Chapter 79 - Episode 11. King of Chaos (10)
Chapter 79: Episode 11. King of Chaos (10)
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Long ago, a dream demon visited the Great Lords of the twelve zones. The dream demon made the following request of each zone's Great Lord.
“I am going on an expedition. Please help me climb the 《Tree of Illusion》.”
Naturally, the Great Lords ignored the request. They already had more than enough to deal with, fighting endless wars without a moment to breathe. What did the Tree of Illusion have to do with them?
Yet the dream demon did not give up.
“This is not the time for us to fight amongst ourselves. This world is not normal. Do not forget the days when you first came to the 《Great Realm》. Remember the resentment and pain you suffered when you were weak.”
There was a desperate ideal in that voice.
“This is our last chance. We must destroy the 「First Nightmare」.”
To the Great Lords, it was not merely absurd. It was bizarre. What right did a dream demon who had not even lived five thousand years have to speak of a “last chance”?
Someone who had never properly experienced the System's passage of time had no right to say such things.
The Lords did not turn a blind eye to the System because they were fools.
They understood the value of existence, the sublimity of life, and all such things.
They did not stand by out of ignorance.
Sometimes, they stood by precisely because they understood.
In short, it was a matter of efficiency.
In the Great Realm, where surviving even one day was difficult, nothing was as worthless as the value of existence or the sublimity of life. What they needed to prepare for was always tomorrow's war.
The top of the Tree of Illusion?
The 「First Nightmare」?
It sounded nice enough.
But what was it, really?
The Creation Gods who made this world?
Or the essence of the world itself?
There was nothing but speculation and rumors. The Lords were old and cautious, too old and cautious to act on rumors alone.
Yet while the Lords were old and cautious, the dream demon was intoxicated by youthful spirit. Repeated rejection did not discourage the dream demon.
The last place the dream demon visited was the Ninth Zone, ruled by Jerome, the Lord of Darkness.
Jerome did not receive the dream demon personally. Instead, he sent out Samyeong Garam, the Dark Fragrance Lord. Samyeong Garam was an unwavering worshipper of the System, but also a Lord of almost painful purity.
Sometimes, devout worship resembled transparent innocence. Samyeong Garam listened to the dream demon's story from beginning to end.
Then he said,
“The 《Great Realm》 are a place only for the strong. If you hold an ideal, show the strength worthy of it.”
The dream demon and Samyeong Garam fought for three days and nights without rest.
Samyeong Garam lost, again and again.
On the third day of defeat, the dream demon said,
“A Lord like you is an ‘Adapter.’ What a shame.”
Samyeong Garam acknowledged the dream demon's strength. If someone could be this strong without using magic, perhaps they had the right to speak of the 《Tree of Illusion》.
The Dark Fragrance Lord returned to the Lord of Darkness and reported exactly what he had felt.
The dream demon's words had some merit. The existing system of 「cultivation」 had reached its limit, and the 《Great Realm》 were walking the path to ruin.
Therefore, an expedition to the 《Tree of Illusion》 was necessary for a new world to arrive.
It was something along those lines.
Jerome, the Lord of Darkness, listened to Samyeong Garam for a long time before reaching his conclusion.
“Samyeong Garam, the Dark Fragrance Lord, will be sentenced to one hundred years of Dormancy.”
He had sent Samyeong Garam to reject the proposal, only for Samyeong Garam to return after being persuaded by the dream demon. Samyeong Garam had already drawn Darkness's attention many times because of his rigid nature.
In the end, he was imprisoned in Darkness's place of exile.
A hundred years passed.
When Samyeong Garam emerged from Dormancy, he heard unexpected rumors about the dream demon.
Mulack Armelt, the dream demon.
The being who had received no support from anyone in the 《Great Realm》 and leaped alone into 《Chaos》. The hero who persuaded the souls there, built a force, and founded the 「Abyss Expedition」.
The fool who headed for the 《Abyss》 to change the world.
The foolish dream demon who changed nothing.
After even the 「Fruit」, the only gain Mulack had secured, fell into the Lords' hands, no more stories of Mulack were heard.
For the next eight hundred years, Samyeong Garam often thought of that dream demon. What would have happened if he had followed that dream demon upward? What if even one Lord from the twelve zones had supported the dream demon?
Would this world truly have changed?
Unable to let go of his regret, Samyeong Garam had secretly climbed the 《Abyss》 to look for the vanished dream demon.
But he found nothing.
The 《Abyss》 was vast, and there were many beings stronger than a Warlord like him. How could he accomplish what even the Great Lords of the twelve zones had abandoned? It was impossible.
Only the dream demon's final words remained in his mind for a long time.
“Is that the answer of this world, or is it truly your own answer?”
Afterward, Samyeong Garam lived as though he had forgotten the dream demon. More accurately, he lived trying to forget.
He devoted himself even more deeply to the rules of the System. If the System could not be changed from outside it, what if he tried from within?
With that thought, he worked and worked again. Who could blame him for that?
Even if his efforts had led to an entirely unintended result.
A General-class Lord.
A being no one in the Great Realm could treat lightly.
By the time he came to his senses, he had become the guardian of this System. The feelings of his youth and his lofty ideals had vanished.
And now, before Samyeong Garam stood someone who dreamed the same dream as the dream demon from nine hundred years ago.
The moment he saw him, Samyeong Garam forgot every order.
The order to bring that bastard back alive.
The order to thoroughly crush every sprout except that bastard.
Could words like change and possibility still exist within a being that had lived for nearly five thousand years?
As he watched the man before him, Samyeong Garam recalled the question that had shaken him long ago.
...His name was Jaehwan, was it?
A man who wielded the same power of Awakening as Mulack.
Perhaps that sense of familiarity was why Samyeong Garam had helped Jaehwan achieve “Creation.” Perhaps some debt of the heart remained.
Samyeong Garam wanted to see it once more. The new world that his younger self might have joined.
Yet another part of him was afraid.
He feared that this choice would shatter everything he had. He feared that his foolish complicity and misguided sympathy would truly become the spark that destroyed this System.
The instant he saw Jaehwan's “Unique World,” that feeling grew even stronger.
“A world born to destroy every other world.”
Samyeong Garam could not tolerate such a world.
Because he was the Incarnation of the System, the guardian of this world.
Black Flames surged from both his fists.
“With a sword like that, you will save nothing!”
A single sword and a single fist collided.
The sky did not split, nor did a storm rise, but the clash possessed force beyond either. It was a battle that would never again be seen in 《Chaos》. A fight with each of their worlds at stake.
Explosions with impossibly low rumbles erupted one after another, sounds that could not have come from a sword and a fist colliding. Shockwaves powerful enough to send everything within their range flying burst outward.
As Jaehwan's Fall carved an arc, the Dark Fragrance Lord's fist drew a semicircle.
The world broke where power struck power. As Fall and Dokbul rang out fiercely, the Dark Fragrance Lord's 「Black Flames」 blazed savagely, as if answering their cry.
It was a dead even match.
Neither could be said to have surpassed the other.
Samyeong Garam let out an exclamation.
“Excellent!”
It felt as though he had returned to that day a thousand years ago.
The moment he had squeezed out every last bit of his strength to fight the dream demon.
Samyeong Garam and Jaehwan were both being swallowed by the moment.
Words like world and existence no longer mattered to them. They forgot the world. They forgot existence.
Sword and fist tangled together in a dance. The ecstatic trance of selflessness. Gratitude at finding such a worthy opponent, regardless of the circumstances.
As the battle rushed toward its end, Jaehwan felt Samyeong Garam's true nature without reservation.
He was remarkable.
Samyeong Garam, the Dark Fragrance Lord. He must have honed a single skill through grueling years. He had built this simple world over an unimaginably long time. Just as Jaehwan had performed Stab for more than a thousand years, Samyeong Garam had trained only one skill for thousands of years.
Perhaps Samyeong Garam had not failed to Awaken.
Perhaps he had chosen not to Awaken.
He loved the world of the System.
That was why it was regrettable.
That this battle had to end.
Samyeong Garam likely felt the same.
Whooooooom.
Samyeong Garam's two fists burned brightly as the greatest technique of 「Black Flames」 unfolded. When those fists wrapped in Black Flames struck the world, the world of the System let out a choked sound and spat something into the air.
Black Gate Guardian.
A being wielding a massive black spear descended. Despite its grim black color, it looked more like an angel than a demon.
The black angel aimed its spear at Jaehwan.
Jaehwan marveled at the purity contained within that power.
Was that what someone who loved the System could summon?
The angel's spear shot toward Jaehwan.
It was a strike clearly meant to be the last, a strike containing thousands of years of life.
Jaehwan prepared a strike worthy of it.
Fall, held in his left hand, merged with Dokbul in his right. The power of Fall filled Dokbul's blade.
One foot, two feet...
The blade of Fall grew to a length without end. When it had finally grown long enough to cover even the sun, darkness stretching from the sword burned like Calamity Flame, and in an instant, the sword cut through the sky.
A sword force that destroyed everything in existence.
One world exploded from Jaehwan's fingertips. When the sky split, darkness came to the world.
「Hypothesis」.
Something that had been possible only in Jaehwan's Unique World was happening in reality.
At that moment, Jaehwan was one star, and Samyeong Garam was another.
A line connecting star to star.
Something that was neither a stab nor a slash. Like a streak of meteors crossing the sky, a line beyond any simple straight path linked the two stars.
The world went dark for an instant.
Something could be heard falling from the sky.
* * *
The sky was pitch-black.
The world crawled with maggots, and no trace of the living remained. At the top of the 《Tree of Illusion》, an eye had opened in the place where the sun had been cut away.
A metaphorical symbol that observed everything in this world and ruled it.
The Dark Fragrance Lord, Samyeong Garam, lay on the ground and looked at that eye as he spoke.
“Is that where you must reach?”
“It is the enemy I must defeat.”
“I see.”
Samyeong Garam's shoulders trembled once.
The top of the 《Tree of Illusion》. The end of the Abyss.
The place said to contain the 「First Nightmare」.
“How terrible. So this was the world.”
The Dark Fragrance Lord had lost his world in the final clash, and his voice was hollow. He looked unable to believe that the world he had trusted could look like that.
He surveyed Jaehwan's Unique World and gave a bitter smile.
“Your world will not be popular in the 《Abyss》. It is a truth too cruel to know as the price of losing hope.”
“...”
“No one would want to live while looking upon such a sight. A world with something so grotesque hanging in the sky.”
Samyeong Garam swallowed a breath and continued.
“But... even so, if people appear who believe in your world...”
His words sounded like a Word of Creation.
“They may find something everyone has lost within it. Though the price will be living in despair for the rest of their lives.”
Listening to his words settle like a benediction, Jaehwan smiled bitterly.
“You are a poet. Are all Generals like you?”
Samyeong Garam did not answer for a moment as he looked up at the sky. Then he muttered as though passing the words by.
“...It has been a long fight.”
Jaehwan slowly raised his sword.
There was hesitation in it, however brief. Had he not met the Dark Fragrance Lord, he could not have achieved Creation.
The moment Jaehwan's sword moved, the Dark Fragrance Lord spoke again.
“Cut the Pineal Thread properly.”
Jaehwan's sword faltered.
The Dark Fragrance Lord knew. Jaehwan had not intended to sever his Pineal Thread with that sword.
A Dark Fragrance Lord who had crossed the 「Narrow Gate」 would never die as long as the Pineal Thread remained unsevered.
Without realizing it, Jaehwan had tried to spare him.
It was unlike him.
Yet both the Dark Fragrance Lord and Jaehwan knew.
If the egg was not broken, the world could not be born.
“If you made a new world, you should have the nerve to see it through.”
The faint smile on the Dark Fragrance Lord's face looked unfamiliar. Yet it suited him well.
Were there many Lords like him?
No. If there had been, a tragedy like the one nine hundred years ago would not have happened.
“...Any last words?”
“If you reach the 《Abyss》 safely, find Gainak and give him my message. He will probably help you.”
Gainak. It was a name that sounded vaguely familiar.
“And... beware of Maiad. If he learns that you have opened Creation, he will not stay still.”
“Who is that?”
As though his strength were slowly failing, the Dark Fragrance Lord coughed up silver blood.
“...This is as far as the debt I owe Mulack goes.”
Jaehwan watched the Dark Fragrance Lord slowly close his eyes as though exhausted, then raised his sword again.
This time, he did not hesitate.
His sword accurately severed the Dark Fragrance Lord's Pineal Thread.
The sound of a living being becoming one of the dead.
The Dark Fragrance Lord's body slowly began to scatter into silver.
The sound of a world being born.
And the sound of a war ending.
The soul of a Lord who had lived for thousands of years vanished, and Jaehwan slowly turned around. Cheongheo, Cayman, and Sirwen ran toward him. Every step carried their own emotion, their own sense of release.
The sky of 《Chaos》 could be seen through the ruined palace, its ceiling blown away.
One world had vanished.
Another world had been born beneath that sky.
Watching Cayman, who had forgotten even his age as he wiped away tears with a hand on Jaehwan's shoulder, and Cheongheo, who turned away to hide his reddened eyes, Jaehwan finally felt it.
They had won.
One day, exactly 917 years and 244 days after Mulack's 「Abyss Expedition」 had failed.
《Chaos》 had finally been freed from the 《Palace of Rebirth》.
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