Chapter 416: War Of The Stars (7)
Kwon violently coughed up blood. “Kugh!”
The blood splattered across Mobius’s unnaturally pale skin like paint on a white canvas.
Mobius looked down at the spear protruding from his chest and smirked. “As I thought... I wasn’t overestimating you, but underestimating you.”
His body began to melt into the shadows beneath him until he vanished completely.
Nothing but silence remained.
The shadows swallowed him whole, and he didn’t reappear. No sound or trace of mana could be detected as if Mobius’s very existence had been erased from the world.
A suffocating tension that could break at any moment filled the air. A flash like lightning flickered through Kwon Oh-Jin’s mind, showing him a glimpse of the future.
Without hesitation, he spun his spear and drove it straight into his own shadow. This deflected the sword rising from his shadow.
Mobius emerged again.
Clang!
Mobius cocked his head and looked down at his sword in surprise. “Ha... How did you know I’d come out of your shadow?”
Kwon Oh-Jin had no need to reveal his Foresight ability. “That’s a secret.”
“Haha. That’s two hits in a row. There goes my dignity as a Celestial.”
Kwon Oh-Jin turned around and channeled the power of his Stigma. “It’ll only get worse from here.” He exhaled slowly and focused. “Haaa.”
The soft silver light around him expanded outward in a glowing radius roughly five meters wide. It didn’t cover a large area, but just enough to cover the range of his spear.
“The range of your Sacred Ground has grown quite a bit since last time.”
“Because I’ve been practicing.”
“That’s not something practice usually helps with.”
Kwon Oh-Jin shrugged and pointed his spear at Mobius. “Turns out it does.”
Lightning crackled around his spear. Then, his entire body became a bolt of blue lightning charging straight at Mobius.
His spear and Mobius’s sword collided with a thunderous roar.
Boom!
The sea of blue lightning scorched away the shadows, swallowing Mobius whole. Sliding out of the electric tide, Mobius swung his white sword low.
“Hup!”
His sword itself couldn’t reach, yet the stretched shadow lashed out at Kwon Oh-Jin’s side.
Kwon Oh-Jin swung his spear to deflect the shadow blade and thrust his arm forward. “I thought you said the same tricks don’t work twice?”
Wires fired from his wire shooter wrapped tightly around Mobius. Just before lightning could be sent through the wires, Mobius hurled his sword at Kwon Oh-Jin at a terrifying speed.
Whoosh!
Kwon Oh-Jin barely managed to deflect it with his spear.
Mobius emerged from the shadow of his thrown sword. “I’m right here.”
Having just deflected the sword, Kwon Oh-Jin couldn’t react in time. Mobius spun around and drove a fierce roundhouse kick straight into Kwon Oh-Jin’s chest.
“Kugh!”
The blow pierced through Kwon Oh-Jin’s Sacred Ground and crushed his insides. His heart seized, stopping for a beat as pain exploded through him. While flying back, Kwon Oh-Jin pressed his hand against the left side of his chest.
Crackle!
He sent an electric surge into his own stopped heart. With a jolt that shook his entirety, it began beating again.
Mobius wasn’t the only one attacking. “Hm?”
He frowned at his leg that had kicked Kwon Oh-Jin. A silver wire now tightly wrapped around it. It wasn’t Kwon Oh-Jin’s usual blue lightning that ran through it, but something darker and wilder like a ravenous beast.
Lightning, carrying the Black Heaven’s power, tore through Mobius’s Sacred Ground and electrocuted his leg.
“Argh...!”
No, electrocuted wasn’t the right word. Where the Black Lightning struck, his flesh looked as if it had been ripped apart by claws.
“You’ve combined the Stigma of Lyra with the Black Heaven’s power?”
Mobius had seen this technique once before at the abandoned factory. Taking the attack in his manifested state this time, Mobius could finally understand this Black Lightning’s absurdity.
A technique that fused the Stigma of Lyra and the Black Heaven.
Mobius shook his head in disbelief. “You’ve done something even the Heavenly Demon couldn’t.”
Kwon Oh-Jin staggered to his feet, clutching his chest after being kicked away. “Urgh... kuh!”
Though they had both taken hits, Kwon Oh-Jin was clearly at a disadvantage if one tallied the damage. He was still reeling from the internal shock to his chest while Mobius’s leg had already healed perfectly.
Nothing really affects him unless I attack his heart.
Kwon Oh-Jin’s attacks weren’t weak. Celestials like Mobius simply functioned like that. A Celestial’s essence resided in their Stigma. They could infinitely regenerate as long as their heart, the source of that Stigma, remained.
Even with the ability to create a Sacred Ground, Kwon Oh-Jin was still at a disadvantage as a human. He needed Vega’s power, a Celestial just like Mobius, to even the odds a little.
Vega shouted, “Give me the signal, and I shall bestow my blessing upon you! With my blessing, you’ll be able to leave a greater impact on his Sacred Ground!”
“Got it.”
Since Vega’s blessing couldn’t last forever, he would have to use it at the perfect moment.
Mobius smirked at Vega, standing behind Kwon Oh-Jin.
“A Celestial’s blessing, huh... What do you think of the existence of Celestials?”
Kwon Oh-Jin frowned at the random question. “Their existence? Is that really important right now?”
Mobius nodded slightly. “It’s quite important. Actually, very important. Celestials grant Stigmas to humans, turning them into Awakeners. They call those Awakeners their children and care for them deeply.”
“And? What’s your point?”
So far, it sounded like nothing new.
“Do you really think Celestials see their Awakeners as their own children?” His voice dropped low. “Like parents who love their child born of their own flesh and blood, do you think Celestials care for their children just as much?”
“At least for me, I’ve never once felt Vega’s love to be lacking.”
If anything, it was excessive. Vega’s boundless affection was so deep that calling her a mother didn’t feel exaggerated at all.
Mobius murmured, “Hmm. Well, it’s true Lady Vega differs from the other Celestials.”
Vega firmly said, “There is no difference between the other Celestials and me. Is it not natural for every Celestial to pour infinite love upon their own children?”
Mobius chuckled, his shoulders trembling. “Natural, you say... Mr. Oh-Jin, do you know why Celestials began granting Stigmas to humans in the first place?”
“To fight against the demonic beasts that crossed through the first—”
“No, it had nothing to do with the demonic beasts.” Mobius cut him off and continued as if he wished it weren’t true. “The reason Celestials gave humans Stigmas was...”
He looked into the distance, where the other Celestials were watching the battlefield.
“Because they wanted to live.”
Celestials bestowed Stimgas on humans because they wanted to live.
Kwon Oh-Jin asked, “What kind of nonsense is that?”
What did granting Stigmas to humans have to do with their survival?
Vega trailed off. “You...”
“You know of Polaris’s prophecy, don’t you? The one that foretold the coming of the Black Heaven that would devour all the stars.”
Vega said, “Silence.”
“You all seem to misunderstand that the destruction of the world in that prophecy means the extinction of mankind.”
Misunderstand?
“But you’re wrong. Polaris never prophesied the destruction of this world, but only the destruction of Celestials."
Vega shouted, “I said silence!”
The prophecy stated that the Black Heaven would swallow all the stars. If taken literally, it never actually mentioned humans at all.
Wait... that doesn’t add up.
In Lee Shin-Hyuk’s memories of the past timeline, Celestials and humanity had perished together.
Kwon Oh-Jin said, “The Black Heaven devoured both Celestials and humans.”
If the Black Heaven only targeted the stars, why did mankind fall alongside them?
Mobius burst into laughter while clutching his stomach. “Pfft. Hahahahaha! Do you really not get it yet?”
“What are you—”
Vega shouted again, “You dare...!”
She flew toward him, but Mobius’s shadows rose and hurled her back.
Whoosh!
Mobius stomped the ground. “Because we gave you the stars!”
Boom!
“We gave it to you beings who had nothing to do with the stars! We gave you our own Stigmas with our own hands, by our own will!”
Thus, the Black Heaven’s target also shifted from Celestials to humankind.
“You’ve probably heard that the Black Heaven once devoured all the stars.”
Kwon Oh-Jin had not only heard it. He had seen the remnants with his own eyes.
“Didn’t you ever find that strange?”
Kwon Oh-Jin could already sense where Mobius was going with this.
“Why is it... that there isn’t a single trace of that so-called destruction on Earth?”
The Black Heaven had consumed all the stars, except Polaris, once before, only for the stars to be reborn afterward. And yet, no signs of such destruction could be seen anywhere on Earth.
Kwon Oh-Jin had simply assumed it had happened long before Earth even existed, but now he understood.
“Because it never happened...”
Mobius smiled with a teacher’s pride as though praising a child for getting the right answer. “Exactly. It wasn’t humanity that perished, only the Celestials themselves.”
When the Celestials first heard Polaris’s prophecy, they asked themselves how they could survive the Black Heaven.
“And the solution they came up with was to find the Heaven-Defying Star.”
However, the Heaven-Defying Star couldn’t be born from a Celestial.
Bound by the Law’s restrictions, Celestials could neither reverse time nor wield enough power to rewrite fate.
Mobius spread his arms wide, his lips twisting into a savage grin. “So they bestowed their Stigmas upon the most suitable beings... humans. In other words, humanity is doomed for destruction because of the Celestials’ selfishness.”
