THE VILLAIN'S POV Chapter 735: The King’s Eye vs The Hand of the Ruler (4)
Previously on THE VILLAIN'S POV...
Wesker had been granted the cursed eye by the Demon King's own hand.
As his life flickered in those final seconds, the ultimate technique within the King’s Eye triggered.
The entire world ground to a halt.
The flow of time was severed.
The vast void faded into a dull gray.
In this motionless reality, only the King’s Eye remained vital, pulsing with a rhythmic beat...
until foul blood and dark energy coalesced around the socket.
Wesker’s physical form stitched itself back together.
A look of pure irritation was carved into his features.
The universe around him remained suspended in place...
Gehrman, Abraham, and every living soul across the world were trapped in stasis.
"Ah... damn it all.
In the end, that wretch actually forced me to expend the King’s Eye.
Gehrman, you dog of Nameless...
you are truly the most vexing adversary I have ever encountered."
By unleashing the King’s Eye, Wesker had cast aside Gehrman’s concluding blow, erasing the phenomenon as if it never occurred.
Such was the Eye’s true authority—
to nullify any reality that posed a mortal threat to its master.
"It was a commendable struggle...
but the loss is yours, Saint.
You failed to end me—and you remain trapped within my territory."
"Abraham Starlight is no longer capable of obstructing me,
and I still retain enough aura to rain down my most devastating techniques once more."
Wesker reached out his hand toward the frozen Gehrman.
"A pity... but this marks the conclusion.
A power gifted by King Agaroth himself is not something you can overcome."
Wesker prepared to deliver the killing blow...
when, at the absolute last second...
his vision caught a sight that defied logic.
An impossibility manifested before him.
Within this gray, frozen dimension created by the King’s Eye...
Wesker was meant to be the sole actor capable of movement.
The only entity allowed to keep its color.
Yet... for the very first time...
something else stirred.
It wasn't a whole person.
It was merely a single limb.
Gehrman’s right hand.
The hand that had remained idle throughout the entire conflict.
The limb encircled by those strange clock-like rings, their hands rotating without pause.
Even inside this paralyzed gray world...
the blue rings of time kept spinning, completely unaffected by the stasis.
Then...
Before Wesker’s horrified gaze—
The hands of the clock stopped for the first time.
Signaling the arrival of the end.
The moment they ceased their rotation...
A sound reached Wesker that chilled his very soul.
Laughter.
The laughter of Gehrman.
He had violated the taboo.
No...
He had utterly demolished the law-breaking power itself.
Gehrman lifted his head within the frozen gray expanse and stared directly into Wesker’s eyes.
"At long last...
you decided to reveal that cursed eye."
Gehrman grinned.
It was a terrifying expression...
the look of a predator that had successfully trapped its quarry.
Wesker attempted to strike... but realized he was the one now frozen, unable to twitch a muscle before he even realized what happened.
Innumerable rings, identical to those on Gehrman's hand, manifested around his body... and circled the King’s Eye itself.
The roles had flipped; he was the one imprisoned in time.
Not his enemy.
"Impossible!!! The King’s Eye is an absolute authority!! Only I and Demon King Agaroth should possess the right to move here—how are you doing this?!" Wesker screamed in a fit of fury as Gehrman drew near.
"You place far too much faith in your precious eye, Demon of the Fourth Rank," Gehrman remarked with eerie calm.
"Allow me to share something fascinating... a truth my master, Nameless, imparted to me eons ago... so far back I have lost track of the centuries."
Gehrman’s grin grew wider as the echoes of the past filled his mind.
"Once, I posed a vital question to my master Nameless.
I asked: What is the genuine flaw of the overwhelmingly mighty Top Ten Demons?
I desired to know what those eyes, concealed behind his mask, truly perceived.
Do you know his response that day?"
Gehrman erupted into loud laughter, thrusting his right hand toward Wesker’s chest.
"The very powers they inherited from Agaroth."
"That was his answer... a reply that left me standing there in a daze, unable to grasp the meaning at the time. Hah... the irony."
This was a rare sight—Gehrman laughing with such abandon, showing a side of his soul that was usually hidden.
"It required many, many years... but I finally grasped his meaning," Gehrman continued, his voice rising in triumph.
"And I can only marvel now—because my master Nameless viewed the world from a height that neither you nor I could ever reach!"
Wesker’s face contorted in agony as his King’s Eye was suppressed entirely, rendering him defenseless.
"What garbage are you spewing, you bastard?!" Wesker hissed.
Gehrman pushed forward without pausing.
"The boundary-breaking gifts Agaroth bestowed upon you are remarkably potent... truly among the most formidable weapons in existence.
However, you depend on them excessively. To the point that the very instant those powers fail to work as you predict..."
He stopped, his smile vanishing, replaced by a gaze as sharp as a blade.
"...you are defeated instantly."
"Even you, Wesker, never imagined a day would come where someone could obstruct your eye.
Perhaps you expected it from the Demon King... or from Nameless himself.
But never from a man like me."
Gehrman’s eyes turned into cold slits.
"Unluckily for you... I hold a similar authority."
"This is the Hand of the Ruler."
"It functions much like the King’s Eye.
Your eye rejects phenomena that endanger your life.
As for my gift... once triggered, I can negate a single chosen phenomenon during combat."
"But the price is that I cannot utilize my right hand for the entire fight."
"It is a lesser version of your King’s Eye."
Gehrman’s eyes narrowed further, a trace of dark amusement on his face.
"Before I pledged myself to master Nameless... before my death...
I stood against Agaroth himself when the demons sought to conquer Irithyll... my home."
"In that clash, I unleashed the Hand of the Ruler against Agaroth."
"Do you know how he replied?"
Once more, Gehrman laughed loudly... a stark contrast to his usual stoic demeanor.
"He reflected everything back at me using his King’s Eye!!
Can you believe such a thing?"
"In the end..." Gehrman said through his laughter,
"the one who reveals their ability first is the one who loses."
"That was the deciding factor of our duel."
"The one who provided the strategy to kill you...
The one who made me finally comprehend my master Nameless's words from all those years ago..."
"...was none other than your own sovereign—Agaroth himself!"
"Quite a cruel twist of fate, wouldn't you say?"
Between the echoes of Gehrman’s laughter...
and the depth of Wesker’s disbelief...
The truth became transparent.
The King’s Eye.
The Hand of the Ruler.
Two powers that mirrored one another perfectly.
And the one who acted first—would have their power turned against them by the other.
Long ago, the King’s Eye held by Agaroth overcame Gehrman’s Hand of the Ruler.
But this time...
The victory belonged to Gehrman.
Against Wesker, the second master of the King’s Eye.
Gehrman laughed...
and laughed...
and laughed...
Then—at last—he went silent.
"Yes... fate truly enjoys mocking us," Gehrman whispered, reaching out.
And in that heartbeat...
BOOOOOOM!!!
A thunderous roar of destruction shattered the air as time resumed its course.
Corrupted black blood sprayed everywhere as Gehrman crushed Wesker’s chest with a strike of impossible velocity.
"Even until the very end..." Gehrman breathed,
"...it mocks us."
As Wesker’s broken body plummeted from the heavens...
Gehrman remained standing, held up by his failing vessel...
proclaiming his triumph.