Solo Leveling: Ragnarok - Chapter 145

Taeshik’s soul was sinking into the endless darkness that was the sea of the afterlife.

So this is what it feels like to die… The pain had been brief, but the moment of death seemed to never end. Death was instantaneous, and yet eternal, as the seemingly bottomless abyss drew his soul infinitely downward.

As Taeshik fell, his life flashed before his eyes. Scenes unfolded before him like a panorama, and in every one of those moments, he was killing someone.

I killed, killed, and killed again… He suddenly looked down at his bloody hands. Yes.Ever since I awakened, these hands have slain human beings.These hands have never been free of blood. He knew it wasn’t normal or sane, but it had been fun—not that he had been at it for long. He had committed petty crimes before awakening and was arrested by the police, but it had only been two years since he became a villain hunter in earnest and began to relish the joy of the kill.

As the flashbacks continued, Taeshik saw himself growing younger and younger in them. And at the end of the panorama came the memory of that day.

Yes, that was the beginning. As he continued to fall, his eyes suddenly glistened with a blue energy. There was a flash, and he saw a boy being beaten in front of him.

“You little parasite!If only you hadn’t been born!Die, die, die! I want you to get out of my sight and never come back!”

“Agh!D-daddy!I’m sorry… P-please!It really hurts! Aghhh!”

Broken liquor bottles in a cramped, dirty room—this was where a little boy was being kicked repeatedly by a drunk man. In the memory, the boy was always covered in bruises, and he was always wailing at the top of his lungs. He begged, telling his father that it hurt, begging him to stop, saying that he was sorry. However, the man’s kicks only grew more fierce.

After several years of this relentless cycle, the boy had come to a realization that he needed to be stronger if he didn’t want to be beaten for the rest of his life. The first step toward that was stopping his tears. No matter how much it hurt or how scared he might be, as long as he clamped his hand over his mouth and stopped himself from screaming or crying, his father’s beatings would diminish slightly—at least by the tiniest amount.

Being extremely silent was also necessary to avoid annoying his father in the first place. In fact, he had to make himself invisible. If he made the slightest noise, his father would wake, drink even more, and then another beating would commence. The boy needed to be unnoticeable as if he wasn’t in the house at all. He would even have to hold his breath to keep his terrifying father’s anger from targeting him.

Then another realization came to him. Ah… Oh, so that’s all I have to do… There was a simpler way to stop the beatings, something much easier for him to do—perhaps the easiest solution of all. Why didn’t I see it before? I should have handled it that way from the start… With that, the seven-year-old Taeshik did the deed with his tiny hands.

Yes, I killed my father. That was the first murder he ever committed. Surprisingly enough, no one ever found out—in fact, nobody had been interested. Who could have thought that a small seven-year-old could have killed his own father? The policemen, the doctors—everybody wrote it off as a drunken accident and nothing more.

Having erased his father from this world with his own hands, Taeshik had looked down at his bloody fingers, an understanding dawning on him. I’m strong. Yes. As it turned out, he was strong enough to kill his terror of a father. As soon as he realized this, a thrill of a sort he’d never felt before coursed through him. It made him shudder with delight. Ah… Right, I can simply kill them,no matter how scary or strong they are. No matter what, everyone dies!

From then on, Taeshik ceased to be afraid of anything. He was strong now. If he made up his mind, he could kill anybody he pleased. He was not a blood-crazed murderer, however, and he didn’t kill at random. He had just realized that murder was a valid option when it came to handling problems.

Time passed, and the Great Cataclysm occurred on Earth, bringing magic beasts with it. Taeshik was lucky enough to awaken as a hunter, and when he saw the magic beasts bursting out of the dungeons and tearing people violently apart, he just sighed.

Magic beasts are no different, are they? They looked peculiar, but that was it. One didn’t have to be a magic beast to kill a human. Frankly, in the course of human history, more people had died at the hands of fellow humans than they had to magic beasts. Taeshik was quite disappointed.

It was at this juncture that the association’s president came to see him.

“Kang Taeshik,you awakened not too long ago, right?”

“Who are you?I haven’t made any trouble recently.”

“I know.That’s why I came to see you.”

“What are you even saying, old man?”

At first, Taeshik was flabbergasted by the sudden visit. Woo Jinchul had been a detective back when Taeshik acted as a petty criminal, and he was the same man who had put him in cuffs. But this man had suddenly created a weird organization called the Korean Hunters Association, and now he’d shown up out of nowhere.

“I’ve been thinking of what to do with you, Kang Taeshik. I had a great idea.”

Jinchul smiled coyly and made a bizarre offer.

“I created a license for you. It makes you an official bounty hunter of the association.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, it’s basically a legal license to kill.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“What do you mean?Can you look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t want it?”

Taeshik didn’t like the knowing look on the man’s face. It was obvious Jinchul believed he would accept, but ultimately, he couldn’t refuse. The idea did appeal to him. There were people out there who deserved to be killed, and he would even get paid for doing it. It’s much easier and way more fun to kill humans than it is to kill magic beasts, too.

And so he became a bounty hunter. Over the past two years, he’d killed hundreds of villains with his own hands.

Hehe.I’ve killed so many. Taeshik’s soul, floating in the sea of the afterlife, snickered as he observed the innumerable moments of murder. But for some reason, as more and more deaths flashed before his eyes, he felt a darkness being lathered thicker and thicker on his soul. Like demons from hell, hundreds of hands grabbed at him from that darkness, pulling him down ever deeper.

Let me go, you bastards!I can’t breathe!I can’t… Gah! He realized that this was a pit of his own making.

Then came a voice. “Hehe… What a delicious little evil spirit you are.”

The laughter of an old man, audible from beyond the darkness, made his soul jolt with fear. An instinctive repulsion came over him. He realized that his soul was caught inside a magic circle made of some kind of red thread. It latched onto him like a spiderweb, refusing to let him go.

“Come hither. I will turn you into a demonic spirit myself.”

A wizened old hand materialized, grabbing him by the hair. Taeshik felt terrible pain, like his arms and legs were being torn off. Screaming at the top of his lungs, he struggled as hard as he could to get away.

This only seemed to amuse the old man. “Heh! I like that scream of yours. You’re perfect material for a demonic spirit.”

Taeshik shrieked again.

“Yes. You’re doing very well. Reflect on all the sins you committed while you were alive. Chew on them, and swallow. The process won’t be easy, but if you endure that…” The old man’s smile shone in the darkness, revealing his white teeth. “You will become a corrupt soul that will live with that pain forever!”

The red magic circle was complete. The huge hand gripped Kang Taeshik’s soul and lifted it up.

“Hehehe! Now, corrupt demonic spirit! You are my—”

Then another voice cut in. “Arise.”

A ray of darkness, emerging from so far above him that he couldn’t identify the source, fell onto Taeshik’s soul. The power in that darkness tore the red magic apart.

“Wh-what in the…” the old man said, confused. He lost his grip on Taeshik.

Ah, this power… Taeshik began to tremble for a different reason as the darkness forcefully drew him upward.

Th-these memories… Where did they… Memories from his past life, buried deep inside him, suddenly began to surface. For some reason, even in these unknown memories, he was bloody… and he was dying. There was a man looking coldly down at him as he drew his last breaths.

“Just one question,” Taeshik was saying, looking into the man’s eyes. “What in the world are you?You’re an assassin, but you can heal… and also cast debuffs. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

The man responded with a question of his own. “Say I grow stronger with every battle. What do you think is the limit of my power?”

“Huh…” The question baffled Taeshik, who laughed incredulously. Is he asking that because even he doesn’t know the answer? he thought.

“Your shadow… It is linked with the darkness,” Taeshik said. Death was power. “And you will be as strong… as that darkness is deep.”

There was a luminous aura. Two lives—and two deaths—were now behind him. And at their end… Taeshik’s soul walked the earth once more.

[Shadow Assassin – Level 1 – Knight Grade]

“Mighty Shadow…” Reborn as an assassin with darkness curling from his body like a veil of smoke, Taeshik approached Suho. He went down on one knee before the man who had summoned him and bowed. An intensely cold energy flowed from his eyes as he spoke with great deference. “Who shall I kill?”

As Suho gazed down upon him, Taeshik was reminded of the man who had killed him in another life.

The young hunter’s frosty eyes moved toward the numerous villains lunging in from all directions. These were murderers who had killed off the innocent villagers and taken Yami Village for themselves. He had no mercy to spare for them. “Kill all of them.”

“As you command.” As soon as the word was given, Kang Taeshik, the shadow assassin, disappeared.