Chapter 78 - Episode 11. King of Chaos (9)
Chapter 78: Episode 11. King of Chaos (9)
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Drawing in his spiritual power, Jaehwan pushed 「Doubt」 to its limit. He read and reread the 「Black Flames」 burning from Samyeong Garam’s body. Yet no matter how he looked at them, they seemed to be nothing more than an accumulation of numbers.
And still, Samyeong Garam was strong.
Why? How could something as simple as numbers be that powerful?
Jaehwan drove 「Selflessness」 to its limit and accelerated his movements. Time changed for Jaehwan alone, and everything around him slowed.
Except for one person.
“Another groundless little trick.”
The Dark Fragrance Lord’s fist flew at a speed that could not be avoided and buried itself in Jaehwan’s stomach. Jaehwan swallowed the breath that rose in his throat. Had he let it out, silver blood would have poured from his mouth.
It was only a punch.
Yet it was a punch worthy of being called the strongest.
With no other choice, Jaehwan gathered his spiritual power. Once again, the energy of World Stab gathered at Dokbul’s tip.
If acceleration could not decide the battle, then it would be a contest of pure strength.
Gooooo.
Condensed spiritual power pierced the sky. The surrounding space twisted, and black rifts remained in every path the sword traced.
The Dark Fragrance Lord remained expressionless as Jaehwan’s sword strikes rushed toward him.
“Useless.”
The power could split the earth and tear through the sea. Yet even that power could not kill the man before him.
Samyeong Garam advanced, shattering World Stab’s waveforms with a few punches. When his hand, burning with black flames, touched them, the spiritual power of Jaehwan’s Stab split apart like waves. His fists were hard enough to withstand the barrage of spiritual power.
Jaehwan could feel the hardness of the world wrapped around those fists. It was power that seemed capable of smashing anything apart.
“You cannot contend with me using spiritual power alone. Whether it splits the sea or tears through the earth.”
His tone was arrogant and proud. His solid sense of self was built on confidence in his own ability, and he had every right to be confident.
The sea, the earth, the sky. They all possessed physical form. But the power coating half of the Dark Fragrance Lord’s body transcended physical form.
Was that it? Was spiritual power ineffective?
In the end, spiritual power was only a resource permitted by the System. The Dark Fragrance Lord’s strength was something far more fundamental.
Like the world itself.
The power of the source.
That overwhelming presence must have come from that power.
Which meant Jaehwan was not facing the Dark Fragrance Lord alone. What he fought now was this world itself. The world people had lived in and believed in.
The System’s world.
Kagaagaak!
Every time Dokbul clashed with the Dark Fragrance Lord’s fists, it let out a painful cry. Dokbul, which had never once been pushed back in a collision, was being driven back little by little. Its blade shook dangerously, and the teeth that had devoured equipment snarled as if frustrated.
“I have finally met a worthy opponent, yet I cannot get excited.”
His tone sounded stifled.
The outcome was being decided through the next several clashes. Since no attack using spiritual power could reach him, there was no way this could be a fair fight.
“You seem to have almost reached Creation, yet you still cannot properly use your own world. Do you intend to climb the 《Abyss》 with such paltry skill?”
For the first time, the Dark Fragrance Lord’s fists stopped.
He seemed relaxed enough to wait forever for the sake of true entertainment. It was the presence of someone who possessed a General’s strength.
“Open Creation. Show me your world.”
Creation. The Dark Fragrance Lord had said that word earlier too.
In truth, Jaehwan already knew it.
The Record of the Abyss left behind by Mulack contained passages about Awakened Ones. Mulack had recorded what he had learned about the stages of Awakening.
―Though the keywords gained differ depending on the method of Awakening, Awakening itself is broadly divided into six stages. The first half consists of three stages of World Destruction, created to break the existing world. The latter half consists of three stages of Creation, which exist to make a new world.
Jaehwan knew that he had entered the latter half of Awakening, the three stages of Creation. Yet he could not grasp what Creation truly was.
He already possessed a Unique World.
So what Creation was he supposed to open now?
As his emotions surged, Jaehwan’s Unique World flowed out.
“I told you I was not referring to such a crude illusion.”
The Dark Fragrance Lord spoke as he unleashed a powerful blow.
Kwaagaak!
Jaehwan’s Unique World shattered with ease. The impact drove Jaehwan back several steps.
Crude illusion was the right description. A Unique World could not wield power by itself. It could inflict mental damage or overwhelm someone, but it could not harm an opponent.
As Jaehwan watched the Dark Fragrance Lord approach, he considered the difference between a Unique World and the System.
If, as Samyeong Garam claimed, the System’s world was also a Unique World, why could the Dark Fragrance Lord freely draw upon the world’s essence? Why did the System’s world possess such clear physical force?
What was the difference between a world that had opened Creation and one that had not?
Jaehwan thought and thought.
What had a god needed to create a world?
What did someone who possessed nothing need to open a world?
“I cannot wait forever. If you do not understand, I will have to force it open and see for myself.”
The Dark Fragrance Lord’s gaze had turned elsewhere.
A chill ran through Jaehwan’s chest. The Lord’s fist seemed to drift past Jaehwan as it shot toward somewhere else. The moment Jaehwan urgently stepped in that direction, the fist had already crossed the space and reached its target.
Cheongheo and Sirwen were sent flying by a single blow. Cayman, who had regained his senses at some point, barely managed to raise his sword. The sword made from a Four-Horned Beast’s horn shattered beneath the Dark Fragrance Lord’s fist. Cayman’s Spiritual Pressure, already at its limit, was gradually collapsing.
More punches flew in.
Jaehwan ran toward the Dark Fragrance Lord with all his strength.
And then-
“Fortress Lord...!”
Cayman’s flustered voice rang out.
Dokbul screamed once more.
An unbearable shock struck Jaehwan’s entire body. The fresh blood pooled on his lips turned silver and scattered away.
Still, Jaehwan endured.
He whispered to Dokbul.
Do not break.
Like the day he had climbed the Tower again and again, Jaehwan, thoroughly enraged, glared at Dark Fragrance Lord Samyeong Garam.
He had no room to speak. Countless words stormed through his chest alone.
I am different from you.
You people can come back to life as many times as you want.
But they cannot.
They only have this one life.
For them, this world is the only one they have.
...
At that moment, something crossed Jaehwan’s mind.
This world was the only one?
Memories flooded in.
From the moment of birth until now.
The thing people often called a life flashing before their eyes.
He coughed up amniotic fluid and drew his first breath. He grew up under his parents, went to school, and made friends. Friendship and love. Loneliness and sorrow. Wordless silences and farewells. Countless memories that had become milestones in his life.
The countless Jaehwans he had met through 「Alienation」 were looking at him. He looked back at those memories.
Then he found a common denominator among them. The foundation that had allowed those memories to exist.
The source that had allowed Jaehwan to laugh, cry, grieve, and scream as he lived there.
Something that made life possible.
The one and only world. Back then, Jaehwan had not 「Doubted」 the world he lived in.
How could anyone doubt the world? The things before one’s eyes, the things one heard. How could anyone reject the evidence of senses that existed so clearly?
The world existed because it was not 「Doubted」.
A world already believed to be real.
The System’s world had been born through that certainty.
The world people lived in existed through unconscious belief.
At that moment, the Unique World that covered Jaehwan’s unconscious stirred violently, as if it had been waiting for this. The Jaehwans who had lived in the System’s world cried out from within his memories.
[The world you speak of is fake.]
[It is not the world we lived in.]
[Stop running from reality.]
It was not easy.
Simply believing in a new world would not make that world come into being.
One person could not do it alone.
For a world to be born, overwhelming belief was needed. A certainty so intense that one forgot it was belief. The current Jaehwan, one Jaehwan alone, was not enough. Every Jaehwan in his memories had to change. They all had to long for a new world.
But they were all Jaehwans with different thoughts.
How could he persuade them all?
The method Jaehwan chose was simple.
He did not try to persuade them.
He only stared at them without a word.
A resolve never to retreat. A determination never to bend his convictions, even if he died here.
It was an attitude possible only because all of them were Jaehwan.
The Dark Fragrance Lord’s blow flew toward him.
Jaehwan showed no intention of avoiding it. The Jaehwans in his memories looked flustered.
At this rate, the first body would disappear.
[Damn it.]
[...That bastard was me too.]
[Only this once.]
Jaehwan’s body, burning beneath the 「Black Flames」, shone brightly.
An enormous belief forged by pouring in an entire lifetime.
Or perhaps something beyond belief.
Every Jaehwan, from his unconscious to his conscious mind, began to look toward the same world.
A world not ruled by numbers or status. A world they had never lived in. A world they had never experienced but had imagined.
The world Jaehwan now wished to live in.
With all that certainty, Jaehwan stabbed with his sword.
Something broke at the single point Jaehwan pierced.
It was the sound of heaven and earth splitting open. Like the Big Bang, the world was tearing apart.
Primordial light.
The light that had appeared when God created the world burst forth from a single point. Not a world that existed as metaphor or symbol, but a reality with firm influence and physical force.
A new world was opening.
From far away, Sirwen watched the sight with blank eyes. Having lived for two thousand years, she knew what it meant.
Creation.
A faint rift of a world opened within the beam of light.
Jaehwan drew something out through that gap.
It was a sword.
The moment he gripped it, Jaehwan understood what the fourth-stage keyword was.
The fourth stage.
The power to turn falsehood into truth.
The power to turn belief into reality.
The fourth stage of Awakening.
「Hypothesis」
It was a pitch-black sword forged by condensing the world’s darkness. Its appearance seemed to deny everything in existence.
It looked fitting for something called Fall.
Dokbul in one hand.
Fall in the other.
“Is that your world?”
Dark Fragrance Lord Samyeong Garam looked at Jaehwan’s sword.
The moment he saw it, an emotion passed through Samyeong Garam’s dry eyes.
Pity, perhaps. Or lamentation.
“What an unfortunate world.”
Samyeong Garam understood at once.
What meaning was contained in the sword Jaehwan held.
What that world was trying to say.
“O world born only to destroy other worlds.”
Footnotes:
Chapter discussion