There Is No Hidden Villain in This Novel Chapter 43

First.

‘Bloodline.’

The mystery his body inherited from his ancestors cannot be matched by anyone else. Isn’t that why he was able to achieve such great results with blood magic, which uses his own blood as a sacrifice?

But just because its firepower is great doesn’t mean everyone can control it. They say people usually lose control because they can’t handle their own blood.

Therefore, we can learn about Cassis de Millang’s second talent.

‘Control.’

It is the sense of controlling mana. The talent to handle and perceive the natural energy outside one’s own body as if it were one’s own limbs. And to that, a new martial art was added.

The one that replaced paralyzed nerves and neurons by creating thousands, hundreds of fine threads of mana, thinner than a single strand of silk.

The one created by a certain genius whose limbs were paralyzed, simply to live a normal life like others.

Heaven’s Will.

‘I’ll show you the resentment of a lonely man!’

So I turned on the switch for the Heavenly Scripture Art.

From the very moment I focused all my energy into my eyes, I couldn’t breathe. My breath was swallowed inward, and everything in this world, everything that entered my field of vision, felt slow. Even I felt slow, as if I were in slow motion. The world, except for Ryuseong, was moving very slowly.

That was when I realized that almost all humans cannot move their own bodies properly.

‘Was… one second this long?’

My vision slowing down wasn’t because the world had slowed down. It was because no one moved during that brief moment when I had finely sliced and scattered a perceived second. But Ryuseong was different. In my slowed vision, Ryuseong was staring at me, his movements alone not slowed.

So transcendence was divided by whether one could properly perceive time or not.

Thanks to the Heavenly Scripture Art, I barely managed to perceive a fragment of a moment. But I couldn’t move in sync with that speed.

Like a sheep with a noose around its neck.

‘Now I understand.’

To become stronger, I must breathe each and every breath of this world properly, without missing a single one.

‘Have I been breathing properly?’

One person, moving as if piercing through the middle of a shattered instant, completely occupied my vision. Right now, only Ryuseong was moving at his own speed. It seemed this was the reason I hadn’t been able to see his attacks with my naked eye until now.

He already knew. He was already immersed in a world where the interval of a single breath determined life and death.

‘I don’t want to lose.’

For an instant, my mind went blank, and my muscles exploded with sparks, aiming for a single point. In the slowed world, only two people moved at normal speed, and astonishment bloomed in a pair of blue eyes.

My senses, sharpened to the extreme, told me.

‘…on.’

CRAAAACK!

The staff broke. It snapped along the wood grain as if exploding. The heavy staff, which was solid and sturdy due to the iron core embedded within it, but so heavy and destructive it was hard to lift, was held in Ryuseong’s grasp, while my weapon was unscathed. And his wide-open eyes. Two round, blue eyes.

‘I won…’

And so, the color violet blurred. It was because I was smiling like the blurring petals of a lilac.

It was an elation of joy.

In the moment of ecstasy when the violet eyes smiled destructively like a blooming, soft flower, Ryuseong thought that smile was violent.

That smile, which branded defeat upon him more painfully than the principal’s declaration of victory.

‘It’s not that I don’t accept defeat.’

This meant that it was precisely because he accepted it that it was a problem. Ryuseong could not understand Cassis de Millang, who had caught up to his own growth speed.

He had regressed, but Cassis de Millang had not.

Without the experience of a regressor, without having spent as long a time growing as he had, he was chasing after him at such a fast pace.

Then did that mean he was a being who could have originally blossomed this much talent?

A warning bell rings. His whole body screams at him to be wary of him. It’s because the one born with such great talent happens to be Cassis de Millang. It wouldn’t have mattered if it were anyone else, but it had to be Cassis de Millang. If only he weren’t strong, he could have let him live with an easy mind.

‘Why did he have to be born with talent, too?’

Ryuseong thinks Cassis de Millang is crazy.

He is insane. Completely mad. Not in his right mind. He is even sure that these expressions are mild. How can he be like that? What is the problem? Where should he start to retrace his steps? Can he be fixed? Isn’t it another form of arrogance to resolve to stop such a broken person from becoming a threat to the world?

But he, of all people, could not give up. If he wasn’t going to kill him, he had to stop him somehow, and if he had to retrace his steps, he had to go back.

He had to pull the moment from his trauma, the one where he blew your detached brains out, into reality.

But Ryuseong found himself not wanting to do that. It wasn’t that he shouldn’t do it, but he just didn’t want to.

He didn’t want to kill him.

‘It’s not physical affection.’

This was not some affection born from frequent contact. On the contrary, the more physical contact they had, the more it emphasized the fact that Cassis de Millang was a son of a bitch.

For example, a little while ago. The day after Cassis de Millang and Ryuseong decided to start their public relationship. When he kissed his cheek in the lecture hall, Cassis de Millang had sneered at Ryuseong.

—Is that all you’ve got?

His arrogant eyes looked down on him. His lips twisted at the condescending gaze, as if dealing with a child.

That was the reason. The reason he had kissed him as if violating his throat was just that. He wanted to humiliate him by forcefully shoving himself into his small mouth and stimulating him to feel things against his will. But as it happened, he seemed to enjoy being treated roughly.

Judging by how he moaned obscenely without a care for being seen by others…

‘I want to punish him.’

He couldn’t find a place for his hands and just squeezed his eyes shut, trembling, so wrapping an arm around his nape was a final act of mercy. The only consideration he, the one who would stir him up, could offer.

Should he not have done that?

Cassis de Millang had hugged him as he tried to pull away and wouldn’t let go. He looked up at him with a gaze that seemed to be on the verge of tears, leaning his light body, like some withered doll, completely against him. And yet, he didn’t even seem to be aware of the expression on his own face.

So he just made him realize it.

“You’re the one who wants to cling, yet when will you fix that habit of blaming me?”

The you who was trembling and on the verge of tears just a moment ago, now smiled provocatively and bit his ear. Crunch, hard.

I really don’t know how many faces you have. I don’t know which expression is sincere.

“Still, I’ll let it slide. It’s quite cute when you dare to be impudent.”

“…”

“Please do continue to step out of line in the future.”

This arrogant and detestable you.

“I’ve grown tired of an obedient dog, so isn’t it only natural that I, of all people, find you pretty?”

You son of a bitch who doesn’t treat humans as humans.

“Close your eyes. …You don’t want to avoid it?”

“…”

“Then, remember only me in this moment.”

And yet, you are kind, like an act of charity, at the most crucial moments.

“The potent poison is melting your organs. How did you endure this in your right mind…”

And in the end, I realized that you don’t even treat yourself as a human…

‘…You.’

You seemed accustomed to having your life targeted.

A life that nonchalantly assesses its own lifespan, saying it won’t die easily even after swallowing a potent poison.

A life adept at the extreme and nonsensical situation of someone coming to kill you.

When Ryuseong found out at the clothing store that he was actually encouraging the spread of stories about himself, he thought he was complicated. The fact that Cassis de Millang, despite having a twisted personality because he was ultimately human, couldn’t help but have his own reasons for his actions, pained Ryuseong.

The fact that you, of all people, are human, that even someone like you is human and has a story to your life.

But this was the first time he knew that death was always by his side. A fact he hadn’t known even before the regression. He seemed almost familiar with assassins, and it was as if he thought he could die at any moment.

“I wish the world would just all be destroyed…”

He had thought that the words you said before the regression were chillingly insane.

But looking back…

‘Perhaps, you were just too tired.’

The face of you who died in his trauma won’t leave his mind. That white skin. That detached smile. You looked peaceful only when you died, and you were as comfortable as if you had met a predestined end.

Why did your life have to be so extreme?

‘And why, does even that resemble me?’

He had once confessed that he felt like he was looking at himself whenever he saw you. The reason Ryuseong had clashed with you so often before the regression was none other than the fact that a certain path he could have taken resembled you.

So when the world was destroyed by you, Ryuseong had merely looked into his own rock bottom. He had just always wondered why you, a young master, had stood on the edge of a cliff.

‘Was your deep-seated desire also to live like a human? A life where you had to make something so simple your lifelong prayer, was that given to you as well?’

Why?

‘Yay, bucket list achievement!’

Haha, a complete victory against the protagonist was my mission impossible. Impossible because it seemed impossible. I did achieve an official victory with blood magic, but that was a fight that was only possible because I aimed for the trap of Ryuseong experiencing blood magic for the first time, so it was hard to say we fought properly, wasn’t it?

But this time, we really fought properly. Like, uh? We fought while flying around like in a Shaolin martial arts movie, using breakfalls, and rolling around. Impossi-ball! You’ve been kicked off the cheat sheet now, man! Make it possi-ball!