Chapter 149: Courage and Conviction

Soren looked at the people who had lost all hope and let out a quiet sigh.

He hadn't wanted to tear away the last shred of their illusion, but facts were facts.

These people's childhoods had been nothing but misfortune.

Fear of their parents. Guilt over a little brother. Terror of schoolyard bullies.

That was why even the smallest scrap of warmth in their memories felt priceless to them.

They didn't understand that beneath that pitiful warmth lay endless fear and pain.

Using something like that as an offering against a monster that fed on fear?

It was like throwing meat buns at a hungry dog.

When they heard the brutal truth, the last spark of light in Bill and the others' eyes went out completely.

They lowered their heads in despair, eyes losing focus.

Their minds plunged straight into the abyss, falling into the nightmares Pennywise had crafted for each of them.

The clown's massive head slowly descended toward the water. The three glowing Deadlights drifted back into its body.

It drank in their pure terror with obvious pleasure, face twisting in satisfaction.

Once it had taken enough, the sides of its head split open. Barbed spider legs pushed outward.

"Hehehehe————"

In its spider form, Pennywise turned its gaze on Soren.

"Now it's your turn, little snack."

The clown swung its spider legs in a wide, vicious sweep.

Soren's expression didn't change. He drew the Shura Blade.

"Clang!"

A flash of purple light cut through the darkness.

"Shhk—!"

One thick spider leg was severed cleanly and dropped into the black water.

Soren didn't waste breath on words. Demonic power detonated beneath his feet.

His body became a blur, skimming across the water and kicking up a long trail of spray.

[Swift Iaijutsu]!

He drew the long blade in one smooth motion. The charge accelerated again, turning him into a streak of cutting light that wove between the clown's thrashing legs.

When he reappeared, he stood steady on the water behind Pennywise.

Face calm, Soren gripped the scabbard with his left hand and slowly pushed the hilt with his right, sliding the blade home.

"Click."

The moment the sword fully sheathed, several spider legs on the clown's lower body exploded at once. The massive head lost its support and crashed into the water, sending up a huge splash.

"Hehehehe————"

Pennywise grinned wide, the smile mocking, as if Soren's attack had only tickled it.

In seconds, new spider legs regrew from its body.

Worse, the more fear it squeezed out of Bill and the others, the more its form seemed to shift toward something even more monstrous.

Fully restored, the clown's huge body leaped high, giant mouth gaping as it lunged to bite down on Soren.

Soren's eyes narrowed. He raised the Shura Blade vertically in front of him, right hand tight on the hilt.

The instant the clown closed in, he drew and swung forward in one light motion.

[Void Blade Realm]!

An extremely fine blade of light slashed out. Pennywise sensed the danger and its face twisted.

Trapped in mid-air with nowhere to dodge, it could only throw its spider legs up as a shield.

"Boom!"

The blade light slammed into its body. Two legs were severed instantly and the clown's bulk was blasted backward.

Soren stared at the blade in his hand, brows drawing together.

Void Blade Realm shouldn't have worked like that. The technique was supposed to pin the enemy in place so he could follow up with more slashes.

Was it because the Shura Blade lacked Yamato's space-cutting property?

The strike had carried tremendous power, but it had only delivered raw physical damage.

The thought flashed through his mind and vanished. Soren's body blurred again as he chased the tumbling clown.

In mid-air he stepped on the clown's face, arm moving in a rapid blur.

The long blade became a storm of light, countless vicious cuts raining down like a hurricane.

Pennywise endured every strike without showing pain.

It forced its body to stabilize even while taking the barrage, then opened its mouth again.

At this range Soren could see deep inside its throat—the three glowing spheres of the Deadlights.

He abandoned the attack without hesitation, kicked off the clown's face, and launched himself backward.

The moment he cleared the space, blinding beams of light erupted from the clown's mouth.

They grazed past Soren and punched straight through the stone ceiling above, leaving a gaping hole.

Soren landed on the water and sheathed the blade.

Pennywise floated in the air. The spider legs and wounds Soren had carved into it had already regenerated.

"Hehehehe———— Useless."

The clown licked blood from its face with a long tongue.

"With their fear feeding me, you'll never beat me."

Its giant head rotated slowly in the air, drool dripping steadily from its jaws.

"Look at these pathetic bugs. Their minds will soon melt into the most delicious meal I've ever tasted."

The clown stopped spinning and fixed both eyes on Soren.

"Next———— you're all that's left."

Soren met its smug stare and asked in a flat voice, "What if they wake up?"

"Wake up? Hehehehe."

Pennywise laughed so hard it rocked back and forth, the sound echoing through the underground cavern.

"Them? A bunch of wastes who let their childhood shadows trap them for twenty-seven years? One of them heard I was back and slit his own wrists like a coward?"

"If they really had the guts to face their fear, why did they run and hide like rats for twenty-seven years?"

"Everyone's afraid of something."

Soren's voice stayed calm as he looked at the clown.

"Some people get buried alive by it. Others turn that fear into fuel and set their own hearts on fire."

"Besides————"

A strange purple light flickered in Soren's eyes.

The demonic power inside him began to boil, rising like a volcano on the edge of eruption.

Purple light traced the outlines of armor across his body.

"Even if they are swallowed by fear————"

Soren's voice grew muffled beneath the forming mask.

"You're still going to die here today."

The words had barely left his mouth when a crushing pressure exploded outward from him in every direction.

The still water surface heaved upward into waves several meters high.

"Boom!"

A streak of light tore through the spray and punched straight through Pennywise's body at a speed the eye couldn't follow.

The clown's mocking grin froze. It hadn't even seen the attack.

It lowered its gaze to the massive, basin-sized hole in its torso.

"Aaaah——!"

Pennywise let out a howl of pain that shook loose stones from the ceiling.

It instinctively tried to pull in more energy to repair the wound.

This time the regeneration crawled forward at a snail's pace.

The clown's head snapped toward Bill and the others lying on the stone platform, eyes wide with shock.

The fear pouring out of them was actually decreasing.

"This is impossible!"

Disbelief flooded the clown's face.

These people were trapped inside its own nightmare. They should have been drowning in the deepest despair imaginable.

How could their fear be fading?!

Soren stood on the water's surface, Shura Blade in one hand, body now encased in full demon armor. Purple demonic power flowed and sparked through the seams like liquid fire, making him look like a demon god risen from hell itself.

"Nothing's impossible."

He walked forward step by step, each footfall sending ripples across the boiling water.

Violent demonic power compressed inside the scabbard until a ball of purple-red flame ignited along the blade. The heat was so intense the water beneath his feet instantly turned to steam, thick white clouds rising around his legs.

"Courage and belief are humanity's strongest weapons."

Pennywise watched Soren approach, feeling the growing pressure radiating from the blade. A flicker of retreat crossed its mind.

It fed on fear. As long as fear existed somewhere in the world, it could hide, wait decades, and return. There was no need to die here fighting this thing.

Realizing that, a wild light entered the clown's eyes.

It suddenly opened its mouth wide.

The jaws kept stretching, pushing its eyes and nose aside until its entire face became one enormous black maw.

Rows of jagged fangs lined the inside. Deep in the back, three glowing spheres spun faster and faster.

Its true form. The Deadlights.

Anything struck by that light—even a god—would descend into endless madness.

But just as the Deadlights prepared to fire, the clown's eyes—now squeezed to the edges of its distorted face—twitched violently.

At some point, countless fine purple threads had appeared in the surrounding void.

Its eyeballs rolled with effort and it finally saw the truth.

The entire underground space had gone deathly silent, as if someone had hit mute.

Hundreds of hair-thin purple lines had already wrapped around it from every direction.

"Click."