Weapon-Eating Bastard [EN]: Chapter 279

Weapon-Eating Bastard – Chapter 279

Lugh’s voice echoed softly within the cave.

I listened intently to his words.

“This era sometimes gives rise to beings that defy norms.”

He introduced himself and continued to explain my questions.

“I am a hybrid of two races that do not mix well, Giant and Human, possess the Evil Eye, wield a spear forged from the powers of the world, and have been accompanied by all sorts of fortuitous encounters guided by fate.”

Lugh gazed at me.

“Are you not the same? You must have felt a powerful flow of causality beyond reason and coincidence flowing through you.”

At those words, my eyes widened.

Since entering the Mind Sword, I too had felt a powerful flow of causality flowing into me.

My body, my powers, my special birth…

I was undoubtedly an existence that deviated from the norm.

However.

“What I have built is not something obtained through the flow of time or coincidence, but something I have achieved through my own will.”

Certainly, there were fortuitous encounters. There are also accidental powers I gained apart from my will.

But all the powers I have built have always been seized by my own hands.

This vast magical power, opening the door to obtain the Mind Sword, the miraculous magic that weaves together ancient and modern techniques… all of it was built through my own bloody struggles.

No one can dismiss that with words like coincidence or causality.

“…Indeed. I did not mean to belittle it. I was merely saying that beings like you and I are always born several times in accordance with the flow of time.”

Lugh wore a subtle smile.

I narrowed my eyes and said.

“That flow of time must be due to ‘that.’”

“You noticed. Correct. I am referring to the monster of destruction that crawls up from the abyss of the western sea and circles the world.”

Lugh turned his gaze away, as if looking into the distance, and continued.

“Its birth is an inevitability created by this star. But where there is this, there is always that. Beings like you and I are precisely…”

Lugh looked directly at me.

“Singularities born to stop it.”

Singularity.

The words spoken by the dwarves of the Aerial Fortress.

“We were born, so it began to move. Or it was conceived, so we were born. The order is not important. Causality is inherently like a skein of yarn, where the beginning and end points are impossible to know.”

From the man’s words, I felt a great mission and destiny bestowed upon me.

Providence.

What Chief Butler Choi spoke of, a mission given to oneself.

Was that why I felt a sense of kinship with Lugh the moment I first saw him?

He was an existence burdened with the same fate as me.

‘But… I harbor the Black ki [a type of dark energy].’

I, who possess the power originating from the primordial monster, the power to purify that monster’s power, and the power built up as a human, clearly had a different aspect from Lugh.

‘No, those are not very important.’

I soon shook my head.

Whether it’s providence, mission, causality, or destiny.

I have always run towards my goals according to my own will.

In the end, everything is determined not by this world, but by myself.

A moment of silence hung in the air.

The spring water lapped gently, and a faint blue light swirled between Lugh and me.

Suddenly, Lugh’s eyelids drooped heavily.

As if exhausted or weary.

It was the expression of someone oppressed by long battles and tasks.

“Are you alright?”

“Just… tired.”

“How long have you been fighting?”

“I do not know. Perhaps decades, or even over a hundred years. But there is not much time left.”

Lugh gazed into the distance.

All that was visible was the cave wall, but his eyes seemed to see beyond it.

“The reason it retreated today is to conserve its strength, knowing that the end is near. The next moment they come… will be the last.”

I stared intently at the man.

“Have you never thought of stopping the fight?”

Even though he knew that all of this was an illusion and meaningless, Lugh was talking about the final battle.

At my question, Lugh smiled gently.

“No one in the world would jump off a cliff today, knowing they will die tomorrow.”

“……”

“It is the same. I will always do my best in the given reality. My struggle has always been like that.”

Struggle.

At the man’s words, I pressed my lips tightly.

It was a foolish question.

I bowed my head and apologized.

“I am sorry. It was a pointless question.”

“It is alright. Rather, it means the end I have been hoping for is approaching. And I have even learned the result.”

The man looked at me.

The one eye with the golden pupil shone brightly.

“What do you mean you have learned the result?”

“That you are here.”

The man pointed at me.

“That my spear has not disappeared but has been passed on to your hands.”

Within Eun-han’s jeogori [traditional Korean jacket], Gyeongcheon.

“That you have guessed who I am… means that I have not been defeated. That alone is enough.”

My eyes flashed.

The primordial monster erases all history.

But there are things that are not erased.

The history of this era has been erased, but the myth of the man has been passed down by word of mouth to modern times.

“May I see your spear?”

At the man’s request, I nodded and immediately took out Gyeongcheon from within my jeogori.

Woo-oong!

Gyeongcheon’s appearance was quite different from the spear the man possessed.

The man’s spear was like a transparent, monolithic long spear with golden light shimmering from the shaft to the blade, as if forged from sunlight.

However, Gyeongcheon had a mixed appearance of black and dark due to the influence of my aura and the World Tree’s branch.

“Splendid.”

Lugh wore a satisfied expression as he looked at it.

To Lugh, this spear was like proof that he had faithfully carried out the providence given to him and had triumphed after the struggle.

Just the fact that his records and weapon had been passed down to later generations made Lugh feel as if his fatigue had completely disappeared.

“But… I see. So the shaft was broken, and that is how it became like this.”

“……What do you mean?”

“Would you like to see my spear once?”

Lugh reached out into the air.

In an instant.

A spear flew in from somewhere far away and was caught in his hand.

It was not for nothing that it was said to have been forged from lightning.

Even without infusing it with magic, I could feel magic swirling around this spear.

‘Gyeongcheon cannot do that.’

This spear, in its original form, seemed to be a weapon beyond standards.

Like… the Sword of the Beginning, Black Night.

“You have seen it, but you do not understand. It seems you are somewhat clumsy in how you use your eyes.”

The man muttered, leaving behind such unexpected words.

“What did you feel when you saw this spear?”

“I felt the power that the original possesses.”

“Rather, your spear’s power as a pure weapon itself will be stronger than mine.”

Lugh looked at Gyeongcheon.

In fact, it is the same weapon, but now it has become a different weapon.

“Excuse me? But no matter how I look at it……”

In my eyes, the unbroken form of Gyeongcheon was so brilliant that it seemed to contain all the power in the world.

Lugh laughed.

“The difference between your spear and mine lies in the way it is used.”

Lugh leaned on his spear shaft on the ground and stood up from his seat.

The sight of the giant rising was like Mount Tai stirring.

“It seems I can give a little help to you, who will live in later generations. No, perhaps… this too is a destiny.”

The man muttered so, and after a while, he continued.

“First of all, let me teach you how to use that spear.”

* * *

This spear was made by the hands of dwarves, forged from fragments of stars and lightning, with all sorts of mysteries added, and forged with spells and magic.

It was a divine artifact symbolizing the era.

It was a product of miracles that appeared in the world only after numerous coincidences and inevitabilities were combined.

“That spear originally had no form. It could not be helped. It was originally a miraculous form created by gathering the numerous powers scattered in this world on top of the power I possessed.”

It was a spear created by materializing magic that could not be materialized in the first place.

“Since it was an impossible task from the beginning, you would not have been able to handle the original power of this spear. But if it is you, you will be able to do it.”

Was it because the shaft had disappeared, leaving only the blade?

Or was it because it had been asleep for too long?

After restoring Gyeongcheon, no matter how much I read the memories, I could not read more than a certain amount.

That is why I had not been able to absorb it until now.

However, I met the original owner of the spear and learned how to use it.

“You must have used the spear by pouring out the immense magic power you have in your body all at once.”

I nodded, and the man continued with a regretful expression.

“But in that case, it is the same as not being able to use part of the original usage. The true power of that spear lies in freely manipulating the various powers that exist in this world.”

The man slammed the spear on the ground.

At that moment, I felt an unidentified magic power rushing towards me.

It was neither the man’s magic nor my magic.

It was magic itself, existing in every place in this world.

Woo-oong!

There was the energy of fire, the energy of water, and all the respective magic powers full of nature were present.

It was literally drawing and using all the power in this world.

‘What on earth is this…….’

I also became able to handle powers of different properties by absorbing the powers of various weapons, but those were ultimately limited to ‘absorbed powers.’

But the phenomenon that Lugh is showing now was not of that kind.

Through the spear, he was handling all the properties of magic inherent in all things in this world.

This was why Gyeongcheon was able to accept and wield so much magic.

This spear is a passage that can handle the power of all things in the world.

Therefore, its magical capacity was also enormous.

“You are also one who has entered the realm of transcendence and awakened to the principles of all powers. It will not take long to learn how to use this spear.”

Following the man’s teachings, I slowly held Gyeongcheon in my hand.

Only the man’s voice continued intermittently within the cave, and I became one with Gyeongcheon.

How much time had passed?

It was the moment when I was grasping the usage of the spear while holding it.

Black ki spewed out from my body and wrapped around Gyeongcheon.

Several years had passed since I obtained Gyeongcheon.

I was finally able to absorb Gyeongcheon.

* * *

While Yi Cheol was receiving instruction from Lugh.

Ron, who had fallen into a coma, was feeling a strange sensation.

It was the feeling of handling a part of the body that he could not originally handle.

Ron’s dragon body craved the surrounding magic according to its survival instinct, and it touched the magic that it should not have absorbed, beginning to awaken the dormant organs of the body.

There is a path for that magic to flow.

The magic circuit.

According to modern magic, it is an organ that has become obsolete due to its low utilization.

But is that really the case?

Ron has directly seen and felt the magic of the ancients.

This was it.

There is a path to a higher level in this.

Ron fell into a feeling of peering into the abyss of magic.

However.

Ron was not the only one feeling such a sensation.

Numerous participants who had entered this castle, at the same time as being assimilated into the records, were realizing the identity of an organ called the ‘magic circuit’ that they could not originally use.

‘Magic circuit… why have we neglected this all this time?’

‘There is a path here.’

‘A new realization…….’

As if it was destined to be, those who had experienced ancient magic through the second test of the Aerial Fortress began to awaken their magic circuits all at once.

But there is one thing they do not know.

That a man who had already recognized and used the existence of that organ a long time ago exists.

“Huff!”

In an instant, Ron’s eyes flashed open.

Ron, who had 벌떡 [with a jolt] risen, discovered Yi Cheol looking down at him.

“You’re finally awake. Are you okay?”

“Yes, yes… I’m okay. I woke up earlier, but there was something I felt……”

Ron looked at his left arm.

……Up to his left elbow, it was faintly stained as if it had been sculpted with mist.

Considering that only the tip of his left hand was slightly stained when this phenomenon first occurred, it meant that it could spread throughout his body over time.

“There isn’t much time left.”

Even if Yi Cheol did not explain, Ron was aware of that fact.

“Yes, it seems the end of this test is also approaching soon.”

Ron rose from his seat with Yi Cheol.

Darkness is deepening.

The sound of the wind was ominous.

It was the sound of destruction approaching.

* * *

Two days had passed since I first fell into this era and 펼친 [unfolded] the siege warfare on the castle walls.

During those two days, the world was extremely silent.

The warriors recovered their tired bodies, and I concentrated on learning from Lugh.

That brief respite felt like the calm before the storm.

And the third night came.

It was an unusually dark night with the moon hidden by clouds, and I finally felt that the end was approaching.

I stood on the castle wall, next to Lugh, and looked out at the darkness that had begun to deepen again.

“You are truly quick to learn. I am glad I was able to pass everything on to you without being late.”

At Lugh’s words, I bowed my head once again.

“Thank you for teaching me not only how to use the spear but also how to use the ‘eyes.’”

At my words, Lugh simply smiled.

“But I would like to ask. Why did you bestow such teachings upon me?”

“Why……”

Lugh stared intently at me.

“I do not know what you may think… but I consider you my successor.”

“Successor……”

“And your era will once again face that. You will become a brightly burning lamp and lead the people.”

Long ago, in the 교국 [Gyoguk, a theocratic nation].

It was a word that reminded me of what I had heard from the saintess with the Prophecy Eye.

-However, there is much darkness blocking the way forward. Please do not stop walking. Do not hesitate and move forward. Your light will be a path for those who follow.

Lugh closed his mouth for a moment and looked at me with a strange smile.

“You and I have many similarities. You have experienced death and obtained the Evil Eye, you have a body born from a special bloodline, and my spear has also been passed on to you.”

At those words, I suddenly felt a strange sense of incongruity.

“You have experienced death and obtained the Evil Eye, what do you mean by that?”

“You did not know?”

Lugh’s one eye emitted a strange light.

“The Evil Eye is originally obtained only by those who have understood death.”

At those words, my eyes widened.

It was the answer to the origin of my ability, the Evil Eye, which I had been questioning, and the secret that no one in modern times had been able to uncover.

‘Wait.’

In an instant, I felt one question filling my head.

I actually experienced death through regression.

In the case of the 교국 [Gyoguk] saintess, it is not incomprehensible if I recall the reason why she received her position.

But.

‘Then… why did Valerie have the Evil Eye?’

It was that moment.

It was around the time when the sun had set and disappeared beyond the horizon.

Geugeugeugeugeung!

The ground began to shake.

In an instant, the sky began to be dyed jet black without even leaving a sunset.

Destruction had begun.