Possessing Nothing

194 – Madness 7

Translated by: betterdays

This wasn’t the first time he was vomiting blood.

The blood from his throat this time was so fishy and disgusting that it was incomparable to any prior experience he had suffered in his lifetime.

The Crazy Heavenly Demon realized that his death was near. While using the powers drawn from monstrous origins he gained the power to overwhelm Chusung, but it was not entirely his own as well as himself burning his life force.

“…What… the hell…”

Chusung, who was helplessly being beaten by the onslaught of the Crazy Heavenly Demon, slipped down his arms to protect his face.

In front of Chusung, The Crazy Heavenly Demon stood in a staggered posture.

Chusung couldn’t understand the situation at the moment as he saw the Crazy Heavenly Demon breathing wildly while vomiting blood.

If it had continued like it was, Chusung would have been killed by The Crazy Heavenly Demon.

“What…did you… do..?”

Chusung asked again with a raspy breath.

The Crazy Heavenly Demon just stared at Chusung with bloodshot eyes, but couldn’t say anything.

He was feeling unbearable pain at that point. His intestines felt like they were being shredded apart and mashed together repeatedly. The Crazy Heavenly Demon’s lips, suppressing the bursting screams, were trembling.

The appearance of the Crazy Heavenly Demon wouldn’t look good to anybody, even someone who had no knowledge of martial arts.

“Oh my…”

Chusung kept thinking that it was somehow strange. Suddenly an explosively strong power surged from the man in front of him. The big in front of him, suddenly attained a level of strength that could overwhelm him to the point where his life was at stake.

It was difficult to imagine that the Crazy Heavenly Demon was hiding his power. He must’ve pulled out that power forcefully, and now he was paying the price.

Chusung’s face was horribly distorted.

“Hahaha!”

Chusung laughed loudly and rushed toward The Crazy Heavenly Demon.

The Crazy Heavenly Demon, who was barely standing with legs trembling, hurriedly raised his internal energy at Chusung’s approach.

His body was difficult to move due to the pain, but the inner circuitry still moved fluidly as desired.

The internal energy coated around him in a red aura and bumped into Chusung’s fist. The hot flame engulfed the red aura around the Crazy Heavenly Demon and pushed him back.

“It was pretty good for a human being!”

Chusung yelled with a joyful expression to the person that was about to die.

The Crazy Heavenly Demon barely managed to give strength to his legs. His body was still not moving properly.

It seemed like his nervous system and neural transmitters were burnt out.

A little bit more. A little bit more and he could have killed Chusung. Dersia and the villagers would be avenged.

“Hahaha!”

Chusung reached out his hand to The Crazy Heavenly Demon with a big smile. The red flame burned hotter than ever.

A field of burning flame stretched out toward The Crazy Heavenly Demon. The Crazy Heavenly Demon opened his eyes and saw the coming hand to his face.

Suddenly, the time perceived by the Crazy Heavenly Demon slowed down and he saw something that made his old heart writhe in pain. Rubia jumped in front of him.

The Crazy Heavenly Demon had never seen Rubia’s face like that. The facial expressions that Rubia showed him were playful, irritated, sulky, bored, or terrified.

Most of them were.

However, Rubia did not look like that now. Her face was one of someone who had determined themselves. They were prepared to give it all up for one thing.

The Crazy Heavenly Demon and Rubia’s eyes met.

Rubia opened her mouth and tried to say something, but before her voice could even make sound, the flaming fist from Chusung hit her.

It looked like a furnace burning brightly behind her back slowly engulfing her in the slow perception of time.

The moment she touched the flame, Rubia’s body was dyed with a bright light.

A dazzling light flowed out of Rubia’s body. It pushed aside the flames of Chusung that were coming to burn Rubia’s body.

Rubia was an artificial spirit created by Envirus. Before Envirus entrusted himself as ‘Cain’ to Erebrisa, he had ‘created’ Rubia with the help of the Spirit Queen.

Although created with the help of the Queen, Rubia was a weak entity that could not be compared with the other high-ranking spirits summoned by Envirus.

She could use a variety of auxiliary magic, but not very much.

In the first place, Rubia was not a spirit created for combat. The reason the Queen created Rubia, was to let her die as a shield instead of Envirus.

‘I’m sorry, master.’

Rubia closed her eyes and spoke to Envirus, who did not know where she was.

The power planted by the Spirit Queen in Rubia’s body flowed out of her body.

It became a white wall and blocked the sparks of Chusung. Rubia stopped in the air and stood in front of the Crazy Heavenly Demon with her arms wide open.

The Crazy Heavenly Demon looked at the flames scattering behind her back with a blank expression.

“What the hell…”, he muttered as his eyes shook.

“..I liked it.”, Rubia opened her mouth.

“I liked traveling with you and with Lee Sungmin. At first, it was just because of what Master had told me to do… I thought he was caught up in some kind of trouble. But time flew by… and before I knew it, it had been more than a year. So, naturally I enjoyed it. The things I couldn’t do with my master, adventures, friends, experiencing life, even as a spirit. I had been doing it all with you and Lee Sungmin.”

“What are you doing…?”, the Crazy Heavenly Demon stuttered.

“Can’t you see it?”, Rubia said with a smile.

“You’re blocking it.”

Paang!

The wall of light was torn down.

Rubia’s body fell to the ground. The Crazy Heavenly Demon looked at Rubia that fell to the floor and gasped for air.

Chusung was a bit embarrassed that the cat-girl, who he didn’t even care about, intercepted his attack. But when he saw Rubia fall powerlessly to the floor, he laughed as if it was insignificant.

“That saved your life for merely a moment!”

“… Mister… please.. run away …”

Rubia said in a thin voice.

The Crazy Heavenly Demon stood up and looked down at Rubia.

Run away.

It was an impossible request in the first place.

Since he had already started to burn his life force, escape would not be possible. He would surely die.

“You did a foolish thing…”

The Crazy Heavenly Demon muttered in a weak voice. It was Rubia, not the Crazy Heavenly Demon, that had to escape.

Chusung was approaching.

‘Move.’

The Crazy Heavenly Demon eagerly asked his lingering limbs.

As Chusung approached, he raised his hand wrapped in flames. First of all, he was intent on killing the Crazy Heavenly Demon. Though he was merely delayed in his plans for a brief moment due to a mere beast-human, he would have his way.

Death was near. But the Crazy Heavenly Demon was not dead yet.

Chusung’s hand reached for Rubia.

From his palm, a blazing flame fluttered toward Rubia.

‘Please.’

The Crazy Heavenly Demon continued to ask his own body, which would not move.

It was not too late yet if he could just move.

His fingertips flinched and trembled.

The tremor spread throughout his body.

His creaking body started to move only through sheer willpower. The pain that proved he was close to death, disappeared.

The Crazy Heavenly Demon roared and rushed toward Chusung. When the Crazy Heavenly Demon, which Chusung thought would have been completely exhausted, jumped in again, he was greatly taken aback and fired off a spark.

The Crazy Heavenly Demon did not stop and jumped into the flame.

The hot flame burned his body. The desire to kill Chusung was greater than the terrible pain caused by it.

Revenge was no longer the only reason to kill Chusung.

If The Crazy Heavenly Demon died here, Chusung would also kill Rubia. The Crazy Heavenly Demon would not allow it.

“BASTARD!”

Chusung screamed at The Crazy Heavenly Demon with flames erupting all over his body. Letting Chusung’s scream fall on deaf ears, The Crazy Heavenly Demon swung his fist.

Quazzik!

Chusung’s head was beaten and turned sideways. At the same time, Chusung shook his hand and grabbed The Crazy Heavenly Demon’s shoulder.

Even though his whole left arm seemed to be torn apart, the Crazy Heavenly Demon did not stop.

Rather, his outstretched right hand grabbed Chusung’s neck.

“Keugh!”

Chusung couldn’t breathe.

He struggled with the pressure from his neck and tried to shake off the Crazy Heavenly Demon.

The Crazy Heavenly Demon did not release the pressure he gave to his hand even though his whole body was being engulfed in flames and the smell of charred flesh started to permeate in the surroundings.

The Crazy Heavenly Demon, flashing his red eyes in the flame, at this moment he truly looked like a demon to Chusung.

“You… !”

Ududug!

Chusung’s hand crushed The Crazy Heavenly Demon’s shoulder. The Crazy Heavenly Demon ignored his left arm and lifted his knees and kicked Chusung’s stomach.

With the sound of a bang, Chusung’s body broke. Blood spewed out of Chusung’s mouth.

“St….op..”

“No.”

The Crazy Heavenly Demon mumbled in the flames burning his whole body.

“When the villagers begged you to stop…. Did you stop?”

That was the last word Chusung heard.

Crunch!

The Crazy Heavenly Demon’s hand completely broke Chusung’s neck and the light disappeared from Chusung’s eyes.

However, the phenomenal vitality of the Great Monster, Chusung, would not let death come over him, even if his neck was broken.

The Crazy Heavenly Demon put down Chusung’s broken neck, pulled his fingertips up and thrust them into Chusung’s chest.

Fuwook!

The steel-like skin of Chusung was pierced by The Crazy Heavenly Demon’s hand.

The Crazy Heavenly Demon’s hand sloshed in Chusung’s body and then gripped the heart of Chusung. It was still beating. The Crazy Heavenly Demon gave strength to his hand and crushed it like a balloon popping.

Argh!

The flames on the Crazy Heavenly Demon’s body dispersed. Chusung opened his mouth wide and screamed.

Chusung’s body, which had been trembling and shaking, began to scatter as his body became ashes. The Crazy Heavenly Demon staggered and sank on the spot.

The flame went out, but his body was burnt to the point that it was better to die right then and there.

It was over.

He could rest in peace knowing his vengeance had been carried out. Rubia was also safe.

The Crazy Heavenly Demon looked at Rubia with weak and shaky eyes. Rubia, lying on the floor, lifted her head weakly.

“Mister…”

“It’s done.”

The Crazy Heavenly Demon tried to make a smile, but his face burned by flames did not create the smile he wanted to desperately emerge.

At this moment he was not without regret. To be honest… he expected it.

If he fought Chusung while burning his life force, he wondered if he would gain enlightenment toward Transcendence at that moment.

Expectations were simply expectations and always led to disappointment.

Was he not qualified? The Crazy Heavenly Demon sniffled and laughed.

Lee Sungmin’s face came to mind. It would have been nice if he could at least say his goodbye to that young man.

Well, he didn’t even have to. If there was any enlightenment he gained in his later years to help Lee Sungmin, he would tell him… but there was no such possibility to do so now.

“…Mister?”

Rubia called out to the Crazy Heavenly Demon with a weak voice. The Crazy Heavenly Demon slowly closed his eyes.

The bright red flicker of life force within his dantian went out. Rubia did not know what was going on in the body of the Crazy Heavenly Demon, but she knew that the Crazy Heavenly Demon was dying.

“Ah, Mister… Mister?!”

Rubia managed to get up and screamed the Crazy Heavenly Demon’s name.

The Crazy Heavenly Demon did not answer. Rubia hurriedly tried to approach the Crazy Heavenly Demon, but… the end came for her as well.

“…Ah…?!”

With a bewildered sound, Rubia’s body started to disintegrate into small particles and began to scatter.

As Envirus moved to the Spirit World, Rubia that was connected to him began to be summoned to the Spirit World too.

Rubia screamed, looking down her scattered limbs.

“Please, please, Master! Wait a minute…!”

Rubia screamed, but the summoning to the spirit world did not stop. Soon after, Rubia’s body completely disappeared.

The Crazy Heavenly Demon saw the disappearance of Rubia with almost completely blind eyes.

Where did she go?

Such questions did not last long either.

“Really…”

The Crazy Heavenly Demon heard a voice in his state of blurring consciousness.

It was a voice he had heard of. The Crazy Heavenly Demon barely opened his eyes and looked in the direction of the voice.

Frau with an annoyed face was standing there.

She approached The Crazy Heavenly Demon.

The Crazy Heavenly Demon opened his mouth to say something to Frau, but Frau said, shaking her head from side to side,

“Don’t say any useless words. It was not enough to burn your life force, so you took Chusung’s flame with your whole body… You’re lucky you’re not already dead. No, even if you aren’t right now, you will die soon.”

Frau grumbled and waved her hand under her wide sleeves.

Then, dozens of amulets were held in Frau’s hand. Frau threw the amulet as if spreading it roughly, and the amulet she threw hovered above the Crazy Heavenly Demon with a constant movement.

“Yana said, if something happened to this city while she’s away, I was to help as much as I can.”

She did not deliberately intervene with the work in the Central Square. Her loyalty to Yana, the Gumoho, was important, but she didn’t think it was enough to take the risk of even approaching the monstrous entities moving within the square.

But what was in front of her right now, was something Frau could solve and fit the description of what Yana had stated.

But, she couldn’t step forward earlier.

The Crazy Heavenly Demon was fighting with Chusung while throwing his life away, and it was not an atmosphere to interfere.

But now it was okay to step up. The fight was over, and Chusung was dead. And soon the Crazy Heavenly Demon would die.

“You’ve done a nasty job for me.”

Frau mumbled like that and made a decision.

“I’ll give you some time to say goodbye.”

Even if she was a great sorcerer, it is impossible to revive a dying human that burned all his life force.

But it could be delayed. A transparent barrier entwined the body of The Crazy Heavenly Demon.

“Shouldn’t you at least say your goodbyes before you go?”

Frau muttered with a bitter smile.