Chapter 234 - Episode 30. Lone World (9)
Chapter 234: Episode 30. Lone World (9)
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There was once a man.
A man whose World had been stolen by the Cultivators’ ambition and the dream demons’ desire for honor.
After clearing 「Existence and Nothingness」, the Tower of Nightmares created by Jean-Paul, the great dream demon Master, the young man followed the gods’ guidance into the 《Abyss》. His rage and hatred toward this world opened the path of Awakening.
He fought the Lords of the 《Great Realm》. He struggled against the gods of the 《Abyss》. He slaughtered countless Cultivators and dream demons.
He founded 「Rupture」.
Whenever the young man slept, he imagined 《Big Brother》. He firmly believed that the star he could see was 《Big Brother》.
Beyond this world’s tragedy, that thing exists. One day, I will shoot that star from the sky.
He swore it again and again.
The young man became middle-aged, then grew older, then became an old man. His appearance remained youthful, but he had become terribly old.
He had lived through much history.
He could no longer remember when he had stopped the war.
He could not remember when he had begun looking at the sky less often, or when that brilliant star had begun filling him not with burning rage, but with deep despair.
Nor could he remember when he had stabbed out the eyes that could see the light.
Maiad could no longer remember.
* * *
Jaehwan now knew quite a bit about the Three God War. The restored Record of the Abyss contained the history of the Abyss that Mulack had left behind.
Most documents remaining in the Abyss described the Three God War as a power struggle among the Three Ancient Gods. The truth, however, was somewhat different.
The three gods had gathered that day not to start a war, but to end war forever.
Perhaps that meeting had been destined long ago.
From the day the three gods discovered Clothes, put on Clothes, and began seeking the true nature of Clothes.
* * *
The first to speak was the young Catastrophe, who still possessed a body.
“So this is the power of that thing called the 《System》?”
“Clothes are not the 《System》’s power. They are a power that arose alongside the 《System》’s existence.”
The one who answered was the young Deus, whose body was clad in iron armor.
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“It is different.”
“What exactly is the 《System》?”
“The fundamental principle of the universe. The cause that precedes all things.”
“What kind of nonsense is that? So you’re saying it’s stronger than us?”
“It is not something that can be called strong or weak. The System is simply this entire world. It is a concept that completely transcends the category of strength and weakness.”
Catastrophe’s lips twitched.
“Then I’ll destroy it. We are gods. I will not stand by and let something like that rule over me, whether it is a fundamental principle or some transcendent concept.”
“The 《System》 has no will. It governs, but does not reign. It simply exists.”
Catastrophe groaned.
“What have you been trying to say this whole time? Didn’t we gather to stop the gods’ war, System or not? Why bring this up now?”
Deus spoke with a mechanical smile.
“Catastrophe. We can use the 《System》 to end this war.”
Deus laid out the plan he had prepared.
He began with the concept of Clothes, the source of their power, and went on to explain how they could use those Clothes to gain control over the 《System》.
After Deus spoke for some time, Gestalt was the one who raised an objection.
“I oppose this plan. We do not know what the System truly is.”
Despite Gestalt’s objections, Catastrophe and Deus pushed ahead with the plan. Perhaps they had grown tired of the long war. Perhaps it was boredom born from the passage of endless time.
Or perhaps it came from a sense of justice.
No one knew why they made that choice then. Only the result was certain.
That day, the thing everyone knew was born into the world.
* * *
Two hundred and ten thousand years after the Three God War ended.
Jaehwan, now the strongest Awakened One in the 《Abyss》, witnessed a recreation of the thing created two hundred and ten thousand years ago. Of course, this was not its complete form. The being created back then had likely been far more powerful.
A blazing red sun.
Maiad now resembled such a sun.
[So this is how it feels. To be a true god.]
It was a statement that seemed to deny every god in the 《Abyss》.
In fact, with Maiad’s appearance, gods scattered throughout the 《Abyss》 were rapidly losing their power.
The Hidden Phase of Deus Ex Machina.
It was an ability that transformed Maiad’s Unique World into a single System.
The principle itself was simple. Deus’s 「Plausibility Destruction」 severed the links between gods and their Vicegerents. Catastrophe’s 「Time Infection」 infected the Vicegerents with the 《System》. At the same time, Gestalt’s 「Cognitive Dissonance」 manipulated the Vicegerents’ senses.
“Aaaaaah!”
The Vicegerents, suddenly cast into a new reality, trembled in pain. Yet with their gods gone, the only World left for them to believe in was 「Mountain of Corpses, Sea of Blood」.
Under that painful coercion, they accepted 「Mountain of Corpses, Sea of Blood」 one by one.
They became voluntary slaves to the System.
World Force gathered from all throughout the 《Abyss》 was flowing into Maiad’s Deus Ex Machina.
Jaehwan could not even guess how much World Force had accumulated there.
Rumble.
「Mountain of Corpses, Sea of Blood」, elevated into a single System, was different from the 「Mountain of Corpses, Sea of Blood」 Jaehwan knew.
That World was no longer a Hypothesis.
Jaehwan looked around. Kasim and Cheongheo were clutching their chests, their bodies convulsing.
Maiad’s voice reached him.
[How strange. How are you still all right? Not even an Awakened One should have been able to endure this.]
Kasim and Cheongheo appeared to be suffering for different reasons.
Kasim, who had always been a member of 「Rupture」, was having his World Force drained by his own World, 「Mountain of Corpses, Sea of Blood」. Cheongheo, who possessed an Unique World of his own, was being invaded by 「Mountain of Corpses, Sea of Blood」.
Having descended as reality, 「Mountain of Corpses, Sea of Blood」 allowed no Unique World but itself.
The power to reject every Hypothesis except itself.
That was the power held by Lone World, 「Mountain of Corpses, Sea of Blood」 after it became the 《System》.
Yet even 「Mountain of Corpses, Sea of Blood」 could not destroy Jaehwan’s World.
Jaehwan thought he vaguely understood why that was possible.
[Interesting. The World that remains until the end is your World.]
Jaehwan’s Unique World had been born solely to destroy other Worlds.
That was why Jaehwan’s World necessarily required other Worlds.
A World that would never disappear as long as another World existed.
That was the condition of existence for Jaehwan’s Unique World.
Jaehwan stared at Maiad in silence.
At the end of that gaze, Maiad asked,
[Why are you looking at me like that?]
“I felt sorry for you.”
[For me?]
Maiad burst into loud laughter.
Jaehwan did not laugh.
“You stabbed out your own eyes because you could not reach the star.”
[……]
“As if everything was the fault of the eyes that could see that star.”
Jaehwan looked up at the sky.
Dark clouds from 「Mountain of Corpses, Sea of Blood」 completely covered the heavens. The clouds hid the sky as if no sky existed beyond them.
Yet excessive concealment only made it clearer that something was there.
[Have you suddenly become a poet? I have no idea what you are talking about, Jaehwan. I am the star itself now.]
“The star is nowhere now. You have lost it forever.”
[You are dull to the very end. Let us finish this.]
The World surged toward Jaehwan.
Red blades burst from the shattered air. Part of the sky collapsed and fell before him. A hand shot from the blood-red ground and seized Jaehwan’s ankle. Light poured from 「Deus Ex Machina」, now a single sun, burning the earth as it raced toward him.
「Cognitive Dissonance」
Jaehwan broke free of the World Force’s grasp with all his strength.
「Naked」
Golden light burst forth and deflected Deus Ex Machina’s beam.
「Fall」
Black aura rose from Dokbul and swept away the countless red blades flying at him.
Even so, Jaehwan’s soul was being battered mercilessly.
Maiad’s Three Divine Artifacts were no match for Jaehwan’s 「Gestalt’s Eye」 and 「Void Sword」. Yet the overwhelming difference in World Force was crushing every advantage those Settings gave Jaehwan.
No matter how sturdy a ship was, it could not defeat the sea.
Before long, Jaehwan’s entire body was covered in wounds. The muscle in his thigh burst. His left shoulder was torn clean away.
Still, Jaehwan did not stop swinging his sword.
Breaking. Slashing. Stabbing.
Falling, then rising again.
A naked human stood there, fighting a World.
Every being in the 《Abyss》 watched his battle while holding their breath.
「Damn it.」
「If only there had been a little more time...」
「I’m sorry.」
Jaehwan’s Clothes faded one after another in his place. Voices losing strength scattered like prayers vanishing into the air.
Even Jaehwan’s nearly twenty billion World Force was not enough to stand against the entire 《Abyss》.
Jaehwan’s expression slowly darkened.
* * *
One hundred billion... two hundred billion?
Perhaps it had already surpassed even that unit.
Simply watching the battle unfold before him made Karlton feel as if his soul were being torn apart. World Force beyond what a single soul could endure was raging through the area.
The fact that Jaehwan was still standing was a miracle.
This was neither metaphor nor symbol. Maiad had already become a World in himself.
And Jaehwan was fighting that World.
‘Fortress Lord.’
Unlike Cheongheo, Karlton still retained his senses.
It was thanks to Jaehwan.
If not for the link Karlton had formed with Jaehwan in advance to provide him World Force, and if Jaehwan had not restored that link with 「Cognitive Dissonance」 the moment it was about to be severed by 「Plausibility Destruction」, Karlton would have been rolling across the ground like the other Awakened Ones.
The link he had formed beforehand to help Jaehwan was now preserving his own life.
Karlton squeezed out his remaining World Force and sent it to Jaehwan.
Less than one billion World Force.
It was a pitifully small amount of power, nowhere near enough to change the current situation.
He had thought this might happen, but facing that despair made the humiliation difficult to bear.
He was no help at all in this battle.
“Fortress Lord!”
As he watched Jaehwan begin to fall, a cold chill entered Karlton’s breath as well. His soul was rapidly growing cold from the World Force leaving his body.
Jaehwan’s gaze, fixed on him from afar, seemed to say:
‘Do not worry, Karlton.’
Long ago, Karlton had once seen the same look in Jaehwan’s eyes.
“Do not worry. No one will harm you here.”
A boy born between a Celestial and a human, then abandoned in 《Chaos》.
A hybrid, despised and scorned because he had nowhere to turn.
The one who saved Karlton was Aimel, the former Fortress Lord of Gorgon.
Reciting the inviolable Edicts that governed Gorgon, Aimel had said:
“At least in this fortress, that is justice.”
Karlton remembered the day he first received his word-command skill.
An invincible Edict that carried out justice.
With that Edict, Karlton defended Gorgon. He memorized the laws in an endless legal dictionary, acted as justice’s agent, and inherited Aimel’s spirit.
That was how he became Gorgon’s 「Silver Restraint」.
Justice saves souls, and law protects justice. Back then, he had thought that was enough.
But now Karlton wondered:
What were Edicts and justice worth?
Before his eyes, the man who represented the world’s most steadfast and unbending justice was collapsing.
Watching Jaehwan stagger through the sea of blood in 「Mountain of Corpses, Sea of Blood」, Karlton hated the incomprehensible World of the 《Tree of Illusion》. The invading cold consumed him, and Karlton slowly sank to the ground.
The legal dictionary he treasured slipped from his arms and rolled across the floor.
Karlton’s lips twisted.
The power he had trusted most was useless here.
No Edict could protect that man. No justice could fight that World.
Pages torn from the legal dictionary fluttered through the air in the wind. The letters of the laws broke apart one by one, and Karlton thought:
Why could Jaehwan’s life not be rewarded? Even someone who killed innocent people like that and deceived the world had opened a world. He had gained a belief powerful enough to open a World.
Then why did Jaehwan not even have Followers?
Why did no one believe in him?
At that moment, something flashed through Karlton’s mind.
No one believed in him?
Karlton rose as though he had lost his mind. Staggering toward Jaehwan, he pushed through the storm of blood and did not stop even as flying debris wounded his body.
Seeing him, Jaehwan warned him.
‘Do not come closer.’
A faint silver light flowed from Karlton’s body. Every moment he had struggled through, every piece of justice he had fought to protect, stirred within him.
Why had his Unique World never blossomed?
Karlton had always wondered. Even after entering the fourth stage of Awakening, he had still been unable to manifest his Unique World.
But at this moment, Karlton thought he finally understood what his Unique World was.
An Unique World awakened based on its manifestor’s ideals, influenced by their emotions.
For Cheongheo, it was the form of the martial world he longed for. For Maiad, it was the despairing landscape of 「Mountain of Corpses, Sea of Blood」.
Then what was Karlton’s ideal?
To find the answer, Karlton quietly closed his eyes.
A familiar scene appeared.
Whoooosh.
His vision cleared, revealing a fortress surrounded by enormous walls. It was the place where he had lived for so long.
A place where people had lost death, yet struggled desperately not to lose life.
A place where small lives protected small acts of justice.
It was neither grand nor great. Yet to Karlton, it was the most precious World of all.
Karlton slowly opened his eyes. Silver light shone within them.
Bright silver radiance spread outward, and behind Karlton, the entrance to a vast World opened.
The magnificent ramparts of the Outer Fortress stretched for hundreds of kilometers.
The emblems of Guardian Horned Beasts stood across its spires.
The Inner Fortress coiled within like a colossal beast.
In this World of the 《Tree of Illusion》, there were people who believed in Jaehwan more than anyone.
Sanctuary Manifestation.
「Fortress Gorgon」
Gorgon, one of the four great fortresses of 《Chaos》, appeared behind Karlton in the form of his Unique World.
Footnotes:
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