Chapter 150
Chapter 150
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 150
Chapter Title: The Opened Door
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“Two weeks have passed.”
At Yi Jae-kyung’s words.
“Pffft.”
Go Yohan burst into incredulous laughter.
A joke even in a moment like this.
And yet.
Nod.
Her reddened eyes stirred a whirlwind of emotions in Go Yohan.
“Urk.”
It was then that sudden pain surging through his demigod body made him grimace.
“Captain!”
“Captain…!”
The Apostles reached out toward him but couldn’t approach easily.
“What a mess…”
Go Yohan was the first to sense how wrecked his body had become.
‘The price for wielding power beyond what I could handle.’
It seemed the aftereffects lingered, as if lost memories and those two weeks weren’t the only toll.
“You still need to rest.”
Yun Seung-ah approached cautiously and reached out toward Go Yohan.
She looked ready to lay him back down right then.
“I’m fine.”
“But…”
“How could I just lie here? I overheard you while half-asleep, and it sounded like you’d bring the world to ruin if I didn’t wake up.”
Flinch.
The Apostles reacted in their own ways.
Yun Seung-ah simply gazed at Go Yohan, Lee Ha-yeon bit her lip, and Kim Si-on abruptly turned her head away.
Swish.
Only Joo In-kyung, her face brimming with tears, clung to his hand as he approached.
“That’s…”
“I’m not saying it to blame you.”
Go Yohan spoke.
The Apostles had been ready to sacrifice the entire world’s population as an offering to revive him.
No, perhaps it had just been an outburst.
‘Something must have happened again.’
Even after he’d sacrificed himself for their safety, this advanced world had a way of dragging unnecessary evils to the surface.
Or maybe.
‘They’d never liked it from the start.’
He knew.
How the Apostles viewed humanity.
How they perceived the world.
“I get where your hearts were coming from.”
“Captain…”
“But that doesn’t make it right.”
For a moment, the air seemed to chill.
Beep, beep.
The machines hooked up to Go Yohan emitted only cold mechanical tones.
“We’ll talk about this later. I think I even heard Rust’s voice while dozing off.”
“Ah, Rust went back.”
Yi Jae-kyung answered Go Yohan.
“Must’ve been serious trouble?”
“Even so, it seems she’s gained a lot more control.”
I see.
‘She put in the effort.’
Perhaps soon she’d be able to leave that cramped little room.
‘Maybe even those dreamlike things were because of Rust.’
The Authority she couldn’t suppress was far too sweet, intoxicating not just her but everyone around.
Flash!
Go Yohan yanked off the machines attached to his body.
The Apostles wore worried expressions but didn’t try to stop him.
“Captain.”
Their free will could only assert itself when he was asleep, but with Go Yohan awake.
“I’m perfectly fine.”
His will took absolute priority.
“…Everything as the Captain wills.”
Beings who existed solely to loyally follow his every command.
That was their chain, their solace—and precisely why.
‘Apostles.’
They were called Apostles.
Swish.
Go Yohan rose to his feet.
Wobble.
His unsteady body swayed for a moment, but he quickly found his balance.
Burning pain coursed through his demigod form, but he didn’t let it show.
And there, he could see it.
The full-body mirror positioned in one corner of the temple infirmary.
As if placed there specifically for him to see upon waking, Go Yohan stared at his reflection.
“……”
Half of his silver-white hair had turned pitch black.
“This… stands out a bit.”
*
*
*
It wasn’t just his silver-white hair that had blackened.
One of his sky-blue eyes rippled with darkness as well.
Go Yohan knew exactly what had caused it.
‘Remnants of Sin.’
The Sin that had spread throughout his body, staining it.
Fortunately, the blackened areas were gradually reclaiming their original colors now that his eyes were open.
Swish.
Go Yohan stood before the mirror.
He’d instructed them after waking to contact only the divinity and that he’d rest a bit more.
‘Must be chaos outside.’
Wriggle.
“But I’ll leave it be for now.”
The long two-week slumber.
‘How much time… has passed?’
That question from before hadn’t come from any disconnect to the flow of time.
Wriggle.
It was because those two weeks had felt like an eternity.
The Great War.
Time that felt like reliving the slaughter against the demons as Michael.
Wriggle.
“Mom would lose her mind if she saw this.”
Go Yohan chuckled dryly at his reflection.
The tattoos already etched into his body were the sins of the Archdemons he had atoned for.
And now.
Wriggle.
They seemed all connected, massive tattoos covering his upper body and writhing as if alive.
‘How much Sin piled up?’
It had to be a manifestation born from the rampaging Sin.
Swish.
An enormous tattoo stretched from his back down to his thighs, twitching with every moment.
“At least my hair color’s coming back.”
His eyes, too—the sky-blue and black swirled against each other as the blue gradually reclaimed its place.
Grip.
He could sharply feel every muscle in his body.
Mana and…
‘Divinity.’
Down to its very smallest particles.
No—even beyond that.
‘Smaller particles.’
Sensations reached even deeper places.
He couldn’t wield them yet, but something had undoubtedly changed.
He slipped on a shirt and moved.
‘This isn’t the only change.’
He’d largely cut off external news on purpose, but some things were impossible to avoid.
“Sta…”
Player.
A word he rarely uttered aloud, since the Goddess’s blessing felt too much like part of some game.
No.
“Status… window.”
He summoned it—the very thing he’d ignored in hopes of hearing the Goddess’s voice just once more.
And soon.
Crackle.
A black screen flickered into view before his eyes, spitting static noise.
[Go… static, static]
[Sta… tus….]
Unreadable.
Nothing in the status window could represent him anymore.
At first, it felt like the sky was collapsing.
How could he lose that blessing after grasping the Goddess’s trace, all because of his own actions? His heart pounded.
But no.
‘All players’ status windows are broken.’
Apparently, after the day of the Demon King’s descent, every player’s status had undergone the same change.
‘At least players’ powers seem intact.’
Though the system for things like level-ups was completely dead.
There had been another change since the Demon King’s arrival.
“The gates aren’t appearing anymore.”
The gates that popped up across the world every second had vanished entirely.
Creak.
Go Yohan flung open the door to his room in the temple.
His rest was over.
*
*
*
“This is North Korea’s current state, as seen through satellites.”
A massive screen appeared before Go Yohan, seated in the conference room.
Something painted entirely black.
They said.
“A black barrier has formed a sphere, devouring all of North Korea. It’s encroached on part of the DMZ with South Korea and even into Chinese territory—a massive barrier, we judge.”
It was just recorded footage.
Poke, poke.
Yet it felt like piercing demonic energy pricking at his skin.
“What about inside?”
From his fragmented memories, all Go Yohan recalled was desolate ruins, stripped of everything.
“The last footage captured.”
Another screen.
Sure enough.
“Everything’s been neatly wiped clean. No signs of surviving lifeforms, and entry’s impossible now.”
But there was something in the footage that Go Yohan recognized.
A tiny black wound, and something golden.
It was him.
Even for Go Yohan, it was unprecedented.
“I tried investigating separately, but every path is sealed.”
Land that even Yun Seung-ah couldn’t set foot on.
“It’s become a complete no-go zone.”
No one could tread there anymore.
But.
Smirk.
A faint smile tugged at Go Yohan’s lips.
“The plan…”
He’d laid it out from the very start of all this.
“Was a success.”
Go Yohan had declared it that day.
-I’ll destroy your world too.
It was something he’d planned for a very long time.
Demons were utterly selfish and cunning.
Even in Travania, their invasions were pure one-way streets, allowing no counterattack whatsoever.
They simply invaded endlessly, over and over.
Repel them? That was it.
‘Pointless.’
Kill them? They’d stubbornly revive and lie in wait for any opening.
“……”
Tremble.
His fingertips trembled.
It was excitement.
“Finally…”
The plan’s trigger had been the demons daring to summon their Demon King.
But the true beginning, unknown even to the Apostles, was Go Yohan’s birth.
No.
‘We can’t just keep getting invaded forever.’
It stretched all the way back to his previous life.
“Finally, we’ve opened the door.”
Not a path only they could traverse, but one we could enter as well.
Nod.
Yun Seung-ah nodded cautiously.
“The Captain is right.”
She wasn’t oblivious to the fact they couldn’t enter yet.
“It’s not stabilized, so we can’t use it but…”
It wasn’t just her.
All the Apostles could sense it.
“That’s a door.”
A door.
“How long will it take?”
He felt a twinge of impatience, but not truly so.
After enduring for so long, there was no need to rush what was now within reach.
It would open for certain.
“Estimated one year.”
Yun Seung-ah replied.
“At most three years, and that door will be fully open.”
Tremble.
His fingertips trembled again.
“Then demon realm invasion will be possible too.”
“Whew…”
A word he’d only dreamed of.
An eerie heat burned in Go Yohan’s eyes.
It was the hope of finally exterminating the demons—all of them.
“Now we move in earnest.”
Go Yohan himself was undergoing changes as well.