Chapter 384
Chapter 384
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 384
Chapter Title: Racial War (23)
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It was a colossal dragon.
Its massive body, evoking an entire mountain range, was covered in pitch-black scales as if the abyss's darkness itself had been transplanted onto it, while sharply thrusting horns seemed poised to impale the heavens.
From its long, slit eyes gleamed a ghastly crimson-black glow reminiscent of despair itself, and with every unfurling of its gigantic wings, the surrounding atmosphere wailed as if in torment.
The Dragon Emperor's Ring was embedded near the forehead of that colossal dragon—what was known as its reverse scale—pulsating with a bloody crimson light.
The Dragon of Despair.
A being dubbed the Primal Spirit, transcending even giant gods.
The "Arcana of Despair" had finally unveiled its true form.
This was the reason Queen Silpia had been so confident.
The basis for her absolute certainty that the barrier would never shatter.
Sealed within the ring—the protector of the dragon race—was none other than an Arcana.
At the same time...
Everything on the island seemed to grind to a halt.
From the instant the Dragon of Despair appeared.
As if time itself had frozen, no one could so much as twitch.
Arcana was undoubtedly of the dragon race, yet it was a summon not classified as a "dragon."
And upon manifestation, Arcana recognized Lee Hyuk-soo—no.
Park Chan-woo's presence and acknowledged him as its master.
The Wish that had erupted out of nowhere, laying waste to the surroundings.
And now Arcana itself had emerged.
"...What the hell is that human?"
"He commands dragons?"
"What am I even looking at right now?"
All the warriors of every race on the island had no choice but to scrap their plans.
They ceased their assault on humanity and fled instead.
It defied all reason.
...A race utterly beyond comprehension had appeared.
"...Arcana has been summoned."
Darcan of Sloth murmured softly.
Ataraxia turned her gaze toward the distant spectacle.
"I act solely for the glory of Lord Sepiro."
Then she turned away, as if utterly disinterested.
An attitude of icy detachment.
Still every bit as hostile to humans.
Darcan sighed inwardly.
The awakening of the Arcana of Despair, sealed within the Dragon Emperor's Ring...
That was tantamount to the emergence of "Park Chan-woo."
He was the one who had saved Arcana and forged it into a Primal Spirit.
Not to mention the colossal cluster of light that had blazed across the sky just moments ago.
Undeniable proof of "Absolute Magic" unleashed by Park Chan-woo.
The man who had wielded countless Wishes had arrived.
Yet Ataraxia remained unmoved.
Unyielding enmity, without a flicker of doubt.
The loyalty once sworn to the creator of the Dragon of Despair, Arcana, had vanished without a trace.
Ever since the new sun named Sepiro had risen in the heavens, the old star had become little more than an unwelcome stain on memory, it seemed.
All devotion now converged on the first clone.
Small wonder she had handed the "Dragon Emperor's Ring" to the Queen of the Winds and urged the extermination of humanity.
"If humans climb to the upper leagues like this, it will spell our doom."
Ataraxia and the other dragon warriors hungered for it.
Humanity's despair. Their total annihilation.
In a situation already taut with tension from the demons' intervention...
Humans ascending to the upper leagues would merely become delectable prey.
Even if that existence—believed to be Sepiro's second clone, Park Chan-woo—emerged, nothing would change.
"...Too late."
From the moment the great rift tore open and Sepiro's first clone stepped forth.
All fates were sealed.
Sepiro had grown immensely stronger, pursuing an entirely new path.
Though the racial war rules barred the "Twelve Species Lords" from direct participation, Sepiro had decreed dragon victory in this tournament.
What could Park Chan-woo's belated arrival possibly alter?
It might postpone humanity's fall, but the end result would be the same.
From the outset, his emergence centered on humanity had drawn a firm line between him and the dragon race.
Of course, Arcana being classified as a summon now bolstered the human side... but the instant they reached the upper leagues, a gruesome fate awaited.
Better to content themselves adrift in the mid leagues, perhaps.
The demons and all twelve races were in deadly earnest this time.
Even if Park Chan-woo had powered up within the rift.
"Lord Sepiro emerged from the great rift far stronger than before. He has attained the true ultimate."
Ataraxia's realignment made sense.
She had always fixed her gaze solely on Sepiro.
After the first clone's triumph, she had resolved to hail only him as Dragon God.
Yet Darcan felt an odd, nagging discomfort.
The Sepiro who appeared felt profoundly changed.
How to put it.
He had reached the ultimate, no doubt—but through a method alien to established magical paradigms.
Moreover...
"...Traces of mental corruption are evident."
Something had tainted the noble Sepiro's mind.
A shift during his clash with the "Transcendent Outer God" inside the great rift, perhaps.
Of course, nothing certain.
Merely Darcan's hunch.
No means to confirm.
Darcan shook his head inwardly and looked away.
The outcome wouldn't shift regardless.
Beyond the rift lay the void's abyss, where even time and space grew indistinct.
There, Park Chan-woo's core consciousness persisted as a solitary, serene point of light.
In exchange for the contract offering his all as sacrifice, bereft of flesh or senses, he drifted endlessly as pure thought, adrift in absolute stillness.
Memories of countless regressions, agonies of defeat, vows of vengeance—all dimming in the profound quiet.
Then, faint yet unmistakable, a ripple brushed his awareness.
The fierce eruption of "Wish" channeled through the young vessel to whom he had entrusted his lingering essence: Lee Hyuk-soo.
And the awakening of "Arcana of Despair," once rescued and reforged by him into a Primal Spirit.
The ripple pierced the void's shroud, rekindling Park Chan-woo's nearly faded presence.
"...Not over yet."
Less emotion than raw cognition.
With it, his consciousness slipped into a bizarre duality.
Parinirvana with remainder.
His thought form serenely contemplated his "remnants" in reality, akin to moonlight on still waters.
Lee Hyuk-soo's fierce struggle, Adora's sacrifice, the Abyss's colossal machinations and laws encircling them.
Chains of karma and retribution that once ignited rage and despair now drifted past like fleeting vistas.
Magic's principles and cosmic laws unfurled lucidly beneath him, fully comprehended.
Absolute serenity, devoid of clinging or torment.
Yet his "remaining duty" burned vivid: vengeance upon Sepiro, humanity's salvation—the final residual karma.
Parinirvana without remainder.
Simultaneously, his primal core released even that contemplation, plunging into deeper void: utter nothingness.
Absolute emptiness sans light or dark, being or non-being.
No "self" endured there.
All causality dissolved, laws unraveled, a primordial sea of pure potentiality.
Not oblivion, but consummate liberty reverting to all origins.
Every trait of Park Chan-woo dismantled, fusing with the cosmos in ultimate peace.
Two nirvanas.
The lingering one's poise and the releaser's emancipation.
This paradox coexisted miraculously within him, ascending into vast enlightenment.
Like titanic gears interlocking, a fresh truth surfaced from his depths.
Surpassing magical expansion—an insight into existence's root.
In void's abyss, his two nirvanas harmonized flawlessly, merging as one.
Residual duty of the "with" and boundless release of the "without" coexisted in miracle, hoisting his being to new heights.
In that instant, the inner truth-gear slotted home and halted.
First insight: power's essence.
Abyss bowed not to raw mana volume.
But to existence's heft, karma's profundity, the storyteller's resolve.
His pact with the God of Offerings revealed not mere oblation, but staking all to pierce cosmic law, birthing novel causality.
His regressions: no fruitless loops, but self-as-sacrifice, tempering purer "existence core."
Second insight assailed his nemesis, Dragon God Sepiro.
"Sepiro... Your so-called ultimate is no true fulfillment."
Park Chan-woo beheld the grotesque shard of "Transcendent Outer God" Sepiro had touched beyond the rift.
Sepiro's might dwarfed prior self, yet its fount brimmed with the entity's foul, alien taint, corroding mind from within.
A ticking bomb—and Park Chan-woo's lethal vulnerability to exploit.
"My path is set."
Third insight charted role and course crystalline.
No longer mere Archmage Park Chan-woo.
Through deaths uncounted, regressions, this nirvanic miracle—he transcended humanity.
His aim: straightening fate's warp.
Overturning endless defeat's terminus.
Yet impossible thus. Unchangeable so.
As pure thought, reality's sway was scant.
Wish and Arcana's fleeting bloom via Lee Hyuk-soo? Transient, bound by vessel limits and God of Offerings' terms.
"My path alone. Fresh possibility."
Dual nirvanas' equanimity and sagacity murmured novelties.
"With-remainder: cognize reality's karma, peace amid. Without: release all, origin's revert. Yet return I must. To conclude it all."
Within, dual harmony transmuted anew.
Neither with nor without—third realm, embracing both in transcendence.
"Remaining's onus and releaser's liberty. United, true re-manifestation dawns."
Intuition struck Park Chan-woo.
This: sole path piercing despair's snare.
Shatter thought-limits, snap God of Offerings' fetters.
Viz., "Nirvana of Manifestation."
Re-forging Park Chan-woo into reality afresh.
Construct vessel replete with will and puissance for direct descent.
I.e.:
"Become a god."
Desperate enlightenment's apex, wrought from lives myriad offered whole.
Human bounds breached; self-willed laws erected, fate self-molded.
Thus the "Nirvana of Manifestation" Park Chan-woo attained.
In void's depths, his light-point "existence core" erupted in expansion.
No mere aura bloom.
Regression-memories, defeat-pangs, yearnings—all fused, refined furnace-like with dual nirvanas' wisdom-liberation into novel substrate.
No more darkness-groper.
Light-bearer dispelling night, path-forger anew.
True "Manifestation."
Human Park Chan-woo's godhood.