Chapter 728
Episode 183: The Inner Frontline Begins (3)
The secret training halls dedicated to the Bowmaster were only two in number.
One was the “Bow within the Bow,” accessible only through the combined power of Manbing and Mot. The other was the very top floor of the Bowmaster’s domain.
The space Siris was about to open was the latter.
The former remained largely off-limits because Siris still couldn’t fully control Manbing, and inside it, Elona and Ziphl were currently sealed away.
If Siris were to recklessly open the Bow within the Bow, it could provoke Misha and Elona, causing serious trouble. More importantly, if anything happened to Jin there, no one outside could respond quickly.
[Boong!]
Siris placed Jin atop Mot. The pulse felt faint at the wrist she held while lifting him.
‘The mental assault Jin is enduring must be on a completely different level from what the rest of us face…’
Just as Siris thought, the mental attacks experienced by everyone except Jin were several degrees weaker.
Despite that, Jin had endured them with remarkable composure—and now, determined to face the fight alone, Siris felt a deep respect for him.
Mot began climbing the walls of the Bowmaster’s domain slowly.
Teleportation was considered, but even the slightest jolt—like the natural tremors when running through the otherworldly snowy plains—would likely harm Jin in his fragile state.
Jin was weaker now than ever before.
Meanwhile, Valeria, Quaul, and the other comrades had already ascended to the top floor, waiting for Jin.
At last, Mot reached the summit.
“Phew…”
Jin stepped down from Mot’s back and took a deep breath. The air was so cold it stung his lungs, but he barely felt it.
His senses in the real world had dulled to an extreme. His vision was blurred, hearing faint, and his limbs utterly weak.
Watching Jin supported by Gilly, his comrades couldn’t help but worry—was it really okay to send someone so fragile alone into the training hall?
Jin’s eyes caught the blurry figures of his friends.
“My lord…”
Gilly’s voice trembled, thick with unshed tears. Seeing Jin pushed to his limits was painful.
“Looks like everyone’s been waiting.”
Jin wanted to say this with his usual confident tone—telling them not to worry and just wait.
But now, he chose honesty.
“If I don’t come out of the training hall after five days… then it means I’m Jin. And that means… my death.”
At those words, Gilly finally broke down, tears spilling over.
Valeria bit her lower lip and gently patted Gilly’s back.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
“To be honest, I don’t know if I can win. But I won’t leave a separate farewell. I don’t want a sad goodbye as if this is the end. Because after this fight, the real conclusion awaits.”
Jin glanced at Siris, signaling her to open the training hall’s door.
Siris took out Manbing and inserted it like a key into the door. From inside, a wave of pure white energy surged outward.
As the door opened, a vast expanse of cold, snow-white ground stretched out.
“So this can’t end here…”
Jin stepped forward slowly, pressing the ground with his staff-like Bradamante.
The small bundle of provisions he carried felt unbearably heavy.
His senses dulled by the second. Though he’d barely taken a few steps, his comrades behind already seemed impossibly distant.
“Jin! Come back safely! I’m holding up well against the mental attacks, so you can definitely win! When you return, I’ll share some grilled eel with you!”
Surprisingly, the first to shout out clearly and precisely was none other than Darkflame.
Among the small warriors of the Bowmaster’s domain, Darkflame was the only one experiencing mental attacks.
“W-what? Why is he suddenly speaking so well!?”
Peng shouted in shock.
Even the solemn comrades flinched at Darkflame’s clear and rapid voice.
“I’ll share grilled eel! Grilled eel…!”
“Hey, Darkflame! Are you okay? Huh? No, you couldn’t have been able to speak properly before… You’re not okay.”
Peng grabbed Darkflame’s shoulder and realized he was tightly shutting his eyes in pain from the mental assault.
Despite his fogged mind, he had shouted for Jin’s sake—and it just happened to come out clearly and quickly.
Darkflame was clearly the weakest among them, yet he was pushing himself.
His repeated cries about sharing grilled eel echoed like a refrain. Though the others couldn’t see it, and even Jin himself was unaware, the sound brought a faint smile to Jin’s lips.
Once Jin fully entered the training hall, Siris closed the door with a heavy expression.
Now, there was only one thing his comrades could do for him.
Pray for his victory—just like countless ordinary people around the world.
Inside, the training hall was pure white, but to Jin’s eyes, it looked like a pitch-black sea without a single light.
He couldn’t tell if he was standing, sitting, or collapsed.
But reality didn’t matter now. What mattered was the inner battlefield that had raged relentlessly without pause.
He had to dive deeper into himself—so deeply that every trace of reality vanished completely.
That was why he chose the secret training hall. A place free from even the slightest external stimulus, where he could focus entirely on the inner war.
Jin sank carefully, turning inward toward his inner world.
It was a walk along the razor’s edge between life and death.
One misstep, and oblivion and death would swallow him whole.
‘Do you really think that’s right?’
‘Do you believe that’s the way?’
‘Can you reach me that way?’
‘Can you save all those people from me?’
As he journeyed inward, Rosa’s voice echoed occasionally.
Each time her dark tone stirred his soul, a shiver of unease ran through him.
He felt regret. The urge to turn back and flee was strong.
The closer he got to his inner world, the greater the fear grew.
A colossal terror unlike anything he’d ever felt in this life or the last was crushing his identity.
‘I’ve never seen you tremble with fear before.’
‘You’ve only just seen it now, but it’s happened often.’
‘Is that so?’
‘You must have felt it when you were human, too.’
‘I have never succumbed to fear. So show me—you can do the same.’
At first, Jin had planned to fight alone, to become that monster to overcome fear.
But the deeper he went, the faster he realized—
In this desolate, lonely world, to conquer fear, he had to become the same kind of monster as Rosa.
Without becoming a beast on the level of a fiend, he would be consumed by the loneliness of this inner world.
A single white line appeared in his vision.
Jin instinctively knew it was a kind of door leading to the deepest part of his inner world.
Beyond it, Rosa’s self awaited him.
That white line was also a crossroads.
Depending on the mindset with which he pulled it, the outcome would change.
If he pulled it with the will to become a monster, he would become one. If he wished to remain human, it would simply open.
‘But if I stay human…’
‘I can’t beat you.’
Rosa now saw through Jin’s thoughts like she had with Lingling in the past. Their selves were drawing close.
‘Now you can read my thoughts, son. This inner battle is a gift I prepared for you. Before the final reckoning, I wanted to make you a more perfect being. Someone who can fight me on equal footing.’
“Open the door with the will to become a monster. That’s your only hope to defeat me.”
Rosa’s voice urged him.
Jin grasped the white line. Glancing back once, he saw the path he had traveled through his inner world shatter into dust.
Just as he was about to pull, convinced he had to become a monster, he flinched and stopped.
A rustling sound whispered in his ear.
Not Rosa’s gloomy voice, but the prayers of those outside, tickling his ears like a soft breeze.
Jin couldn’t make out the words—only a cool wind stirring inside his mind—but it was enough to make him think again.
‘Almost gave up the one thing that made me better than you, just to become like you and fight you.’
Humans protect themselves from danger because they feel fear.
Fear lets them run away, fear lets them respond properly.
Struggling against fear and fighting back—that’s the human way.
‘Even if I become a monster and defeat you… the world will only see another fiend arise.’
Jin had lost sight of this obvious truth, his self ravaged by the prolonged mental assault.
Having reached his conclusion, Jin carefully pulled the white line.
But when the door opened, it wasn’t Rosa’s self that appeared.
Nor was it an empty void or vague darkness.
It was a man sitting with his back turned.
“Father…?”
Sirron Runcandel—Jin’s father.
The reason he stood where Rosa’s self should have been was because Jin had chosen not to become a monster.
“Jin.”
There had never been a time when Jin had wanted to see his father more desperately than now.
Strength returned to his once-limp limbs, and a rush of hot blood seemed to flood his previously foggy mind. Without even realizing it, Jin was running toward Siron.
But he couldn’t reach him.
Between them lay a vast, deep chasm—like an ocean-sized cliff—separating Jin and Siron.
Jin stopped at the edge, and Siron turned to look back.
It was the face of his father, one he hadn’t seen in a long time.
For a moment, father and son simply stared into each other’s eyes.
“You endured well,” Siron said quietly.
At that single sentence, Jin suddenly understood.
Throughout this lonely, agonizing underworld, Siron had been watching over him from beginning to end.
“There will come a day when we meet again.”
With those words, Siron turned and began walking away.
As if to return to their separate battlefields.
Jin watched his father walk toward some deeper, darker place for a long while.
It didn’t feel right to say anything more in this moment.
When Siron’s figure finally disappeared, Jin glanced back and saw the shattered paths of the underworld slowly reforming behind him.
Like Siron, Jin silently began to walk that path upward.
When Jin finally emerged from the underworld and regained his senses in the real world,
Four days had passed outside, and Rosa’s mental assault that had plunged the world into suffering had completely vanished.
Filled with more energy than ever before, Jin threw open the door to the secluded training hall with all his might.