Chapter 95:

Chapter 95:

Chapter 95

I recalled the conversation I had with Kwon Jia before we entered this place.

“The clear condition for Ghost Land? Don’t you know that already?”

“I don’t know much either. Even if I have some knowledge of the future, it’s such a long time ago, and I didn’t pay much attention to the world of Ghost Land in the first place.”

“Hmm. Well. It’s not hard to explain. Somewhere in Ghost Land, there is a sulfur stream, and you just have to pull out the stake of the Book of Life that is hidden there.”

“The stake of the Book of Life...”

She stroked her chin and said to me, who was mumbling.

“Of course, there will be the jade soldiers of the underworld guarding that place. You have to get past them to reach the stake. I’ve never reached there myself, so I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard of it.”

“It’s not an ordinary stake, is it?”

“They say it’s a huge stake made of jade. And I only know that it’s half buried.”

“Half?”

“Yes. You have to pull it out to clear the world.”

I couldn’t help but ask a question that came to my mind.

“Then I have one thing I’m curious about.”

“What is it?”

“What if the half-buried stake doesn’t get pulled out and gets completely buried instead? What will happen then?”

“That...”

Kwon Jia hesitated for a moment and answered.

“The stake of the Book of Life is what fixes Ghost Land and Hungry Ghost Realm. But Hungry Ghost Realm is a very large world. Ghost Land is very small compared to that. If they exist as they are, Ghost Land will naturally be swallowed by the underworld and disappear. The stake being half buried is because of that.”

“...So it was deliberately left loose so that Ghost Land wouldn’t disappear.”

“That’s right. Because of that, Ghost Land can exist separately while being attached to Hungry Ghost Realm. The stake is more like a device that maintains Ghost Land. Actually, it doesn’t matter much if the stake disappears. The important thing is when the stake gets completely buried.”

The stake was what kept Ghost Land from leaving.

But they didn’t want Ghost Land to disappear completely, so they kept it half buried.

But what if this stake gets completely buried?

“Then Ghost Land will be completely connected to Hungry Ghost Realm, and be drawn by the gravity of that huge world.”

It’s not just being drawn.

Ghost Land wouldn’t be able to withstand the enormous force and would easily collapse and crumble.

And that would mean

The disappearance of one world.

Boom!

The thunderous sound that split the sky brought my consciousness back to reality.

The skeleton general who had to protect this place made his last effort and drove the stake completely into the ground, and at the same time, Ghost Land shook violently as if an earthquake had occurred.

In the end, the worst-case scenario happened.

Crack! Boom!

The wooden buildings collapsed as they couldn’t withstand the vibration.

I barely avoided the debris, and then cracks appeared on the ground like spider webs and began to widen.

The collectors were flustered by this unexpected natural disaster, and so were Kwon Jia and I.

[Everyone... perish!]

The ground where the skeleton general and the stake were rose high and then became so far away that I couldn’t reach them even if I stretched out my hand.

I had no choice but to back away from that sight.

The world was turning upside down.

“Miss Jia!”

As the ground where she and I stood began to split left and right, I hastily grabbed Kwon Jia’s hand and pulled her toward me.

At the same time, I saw the ground where Kwon Jia had been standing collapse below.

The debris of buildings and chunks of earth fell into an endless abyss.

“This is crazy...”

I unconsciously let out such a word.

There was nothing but darkness at the bottom of the collapsed ground.

A darkness without a speck of light.

If we fell into such a place, it wouldn’t be enough to say that we couldn’t even find our bones.

There was a place where hell slept at its deepest in there.

If we fell there, our existence itself might be erased as well as death.

[The one who laughs in the darkest place has shown a strong interest in the hell of the Eastern world.]

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can show you that.”

It was probably a spirit who had settled in Cocytus Lake at the bottom of hell, who had a strange curiosity about this place.

But that wasn’t what mattered right now.

Boom!

The earthquake grew stronger.

Squeak!

Sulfur gas burst out from the cracks in the ground where spider webs had formed.

Some pieces of land couldn’t maintain their shape and fell below.

Ghost Land, which had been almost flat, repeated melting and sinking, and changed into an irregular shape like a broken three-dimensional puzzle.

But this wouldn’t last long either.

Soon, Ghost Land would collapse completely and disappear.

We would all die at this rate.

“Miss Jia. Let’s get out of here!”

“Bu, but...”

She still had some regrets in this situation, and hesitated to answer.

I grabbed her shoulder roughly and shook it.

“We’ll all die if we stay here!”

I couldn’t help but feel reluctant to give up and leave like this.

But the situation was beyond hope.

It was a different problem from the siege of Constantinople.

At least then, the world itself didn’t collapse.

If we don’t run away now, while it’s not completely destroyed, we’ll fall into that dark abyss.

As long as we don’t achieve the clear condition of this world, it won’t disappear.

In the end, we’ll be trapped in hell forever.

“Ugh. Fine.”

“Let’s go quickly.”

Fortunately, the collapse wasn’t complete yet.

Judging by the speed of the progress, there was still time left.

If we move as fast as possible, we might barely make it to the entrance where we came in.

“Ah, no!”

“Sa, save me!”

“Please, someone help me!”

Not far away.

Across several cracks on the ground, the collectors were panicking, not knowing what was going on.

There were more than 20 collectors left, and they were too frantic to think of escaping.

They looked at us and desperately reached out their hands.

There was no rational judgment in them.

He did not even look back at them.

He just dismissed them as worthless and ignored them.

‘On the other hand, what about me?’

I looked back.

But did I reach out?

I sympathized with them.

But did I show kindness?

I did not do that.

And that was the same now.

“Ha.”

A hollow laugh escaped me.

Now I was trying to abandon those collectors.

I thought it was their own fault that they got into this situation, and that it was natural.

I thought they deserved to die, just like that.

That this was the ultimate fate of those worthless ones.

‘Then, I’m no different from that guy Choi Do-yoon that I hated so much.’

When did it start?

When did I accept death so naturally?

When someone died, I didn’t care and thought it couldn’t be helped.

There is no one in the world who can die without any consequences.

There is no justified death, but I thought there should be at least some reason for it.

Dying without knowing anything, just being swept away like this was no different from those people I pitied so much.

But even though I knew that, I became a person who couldn’t accept other people’s deaths with my heart, because I was so dried up.

In this collapsing world, I lifted my head and looked up at the sky.

The spirits were watching us quietly.

They didn’t help or curse us.

They just watched us.

There was so much noise around me that surely our conversation wouldn’t reach them.

I lowered my gaze and met Kwon Jia’s eyes again.

And carefully opened my mouth.

“Ji-ah. We are surely victims who have gone through the same end.”

My voice was strangely calm in this world where I didn’t know when it would collapse completely.

I didn’t think it was time to have a comfortable conversation in this situation.

But I had to say it.

My instinct told me that if not now, then never.

“I know what kind of place that is better than anyone else. You have to kill to survive, and become a clown for the stars, laughing even if you hate it, and endure even if you suffer.”

People say:

Human life is very precious, and it should not be taken lightly.

Murder is a terrible crime, and so is not reaching out to dying people.

“But living is actually more painful than dying.”

How light and easy death is.

It’s just scary, but not heavy at all.

It’s really cruel to have to live without dying.

People don’t know that.

“But I know.”

I know, and so does she.

“So even then, you choose to save people?”

“Yes.”

“Even if that makes you repeat this endless cycle of life?”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

At her firm answer without hesitation, I nodded my head and smiled satisfactorily as if I had heard the unsolvable answer.

I felt like I knew why I felt so suffocated when I looked at her.

“Ji-a. You are trying to help others even in this crisis.”

“That’s wrong, I know...”

“No, it’s not wrong. You are not selfish or cruel.”

When she apologized to Kang Hye-rim for her displeasure, even when she threatened me at our first meeting, she didn’t really try to kill me.

“You are just a good person.”

She was a human being.

A righteous person who put kindness first more than anyone else.

As soon as the answer came out, my chest felt like it was cleared.

“Ji-a. Are you curious why I chose you?”

“That’s because I’m a regressor...”

“No. Actually, that’s just an excuse.”

I might have been drawn to her at first because of the fact that she was a regressor.

But after talking to her and feeling something wriggling somewhere in her heart.

The fact that she was a regressor was, in fact, irrelevant now.

“That’s why. Because you have a clear goal of your own more than anyone else.”

It was the same for Baek Seo-ryeon and Kang Hye-rim.

They had beliefs that they wanted to achieve no matter what.

They had firm faith and strong will to stake everything for it.

That’s why I chose them.

Because I trusted their hearts.

It was the same for Kwon Jia.

She widened her eyes and asked me.

“Does that mean you’re on my side now?”

“I’m not on anyone’s side.”

I shook my head and said that.

“I’m just on the side of the dreamers.”

I dream.

The dream that I couldn’t achieve.

It was the same for her.

She didn’t know exactly what she dreamed of, but she was definitely dreaming.

She was a dreamer like me.

And dreamers don’t stop as long as their dreams don’t end.

“Let’s go.”

While we were talking, the way out had collapsed, so there was no way we could survive by running away now.

Then there was only one way for us to go.

“Let’s save those people and end this world.”

That was what we had to do now.