Final battle (2)

Han Sooyoung saw Yoo Jonghyuk's blade heading for her neck and parried it.

Clang!

She looked at the regressor bitterly, but didn't try to make any excuses for herself.

After all, it was true that she was the creator of the Star Stream.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Clashing against Yoo Jonghyuk, she endured the regressor's attacks becoming heavier and heavier.

[The story 'Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint' has begun its storytelling.]

Han Sooyoung activated her story against Yoo Jonghyuk's, hoping to gain enough strength to win against him.

Clang!

Facing the one she had been running away from for a while now, she felt weird.

She had written about him for so long, creating his life with predictive plagiarism for more than 3000 chapter in TWSA, then writing about him again in ORV.

The writer looked at Yoo Jonghyuk who was raising his blade against her.

Claang!

His happy memories, his struggles, his despair… There was nearly nothing she didn't know about him.

It felt strange to fight against the character she had been writing about for more than 10 years.

Clang! Clang!

The one who had to go through so many rounds of hardships only to save one person.

The center of the worlds she had decided to destroy for her own selfishness.

This character that felt nearly fictional to her now was standing in front of her and trying to kill her because of that decision.

Clang!

Would he change his mind if she explained the reasons behind her choice?

That she had done all this for Kim Dokja.

However, the current Yoo Jonghyuk didn't know Kim Dokja.

Clang!

Could this Yoo Jonghyuk really be considered as the same person she had written about when the events in this dream weren't things she had predicted?

Claaang! Cla-ang!

The clash of the two swords resounded in their ears.

The people from before seemed to have already entered the door in that short time.

Han Sooyoung bit her lip and swung her sword to block another one of Yoo Jonghyuk's strikes.

She met the regressor's gaze full of resentment and murderous intent.

It's true that she was the one who made Yoo Jonghyuk go through all this by writing about his suffering.

She had sacrificed the world's future to save Kim Dokja.

Was this retribution?

Was this situation only karma coming back to her because of her actions?

Cla-ang!

Han Sooyoung gritted her teeth, enduring the pain brought by Yoo Jonghyuk's attacks.

A particular moment flashed in her mind.

Kim Dokja was lying there on the hospital bed.

When she waited for TWSA to be written, she had seen him, so thin and full of wounds after attempting suicide.

That moment when she realized that TWSA wouldn't be written but that reading it was also the only way for him to survive.

Han Sooyoung tightened her grip on the sword's hilt.

She didn't regret her decision.

However, she couldn't die here.

She still had to stop the people who had gone through the door from killing Cthulu.

She afford to see this dream being broken and lose Kim Dokja again.

Meanwhile. Yoo Jonghyuk saw her story.

Each time he struck her, he could read the sentences in her blade.

The reasons for her actions being displayed in front of him, the regressor opened his mouth.

"How pathetic."

Han Sooyoung's nails pierced her skin until it bled at Yoo Jonghyuk's comment.

Clang! Clang!

Her body was full of wounds merely from Yoo Jonghyuk's aura, and a few bones were broken due to his inhuman stats.

She wondered how he could be so strong in the beginning scenarios when he hadn't even regressed that many times.

What was Yoo Jonghyuk thinking about now?

He must have thought that it was pathetic to sacrifice the world for only one person.

After all, he had been trying to save this world until now, discarding the people that threatened its safety.

It would seem like something extremely impulsive and egoistic to do.

Something meaningless and useless.

She spat out the blood coming up her throat due to her internal injuries and spoke in a voice mixed with anger and despair.

"I know!"

She knew.

She knew it all too well.

"Maybe this isn't what that idiot would have wanted."

The reason Kim Dokja had left them 49% of himself to continue reading in the train.

That idiot wanted them to be happy, not to try so hard to bring him back.

Maybe her wish to not end this dream was pointless.

Because she couldn't have Kim Dokja.

She knew this dream was simply a momentary illusion before they had to return to reality.

It was time to let go.

However, she couldn't let go.

She couldn't give up on him.

Why couldn't they have 100% of Kim Dokja?

Why couldn't they just be happy?

["You can't have 100% of a person."]

She was simply clinging to something that may be impossible.

A person wasn't defined by their memories. Everyone forgot things every second.

The 'her' of one minute ago was different from the 'her' now because of the new experiences she had gone through in that short time.

Their memories and experience shaped them and modified their perception of the world, so people were always changing every second.

That was why having 100% of Kim Dokja was impossible.

What was 'Kim Dokja' to begin with?

Endless doubts and unanswerable questions that were suppressed before came to mind.

However, that guy had already realized so many miracles, so why couldn't this miracle become true as well?

["You should've been satisfied with 49% Kim Dokja."]

Why couldn't he come back to them instead of staying in that train?

「Because this isn't what Kim Dokja wants.」

He had chosen stories over them, to guarantee the survival of the world she had sacrificed to save him.

In front of her character who found her pathetic, the writer swung her sword in despair and endured the pain.

This pain couldn't be worse than the idea of losing Kim Dokja anyway.

Claaang!

An even louder sound echoed through the place as Han Sooyoung fell on one knee, exhausted.

"Cough…"

Her arm had been broken, as well as a few other bones. She was at her limits.

"Haa…"

She inhaled heavily, having difficulty breathing as her weapon fell out of her hand. The nerves in that arm weren't answering her anymore.

Yoo Jonghyuk stopped attacking and looked down at her as Han Sooyoung's body lost its balance and fell to the ground without strength.

Was this the end?

She stared at her protagonist through her blurry vision.

Was this how she was going to die? At the hands of the character she had written?

However, she couldn't help thinking that it was a fitting retribution.

The villain of this story would die at the hands of the main character, that's how it went in stories.

Didn't she like cliches?

She would die to avenge all the ones she had sacrificed.

Han Sooyoung shifted her gaze to the sky, that sky that Kim Dokja had looked at many times, his thoughts unknown.

She felt the stares of the constellations and searched for her star among them.

'Are you reading this story?'

Was Kim Dokja seeing this now?

As Yoo Jonghyuk raised his sword a last time toward her, his blade heading to her heart, Han Sooyoung made a wish.

'If I could be reborn again, I hope…'

That they would all be happy together this time.

That she could write a happy ending.

That they could be reunited.

That Kim Dokja could be happy.

'That you will read my story again.'

You idiot.

Han Sooyoung closed her eyes.

Maybe this was her way of finally getting her happy ending, by putting an end to everything with eternal rest.

At the moment of her death, Han Sooyoung's mind finally found salvation.

Then, the blade pierced her heart and the stories she had accumulated dissipated one by one.

With a peaceful expression on her face, the writer died.

And as her pleas had been heard, a star shone on Han Sooyoung.

The Oldest Dream, the reader, stared down at the writer.

He saw Cale finally getting his revenge, Han Sooyoung dying and Zhou Mingrui ready to end this world.

Kim Dokja closed his eyes.

He, too, hoped that he could have dreamt of something happier.

He had wanted Han Sooyoung to get a happy ending in another way than eternal rest.

Even though they called him the Demon King of Salvation, true salvation had never existed.

He had caused them nothing more than pain.

He knew now, this was merely another dream, this parallel world where he had died to Yoo Jonghyuk instead of becoming a demon king couldn't exist.

After killing Han Sooyoung, Yoo Jonghyuk sheathed back his sword and looked up at the sky.

The Oldest Dream didn't know what was going through the regressor's mind at the moment.

Then, an intense vibration came from behind the door where Zhou Mingrui and Xin Jian were.

Yoo Jonghyuk turned his gaze to that direction as something fundamental seemed to be changing.