Advent of the Three Calamities

Chapter 678: I can do this forever [4]

[Can do this… forever?]

Xa’hurl momentarily froze upon hearing the human’s words.

But then—

Rumble—!

The ground trembled as the eye shook, its tentacles lashing out at Lazarus from every direction, coiling around him and squeezing tightly.

Crack—

The muffled sound echoed once more, with organs and pieces of his flesh flying everywhere. It was a grotesque scene that would cause the stomachs of anyone staring at the scene to churn.

But…

By the time the eye blinked, the scene replayed, and Lazarus appeared in front of Xa’hurl. Just like before, his lips pulled into a smirk as he weakly raised his head to stare at the gigantic eye that stood before him.

“Like I said… I can do this for—!”

CRACK!

His body was shredded apart instantly once more. Only to reappear unscathed a few moments later.

The same smirk played at the lips of Lazarus as he looked at Xa’hurl.

He could recall everything that had happened.

He was just like Xa’hurl. Trapped within this limbo of time as his body was constantly shredded into thin bits of paper.

Lazarus deeply understood that his death was gruesome. He had probably died in the most horrible of ways.

But…

It was quick.

The pain he had experienced was almost negligible.

[How are you doing this…?]

Xa’hurl shook once more, its voice sounding extremely agitated.

[How is this possible? How can a being like yourself be capable of pulling something like this off?]

How was it possible??

None of it made sense to it at all!

Could it be the strange relic? Yes, it had to be the relic.

Xa’hurl fixed its gaze on the human once more as tentacles shot out, wrapping around his body and crushing him like before.

CRACK!

An eye floated in the water like before, and feeling the energy contained within it, Xa’hurl tried to reach for it, only for the world to suddenly shift, and a familiar figure appeared before it again.

[…..]

BANG!

In its fury, it struck downward, crushing the human in a single blow as a muffled cracking sound echoed through the air once more.

Cracka—

Sand burst into the air from the impact, and as it slowly settled, Xa’hurl saw a faint silhouette emerge once more, gazing at him with the same unsettling smile as before.

“Like I said….”

The human’s voice drifted into the water once more, making its way into the beast’s mind.

“…I can do this forever.”

Bang—

He was crushed once more, his body reduced into nothing but a pile of flesh.

[You can keep going?]

Bang—! Bang!

Xa’hurl slammed the ground again and again, relentlessly flattening the area as it vented its rage.

Bang—

[So can I…]

By the time the sand settled down once more, Xa’hurl didn’t wait and continuously killed the human.

It tried different ways of killing it.

From ripping its body apart, to slowly burning it alive in the depths of the water, to shattering his mind.

He tried several different methods, each one more painful than the last.

And yet…

The human didn’t budge at all.

[How can this be…]

Watching as the human appeared once more, Xa’hurl stopped for the first time as the human stood on the opposite end, his face pale but his eyes clear.

“You’re stopping…?”

Lazarus brushed his hair back, his lip twitching slightly.

“…And here I thought you said you could go on forever. Was that all a l—!”

Tentacles shot forth once more, ripping his body in half. This time, Xa’hurl made sure to be as slow as possible when ripping his body in half. It wanted the human to feel the pain. To break its mind completely.

But…

“That hurt quite a bit.”

The human looked completely unscathed.

Appearing once more, he touched his abdomen and mumbled things like, ‘So that’s how my organs look. Not really a pretty sight.’

It was almost as if the entire ordeal had left no scar in his mind.

Was he just immune to pain?

…Or was the human just acting?

Xa’hurl’s eye trembled once more, but this time, it quickly calmed down before closing and disappearing.

[…I may not be able to kill you, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t be able to leave. The entire world has already forgotten about your existence. There is no poin—!]

Xa’hurl found itself standing before the human once more.

Staring at the scene, the creature froze, completely unable to understand.

But then, seeing the human smirking in its direction, Xa’hurl’s fury reignited as the figure calmly touched his neck.

“It’s really such a pity that you left without killing me. I felt rather lonely, so I just killed myself in order to see yo—!”

[Human!]

BANG!

Once more, Xa’hurl killed the human as a large tentacle slammed down on the ground, crushing him on the spot.

In its anger, it forgot to torture him, squishing his body in one movement.

But…

“What did I say about quick deaths? They just don’t—!”

BANG!

He was killed once more.

Xa’hurl no longer held anything back. It continued to endlessly kill the human. Xa’hurl didn’t believe for one second the human would be able to withstand the torture for long.

He was going to give up sooner or later.

Xa’hurl planned on completely destroying his mind.

If it couldn’t kill him physically, it was going to do it mentally.

One way or another, Xa’hurl was going to make sure the human suffered to the point it wished nothing but death.

The human may think that it could continue this forever, but Xa’hurl had been alive far longer than the human could even imagine.

One year…? Two years…? A decade? Xa’hurl could keep going for that long.

Could the human do it?

Xa’hurl didn’t think so. One way or another, Xa’hurl was going to destroy the loop.

BANG—!

The water churned as unspeakable tortures unfolded beneath the depths of the Maw.

What Lazarus endured was far beyond what any ordinary human could withstand without losing their mind.

So how…?

How was Lazarus able to remain so calm?

How was he able to remain so unbothered by all of the deaths?

How was he—

“I’m surprised you’ve yet to try to contain me and just leave. If you can prevent me from killing myself, then maybe—!”

Xiu!

This time, he was impaled by the tentacles from all sides.

Feeling the pain invade every part of his body, Lazarus blankly stared at the eye in front of him.

He had lost count of the number of times he had died so far.

His right eye was burning with such intensity that even just keeping it open hurt more than anything else he was subjected to by the primordial being.

‘I can’t resist.’

‘…It’ll give up soon, right?’

‘I want this to stop.’

Voices whispered in his mind, telling him to stop.

To give up.

To let all of this torture stop.

They felt tempting to Lazarus’s mind. He almost felt tempted to listen to them.

He was currently stuck in a limbo with one of the most powerful creatures in the world, unable to fight back at all.

The difference between the two was like heaven and earth.

The only thing he could do was endlessly get subjected to its torture.

This in itself was a form of prison.

A form for despair.

But this…

Lazarus was well aware that this wasn’t the first time he had experienced something like this. Perhaps not as Lazarus, but as Julien, he had experienced all forms of despair.

His memories still lingered within Lazarus’s mind.

His experiences still lingered within his mind.

Everything…

Lazarus still recalled everything.

This was why, even as he died again and again, he never lost hold of who he was. His mind didn’t break, and he was able to quickly push the pain away from his mind.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

He was persevering.

He could continue this forever.

With Julien’s memories, he was sure that he could keep up for as long as he wanted.

But…

Was this really what he wanted?

Was perseverance until one of the two gave the desired outcome that he wanted?

‘It isn’t.’

Julien had given up on himself in order to learn more about the fifth level of emotive magic.

He had created an entirely new persona in order to achieve that.

He had been created in order to fulfill his goal.

Lazarus was merely a byproduct of what he wanted to achieve.

In the end, he wasn’t a real person.

Just an entity.

An entity designed to experience things that Julien hadn’t.

And so…

Repeating what Julien had done in the past was going against everything that he had been trying to achieve.

His goal was to truly touch and grasp the fifth level of emotive magic.

He had already touched it, but had yet to fully grasp it.

He had to let go.

He had to let go of the memories of Julien and truly become a completely different entity.

This was so that he could experience everything all over again.

It was scary.

So damn fucking scary.

Just the thought of having to go through all that pain without anything to back up that trauma scared him to no end.

…Every part of him didn’t want to do it, and just the mere thought made him shake.

Lazarus understood the true consequences of his actions.

He understood he could very well go mad.

He also understood that the moment he succeeded, he’d fade, becoming nothing but nutrition for Julien and his growth.

The thought of fading and disappearing like that scared him to no end.

But he had to do it.

‘This is what I’ve been made for. I am nothing but a drifting entity created with the sole purpose of growth…’

BANG—

Feeling his body get squashed yet again, Lazarus woke up again to see the gigantic eye in front of him.

Staring at it, Lazarus smiled sadly.

This was going to be the beginning of the end for him.

But even though his mission was almost over, he planned on leaving with a bang.

He planned on making his little existence mean something.

“Come. I’m getting bored. When will you attack me again—!”

BANG!