socalfunplaces Page 195
Page 195
At first, the body could be restored, but as time went on, the body, which was originally able to heal itself at high speed, became increasingly uncontrollable.
The body's self-healing ability began to spiral out of control, and various problems arose when the body parts regenerated. Sometimes, extra brains would grow, sometimes the flesh would proliferate uncontrollably, and sometimes the bones would bend in strange directions...
Moreover, as the core was increasingly eroded, the pain that penetrated deep into her soul drove [Haga Mayumi] to the brink of madness.
She wasn't someone who couldn't endure pain, but after being corrupted, her mental protection lost its effectiveness, and the feeling of her soul being gradually eroded was more unbearable for her than simple pain.
Those things more important than her life... slowly melted and dripped from her, and she couldn't hold them back.
She could hardly remember who she was, why she insisted on living, whose flesh and blood were these extra parts of her body that didn't belong to her, and why they kept talking in her head... She simply kept moving, resisting the heavy sleepiness that was dragging her into the abyss.
She had long since given up on her body's self-healing ability. In her delirious state, she placed the remains of someone important into the festering parts of her body, treating herself as a mobile morgue, as if this would preserve old memories.
【Haga Mayumi】 thought she would continue wandering aimlessly like this, entangled with countless illusions, until the last piece of flesh fell off her body and she could no longer move forward.
But it seems she's about to disappear.
Her body was out of control.
Text: 315. A Living Graveyard
Due to their different personal experiences, the Calamity True Bow was unaware that the core of the Haga True Bow had changed its form.
After Yuga Mayumi transformed into a dragon, her core underwent a transformation, changing from a crystal fixed inside her brain to a form of gold sand, thus achieving 100% defense against physical damage.
Moreover, after transforming into a sand-like form, Mayumi Haga's control over her core also increased significantly.
Unlike before when she couldn't control the movement of her core, she can now even actively disperse her core and then reassemble it behind the enemy.
The Calamity Bow suffered from this very problem.
She thought that Mayumi Haga's core was still located in her brain. In reality, the tiny core fragments had already entered her brain through her mouth and nose, beginning to cut off her core's control over her body and taking over her body.
After all, they are counterparts from different parallel worlds. Mayumi of Calamity is certain that she can block the other's self-healing and regeneration, while Mayumi of Haga can easily take over her body.
They appear to be two completely different people, but in reality, they are the same person who have embarked on different paths. Therefore, their core is the ability to control each other's bodies as if they were controlling their own.
In terms of core growth potential, Mayumi Haga wins.
She transferred most of her core into the other's body, and used the remaining part to barely maintain her body and fight the other. As her brain slowly recovered, she felt an unprecedented sense of exhilaration.
Mayumi Haga is a rather serious person who rarely indulges in pleasure. However, in the process of battling and winning against herself, the damage and recovery of her brain brings her a completely different and irresistible sense of exhilaration.
She was unaware that a smile was on her face, but her excitement made her feel like a stranger to herself.
After gaining control of the Calamity Bow, her vision split into two. In the other's line of sight, she saw herself, her face covered in blood, her smile utterly ferocious.
Despite her seemingly mad expression, Mayumi Haga was quite calm inside.
She doesn't enjoy fighting, nor does she derive pleasure from such pain. She simply keeps in mind the lesson that she loses control of her facial expressions and her body muscles in such situations, and then remains vigilant the next time she encounters a similar situation.
In reality, it's understandable that someone as weak as her would make a fool of herself in battle.
She could accept that even with her best efforts, she couldn't win, but she couldn't accept the exhausted and lifeless state of the "self" before her...
Mayumi Haga loathed herself; she disliked none of her versions of herself.
This can be seen from her behavior and conduct. She always feels a strong sense of unworthiness towards her current life and the care she receives from others, yet she is not very willing to change her mindset from this situation.
Arrogant yet insecure—these conflicting words don't seem out of place in Mayumi Haga's character.
Because of this personality, if she encounters someone who seems worse than herself, she will be overwhelmed by intense shame and self-loathing, and uncontrollably develop fear, afraid that she will fall into an even worse state of life.
Therefore, she exhibited strong aggression towards her parallel world self.
In this battle with herself, she gained the upper hand by leveraging the growth she had achieved in this world.
With her hand controlling the Calamity Bow raised, she pointed the blood-stained blade at her eyes and brought it down without hesitation.
But as it fell, the blade deflected slightly, failing to touch the more vulnerable core.
The cold blade sliced across the nearly half-rotten flesh, effortlessly removing the decaying blood and flesh, and even making a teeth-grinding grinding sound when it touched the bone.
They scraped away the flesh and bones... but did not choose to shatter the opponent's core.
Despite her stubbornness, the people and events Mayumi Haga encountered in the world of children ultimately left some changes in her.
She loathed this wretched version of herself; if it were before, she might have simply erased the other person from her memory.
But when she actually made the cut, she felt more disappointed and frustrated.
She was more fortunate than the Calamity Mayumi, as she learned the most important lesson and was also lucky enough to arrive in this friendly world without being corrupted by the calamity.
When she made a choice that was completely different from the past, Mayumi Haga realized that she might have really been changed a lot.
She reconciled with the powerlessness she so vehemently hated, and even if it was only a little, it was an unprecedented change.
Of course, such sentiments could not come out of her mouth. No matter how shocked she was by her own changes, Mayumi Haga was not the kind of person who would talk about it everywhere.
Moreover, if such self-praising words were to fall into the ears of others, they would likely be met with much ridicule.
Pulling her slightly erratic thoughts back, Haga Mayumi increased the speed of her sword strike.
The foul-smelling, pus-oozing human tissue was peeled off piece by piece. Just by shaving off most of this rotten flesh, the body's regenerative abilities could be stimulated to start running again.
Mayumi Haga does not intend to keep these modified body parts.
Just as she was about to make the incision on the extra pair of deformed arms, a sudden change occurred.
The arm, seemingly out of control, suddenly stretched out and grabbed the knife.
Haga Mayumi was stunned.
The extra pair of arms were actually severely shrunken and tightly wrapped in bandages, which Mayumi Haga did not recognize at first.
But upon closer inspection, she realized that the density of the bones and muscles was clearly not something a human could grow.
Of course, the possibility that Mayumi of Calamity was forcibly modified cannot be ruled out, but Mayumi Haga recognizes this arm.
It was the shrunken right arm of a giant, with muscle and bone density far exceeding that of humans, and it seemed to contain a vague consciousness.
A ridiculous conjecture arose in Mayumi Haga's mind. She then focused her attention on the seemingly abrupt physical modifications made to Mayumi the Calamity, and discovered a fact that shocked her.
The Calamity Bow itself is a mobile graveyard.
Through a secret method, he merged the corpse of the deceased with himself, using his own body to carry all the memories forward, unwilling to abandon anyone... and then gradually grew into this form.
Mayumi's vision, belonging to Calamity, gradually blurred. She saw blood and tears streaming from the other's eyes, and a familiar face struggling beneath the clothing on its chest and abdomen.
Although they had been dead for a long time, the shrunken faces were not as familiar as they were in memory; instead, they exuded a twisted and terrifying aura.
But there was no resentment, only sorrow for the guardians who were still stuck in the quagmire but were still supporting them forward.
The core of Haga Mayumi was squeezed out by numerous awakened consciousnesses.
Text: 316. The outcome is already decided
When very close to the Calamity True Bow, the self-healing ability of the Haga True Bow will decrease significantly, to about the same level as that of an ordinary guardian.
Furthermore, by dispersing half of her core, she further reduced her self-healing speed to an extreme level.
After her core consciousness was squeezed out of the other person's body, Mayumi Haga's self-healing ability recovered slightly. Her previously blurry vision quickly became clear, and her brain also became much more lucid as it healed rapidly.
What came into her view, however, was not the Calamity True Bow that had begun its counterattack.
In reality, Calamity True Bow began to entangle with the consciousness of many friends within her.
After being sewn onto their bodies by the Calamity Bow, these old friends were not really conscious, nor could they control their bodies.
The crowd, powerless to do anything, could only watch helplessly as the Calamity Bow led her to her doom.
Even if you want to talk to the Calamity True Bow, you can't, because with your core corrupted by Calamity, words simply can't be transmitted.
I thought things would continue like this until the Calamity Mayumi completely collapsed, but I never expected to meet Mayumi Haga, who was living a better life in a parallel world.
After the consciousness of the Calamity True Bow was breached, the consciousnesses that had been sewn into her body finally found a chance to leave.
“…No…” A hoarse, low voice came from the guardian who was shedding tears of blood. Calamity True Bow, who had already guessed what everyone was thinking, finally panicked.
She could endure the long, agonizing pain, and accept her current state, but she simply did not want to let go of any of her old friends' hands.
If you leave yourself... you will disappear.
Unlike when Alamo was still alive, if she were to die in this world, the soul she had managed to preserve would completely dissipate.
No trace of its existence can be found in any world; it has vanished to this extent.
Calamity True Bow finally showed weakness; she tried in vain to hold onto the souls determined to leave her, but her body had already been taken over.
Could it be that I'm disgusted with my own ugliness, and that's why I want to leave the cage I've built for myself...? Did I do something wrong?
Calamity True Bow's inner defenses were gradually broken down.
But her friend only gently comforted her.
That's not the case; the gentleness of the Calamity Bow is never a prison for the soul.
On the contrary, they did not want to become a cage imprisoning the Calamity Bow, which is why they chose to leave.
They didn't survive, not because the Calamity Bow was useless, nor because she was too weak, but because they were simply unlucky.
It's okay. It's okay. It's okay.
No one is blaming you, Mayumi. You have done enough. You no longer need to bear sins that are not yours. You do not need to be responsible for everyone's misfortune.
That's enough. They no longer need to endure it. They are ready to face their respective fates.
So, it's not about "setting us free," Mayumi, but about "setting yourself free."
The rotting flesh on the Calamity Bow began to fall off, and the parts that did not belong to her melted and fell off with a pattering sound. At the same time, something invisible began to dissipate.
Mayumi Haga had already sat up. Her skull was still healing, but her eyes were intact, so she could see the scene in front of her.
All that could be seen was that the Calamity True Bow remained kneeling, initially emitting low whimpers, but as the entire body slowly dwindled to just a skeleton with four arms, its breath grew weaker.
The core inside the skull emitted a faint light, but showed no signs of regeneration for a long time.
After all the rotten flesh is removed, the body will roughly return to normal once regeneration occurs. At the very least, the appearance and skin will recover to about 70-80%, and it won't be as embarrassing as before.
But perhaps because she has lost her lifelong reason for living, Mayumi of Calamity seems to have no desire to be reborn.
It may fall into a deep sleep until the calamity devours its core.
After recovering, Mayumi Haga wiped the blood from her face and got up from the ground.
There are no outsiders here, so their battle won't be censored by the rules of the children's world.
In fact, Mayumi Haga had a feeling that this suddenly appearing shadow space might be a backdoor opened for the two of them by the world's consciousness.
However, now is not the time to think about these things.
After recovering slightly, Haga Mayumi walked straight to the skeleton of the Calamity True Bow, and then—
— He kicked me directly.
All that could be seen was the skeleton slowly falling backward under the gentle foot of Yuga Mayumi, its bones scattering and rolling all over the ground.
The skull containing the core was stepped on by Mayumi Haga, whose expression remained indifferent: "Stop pretending to be dead, you spoiled brat."
She knew that Mayumi of Calamity could hear her, and that she was speaking directly to the other person.
Mayumi Haga lowered her head, staring at the core that was half-stained with gray and black, her tone cold: "Are you trying to play dead?"
The core seemed to tremble slightly.
"Get up, go and think of a solution." Yuga Mayumi kicked him again.
The Calamity Bow remained silent.
In truth, she no longer possessed eternal life; from the moment the calamity began to erode her, her life had already entered its countdown.
Actually, it would be even better this way. She would prefer to die like everyone else, rather than be abandoned by everyone.
“…Don’t look so dead. If you don’t go and retrieve their souls, they’ll really disappear,” Mayumi Haga had no choice but to say.
As soon as she finished speaking, the skeleton beneath her feet immediately came together, and the blood vessels, muscles, nerves, and skin... After a few breaths, the guardian with its four fully restored arms silently stared at her with its single eye.
Calamity Mayumi felt a little awkward, but she could only ask Haga Mayumi, "How...do it?"
Because she hadn't spoken to anyone for so long, her speech was still a little hesitant, but the anxiety and longing in her eyes were almost overflowing.
After removing the rotten flesh and regenerating, she looked almost exactly like Mayumi Haga in her normal state.
In other words, her white hair was longer, her bangs covered the empty space around her left eye socket, and for some reason, the flesh on her left cheek hadn't grown back, leaving her teeth exposed. She also had two extra arms, and looked even thinner than usual, like Mayumi Haga.
She stared longingly at Mayumi Haga, who had been locked in a life-or-death struggle just moments before; it seemed her mind wasn't quite working properly.
It cannot be ruled out that it was affected by a disaster.