The Hero Returns

"Uwaaaah—!"

He roared and began cutting down every single person his eyes could see.

"Kkyaaaahk—!"

"T—that man, he—!"

"P—please, spare me!"

Their screams resounded everywhere, but he didn't listen.

He switched off his hearing and kept wielding his sword. He thought this was the most appropriate and correct thing to do whenever he sensed the corpse of his daughter in his arm.

Just like that, an entire village was wiped off the map. On the day he committed his first murder, he must have killed a few thousand.

Time passed, and...

Step, step—

Osiris walked up to Set. The latter raised his head and stared at his former friend.

The same thought popped up in Set's mind.

What about you? Just what have you been doing?

"Set, what is the meaning of—?!"

Set replied to the shocked Osiris, "No one helped me."

Only then did Osiris discover the lifeless body of a little girl in Set's arm.

Osiris was an intelligent man. That was why he managed to master all sorts of magic and sorcery. That was also why people treated him as a deity who protected them.

Was that why? Osiris quickly figured out just what had transpired in this place.

"You're also the same, Osiris."

On that day, Set had transformed into a complete villain.

A deity who protected his homeworld alongside Osiris as a hidden blade changed into the most heinous evil god after that fateful day.

Osiris was the one who had imprisoned Set inside a house, reasoning that a creature who attacked and killed every person he saw could not be allowed to roam free anymore.

* * *

The background changed back to the inside of the house.

Su-hyeun's dazed feeling didn't last long.

It hadn't been that long, either; the scenery displayed by the Dark World flipped past his eyes like stills from a movie. If he calculated all the time he spent here, it would be around two hours.

Su-hyeun finally regained his wits.

"Hah," a long groan left his lips.

His thoughts had never been this complicated and messed up in his entire life.

Now that he had reached this far, only one thing remained.

Su-hyeun's face reflected on the window had reverted to his own, not Set's.

Set was now in front of Su-hyeun's eyes. As if this was a melodramatic scene from a cheap movie, large teardrops were falling from Set's eyes as he stabbed into Osiris's back.

"Kuh..."

Osiris was stabbed right through his abdomen, his waist half severed now. He limply collapsed on the floor. Up until this moment, he managed to imprison Set for several hundreds of years, but now...

"Set..."

"Are you still going to forgive me after this?"

Set had murdered Osiris's family, and now, he even stabbed the latter on the back, too.

He had been waiting for this opportunity for a very long time.

He acted as if everything was fine with him. He laughed and conversed with Osiris. They had meals together and chatted about the matters of the mundane world.

One time, Osiris even brought along a little girl who resembled Set's daughter, letting the latter see her smiling face.

"You... Didn't you... forget... every... thing?"

"No, I only pretended to so that I could kill you and escape from here—so that I can kill everything."

Set's madness-filled eyes shed tears for the first time in years. Those tears were meant for Osiris, his longtime friend.

"That's why, my friend, do not try to stop me anymore. Harboring thoughts of your demise after all this time has greatly exhausted me," Set muttered before raising his sword once more. "This will be our final goodbye, my friend."

Splash—!

He hacked down on Osiris's figure.

Step, step—

Then, Set left the house.

Just like what Cheon Mu-jin had done, Set slaughtered every single person he could see. A world without Osiris had no one to stop Set's murderous rampage.

Yes, that was what had transpired, yet...

"How are you still alive?" Su-hyeun muttered, prompting Osiris to appear before him.

This version of the green-haired man had much sharper eyes, his handsome face making a sly but affable expression.

It was the real Osiris, not the one generated by the Dark World.

Su-hyeun asked, "Did you revive yourself after dying?"

"No, I never died," Osiris replied. He then generated a new chair and settled down on it, resting his chin on his hand after propping his arm on the armrest.

This Osiris felt like the polar opposite of the "Osiris" from the ancient past that Su-hyeun and Set knew. The face might be the same, but with the light in his eyes when he made that expression, he might as well be a completely different person.

Then again, that made sense.

Too much time had passed since those days. The duration of time Set had been away from Osiris was much, much longer than the duration of time they've known each other.

"What happened, then?"

"What you killed wasn't the real me."

"I see. It makes sense; you wouldn't have died that easily by my hands."

For hundreds of years, Set put on an act and bid his time. He thought he succeeded in killing Osiris.

But after ridding himself of the madness and thinking about it calmly, he realized that Osiris was not a weakling who would die that easily.

"Did you fake your death?"

"That's right."

"In that case, why didn't you try to stop me?"

When Su-hyeun asked that, Osiris's lips distorted into a grin, "Finally. You called yourself 'me' just now."

"..."

"It's now ancient history. Still, I should answer you regardless. It was because I, too, agreed with your opinion."

"My opinion, you say?"

"Yes. A world like this? It's better to destroy it. No, wait—it must be destroyed, for sure."

Madness burned within Osiris's eyes.

Su-hyeun had seen those eyes before—only a few moments ago.

"Exactly the same as Set's eyes," he thought.

The two of them, who used to be friends in the ancient past, met again today, but they still had different eyes from each other.

Su-hyeun had the eyes that the Osiris from the ancient times used to have, while the Osiris of now had Set's eyes from the past.

"What I'm trying to do now is what you tried to achieve in the past. This universe needs to be cleansed, overturned at least once. A universe that began on the wrong foot has no hope or future left."

"Hah..."

What Osiris said felt all too familiar to Su-hyeun. That was because, in his first life, he used to say the same thing over and over again as Set.

Just what made Osiris change this much?

Could it be that Set's words managed to change his heart? If that was not it, maybe something else happened to him? Could it be an event Su-hyeun wasn't aware of?

His thoughts became even more muddled now.

Su-hyeun held his aching head in one hand, but seeing this, Osiris began chuckling once more, "You've finally returned, my friend."

"What do you mean?"

"Your eyes right now. It's very similar to the eyes of my old friend, you see. Your face is different, but there's no mistaking it; you're similar."

Shu-wuwuwu...

The surrounding scenery began changing once more. The space generated by the Dark World was dissipating.

The outside world was gradually revealing itself. The Dark World came undone completely, and the real Osiris stood before him, all alone. "Don't worry. I'll give you plenty of time to ponder this. Which side do you really belong to? Take your time and think about it."

Shu-su-su-su...

Then, even Osiris vanished from the spot along with his Dark World.

Su-hyeun dazedly scanned his surroundings.

All those countless Predators had vanished without a trace, just like Osiris.

It was the same story for the passageways in the air connected to one thousand hells, too. Those passageways were gone, and the path toward Yggdrasil's roots was wide open now.

"—ro! Little bro!"

Sun Wukong's voice registered in Su-hyeun's brain a beat later.

Su-hyeun was jolted awake, and he turned his head. He discovered Sun Wukong gripping his shoulder, a worried expression on the latter's face. Now that was an uncommon expression.

"Ow..."

Squeeze—!

Su-hyeun frowned a little at the hand gripping his shoulder. "That hurts, Third Brother."

"You alright?"

"Sorry?"

What did he mean by that?

Su-hyeun wasn't hurt anywhere. Never mind a fatal injury, but he didn't even have a single scratch on him.

That made sense since Su-hyeun didn't fight Osiris just then.

No doubt the battle against him would've been very challenging, with the odds of defeat being far greater than the odds of victory. Even then, Osiris didn't even touch a single hair on Su-hyeun.

That was why Su-hyeun stared at Sun Wukong, his expression saying, "Why are you asking me that?"

But what worried Sun Wukong wasn't Su-hyeun's health. "Your expression, dude. You are super scary right now."

"My expression?"

Crackle, crack—

While asking back, Su-hyeun quickly generated a mirror made out of ice.

He then looked at the reflection of his face. The face seemed pretty much the same as the usual Kim Su-hyeun's, but Set's face had overlapped it somehow.

He gasped in shock. Only then did his face revert to normal.

He began to think, "My expression, it's..."

It was as Sun Wukong said. Those eyes looked truly terrifying and savage. Set's expression filled with hatred of the world and murderous urges covered Su-hyeun's face like some mask.

"You sure you're alright?"

Sun Wukong's concerns were well-founded.

The expression Su-hyeun was making only a moment ago was so bad that the same person couldn't have made it. He did regain his wits immediately, but the real issue here was that he displayed such a response in the first place, albeit only briefly.

What was even more worrisome was that he made that face after Osiris had already left the scene.

Sun Wukong had no idea what happened to Su-hyeun inside the Dark World.

"I'm alright now, Third Brother. Besides all that, did all of them retreat?"

"Yeah. They just went back. That punk, Osiris, must've given them the order," said Sun Wukong.

Thor walked up to the duo and belatedly added his two cents, "I don't know what he's scheming right now, but our priority is still with securing Yggdrasil's roots. We do not know if he did all this just to start yet another nefarious scheme when we reach the roots."

Sun Wukong nodded at Thor's opinion, but Su-hyeun thought differently.

All of this was to start another nefarious scheme?

"Of course not," Su-hyeun thought.

These Predators had no real reason to scheme behind the trio's backs. At least, when Osiris was still their leader, that is.

Not only the changes to the battlefield's locations wouldn't make any difference whatsoever, but Su-hyeun already knew the reason for their retreat.

"He said he'll give me enough time to ponder, didn't he?"

"Time to ponder"—Su-hyeun felt that he could figure out the real meaning behind those words.

In all honesty, Su-hyeun couldn't readily choose which side he was on right now. He did live many lives similar to Cheon Mu-jin or Jang Chun, the Crimson Hill Staff, who hated and resented the world. However, at the same time, he believed that their lives didn't affect his current life all much.

But now, his beliefs were being distorted.

"Little bro," Sun Wukong spoke up, breaking Su-hyeun out of his thoughts as he was about to get lost in them once more.

Su-hyeun shook his head, "For now, let's just go and take a look first."

Yes, thinking can come later.

Su-hyeun decided to deal with why he came here in the first place for the time being. He thought they should stick to the original plan and secure Yggdrasil's roots with utmost priority.

* * *

When they jumped down a tall cliff, a truly mysterious scene greeted them.

No, wait—rather than "mysterious," it was far closer to being dream-like instead. As if the ground and the sky had been flipped around, another sky existed below the foot of the cliff.

"Wow," Sun Wukong let out a quiet little gasp at this scene.

As for the "roots," they weren't buried in the ground but were jutting up to the air. They looked a lot different from the tree roots Su-hyeun and Sun Wukong were familiar with.

"This is this the root?"

"Yes, one of the roots, to be precise," said Thor.

There was a brown-colored "tree" in front of them.

This "root" looked more like a wooden pillar rising high into the heavens. It must have been around the same size as the trunk of the massive World Tree Su-hyeun saw not too long ago.

But to think that this was merely one of the roots...

Thor continued, "Even this is just a small part of the root, but the only place directly connected to Yggdrasil's roots is right here, in the depth of Asgard."

"Does that mean the Predators were planning to destroy Yggdrasil's roots from here?"

"Yes. All roots are connected as one, after all. This root is connected to the trunk of Yggdrasil, which in turn, is connected to various worlds. Just like how a tree cannot survive without its roots, Yggdrasil will collapse if its roots are eliminated."

According to Thor, something truly terrible almost happened today.

The ends of Yggdrasil's root were substantially charred by now. It was unknown how it had evolved, but it seemed to have the ability to put out the fire all by itself. Still, damage on that scale caused many fissures and rifts to appear in various worlds.

Su-hyeun thought to himself, "Just eliminating one root might cause half of the worlds to be destroyed."

Osiris's plan almost succeeded. What a relief it was that he chose to retreat.

"A relief, huh?" Su-hyeun could only smile bitterly.

For some reason, this didn't entirely feel good to him. Just as he felt relieved, he also felt rueful.

Still, the sense of relief was greater, so that was good, wasn't it?

That was what he thought as he tried to calm his tangled-up mind, his eyes taking on the sight of Yggdrasil's root. But then...

Writhe—

Yggdrasil's root suddenly moved.