Chapter 141 : Burned Scars
Chapter 141: Burned Scars
This discovery shocked Han Su to his core.
Reciting the Fisherman’s Chant would instantly activate his spiritual power, allowing him to exceed his normal state by far. It let him easily command the Giant’s Eye and the Cross-Shaped Bronze Hand—his ultimate trump card when handling all kinds of trouble.
But now, faced with this eerie contamination emerging from the painting, the downside of the Fisherman’s Chant had finally surfaced.
Or rather, it was his own flaw!
The Fisherman’s Chant was too powerful. With it, he could accomplish feats beyond any ordinary person. Yet that strength didn’t come from nothing—it was built upon his own spiritual power.
But his spiritual strength was lacking, and it depleted too quickly. It wasn’t enough to expel the contamination entirely. Instead, it offered it a deeper way to invade him.
While his thoughts spun rapidly, waves of drowsiness swept over him. Han Su felt his mind slipping into a daze.
He felt the panic and despair of “himself,” saw the underground facility growing more dilapidated by the day. The rate of decay had far exceeded initial estimates. Generations of people around him dwindled and grew more bizarre. He no longer dared to hide away.
Though he knew the surface was full of radiation and lingering flares, he still chose to go above ground. He’d rather return to the surface in search of a new path than wait for a slow demise below.
So he sent out scouting teams in their scarce protective suits. They left the underground facility to return to the surface—and inevitably met death.
Their suits couldn’t withstand the intense radiation. All the scouts died, not even their blood and bones remained.
Yet in this hopeless environment, a second team was soon dispatched, then a third. In time, many volunteered—whether out of a true desire to serve or because of unbearable repression, actively seeking death.
But the surface was merciless. Once exposed to intense radiation, death was unavoidable. Under the Black Flare-Covered Sun, the fate of all was the disintegration of flesh and bone.
Then mutation emerged amid all this death. Among the countless scouts who perished on the surface, a single anomaly appeared.
He died above ground. His blood and bones were dissolved by radiation just like the others.
But his consciousness, under some strange condition, remained. It returned to the underground shelter, possessing a survivor within. Through that person’s mouth, he spoke of the world above.
He brought precious information to those below.
Humans didn’t understand this reality-defying existence, nor did “he.”
But they chose to believe, dispatching more people, including “himself.” Some, guided by that vital information, avoided the most dangerous zones of radiation and disaster. But many still died above. He was among them.
So he too changed. He felt himself floating, bodiless. He sometimes awoke to see people before him, delivering news from the surface.
Humans began to accept such beings—even worship them.
They began to choose the most suitable vessels to be possessed by them, to heed their guidance…
……
……
‘The ones inside the painting…’
Another wave of disorientation passed before Han Su abruptly snapped awake, his eyes filled with shock: ‘No, they can no longer be called humans. They are a new species entirely—one that I can’t understand.’
Due to his repeated flickering experiences, he had become a master of memory. From countless fragments of contamination, he glimpsed a corner of the history this painting represented.
He saw the past despair of the world and the emergence of a new model of human congregation.
“These…”
Han Su felt a suffocating pressure in his chest: “Are these the memories of our ancestors from the last era?”
Or perhaps, not memories—just traces of radiation.
This painting could be no more than two thousand years old, yet the history he saw stretched much further—tens of thousands of years, possibly even more.
At that time, most people were remnants of a once-glorious civilization, not long after the era of the disastrous flares.
These ancestors birthed mutated consciousnesses from the intense radiation of the previous age. Through means unknowable to modern humans, they gained an alternate form of existence.
And this painting—was created by someone during that time to depict them.
By painting their likenesses, their consciousnesses tainted the canvas. The painting didn’t even contain their full minds—just residual traces.
Yet even after two thousand years, the remnants within this painting still retained qualities similar to them, capable of invading and seizing the body of any ordinary person who made contact with it.
Including himself.
But what hit Han Su even harder was the vision he saw within these spiritual radiations…
The descent of flares, the rampant diseases, the extinction of races, people hiding underground trapped in despair—a hopelessness that transcended history.
But what struck him more amid that suffocating gloom was an intense and jarring question…
…How did those special consciousnesses come to be?
From masses dissolving in radiation, to the birth of mutated minds that lingered and grew stronger, gathering survivors—what was the key change?
In his mind, an answer surfaced, clear and loud: “Life Code?”
Those four words carried immense force. Han Su snapped back to awareness, and when he looked at himself again, he felt riddled with holes.
He was no longer a person, but a collection of consciousnesses. His body was covered with arms, legs, heads—bizarre limbs belonging to others.
The power of the bronze left hand and the giant’s right eye were both ineffective. Even using the Fisherman’s Chant only worsened the contamination’s invasion.
What kept him going now was merely his mental model—a labyrinth with twenty twists and turns.
He realized the memory fragments might contain mysterious information, but for now, he had more pressing matters: he had to expel the painting’s contamination.
The contamination in the painting stripped away the illusion of omnipotence the Fisherman’s Chant gave him and exposed his flaws.
Namely, while his spiritual power was strong, his fragmented life divided it into pieces. Normally, he could extend his duration with “battery swaps,” but at crucial moments, swapping batteries gave the enemy an opening.
A fragmented life was both his greatest asset and his biggest flaw.
Another issue was spiritual activity. His starting point of 30% activity gave him a clear edge early on. But when advancing too fast, it became a liability.
Had he followed Miss Ai’s C-Level task schedule step-by-step, that advantage would’ve stood out. But jumping straight into B-Level tasks showed the gap.
Suddenly, Miss Ai’s pre-mission reminder flashed through his mind:
[Spiritual power is merely a weapon. Mental activity is the foundation.]
[The essence of life is an endless war. Only by advancing without retreat can the forbidden zone be broken!]
[…]
Was Miss Ai using the contamination of this painting to explain the concept of the Life Code, spiritual activity, and the so-called forbidden zone?
He noted the question mentally. Understanding all this through this mission was enough for now. The current priority was solving the problem at hand.
The contamination before him was terrifying, but Miss Ai wouldn’t assign him an unsolvable mission.
The contamination afflicting him now was among the earliest and simplest forms of “distortion.” They were initially just independent consciousnesses—ghosts, phantoms…
Ghosts?
Han Su suddenly recalled the Ghost Princess in the Ancient Castle—the candles she had personally lit…
That thought made his eyes snap open. He lowered his gaze to examine himself and found that the “people” from the painting had invaded him from every direction—except his right arm, right shoulder, and chest.
Those areas were all covered in burn scars!
“Hmm?”
A spark of surprise lit in Han Su’s mind. He calmed his mind—not relying on the Fisherman’s Chant, but fully focusing his awareness on those scars.
As his attention focused on the scars, spiritual power emerged there. Like the sharp pain from his left hand before, these scars—burned onto his body over ten years ago—suddenly ignited with a burning sensation.
It felt like the flames from ten years ago had returned, sizzling his skin.
The sensation was so vivid that Han Su felt as if he’d returned to the moment he had just escaped the Ancient Castle, fire scorching, flickering, corroding his skin.
In that instant, Han Su discovered a change in his body.
The burn scar… had come alive!
The scar left by fire turned back into flame, flaring on his right arm and shoulder.
And with that real, searing pain, Han Su shifted his focus. The flame—or rather, the scar now burning on him—followed his will and flowed again, spreading to other parts of his body.
In a flash, a shrill scream and a shout of terror rang in his ears.
The “people” desperately trying to burrow into his body convulsed and trembled as soon as they touched the burning scar, as if they were truly being burned. The invaded parts vanished instantly.
The parts that had emerged from his body fell off piece by piece, reverting into residual radiation and returning to the painting.
On the canvas, each figure turned far more translucent, a faint sense of gnashing hatred lingering within.