Chapter 349:
Chapter 349:
Chapter 349:
When Kwon Jia opened her eyes, she realized that she had returned to her training days and was shocked.
She had clearly died after surviving on the doomed earth and passing the 100th trial, swept away by an unstoppable calamity.
She should have died, but she had gone back to the past.
It was the start of her second life, which she had never expected, but Kwon Jia calmly assessed the situation. She had survived the apocalypse and shed her weak past self. She could change things now.
A new life. A new opportunity.
Kwon Jia vowed not to live like before.
She would live for herself, and not be pushed around like a fool.
‘That man told me to try it. Yeah. I wondered why he knew everything and was so strong, but it was because he was a returnee.’
Now that power had passed to her.
‘I won’t fail like you did.’Kwon Jia didn’t want to waste her chance.
She immediately made a name for herself. In her first life, she couldn’t even keep up with the basics of the training center, but now it was different.
Everything was easy. With her memories, knowledge, and experience from before the return, she graduated from the training center with an overwhelming gap as the top student.
After that, countless clans and managements sent her love calls.
Kwon Jia joined the one with the best vision. There, she received support and swept up all kinds of fantasy bodies and fates in the Mental Realm.
She earned a fortune that others couldn’t touch and rode on fame and reputation.
Everything was too easy. She realized for the first time how easy it was to achieve success, which she had longed for in the past.
Then five years passed.
And disaster struck the earth.
‘It’s the same as before. Has the future not changed?’
She lost everything she had in one night.
No, not everything. The power she had accumulated over the past five years. She used it to lead the survivors and form a team to fight against the apocalypse.
But the trials of the apocalypse were hard to overcome even with knowledge.
Someone died every time she made a mistake. She almost died several times too. Unlike her past life where she struggled with all her might, maybe she was a bit careless in her second life.
She died at the 65th trial.
‘I barely got this opportunity, and I died like this.’
Kwon Jia had no choice but to close her eyes with resentment.
Then she opened her eyes again.
‘Huh?’
Her third life began.
‘Again?’
Another chance. Kwon Jia decided to accept it well.
In her third life, she worked harder than before. She suppressed her complacency of knowing everything and became stronger with determination not to be pushed around like before.
In her third life, she became much stronger and more famous than in her second life. But Kwon Jia didn’t settle for that. She did her best to survive the destruction that would happen in five years.
She wondered if she had ever worked so hard in her life.
After preparing for five years, she faced the apocalypse again and died at the 80th trial.
She thought she had prepared thoroughly, but she missed some small things that tripped her up. She realized for the first time how much a small thing could come back as a big boomerang later.
She tried hard. But she failed in the end.
Kwon Jia reached the end of her life cycle and started her fourth life.
‘Again…?’
Kwon Jia realized then that there was no end to this return cycle that she inherited.
She prepared for five years again. This time, she didn’t miss any small things and vowed to prepare thoroughly.
She cut off anyone who showed signs of greeting or interfering with her.
For five years, she worked hard on the groundwork. She eliminated those who would become dangerous in the apocalypse and recruited those who would help her.
Then the apocalypse came. She passed each trial one by one.
She killed anyone who interfered with her mercilessly. She didn’t need sympathy or compassion for them. She killed them if they interfered, and if they seemed to bother her later, she killed them too.
She killed and killed and killed again.
She killed more than ten times as many people as she saved. People pointed fingers at her for having no blood or tears, but she didn’t care. It was wrong to expect humanity in this world anyway.
That’s how Kwon Jia easily passed the 90th trial, or so she thought.
Thud.
‘Why? Why did you do this?’
She died from her colleague’s betrayal.
She was truly shocked. The colleague who had been with her in the second and third rounds had pointed a knife at her in the fourth round.
What’s more, the emotion in his eyes when he killed her was nothing but hatred for her.
That’s how she met the end of the fourth round.
And she started the fifth round, which she didn’t want.
‘Yeah. I trusted people too much. Trusting someone was such a foolish thing to do.’
She decided to do everything on her own and not move with anyone in the fifth round.
She monopolized everything and moved on.
She killed anyone who got in her way. She also killed those who tried to cling to her. She ignored them when they pointed fingers at her or begged for her help.
She didn’t need any colleagues anymore. She was confident that she could overcome all the difficulties with the experience and information she had accumulated through the rounds.
That’s how she passed the ninetieth trial without anyone’s help.
This was it. This was what she wanted. If she kept going like this, she could challenge the hundredth trial again.
But as soon as she thought that, she realized that there were people around her who surrounded her.
The leader of the group pointed a knife at Kwon Jia and shouted.
‘You’ve been too greedy until now.’
The survivors. Among them were some who were called named characters.
They didn’t like that Kwon Jia did everything by herself. They thought that no one could stop her if she became stronger. She was a psychopath who killed people without hesitation, and there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t kill them if she became stronger.
So they teamed up with like-minded people and set a trap to kill her.
Kwon Jia fought against the survivors with anger. Her power, which had monopolized most of the fate, was formidable. But there were too many of them.
They also fought hard to kill Kwon Jia. It was obvious that they would be slaughtered by her if they were pushed back here. So they had to kill her before they died.
That’s how a fierce battle continued for several days under the sky where the Divine Spirits watched.
There were thousands of people fighting against her. Among them were some who were weaker than Kwon Jia but still outstanding enough to be called strong.
In the end, Kwon Jia lost.
‘Die! You monster!’
The remaining survivors cursed at Kwon Jia and killed her.
Kwon Jia met the end of the fifth round.
And the sixth round began.
Kwon Jia, who started the sixth round, decided to take a different approach this time. She realized that she had posed a threat to others by eliminating too many enemies. She now killed only as much as necessary, and at a level where she could claim legitimacy.
She saved many people this time. She tried her best not to become a monster.
She didn’t compromise on becoming stronger, but she didn’t oppress people mercilessly like before either.
She was called a guide. She joined forces with people and reached the ninety-eighth trial this time.
But, the evil ninety-ninth.
She failed to defeat the four horsemen of the apocalypse and died.
Kwon Jia, who opened her eyes again, realized it when she started her seventh life by force.
‘This regression ability is not an opportunity.’
It was a curse.
A terrible curse that she could never escape from even if she died over and over again.
And Kwon Jia understood why the man who gave her this power had suffered so much.
For him, it might have been their first meeting, but he had repeated the same life as hers many times.
How many lives did he repeat?
A hundred? No, it could have been more than a thousand. But he failed even then, and he gave up everything in the end. Kwon Jia was also afraid that she might become like him.
‘Don’t make me laugh!’
She didn’t want to be like that. She couldn’t repeat the same life for a lifetime, bound by the chains of life. If this wasn’t enough, she just had to work harder. She clenched her teeth and did her best to live.
Kwon Jia made a new plan. More thoroughly, more surely.
Let’s see the end of the trial this time.
She vowed that.
She passed ten rounds. Kwon Jia hadn’t lost her motivation yet. She somehow managed to reach the ninetieth trial of the apocalypse, but that was her limit.
She passed a hundred rounds. Her success rate went downhill after ten rounds. It was hard to get past the sixtieth round. She was mentally exhausted. And then she faced a fact.
Her memory was the problem. The memory and knowledge she had accumulated by repeating the past had brought more disaster to the world by intertwining with the singularity of the mixed world.
Kwon Jia eventually sealed her memory from the first to the tenth round. The memory and knowledge of that time were now dangerous time bombs that held her back. She decided to get rid of the core memory to prevent the danger that would come later.
She passed two hundred rounds.
She lived like a cripple. Two hundred deaths. And two hundred lives that followed. Nothing worked out and her mind was worn out, and she became something that couldn’t be called a normal human being.
She passed three hundred rounds.
Kwon Jia awakened her instinct to the extreme in her fading mind. Ironically, at the end of repeating her life, she returned to her self in the first round, a very distant past.
She was weak and caring, and had a strong sense of altruism.
But, the regression trait she had prevented her from going back to the past completely. That’s how Kwon Jia became a strange regressee who was blunt and rational, but also cared more about others than herself.
She passed four hundred rounds. Five hundred rounds. Six hundred rounds.
‘How long do I have to repeat this meaningless life?’
She couldn’t even endure five years until the apocalypse. Nothing worked out no matter what she tried. She had no motivation, and just lived on instinct.
The world didn’t change. No matter what she did, the world always flowed in a fixed way.
She used to try to prevent the flow from changing by eliminating many dangers in advance.
But now she just laughed bitterly at the world that didn’t change even if she tried to change it.
Ah, I see. That man, he had lived through this pain all along.
At first, she scoffed at the man who gave up even with this ability. But Kwon Jia felt how short-sighted she was. Rather, the man who passed the hundredth trial at the end was much more amazing than she was now.
She wanted to die. The power she gained to survive ironically injected the horror of life into the depths of her soul. Kwon Jia wished she could just close her eyes and rest.
But she couldn’t die. She had to die, but she lived.
Then she should give up this power, but she didn’t know how.
Soon, hatred for the man surged in her. Why did he pass this thing on to me? Why do I have to suffer like this?
It was useless to cry out like that. She had experienced this lament hundreds of times already. She had no energy to be angry anymore. Nothing would change the future, and the outcome would be the same.
Her tears had dried up long ago.
Kwon Jia finished the graduation ceremony at the training center and walked with a limp.
The world had lost its color. In that world, Kwon Jia was a living doll who couldn’t die, only breathing.
Someone, please end this hell.
“Excuse me!”
Then someone called her. There was never anyone who spoke to her as she walked this road.
No. There was, but she might have erased them from her mind because they weren’t worth remembering.
She stared at the man who stopped her with a heavy gaze.
“Hello? Nice to meet you. My name is Kang Yu-hyun. What’s your name…?”
“Get lost.”
That was the first encounter that changed her life.
***
Kwon Jia opened her eyes.
She looked around with a nervous gaze, wondering if another episode had started.
The first thing she saw was the throne that bound her body. She was at the top of a huge altar. Far below the altar, Yu-hyun was fighting the knight of the apocalypse.
‘What the hell happened? I was fighting Unleashed…’
Her memory after that was vague, as if it had been cut off.
As she pieced together the fragments of memory that came to her mind, she realized what was going on.
Everything that was happening around her was all because of her.
Everything that spread across the four corners of the earth were the products of disaster that sprang from her nightmare.
She sealed her own memory and tried to stop it, but she failed in the end.
‘Again… Is it? Did I fail again?’
Throb.
Her chest hurt. She felt a pain as if her heart was being squeezed.
The emotions she thought she had given up came back to life and tormented her endlessly.
She thought she had run out of tears by now.
It was all because of Yu-hyun.
“Yu-hyun.”
She called his name with a trembling voice, and Yu-hyun’s eyes turned to her as he faced the knight.
“Jia!”
“Me…”
Kwon Jia looked at Yu-hyun with tearful eyes.
“Please… kill me.”
“…”
She didn’t want to feel this pain anymore. She wished she hadn’t known from the start, then it wouldn’t have been like this.
She knew the joy of having someone precious, so she thought of the sorrow of losing them.
She knew the expectation of success, so she thought of the despair of failure.
Rather.
Rather than that.
If only she didn’t know.
If only she lived like before, like a soulless doll.
It wouldn’t have been so painful and miserable.
“I don’t want to.”
But Yu-hyun’s answer was too harsh.
“I won’t kill you, Jia. And I won’t die here either.”
“You…”
Kwon Jia couldn’t finish her sentence.
You’re not giving up even in this situation, are you?
His strength, his dazzling appearance, something she had never seen before.
Kwon Jia felt an emotion rising from somewhere in her heart and shed tears.
“Watch. Our story is not over yet.”
Facing the transcendent death,
Yu-hyun raised his weapon.