s why you can say that pathetic bullshit about protecting everyone else!”
Vega? Cassia? Isabella? Riarc? Even the other Awakeners whose names he didn’t even know. Kwon Oh-Jin wanted to protect them too?
That naive, sentimental mindset made him perform such a ridiculous play.
“I told you before, didn’t I?”
Still gripping Kwon Oh-Jin’s throat, who had transformed into Song Ha-Eun, the Heavenly Demon drew upon the Black Heaven’s power.
Black clouds rose like a starving beast.
Rumble.
“You’ll walk the same path I once did.”
“Kugh! Kuuughh!”
The black clouds began to pour into Kwon Oh-Jin. If he had used Transformation to disguise himself as Song Ha-Eun, then flooding him with the Black Heaven would surely undo the disguise.
Kwon Oh-Jin trembled violently, wracked with pain.
Just then, a familiar name slipped out between her lips. “Oh.. Jin…”
No, this wasn’t Kwon Oh-Jin.
“Ha-Eun…?”
Why? How?
“Why… why are you here?!”
He quickly drew back the black clouds that were seeping into her.
Crack!
A spear wrapped in Black Lightning pierced straight through the Heavenly Demon’s heart. He looked down at the spearhead jutting out from his chest and turned his trembling head to look over his shoulder.
Kwon Oh-Jin stood there, gasping for breath and gripping his spear.
The Heavenly Demon couldn’t understand or accept it. “Why…?”
Why was the real Song Ha-Eun here and not a fake one created through Transformation?
If she was truly the real Song Ha-Eun, that meant Kwon Oh-Jin hadn’t lied about anything in their fight.
“H-Ha… ha. That’s impossible, right? That doesn’t… make any sense.”
If you were me, if you were the scammer whose entire life was built on lies, then you couldn’t have possibly told the truth.
Kwon Oh-Jin looked into the Heavenly Demon’s eyes, his gaze heavy and steady. “I’m not you.”
“Y-You… kugh! Tricked me?”
“No. You tricked yourself.”
Kwon Oh-Jin had asked Song Ha-Eun not to interfere in the fight. He hadn’t told her to do anything else.
“B-But… the name—”
“Because she didn’t soften your name?” Kwon Oh-Jin chuckled. “Get a grip, man. She’s been calling you the right name the whole time.”
In reality, it was hard to tell whether she softened the pronunciation of his name. To anyone not paying close attention, they sounded nearly identical.
“N-No! I definitely heard her say it wrong…!”
“Sure, maybe she slipped up once or twice in the middle of all that chaos. So what?”
Song Ha-Eun was only human. With Kwon Oh-Jin and the Heavenly Demon locked in a desperate battle, it wasn’t strange if she mispronounced his name for a moment. It was a trivial mistake, one so small that he wouldn’t have cared at all under normal circumstances.
However, the Heavenly Demon fixated on that tiny difference for a simple reason.
“Because you already decided that I’d be lying.”
The reason never mattered. From the start, he had assumed Kwon Oh-Jin would try to deceive him and forced every tiny hint to fit that conclusion.
“You didn’t suspect me and then conclude I was lying. You concluded I’d be lying and went looking for reasons to suspect me.”
The Heavenly Demon had obsessed over meaningless little details, turning them into what he wanted to see as decisive proof.
“Even if she had pronounced it perfectly from start to finish, you would’ve just found something else to doubt. Wouldn’t you?”
From the very beginning, the reason never mattered.
The Heavenly Demon clutched the spear lodged in his chest and bit down hard on his lip. “Kugh! Guh! How… did you know I’d doubt you?”
“Because you probably thought I would walk the same path as you,” Kwon Oh-Jin said.
Because you want to believe that I have no choice but to follow the same path as you.
“No matter what kind of lies I told, you could never predict one thing. That I wouldn’t lie at all.”
No matter if he was the Heavenly Demon, or rather, because he was the Heavenly Demon, he could’ve never imagined this possibility.
The Heavenly Demon hollowly laughed. “Ha…”
The black clouds forming around him began to melt away like ink bleeding into water.
Rumble!
Looking at his own body dissolving before his very eyes, he let out a raspy chuckle. “Yeah… I didn’t see that one coming.” He nodded bitterly. “You… really aren’t me.”
The ghostly blue flames burning in his eyes slowly died down.
Freed from his grip, the wary Song Ha-Eun stumbled back, heaving for breath. “Pwah! Haa! Haa!”
The Heavenly Demon looked at her and faintly smiled. “But still… I’m glad.”
The black clouds that made up his body pooled into a dark puddle beneath him.
Rumble.
Now, not even in the shape of a human, the Heavenly Demon looked at Song Ha-Eun and smiled brightly. “I was able to see you one last time.”
With those final words, the faint blue light flickering within the black clouds went out completely.
Song Ha-Eun bit her lip as she looked down at the black puddle where the Heavenly Demon had disappeared. “You…”
Even though she knew he was someone different from Kwon Oh-Jin, her chest ached unbearably.
“Haaa.” She sighed deeply and stepped closer to the black pool.
Perhaps some fragments of consciousness still existed within him. As she approached, the puddle drew back, as though warning her not to come any closer.
Rumble.
She gently reached out and whispered, “Rest in peace, Oh-Jin.”
The long, tragic play finally seemed to end, or so she thought.
Kwon Oh-Jin warned her, “It’s not over yet, Ha-Eun.”
The black puddle began to boil, and a massive pillar of dark clouds shot up into the sky.