The Life of a Wise Cult Leader - Chapter 206

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 206

Soon after, I could see the sky fragmenting. The world that had exhausted all its ‘possibilities’ was facing destruction.

“If you don’t escape quickly, you’ll be swept away and disappear in the world’s collapse. Hurry up and eat.”

She followed the demon’s words.

The taste of the Savior was neither sweet nor ecstatic like the demon’s taste.

It tasted like chewing tree bark or stones.

As she hesitated at that strange taste, her stomach felt hot like sulfur fire. It was as if something strange was rolling around inside her…

“Ugh…”

She reflexively covered her mouth with her hand. She felt like vomiting. Now it wasn’t just her stomach that was hot, but her skin seemed to be burning too.

When she opened her hand, something sticky and purple was smeared on it.

“…Lord Eris.”

“Hm? Is there a problem?”

“…My body, something’s wrong.”

“Really?”

Her vision gradually darkened. When she rubbed around her eyes with her hand, something like pitch-black tears, not even purple, was coming out. From the cracks in her skin, something like black oil was oozing out.

“Uuugh…! Kuhuk, cough, ugh, aaah…!!”

Unbearable pain struck her.

Pain as if her head was splitting in two. Pain as if hellfire was burning inside her. On her skin, it felt like insects were devouring each and every cell.

Unable to endure it, I shouted at him who had been standing still.

“Lord Eris, Eris! You said you’d save me!”

“That’s not something I can do anything about.”

“Uuugh… aaah…”

Pain so severe I couldn’t even scream dominated me.

“If you don’t eat quickly, you’ll be left behind in this world, Arachne.”

Beyond my blurred vision, the demon was smiling brightly.

Eris.

There are various epithets attached to him.

Discord, strife, demon of war.

On the other side, chaos.

‘Since I made a contract with the demon of chaos, was this outcome inevitable…?’

I couldn’t continue thinking.

It was a different kind of pain from having one’s soul shaken. More primal, more agonizing…!

As if this world was trying to return my existence to never having existed from the beginning, dismantling, decomposing, and erasing each and every cell.

“God of Night…! Take away my pain, this suffering…!”

The shadow at my feet came alive.

As if darkness was taking form, a massive figure rose from beneath a faceless robe. In one hand was a scythe that seemed capable of cutting even light. It was the God of Night.

The God of Night swung his scythe at her. The pain disappeared as if washed away.

However, that only took away the ‘pain.’ The source still remained.

From her toes to her ankles, not just her flesh but something beyond that was gradually being erased from this world.

“Eris, what’s happening here?”

“Oh, let your kind friend explain it to you. So could you please put away that scythe pointed at me? This really isn’t something I did.”

The demon spread both hands and waved them lightly as if to calm down.

“Those who know their future are destined to perish.”

“Arachne, you believed that because you stole a glimpse at the threads of fate, you gained a chance to twist that ending, didn’t you? But you were wrong. The moment a human perceives their own future, fate stops being a flowing river and solidifies firmly.”

The demon drew invisible lines in the air with his grotesquely twisted fingers.

“Knowing the future is like voluntarily walking into a prison you can never escape from until that future becomes reality. Until that ‘destruction’ you saw becomes real, you had to perfectly reenact each and every scene you witnessed. All your struggles and meticulous calculations were ultimately just the most faithful foreshadowing to complete that ending.”

Eris opened his mouth wide and let out a disgusting laugh.

“You thought you had seized freedom with your intelligence, but in truth, you were just a puppet dancing most painfully inside the taxidermy box of the future you saw. Now, do you understand? Why humans don’t know their own future?”

The demon paused briefly as if waiting for an answer, but when I didn’t respond, he opened his mouth.

“Because possibilities are infinite. An unclosed future isn’t bound.”

“The price for peeking at the future is the punishment of being bound without a single inch of error until that future devours you.”

The demon just laughed.

So I was always a slave to fate, constantly dangling on strings in a play?

“No, that doesn’t make logical sense. I knew my future, but I changed it. According to the original future, I should have died at 27.”

“That’s right.”

“I’m 32 now, so that future isn’t the future I observed. There’s no way I could end up like this.”

“I want to see your frustration… so, think about it calmly once more. What could the God of Night do for you?”

Black tears flowed out. When I wiped them away, the surface skin of my face peeled off and crumbled together.

“Since he’s a god who deals with death, he can prevent death… that’s why I made the contract.”

“He can prevent death… Unfortunately, giving life is an act that requires multiple gods to reach a conclusion together. The God of Night can’t do it alone. So what the God of Night can do is…”

“…postponement.”

“Correct!”

He clapped his hands as if genuinely delighted that I got the right answer.

It’s a scam. I was deceived. This doesn’t make sense.

The God of Night is…

It doesn’t matter.

It was something I roughly knew already.

However…

“As the world ends like that… it seems that power has also run out? Or maybe you used too much power, or the demon’s share of power became too strong and your original soul was torn to shreds.”

“The contract terms were to take me safely to another world!”

“That’s right. However, the only thing that can cross from here to another world is the existence called ‘Arachne.’ Not you, who is the soul of a human who should have already died at 27, and a lump of filth forcibly patched together by trampling on others’ possibilities.”

The demon looked at my expression and showed a face filled with ecstasy as if he couldn’t contain himself, rejoicing.

“That expression is so funny! To die without even getting to sit in the position you crawled up to by killing everyone else and even your past self. Hahaha… Ah, humans are really entertaining. Among them, you were particularly more entertaining.”

So all my struggles were ultimately to meet a predetermined destruction?

“…Was I wrong?”

No tears, no despair. Nothing came out.

The times I had lived flashed through my mind, but what meaning would there be in looking back at a life that was nothing but a play anyway?

Should I be angry, or should I grieve and despair?

Vomiting black liquid that wasn’t even tinged with purple, I looked at the God of Night.

He stood silently watching this humiliating end while holding his scythe.

“Haha… hahahaha!”

I twisted my head grotesquely and burst into laughter. Only laughter came out. When I laughed, the demon showed a surprised expression.

I wasn’t wrong.

This world is what’s wrong.

If this kind of ending is given to me who lived earnestly, then this world is what’s wrong, isn’t it?

“Now take my hand. I’ll at least send you off without pain.”

“Take it. So you can take back your power?”

“Hmm. Don’t look at me so badly, will you? I explained it in detail enough for you to understand, and you at least got to feel free, didn’t you? Taking back my power is anyway… since you’re going to die.”

Eris grabbed my arm firmly.

“Let go of this!”

“There’s nothing more you can do anyway.”

“God of Night! Kill the demon!”

Whoosh-

The God of Night swung his scythe.

“Kraaah…!”

Eris, hit directly by the scythe, screamed terribly and stepped back. Then he smiled brightly.

“Did you expect this?”

He leisurely dodged the god’s attack and opened his mouth.

“You’re going to die anyway, so why are you doing this? God of Night, you don’t need to follow that mere human’s words. Make a contract with me. If you contract with me, I’ll pull you out of this perishing world. And I’ll send you to another world. In that other world, you’ll be able to play Lumensia’s role!”

“…Though I haven’t done well as a god, at least sharing fate with this world would be my last duty as a god. I will share the same fate as this world.”

“You stupid fool… Don’t you feel sorry for yourself, being used and abandoned by Lumensia? If she truly cared about you, she’d make a contract with me. Right?”

“…The Savior wasn’t even human from this world, yet he tried to protect it.”

The God of Darkness’s gaze turned toward the fallen, melting Savior.

“At least I want to try following the example of the last god’s remnant, who was righteous and noble until death.”

“…All the gods here except Lumensia are just frustrating fools… I’ll kill you.”

The Demon didn’t directly touch the Widow. Since the contract was still in effect, it couldn’t attack its contractor.

The God of Darkness and God of Night, who also governed death and was now the only god supporting this world.

He did his best to deal with the parasite that had entered this world, but it wasn’t easy to oppose a demon that had already destroyed several worlds and devoured even its own siblings.

However, he was showing his dignity as a god with his last strength. Though it would only amount to buying time.

I crawled and barely managed to grab the hem of the barely breathing Savior’s clothes.

What a miserable sight.

“Haha…”

With the only hand I had left, I gripped the cold metal claws from inside my clothes.

Tick, tick. Tick…

“In the end, was I also dancing on a stage someone else had set?”

In the name of fate…

My vision was hazy and I couldn’t see an inch ahead, but only the pure white figure of the Savior shining like a lighthouse came into clear view.

The Widow took out a clock.

The clock in her clothes had its hands moving with ticking sounds.

A clock just before pointing to midnight.

“Haah…”

It was exhausting.

“I wasn’t wrong, I didn’t choose the wrong answer.”

Tick, tock, tick, tock…

The clock turns.

And gradually the world that had collapsed returned to its previous state.

The ash that had been falling like rain from the sky defied gravity and soared back into the air.

“What is this!”

The Demon began to be torn apart as if caught in something.

“No! Arachne! What trick did you pull! This can’t happen, this can’t happen…!”

The God of Night inherited the final thoughts of his contractor, the Widow.

And as if he had no intention of surviving, he grabbed hold of the Demon.

“Arachne…!”

The Demon was annihilated as the price for remaking the world.

The fragments of space that had scattered like broken glass shards flew back to their places as if drawn by magnets and fit together.

The fragments of the shattered star formed a round orb again, and the torn horizon connected smoothly as if sewn together with thread.

The God of Darkness offered his final farewell.

“…If possible, see you in the next timeline.”

“…”

He returned to the primordial darkness like that.

The golden Divine Power and black ether pooled on the floor wrapped around the Savior again, breathing life into him.

Even those who had already died and passed away regained their breath…

A gentle sun rose in the sky.

However, that miracle was not permitted for the Widow.

Because she was not of this world…

The Widow placed the clock on the Savior’s hand.

“I can’t end it like this…”

Looking at the world being reassembled from the void, she murmured.

“Come on… Let’s start over from the beginning. That’s what we did most often, isn’t it, Cel. Erase the wrong answers and do it again.”

She now had only her upper body left.

“But smart Cel would know. That this is really, truly the last time.”

She had no regrets. Just the fact that she had destroyed the crude loom the Gods had set up made her think it wasn’t so bad.

She was only angry that she hadn’t truly found freedom.

“You have to come find me. You understand?”

How to achieve victory again.

“You’re the god I created… and my Savior…”

With those words, the Widow’s form became a handful of ash and scattered into the wind of the newly born world.

*

“Hueok…!”

When I opened my eyes, I saw what looked like cave walls.

“…What?”

I was lying on what could only be called an altar.

I had opened my eyes in this place where the living and dead coexisted, covered in blood from head to toe, with a disgusting smell.

‘Why am I here? I was definitely…’

Fighting the Demon and the Widow…

Just as I thought that, something was in my hand.

An old clock.

I could tell.

It was a Sacred Relic containing the God of Time.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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