Chapter 332
Chapter 332
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 332
Chapter Title: Butterfly Effect (1)
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The Black Witch stood silently on the balcony of her citadel, gazing out at the vast expanse of the Realm of Night stretching into the distance.
An endless territory of darkness.
Her plan for vengeance against Valhalla was proceeding smoothly, but an unexpected obstacle had arisen.
The hordes of races circling Valhalla.
At first, she thought they were mobilizing for an invasion. But soon, she realized the truth.
"How could the Demon Merchant Association be there...?"
A branch had been established right in the heart of Valhalla.
There was no time to figure out why they had suddenly set up shop there.
Demons were fickle by nature, but the merchants among them were at least somewhat shrewd.
She dispatched witches to carefully uncover the truth.
And that's when she learned what kind of dealings were taking place there.
"Black Witch, they say etherstones have been found in Valhalla."
"...Etherstones?"
At the report, the Black Witch could only tilt her head in confusion.
Etherstones were an ultra-rare mineral occasionally discovered in the fallen Abyss.
With their high mana conductivity, they could be used anywhere mana was required, and simply incorporating them could elevate an item's grade by several levels.
But they were notoriously hard to obtain.
It was said only those at the Demon God level could acquire them with any reliability, so how could they be emerging from Valhalla?
"And in quantities larger than expected. The Merchant Association has a monopoly on Valhalla's etherstones."
"......"
The Merchant Association had stepped in.
Those on the brink of bankruptcy had found a new lifeline.
Was all of this mere coincidence?
Even more astonishingly, the etherstone trade there was thriving beyond imagination.
It was no place to recklessly unleash the witches' concentrated curse magic.
A hasty attack could draw retaliation from every race involved.
The Black Witch stared coldly at Valhalla, slowly scraping her nails along the balcony's railing.
Countless possibilities raced through her mind.
'Acting rashly in this situation could turn not only the Demon Merchant Association against me, but every race connected to them as well.'
The merchants pursued only profit.
But infringe on their profits, and they would turn hostile in an instant.
Her plan had been to destroy Valhalla's core and Adora, but now that core was under the Demon Merchant Association's protection.
Of course, she wasn't afraid of the merchants themselves.
The problem was those associated with them.
The demon merchants, already teetering on bankruptcy due to the 'Demon King of Karmic Flames'.
There was no way they would look kindly on the Black Witch, who had claimed this Realm of Night.
With their lives on the line monopolizing the etherstone trade, her interference would ignite all-out war.
...What should she do?
Was she supposed to just sit back and watch?
"Valhalla...!"
Her nails dug deep into the railing, producing a sharp screech.
The plan that could have overwhelmed Valhalla in one fell swoop was now unraveling in an instant.
Preparations to attack Valhalla were already complete.
All of it had become pointless.
Because of the etherstones.
Of all times, to discover and reveal them now.
A cruel coincidence.
She let out a bitter sneer, narrowing her eyes. But beneath that expression lurked deep suspicion.
'Is this really just coincidence?'
The timing was too perfect: etherstones pouring from Valhalla just now, and the Demon Merchant Association scrambling to monopolize the trade so swiftly. It all felt unreal.
As if someone had orchestrated the entire situation from the start.
If it truly was orchestrated, they knew she would attack.
'Adora...'
The only possibility was Adora.
No one knew the Black Witch as well as Adora did.
'No...'
The Black Witch denied her own thought.
'Adora wouldn't devise such an intricate scheme.'
Adora was clever, but not skilled in plots and conspiracies.
This felt like the work of someone far more cunning, someone who thrived on endless variables to upend the board.
A chill seeped into the Black Witch's chest.
'Is this part of your plan too, Sepiro?'
The name surfaced in her mind, and she furrowed her brow deeply without realizing it.
He was too sly to dismiss everything as coincidence.
The Demon Merchant Association, the emergence of etherstones, Valhalla's sudden shield.
What if it was all one massive trap he had set?
A reckless attack could lead to her total annihilation.
It was at that very moment, as her suspicions deepened.
Kwaaaaaang!
The entire Realm of Night shook violently.
A massive wave of mana surged in, sending the witches on the citadel staggering with screams.
The Black Witch hurriedly looked toward the edge of the Realm of Night.
Far in the distance, cracks were forming from the end of the darkness-shrouded sky.
The endless Realm of Night tore apart as if the world itself was ripping open.
And what emerged from the rift was...
"Divine Beasts...!"
The witches froze in shock.
It was an unbelievable sight.
The Black Witch slowly raised her head to the sky.
And in that instant, her breath caught.
The silhouette of the divine beast tearing through the endless night sky was unimaginably colossal.
It was impossible to tell if it was a single entity or a tangle of multiple beings.
Its massive black body loomed as if to devour the stars, its overwhelming presence making even the darkness shrink back.
Atop the sky-engulfing divine beast swirled endless abyssal vortices, pulsing with intense waves like a living heartbeat, vibrating the entire realm rhythmically.
Guooooooo!
As the colossal being slowly opened its maw, space itself warped, and the Realm of Night began to be torn away in chunks.
Before this overwhelming phenomenon, the witches trembled instinctively in terror.
The entity itself was a calamity, a natural disaster incarnate.
The divine beasts were directly assaulting and devouring the Realm of Night.
It was utterly indiscriminate and merciless.
The sight of the divine beasts opening their enormous jaws, absorbing mana from the Abyss's edge, and feasting on the night was indescribably overpowering.
"Why are divine beasts here...?!"
One witch cried out in confusion.
There was no reason for divine beasts to invade this realm.
They were beings who never directly interfered with the Abyss's core.
For them to move personally against the night defied all logic.
The Black Witch scowled.
She had planned to attack, but now she was the one under assault.
Divine beasts were few in number and had no ties to witches.
They didn't like the deep Abyss.
They said it tasted bad.
Yet here they were, devouring the night overflowing with witches' curses without hesitation.
As if enraged by something immense.
"B-Black Witch! Give us orders!"
The witches wailed.
Their hard-won new home was crumbling.
The Black Witch sensed it instinctively.
'None of this is coincidence.'
It was all connected.
And it had started with...
"Se... pi... ro...!!"
Park Chan-woo slowly opened his eyes.
What filled his vision was the infinite void enveloping his inner self.
He had absorbed all the fragments of the Inexplicable.
But it wasn't enough.
He gazed at the remaining Fragment 1 and 2.
There was no rule against absorbing them all.
Park Chan-woo reached out toward the remaining two fragments.
First, toward Fragment 1, Overwhelming Hunger. An indescribable hunger engulfed his entire body.
A desire to devour the entire universe.
Every cell screamed in craving for mana and energy.
The soul-rending impulse of hunger sought to consume his reason entirely.
But he had already achieved complete dominion over his inner self.
'Nothing is hungrier than despair.'
Park Chan-woo had already tasted the ultimate hunger.
He had despaired and fallen countless times, so he would not yield to this.
Without the slightest tremor, he suppressed all cravings. Even as his bones and flesh burned in agony, he controlled himself without a twitch.
Soon, the desire faded. The Overwhelming Hunger fragment slowly melted away, fully absorbed into him.
Next was Formless Echo.
This fragment posed a slightly trickier challenge.
All his power thus far had been built on flows of mana and waves.
Even breathing was a pulse of mana.
To sever it completely was akin to halting his very existence.
Park Chan-woo closed his eyes and stopped breathing.
He minimized his heartbeat and blocked his mana flow himself. A complete stillness he had never experienced before descended.
'......'
It was the moment of nothingness.
All mana and waves vanished entirely, leaving a void where even his existence seemed forgotten by the universe.
At first, it was brief silence, but as time stretched, an eternal quiet enveloped his consciousness.
Thus, the long minute passed.
The condition was finally met.
The Formless Echo fragment also melted slowly, seeping deep into his body and soul.
The instant he absorbed the final two fragments.
Ding!
In that moment, everything became clear.
Mana's 7th stage: Transcendence.
Only now did he truly understand the meaning of 'transcendence' that Lil had taught him.
Transcendence was not merely dominating mana.
It was deconstructing the world's rules and truths, then recreating them anew.
He descended into the depths of his inner self.
And from those profound depths, he unleashed his own mana.
The condensed seed of mana slowly sprouted in his inner space.
The seed grew, embracing endless possibilities as it began forming a new universe.
Microcosm.
It was Park Chan-woo's universe alone.
A world governed solely by his rules and order.
The crystallization of transcendent power that created existence from nothingness and turned the impossible into possible.
The newly born microcosm emanated light from within, absorbing all surrounding mana and emanating new mana in turn.
This light elegantly illuminated the entire microcosm.
Now he understood.
What it meant to possess his own universe, capable of ruling all and creating infinitely.
'I am not part of the truth.'
Park Chan-woo thought resolutely.
'I am the truth itself.'
The microcosm unfolding within him expanded infinitely, even influencing the space around him.