Chapter 397
Chapter 397
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 397
Chapter Title: Racial War (36)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Ataraxia's movements stopped.
No, she couldn't move.
All her senses, her very soul, were overwhelmed by the being that had appeared before her.
The battlefield of the "Earth District," filled with despair.
The moment when even the Arcana specters had been subdued, humanity's final resistance crushed, and everything dyed in her own despair.
Suddenly, accompanied by a pure golden light that seemed to purify all, he appeared.
As if descending by transcending time and space itself.
'……!'
Ataraxia's thoughts froze in an instant.
Her massive dragon form stood motionless in the center of the battlefield, not even twitching.
The momentum that had just moments ago engulfed the entire world in her despair had vanished without a trace.
What struck her mind was pure shock, and an instinctive fear toward the incomprehensible phenomenon.
'Park… Chan… woo?'
That name echoed through the depths of her soul like a reverberation.
A name she could never forget. A name she must never forget.
Once her lord, whom she had followed with everything she had—the sole hope she believed would open a new future for the dragonkin.
And at the same time, the archenemy who had betrayed all her faith, deceived the dragonkin, and had to be slain by her own hand!
But the Park Chan-woo who now stood before her was utterly different from any form she remembered.
He took human shape, yet the aura emanating from him was not that of a mortal.
A pure, overwhelming divinity, as if the primordial light itself had been condensed.
His very existence felt like a complete world unto itself.
The most incomprehensible part was the "rank" of the power she sensed from him.
Different from Sepiro.
Completely unlike the past when he wielded Sepiro's magic power.
It felt entirely separated, yet as if it had inherited and surpassed Sepiro's magic.
Like… a new star that had broken away from the colossal sun called Sepiro and begun shining on its own.
Before, he had given the strong impression of merely imitating Sepiro's ways, but now Park Chan-woo felt like an independent being who had established his own laws and authority.
A strange dissonance, as if he had taken Sepiro's magic power as a foundation but perfectly assimilated and transcended it in his own way, elevating it to an entirely different dimension of power.
As if the essence of his existence itself had transformed into a realm so lofty that even her lord, the Dragon God Sepiro, could not touch it lightly.
"Who… are you?"
Her ego, which had grown hazy during her transformation into an outer god, was forcibly dragged back to the surface by the intense stimulation of that golden divinity.
Yet she still couldn't comprehend it.
Whether this "being" was truly the Park Chan-woo she had known.
How could he, whom she believed had entered the rift and vanished, reappear in such a form?
Ataraxia's mind brimmed with bursting questions and instinctive terror. Her massive dragon body trembled faintly.
The abyssal power and mark of despair bestowed by Sepiro ceaselessly incited her hostility toward Park Chan-woo from within, but the pure, overwhelming divine might radiating from the figure before her seemed to crush it all.
As if facing an immutable primordial law that could not be defied.
And that was not all.
With a single gesture of his hand, "death" was revoked.
Lee Hyuk-soo, who had stopped breathing when Adora unleashed her "authority of death," drew breath once more.
He tore open the heavens and summoned divine beasts through the rift.
As countless divine beasts and the Rift King Signus revealed themselves, it felt as if all time had stopped—no thoughts could form.
Then, Park Chan-woo slowly opened his mouth.
"Ataraxia. Do you not recognize me?"
His voice was the same as before, but the resonance within it was entirely different.
As if containing the whispers of countless stars and the silence of the abyss simultaneously, it burrowed into the listener's soul's deepest recesses.
Park Chan-woo's eyes pierced Ataraxia's soul, her essence.
The black brand implanted by Sepiro, her twisted loyalty, and even the once-pure pride and aspirations hidden beneath it all.
"You're… you're not 'him'! You're just some being mimicking his form!"
Ataraxia uttered words of denial without realizing it.
If she didn't, it felt like her very existence would be negated.
Everything she had believed in—her loyalty to Sepiro, her hatred for Park Chan-woo—seemed on the verge of crumbling in an instant.
"My lord Sepiro said you had already vanished! That you had abandoned everything!"
She tried to shield her anxiety by invoking Sepiro's name as a bulwark.
But Park Chan-woo's gaze didn't waver in the slightest.
Instead, a faint emotion akin to pity flickered in his eyes.
"Sepiro."
Park Chan-woo murmured the name softly.
In that instant, the surrounding space warped faintly, and the pressure bearing down on Ataraxia intensified.
"Whatever he whispered to you, the truth remains unchanged, Ataraxia. Once, you were my loyal subordinate and a comrade who pondered the future alongside me."
Each of his words sliced like a sharp dagger through Ataraxia's memories.
Fragments of a past she wished—or needed—to forget surged like waves.
Memories of rampaging across battlefields with Park Chan-woo, moments of awe at his wisdom, faint hopes for the new possibilities he showed.
All of it had been broken and twisted before the colossal despair named Sepiro.
"Shut your mouth! I serve only the Dragon God Sepiro!"
Ataraxia roared ferociously, gathering her remaining strength.
The abyssal runes etched into her body blazed fiercely, condensing all her magic power.
【End of Despair】
Her most powerful spell poured toward Park Chan-woo all at once.
A destructive breath that tore space itself and threatened to reduce everything to nothingness.
But Park Chan-woo didn't stir an inch.
He simply extended his hand quietly toward all that destruction.
Dazzling golden particles of "Wish" cascaded from his palm like a waterfall.
Pure and mighty beyond comparison to before—a primal force capable of creating all and purifying all simultaneously.
And then, as if nothing had happened.
All the magic power vanished perfectly within the golden light, not even a speck of dust remaining.
Like a vast darkness crumbling powerlessly before a single ray of dawn.
"……!"
Ataraxia doubted her own eyes.
Her all-out attack, vanishing so futilely.
This was neither magical cancellation nor defense. It was closer to complete nullification of the spell's existence.
Which meant their powers were on entirely different ranks.
"Do you still not understand, Ataraxia?"
Park Chan-woo took a step forward.
With each step, the shattered earth repaired itself, and a faint blue light began to shimmer in the despair-tainted sky.
"Your despair is hollow. But it is not truly your power—merely the yoke Sepiro placed upon you."
That despair was not Ataraxia's own.
Park Chan-woo felt genuine pity.
For Ataraxia, who must have endured countless agonies and torments because of him.
The being who had trusted only him and preached to all her kin had, in the end, thrown herself into endless despair.
'I must set it right.'
And show her.
That Ataraxia's choice, her faith, had not been wrong.
"Think of me as you will. But you must know this: What you follow now is neither the dragonkin's future nor your own will."
Park Chan-woo's gaze turned to Ataraxia's chest, where the abyssal runes were etched.
"I will sever those chains for you. And give you a choice, Ataraxia. Will you reclaim your past glory, or forever despair in the shadow of the 'false Sepiro'?"
The golden divine power flowing from Park Chan-woo's body stretched toward the heavens, soon taking the form of a massive spear of light.
Its tip aimed precisely at Ataraxia's heart.
Then, his voice resounded across the battlefield once more, now with a majestic echo directed at the entire dragonkin.
"My lost children. My kin, ensnared by a false god and mired in the swamp of despair."
His gaze seemed to pierce beyond Ataraxia, toward other dragonkin somewhere and perhaps Sepiro watching all this.
"The transformation you so desperately crave, the true glory you so longed for—it will not be brought by the Sepiro of now."
The conviction in his voice carried a force that made it feel like an irrefutable truth to all who heard.
"Behold. And choose."
Park Chan-woo pointed to himself.
The sacred golden light emanating from his body now seemed to embrace the entire world.
"I will become the true 'Dragon God' for you, and for all your dragonkin."
Before that overwhelming declaration, Ataraxia felt a massive tremor that shook even the purpose of her existence.
'True… Dragon God…?'
The weight of those words crushed her soul.
To acknowledge another Dragon God besides Lord Sepiro?
It was blasphemy beyond imagination.
Yet the divine aura radiating from Park Chan-woo before her, and the declaration from his lips, stirred some primal longing buried in her deepest depths.
The dragonkin's true glory. Transformation.
The very possibility she had once seen in Park Chan-woo.
Soon after, Park Chan-woo proved his words with action.
He slowly raised his right hand.
The spear of light quivered in response.
At the same time.
"Absolute Magic, Sepiro."
"Absolute Magic, Sepiro."
⟨ Sepiro ⟩
Rumble rumble rumble!
The spear of light pierced Ataraxia.
And the spear embedded in the ground soon took on a distinct form.
"Not bad at all, Archmage."
That form stretched languidly, gazing at Park Chan-woo with a face that seemed genuinely surprised.
Ataraxia stared at the figure in disbelief, murmuring.
"Se… piro… Lord…?"