Descent Of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 2089

The world was filled with the sound of rain.

The sky, dyed a gloomy color, poured rain as if it had a hole in it.

Kang Jin-ho’s gaze went to his hand, which had pierced through Cheongma’s chest. He stared silently at his hand, buried up to the wrist, before his gaze drifted slightly lower, towards his own chest.

Cheongma’s hand had pierced through the center of his chest, where his heart was located.

Yet, strangely, he didn’t feel any pain.

Or perhaps it wasn’t so strange.

Pain was a privilege of the living. Maybe his body had lost even the strength to feel pain anymore.

Even so…

Kang Jin-ho raised his head, though he could no longer hear clearly.

The sky was sinking, more gloomy than ever. Even as his body lost its strength, the world reflected in his eyes began to regain its color.

The black clouds covering the sky, the world shrouded in darkness.

But even within that, countless colors existed. Just as his past life, which he thought was dyed in monochrome, wasn’t just gray when he looked back on it.

Rainwater trickled down his chin. The sensation of the cold rain gradually faded. Kang Jin-ho’s gaze slowly lowered, meeting the gaze that was looking at him.

A half-closed gaze.

Dark, black eyes, filled with an indifferent light, were looking at him.

Those eyes, so familiar yet so unfamiliar.

Swish, swish, swish.

It was quiet.

The world, filled with the sound of rain, was filled to the brim with noise, yet paradoxically, it was too quiet.

The rain poured down as if trying to bury everything.

‘Cough.’

And breaking that silence, or rather, that lack of silence…

The low laughter of the Dark King flowed out.

And the moment he heard that laughter, Kang Jin-ho also burst into a small laugh without realizing it.

Was it because pent-up emotions had burst out?

Well, he didn’t know. He just couldn’t bear not to laugh. The end of a long journey he thought would never be reached. The end of a path he believed would never end was a little anticlimactic and a little funny.

The two men shook with laughter.

He wanted to burst into loud laughter, but his already faded body couldn’t even laugh properly. He just shook, trembled, and swayed, as if crying and laughing at the same time.

The two men staggered through the rain-filled ground as if drunk, and then collapsed to the ground, neither one first.

Even with their heads on the ground, the two men couldn’t stop laughing.

Shaking vision.

In that sorrow, Kang Jin-ho saw. The blood flowing from Cheongma’s heart mixed with the flowing rain, gradually spreading.

Red color spread through the monochrome world.

As if trying to leave a mark that Cheongma had existed in the world, only that red color was painfully vivid in the deep, dark world.

But Kang Jin-ho knew.

The indifferent rain would eventually wash away even that blood. The color of that blood, the faint scent of blood, even Cheongma’s body temperature contained in that blood, would be erased without a trace, and it would turn away as if nothing had ever existed.

As if it had never been there.

Yes. As if nothing had ever been there.

He turned his head to look at the sky. The sky was still dyed black. Neither the sky he wanted nor the sky he didn’t want was here.

‘Cough!’

A cough burst out. A faint fishy smell surged up from his throat.

His body, which had almost lost its senses, shook as if unable to bear the nausea he felt in his stomach.

‘……That’s a funny expression, Cult Leader.’

A familiar voice was heard. Cheongma, who had turned his body with difficulty and was lying facing the sky, looked up at the sky like Kang Jin-ho before slowly opening his mouth again.

‘It seems like it’s the first time I’ve seen you make such an expression.’

It was unfamiliar.

That voice was very familiar to Kang Jin-ho, but also very unfamiliar.

A faded voice. He couldn’t say what had faded, but the color that had originally been in that voice had faded. The voice, which had been so chillingly blue and clear, was blurry as if it had spread out.

‘Strangely so.’

Cheongma laughed softly.

Or maybe…

Maybe that voice was Cheongma’s original voice. Maybe that faded color was Cheongma’s original color.

Kang Jin-ho was the same.

To hide his weak self, he built a wall towards the world. If he bowed his head inside, no one would notice his weak self.

Perhaps it was only at this moment that the wall Cheongma had built had crumbled.

Kang Jin-ho’s mouth slowly opened as he stared at the pouring rain for a long time.

‘Cheongma…’

Cheongma didn’t answer.

Or maybe he was just waiting for Kang Jin-ho’s next words.

‘Was there… any meaning?’

Words that seemed to grasp at thin air.

A voice that just flowed out and spread.

But Cheongma seemed to understand the meaning of those words.

‘..Well.’

That short answer contained many fragments.

Perhaps a small self-mockery, perhaps a small regret.

But what cut Kang Jin-ho’s fingertips with the sharpest edge might have been an unhideable sense of futility.

‘I thought so… yes, I thought so.’

‘But… I don’t know anymore. Or maybe I just don’t want to care anymore.’

Cheongma smiled faintly.

There was a hint of playfulness in that smile. Looking at that innocent, childlike smile, he seemed to realize once again who was lying next to him.

Cheongma.

If life could be called a long journey, Cheongma was his oldest companion and his oldest friend. Although the places they were trying to reach were different, at least their steps were always heading in the same direction.

Would they remain?

Would the things they had seen, the things they had felt and laughed at together, still remain within them?

‘Cough.’

Cheongma coughed lightly.

Cheongma, who had coughed as if shaking, muttered.

‘I see, Cult Leader…’

‘There really is no next time.’

Three lives.

They wouldn’t be given more than that. All that remained was the end that everyone would eventually face. The fact that this all too obvious fact felt so regrettable was probably because their lives had been so extraordinary.

‘Are you… regretful?’

‘Well… I don’t know about that either, Cult Leader.’

Cheongma’s eyes stared blankly at the pouring rain.

‘I already died back then.’

‘The moment I killed myself in my first life, the human being called me died. The other lives given to me were just… yes, I thought they were just given by someone to achieve what I couldn’t achieve back then.’

‘Cheongma…’

‘The moment I really despaired… it wasn’t when I took my own life. It was when I had a brief dream and was thrown back into the miserable reality. It was like I had finally escaped the cage and was flying in the sky… only to get caught in a net and be trapped back in the cage.’

Kang Jin-ho closed his eyes.

For him, his modern life had been salvation. But for Cheongma, his modern life would have been nothing but hell.

Because an inescapable mission would have bound his limbs.

In the absolute flow of the world… what could a human being have done? But Cheongma had fought until now. Even while bleeding and writhing in pain, he had never given up his will.

‘This world won’t leave me alone.’

‘I know, I know I can just ignore it. But I couldn’t ignore it, Cult Leader. It’s not that I didn’t want to. It’s just that I couldn’t make what couldn’t be done, done.’

Cheongma raised his hand and covered his face. As if the pouring rain was too much, as if it was too hard to keep his eyes open any longer.

Kang Jin-ho laughed weakly.

Cheongma, who had been listening to his laughter, asked softly.

‘……What’s so funny?’

‘Just.’

Kang Jin-ho’s voice, which seemed to have faded like his, flowed out quietly.

‘……I just thought you were such a clumsy person.’

‘We’re in the same boat.’

Cheongma laughed softly.

‘Meaning…’

Cheongma said, looking at the distant sky.

‘That’s not something I would know.’

‘Cult Leader.’

A voice with a faint color was heard. The voice of the person named Cheongma, no longer hiding or pretending anything.

‘Was there any meaning?’

‘Everything I did, everything I tried to do, my life… was there any meaning?’

It surged up.

What surged up seemed like it would burst his throat. Something boiling inside seemed like it would burn him whole.

Even if he tried to be calm, he could no longer pretend to be calm.

Even if he forcibly blocked and suppressed it, it kept seeping out, breaking through his throat.

‘……There was.’

‘Yes, there must have been.’

Maybe he wouldn’t be able to change anything. Maybe Cheongma’s existence would create a world he didn’t want.

But Kang Jin-ho couldn’t deny Cheongma’s life.

Even if what his life had tried to leave behind was washed away and disappeared from the world like the blood he had shed…

He remembered.

He alone remembered.

That there had been a person here.

Not a villain who had tried to plunge the world into darkness, not a hero who had tried to save the innocent who were being swallowed by the world, but just that a person had existed, he alone would not forget.

Cheongma slowly turned his head and looked at Kang Jin-ho.

A small smile formed on his pale face.

A smile more wonderful than any smile Kang Jin-ho had ever seen.

‘……That’s a relief.’

The end of Cheongma’s cold lips trembled for a moment.

He had never asked for anything in return. He had never tried to remain as any kind of meaning to anyone. What had moved him was just a sense of duty that he couldn’t shake off.

That was enough.

He believed that it was enough to do what he could and then become ashes without anything left.

But…

‘It’s not a bad feeling.’

He had already experienced the end of life twice.

Once, he had just been sad, and once, he had just been in pain. Compared to those two times, this end was quite wonderful.

‘It’s cold.’

He didn’t know.

Whether the pouring rain was cold, or whether his body was cold. Or maybe he was just afraid.

Cheongma, who had been staring blankly at the sky, turned his head.

In his eyes, which had become blurry, he saw someone’s hand.

A scarred hand.