Chapter 303
Chapter 303
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 303
Chapter Title: Great Rift (3)
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Adora looked up at the sky.
By now, the casino's ceiling had vanished.
A massive typhoon swirled, as if it meant to swallow the world whole.
"Great Rift..."
That was the 'Great Rift'.
She had heard about it from the Black Witch.
When the Great Rift opened, outer gods would pour out and annihilate the Abyss.
-Why do the outer gods want to destroy the Abyss?
That was what a young Adora had asked back then.
The very existence of outer gods was a mystery, but she couldn't fathom why they harbored malice toward the Abyss and sought its destruction.
The Black Witch had answered with a cold expression.
-The Abyss is a world created by someone.
Adora hadn't understood what that meant at the time.
But now, with the Great Rift right before her eyes, it started to make sense.
Those ominous waves of mana pouring from it...
"Ah..."
Countless 'white hands' burst forth, blanketing the sky.
They almost resembled snakes.
But those weren't mere hands.
Roots.
The Great Rift was putting down roots into the Abyss.
And those roots...
Belonged not to this Abyss, but to a 'tree' from an entirely different dimension.
A god.
As if intent on punishing the Abyss.
The countless white hands soon formed a square 'gate'.
Taking root.
The moment she laid eyes on that gate, the Black Witch's final mutter echoed in her mind.
-He created us, and now he seeks to destroy us.
Words that seemed to refer to the Creator.
The Black Witch's obsession with forging the 'Lord of Pride' was tied to the Great Rift.
She didn't know the exact reason, but it was clear it went beyond merely escaping the depths.
...Even Adora, the Witch of Death, felt a chill at something so horrifying.
Screeech-!
The gate opened.
The gate made of pristine white hands.
Another 'hand'—immensely colossal—began pushing its way out from within.
Yet that hand from inside felt like gazing upon a 'god' itself.
A god of pure white, emerging for the apocalypse.
Oooooooooh-.
Adora grimaced.
"Aaagh!"
"M-My ears!"
"My head's gonna explode!"
"S-Save me! Aaaagh!"
Humans and demons alike collapsed, clutching their ears.
But it wasn't just any sound.
It was a wail that shook the soul.
No plugging one's ears could block it.
It was the flesh transcended; the soul itself recoiling in primal fear.
Adora's eyes trembled.
"That thing... what..."
Her unshakable composure shattered the instant she saw that hand.
She had no idea what it was.
Nor did she want to know.
But one thing was certain.
'Park Chan-woo. He's in there.'
Absorbed into the Great Rift.
Perhaps that colossal something had manifested by using Park Chan-woo as a sacrifice.
"Arcana."
Adora called to Primal God Arcana.
Arcana arrived in an instant and lowered its posture.
Adora climbed onto the Primal God's shoulder and gazed at the Great Rift.
"I'm going inside the Great Rift."
......Is that message meant for me?
Park Chan-woo couldn't help tilting his head inwardly.
The King of the Great Rift.
Why had that spine-chilling title been hurled at him?
To begin with, he'd never even heard that the Great Rift had a king.
'It's not me.'
He soon realized.
The one referred to as the King of the Great Rift wasn't his own existence.
It was something within him.
Perhaps the entity that had triggered this 'Great Rift'.
Possibly called the 'King of the Old Great Rift' on its path to absolute death.
But that wasn't important right now.
"What do you mean it's not too late? Can we stop the Great Rift from opening?"
If the Great Rift opened, everyone would die.
Adora, Dagon, the foxes, Lee Hyuk-soo—all of them.
Every participant in the fourth night would vanish.
Victory in the Racial War would become impossible, and Earth would hurtle toward its end even faster.
Park Chan-woo didn't want that.
"...How?"
Crack!
A massive 'eye' appeared before him.
This was Sanctuary.
The king of rifts, the rift itself.
The final bastion preventing the Great Rift from fully opening, the guardian of dimensional balance.
Its existence kept the Abyss from annihilation.
But Sanctuary's eye was clouded gray.
As it said, it was losing power.
Without selecting a new 'king', the rifts would collapse too.
"......You must know the God of Offerings."
None of the others he'd met had known of the 'God of Offerings'.
Yet Sanctuary's words suggested it did.
Beyond merely recognizing the 'Demon-Sealing God's Chalice'.
"Can you read the future?"
"...Can you see my future too?"
He'd always wondered.
He was one returned from the future.
If someone could glimpse the future, how would his appear?
Not invisible, but dark? What did that mean?
"...You're saying sacrifice yourself to save the world."
Park Chan-woo silently peered into Sanctuary's eye.
He could almost see the efforts it had poured into maintaining the rifts over endless ages.
If it were him, could he declare such a sacrifice so calmly?
Moreover, a question lingered.
What was this outer god emerging from the Great Rift now, that Sanctuary would offer itself to block it?
The problem was time—or the lack of it.
There was no time to unravel all his doubts; even now, the Great Rift was prying open.
"...I'll offer Sanctuary to the God of Offerings, and seal the Great Rift's gate...... O God of Offerings."
Suddenly, the same message flooded the screen.
The identical text poured out for a while.
Then, abruptly, at the end—it changed.
The Demon God Assembly reached one conclusion.
An unprecedented Great Rift was opening.
An unfathomable outer god would emerge.
And the root of it all lay with one of the Nine Great Lords—the 'Lord of Great Sin'...
As the demon gods voiced their opinions,
the Nine Great Lords began preparations as well.
All except the 'Lord of Great Sin'.
There was no way it could reveal everything.
It couldn't admit that the spear hurled to excise the death infection had been devoured by the Great Rift.
But those preparing for this 'Great Rift' weren't just the demons.
The Twelve Races.
Their lords felt the same.
"It's coming."
"......Something enormous."
"Prepare."
"Chaos begins."
"Oho!"
"Time to unseal?"
"Peace lasted long enough."
The lords brimmed more with anticipation than worry.
They were already weary of tepid events like the Racial War.
A war with rules wasn't true war.
Dying, killing, staking everything on their race's fate—that was real war.
If the Nine Great Lords failed, a massive war for control of the Abyss would erupt afterward.
The long peace would end, and an uncontrollable slaughterfest would finally unfold!
The Twelve Races began their preparations.
They unleashed powers amassed over eons.
The lords pondered when to unseal and reveal their true forms.
And at the same time.
"Interesting."
Sepiro smiled as he gazed at the sky.
Lately, thrilling events had come one after another.
Massive incidents piquing his interest, arriving as if by appointment.
Sepiro waved his hand.
All domains folded, boundaries crumbled,
and soon, Sepiro stood before the 'Great Rift' itself.
A white hand of unimaginable scale.
Far larger than any Great Rift gates before.
Moreover, its owner seemed even greater than the outer god dubbed the 'Dimensional Encounterer'.
"Who are you?"
Above all, he couldn't comprehend it.
Not even with Sepiro's vast knowledge.
He had instantly recognized every outer god that appeared thus far.
But what now strained to emerge from the gate was 'something entirely different'.
A monster beyond his cognition.
"...This sensation in ages. No, ever?"
What was it?
Why did seeing it ignite such fierce battle lust?
It had been ages since he'd felt this.
Practically... the first time.
The first foe Sepiro truly yearned to battle.
Perhaps the rival at last arrived for the dragon god's tediously bored existence.
He had never once gone all-out before.
Not even when annihilating the 'Lord of the Void', one of the 'Ten Great Lords'.
Neither he nor the other lords had ever sensed such bloodlust from him.
Riiip-!
"......Hm?"
Yet.
The gate began closing again.
Something inside had clearly applied the brakes.
The massive hand started slyly retreating.
Sepiro scowled.
A worthy adversary at last.
The foe he'd yearned to face at full power for the first time.
Thus, Sepiro resolved.
"I'll help you open the gate."