Super Righteous Player-Chapter 1148 - 199: Annan’s Despair

Annan had already vaguely sensed part of the rules of this nightmare.

Thanks to the "Curse Binding of Endymion" he possessed.

This curse required Annan’s left shoulder to be exposed to a sufficient intensity of light. If it didn’t absorb light, it would gradually become searingly painful.

By the thirteenth hour, every second felt as if a red-hot iron was pressed against his skin, and it never lifted.

This was not just a "hallucination" that existed in the senses.

It was not merely punishing phantom pain.

When others touched the cursed mark with their palms, they could truly feel the heat—ordinarily, the heat was about as much as a freshly steeped cup of noodles. If an ordinary person bore this curse, such heat alone could be lethal.

But if it maintained the highest level of heat—even if the pain could be masked or weakened by some means, the remaining heat could destroy Annan’s body.

As a precaution, it wasn’t that it turned into a fatal heat suddenly after thirteen hours without absorbing light. Instead, it began to slowly heat up after the light source was cut off for a while, escalating more noticeably towards the end; the effect was minimal during the initial five or six hours.

Annan had previously tested; the red moon outside the window was an illusion, but the TV actually emitted light. Though not intense enough, it was sufficient to prevent the curse from worsening.

—However, this required Annan to actively move closer.

And Annan was actually sitting on the bed, far from the TV,

Not because he was protecting his eyesight...

but because, after watching that videotape of Isaac, he had a hypothesis.

Holding the thought of trying it out, Annan planned to intentionally activate his curse—

But as a result, Annan ended up watching the videotapes for a very long time... According to the length of the plot, at least about half a month had passed.

Yet Annan’s curse was not triggered at all.

Moreover, Annan wasn’t tired or hungry. He neither ate nor drank, nor did he eliminate.

Although a Gold-Tier Transcendent could temporarily suspend these functions, Annan hadn’t moved at all... But he found he had never felt hungry.

—It was as if the time here was stopped.

"What I fear the most, dread the most, despair the most... what exactly is it?"

Annan murmured softly, standing up and starting to search for remaining clues in the room. fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com

In the drawer, under the bed, inside the pillow, under the mattress...

To Annan’s surprise, he actually found quite a lot of information.

He found an aged yellow paper in the drawer.

It displayed nine Arabic numerals arranged like a small computer keyboard.

And there were eight red lines, crossing these numbers, forming a group of three-digit numbers.

These lines extended, with some words Annan could understand written on them.

Annan recognized only part of them—because these were not the script of the Foggy Continent but mixed with some French along with English. If it were in English, Annan had no problem reading, but he knew very little French.

[Penser], [La volonté], [La chair], [Action], [Jugement]...

Following these incomplete runes, Annan sought the corresponding ones.

"Does Ingrid correspond to... [Thought]? It probably means this."

Annan pondered seriously: "Ofelia corresponds to [Action], I don’t understand the one of the predecessor who wrote the Celestial Car poems. And the dimly lit world where Isaac is, corresponds to [Judgement]..."

Among these eight words, only one word was crossed out.

That was the only missing [357] videotape.

But Annan could still see the words above.

"Compassion... mercy?"

Annan murmured, "Am I [Mercy]?"

Ingrid is thinking... What is she thinking about? What is there to think about in her plan?

Ofelia’s action - but he has nothing to act upon, right?

Or say...

Annan immediately switched his train of thought.

"Isaac represents judgment. But in his world, there’s nothing to judge - so does [Judgment] refer to what he is currently doing?"

In a world where everyone has a cognitive filter, everyone is guilty, everyone is innocent.

Without understanding each other, they are slaughtering their own kind, significantly reducing the number of their own kind.

That is to say, once Isaac finds a way to remove his cognitive filter, he will fall into "true despair". By then, all he can do is "judge".

To strip the life of one part for the sake of another.

By then, he might be in so much pain that he wishes he was still wearing the cognitive filter.

It’s precisely because Isaac is a kind person that he would be tormented by this mindset.

...And the same logic applies.

When Ingrid falls into "true despair," all she could do is "think".

Because she can do nothing else.

She cannot act, nor can she communicate with anyone other than the "Demon Lord". She is even deprived of her vision, and the Demon Lord certainly won’t care about what she says or thinks - that is truly "I love you, but what does it have to do with you?"

It wasn’t even like how it was at the beginning.

Back then, although she couldn’t act and was deprived of much strength.

She could still match wits with those barbarians. She could also communicate with others to alleviate her loneliness - besides, her humanity wasn’t that strong anymore being high above them.

If it weren’t for the sudden invasion of the "Demon Lord," she was confident that she could eventually reclaim her freedom.

It’s also because she got pregnant, that fear brought her back to the realm of "mortals", made her regain her humanity, and led her to start [Thinking] apprehensively.

That is to say, after [Despair], all she could do is think - she could do nothing else.

If we take this logic to look at Ofelia, it can be understood well. When he realized that this planet was actually dead, uninhabited, leaving only these robots who don’t understand art and can’t communicate with him... all he could do was [Act].

He had to do something, otherwise he was eventually going to be submerged in the endless loneliness and silence.

At first, Ofelia indeed took some "action". But until he truly despaired, that’s when he really started to truly "act".

It’s the same for Isaac and Ingrid.

In the beginning, Isaac, leading those young soldiers "against the Insect Race", obviously needed some "judgment". But only after experiencing true despair, would he understand what the real "judgment" he needed was.

"And the part that belongs to me..."

Annan’s pupils slightly constricted.

He realized something and gradually became nervous: "Is it... [Mercy]?

"So, do I have ’mercy’ now? If so, what am I feeling mercy towards? Under what circumstances... will I truly begin [Mercy]?

"What exactly is true mercy?"