Chapter 475 - 416: Chaisi: The One Who Truly Defeated Chaisi

Chapter 475: Chapter 416: Chaisi: The One Who Truly Defeated Chaisi

Chaisi wasn’t one to let his imagination run wild or second-guess himself.

Every one of his thoughts, analyses, and decisions was clear and solid. Once formed, they became the very ground beneath his feet.

With every step Chaisi had taken in his thirty years of life, he had known where his foot would land. He had never been afraid that a single misstep would lead him down the wrong path.

So this was the first time in Chaisi’s life that he felt as if he had sunk to the bottom of the sea and turned into a stalk of seaweed. Undercurrents and waves came from all directions, pulling and shoving him, battering his thoughts until his world turned upside down, leaving him reeling and unable to find any purchase.

’...What’s happening? Who is that person?’

’Has Uncle Kai been hit by something again?’

’He was calling out—calling out—calling out for his son.’

’So, he must be... must be calling for me, right?’

’Besides me, in this world—’

Chaisi lifted his eyes again.

The figure standing high on the distant slope was clearly not a normal human being, but merely a pure, pitch-black shadow—it looked as if a person’s silhouette on the ground had simply stood up on its own.

There were no details of clothing, no facial contours; there was only the black shadow.

’Is it a Hunter using an Illusion?’

’Is it one of the residents?’

’Is it one of the strange phenomena that appeared after the Original Liquid flooded the Human World?’

’...Why am I afraid?’

Chaisi opened his mouth, wanting to call out to Uncle Kai, to tell him he was right here.

’You don’t have to walk any further. Don’t go any further. I’m standing right here.’

But the subconscious turn he made ignited a furious agony in his chest and abdomen, cutting off his voice and preventing him from uttering a single word—

The next moment, Kai Luonan took another step, brushing past Chaisi.

Unable to make a sound, he could only stare blankly at Kai Luonan’s profile. This was the person he knew best, the only beacon guiding him home in this dim and murky Human World.

Kai Luonan walked past him as if he hadn’t seen him at all.

It didn’t take a genius to see that Kai Luonan had been heading for the figure on the slope from the very beginning.

’But... why?’

’It must be a mirage caused by some kind of Illusion, making him think I’m standing on the slope. If Uncle Kai keeps walking over there, he’ll definitely be in danger.’

’I have to stop him.’ The broken bones in his chest and abdomen felt like they could pierce his organs with a single movement, but he had to stop Uncle Kai first, to warn him—

From among the row of vehicles in the distance, Aunt Hai suddenly let out a piercing scream.

Her first cry was a jumble of indistinct words, as if she had suddenly lost the ability to speak, left with only a uselessly heavy tongue and lips. She stumbled out from the convoy, almost as if she were blind.

Half a second later, Chaisi realized that she truly couldn’t see—she couldn’t see the Kai Family convoy, the Kai Family Hunters, her own husband, and certainly not Chaisi.

The only thing Haiper could see at that moment was the figure on the slope.

"Damian!"

Haiper’s heart-wrenching cries echoed through the parking lot. She rushed past her husband and stepson at an unbelievable speed, lunging toward the black shadow, screaming over and over, "Damian! Damian! Damian!"

Chaisi stood frozen in place. All sound, both inside his head and out, vanished.

’...Perhaps there really is a God.’

’That God must have heard his wish from half an hour ago, his hope for time to stand still, and so reached down, grabbed his world and his time together, squeezed them tight, and slowly suffocated them. With a single name, God had crushed all his vitality and breath, leaving him utterly paralyzed.’

’Impossible.’

’It’s the effect of an Illusion. Someone must have used some kind of—’

Chaisi finally managed to turn his neck, which felt like it was made of heavy concrete, his gaze following Aunt Hai up the slope. He gritted his teeth against the pain and forced himself to shout, "Aunt Hai, be careful—"

"Oh,"

A soft, unfamiliar male voice, an adult’s voice he had never heard before, rang out gently in the concrete space, somehow managing to float above Aunt Hai’s frantic screams. "Brother Chaisi, I forgot. It seems you still can’t see me."

The black shadow lowered its head. Chaisi couldn’t tell what it was doing; he squinted, but still couldn’t make out the movement.

When it lifted its head again, it had a head of blond hair.

Compared to the sun-like gold of his childhood, his adult hair was now a deep gold tinged with dark brown.

He had vanished from this Human World when he was just twelve, still a child.

And no one knew what Damian would have looked like if he’d had the chance to grow up over the past seventeen years—yet with a single glance, Chaisi recognized those features.

’...It’s my younger brother.’

’My younger brother, who died seventeen years ago, but has now returned in the body of an adult.’

Only his eyes were different. Damian’s eyes were now pitch-black.

It was as if the featureless, purely black shadow from before had slipped on a "Damian" shell. From beneath that shell, it peered out through two eyeholes, gazing quietly and without warmth upon the Human World.

’...And yet, it was precisely because of those eyes that Chaisi realized he already believed it. The person before him truly was Damian.’

"Hi,"

Damian smiled faintly. His gaze swept past Haiper, past Kai Luonan, and landed on Chaisi.

The next second, he looked away again, as if his gaze had merely passed over a piece of brick and mud.

Damian looked back at Haiper, who had stopped in front of him.

After a brief, dead silence, he said softly, "I’m back, Mom."

A single word shattered Aunt Hai.

As she took the final step toward Damian, she seemed to shatter from the knees up, collapsing and stumbling to the ground, where she ended up kneeling before him.

Haiper knelt on the ground and tilted her head up at him like the most devout believer gazing upon their one and only god.

She stretched out a trembling hand, and Damian obediently bent down.

Chaisi couldn’t bring himself to shout "Don’t touch him!"—even the mere thought that ’Aunt Hai might be in danger if she touches him’ made him realize how utterly ridiculous he must seem.

Haiper’s hand, like a dying butterfly, fluttered down onto Damian’s face.

"It’s you... it’s you... You’re really back,"

Chaisi couldn’t see it, but he knew she was crying.

"Damian, you’re back, it’s really you..."

Kai Luonan slowly took his last step, finally stopping behind his wife, in front of Damian.

"What... what’s going on?"

He had been a Hunter, after all, and was still trying to find an explanation. He stared at Damian and said, "You... you really did die back then... I watched you with my own eyes. The resuscitation failed, you had no vital signs. What’s going on? You... what are you now...?"

Damian remained silent, letting Haiper caress his face. A good while passed before he finally, slowly straightened up.

"Dad," he said, his pitch-black eyes fixed on Kai Luonan. Only his face was smiling. "So you didn’t know?"

"Know what?" Kai Luonan asked, as if enchanted.

No, it wasn’t just him.

Everyone in the entire parking lot, including the other Kai Family Hunters, seemed dazed, as if under a spell. Damian’s death had never been a secret in the Kai Family.

Chaisi glanced over; those few Core Hunters were also just staring blankly at the family of three on the slope.

After seventeen years, Chaisi had finally been relegated back to the role he was always meant to play in the Kai Family—a supporting character.

He stood in the parking lot, unable to walk, unable to move, with nowhere to go. All he could do was quietly await his judgment and sentence.

"Mom," Damian said with another smile, looking down at the mother kneeling at his feet. "You didn’t tell him anything?"

"Tell me what?" Kai Luonan looked down at his wife, as if seeing her for the first time tonight.

Haiper seemed to finally calm down, coming back to her senses.

She gripped Damian’s hand tightly, using her son, now a young man, for support as she stood up. She first glanced at her husband, then suddenly turned her head to look at Chaisi.

Those two glances gave Chaisi a strange sense of comfort, as if he and Uncle Kai were indeed allies.

"I’m not an idiot."

Haiper’s voice was sharp. "Even if no one told me what really happened that night, I could still guess most of it."

She turned her eyes, her gaze boring back into Chaisi’s face, and asked, "I’ve been holding this question in for seventeen years. I’ve made my guesses, I’ve tried to sound him out, but only today can I finally ask it."

Chaisi stood rooted to the spot.

Damian had grown into a young man, but Chaisi felt as if he had regressed to being thirteen years old.

"Why did you kill my son?" Haiper demanded sharply. "Because he opened a Path? Were you jealous?"

Before Chaisi could shake his head, she cut him off. "No, that’s not it. I watched you grow up. As much as I detest you, I know you wouldn’t have killed Damian for a reason like that. You wouldn’t have, if only for Kai Luonan’s sake."

Haiper gave a cold smile.

"It was because of the way your mother died, wasn’t it?"

Chaisi felt his face freeze.

"Your mother didn’t want the residents entering the Human World... Of course she didn’t; she even died because of it. So, you carried the weight of her death and killed my son."

Her wording was subtle; she still spoke of Damian as if he were dead. She herself didn’t seem to notice.

Haiper burst out laughing.

"I thought I was just letting my imagination run wild... I thought I was just refusing to accept reality. Do you have any idea how much determination that took? Do you know how many years I waited and waited, how many times I doubted, how many times I blamed myself? I don’t have a Path, I can’t do anything! Do you know how much I’ve been suffering all this time?"

She seemed to be questioning both Chaisi and Kai Luonan. Her laughter spread through the parking lot in waves, the sound bouncing off the walls and echoing back, as if it were a thousand voices calling "Damian."

"Don’t you get it yet? I won, Chaisi. I won against your mother, and I won against you. My son is back."

Haiper tilted her chin up.

"The grave of Damian we visit every year—the one I forbid you from ever approaching—is empty."