Descent of the Demon Master
Chapter 1119. Responding (4)

Chapter 1119. Responding (4)

Time was absolute.

Every person alive was affected by it equally. One man’s one second was exactly the same as another person’s one second. Not just humans, but every creature with their feet planted on the ground must live their lives as slaves to the absolute and unforgiving time.

The funny thing, though, was that time could also be ‘dependent.’ Even though time was equal for everyone, people experienced it differently.

Wellinger got to learn about this painful fact in a rather excruciating lesson today.

Tick, tock...

He could hear the sounds of a second hand ticking coming from somewhere.

That second hand was mechanically consistent. Always on time.

According to his senses, this second hand was ticking at the exact same timing he was familiar with. In that case, why...!

Why did it seem to tick so agonizingly slowly to him?

Wellinger’s trembling eyes drifted toward the grand hall’s floor.

He could see... three corpses. Yes, only three.

What did those corpses mean, though?

Their presence obviously indicated more than one thing. For instance, it indicated that the Round Table could no longer resist Kang Jin-Ho, and those corpses were the undeniable proof. Or, one could take a long, hard look at the identities of those corpses and conclude that Kang Jin-Ho had figured out, rather perfectly to boot, who were in cahoots with Wellinger.

There could be other meanings, too. But to Wellinger? The one meaning that impacted him the most was time.

‘It’s only been four hours?’

Only four?!

This... This horrifying and hellish torture he barely endured had been going on for only four hours!

Zoltan needed over thirty minutes to die.

Thirty minutes!

People wouldn’t really think of that as a long time. Maybe it was as precious as time could get for some people, but the majority would feel that thirty minutes weren’t quite long enough for most things.

However, what if one had to endure hellish torture during those thirty minutes?

Imagine pain so horrifying that a few seconds of it could make you want to bite your tongue off and rip out your heart. Now imagine suffering from that pain for thirty minutes straight!

What if you were not allowed to lose consciousness and had to vividly suffer from that pain for the duration, too?

Would thirty minutes still feel short?

‘No, definitely not!’

Even though he was just a witness and didn’t experience the pain first-hand, Wellinger still thought the thirty minutes of Zoltan’s torture excruciating to sit through. Those minutes felt so long that his soul almost threatened to erode away into nothingness.

When Zoltan finally died, what the Knights, including Wellinger, felt wasn’t sorrow but relief. Because, this excruciating pain had finally ended.

Did they feel relieved for Zoltan, though? No! The unbearable psychological pain had finally ended for the Knights and that was why they were relieved!

The victim suffering the pain must’ve been in hell. No doubt about that. But the witnesses also experienced their minds being crushed, grounded to powder, and trampled on by this sight.

It was impossible to describe their emotions at the sight of Zoltan’s bloodied corpse crashing on to the floor. Unfortunately for them, though... His death didn’t signal their liberation.

Kang Jin-Ho declared he’d kill one Knight every hour. That meant he’d call someone else, a new victim, out in thirty minutes!

Once that realization dawned on everyone, a new type of Hell descended on the Knights. It was the terror of knowing they could share Zoltan’s fate!

When was the last time they felt as desperate as today? Had they ever experienced another situation in their lives when thirty minutes felt so, so precious like this?

What a laughable development this was.

When Zoltan was getting tortured to death, time seemed to move excruciatingly slowly. Yet his death accelerated the time flow until it was flying along.

Both processes lasted thirty minutes each. However, when everyone desperately wanted the time to flow quickly, it moved at a crawl. And when they wanted it to move as slowly as possible, time accelerated until it moved as quickly as a speeding comet!

...And that process repeated itself three times already.

Wellinger, his face haggard and aged by at least ten years, wordlessly scanned his surroundings.

It had been four hours. Only four. But that length of time was enough for the Knights to lose their minds.

Their reactions were colorful, to say the least. One of them scratched his throat so much that his skin had been stripped to reveal crimson tender flesh underneath. Another one had been mumbling something inaudible to himself for hours now. And one Knight was repeatedly switching between sobbing and chuckling bizarrely.

Indeed, they were all going insane!

Martial arts weren't supposed to only train one's physical body. The practitioner's mind--their psyche--was supposed to be trained as well.

People gathered in this grand hall were all Knights of the Round Table. Whether it be physical or psychological, they should be better in every aspect than most human beings alive today.

Yet they only needed four hours to become madmen.

Wellinger had a feeling that his fellow Knights wouldn’t have turned into a bunch of nervous wrecks if constant terror was the only thing crushing down on them. But it wasn’t.

They were swept up in terror and despair, followed by relief and hope. All those emotions were interlaced with the petty joy of knowing they survived this time and the despairing sorrow of knowing they couldn't do anything as their valued comrades were killed right before their nose.

Every emotion a person could potentially experience swept these Knights up on a scale they had never imagined was possible. And then, another round of emotions crashed into them soon afterward with just as ferocious intensity as if to say the previous round had only been a practice run.

Not going crazy was probably the weird thing in this situation.

‘In that case, have I gone crazy, too?’

Wellinger couldn’t tell. Maybe he had gone insane, too.

Trying to stay calm and rational in this situation might be a fool's errand, but... When objectively analyzed, Wellinger was most likely not his usual self anymore.

Even if he was considered pretty popular among the Knights, Wellinger didn’t stand head and shoulders above his peers. Since everyone was quickly losing their minds, how could someone like him remain sane, too?

Only one person inside the hall was unaffected. And it wasn’t the Master. Even he was completely out of it, his eyes violently and restlessly darting around constantly.

His condition was better than that of the Knights, but his actions still couldn't be described as normal.

As for Wiggins, he couldn’t watch anymore and had exited the grand hall some time ago.

‘Isn’t that ironic?’

Wasn't the cause of this event Wiggins' decision to ask for Kang Jin-Ho's help? To quell the mutiny within the Round Table? In that case, why couldn't he stay and continue watching this spectacle of his own creation?

‘Indeed, you should be here! Witnessing everything with your own damn eyes!'

To witness what his choice had done to the Round Table! So that the hateful bastard would never forget!

Wellinger’s trembling eyes shifted to Kang Jin-Ho next.

“Fuu-woo...”

Kang Jin-Ho leisurely puffed away at his cigarette.

He cut such a disparate figure in this sea of despair. It was as if he was the only two-eyed person in a world of three-eyed people. To everyone here, that man was no different from a sore thumb sticking out.

Kang Jin-Ho maintaining his preternaturally calm exterior even as everyone else was rapidly losing their sanity seemed so remarkably out of place.

‘Maybe it’s...’

Wellinger finally realized his mistake.

Kang Jin-Ho was powerful. His strength blinded Wellinger from seeing anything else. It made him entranced and obsessed.

...And it also made him blind to what he should have been really wary of.

Kang Jin-Ho was... a nutjob!

Wellinger heard the report that Lee Hyeon-Su was similar in that regard, but his degree of madness was not even in the same ballpark. Actually, it'd be more correct to say Kang Jin-Ho's insanity was a completely different type of beast altogether compared to Lee Hyeon-Su's!

While Lee Hyeon-Su gave off the impression of a deviant human being, maybe even a screwball, Kang Jin-Ho was not 'human', to begin with.

After all, no human would do something like this without batting an eye!

Such was Kang Jin-Ho’s evilness that dictators responsible for slaughtering countless people seemed more human than him at this point!

He was a devil. Even if he was not, he still could not be a human being. No, he had to be something else wearing a human facade!

‘More importantly, though...!’

Wellinger’s grimace deepened, knowing only three more minutes remained. Three more minutes until someone else died again!

Since that outcome was inevitable, maybe...

‘Maybe, wouldn’t it be better for me to die now?’

After all, he was responsible for creating this situation, wasn’t he? So, wouldn't it be fair for him to shoulder the blame now? And let Kang Jin-Ho choose him?

‘Hmm. Let that man choose me?’

Not Wellinger willingly stepping forward? He certainly didn’t mind taking responsibility through death, but could he willingly volunteer for it?

‘No, I can’t. In that case, why not?’

Was it because he was afraid of the method of execution? Because he was terrified by the pain from that torture?

Or was it because he was afraid of death itself, despite what he tried to convince himself with earlier? Maybe he was still attached to this life, after all?

‘I... I...’

I still want to live.

Yes, I want to live!

Wellinger wanted to live. He emphatically did not want to die in a place like this. He must find a way to get out of here in one piece!

However, that didn’t seem possible at all. What should he do to change that?

Craaaack...!

Wellinger's nails cracked and broke off. He hurriedly looked at his hand to notice three nails had already been pulled off his fingers. Blood must've been gushing from the wounds to soak his clothes for some time, yet he had not noticed it until now.

As it turned out, Wellinger himself had gone mad. But that revelation didn't surprise him.

Wellinger’s dazed gaze looked up to stare at the clock again. The second hand continued to tick away regardless.

Once that second hand pointed toward the heavens, another life would get snuffed out while experiencing hellish pain no human could imagine.

Time was dependent on people.

A second was supposed to be the same regardless of the situation. Yet that one second Wellinger experienced was not the same as every other second he had lived through.

The time in his perception began speeding up. Faster and faster it moved until it...

Tick... tock!

The moment when time slowed down to a crawl arrived again.

Everyone reflexively stared at Kang Jin-Ho. Their eyes were bloodshot; their teeth chattered noisily.

Kang Jin-Ho’s cold gaze was locked on Wellinger. As he stared in silence, the corners of his lips gradually curled up.

If a devil knew how to smirk, it must resemble Kang Jin-Ho’s. A mocking smirk that sent chills down Wellinger’s spine, that was!

Wellinger’s heart began pounding faster and madder than ever before.

“Next,” Kang Jin-Ho muttered while flicking the cigarette away. Then, he slowly got up.

The time was moving so agonizingly slowly. So much so that Kang Jin-Ho getting up from his chair looked like it was happening in slow motion.

Then again, this was how death operated, no? As if to mock those still attached to life, death lazily approached its victims.

Even if death seemed so far away, and you thought it'd not affect you any time soon, it'd already be right behind you by the time you sobered up and looked back.

...Which was exactly like Kang Jin-Ho right now!

Kang Jin-Ho lazily extended his hand, and his finger pointed at Wellinger.

Just how heavy was the meaning behind that gesture?

Wellinger stared at his executioner's finger as if his soul had finally abandoned him.

‘What have I...’

What had he been doing until now? Could he say he had no regrets?

Of course he wanted to live. To get out of here in one piece!

He wanted to do whatever it takes to keep living. Somehow, he...!

That was when Kang Jin-Ho’s fingertip subtly pointed somewhere else.

“Ah...!”

Wellinger sensed convulsions coming from the seat right next to his.

As it turned out, Kang Jin-Ho wasn’t pointing at Wellinger, but another Knight sitting next to him, Kramer!

Blood rapidly drained from Kramer's complexion after he realized Kang Jin-Ho had pointed him out.

His reaction was understandable, though. After all, he got sentenced to death just now. How would he feel while staring at the swiftly approaching death despite being still alive? How would anyone feel in that situation, for that matter?

“Come over here,” said Kang Jin-Ho.

He sounded emotionless to the point of being robotic. Kramer suddenly stood up like a hypnotized man when that voice reached his ears. And then...

He turned his head to stare at Wellinger.

“...!”

Wellinger couldn’t say anything. What could he even say in a situation like this, anyway?

“N-no, it can’t be!” Kramer began shuddering and convulsing pitifully. “It can’t be me! Not me! It can’t! It can’t be, you crazy bastard! Not me! Can’t be me! Nooooooo!”

Kramer’s loud cry of despair rocked the hall. He screeched and howled like a beast, his face getting wetter and wetter.

“It’s...! It’s all your fault! You!”

Kramer suddenly pounced on Wellinger. The latter reflexively raised his arms to defend himself, only for the former to bite and tear into his flesh like a crazed animal.

“You die instead! Not me! You! Why me?! Why! When you did all this!”

Wellinger cried out in alarm. “Kramer!”

That was when Kramer's head suddenly snapped toward Kang Jin-Ho. It was as if his fury while assaulting Wellinger had been nothing but a figment of everyone's imagination.

“S-sir! Please spare me! It wasn’t me! You got the wrong guy! It’s... Yes, it’s all this man’s fault! He did everything! Please! I... I am...!”

After despairing, crying, and guffawing madly, Kramer rushed toward Kang Jin-Ho on his knees and grabbed the Korean’s legs to cling desperately.

“I, I don’t want to die, sir! I don’t want to die, you know?! Uwaaaaah?!”

Kang Jin-Ho remained stone-faced as his gaze locked on Kramer. And then, he leisurely reached down to grab the sobbing Knight’s face.

“H-hiiiieeekkk...!”

As if he had finally realized what his fate was, Kramer began convulsing powerfully. His limbs quivered and trembled so pitifully.

However, that was when...!

“...I give up. You win,” said Wellinger as his head faltered.