Arknights: I'm Pretty Strong With Minecraft — Chapter 51

Chapter 51: Soul SandYou're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

Ivan casually tossed Mephisto to the ground like a sack of garbage. The intense, throbbing agony from his severed arm was completely eclipsed by the sheer sensory overload of the hellscape stretching out before him.

Mephisto scrambled backward, his boots scraping against the scorching ground. His bloodshot eyes were blown wide with unmatched terror.

“Wh-where is this?!” he stammered, his voice cracking.

Ivan stood over him, perfectly relaxed. “This is the Nether,” he said, his tone casual. “Consider it your… final destination.”

A thick, suffocating heat washed over them. The heavy, gurgling churn of rolling lava echoed from below, punctuated by the chilling, hollow shrieks of unseen horrors drifting through the crimson fog. Every sound, every wave of blistering heat, relentlessly battered against Mephisto’s already fragile sanity.

He stared at this alien purgatory. It was a nightmare realm that defied all logic of Terra, and his mind was rapidly collapsing under the weight of it. Absolute panic seized him. The primal urge to survive—to flee this suffocating hell—overrode the searing pain in his shoulder.

With a sudden, desperate burst of adrenaline, he broke free from the lingering shock and scrambled to his feet. Like a cornered rat, he bolted toward the towering frame of obsidian that pulsed with a hypnotic, swirling purple light.

“Go back! I want to go back!!” he shrieked, his voice tearing at his throat.

Ivan didn’t even twitch. He simply stood there, watching the frantic boy with deadpan amusement.

Mephisto threw his entire body toward the swirling vortex of the Nether Portal, bracing himself for the spatial distortion. Instead, his body passed straight through the purple haze without a shred of resistance. His momentum carried him forward until he face-planted hard onto the blistering netherrack.

“I-I’m back?” he gasped, coughing up ash as he lay on the rough stone. He looked up, expecting to see the ruined streets of Chernobog. Instead, the oppressive crimson sky stared back down at him.

“Just an illusion, kid,” Ivan’s dry voice shattered his fleeting hope.

“No! Impossible!” Mephisto screamed, his mind fracturing. He scrambled up, his remaining hand clawing at the air, and threw himself at the portal again. He passed right through the purple haze. He turned and lunged again. Once, twice, three times. He slammed into the frame, stumbled through the center, acting like a headless fly desperately trying to smash through a glass window to return to the world where he held all the power.

“It’s useless.” Ivan’s voice dropped, carrying the finality of a death knell. “You can’t go back.”

“Ahhhhh!”

The realization snapped whatever restraint Mephisto had left. The suffocating terror mutated into a volatile, blinding rage. Humiliation burned hotter than the lava lakes around them. With his one good hand, he snatched his fallen Originium Arts staff from the jagged rocks.

“Then let’s die together!” he roared, his face twisting into a mask of pure malice. He still wanted to make one last, desperate struggle.

A sharp click of the tongue, dripping with absolute mockery, echoed from the side.

Him stepped out from behind a jagged pillar of netherrack, resting his serpent blade casually against his shoulder. His glowing white eyes locked onto the Reunion leader, radiating naked contempt.

“I truly didn’t expect to find such filth,” Him drawled, not even bothering to look directly at Mephisto anymore, as if a second glance would soil his vision. “Treating your own companions as disposable tools. Warping them into monsters and building your fleeting joy on their endless suffering. A creature rotten from the inside out. Isn’t that right, Steve?”

A few paces away, Steve stood silently. He simply tightened his grip on his enchanted diamond sword, the shimmering purple aura of the blade speaking volumes.

Mephisto’s breath hitched. “You… you’re the one… from Chernobog…” He recognized that glowing gaze. It was the phantom that had cast a suffocating shadow over their entire operation.

“Shut up.” Him’s voice was a razor, the disgust in his tone practically freezing the boiling air. “Do not speak to me. You are not worthy.”

“I’m not worthy?!” That utter dismissal was the final spark to the powder keg. Mephisto abandoned Ivan entirely. Channeling every ounce of his deranged fury, he brandished his staff and charged straight at the white-eyed entity.

“Go to hell!!”

Watching from the sidelines, Ivan let out a dry chuckle. “Seriously, buddy? Are you actually insane?”

Facing the desperate, pathetic lunge, Him didn’t even bother to raise his serpent blade. Instead, with a flick of his wrist, he produced a block of solid bedrock from thin air, casually holding it up like a makeshift shield.

Clang!and support the real translator.Read at elysianreads.com This is a stolen translation. You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

Mephisto’s staff smashed into the indestructible block. The impact failed to leave even a microscopic scratch on the bedrock, but the violent recoil nearly shattered Mephisto’s remaining wrist.

Before the boy could recover, Him lifted his boot and delivered a devastating kick squarely to Mephisto’s chest.

“Gah—!”

Mephisto was launched backward, tracing a pathetic arc through the air before crashing heavily into a patch of dark, muddy terrain. He sank instantly, more than half of his body plunging into the soft, grasping depths of the soul sand. He thrashed wildly, but the strange soil clung to him, making every movement a grueling chore.

Off in the distance, Steve tilted his head. For some inexplicable reason, the specific angle and posture of Mephisto getting stomped into the dirt felt incredibly familiar to him.

Ivan strolled over, his boots crunching against the netherrack until he reached the edge of the soul sand. He looked down at the trapped boy.

“It’s useless. Do you still not get it?” Ivan asked, a faint trace of pity coloring his tone. “You aren’t facing some random Arts user. You’re facing the… Creator of this world.”

“Cr-Creator?”

Mephisto froze. His frantic struggling ceased. That single word crushed the last fragile pillar of his ego, leaving nothing behind but a boundless, suffocating despair.

Ivan crouched slightly, his voice dropping to a dangerous low. “When you wantonly toyed with lives using your Originium Arts… when you warped innocent people into monsters… when you slaughtered those who begged and cried for mercy… did you ever stop to think you’d end up here?”

“It’s all because of her! It’s all because of that ridiculous, hypocritical ‘family’!” Mephisto shrieked, his mind entirely broken. He thrashed in the sand, spitting venom and excuses. “It’s not my fault! None of it is my fault!!”

“Cut the crap,” Ivan interrupted, his voice turning to ice. “You knew exactly what you were doing from the very beginning. You just loved the power trip. You enjoyed holding lives in the palm of your hand and crushing them on a whim. You fed on their pain. You reveled in their fear.”

“No… it’s not true! It’s not!” Mephisto sobbed, a pathetic denial falling on deaf ears.

Ivan stood up, drawing the Blade of the God of War. The heavy, cold edge gleamed in the ambient lava light as he leveled the tip directly at Mephisto’s chest, ready to sever the boy’s sinful life right then and there.

“Wait.”

Him stepped forward, raising a hand to block Ivan’s strike.

Ivan raised an eyebrow. “Hmm?”

Him stared down at Mephisto, who was trembling violently in the mud, his teeth chattering in pure terror.

“Killing him with a blade is letting him off far too easily,” Him stated coldly.

He raised his boot, the leather suddenly glowing with an eerie, cold white light, and stomped down hard on Mephisto’s shoulder. The blow wasn’t meant to break bones; it was designed to force him down.

“Ah—!”

Mephisto barely managed a choked gasp before he was shoved violently downward. His entire body sank into the grasping depths of the seemingly soft soul sand, leaving only his head exposed above the dark, wailing soil.

Ivan shot Him a questioning look.

Resting his serpent blade against his shoulder, Him calmly explained the true nature of the block. “Soul sand… isn’t just a trap to slow down intruders. Inside that soil, every single atrocity he has ever committed, every life he has snuffed out, will be replayed countless times in his mind.”

Him’s glowing eyes narrowed. “Only this time… the one wailing, bleeding, and begging for mercy in absolute despair… will be him.”

The muffled, agonized screams of the souls trapped in the sand seemed to rise in volume, welcoming their newest addition.

“An infinite loop. Never-ending,” Him whispered, turning away. “He will exist in the perfect Nether of his own making. Butchered by ‘himself’… an infinite number of times.”You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.