Chapter 240: Embrace Your Sorrow And Hatred, Descend Into Insanity
Listen While Reading: Coiling Viper's Venom and Those Who Refuse To Obey-----
The Grass acted quickly; my mind was sent somewhere else.
I could see fire everywhere.
I was inside a burning house.
The screams of people outside reverberated everywhere.
My mind felt foggy, and my own perception of my surroundings felt weird.
I was slowly falling unconscious, and the flames only spread further.
I couldn’t move. I noticed my legs were broken; there was a pile of rubble crushing them.
My breath was heavy; I could hardly breathe at all.
And the heat… so overwhelming.
“ANNA!”
The scream of a woman echoed behind me.
I looked back.
“Mom…?”
Memories kept flooding into my head as I saw her running towards me.
The ceiling began to collapse, with large pieces of burning wood falling over.
No…
Don’t come…
Stop!
“Anna, don’t worry… Mama is here for-”
CRASH!
The ceiling collapsed, and blazing rubble fell down.
My mother, somehow, mustering whatever strength she had, pushed me away with all the momentum she gained running here.
As she threw me away, I saw the collapsing ceiling crush her.
Her face didn’t look brave; she looked afraid.
Her eyes looked at me while I was crying.
She didn’t want to die.
“MOM!”
I kept crying while unable to do anything, the ceiling collapsing and the entire house coming down.
“ROOAAAR!”
And the roars of fire-breathing beasts roaming everywhere, crawling every single area and releasing their flames into the vicinity.
Burning it all…
So these are the most painful memories of when the first awakening began.
We weren’t even able to do a single thing.
A Gate opened near the neighborhood, and the worst kind of monster popped out.
Salamanders, D-Rank Monsters.
Giant, red-scaled lizards that ate all the cars they found and burned everything else they found.
Our house, like many others, was affected by the flames.
I remember… I was in the living room playing a video game.
And mom was in the bathroom.
When she came running to save me, she died by the collapsing ceiling.
My father died on the second floor; he was taking a nap.
And my brother…
“No…! NOOO!”
He screamed in horror as he saw Mom’s crushed body burning.
The smell of burnt flesh…
I can still remember it.
My face, which didn’t move at all.
The tears fell from my eyes as the heat evaporated them rapidly.
The world was falling apart in front of my innocent mind, never ever expecting any of such things to ever happen.
I was just a twelve-year-old girl playing some dumb videogame.
How could I have ever expected everything to just go to shit out of nowhere?
“Anna…! ANNA! Are you there?! Ahhh…! Anna!”
My brother ran towards me, his eyes crying in horror. He quickly lifted me up; I couldn’t move. My body was paralyzed.
I was already feeling it—the mana seeping into my body. I couldn’t assimilate it properly; my nerves dulled out, and my body became completely paralyzed.
I couldn’t do anything as my brother carried me away from the horror of our burning house. Mom and dad...
They were already dead before I could have done a single thing.
“Ahhh… Aahhh…” My brother kept screaming as he cried. “Hahhh…” He kept running, and running, and running.
He hugged me tightly, running through the burning neighborhood while evading the monsters.
He ran and ran and ran.
Brother…
“Hahhh…”
He kept crying without ever looking back.
He carried me far away.
As he ran, I looked back.
Our house was collapsing into pieces, our parents long dead, their bodies burning into ashes.
We had nothing but each other…
And I…
My consciousness was fading away.
I couldn’t stay awake anymore.
I touched my brother’s face one last time as he carried me.
“Brother…”
“Anna?”
And then I closed my eyes, unable to muster another word.
“ANNA?! ANNA!”
He panicked, screaming.
His voice slowly became slower.
Until an eternal darkness swallowed me.
Perhaps it was due to this traumatic event that my previous life memories awakened.
And when he used the Elixir on me, my memories of my previous life took over because this life’s memories were too hurtful.
The original Anna was traumatized; the fusion between both memories and personalities was done much faster because it was, perhaps, my own brain’s mechanism to cope with such a huge trauma.
Of having lost everything...
Just when my first, shitty life as an orphan had finally gotten better with a second life where I had a loving family, it all went to shit.
I felt so powerless and angry with the world.
Learning that it was all a novel only made me more furious.
What do you mean it’s a fucking novel?!
My whole life is just a novel?!
Why?!
How could all my life have been written by a sadistic piece of shit?
Are you telling me that mom and dad died because the “Author” wanted them?!
Because he thought it was fitting for a protagonist to not have parents to worry about?!
SO MY BROTHER COULD BECOME EVERYONE’S FUCKING SELF INSERT?!
YOU FUCKED HIS WHOLE LIFE!
YOU TOOK AWAY EVERYTHING FROM HIM!
YOU MADE HIM AN EMOTIONLESS PUPPET!
YOU RUINED OUR LIVES, EVERYTHING!
JUST…
Just to make him a perfect self-insert for your damned readers.
Fuck them!
FUCK YOUR FUCKING READERS!
I HATE THIS!
I DON’T WANT TO BE PART OF YOUR SHITTY STORY!
Leave me and my brother alone…
Haven’t we suffered enough?
Yeah, remembering my previous life as a “reader” was the breaking point of my entire life.
My personality in that moment was shattered.
And with each new Skill, each new form, a new Ego formed.
I became a disjointed, fragmented person.
I couldn’t discern where my previous life personality began or where Anna ended.
But now… Slowly, it’s all coming together.
I’m really just Anna, with the memories of a reader.
And I’m so angry about everything!
About the world, about that monster fucking god thing, the Author!
Arrgh!
“WHY?! WHY ME?! WHY MY BROTHER?! WHY US?! WHY EVERYONE?! WHY?! WHY?! WHY?!”
I woke up, my eyes blazing with fury and sorrow. Anger and sadness mixed together, swirling together like a chaotic sea of flames and ice. I started crying desperately as I roared like a madwoman.
My fists and legs moved alone, punches and kicks rained upon the “indestructible dummy” in front of me, and explosions of Chaotic Ki erupted with each blow.
Even the toughest material of Murim couldn’t resist my blows; the dummy began to get slowly chipped away.
I felt my Aura fluctuating; my Emotions became my power. They were a substance of their own, an energy. My Ki absorbed this energy, changing its properties, enchanting them, and improving them.
“Red and Blue?!” Muttered the Heavenly Demon, opening his eyes wide. “Anna, you’re already?!”
“AAAAGGHHH! I HATE this!” I screamed. “Mom… Dad… I miss you so MUCH! Why… Just why did you have to DIE?!”
BAAAM! BAAAM! BAAAM!
“That’s right! Scream! State your anger! Show the world that you’re not going to bow down to destiny!” The Heavenly Demon roared. “Anna! Remember that feeling! That is YOUR strength! The anger, the sadness, the frustration, and the desire! Most righteous bastards will say that harboring such emotions will only make you a spiteful, demonic person. But so WHAT?! It is what marked you; it is what made you the person you are now, right?! So use that power! Harbor it! Cultivate it! Anna, this is your Strength!”
“RAAAHHH!!!”
The energy harnessed into my hands—red and blue combined with black—was swirling and distorting even space itself. My fists moved at lightning speed; the dummy gained more cracks with each blow.
BAAAM!
“Channel that fury, Anna! You’re doing it excellently well!”
I kept striking the dummy; all my anger, all my sadness, all my desires to become strong, all my frustration—I let it all out with each blow.
BAAAM!
“The {Seven Cursed Seals Arts} began as a way for me to cope with reality.” Said the Heavenly Demon. “It was a way for me to harness my endless sorrow and my endless anger into power.”
BAAAM!
“It began like that, but it is much more now. After refining it for thousands of years, I’ve discovered it could be the key for us to make our own destiny! The power THEY fear, the very emotions THEY have forbid from their own existences!”
BAAAM!
“You know who I am talking about, right?”
The Constellations!
The Void Rulers!
The High Administrators!
All bastards, all must die!
“Let yourself be consumed by your anger, by your sorrow, by your frustration, by your desire! This is the secret of this technique: to let your humanity go out!” He roared. “This is your true self! Accept yourself! This red and blue color… I never saw it before! My color was dark purple. But you’re different; you harbor an even greater hatred than I do, Anna! And your sorrow... it screams through countless worlds! What do you carry on your shoulders—those emotions you’ve been trying to suppress? Let them out! You must make your suffering your strength! You must make of the suffering THEY caused you the power that will TEAR THEM ALL TO SHREDS!”
“RAAAHHHH!”
My fists flared with red, blue, and black flames; my Ki was burning, a sensation I had never felt before. A single uppercut towards the dummy, and its entire body exploded, vaporizing in an instant as a beam of pure darkness reached the skies above.
BOOOMMM!!!
But this isn’t enough; I need more.
More, more, more!
I need more power—more, more, more!
I’m going to use all the power I can get to kill them all!
I will tear them to shreds!
I will kill them and tear their limbs one after another.
I will bite their neck and crush their spine with my teeth.
I will open their stomachs and feast on their innards as they scream in utter agony!
I won’t forgive them! The bastards that dared to ruin my life and my world!
The bastards that took away mom and dad...
And the Author…
I’m going to fucking kill you, no matter what!
“AAAAHHH!!!”
I kept screaming, my emotions swirling endlessly. I felt like I was being consumed by an endless wrath.
I wasn’t being myself right now?!
YOU’RE BEING YOURSELF!
No, wait!
KILL! TEAR THEM TO SHREDS!
S-Stop!
YOU WILL AVENGE YOUR FAMILY!
But…!
DON’T YOU FEEL SAD THEY’RE GONE?!
“Aarrghhh…!”
“That’s enough.”
The Heavenly Demon touched my back as he suddenly applied something to my body. I felt countless Runic Inscriptions getting inscribed into my body.
All the Hatred, Sorrow, Frenzy, Desire, and Frustration were then Sealed, as I finally calmed down, going back to my normal self.
“Hahh… W-What the fuck was that?”
I fell to my knees, gasping for air.
I felt so exhausted that I could collapse at any moment.
“I’ve created them. Hatred, Sorrow, Frenzy, Desire, Frustration.” He said. “You have filled five of the seven Seals! Splendid work! What took me hundreds of years, you did it in a day!”
“W-What are you talking… about…”
Before I could do or say another thing at all, I fell to the floor.
My body was completely paralyzed, and I couldn’t feel my hands anymore.
In fact, when I looked at them, they were completely broken.
My fingers were dislocated and destroyed, and even my arm was twisted weirdly.
Holy sh*t, did I do that to my body without even feeling it?
I had gone completely berserk.
“Hahh…”
“Calm down.”
The Heavenly Demon nursed me, carrying me to my bed.
Slowly, as I began to fall asleep, he healed my body with his medicinal techniques.
He fed me pills and concoctions, and then left me alone to rest.
As I slept, I drifted through an endless river of cosmic light.
I floated above the river of my own Spiritual Body, looking around and feeling lost.
My entire Spiritual Body and Physical Body started undergoing several changes.
I watched the skies of my “Spiritual Body Realm” as I noticed something new.
Five gigantic stars, all of them full of swirling emotions, were sealed and wrapped around countless chains.
“Hatred, Sorrow, Frenzy, Desire, and Frustration…”
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