Chapter 1398: Paradise Lost (9)

A secret place located in the deepest part of Paradise Lost, reached with the guidance of the boy who awoke from the Black Coffin.

It was a structure shaped like a pyramid, made from the trees of language and knowledge.

It looked like a nest grown in the middle of an orchard, or perhaps a cradle holding something within.

Whoooosh…!!

“Benefactor. You must remember this place well.”

On a high hill where the bizarre, purple-tinged structure faintly revealed itself.

The boy, who had stopped before a field where a dry wind blew, turned his gaze to Lennok.

“After we finish our work in the Cradle…”

For a moment, the boy touched his own neck and paused.

After a brief hesitation, the boy spoke again in a calm voice.

“After we finish our work in the Cradle, we will return to this place.”

“…”

“So even if a problem arises in the Cradle, please remember this location.”

“…I will.”

Isn’t this hill too exposed for us to regroup after the search?

He felt a faint sense of unease, but instead of showing it, Lennok kept it in mind.

The fact that the boy made such a suggestion meant he was aware of and wary of at least some risk.

It meant the boy wasn’t just jumping into the Cradle to commit suicide; he had the will to return alive.

“Very well. Let’s head in right away.”

The boy nodded slowly, turned, and said.

“There is much I wish to tell you.”

“…”

Lennok didn’t answer the boy, simply following him in silence.

As they approached the bizarre structure, the scenery of the Cradle came into full view.

Around the ominously shimmering purple structure lay countless corpses, breathless and scattered.

It was a sight he had seen countless times on the Central Front, but the appearance of these corpses was different.

Their bloodless, pale skin was bizarrely covered, densely inscribed with strange, unknown characters.

The style was crooked and messy, as if someone had practiced writing on the corpses used as material for the orchard.

“Huu…”

Freya, with a pale face, let out a ragged breath and struggled to look away.

Although she couldn’t recognize a single character, there was no need to ask who had written them.

The heart of Paradise Lost, which the boy had called the Cradle. The core motive behind Jinwa’s creation of this bizarre orchard.

That shocking message, something Lennok had never considered, supported the entire scene before them.

“Are these the traces of an attempt to create a common language to communicate with the Outer Gods?”

“An Absolute Script… Does that even make sense?”

It seemed Freya also remembered the boy’s words, having been quite shocked by them.

As if feeling it was okay to speak now that Lennok had, she asked in a tense voice.

“She’s creating a script to communicate with them…? Can they even read in the first place?”

“Before Jinwa created the Continental Common Language, the scripts and languages of the continent were chaotically divided and used indiscriminately.”

The boy said calmly as he walked.

“Using Spell-Word magic, she integrated mixed meanings and concepts, creating a language that humans from different cultures could share… That is the origin of the Continental Common Language used today.”

“…”

“She exquisitely applied the subtle compulsory nature of Spell-Word magic, establishing rules that all beings on the continent could easily learn, and created a new language. Through that great achievement, she earned the right to challenge ascension and reached Level 9.”

In the silence, the boy said.

“No matter how fallen and vile she has become today, the fact remains that it was an indescribably great achievement.”

“…”

“Therefore, it was only natural that when she sought to rise even higher, she would try to use the ‘same method’.”

Jinwa mastered the principles of Spell-Word magic to create a common language all humans on the continent could understand, and through that feat, she became an Ascendant.

Thus, it was natural for Jinwa to choose the same method she was best at—the one from last time—to rise even higher.

To create a script understood not by all humans, but by all Outer Gods, and ascend to a new divine throne.

The boy was telling Lennok that this was the reason for Paradise Lost’s existence.

“Indeed… even from Jinwa’s perspective, that’s a concept not easily conceived.”

Lennok calmly surveyed the interior of the structure made of purple wood.

Around the corridors, illuminated by faint purple lanterns, were corpses piled up in layers.

The shapes of unknown characters and drawings were densely written on their skin.

However, unlike the corpses discarded outside the Cradle, the ones inside showed a strange regularity.

The characters inscribed on the corpses had commonalities or similarities that even Lennok could vaguely recognize.

“The method for a being who has reached the pinnacle of Spell-Word magic to become a god… Was the main goal to create a common language that encompasses not humans, but even the Outer Gods?”

It was an absurd notion, but upon hearing the explanation, Lennok immediately understood how dangerous it was.

And at the same time, he also understood the immense value and potential consequences of the method Jinwa had chosen.

It wasn’t necessary to create a perfect script or language to communicate with all Outer Gods.

If Jinwa could create a means of meaningful communication with even one of the gods from that sea.

If she could exchange even a little bit of comprehensible information with an Outer God, however imperfectly.

Hadn’t he already confirmed once before, in the mausoleum of the Four Archangel Demonic Mirrors, what could be achieved through such means?

The goal that the master of Paradise Lost held as a long-cherished wish, Lennok had already, from the very beginning—

“Benefactor. This way.”

“…”

Whoooooosh!!!

A massive Cradle structure woven from dense wooden pieces and fragments.

The further inside they went, the more radical the horrors became, and the state of the corpses grew more gruesome.

Gruesome lumps of flesh, their entire skin flayed off to the point their original forms were unrecognizable, lay scattered about.

Beside them were ‘practice sheets’ where skin had been peeled off and used like canvas, covered in all sorts of bizarre characters.

“Ugh…”

Even Freya, who wouldn’t bat an eye at most scenes, hardened her expression as if she could barely endure it.

“These are traces of the experiments Jinwa conducted in the early days of establishing Paradise Lost.”

The boy said.

“Like many Transcendent beings, she reached the conclusion that humans are the most efficient material in this world. She flayed their skin to use as paper and inscribed her Spell-Words to grant meaning.”

“…”

“She inscribed the knowledge and meaning she knew as a new script, and continued her experiments by constantly absorbing knowledge. The used-up corpses became nutrients to sustain Paradise Lost.”

“…”

“The corpses that Jinwa inscribed with knowledge and meaning and then discarded, their very existence becoming a new character… That is the identity of the bodies buried countless times inside and outside of Paradise Lost.”

The reason why Jinwa, residing in Paradise Lost, used corpses as characters whenever she sent her will to the secular world.

Was that in itself a part of the direction in which Jinwa had built and sustained this Paradise Lost?

To kill humans, inscribe Spell-Words, and modify the corpse itself into a character holding a specific meaning.

Believing she could surely reach the Outer Gods who accept human sacrifices, she endlessly killed humans, acquired knowledge to inscribe, and fell into corruption.

The contradiction of the Spell-Word user who created a common language for all humans on the continent now killing humans to create a new language.

This was likely the Ascendant’s true purpose and fatal secret that the boy wanted to tell Lennok.

However, even while looking back on the path Jinwa had taken, Lennok was thinking of something else.

“Is that the secret of Paradise Lost that Myeong discovered just before his defeat by Jinwa?”

“…”

“It’s also strange that you, who were asleep for so long, know so much detail about Jinwa. But you haven’t hesitated or faltered once in explaining all this.”

Lennok spoke calmly to the silent boy.

“If you are literally a being who awoke to relay all these facts to someone, or something that existed only for that purpose…”

Lennok asked the silent boy’s back.

“Isn’t your very existence the legacy that Myeong left behind?”

“Benefactor. The explanation is not yet finished.”

The boy closed his eyes.

“There is still one more thing, the most important fact, that I have not yet told you.”

“…”

“This Cradle, made from flayed human skin, is the reason Paradise Lost existed. It is the result of the experiments Jinwa attempted in her early days to become a god.”

The boy asked.

“If so, why does Jinwa not exist in this Cradle now? Do you know why all the experiments here have been halted and left abandoned?”

“…Are you saying the experiments here… failed?”

“As I mentioned earlier, there is a big difference between Ascendants and gods in terms of methodology.”

They pass through a cavern where flayed corpses are piled up like mountains on all sides.

The end of the structure, abandoned and neglected deep within Paradise Lost.

The boy walked towards it and said.

“Even if one succeeds in ascension and becomes greater than a god, or transcends a god… one cannot become a god.”

“…”

“In the past, Jinwa understood this fact after countless trials and errors, and she broke. And with the results she had obtained, she made a deal with the fallen demigods.”

“A deal?”

“If, having been born human in this world, one can never become a god by any means, if one cannot obtain the same immortality as the gods of that sea…”

The boy said.

“Then there is no choice but to be reborn from the beginning.”

“…What?”

“To cast off the innate limitations of being born human and the shackles of one’s existence, and to be reborn in the Outer Sea.”

The boy, pushing aside an opaque veil covering the cavern, said.

“This… is the conclusion that the current Jinwa has reached.”

“…”

Inside the giant Cradle built of carved and stacked wood, there was a pure white bathtub densely inscribed with all sorts of bizarre characters.

The tub was filled with a liquid that was sticky like an opaque slime and gave off a nauseating stench.

Submerged in the whitish, translucent slime were all sorts of bodily organs, presumed to be human.

“…This is.”

Is this what it would be like if you melted down all of a human’s bones and flesh, preserving only the contents intact?

No, it wasn’t a feeling. The moment the thought occurred to him, Lennok realized it was the truth of the scene.

A human body, melted down and placed in a tub, completely disassembled except for the minimum organs required for life support.

A scene that looked as if it had been forcibly reverted to an embryonic state, where cells divide and tissues are just beginning to form.

“Did she literally melt down her existence, reverting it to the point of being reborn?”

Lennok murmured quietly as he looked into the contents of the tub.

“In the first place… Jinwa wasn’t even in a state to move normally.”

“What exists inside this Cradle is an experimental subject for Jinwa to confirm her conclusion.”

The boy nodded.

“The real Jinwa is likely ‘contained’ in a much larger bathtub than this. As an Ascendant, her innate spiritual rank is high, so the tub to contain her must also be an absurdly vast concept.”

“We have to find it.”

Lennok’s eyes grew cold.

The deal between Jinwa and the Three Grand Dukes over Myeong’s legacy in Paradise Lost.

To intervene in that deal, they had to figure out where Jinwa was currently contained.

If they could directly intervene with Jinwa herself during her deal with the Three Grand Dukes, it might be possible to retrieve the legacy.

“Ugh, anyway, this is… so grotesque it’s making me nauseous.”

Freya, who had been listening to the boy’s explanation with a cowering demeanor, grimaced.

“The eyeballs and intestines in here. They’re squirming like they’re actually alive. This is going to give me nightmares.”

“I don’t know if you heard the explanation, but they are alive. The body has melted, but its life functions are being maintained.”

Lennok said calmly, looking down at the tub.

“If I had to say, this tub itself is close to a giant life-support system. In that respect, it’s rather…”

“Rather?”

“…”

A cradle. A life-support system. A structure resembling a pyramid.

If all these things were reminiscent of Jindun’s Hanghasa Labyrinth, was that a simple coincidence?

Was the purpose of the cradle that Jindun of the past had made inside the labyrinth once the same as Jinwa’s?

Did Jinwa adopt Jindun’s method, or did the Jindun of his later years adopt Paradise Lost’s method?

Either way, it wasn’t a pleasant story, so Lennok kept his mouth shut instead of explaining.

Freya, too, hadn’t expected a meaningful answer from Lennok, and glanced away.

“So, what do we have to do to find the Ascendant’s true body? Can we find some clue in this Cradle?”

“From that point on, it’s a problem we’ll have to figure out ourselves.”

What the boy intended to explain by showing Lennok the Cradle was Jinwa’s true purpose and the secret she was hiding.

It was about the hypothesis that the Ascendant’s body itself had already lost its form and was likely incapacitated.

It was clear that he had achieved more than expected by obtaining information that would have been impossible to find even by scouring all of Paradise Lost.

However, Lennok still felt a subtle sense of unease nagging at his mind and was lost in his own thoughts.

No matter how immobile Jinwa might be, the process of exploring the Cradle’s interior had been far too smooth.

The outermost Spell-Word Stones of Paradise Lost were surrounded by brain-eating corpses, yet the corpses discarded in the Cradle hadn’t even stirred in their presence.

Was it because this was a place abandoned long ago after Jinwa experimented with a new Spell-Word? No, if that were the case, the contents of this tub wouldn’t still be alive.

Considering that even a powerful life-support system cannot function without regular maintenance, it was proof that this Cradle hadn’t been neglected for that long.

“I’ll have to find out how long the experimental subject in the tub has been here.”

Lennok said so and turned his gaze to the contents of the tub.

All sorts of human organs, swaying slowly while submerged in the opaque slime.

The sight was so beyond grotesque that, paradoxically, Lennok didn’t even feel nauseous.

It was a strange feeling, as if he hadn’t entered a place with an experiment that defied human reason, but rather a museum exhibiting human organs.

“Using spellcraft, I can deduce the time from the traces of wear on the internal organs. The estimated timeframe is probably—”

The moment Lennok pushed those impressions aside and looked down at the shape of the writhing intestines in the tub.

—he froze, realizing they had, at some point, formed the shape of comprehensible characters.

[W h a t a b u n c h o f f i l t h y i n s e c t s h a v e g a t h e r e d]

“…!!!!!!!!”

A chilling feeling, as if his heart had sunk.

Kwaang!!

As Lennok abruptly stepped back, the bathtub tipped over on its own, its contents spilling out.

Startled by the sudden event, Freya flinched and turned her gaze, asking.

“Tower Lord?”

“We’ve been discovered.”

Lennok said, his face pale and hard.

“We have to run. Right now…!!!!!”

[N o n e e d]

Saaak!!!

The intestines and organs that spilled from the tub moved about, forming living letters.

[I w i l l c o m e t o m e e t y o u m y s e l f]

“….!!!!”

A chilling script, conveying its will by scribbling in the air, as if carving each letter.

A mocking phrase, so crude that a uniquely vicious nature could be glimpsed.

Lennok knew only one Transcendent being who spoke in this manner.

The fallen Ascendant he had been so wary of in this plan.

The master of this Paradise Lost and the great Spell-Word user who created the Continental Common Language.

The one who, by all rights, should not have been able to observe this place at this moment—

Kwaang!!!

Lennok, raising his mana at incredible speed, grabbed Freya’s arm and spun around.

Ignoring Freya’s panicked reaction, just as he was about to grab the scruff of the boy’s neck and leap through space.

He froze, coming face to face with a lavishly dressed woman standing at the corridor leading out of the Cradle.

“…!!”

“Ah.”

An elegant figure clad in a splendid robe, as if woven from silk.

A beautiful woman who was as splendid as a rose, yet simultaneously held a chilling aspect.

With light steps, as if just returning from a short outing, the woman met Lennok’s stiff gaze and smiled.

And as if in passing, she nonchalantly opened her mouth and spoke to Lennok.

“[Stop]. What are you doing?”

Thump!!!

The answer to the woman’s words came from beside him.

Bright red blood trickled from the corner of the mouth of the boy whose neck was in Lennok’s grasp.

His entire chest was stained red, as if his heart had ‘stopped’ at the woman’s single word.

“…Benefactor.”

The boy’s form, struggling to look up at Lennok with blurry eyes.

A single word that seemed to send all their plans and premises hurtling toward catastrophe.

Thud!

Unable to even scream, the breathless boy’s body collapsed like a doll.

The woman stepped on the boy’s shoulder, placed a hand on her hip, and gave Lennok a smiling glance.

“We’ve only just met. Isn’t it a shame to part so soon?”

“…”

“I think we still have things to talk about.”

Jinwa’s eyes gleamed chillingly.

“Sit. You don’t need ‘words’ to understand, do you?”