Childhood Friend of the Zenith-Chapter 473

There is a woman with no name.

Though she had been given names a few times, she had never become attached to any of them.

Names were things that would fade with time. To grow attached to them would only complicate things.

With each reset, those names would linger as uncomfortable memories.

This woman was forced to live over and over. It was her task to repeat life until she reached the desired outcome.

How many times had it been?

It had happened so many times that even she couldn’t recall the number.

The first memory she could think of now was from nearly a thousand cycles ago.

Numbers were meaningless at this point.

To simplify, she counted in tens of thousands, though she knew it was many times that. But she decided to think of it as ten thousand lives.

A vast number of lives.

And at some point, she had lost sight of the purpose behind all this repetition.

She had repeated her steps toward what seemed to be the better path, and that had brought her to this point.

Even so, she strove to remember.

She needed to remember the times she’d had a name.

And those fleeting moments when she could smile. They were the only fuel that allowed her to continue.

“■■.”

The name, once called to her in a brusque yet tender voice, echoed faintly. It was a name she would never hear again.

Returning to the beginning erased everything as if it had never happened.

Even precious memories would become figments of her imagination.

In her many lives, she had done much.

Once, she had been the master of the greatest merchant guild in Zhongyuan.

She had become the head of the largest armed convoy in history.

She had led the Murim Alliance.

She had been the head of a prestigious martial family.

Through all these lives, she had done many things.

And yet, her end was always the same.

A collapsing world.

Or a world that she herself destroyed.

As the world crumbled, despair always awaited her. No matter how she had lived, the ending was always the same.

Nothing changed.

She had tried countless actions to change her fate, yet the result was ever the same.

What meaning was there in such repetition?

Was there truly a better way?

Why had such a fate been imposed upon her?

These were questions that plagued her through eons of time.

Of course, even these questions became dulled and blurred in the face of endless cycles. But she had never stopped.

Pondering it changed nothing.

She simply continued living.

And so, the woman—

She came to loathe the one who looked like her.

But at the same time, she envied her.

In her endless cycles, she had lost her memories, but that one could forget and still uphold her convictions.

The woman remembered hundreds of her own past lives, ones where she had tried to uphold her beliefs.

There were times when she had struggled to save the world, thinking it was her mission, her purpose.

How laughable that seems now.

Such steadfast beliefs inevitably decayed and eroded in the face of countless years.

The woman had experienced this herself.

Now, she was left with neither purpose nor belief.

Those things had long rusted away, and nothing remained of them.

All she had left were faint memories.

“I’m not too fond of spicy food. It doesn’t taste good.”

She remembered that grumbling voice when he complained about her cooking.

“It’s cold, isn’t it?”

And that innocent attempt to hold her hand with a clumsy excuse.

“…I’m going on ahead. I’m sorry.”

And the resolute voice that had offered his own life to save her.

She clung to those memories with all her strength.

So she continued to live.

With time, she had let go of many things.

Each time she let something go, it felt as though her heart was being torn apart.

But she had to keep letting go.

It was the only way to survive.

Survive? No.

She had never held her life in high regard.

If she died, she would simply begin again from the start.

The things she cherished weren’t like that.

She had let go of small things, then even the things that mattered most.

The name someone had once called her by.

The hand that had held hers with warmth.

The familiar footsteps she had always followed.

As the days passed and she counted the endless cycles, she had come to realize something.

In trying to protect, she had lost the ability to save.

She discarded and discarded.

The sensation of her heart being torn never dulled.

She had to let go.

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Not so that “I” might survive, but so that “he” could.

In the end, the world always broke, twisted, and fell apart. All the woman wanted was one thing.

Rather than seeking her own oblivion—

She wanted a world without a fixed end, where he could continue living.

Conviction and pride—things dulled by time—meant little to her now.

To the nameless woman, that one thing was more important.

And so, she gave up on staying by his side.

Though he had an unyielding spirit, he was someone who would easily sacrifice his own life for others.

In the lives where he lived for himself, he often burned out his life force entirely.

Ironically—

In the lives where she was absent, he survived the longest. Until the world finally rotted away.

After many cycles, she could no longer deny it.

For him to live, she could not be there.

Even knowing this, her unwillingness to let go was nothing but pitiful attachment and selfish desire.

Wasn’t that true even now?

She was unable to relinquish her place beside him, clinging to him still.

She felt a bitter satisfaction in watching her other self be close to him, yet she could not cast off her ugly jealousy.

Even knowing that she had to abandon everything, she still clung to something.

And that was why she was so shocked.

“Someone once told me…”

At first, she had resented him as her mortal enemy.

“The one who turned back my time.”

Later, he had become a cherished friend.

And eventually, he had been the one to give her a name and call her his beloved.

“You, is that right?”

She had cast aside everything she had once held dear.

******************

The look in Cheonma’s eyes at my question was unmistakably one of shock.

I had never seen her eyes open so wide.

Her gaze, usually brimming with cold arrogance, was now filled with surprise.

It reminded me of the expression that Wi Seol-ah, in her current life, sometimes wore.

“What am I even thinking?”

I quickly shook off the thought.

It was a foolish mistake, born from the fact that they looked alike.

How could that terrifying being possibly be the same as that naive girl?

It was a mere illusion created by their identical faces.

And even that was a problem.

If I compared the face of Little Sword Star, now collapsed behind me, and Cheonma, except for hair and eye color, they were the same person.

How could that be?

And simultaneously—

“Why is this arm reacting?”

The enmity I sensed in my left arm also troubled me.

This was the sensation I felt in the presence of the Blood Demon.

Why did I feel it here, with Cheonma? And why did I not sense it with Wi Seol-ah?

What were these two to each other?

At the very least… it seemed there was some connection between Cheonma and the Blood Demon.

Which meant that Cheonma and Wi Seol-ah were connected.

And therefore, so were the Blood Demon and Wi Seol-ah.

“The Blood Demon and Wi Seol-ah?”

How?

Thinking about it too much would only make things more complicated.

To answer it, I’d need to delve into how the Sword Master raised Wi Seol-ah as his granddaughter, and this wasn’t the time.

“For now…”

The only thing that mattered was the being standing before me—Cheonma.

With her massive presence, nothing else could occupy my mind.

Especially since even she seemed, for once, to be taken aback.

“…If I strike now, could I win?”

That thought flitted through my mind, but I knew it was pointless.

I had just witnessed how Little Sword Star was utterly defeated.

No, I hadn’t even seen it properly. It was too fast to catch.

“Damn, the path is long.”

Seeing this, I realized anew just how far I was from my goal.

Even as a Flower of Mastery, I was no match for her.

Remembering such an obvious truth was deeply unsettling.

“Hmm.”

Cheonma, who had been frozen at my words, soon composed herself and rested her chin on her hand.

She seemed lost in thought.

And after a brief moment—

Crack!

She released her grip on the rift.

Creak, crack!

As the force holding the rift closed was released, it opened as though its power had been suppressed.

Then—

Whoosh!

“…!”

I felt my body being pulled toward it again, just like before.

I hurriedly tried to gather my energy.

“So that’s it. In the end, there’s no other answer.”

Cheonma murmured to herself as she looked at me.

“This has lost its appeal.”

For some reason, her eyes seemed a little duller.

“What are you talking about all of a sudden…?”

“If you step through this door, you’ll return to your original world.”

“…What?”

I stared at the opened rift.

So this was the way back to my world?

“Why now, of all times?”

It made no sense.

What had I even done here?

“And what did this have to do with regret?”

It seemed completely unrelated to what Tang Jemoon had told me.

Pointing to the open door, Cheonma spoke.

“Now, go.”

“…I still haven’t heard your answer.”

The words slipped out of my mouth, and Cheonma scoffed.

“You never asked with the intent of receiving an answer.”

“…”

“Did you really think I wouldn’t know?”

I swallowed hard. I thought I’d been successful, but it seemed she had seen through my intentions.

To be precise, I wouldn’t have minded hearing her answer, but as she said, that wasn’t my goal.

It had only been to buy time and distract her.

However…

“Does this mean…”

Could this mean she really was the one who’d sent me back?

“…Why?”

The question slipped out before I knew it.

Why?

For what reason, and how had she done it?

“Why would you…?”

“I don’t know. I am not from your world.”

“Don’t lie. You kno—”

“Lie?”

Hearing my words, her brow furrowed.

At that, an immense pressure surged from her body.

“You, who knows nothing of me, do not presume to judge. My mood has soured considerably.”

“…”

Her lips twisted in a chilling expression, and the air itself seemed to warp under the pressure she exerted.

I couldn’t even breathe under the weight of her aura.

“You were never meant for this world. Now, be gone.”

“…I’m not… done yet.”

“You have fulfilled this world’s will. This door is proof of that.”

That was what Cheonma said.

But I had done nothing.

“No matter what choice you make, the outcome remains the same.”

That was what Tang Jemoon had told me.

If that was true, I hadn’t yet achieved anything in this world.

Perhaps seeing my expression, Cheonma’s cold gaze fixed on me as she spoke.

“You’re under a misconception.”

“…What?”

“Whatever you do here will change nothing.”

“What do you…”

“Are you afraid of watching the Demon Sword Empress die to save you? Do you want to rescue her?”

“…!”

“Or perhaps you fear that one of the insects behind you will suffer?”

As Cheonma’s words sank in, my whole body froze.

How…how did she know that?

Leaving me in shock, Cheonma continued.

“Whatever dreams you hold, there are things that even the one who sent you here doesn’t understand.”

“You…”

“As long as I exist, there is nothing you can change.”

“What… what are you?”

How could she know such things?

“What a foolish question. You already know, don’t you?”

Cheonma laughed as she looked at me.

“I am Cheonma, and I have no other name. Even if I once did.”

With that, Cheonma gently caressed my cheek.

Whatever she had done, my body remained immobilized, unable to escape her touch.

My arm trembled.

It was as if Cheonma’s touch made it writhe with unease.

Noticing my arm, Cheonma’s gaze softened as she spoke.

“I have already forgotten.”

With her words, the rift grew rapidly.

“Now, you should do the same.”

And with that, the rift swallowed me whole.