Chapter 277

[Translator - Peptobismol]

[Proofreader - Demon God]

Chapter 277

Crack! Crack! Crack!

The rapidly spinning sand ground away at Bessie’s surface.

No matter how strong the chimera’s regenerative ability was, it couldn’t instantly recover the hide that was being shaved off in mere seconds.

Psssh!

The particles of Bessie’s skin that had been stripped away scattered like dust into the air.

Phantsy, seeing this, let out a desperate cry.

“No! Not my Bessie…!”

Screeeeech!

Bessie emitted a high-pitched scream.

The pain Bessie felt was transmitted to Phantsy just as vividly.

It was as if his own flesh was being torn away, and Phantsy wept tears of anguish.

Bessie struggled fiercely, trying to escape the Sand Mixer’s domain. But the more it thrashed, the more its body sank into the ground under the force of gravity.

As more of Bessie’s body became buried in the sand, its agony intensified.

Phantsy cried bloody tears in response to Bessie’s suffering.

“I will never forgive you.”

Blood was also trickling from his chest.

It was the wound Zeon had inflicted, but his own injury caused him no pain.

Phantsy gathered his mana and shouted.

“Wander forever in the unending prison of chaos! Chaos Prison!”

In an instant, the sky above Zeon turned pitch-black.

The dark energy engulfed him before he had a chance to dodge.

For a moment, Zeon’s vision went completely dark.

A dizzying sensation of floating overtook him, as if his body was suspended in midair.

This caused Zeon to lose his balance and stumble.

After a moment, he regained his composure and raised his head, only to find that his surroundings had changed completely.

He was now in a world of absolute darkness, with no trace of light.

There was no way to tell where the ground or the sky was. The perfect void distorted his senses.

Zeon instinctively realized that he had been cursed by Phantsy. However, he wasn’t overly concerned.

He had an item that was a perfect counter to a curse user’s magic.

Zeon attempted to open his subspace to retrieve the Reaper’s Scythe.

“Huh?”

Zeon’s expression shifted into one of confusion.

The subspace wouldn’t open.

He looked down at his right arm.

The Inferno Gauntlet that should have been attached to his arm was gone.

Not only the Inferno Gauntlet but also Elura’s Tear and the Leviathan’s hide robe—all of his items had vanished.

Faced with this unexpected situation, even Zeon couldn’t help but feel disoriented. But he quickly regained his composure.

“This isn’t reality… It’s a mental space, separated from my physical body.”

Zeon recognized that he had let his guard down.

He had inflicted a serious wound on Phantsy, the curse user, and thought there was no longer any threat.

Plus, with the Reaper’s Scythe in his possession, he had been too focused on eliminating the chimera, Bessie, without worrying about Phantsy’s curse.

And this was the result.

‘I should’ve been more cautious.’

Zeon considered this a valuable lesson.

Carelessness and complacency were the very things that could cost him his life.

He glared into the pitch-black space around him.

He couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t even feel the passage of time.

There was no way to tell how long he’d been trapped in this dark space.

It could’ve been a mere moment or several days.

This kind of situation would cause most people to panic. But Zeon was familiar with such circumstances.

That’s why he didn’t panic, nor did he lose his composure.

‘The best way to break a curse like this is to face reality.’

There are many kinds of curses.

Some curses directly harm the body, while others only affect the mind.

The curse he was currently experiencing was the latter.

Everything he was seeing and feeling wasn’t real.

It was nothing more than a hallucination created by his mind.

The problem, however, was how vivid and realistic these illusions were.

If he let his guard down for even a moment, he might start believing it was all real and spend the rest of his life trapped in this place.

The price of spending an eternity in this place was, of course, death.

Zeon focused his mind, trying to grasp the true nature of the curse.

Then, the darkness in front of him split open, and someone began walking toward him with slow, deliberate steps.

The figure was dragging a massive sword across the ground, and when Zeon saw who it was, his eyes widened in shock.

The man who had torn through the very fabric of space was an old man, radiating an overwhelming presence with his enormous frame.

When Zeon saw the man holding the sword that was larger than his own body, his gaze wavered.

It was the one person he sometimes longed for.

“Dy… Dyoden?”

There were many Awakeneds who wielded swords in this world, but none who exuded such an overwhelming presence, enough to make one’s whole body tremble, like Dyoden.

And the massive sword in his hand was unmistakably Kreion.

After eight long years, seeing Dyoden again caused Zeon to shudder slightly.

He knew it wasn’t real.

He understood this was a manifestation created by the curse, drawn from the deepest parts of his mind.

Even so, his body trembled, and his heart pounded furiously.

The time they had spent together wasn’t long, but Dyoden was the one person who had left the greatest impact on Zeon’s life.

Without Dyoden, Zeon wouldn’t be the man he was today.

It made sense that Dyoden had been imprinted on his soul so deeply.

Dyoden raised Kreion, pointing the massive blade at Zeon, and spoke.

“You fool!”

“Haha!”

Zeon laughed in response.

It wasn’t just a laugh of disbelief—it was amusement, and annoyance. He felt anger toward the curse user who had summoned this precious figure from his past and soiled the memory.

But before he could take his revenge, he needed to escape this place.

To do that, he had to defeat Dyoden.

It was clear now that Dyoden was the key to breaking this chaotic space.

“So, have you gotten any stronger, fool?”

“I think I’ve improved quite a lot.”

“Anyone can talk big.”

“Haha!”

“Come at me, fool!”

“With pleasure…”

After all, this was a hurdle he had to overcome eventually.

Even if it wasn’t the real Dyoden, but merely a projection created from his mind.

Dyoden, the strongest man Zeon had ever known.

A man whose back was broader and stronger than any other Awakened, now stood before him, aiming Kreion at him.

Zeon had often imagined this moment.

What would it have been like to fight Dyoden not as the rookie he had once been, but as the warrior he had become today, at the height of his powers?

He had thought it was an impossible dream, but now, at least in his mind, it was becoming a reality.

“You idiot, standing there daydreaming in front of me? That’s why you’re caught up in this curse.”

Thwip!

Dyoden sneered and lunged at Zeon.

When Zeon raised his head, Kreion was already at his throat. But Zeon didn’t panic.

“Who said I was daydreaming?”

Boom!

A wall of sand materialized out of nowhere, blocking Kreion's strike.

The force of the sword shattered the sand wall into pieces, but it bought Zeon just enough time to evade the attack.

Even though the sand had appeared in this pitch-black space, Zeon wasn’t surprised.

Even if this place was cut off by a curse, it was still inside his own mind.

If Dyoden, the person most deeply ingrained in his memory, was here, then so too was the element most connected to him—sand.

Even in this mental realm, if he willed it, he could always manipulate the sand.

"Alright, let’s see what you’ve got."

Whoosh!

Dozens of streams of sand sliced through the darkness, aimed directly at Dyoden.

Zeon had unleashed his Sand Blaster skill. But before the sand could reach Dyoden, Kreion cut through them effortlessly, destroying the attack.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Explosions rang out, and the sand scattered in all directions.

A flash of sword light cleaved through the darkness, and the space where Zeon had been standing was torn apart. But by that time, Zeon had already moved, riding the sand to a new location.

Dyoden chased him down like a lion hunting its prey, his hair flying, his eyes gleaming like a predator’s.

In the past, Zeon would’ve been terrified, but now he wasn’t the weakling he had once been.

Dozens of Sand Soldiers rose up, standing between Zeon and Dyoden. But stopping Dyoden with the Sand Soldiers was an impossible task.

Zeon didn’t expect them to.

He just needed a little more time.

“Sand Storm!”

A massive sandstorm erupted, swirling high into the air, engulfing Dyoden.

Thwip!

But Dyoden tore through the sandstorm and charged straight at Zeon.

“Hahaha!”

Dyoden’s wild laughter echoed through the darkness.

Zeon responded by throwing everything he had—Viper, Claymore, Sand Mixer—every skill in his arsenal.

But none of it worked.

Slash!

A long cut opened on Zeon’s side, blood spraying into the air as Kreion slashed through him.

No matter what skill Zeon used, Dyoden destroyed them all and kept coming.

The sight of Dyoden relentlessly charging at him, breaking through every attack, was a nightmare made real.

Dyoden was the nightmare of every Awakened.

No one had ever been able to defeat him in close combat.

Not in reality, and not even here, in this mental realm.

“Man, this is exhausting.”

There was no one he would rather avoid facing as an enemy.

Once this moment passed, Zeon knew he would never face Dyoden again.

But even so…

Even so, he wanted to finish this final encounter properly.

Sizzle! Sizzle!

The ground beneath Dyoden’s feet began to melt.

Without the Inferno Gauntlet, Zeon had activated his ultimate skill—Sand Gehenna.

The sand melted into molten lava, and a massive wave of lava surged toward Dyoden.

Whoosh!

“Think that’ll work on me, fool?”

Dyoden laughed as he cut through the wave of molten lava with Kreion, mocking Zeon’s efforts.

But Zeon grinned back.

“Oh, it’s working, old man!”

Another massive wave of lava surged up.

One wave.

Then another.

And another.

The waves of molten lava combined into a colossal tsunami, swallowing Dyoden whole.

The intense heat singed his hair and beard, melting his skin and muscles away.

“Graaah!”

But with a powerful roar, Dyoden repelled the molten tsunami and leapt into the air.

Just as he swung Kreion down toward Zeon—

Thud!

Suddenly, a massive sword shot out from the lava and pierced through Dyoden’s chest.

“What…?”

Dyoden looked down at the sword that had impaled him in midair.

It was an enormous, flawless blade made entirely of black diamond.

The sword was impossibly large, spanning dozens of meters—a thing that couldn’t possibly exist in reality.

Dyoden asked.

“What the hell is this?”

“It’s my goal.”

“Your goal?”

“The ultimate weapon I can create by combining the power of sand and fire.”

“Hah! You think you can make a diamond sword by melting sand under high heat and pressure? You think that’s possible in the real world?”

“That’s why I called it a goal. Right now, I can only create it in a dream… but one day.”

“You idiot! Always too imaginative for your own good…”

“Well, imagination is what drives human progress. What do you think? Do I still seem like a useless fool to you?”

“No…”

“…”

“You’ve become a somewhat useful fool.”

“Of course, right until the end…”

Dyoden flashed a grin, baring his white teeth as he looked at Zeon’s expression of disbelief.

“How long are you going to lie around? Get up already.”

“It’s about time, isn’t it?”

“Damn right. Kahaha.”

“Goodbye, Dyoden.”

The moment Zeon bid Dyoden farewell, the darkness around him shattered like glass.

Crack!

[Translator - Peptobismol]

[Proofreader - Demon God]