Return of the Frozen Player

“…”

The vampire apostles stared at the existence who was looking down at them from the second floor. He was neither a vampire nor a werewolf but a human being.

‘How can a human being have that much power?’

'Judging from the energy coming out of him, he’s stronger than a vampire apostle.’

His appearance here was unexpected, but they weren’t worried. There were forty-six vampire apostles here. One of them had died just now, but it meant that there were still forty-five vampire apostles.

‘Got him!’

The red-faced woman from earlier moved as fast as lightning to ambush Seo Jun-Ho from behind. Without a moment’s hesitation, she extended her fangs and bit her opponent’s neck.

"Huh?"

There was no feedback. She could swear that she had grabbed his shoulder and bit his neck, but she didn’t feel like she had bitten anything.

"How wasteful,” Seo Jun-Ho muttered.

Reiji had told Seo Jun-Ho that the way he was using his magic was too wasteful, so she taught him how to use his magic properly and more efficiently.

"Before I left the Hole of Repentance, she told me this…"

Reiji said that Seo Jun-Ho was finally capable of utilizing his magic to the fullest.

"W-what is that?” The red-faced woman finally saw the patch of darkness on Seo Jun-Ho’s neck. It was a surreal sight because it looked like only that part of Seo Jun-Ho’s body was painted black.

"And she also said that if an ambush fails, then you should hurry up and...” Seo Jun-Ho trailed off. He made a sidelong glance at the vampire apostle before finally completing his sentence. "Get lost."

Baaang!

The red-faced woman literally exploded.

Seo Jun-Ho hadn’t used any of his skills, he simply emitted a condensed wave of magic.

"Shoot him! Stall for time!"

The vampire apostles frantically ordered, and the ordinary vampires responded by turning their guns toward Seo Jun-Ho. In that brief moment, the vampire apostles took retrieved Wolf Wine from their pockets and poured it into their mouths.

"Wolf Wine? Are those the ones they bought before the factory collapsed?" Seo Jun-Ho muttered. He didn’t even spare a glance at the bullets flying toward him and simply waved his hand.

Crackle!

“…!”

An unbelievable scene unfolded as hundreds of bullets froze in mid-air.

The power to freeze…

Seo Jun-Ho could still remember being scolded and mocked by Reiji about how bold he had been to call it the power to freeze when it could only slow things down.

‘I trained like crazy…’

He had improved to the point that he could now comfortably call it the power to freeze.

Seo Jun-Ho's gaze turned to the dumbfounded vampire apostles.

“The punishment for not even taking a basic stance in front of me is…” Seo Jun-Ho flicked his finger. "...Death."

Booom!

Darkness bloomed from his fingertips, and it split into hundreds of shrapnel that flew toward the vampire apostles. In the blink of an eye, the hall became filled with the vampire apostles’ screams.

"Aaargh!"

“Damn it! Let’s attack him at the same time!"

The furious vampire apostles started climbing up the stairs to the second floor.

At the same time, Seo Jun-Ho suddenly felt heavy. He couldn’t move at all.

‘Telekinesis?’

He barely managed to move his eyeballs and saw that one of the vampire apostles in the corner of the first floor was restraining his body.

"He’s immobilized!"

"Now’s the chance! Kill him!"

The vampire apostles finally reached the second floor, and they all pounced at him.

Seo Jun-Ho smirked. ‘This is more fun than I thought.

He tightly closed one of his eyes.

Drip.

The tear that he had forcibly squeezed out of his eyes turned into a blooming flower that scattered its petals into the air.

"A flower…?"

"Why did he summon a flower?"

The vampire apostles stared at Seo Jun-Ho as if he were a madman.

In response, Seo Jun-Ho said, "The flower is my gift to you."

The vampire apostles heard that, but that was it. The beautiful flower distracted them, and they met a miserable end. They froze in mid-air, and there was no hope for recovery because even their cells were frozen solid.

"M-my god…!"

"Damn it! Don't touch the petals! You’ll freeze!"

The vampire apostles, who were lucky enough to be a bit distant from the flower, retreated in a panic.

However, Seo Jun-Ho didn't miss the chance.

Craackle!

A spear made out of ice flew toward the telekinesis user.

Shwik!

"Argh!"

The ice spear struck the vampire apostle and sent him flying toward the wall.

Seo Jun-Ho could finally move once again.

"That was a pretty useful skill."

Unfortunately for the vampire apostle, he encountered the wrong opponent.

Seo Jun-Ho clenched his fist.

Crackle!

The ice spear exploded and killed the telekinesis user.

“…”

The battle suddenly lulled.

No one wanted to step forward and fight Seo Jun-Ho after he killed twenty vampire apostles in the blink of an eye.

“I’ll attack, then.”

Seo Jun-Ho stomped lightly, and darkness bloomed from his feet.

"D-don't step on it!"

The vampire apostles retreated in the face of the blooming darkness. However, the darkness was much faster than them.

"Up! We have to go to the ceiling!"

"Hang on to the chandeliers!"

The vampire apostles clung to the largest chandelier on the ceiling so that they wouldn’t step on the darkness beneath them.

However, just how many vampire apostles could a large chandelier support?

"It’s only going to be six of them at most," muttered Seo Jun-Ho.

The chandelier broke when more than twenty people tried to reach for it at once.

"Argh!"

"N-no! No!"

The vampire apostles struggled upon falling into the swamp of darkness. However, the more they struggled, the deeper they sank. At the terrible sight, the remaining vampire apostles desperately ran toward the hallway.

"Haaa! Haaa…!"

"He’s a monster! A monster!"

Their desperation only allowed them to have one thought—they had to leave this mansion as soon as possible. However, their eyes were quickly dyed with despair when they opened the front doors of the mansion.

"W-what...?"

The whole mansion was covered in a massive black curtain.

A voice echoed behind them and explained, "It’s the Curtain of Darkness. You have to kill me to get out of here.”

This was Specter’s stage.

The vampire apostles bit their lips and slowly turned around.

They finally realized it—this nightmare wouldn’t end until their opponent was dead.

“…”

Seo Jun-Ho was standing at the end of the hallway. However, the vampire apostles were afraid—they were so afraid of him that they looked like they were about to go crazy.

"Are those the last remaining apostles here?"

He had already killed thirty-three, so the twelve over there had to be the last remaining vampire apostles in the mansion.

Seo Jun-Ho gestured with his hand and spoke, "Path of Flowers."

The hallway became filled with beautiful flowers. The flowers were beautiful, but they had no scent, so the last thing that the vampire apostles smelled was the stench of their rotten organs.

“…”

The battle ended in a way that seemed a bit too easy for Seo Jun-Ho.

“I didn’t even have to exert that much effort into defending myself earlier…"

Just what kind of monster did she turn him into? He initially thought that he would be at a disadvantage if he fought so many vampire apostles at once, but the battle ended in his overwhelming victory.

"Now, then, what shall I do?"

First of all, the memories. He had to read the vampire apostles’ memories.

***

It was Seo Jun-Ho’s first time using Confession of the Dead on so many people at once.

Memory projections floated all around Seo Jun-Ho, and he spent hours exploring their memories. He felt a bit dizzy when he was finally done, but he still approached the werewolf he had released earlier.

"Did you wait long?”

"Oh, n-no." The werewolf, who was resting under a blanket while drinking a cup of warm tea, answered almost immediately. Seo Jun-Ho found it a bit funny that she was extremely respectful to him.

Seo Jun-Ho looked around the bloodied hall. The hall was full of corpses, and there were limbs everywhere, creating an incredibly gory sight. However, Seo Jun-Ho simply shrugged and said, "All right, let’s go back."

***

"This is…”

Tria gulped and got lost in the horrible sight in front of her.

The voice of the Clan Master of the Paradox Clan brought her back to reality.

"What an interesting guy..." Paradox smiled. He knew it the moment he saw the scene—the culprit had to be the human who razed Astaneca to the ground. "It hasn’t even been two days since the last incident, and he already caused another major incident?"

"Does Clan Master think that the culprit here is the same human who razed Astaneca to the ground?” asked Tria.

"It can’t be anyone else other than him. Read the memory.”

"Yes."

Tria’s eyes widened upon seeing the scenes in the corpses’ memories. The horrible sight that she had seen instilled a newfound fear in her.

"P-Paradox-nim…"

"No chit-chat, memories first."

Tria obliged.

Paradox boisterously laughed upon witnessing the scene for himself. "Hahahaha! Wow, I didn’t think that it would be like this.”

Seo Jun-Ho was a lot more aggressive than Paradox initially thought.

However, Seo Jun-Ho wasn’t a reckless fool. A reckless fool couldn't fight like him.

"Beautiful...” Paradox muttered as he reviewed the scenes over and over again. Attacking, dodging, countering, and even attacking with just his gaze.

Each and every move was calculated, and Paradox felt as if he was looking at a great mathematician’s formula.

"It's really beautiful. How can a human fight so gracefully?”

Even Seo Jun-Ho’s skill was beautiful—he could even conjure deadly flowers.

The flowers were so gorgeous that Paradox really wanted to touch them.

"Oh, damn it...”

All of a sudden, he felt terrified—terrified that another True Vampire would snatch it away before he could taste it.

With a grim look, Paradox started talking, “The fact that he managed to find Eden’s location means that he also has the ability to read memories; that is probably the case, right?”

"I think so..."

"Okay, so his next destination is definitely...”

Paradox thought long and hard, but he could only come up with one place.

***

Rahmadat opened his eyes slowly.

He still couldn’t get out of this strange space.

'I have a feeling…’

Emancipation.

It was an unprecedented technique that activated one's own cells to allow one to use their entire strength—the entire one hundred percent.

Rahmadat’s knowledge of the technique wasn’t that great.

“If I do this roughly…”

His cells reacted to his thoughts. His thoughts expanded, and his physical abilities, as well as his senses, were amplified beyond belief.

"Hmm. I’m still here, so there’s definitely a reason why I can’t get out."

Arnold said that he would naturally be able to leave this place upon being enlightened on emancipation.

'What else do I need to do here?’

Rahmadat struggled with his arms crossed. Once again, he looked back on Arnold's teachings.

“Throw all those miscellaneous thoughts away. Stop thinking! Shatter all your beliefs!”

Arnold was basically telling Rahmadat to stop doing what every human being had always been doing, and no matter how many times Rahmadat thought about it, he felt that it was a bit too much of a request.

How could a person live without all those?

‘Come to think of it, it's similar to the teaching I received when I was young.’

He could recall the teaching called Tathata. It said that the essence of all things was free from thoughts and self.

There was a saying that if one dug deep into this law, one could reach the laws of nature, which was the truth of the universe, and get a glimpse of the absolute world beyond transcendence.

‘I remember snorting and saying that it’s a bunch of nonsense...’

This so-called emancipation was similar to that.

Wasn't the goal of emancipation throwing away everything and emptying oneself?

‘So, emancipation is no different from Samadhi?’

In Buddhism, Samadhi referred to the deep stage of meditation, which was referred to as Sammae in Buddhism. Samadhi's basic goal was Turiya—an extreme state of concentration.

'Samadhi is largely divided into three stages.'

There was a Savikalpa Samadhi that required constant effort to maintain the Turiya state. There was also a Temporary Nirvikalpa Samadhi where one could maintain Turiya without much effort. Finally, there was the stage of Nirvikalpa Samadhi, where one would have long extinguished oneself to become a distinct existence.

‘If emancipation is the same as Hinduism's will...’

Rahmadat slowly closed his eyes, and his cells awakened at once.

'I see… I’m not supposed to do anything more here.’

He had to do the opposite. Rahmadat started abandoning the cell awakening method that he had learned in this place.

“…”.

His improved senses and physical prowess regressed along with his thoughts.

However, Rahmadat was still emptying himself.

‘My thoughts. My reason...’

He had to abandon them all to reach Turiya and emancipate.

“…”

It was a strange sensation. Rahmadat realized that as a human, he had always been free. His freedom was simply being restricted by the masks that humans wore to function as humans.

At last, Rahmadat opened his eyes slowly.

Open!

And when his golden eyes saw the void in front of him…

“Aum.”

The sacred sound reverberated, and the prison of his own consciousness crumbled around him.

***

"…Ah."

He felt like he had a pleasant dream. He raised his upper body and saw his friend sitting in a portable chair while reading a comic.

"Are you awake?"

"Yeah, I'm awake."

When did you arrive? Why did you come?

He didn't bother asking because they were friends.

Seo Jun-Ho glanced at him and asked, "Did you get what you wanted?"

"I think..." He had mastered the Savikalpa Sammadhi. As for Turiya, he couldn’t maintain it for long, but that was good enough.

Rahmadat scratched his head and said, "...Hey. I think at this rate, I might really turn into a god like the Great Trinity or Buddha."

"What? You…?"

Seo Jun-Ho laughed. It would be funny if Rahmadat truly ended up realizing the truth of all things and became a god. Seo Jun-Ho wiped the tears flowing from his eyes out of laughter before saying, "Come to think of it, you and I were supposed to spar.”

"Huh? Oh, right."

When did they make that promise again?

Was it when he had just woken up from the ice statue?

Rahmadat blinked, unsure.

However, Seo Jun-Ho had already gotten up and was now leaving the cave.

"…Come out here, Rahmadat," said Seo Jun-Ho.

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