Chapter 324
Chapter 324
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 324
Chapter Title: Sepiro (10)
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...It was the final gateway.
The Transcendent Dragon Sepiro had finally revealed his will.
By showing that the first clone had not yet dissipated.
Proof that he was facing that colossal 'Outer God' beyond all imagination while prying open the sealed door.
'I clearly know who I'm up against now.'
He must have been mistaken for a moment.
Park Chan-woo had placed great weight on the chance that the Radiant Dragon Sepiro might let it slide out of sheer curiosity.
But in the end, Sepiro was Sepiro.
Unfathomable.
Surpassing every one of Park Chan-woo's predictions.
...A lunatic who made his blood run cold.
This was another unforeseen development.
Who could have imagined he'd drag the Great Rift itself straight to the Dragon God Temple?
So.
'Thanks. For cluing me in.'
On the contrary, it was getting fun.
Park Chan-woo began to feel genuinely intrigued.
Hauling the Great Rift here carried several implications.
First and foremost.
'Sepiro. He's got no room to spare right now.'
The Transcendent Dragon was devoting every shred of his spirit to the 'first clone'.
Of course. To confront an Outer God with a mere clone—not even his true body—he'd have to pour out spirit he didn't even possess.
Even the slightest lapse, the tiniest opening, and that Outer God would pulverize the clone.
Moreover, the Great Rift ran on rules utterly alien to the Abyss.
Adapting to its ways mid-battle was dozens, hundreds of times harder.
A fierce determination to conquer even the Great Rift radiated from him.
This confirmed it beyond doubt.
The throne of the Dragon God Temple?
Someone playacting as Sepiro to claim that seat?
He couldn't care less about any of that.
Right now, his top priorities were the 'first clone' and 'conquering the Great Rift'.
Nothing could be more entertaining.
...And there was one more thing vying for his attention.
'He's getting curious about me.'
Sepiro was taking an interest in Park Chan-woo himself.
He might have even clocked him as an 'Archmage'.
No—he definitely had.
Even without knowing about the regression, he'd surely sniffed out that Park Chan-woo was an Archmage listed in the Mysteries Codex.
In other words.
'A showdown.'
Didn't it feel like he was itching for a clash?
Even if Park Chan-woo slaved away swaying the dragons' loyalties, the instant that first clone burst from the Great Rift, all his efforts would crumble to dust.
Naturally, they'd hail the Sepiro with the stronger grip as the genuine article.
Park Chan-woo couldn't win a contest of sheer influence.
Not with just two hearts.
This wasn't some contest over 'dominion of the dragonkin'.
It had nothing to do with who led better.
Sepiro craved a showdown over the Great Rift itself.
He was declaring:
Whether he'd emerge from the Great Rift first.
'...Or whether I'd dominate the rift faster.'
Dominate the rift, and he could seal the Great Rift shut.
The Rift King Sanctuary held that authority.
Though weakened, he'd failed to close this Great Rift—but if Signus ascended as Rift King, he could slam that door tight without a crack.
'The Signus of now can't become Sanctuary. He's dead certain of it.'
Consider it.
Sepiro had toyed with divine beasts.
Kidnapped them. Tortured them through his twisted experiments.
He'd undoubtedly grasped that a war had erupted to claim the mantle of the future 'Sanctuary'.
He could guess how monstrously powerful those divine beasts would grow in the fray.
No matter Park Chan-woo's efforts, Sepiro was convinced rift conquest was every bit as grueling as his clone slaying the Outer God and clawing free of the Great Rift.
There was a way.
Gorge himself on Creation Abyss indiscriminately.
The hitch? The 'noise' it'd kick up along the way.
Having dragged Signus onto the Dragon God Temple's official stage, every move Signus made fell under dragonkin jurisdiction.
Demons and dragons might clash in war.
It could snowball into armageddon, Earth reduced to ash.
A shrimp's back bursting amid whales' fury.
Blown apart without a fight.
He needed to funnel transcendent Creation Abyss to Signus—without the demons catching wind.
...Looks like.
'No time to waste.'
The dragons were in chaos.
Standing idle left too much room for their own spin.
Having reached his verdict, Park Chan-woo spoke.
"I will become the Rift Sovereign and conquer the Great Rift standing before us now."
His gaze shifted to Signus.
In that instant.
Signus, reading Park Chan-woo's intent.
Rumble rumble rumble!
He tore open a 'rift' right beside the Great Rift.
The rift was the origin of all creation.
A 'line' existing to balance the Great Rift and the Abyss.
Nothing else was known.
Speculation about the rift ran rampant, but nothing had been verified as fact.
The reason was simple.
No one could enter.
A realm beyond rules, accessible solely to 'divine beasts'.
Undeniably real, yet as if it didn't exist—an utter enigma.
No exceptions.
Not even the Twelve Races, dragons included, nor the demons themselves could set foot inside.
This was the sole unbreakable precept across eons.
And yet.
Right here, right now.
"......!"
"The ri-rift!"
That precept, that axiom, shattered.
They were witnessing with their own eyes what they'd only heard in legends.
The fallout wouldn't be minor.
Every dragon gaped in horror at the spectacle unfolding before them.
Crackle crackle!
Without question, there ahead lay a rift.
Unlike the Great Rift's gateway of 'white hands', it warped amid sputtering static.
Black blotches spread, engulfing it. Distortions rippled through.
As if... the rift itself were a nauseating nightmare.
Gazing into it fogged the mind like a creeping mist.
Into that maw stepped Park Chan-woo.
And astonishingly.
"Ah!"
"Lord Sepiro has wrought a miracle!"
"He... he conquered the rift!"
He plunged into the rift—and didn't disintegrate.
Anything touching the rift's interior should crumble to dust and vanish.
Yet his form glided inside unmarred, vanishing from view.
The rift: the dragons' singular unconquered marvel.
This sight alone proved he was Sepiro's second clone.
"......What do you make of it, Lord Bahamut?"
One of the Seven Dragons inquired.
Great Rift and rift, yawning open side by side.
A spectacle rarer than rare.
And Sepiro 'clones' vanishing into both.
Was this remotely normal? they were asking.
Even they—hailed as Primordial Dragons—beheld it for the first time.
"......"
Bahamut fell silent, eyes tracing Great Rift and rift alike.
Almost as if they were rivals in contest.
Both pulsed with Sepiro's essence.
Both brimmed with the true body's mana.
It matched the 'first clone's' faint seep from the Great Rift's depths—and the 'second clone' who'd just held forth.
This defied even Bahamut's worldview.
Thus.
"One of them is a fake."
"......You see it that way too?"
One of those two was counterfeit.
Or more precisely—
"A 'critical error'."
"......The harbinger of Infinite Great Rifts, you mean."
Errors came graded.
Nearly all aberrant entities rated 'informational'.
Defying the impossible—like glitches birthing bugs—dubbed 'informational errors'.
Next: 'warning' grade, spawning impossibilities outright.
Then 'general error': unleashing vile Great Rifts.
'Major errors' spawned hordes of Great Rifts in the Great War epoch.
But never yet.
The fabled 'critical error': infinite Great Rifts dooming all Abyss. Pure theory—till now.
Bahamut deemed this phenomenon a 'critical error'.
It had to be stopped. At any cost.
Spotting the fake? Elementary.
"Don't you know Sepiro's 'true body' location, Lord Bahamut? Trek there, quiz the real one on the impostor, and..."
"He won't spill. That one's lips are sealed."
Bahamut replied without pause.
He knew Sepiro's nature all too well.
"...We excise the fake before the 'critical error' takes root."
"Right. No Sanctuary means no halting the Great Rifts' birth."
Left unchecked, 'critical error' was certain.
Infinite Great Rifts. Myriad Outer Gods. Abyss's end.
Yet.
What if... just maybe...
"They could both be real."
"Pardon? You just said one was fake..."
"Winner takes truth. That's the vibe."
Bahamut pondered the dual portals' emergence.
Perhaps... the pair were locked in contest.
Racing to claim one realm or the other first.
Bahamut stroked his chin.
Sepiro's true aim remained murky, but one truth shone: after ages,
'He's found his game.'
He was reveling in it.
In thrills beyond any prior fancy.
...Watch and wait.
Intervene now? Antagonize Sepiro.
Bahamut sought no such feud.
"First, wrest back our kin from the demons."
"You'll act in person?"
"No. Leverage what Sepiro left."
"Left behind...?"
"The Celestial Realm crowning Practitioner's Mountain. Something amusing lingers there."
Start there: rattle the demons.
Then, in due time, reclaim stolen dragons and their legacies.
If the Great Rift clone triumphed? Moot point.
But rift clone victorious? Bahamut owed a gesture.
'Cover all bases.'
Great Rift prevails.
Rift prevails.
Or...
'...Three paths.'
Mutual annihilation.
Should the unthinkable hit, Bahamut would face grim choices.
'Might need a new Dragon God.'
The instant he crossed into the rift.
Park Chan-woo couldn't help but stare, dumbfounded.
'...What the hell is this place?'
The rift's inner world diverged wildly from his imaginings.