Chapter 390
Chapter 390
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 390
Chapter Title: Racial War (29)
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Blood-red mist swallowed the hellscape.
The Despair's Dragon Chant shook the earth.
The colossal black dragon, Ataraxia, served as the executioner embodying Sepiro's will and the very apocalypse bearing down on humanity.
Its mere presence warped space itself, enveloping all living things in instinctive terror.
The power of Ataraxia, transformed into a dragon, surpassed imagination.
Despair's Dragon Chant, a wicked pulse that rattled the core of existence and stripped away the will to fight, swept across the entire battlefield.
With every swing of its massive claws and tail, the ground screamed, splitting and heaving.
Lava erupted, the earth crumbled, and poisonous fog billowed from all directions, obscuring vision and choking breaths.
The battlefield grew ever more hostile to humanity with each passing moment.
But the greatest problem was...
'...The Dragon Chant persists. Hard to move.'
Despair's Dragon Chant.
Lee Hyuk-soo gritted his teeth.
His mind frayed, his body grew heavy.
Kuuaaaaa!
From Ataraxia's maw erupted a jet-black breath, scorching like the manifestation of ultra-high-tier magic, poised to annihilate everything.
"Graaaah!"
Lee Hyuk-soo used Baal's sword as a shield, taking the breath head-on.
Golden sword aura exploded like a storm, but the black breath devoured its momentum, hurling him dozens of meters back.
Blood sprayed from his forearms like a fountain, and cracks spiderwebbed across Baal's sword, which he'd barely blocked with.
His body, unable to endure Baal's berserk power any longer, screamed from within—bones grinding out of place.
He clenched his jaw, but couldn't stop the blood trickling from his mouth.
'Wish won't activate. Magic isn't responding before that dragon of despair.'
Why?
Wish seemed to recognize Ataraxia as an 'ally'.
Perhaps because it had once fought alongside Park Chan-woo as a comrade?
"Master!"
Han Min-oh cried out urgently.
If Lee Hyuk-soo hadn't stepped up, that breath would have killed several of them.
"Chains of death, bind that arrogant dragon! Evil spirits, corrupt his mind."
Adora swung the Staff of the Throne Seat.
Her deathly authority manifested as black chains, attempting to bind Ataraxia's massive body.
Chalak!
But pure draconic power burst from Ataraxia's form, shattering the chains effortlessly.
Though her level had risen by 30, granting greater power than before, Ataraxia—further empowered by Sepiro—overwhelmed even her authority.
The wails of the countless evil spirits she summoned faded powerlessly before Despair's Dragon Chant, and her mana began depleting rapidly.
Her hand trembled faintly on the staff.
"Holy light, protect us! Grant healing grace to our wounded comrades!"
"Spirits, block that dragon's breath! With the power of earth, with blades of wind!"
Yoo Jin-seo and Aurum fought desperately.
Yoo Jin-seo's divine power faintly mended the team's wounds, but it couldn't keep pace with the horrific new injuries from Ataraxia's assaults.
Cold sweat beaded on her forehead, her lips parched.
The mighty spirits Aurum summoned vanished like dust under one of Ataraxia's wide-area spells.
He resummoned them, but their mana drained away like sand from an hourglass.
Ziiiiiing!
A massive pyramid materialized before Ataraxia.
At its center was an 'eye', and that 'eye' began unleashing red beams like laser rays.
Kwaaaaaang!
Everything touched by the red beams vanished.
13th realm magic. The destructive assault ravaged all directions, making evasion difficult.
Moreover, the beams relentlessly targeted Lee Hyuk-soo.
Lee Hyuk-soo, having blocked the breath, was half-collapsed.
He couldn't dodge death like this.
"Counter!"
Han Min-oh shot forward like an arrow, blocking Lee Hyuk-soo's path.
Kwaaaaaang!
The red beam of destruction from the pyramid's eye clashed head-on with Han Min-oh's feeble barrier.
In an instant, blinding white light and thunderous roar swept the battlefield.
The beam struck Han Min-oh's sword, momentarily slowing, but the 13th realm magic's power was far too immense for him.
"Graaaah!"
A gut-wrenching scream tore from Han Min-oh's throat.
His body lifted into the air like a leaf hit by the beam, then crashed limply to the ground.
Covered in blood, he lay utterly still.
Counter had activated, but it couldn't reflect the blow.
Just blocking it was all.
And even that aftermath left him teetering on the brink of life and death.
The pyramid's eye began condensing red light toward Lee Hyuk-soo once more.
That was the moment.
Fwoooosh!
Black flames engulfed Paranormal.
The pyramid, wrapped in black fire, vanished without a trace.
Ataraxia's gaze shifted to one side.
"Curious. Neither half-demon nor true demon..."
An avatar contracted with a Creator could wield a portion of that Creator's abilities.
If heavily influenced, it became a 'half-demon'; full demonization merged it with the Creator into a 'true demon' realm.
Yet Han Shin's form was distant from both.
"I've transcended both half-demon and true demon."
Han Shin murmured softly.
Black wings. Black horns and beastly fur covering his body.
Both eyes, the 'Spirit Eyes', gleamed toward Ataraxia.
"Ultimate Demon."
Ataraxia's massive dragon eyes narrowed at Han Shin's low chant.
The black flames that devoured his 13th realm magic 'Paranormal', and the aura emanating from the figure before him—both were ominous.
Beyond half-demon or true demon, something more.
'Ultimate Demon.'
He sensed the aura of a Demon God.
Yet contracts with Demon Gods usually eroded the contractor's ego, leading to ruin.
Han Shin had surpassed that peril, absorbing the Demon God's power as his own, reborn as a new entity.
Those eyes saw the true form of all magic.
The black flames burned magic itself.
For a fleeting moment, Han Shin's level had surged to extremes.
"Intriguing. A realm no puny human should reach."
Contempt laced Ataraxia's voice, tinged with faint curiosity.
He detected in Han Shin's dark-crimson mana not mere Demon God power, but something deeper, from an abyss more profound and shadowy.
Han Shin didn't reply.
This was his perfected ultimate form.
Flap!
Fwoooosh!
Han Shin's black wings beat fiercely, launching him into the sky.
His body wreathed in pitch-black flames and dark-red lightning, he resembled a destroyer crawled from hell.
The Spirit Eyes captured Ataraxia's every motion, mana flow, even the slightest muscle twitch, predicting his next move.
Even evading 'Despair's Dragon Chant'.
As if he were a more despairing existence.
"Come on, burn it all."
Whooong!
Whoooong!
The earth quaked.
The heavens trembled.
At its center, Ataraxia invoked magic.
"Despair's Meteor Shower."
Ataraxia roared skyward, and hundreds of burning meteors began plummeting from above.
Each the size of a small fortress.
If they struck, nothing would remain.
'I see it.'
Han Shin spewed black flames like a storm toward the sky-blanketing meteor shower.
His pitch-black hellfire clashed with the meteors, triggering massive explosions, but their numbers were overwhelming.
Burning them all wasn't easy.
Several meteor fragments struck him, searing his black fur and flesh.
"Earth's Prison."
"Despair's Thorn Field."
Ataraxia's spells came relentlessly.
Ultra-high-tier magic of another dimension from their prior clashes bombarded in succession; even Han Shin, at Ultimate Demon, had no counter.
'Those two previous fights... he was holding back all along!'
Han Shin reeled inwardly.
He'd deluded himself that reaching Ultimate Demon let him match Ataraxia.
Even as a dragonkin, he thought he could reach it.
But the gulf in their extreme levels was insurmountable.
Dodge, block, explode.
Han Shin moved on instinct.
His Ultimate Demon senses remained sharp, but Ataraxia's barrage offered no respite.
Fresh wounds accumulated on his body.
The black flames' power waned gradually.
"Graaaaaah!"
Han Shin didn't yield.
Even his last shred of will he burned, gathering the fading black flames and hurling them.
A feeble resistance, but all he could muster.
Kwaaaaaang!
The largest meteor shower devoured even that final defiance, engulfing his body.
Vision blackened, sensations vanished.
His body crumpled like paper, sucked into the explosion's heart.
'If only... if only my level was higher...!'
This time, he was certain.
If their levels matched, he would have won.
But Han Shin's consciousness cut off there.
"Han Shin!"
Lee Hyuk-soo's scream was drowned by the massive blast.
Where the meteor shower passed, only a gigantic crater remained, testament to Han Shin's desperate end.
Ataraxia slowly turned, fixing its gaze on the last remnants of resistance.
Its next target was clear.
"Witch, your turn now."
Where Ataraxia looked stood Adora, radiating an utterly transformed aura.
While Han Shin clashed with Ataraxia, she'd prepared in silence, staking everything.
Whoooosh!
Black deathly energy swirled around her.
Her death authority, the Star's power in the Staff of the Throne Seat, even the Wish dormant deep in her soul.
All coalesced into a force incomparably potent and ominous.
Her red eyes held no human emotion.
Only chilling resolve to end it all.
Her lips parted slowly, ancient incantation flowing forth.
"Evil Spirit King."
⟨ Evil Spirit King ⟩
Finally, 'it' began to emerge.
A colossal form of hundreds, thousands of tangled black shadows writhing indistinguishably.
Upon closer look, a collective of evil spirits, each shrieking in agony.
Biting and clawing one another, yet forcibly bound under one massive will—a horrific sight.
A being condensed from countless evil spirits' pain and grudges!
Kieeeek!
The Evil Spirit King roared.
A scream and curse woven from thousands, tens of thousands of layered resentments and torments.
The horrific sound wave eroded minds and gnawed souls just by hearing it, sweeping the battlefield.
The blood-red mist thickened, more ominous with the Evil Spirit King's arrival.
The sky cloaked in black shadows, the earth freezing in deathly chill.
"Seems this is our first real fight."
Ataraxia responded in kind.
Evil Spirit King. That unseen curse-clump was quite grotesque even to him.
"From now on, I'll go all out too. Adora, Witch of Death."
Against Adora, half-hearted effort would mean his own reversal.