The Hauntings Of The Past (II)

Fourth, fifth, sixth and till the umpteenth time, Seunghyuk felt despair more hopeless than any despair he had ever felt in his whole life. Like light has disappeared from his vision, like life has disappeared along with light. Watching the pieces of painful fate drop to the ground for the millionth time, the surrounding scenery shifted and folded yet again, like a horrendous tune on repeat forcing Seunghyuk to dance like a puppet under control.

"Do...Do I really have to recreate whatever really happened.....like that same old coward I was?" Seunghyuk knelt down before the group of bullies until he was sure his knees have lost the ability to feel.

Seunghyuk felt like his soul and temperance was forcefully passed through a passage of torture and suffering, leaving him at such a blank and thoughtless state at the moment. Every single move he tried was merely throwing pebbles at a sturdy cement wall ; every plot or plan just drew itself back to the starting point all over again. An obvious futility and a wild goose chase which both amounted to nothing but painful memories that caged Seunghyuk back in the past, unable to take any step forward to progress.

"Serpens Caput Strengthen!" Seunghyuk hollered out loud like any other time when he tried over and over again, but this time the loudness of the voice was only a mask hiding the psychological fatigue and lack of motivation from endless repetitions of pain.

The snake was summoned and wrapped it's whole head with pure, hard gold as usual, but similarly as usual, it did not work at all. The snake slithered in the air towards the colourful-haired group of bullies with insane speed, but the speed was not even close, and so the reinforced head of the snake touched that same invisible barrier in front of the bullies, cracking the sheet of memory glass which dropped and scattered like how the burning wildfire inside of Seunghyuk's heart had ran out of oxygen supply and started to slowly reduce to a small candle fire.

Once again, slowly piece by piece rose and folded the surroundings yet again. Pain layered once again, slowly bit by bit the scene changed in front of Seunghyuk's eyes and the never-ending pain threw fatigue all over his body and once again, slowly second by second he fell deeper and deeper into his own helplessness. All was dark and light was like a nonexistent entity, and darkness consumed darkness itself.

"You again. Why are you always getting yourself into all these trouble. Voluntarily as well," a calm, relaxed yet irritated voice rung in Seunghyuk's ears as he drifted in the darkness, the same calm and collected voice that sounded scaringly like the System that scared Seunghyuk the first time he heard, but now he was quite clear that the voice he was hearing now was not the System, "I have to. If I do not get myself into trouble, there wouldn't be any rewards I could reap. Then I would've wasted my Conqueror power completely and it would be no different than how I was before without the Conqueror power and the System alongside me. Why do you sound so similar to the System, yet so full of emotions?"

"No time for questions. Are you going to wake up and stop disrupting my peace?" The weird System-like voice said with a little more frustration than before as if the voice was forcing Seunghyuk out for disturbing its peace, but Seunghyuk just laughed in response, "What if I don't? I'm a little tired, so won't you let me stay a night here?"

"No, get out."

As if those few words were strong winds, just within a millisecond, Seunghyuk was immediately blew out of his own peculiar consciousness and his closed eyes from withstanding the strong outward force slowly opened to see himself kneeling again, facing the same haughty bullied with colourfully dyed hairs.

"Why's she so grumpy..." Seunghyuk said as he stood up smiling like a battery that was recharged back to hundred, then Seunghyuk clenched his fist hard as he raised his fiery fist before charging forward with his forehead scrunched up with resolution, "You think you'll haunt me forever, don't you? I DON'T CARE HOW LONG I'LL TAKE BUT YOU'LL NEVER EXIST EVER AGAIN!"

Fire blazed brightly and fierce as plumes of black smoke was visibly seen rising from the clenched fists. A distinctive hiss was heard as the Snake of Ophiuchus appeared from behind Seunghyuk with its strengthened head of gold. Crimson red flames shot out like a flash of red lightning as the strengthened Snake of Ophiuchus rushed out slithering midair alongside the flash of angry fire. Seunghyuk's head was completely empty except for the burning determination filling up his thoughts.

The fire together with the snake surged violently, inching closer and closer to the haughty bullies that would soon perish to nothing. The scary attack from Seunghyuk pierced through the invisible barrier and the surroundings start to break apart again like usual.

"No...NO! PUSH FORWARD!!" Seunghyuk yelled out loud as he put forth not only his voice but also his whole body to force his attack forward, and like there was a mirror within a mirror, between fractured and cracks of the first invisible barrier, another invisible barrier right in front of the group of smug bullied broke and shattered, "What is...this...?"

At that point in time, Seunghyuk was unclear whether he had broken the curse of having to repeatedly go through his painful past and get forced to be a moronic coward all over again, but he knew at least something else would happen. Indeed, when the internal glass barrier broke, the surroundings of his past melted away and revealed not the familiar straight, red-carpeted hallway but a completely unfamiliar place that immediately screamed 'run'.

Gray walls covered with dust and vines that once Iived by clinging onto the walls have yellowed, wilted and died, leaving its stretched out body hanging lifelessly from the fragile-looking wall. Four lighted fire torches burned mildly in the four corners, and that would only make sense if someone had just lit these up. Just as expected, a figure rose from the shadows of the fire casted onto the ground of the weird place and space. The figure was covered with red, sticky goo-like substance that seemed to give the possibly hostile figure special abilities but at the same time, it looks like the movements are being restricted too.

"Is it...not going to stop growing...?" Seunghyuk asked with his voice trembling in rare fear, looking at the hulking and grotesque looking shadow figure with horror as Seunghyuk instinctively took steps back in retreat.

The shadow figure seemed to have no other appearances other than its horrifying face which was completely deformed like someone had smashed, pasted and overlaid hundreds of faces on top of each other in order to achieve a messy work of insanity like this. Seunghyuk's fire of determination from before was blew out and his shaking eyes merely looked at the shadow of utmost evil helplessly.

"Sn...Snake of Ophiuchus...Serpens Cauda Strengthen!" Seunghyuk used the high volume of his voice to attempt masking his trembling fear deep down, summoning the Snake of Ophiuchus with its tail covered in solid gold, "Nighthowling! Short-Fused Explosion!"

Conqueror's Name: Choi Seunghyuk (Male) (Leader of Legendclad)

Conqueror's Level: 4

Strength: 24 (raised by 7)

Agility: 24 (raised by 7)

Defense: 24 (raised by 7)

MP: 24 (raised by 7)

Skills: Short-Fused Explosion (2 stars)

Eye of Detection (2 stars)

Heart of Cold Steel (2 stars)

Ancient Language Comprehension (2 stars)

Snake Of Ophiuchus (3 stars)

Dancing With Fire (3 stars)

Nighthowling (0 stars)

Charm (0 stars)"

Seunghyuk turned himself into a Nighthowler immediately and boosted his stats significantly, holding his shaking fists of blazing fire right in front of his face and chest in a fighting stance. Pursing his lips tightly together in attempt to control his quivering lips, Seunghyuk dashed forward with slight hope hanging on the edge of the precipice of the cliff in his heart and gave a loud yet hopeful shout.

"Charm!"

With all the effects applied, Seunghyuk rushed forward to confront the shadow figure that looked at Seunghyuk as if he was a small ant waiting to be crushed painfully under its feet. However, the Charm skill seemed like it did not do much. Seunghyuk watched as the huge shadowy black palm of the unknown monster descend rapidly downwards towards him, he used the Nighthowler's subskill and dashed above the speed of light to the right and back to the middle on track few metres ahead, avoiding the destructive shadow palm which created a deep crater behind Seunghyuk.

"This...This thing is crazy! What's going on!" Seunghyuk's heart palpitated to the beat of panic as the hope hanging precariously was on the verge of slipping off and falling into the unreachable void, but Seunghyuk still managed to hurl two flaming tornadoes that spun speedily towards the colossal demonic being but it just disappeared after getting a few strikes in, leaving the sky-scraping shadow figure literally almost unscathed.

Seunghyuk's panicking heart turned to desperation as he sent claw attacks after claw attacks, fire balls after fire balls, watching the Snake of Ophiuchus attack again after each attack. The towering creature only continued standing tall and unfazed, swinging a quick fist horizontally which swept almost all of Seunghyuk's attacks together with Seunghyuk back forcefully.

"Ah! It...It's too powerful...It took all my Mana Power and I still couldn't deal any significant damage on it. Wha...What is this creature residing inside of this demon's Demonic Realm..." Seunghyuk's adrenaline dropped exaggerating and neared a low as Seunghyuk looked futility and helplessness right in its eyes as the shadow figure's abstruse looking face seemed to show mockery and laughter of some sort.

Seunghyuk realised that the shadow figure did not do much, yet he was lethargic and injured from head to toe with his determination and zest pounded to near nothing. Looking back at the countless times Seunghyuk had tried to break free from the shackles of his past and when he finally did so, he was tied up with another tight rope of impossibility. Every sign pointed to failure and the end of his Conqueror road.

"WELL AS IF!" Seunghyuk squirmed roughly backwards until his hands felt the wall behind him and he forced himself to stand up with the support of the wall, looking at the motionless creature of darkness with a new fire in his eyes, the hope hanging in there barely inside of his heart struggled, persevered and looked for million other ways to survive and exist, "Now my Mana Power's all gone...BUT THAT WOULDN'T STOP ME! I'VE GOTTEN SO FAR AFTER ALL!"

Seunghyuk's determination exploded within him and the extinguished fire rekindled with a new spark of hope, burning up wildly like a huge wildfire. The adrenaline that was seeing the bottom immediately refilled to the top and Seunghyuk readied his right arm by swinging his bare fist backwards, then charging towards the shadow figure with stubborn resilience, swinging the bare, flameless and unenhanced fist forward to slam it onto the shadow figure's dark body.

A fist, completely clean and pure without any enhancements or elemental reactions and help, allowed Seunghyuk to cause damage so severe to the creature of pure darkness, punching it into oblivion, void and then to nothingness. All the fancy and eye-catching skills that Seunghyuk possessed were superceded by Seunghyuk's one bare fist which ended the impossibility with just a pure fist of possibility.

"I...I did it...I did it?" Seunghyuk's fatigued body dragged itself and fought consciousness to near the red jewel that floated in the air giving out red light that blinded even the torches of fire at four corners combined.

Seunghyuk's hands wrapped around the red jewel and grasped it tight, and it was then where the adrenaline dropped and his energy stop coursing, knocking him into a deep sleep.