전생검신 83권 18화

I felt my memory gradually becoming clearer with the girl’s words. I frowned as I sensed fragmented memories becoming more vivid in my mind.

“…Yeah, you said that back then too.”

That was when the girl first contacted me inside the Training World.

[You’ll be in big trouble if you trust Fuxi too much.]

Even back then, the girl emphasized that [Fuxi is not on my side].

It had been such a fleeting memory that it was blurry, but after hearing the girl’s words, it felt like she had been saying that all along since that time.

At the same time, I felt displeased and said,

“Who do you think you are to force me not to trust Fuxi? Are you trying to control me with words too?”

I was thoroughly fed up with those trying to use me. Seeing my expression darken, the girl shook her head as if denying it, looking somewhat surprised.

“Me, control you? That can’t happen. Unless it’s the opposite…”

“Then why tell me not to trust Fuxi? Are you saying Fuxi will betray me?”

As my tone grew rough, the girl replied,

“That’s not it. Fuxi will help you until the end and won’t betray you.”

“Then why?”

“But the path alongside Fuxi ends in destruction. That’s why you shouldn’t see him as an ally, and you shouldn’t make him one.”

“…”

Destruction?

I wondered what she meant and pondered deeply. Then, as much as I could understand, I said to the girl,

“So… you’re not saying Fuxi is planning to betray me… you’re just saying that if I trust and follow Fuxi, the future that awaits me will be destruction, so I shouldn’t make him my ally?”

The girl nodded vigorously, seemingly pleased with my words.

“Exactly. You understood well!”

“…What kind of nonsense is that? Seriously.”

I shook my head in disbelief.

“How does trusting Fuxi lead to destruction? How do you know that? If I’m to believe you, you need to explain that first in detail.”

“That’s…”

The girl hesitated for a moment and suddenly gulped down her drink.

After calming herself, she continued with a somewhat excited expression.

“It might take a bit of a long story. First, I want to talk about my relationship with Yuso.”

“You’re sisters, right? Is there anything more to that?”

“Um, how should I put it… How much do you know about my [Chaos Talent] that I possess, Baek Woong?”

Taken aback by her unexpected question, I thought for a moment and answered.

“It’s a latent ability humans awaken by chance. And I’ve heard you can set [Infinity] using that power, Immortality.”

Having heard it from Fuxi, I knew that was the case. The girl slowly continued.

“That’s correct. My ability is just that. Now, do you know Yuso’s abilities as well?”

“Well… she knows everything about the future. Doesn’t she have an absolute future-seeing ability that even surpasses the Emperor?”

“No. That’s merely a byproduct.”

“Byproduct?”

At my question, the girl placed her hand on her chest.

“I am the symbol of omnipotence, while Yuso symbolizes omniscience. And actually, we aren’t sisters.”

“…?!”

“Yuso’s true ability touches omniscience, but due to human limitations, it only manifests as prophetic ability.”

W-What?

I couldn’t grasp what the girl’s words meant. After zoning out for a bit and snapping back to attention, I said,

“So you’re saying you’re not really sisters, so you’re not biological siblings?”

“…”

The girl fell silent for a moment and then spoke.

“I don’t know how you’ll react to this, but we remember before we were born.”

“Before you were born…?”

“In a completely different world that seems unrelated to this one… where the laws, history—everything is different. I existed there. And when that world perished, my consciousness was absorbed into an infinite, unfathomable chaos, and eons passed. Truly… a very long time…”

The girl continued speaking without a change in expression.

“And then the chaos spoke to me. It told me to get out of there.”

“…”

“When I came to my senses, I was a newborn. And when I saw the being born alongside me, I thought of an unsettling possibility. That thought became clearer as I learned to walk and talk.”

As she continued, my eyes widened slightly.

“I am [myself].”

“…?!”

W-What?!

As I struggled to understand what Yuso was saying, the girl added,

“We were summoned into this world from the primordial chaos. Although our bodies are different, Yuso was undeniably me, and I was Yuso.”

“W-Wait, I don’t understand. Please explain.”

“It’s simple. For example, let’s say you, Baek Woong, were reincarnated with your memories, and a being born as a twin held the same powers and memories as you. That being would look at you with the same thoughts.”

“…!!”

“Of course, Yuso and I gradually became different individuals as we grew, but the essence of our souls remains the same. We were originally one.”

Is such a thing even possible?

I was shocked, and then I snapped back to my senses and said,

“So… you mean you’re sisters in body but actually the same person?”

“That’s right.”

“Then what was your name before you were born?”

“I forgot. Both the name and all memories… they vanished in the endlessly long eternity… All that remains is the identity that I was me.”

The girl said this sorrowfully.

“At first, we didn’t know why our souls were split. But as we grew, the latent powers manifested, and we understood the reason.”

“What’s the reason?”

The girl brought her fingers together.

“I symbolize [Power], while Yuso symbolizes [Wisdom]. If we combine our powers, we could achieve perfect omnipotence, but since mere humans can’t even mimic that omnipotence, we were split into imperfect powers and wisdom. So I believe that’s how the same person reincarnated as two.”

“…!!”

“And even the vessels that were split are so small and insignificant that our powers are incomplete and weak. Compared to the true owners of powers, we’re hardly more than specks of dust.”

The girl spoke self-deprecatingly, but I felt an overwhelming sense of astonishment at how grand the story had become.

‘Omnipotence and omniscience…?’

Certainly, that made sense in understanding the girl and Yuso’s abilities. The girl had to have the premise of setting [Infinity] due to her imperfect omnipotence, and Yuso, being an imperfect omniscient, would only read the future as her limit.

However, I tilted my head, still perplexed.

“…So who exactly granted you those abilities?”

“I can’t put it into words as [who]. ‘It’ is the beginning and the end, the demise of all existence, the chaos after destruction, and the hell of hell… in a way, you could say it was the infinite chaos itself that seemed to transform into a giant nightmare.”

“…”

“However… when I told this to Emperor Gong Sun Xuanwen, he spoke as if he already knew about that being.”

Emperor Gong Sun Xuanwen knows who that is?

Just as I felt curiosity about the surprising clue, the girl continued.

“The reason Yuso and I possess the strongest powers is simple. Unlike others who indirectly revive the memories of chaos, we are the direct beings that came from within. The stronger the purity of the powers, the stronger we are—that’s a simple law.”

“Is that so…?”

“And there’s one more thing. Because Yuso and I share the same soul, we possess another trait.”

Swoosh

A moment later, the girl’s hair turned from black to silver, and her silver eyes shifted to black. The starkly different colors made her appearance feel quite alien, and she spoke in that state.

“Like this, we can temporarily borrow each other’s abilities by degrading them.”

Degrading?

‘No way…!!’

I immediately realized what she meant and exclaimed,

“Are you saying you can use Yuso’s future-seeing ability right now?”

“Yes. But I can’t see everything like Yuso; I can only see fragmented futures. Basically, it’s at a much lower level.”

Swish

The girl returned her hair and eye colors to their original state and continued,

“Also, while we’re borrowing and degrading the opponent’s ability, we cannot use our original powers. Because of this weakness, we actually don’t use this trait much.”

“Hmmm…!!”

It seems the girl and Yuso are remarkable beings after all. I felt intrigued by the secrets the girl was revealing when I suddenly realized something and said,

“Could it be that you told me not to trust Fuxi to utilize that trait…?”

“Yes. By borrowing Yuso’s abilities, I saw a future of destruction in your path, which is why I warned you.”

“…”

“Of course, I’m not Yuso, so I only saw that ‘result’ but not the reasons leading to it. But if the outcome is fixed, then perhaps the specifics are not that important.”

So that’s how it was…

Now I began to understand the situation the girl spoke about.

‘But.’

I felt somewhat relieved about my suspicions and animosities toward Yuso, but I still found it hard to trust. There was no guarantee that everything she said was true, and I had seen too many people deceiving me with plausible words before. That’s why I still looked at the girl with suspicious eyes and said,

“Okay, let’s say that’s true. Then why are you being so kind to explain everything to me and warn me about an unpleasant future? Especially to the point of interfering within the Training World where I was?”

“…”

“What do you want from me doing all this?”

To my question, the girl calmly replied.

“Because I want to change fate.”

“Fate?”

“Since I and Yuso are truly the same being, I’ve already heard all the future predictions from Yuso since I was young. According to Yuso’s prophecy, I’ll die simultaneously with Yuso.”

“Hmmm.”

“To avoid that fate, I asked Yuso if there was a way to survive together… and Yuso said there would be a being who would break the taboo from the past in the future of the Great Cycle.”

The girl looked straight into my eyes and continued speaking.

“That being is you. Only you, the Reborn Person, can break the destined fate and save me.”

“…”

Fate, huh.

‘As a motivation, that sounds plausible.’

The girl’s words were logical enough to explain all her actions thus far. But even so, my suspicion remained, and I crossed my arms and said,

“How could someone as great as you fear death so much? Can’t you escape from hell using your abilities even after you die, or at least gain a body that disregards death by receiving help from the gods? Why do you need my help so badly?”

The girl shook her head calmly.

“Not like that.”

“Not like that?”

“Yuso and I are originally beings not of this world but of primordial chaos, so if we die, we go back there, not to the Underworld. If a being with such powers got entangled in reincarnation, the law of cause and effect would start to get confused.”

“…!!”

“We also can’t receive help from the gods. Our abilities are completely different from Divine Power, so with our high purity of chaos talent, becoming an immortal is impossible…”

As the girl spoke, she suddenly lowered her head.

“…Ugh…”

And I could see tears dripping from the girl’s eyes. She was genuinely crying with a sense of regret, and I could feel the fear and injustice radiating from those tears.

After a while, she stopped crying, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.

“I never want to return to that chaos again…”

“…”

“I don’t wish for much. Just to live as a normal human until I die… that’s my sole wish.”

I felt genuine emotion in the girl’s words.

Somehow, as I talked with her, I felt a sense of relief wash over me.

‘This girl is fundamentally different from Yuso. I don’t get the feeling of being deceived…’

Having been tricked so many times, I could sense whether there was an intention to deceive or not from experience.

“Alright. If you help me well from now on, I’ll do my best to ensure you won’t be dragged into that primordial chaos.”

“Thank you.”

I stared at the girl pensively and then asked,

“But I have one question. So why did you come to the Emperor? What made you bypass the warnings from Shennong and Nüwa and unseal the Emperor?”

“That was… a strategy that Yuso told me about.”

“Strategy?”

At my question, the girl nodded.

“Yuso knew that the moment you came to the past of this [Great Cycle], the Emperor would be sealed. So she told me to unseal him.”

“…Why?”

The girl’s next words left me shocked.

“Because that way, it would prevent Pangu from being resurrected at the end of your journey.”