Chapter 361
Chapter 361
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 361
Chapter Title: Level Up
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Decomposing himself down to the atomic level, over and over and over again, until he finally encountered those memories.
Park Chan-woo had challenged himself countless times and failed countless times.
The points of failure varied, but the one barrier he could never overcome remained constant.
'The terminal deadline.'
He had never once exceeded that limit.
The allotted time was 500 days.
Fail to reach Level 1, and death would claim him.
He tried every means possible without restraint, but in the end, he met his end on the 500th day.
'At first, I thought training was the answer.'
When he first regressed, he chose extreme training.
Sleep was a luxury he couldn't afford. Drawing on every ounce of knowledge from his days as an archmage, he devised the most efficient mana cultivation method and threw himself into it obsessively.
Even amid the bone-grinding pain and soul-devouring fatigue, he never rested for a single moment.
But the horrific penalty of Level -99 clung to him like an unending curse.
Every bit of mana he gathered leaked away somewhere, and his body crumbled under the intensity of the training.
In the end, on the night of the 499th day, he collapsed vomiting blood and closed his eyes in hollow despair as the morning sun rose.
'I even went searching for exceptional equipment.'
In another life, he obsessed over knowledge and information.
Dredging up memories of the past, he sought out hidden relics and powerful artifacts.
He hoped such items might offset the terminal penalty, even if just a little.
He delved into dangerous abysses and excavated forgotten ruins.
Sometimes he barely survived encounters with powerful monsters; other times, he wandered lost in cunning traps for days.
He succeeded in obtaining a few relics, but to him at Level -99, they were mere pie in the sky.
He couldn't handle the power imbued in them—they either ran rampant or accelerated the drain on his life force.
In the end, on the 500th day.
He embraced the now-useless piles of scrap metal and met his death in despair.
'I even tried clinging to the strong to pick up their scraps.'
In yet another life, he became a cunning schemer.
He approached the powerful and sought to exploit them.
Manipulating them, he tried to redirect the fruits of their growth to himself.
It seemed to work at first glance.
He gained mighty followers and found brief stability through their aid.
But human greed and betrayal were variables he overlooked.
He met a gruesome end, stabbed in the back by one he trusted.
In the end, on the 500th day.
His cold corpse was discovered, etched forever with distrust of humanity.
'I even made deals with demons.'
He had even attempted contracts with demons or other异種族 in one life.
Grasping at forbidden knowledge, he flailed to escape the deadline through dangerous pacts.
But they exploited him thoroughly, granting no promised power and instead siphoning his remaining life force.
In the end, on the 500th day.
He withered away in agony, twisted into something no longer human.
There were countless other challenges besides.
He died even before the 500 days more often than not.
'No matter what I tried, I couldn't reach Level 1.'
Yet it was perplexing.
What about his previous life?
Park Chan-woo had undoubtedly achieved Level 99.
That memory was crystal clear.
The mage who clashed with Dragon God Sepiro and pierced his heart.
He had risen from nothing to the pinnacle.
In that prior regression, there was no absurd penalty, no suffocating time limit.
How? Amid all those failures, how had he reached Level 99 just once?
'I lacked offerings, so everything reset completely.'
Offerings were needed for regression.
To fill the deficit, he even sacrificed his memories.
The problem came after.
With memories gone, his future mirrored the first life exactly.
Nothing had changed.
The Demon-Sealing God's chalice.
The God of Offerings watched the process and inevitably guided him toward 'Sepiro'.
Sacrifice Sepiro as an offering, and he could 'return to the past'.
There were no more regressions possible.
He had twisted spacetime and exhausted all offerings.
It was tantamount to a death sentence.
'Conquering Sepiro's heart and offering it—that was the first time.'
A miracle occurred.
A true miracle.
Having lost everything, his memories faded, yet standing once more before Dragon God Sepiro, Park Chan-woo refused to yield even in desperation.
No—he couldn't yield.
The sole escape route whispered by the God of Offerings.
The promise that sacrificing Sepiro would allow regression to the past gripped his last shred of sanity.
And finally.
He reached Sepiro's heart.
Only half of it, but he had achieved the impossible.
It was akin to a fatal error.
Something that absolutely could not happen had occurred.
The God of Offerings sacrificed even itself to execute one final spacetime regression.
Why?
What drove it to regress him so relentlessly?
'The moment I reach Level 1 while bearing this terminal deadline.'
The answer still lay in 'level'.
The God of Offerings wanted Park Chan-woo to reach Level 1 bearing the terminal deadline—the absolute death.
And that 'death' required the memories from before his regression.
Prior regressions had no death, no deadline, no negative levels.
In other words.
Everything driving him toward death now stemmed from 'impossible memories'.
Possessing information that should have been erased by spacetime's reset brought absolute death.
Then, the true nature of this 'death' became intriguing.
Who implanted it in him?
What happens when he overcomes death and reaches Level 1?
Is it truly linked to 'beyond the Great Rift'?
Everything remained unclear.
But one thing was certain.
'...If things continue like this, the past will only repeat.'
He couldn't win.
He couldn't survive.
Because at some point.
His level had barely risen at all.
Park Chan-woo's current level was -60.
He had absorbed the mana lingering in a fragment of Sepiro's heart and gained profound insight and enlightenment, yet he made no further progress.
It was as if an invisible wall blocked his growth.
A completely new kind of despair, unlike anything from prior regressions.
The enlightenments from countless failures and deaths had undoubtedly tempered his soul and brought him a step closer to the essence of his existence.
But it wasn't translating into direct level growth.
'Why? What's missing?'
Park Chan-woo quietly closed his eyes and gazed inward.
Flashing through his mind were the God of Offerings' words: 'impossible memories' and the resulting fate of 'absolute death'.
This stagnation might be an extension of that grand contradiction.
Was the price of defying spacetime's laws clinging to him so viciously?
From the start, bearing the Level -99 penalty had made his path a bed of thorns.
But back then, at least his efforts yielded results—equal to or beyond his input.
Even if minimal, growth was tangible.
Not now.
It was like pouring water into a bottomless jar; no matter how he struggled, only emptiness returned.
'I need to find a way. Somehow break through this stagnation.'
He recalled the methods from his myriad past lives.
Extreme training, hunting hidden relics, allying with the strong, even delving into forbidden knowledge.
But the current issue didn't seem solvable by external means.
The problem lay within him.
His very existence.
Memories and death held him back.
'Maybe... I need to start by accepting the essence of death.'
He had always viewed 'death' as something to overcome, an obstacle to avoid.
But the God of Offerings wanted him to reach Level 1 'bearing the terminal deadline'.
Did that mean 'death' itself was the key?
Park Chan-woo's eyes darkened with deep contemplation.
In that moment, he felt the faint remnant of Sepiro's mana near his heart stir.
A subtle tremor, different from before.
Like a long-shut door cracking open just a sliver.
Sepiro, who had regressed with him, was searching for answers alongside.
The bastard said it as a joke.
Try dying for real, just once.
And so, Park Chan-woo began separating everything that was himself.
Ajos, Charpham, Baal, Chronos, his equipment—everything.
He even consciously expelled the faint mana flowing from Sepiro's heart.
He let go of all influences.
He advanced into utter void.
His existence gradually faded.
Sensations of the flesh grew distant, and his consciousness sank into an abyssal depth.
This was no mere meditation or self-reflection.
It was dismantling every element constituting 'himself' one by one, returning to primordial nothingness.
There was nothing there.
No light, no darkness, no sound, no sensation.
Only pure 'nothingness' existed.
Memories, emotions, experiences accumulated over countless lives scattered like dust and vanished.
The shackles of Level -60 and the pressure of the 500-day deadline lost all meaning.
How much time passed?
Or was time meaningless in that space?
That sound rang clearly through Park Chan-woo's empty consciousness, like a ray of light or a bubble bursting from deep water.
In a state of complete nothingness.
A system message arriving in the midst of 'death' after relinquishing everything.
'The wall... has crumbled.'
Yet there was no sensation of hearing in that space.
It was a more primal recognition, etched directly into the soul.
Focusing his consciousness with effort, he faintly sensed his status.
He was still in the void.
But subtly different from before.
Like a tiny spark igniting in pitch blackness, his existence began emitting a new vibration.
It was certain.
The level stuck at -60 had risen a step, without any external factors—solely from a change in his deepest core.
This wasn't mere numerical +1.
It was like a crack forming in the massive wall that had crushed him.
A faint thread of hope discovered amid the yoke of 'impossible memories' and 'absolute death'.
Park Chan-woo immersed himself once more in the realm of nothingness.
Raising only his level in a state of total relinquishment.
Of course, it might not be the right answer.
It could be delusion, illusion, or a dream at death's door.
His consciousness lingered at the void's edge.
A state of total relinquishment.
Could pure 'nothingness', devoid of intent or desire, truly raise his level? It seemed to deny head-on all knowledge and experience from countless regressions.
'No exit.'
Once stepped in, he had to see it through.
No escape. No way out existed.
He might drift eternally in this state.
His existence fading entirely, forgotten by the world.
But.
The thirst grew fiercer.
Like a single drop falling in a desert's heart, the tantalizing level-up only fanned his craving.
Not enough.
Far from enough.
Such meager change couldn't alter anything.
He needed to void himself further.
Draw even closer to 'death'.
His consciousness flickered like a precarious candle flame.
Erasing his own existence was akin to gnawing at his soul.
He had erased Sepiro itself, after all.
But he couldn't stop.
Stopping would dry up this miraculous spring.
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!