Makai Hongi - Chapter 350

The path that dead souls tread. I remembered it.

And when it came back, I thought, ‘Oh, it was so simple.’ That’s what it was like.

When I was a human, I died and went to the Under World.

Normally, my soul would have drifted there until it was purified.

However, my soul was used in an experiment in the Celestial World, and I was fused with the other me.

I recalled the time that I headed to the Under World after dying.

It all made sense now.

The soul goes through Zeus’s barrier.

If the Human World was a boiled egg, the entrance to the Under World was the yoke.

It would be easy to think of the shell as the barrier.

In the end, it wasn’t actually about having the soul go through Zeus’s barrier.

The coming and going of the soul happened in the yoke of the egg.

And I knew how to do it.

Basically, the great barrier of going to the Human World had been removed.

It was really just a matter of how you would reach the yoke.

What made it possible was my near-death experience.

To think that such a thing would be an advantage later on. Life really was unpredictable, wasn’t it?

In the Under World, there was a sea and sky.

The soul moved back and forth between them.

Kind of like how sea water would evaporate and become rain.

As this happened hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of times, the soul was slowly purified.

A purified soul lost things that it didn’t need for reincarnation, such as memories.

It was these souls that were allowed to go down below the sea.

At the ocean floor was the path to reincarnation.

But before reaching the floor, you had to pass through several grids.

It was there that souls were ‘sifted.’

Souls that got through all of that were able to leave the Under World.

Apparently, there was a force that pulled purified souls.

Towards the ocean floor. An invitation. Like an electric charge.

The soul would sink as if lured. And in the end, they would arrive at the bottom.

I had separated from the other me just before reaching the bottom.

There was no way that two souls could pass through.

Had we stayed like that, we would have been stopped there.

It should have been me who would move away.

The other me would be reincarnated, and I would continue to move between the Under World’s sky and sea until my soul was fully purified.

However, I learned a lot due to the way that things turned out.

“I know how to go to the Human World.”

I said to Melvis.

It was not very difficult.

If you were with a purified soul, then whether it was me or Melvis, we could reach the path to reincarnation.

And then you just had to cut away the other soul at the last moment.

And you would automatically be put on the path to reincarnation.

I told Melvis this.

I told him everything.

If my memory was accurate, then that was the way to do it.

Once I was finished, his reaction was dramatic.

“It is worth trying.”

Melvis stood up and started to walk.

“…Huh?”

“What’s wrong with you? Follow me.”

“Huhh?”

Melvis continued to walk without looking back.

I frantically followed after him until we reached the bedroom that had been sealed for hundreds of years.

It was made of stone.

I had expected it to look more lived in, but it really was a plain room made of stone.

An empty room, other than a stone platform in the center.

“What is it? Sit.”

“Ye-yes…”

And so I sat down below the platform…on the floor.

“We’re going.”

“Huh?”

Going? Where?

From here? But in the next instant, my vision shook.

I only had a second to think, ‘Ah, damn it.’

My consciousness became foggy immediately. And then…

White mist rose into the air… I was inside of the Orb of Control.

It seemed that I had been brought here by force.

What was going on? Was I going to die?

“…Uh, what are you going to do?”

Melvis was right in front of me.

He too had entered my Orb of Control.

“I’m going to open a door to the Under World.”

“…”

He just decided that quickly, huh?

But even for Melvis, this was a difficult task. And it took quite a long time before a hole opened below his feet.

So, he really was going to go to the Under World.

At this point, I was consumed by despair. There was no going back. I might as well go all in.

And so Melvis and I flung ourselves into the pit.

Of course, what waited for us on the other side, was the vast sea of the Under World.

I had arrived in the Under World without losing consciousness.

This was the second time I was here while being awake. It was definitely a rare experience.

As for the state that I was currently in, I was close to a faded sphere.

Melvis was the same.

For some reason, I could tell that the soul that was nearby was Melvis.

“Let’s go.”

Melvis’s soul flew towards the ocean.

I followed after him. But was it really fine to go into the water?

What if we were caught by the Under World sea and were forced into the cycle of purification?

But Melvis didn’t hesitate. He dove deeper and deeper.

I followed him desperately, but couldn’t understand what he was trying to do.

Suddenly, Melvis stopped.

“Hmm… So you can’t advance any farther.”

There was a grid.

Not a literal one, but something like a sifter for souls.

It was large.

And while it looked like you could get through, there was an invisible power that repelled you.

In other words, unpurified souls could not descend any farther.

But it would be fine if you were with a purified soul.

After that, Melvis continued to move around in every direction, but he could not dive any deeper.

“The path to the Human World must be below here. But I cannot go.”

So that’s what he wanted to confirm.

As always, he was quick to act when it came to Yamato.

I thought he would give up and leave then, but then he started to move to the upper layer of the sea.

If only he knew what it was like to have to follow him…but I didn’t complain.

“We’ll take one of the purified souls then.”

What? Take…? Surely it wasn’t possible when you were a soul yourself.

If it was that easy, the celestials would have already done it.

In the first place, we didn’t have bodies, let alone hands.

So how would he take them?

As I thought about this, I realized something.