Trash of the Count's Family Vol 2. Chapter 431: One Man, Two Roles, and Chaos in the Demon World (6)

The Absolute God.

There were a few people who had told him about it.

They had seen the Absolute God, and they had spoken of it.

“The world held by the king’s successor was horrifying. Not a single part of it was beautiful. It was terrifying.”

That was when he had gone to the Central Plains to deal with the Blue Blood hunter family and the Blood Cult.

There, he had met old man Baek.

Saying he possessed eyes that could see essence, the old man had said he had seen a child carrying a world inside himself.

The king’s successor.

The being the hunter families served, and the child who would become the Absolute God.

Old man Baek had said that world was horrifying.

“There was a child there.”

And Kang Geunmok, the chief secretary, had once spoken of what he had seen of the Absolute God.

The closest aide to Honorary Chairman Han Taeksoo of Transparent Co., the head and leader of the Transparent Blood family.

He had seen the Absolute God when he was young.

“That child said he was hungry.”

“When that child took off his hood, that, that monster—he c-caught people and ate them.”

To be exact, he had said it devoured human souls.

“All seven pits were contained within that child’s shadow. There were many souls inside those pits as well. To be honest, I couldn’t even properly grasp how many.”

“I just... simply felt it. Each and every one of those pits felt like a world. Yes. Each one felt like its own world.”

The seven emotions of humanity.

Joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hatred, desire.

Worlds where only one emotion existed.

That was why they were worlds overflowing with despair.

“That child held those seven worlds in his shadow and kept them beneath his feet.”

Kang Geunmok had spoken of the Absolute God, that child who kept seven worlds beneath his feet.

As if he were describing something truly dreadful and terrifying.

“Hmm.”

And now Choi Jung Gun, newly awakened from his coma, asked Cale:

“Do you think the Absolute God—that child—is ‘evil’?”

There was only one answer Cale could give.

“I don’t know.”

He truly did not know.

“I’ve never actually seen him.”

The Absolute God. Wouldn’t he have to see that child first before he could judge what kind of being it was?

“Of course, that bastard has committed plenty of evil acts.”

Even from what Kang Geunmok had described, that thing had devoured human souls and imprisoned them in worlds like hell, doing it without the slightest hesitation and treating it as nothing more than a simple “meal time.”

Just hearing that made it sound like a dreadful evil.

“But I don’t know whether it was by his own will or someone else’s, whether he knew what he was doing or didn’t, or whether he was simply raised to think that was natural.”

Maybe, to him, it really was just mealtime.

If the hunters had taught him that, then maybe that was all it was.

That was why Cale could only say this:

“I don’t know what kind of evil I should judge him to be.”

He had done things, so Cale could not call him good, nor could he call him neutral.

Still, to know what kind of evil he was, wouldn’t he have to meet that bastard first—the one called the Absolute God, the king’s successor?

“......”

Choi Jung Gun listened quietly to Cale’s answer, then fell silent for a moment.

Then he opened his mouth.

“The king’s successor has no emotions.”

“What?”

Cale asked before he could stop himself.

Instead of reacting to that, Choi Jung Gun continued.

“He must have had them originally. But they disappeared.”

The monster that had devoured humanity’s seven emotions had no emotions.

No, they had disappeared.

“All that’s left is instinct. And especially appetite. That seems to have remained the strongest.”

Appetite.

At that word, the phrase meal time suddenly came to Cale’s mind.

“Those emotions are the seven emo—”

“I know.”

“You do?”

The moment Cale acted like he already knew, Choi Jung Gun faltered.

“Then hurry up and talk.”

But Cale pressed him instead.

“I need to hear this and go save Choi Jung Soo and Sui Khan. Choi Han is already outside waiting to go save Choi Jung Soo too.”

Ah. Uh.

With a blank expression, Choi Jung Gun nodded at Cale’s words.

Because he was right.

But I just woke up?

He was thirsty too.

“Here. Water.”

Cale handed him water at just the right moment.

Choi Jung Gun pushed himself up and drank.

“Mm.”

In the middle of doing so, he flinched when he saw one of his severed arms missing, but soon moved the other arm as if it were nothing.

“Your condition definitely looks good.”

After confirming that moving and drinking seemed to put no strain on him at all, Cale said:

“So talk. Just the key points.”

“Uh, mm. Right.”

The moment he finished drinking, Choi Jung Gun had to start talking again.

“Right. Mm. To become a vessel of a god, you have to contain one world—”

“I know.”

“Huh?”

“I said I know.”

“Uh, uh. Right. You really are smart.”

“......”

“Mm. You were always smart.”

Ahem.

Choi Jung Gun cleared his throat and continued.

“Joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hatred, desire. Even if you create a world from just one of those, you can become a vessel of a god.”

Something flashed in Cale’s eyes.

Choi Jung Gun went on.

“But that child contained seven worlds. That’s beyond what a human can endure.”

“So that’s why he lost his emotions?”

“Right. Probably because if you’re going to live while treading on seven hells, you have to have no emotions at all.”

Then he added:

“I don’t know how that child lost his emotions, or how he created those seven worlds—those seven hells.”

His gaze sank deep.

“But that child can never become a god.”

Then he added:

“Because he acts on instinct, without emotion.”

And then he continued.

“And because of that, he might become the most perfect god of all.”

A tangle of anguish and emotion passed across his face.

But the situation was nowhere near peaceful enough for Cale to match his reaction and think it through with him.

So Cale spat out the core of what he had understood.

“The Absolute God. Sounds like perfect puppet material.”

Choi Jung Gun looked at Cale.

Then—

“As expected, you’re smart.”

He gave him a big thumbs-up.

Cale’s face twisted viciously.

At that moment, Choi Jung Gun looked so absent-minded in the middle of a serious situation that it reminded Cale of the time Choi Jung Soo had done the same thing.

Cale reacted before he could stop himself.

“Cut out the useless stuff and hurry up.”

“Uh, okay, okay!”

And Choi Jung Gun really was obedient.

Unlike Choi Jung Soo, he didn’t keep fooling around, and like Choi Han, he quietly followed Cale’s instructions.

“If someone carrying worlds made from all seven emotions became a god, that would be an unbelievably powerful god. In that sense, the name Absolute God isn’t an exaggeration.”

A being carrying no less than seven hells.

“And if there’s even a world that exists for that god?”

New World—a world that existed solely for the Absolute God.

“The hunters probably want to use that Absolute God at the forefront to create a new divine realm, a new order for all dimensions. And they want to become gods themselves.”

Choi Jung Gun stared straight at Cale after saying that much, then tossed out:

“That’s what I thought.”

Mm.

Cale’s expression subtly shifted.

“Because I saw the White Star project, and because I saw how they’d been targeting the Single-Borns all this time.”

Looking at the process and direction of everything the hunter group had done up to now, there was no other conclusion to reach.

“But not all of them are like that.”

Most of the hunters had gone along with that flow.

“But there are people in there with different agendas.”

A twisted smile rose on Choi Jung Gun’s lips.

“I got hit by corruption of chaos, by the saint. But I’m not so weak that I couldn’t even escape the saint.”

“The saint is dead.”

“Uh, ah? R-really?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

Choi Jung Gun had started admiring that, but the sticky weight of Cale’s gaze made him stop and continue in a hurry.

“Anyway! The one who pushed me to the point of nearly losing consciousness was a Five Colored Blood hunter.”

The Five Colored Blood family.

They were Wanderers, and all were presumed to possess a power called individuality.

“The Five Colored Blood family has something called the Third Emperor—three beings. And the one who got me was the third of them.”

That was information Cale needed.

“Is he strong?”

“Yeah. Honestly, I couldn’t even properly counterattack. He’s really strong. God-level.”

Choi Jung Gun had been beaten without even managing a proper counterattack?

Cale’s expression hardened at that.

“And the reason I ended up fighting him was because I found out what he was trying to do while I was tracking him. That’s the part I’m getting to now.”

Choi Jung Gun paused for a moment, then slowly opened his mouth.

His face was full of tension.

“Transcendent.”

It was the word Choi Jung Gun had first mentioned earlier.

“Five Colored Blood is a group that dreams of becoming Transcendents.”

Cale squeezed his eyes shut.

He saw darkness.

For some reason, it felt like the word rest was moving farther and farther away.

Ha.

This was really pissing him off.

What new thing did these bastards want to become now?

No, why did they keep shoving some new thing into the picture and creating more problems?

This was seriously annoying.

“What exactly is a Transcendent?”

Cale did not bother hiding his irritation.

“No, why don’t they just become gods? Why do they want that too?”

Ah, just become gods already, go up to the divine realm, and let the gods beat each other to death.

Couldn’t they leave the rest of them alone for once?

That thought surged up inside Cale too.

He wanted to flip the whole damned thing over.

—Want me to overturn it?

At the Water that Devours the Sky’s utterly serious voice, Cale came back to himself.

—Hahaha! Shall we dominate the gods now too?

The dominating aura’s voice was packed with sincere enthusiasm.

At that, Cale calmed down, and his irritation faded.

Ancient Powers.

These lunatics really were insane.

Don’t get dragged along by them.

Cale said calmly to Choi Jung Gun:

“Take your time.”

With a smile.

“Uh, uh! I’ll just say the key points!”

And Choi Jung Gun immediately started spilling words.

He really did just pour them out.

“A Transcendent is, literally, a being that has transcended everything. Not a god, but a being equal to a god, one that isn’t bound by the constraints of any name!”

Huh?

When Cale tilted his head, Choi Jung Gun explained even faster.

“For a god, what kind of god it is matters a lot. For example, the God of Death shows immense power when it comes to death, but in other fields he’s limited to a certain degree. Because gods of those other fields exist! So whether you realize it or not, gods have a lot of constraints.”

Gods were not absolute.

“But a Transcendent isn’t pushed around by those constraints, so you can think of one as freer than a god! It may even be a being that gods themselves can’t rival! Of course, the freer a Transcendent is compared to a god, the harder it is to reach that point. And almost nobody even knows about this.”

In truth, Choi Jung Gun himself had only learned about the concept of a Transcendent this time. Before that, he had not even known such a thing existed.

“But Five Colored Blood seems to know the method of becoming one. And it looks like they’re trying to create the Absolute God right now as a means of reaching it.”

The moment Choi Jung Gun learned what a Transcendent was, he ran.

But he was caught.

“I figured that out. That’s why the third one, the Third Emperor, tried to kill me. Though if the saint hadn’t come to see the Third Emperor on some other business, that is.”

At the time, the Third Emperor had tried to kill Choi Jung Gun completely, but failed.

The reason was that the saint had come to see him on separate business.

And he had brought people from the Transparent Blood family with him.

“Five Colored Blood is keeping this scheme secret even from the other families. That’s probably why they were so desperate to erase me.”

The Third Emperor had told the saint that Choi Jung Gun was merely a lackey of the divine realm and needed to be eliminated, and the saint had simply said he would finish the job himself.

“The Third Emperor is probably looking for me right now.”

If Aurora had not saved him and fled, if Cale’s group had not later found him, Choi Jung Gun would have been given a killing blow by the Third Emperor and the Wanderers after the saint and the Transparent Blood group were shaken off.

“Still, I’m lucky.”

Choi Jung Gun smiled.

He had survived, even though he had lost one arm.

“And I was able to pass on the information I have.”

There was still more detailed information about the Five Colored Blood family that he had yet to share.

Even just handing over that much would help Cale’s group and their allies in the fights ahead.

“You heard that the first Wanderer is the head of Five Colored Blood, right? I suspect he’s the one trying to become a Transcendent.”

Choi Jung Gun stopped mid-sentence.

“Mm.”

Because Cale’s face had gone rigid.

“What’s wrong?”

At Choi Jung Gun’s question, Cale scratched the back of his head and muttered:

“There’s a chance the Third Emperor might be in the Demon World.”

“Huh?”

“This is the Demon World.”

“Huh?”

Come to think of it, Choi Jung Gun didn’t even know where he was.

“A descendant of the previous Demon King saved you. At the time, he left writing in the Demon World language.”

“Huh?”

“He said to come find the Great Road of Night.”

“Huh?”

“Ah. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to clash with the Third Emperor before long.”

“Huh?”

Whether Choi Jung Gun kept making that blank noise or not, Cale was thinking.

It might actually have worked out well that we left the original place and came here.

Because it would now be much harder for the Third Emperor to find the mediator group.

“Mm.”

Cale organized his thoughts.

Only the parts that mattered for now.

“So right now, the Third Emperor, the leadership of the Order of the God of Chaos, us, and the Demon King’s faction are all in the Demon World?”

“Huh?”

Ignoring Choi Jung Gun’s reflexive question, Cale reached his own conclusion.

“Right. The board’s already been set.”

Cale nodded and continued:

“And the fact that the Five Colored Blood family is aiming for Transcendents—that means the Demon King’s side and the Order of the God of Chaos don’t know, and even their ally, the Transparent Blood family, doesn’t know either?”

“Huh? Uh, uh.”

Grin.

The ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ corner of Cale’s mouth rose.

“Wow. Transparent Blood is really going to feel betrayed if they find that out.”

These bastards really were stabbing each other in the back nonstop.

And in the middle of all that, Cale fully intended to use the power of information properly.

“I need to drive every last one of them insane.”

The corner of Cale’s mouth showed no sign of going back down.

—You’re under a lot of stress.

He ignored the Ancient Tree.

*****

Click.

When Choi Han came out after finishing his conversation with Choi Jung Gun, Cale said to him:

“Go with the Heavenly Demon and head for Choi Jung Soo.”

“Yes.”

“I—”

Cale paused for a moment.

Excluding Eruhaben, Ron, and Beacrox, who would arrive later, the companions left with Cale now were—

“We’re going with the human!”

Meeeow!

Meow.

The average ten-year-olds.

And—

“Hehe.”

Clopeh Sekka, who had been grinning to himself this whole time.

Team Leader Lee Soo Hyuk, Sui Khan.

When it came to going to meet him, Cale suddenly felt like going alone.