After Ten Millennia in Hell

Chapter 372 - But I Can

Oh Kang-Woo caught Echidna as she jumped into his embrace. Echidna looked up at him while teary-eyed.

“Why, why did you disappear without a word?!” she shouted.

Kang-Woo smiled bitterly. He was most certainly at fault for this incident. If he had been in their shoes and either Kim Si-Hun, Han Seo-Ah, Echidna or anyone else acted on their own, he would have been furious. The fact that he was short on time was just an excuse; he could have concisely contacted them before heading out.

‘Was I more hot-headed than I thought?’

Kang-Woo couldn’t tell. He might have been more impacted by Uriel’s critical state than he had initially thought. In any case, he was in the wrong.

“I’m sorry,” Kang-Woo apologized while patting Echidna’s head.

Echidna was about to say something, but refrained from doing so and simply clenched Kang-Woo’s clothes without a word.

“Sniff, sniff.”

‘Sheesh, you sure are full of snot and tears.’

Blow!

“Wha...”

‘Why are you blowing your nose on my clothes?’

Blow! Blow!

‘Stop that, young lady. You’re getting snot all over my cl—’

Bloooowww!

Kang-Woo grabbed Echidna’s shoulders and lightly separated her from him. Soon after...

“Hyung-nim!”

‘What is it this time, man?’

“Why, why did you disappear without a word?!”

‘Are we gonna go through this each time per person? Keep that up and we’ll be able to fill up today’s chapter.’

“Sorry. I was so out of it that I didn’t think to contact any of you guys,” Kang-Woo replied.

“Haaa. Jesus, do you have any idea how worried I was?”

Si-Hun sighed in relief and then glared at Kang-Woo. Seeing his eyes filled with rage, Kang-Woo smirked.

‘Cute little son of a bitch.’

Si-Hun really felt like a little brother. Kang-Woo was finally able to escape after consoling every single one of his party members who had chased after him to the north. Seol-Ah slowly approached Kang-Woo after he finally managed to resolve the mess.

“Are you really okay, Kang-Woo?” she asked.

“Yeah, I told you I am.”

Seol-Ah carefully reached out to touch Kang-Woo. She smiled brightly and nodded. “Okay, I’ll trust you.”

‘But why are you touching my limbs if you trust me?’

Kang-Woo suppressed his thoughts from leaving through his mouth and turned around. He walked up to Echidna, who was sitting down on the bed with her eyes all puffy from crying so much.

“Can you help me for a bit?” he asked.

“Hm? Me?”

Echidna looked around to see if Kang-Woo had been talking to someone else, and then jumped up in surprise. She had always been the one to be helped by Kang-Woo, but the time had come for her to be able to help him. A fresh and exciting feeling ran down her spine and throughout her body.

Echidna gulped and nodded energetically. “Hm! Yeah, I can help! But with what?”

Echidna looked up at Kang-Woo with sparkling eyes.

Kang-Woo smiled bitterly and continued, “I want you to teach me stuff about dragon tongue magic.”

“Dragon tongue magic?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to use dragon tongue magic, Kang-Woo?”

Kang-Woo nodded. To be more precise, he was trying to understand the construct and principles of dragon tongue rather than to be able to use it.

Momentary silence fell. Echidna sat back down on the bed and rolled her feet covered by pink bunny socks. The bunny’s ears were flapping up and down.

Echidna then answered with a sad expression, “You can’t.”

“I can’t?”

Echidna carefully nodded. “Yeah. You can’t use dragon tongue, Kang-Woo.”

“Hm,” Kang-Woo expressed. “Why not?”

“Because you’re not a dragon.”

‘Oh. Only dragons could use it? I mean, I guess that makes sense since it’s called dragon tongue.’

Kang-Woo chuckled while putting his hand on his forehead. It was an obvious reason, but he still felt frustrated nonetheless.

‘It feels like I was forced to stop shitting midway.’

He understood it in his head, but he still wanted to question it for some reason.

“Dragons have their own unique vocal organs,” Echidna remarked.

She opened her mouth and pointed inside it. She had three vocal chords.

‘Three, huh? Why did I never know this? No, it’d be weirder if I knew. In what world would I ever look at someone’s vocal chords?’

“This organ usually fully forms once you become a mature dragon, but mine was fully developed early thanks to you, Kang-Woo,” Echidna said while smiling.

Kang-Woo groaned and clicked his tongue. “Then does that mean dragon tongue can’t be used without that vocal organ?”

“Yeah. You won’t be able to pronounce the words at all.”

Dragon tongue was a technique that crammed the entirety of a magic formula into a language. If one was not able to pronounce the words, there was no way for one to be able to use them.

“Hmm,” Kang-Woo expressed.

‘I mean, I was never interested in using it anyway.’

He only needed to understand the principles of imbuing power into words.

“Can you use it for me?” Kang-Woo asked.

Echidna nodded. “Sure, just a second.”

Since they couldn’t use it in the room, they separated from the rest of the party and headed to a remote mountain near the area.

Echidna took a deep breath and opened her mouth wide. [D O V A H K I I N!]

The roar was so thick and abnormal that one would hardly believe that it came out from a little girl. The thunderous roar leveled the ground, and sharp blades of wind slashed everything in the area. The forest was sliced into tiny little pieces as if it had been placed in a giant blender. It was like a natural disaster had stormed by.

“Whistle.”

Kang-Woo’s eyes shone with great interest. It had been far stronger than he had expected.

‘When did she grow this much?’

Kang-Woo stared at Echidna like a proud father. She had become far more powerful than when they first met.

“Haaa, haaa. What do you think, Kang-Woo?” Echidna asked while panting and looking up at Kang-Woo with sparkling eyes.

Kang-Woo chuckled and patted her head.

“Hm! Hm!” Echidna smiled widely while snorting with excitement.

‘So cute.’

Kang-Woo could understand how fathers felt as they watched their daughters grow.

‘That aside...’

Kang-Woo fell into thought while tapping on his chin with a finger.

‘Demonic energy moved as soon as Echidna talked in dragon tongue.’

He was able to tell the difference after watching from right next to Echidna. For regular magic, the entirety of the magic formula was constructed first, and then the activation word was uttered to manifest the magic. In other words, it was a form of trigger word. But in the case of dragon tongue, the demonic energy moved at the same time that the activation word was uttered, and the magic manifested as soon as the activation word was finished.

‘Amazing.’

Kang-Woo’s eyes shone. If he had to make a comparison, it was like the difference between a bow and a gun. Regular magic was like a bow; the archer took out an arrow, aimed at the enemy, pulled the bowstring, and let the arrow loose. Kang-Woo also used skills made by merging Authorities in that manner.

‘But...’

Dragon tongue magic was different. Dragons simply placed their finger on the trigger of the ready-to-fire gun that was dragon tongue, and simply pulled the trigger by saying the activation word to fire the gun.

‘Dragon tongue is usually far faster.’

The difference in speed would become wider the more advanced the magic became. Low-rank magic barely required any former preparation. They were almost instinctual, so they usually did not even require activation words.

‘Normal magic is better in that aspect.’

However, more time was required to manifest magic the higher its rank was. If one was able to manifest magic just by uttering the activation word, the difference would be massive.

“Imbuing power into words, huh?” Kang-Woo muttered.

It was as ambiguous as before. As he was lowering his head while in thought, Echidna approached him.

“Don’t worry about it too much, Kang-Woo. You already use magic super fast even without something like dragon tongue.”

That was indeed true; Kang-Woo barely used activation words for his skills. His demonic energy control was so abnormally high that it took him under 0.1 seconds to prepare skills made by merging Authorities. However...

“That 0.1 seconds makes all the difference.”

Even if more zeroes were added and it only took 0.0001 seconds, that short time difference decided the result of a battle between the truly powerful. If Kang-Woo became able to use magic just by saying the activation word, he would be allowed more time to focus on other things.

“I’ll give it a try, at the very least,” Kang-Woo remarked.

“I told you, it’s impossible since you don’t have the vocal organ.”

Echidna pulled on Kang-Woo’s clothes as if questioning why he wasn’t listening to her. Kang-Woo smiled and turned his head.

‘Now, think. Would the reason really have to do with the vocal organ?’

Kang-Woo shook his head. No matter how he thought about it, that did not seem to be the fundamental problem.

‘That may be the case purely in terms of dragon tongue magic.’

Dragon tongue was created and advanced by dragons; it was only natural that Kang-Woo would not be able to imitate them since he did not possess their vocal organs.

‘But...’

The key of dragon tongue, that fascinating power, was not such a superficial aspect.

‘Imbuing power into words.’

That was the core of dragon tongue and its foundation. Dragon tongue was simply a result that was derived from the concept of imbuing power into words.

‘If that’s the case...’

There was no reason that Kang-Woo would not be able to use it.

“Fuuu,” Kang-Woo inhaled as he recalled how Echidna had roared.

“You can be so stubborn sometimes, Kang-Woo. Dragon tongue was developed and advanced over hundreds of thousands of years. It’s not something you can just—”

[D O V A H K I I N!]

The roar that had come out from Echidna’s mouth came out from Kang-Woo’s mouth this time. The ground was leveled as a storm of demonic energy raged. However, the energy that was tearing apart the surroundings suddenly dissipated as if a fuse had been cut.

“Huh?” Echidna’s eyes widened as she looked back and forth at the leveled ground and Kang-Woo. “Wh-What? How did you do that, Kang-Woo?”

Although it had gotten cut midway, Kang-Woo had definitely used dragon tongue. Echidna rushed toward Kang-Woo and pulled on his clothes.

“Hmm.” Kang-Woo frowned as he stared at the leveled ground.

He was not interested in the fact that he had managed to use dragon tongue.

‘Why did it stop midway?’

He was more focused on why it had only been partially successful.

‘Because my vocal organ is different.’

Echidna had been right in that aspect. The formula that had been crammed in the word had not manifested correctly because it had been said through a different vocal organ.

“I got the hang of it now,” Kang-Woo said.

“Wh-What?”

Echidna looked up at Kang-Woo in confusion. How could he have gotten the hang of it after just one try? It was impossible, even if Kang-Woo possessed the vocal organ of a dragon. Even a mature dragon took a few months at least and decades at most to learn just one dragon tongue magic.

“What are you talking about, Kang-Woo?” Echidna asked with a trembling voice.

“The fundamental concept of dragon tongue magic is imbuing power into words, right? In that case, you don’t need to pronounce the words like dragons do.”

Kang-Woo pointed his hand at the peak of the mountain and uttered, “Dovahkiin.”

Rumble—!!

A natural disaster several times more destructive than what Echidna had shown laid waste to the entire mountain. Kang-Woo smiled at the destruction he had caused and shook his head.

“No. I don’t even need to cling to dragon tongue. If the skill is fundamentally to imbue power into words, I can just say whatever I want, can’t I?”

He could just imbue his will into the words he uttered and mix it with his energy. As long as those conditions were fulfilled, that in itself would become magic.

Riiing.

[The skill ‘dragon tongue magic’ is evolving into ‘Soul Speech’!]

[You have accomplished an unprecedented feat!]

[Dramatically raising your demonic energy control!]

Echidna simply stared at Kang-Woo with her mouth agape in silence. Kang-Woo laughed.

“I can’t, you say?”

‘But I can.’