Chapter 400
Chapter 400
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 400
Chapter Title: Interspecies War (39)
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Someone's incredulous mutter sliced through the silence.
Right after that, the interior of the Eternal Train and each species' special viewing rooms erupted into chaos, as if a bomb had detonated.
The being who had just moments ago been regarded as a mysterious divine entity—or at best, another avatar of Dragon God Sepiro—had been officially designated by the system as 'human', and moreover, the 'tenth warrior of humanity'.
"Human...? That thing is human? How could a human possess such power?!"
"Isn't the gap too vast compared to other humans?"
"It's not using the Black Witch's authority to pretend to be human, is it?!"
The representatives of the upper species were beside themselves with shock.
Especially those who had allied with the dragonkin or sought to pass through this 'Earth Sector' under their protection—their faces had drained of all color.
All the tickets secured by Ataraxia had gone to a single human, meaning every one of their plans had gone up in smoke.
The Heavenly Clan's elder continued to blink his ten eyes, fixated on Park Chan-woo.
Even with his wisdom, this situation lay beyond the realm of comprehension.
Despite the clear label of 'human', his true essence remained shrouded in fog.
"A being that far transcends the human category... Yet the system calls him human. Is this another variable, or a remnant we've overlooked?"
But they knew.
The system's messages weren't absolute.
After all, if it was the Black Witch's authority granting false qualifications, it could feasibly masquerade as another species.
However, even if the Black Witch's power was invoked, it could only bestow a 'false qualification'—it couldn't alter one's fundamental essence.
Essence.
The crux was whether that foundation was truly human.
And the Heavenly Clan's elder could perceive that essence.
Just as he had read Adora as a 'witch'.
At the same time, the elder's ten pupils emitted different lights as he delved even deeper into Park Chan-woo's existence.
His authority, 'Vision of All Things', pierced beyond mere phenomena to their very origins.
If Park Chan-woo had borrowed the Black Witch's power or concealed another species' essence, it wouldn't fool his eyes completely.
"...Peculiar. Truly peculiar."
A sigh of admiration escaped the elder's lips after a long silence.
His pupils narrowed in unison.
"The weight of the authority emanating from that being has reached the divine realm. Yet... no matter how deeply I probe its origin, the starting point clearly... connects to that of a 'human'. Faint, but an unmistakable human trace lingers."
His words plunged the Heavenly Clan's warriors into even greater confusion.
A human essence, yet power that infinitely transcended humanity.
This phenomenon lay utterly beyond their understanding.
It would have been easier to accept if a powerful otherworldly being had merely assumed human form.
"Then is that an evolved form of human? Or something that descended using a human vessel?"
"It forged Sepiro's likeness and brought Ataraxia to her knees."
"And what of those divine beasts?"
"If it's not an illusion, it can't possibly be called 'human'."
"How could a species just starting their first interspecies war make all this possible?!"
It was a reality that defied all common sense.
The emergence of such a monster—no, a god—from humanity, a species little more than newborns.
The Heavenly Clan's elder let out a low sigh.
"That's precisely why it's so peculiar. It defies everything we know: the growth laws of species, the flow of history. Perhaps... it is an 'Irregular' heralding a new era."
Irregular.
The word rippled differently through each listener.
A variable, a mutation, or a destroyer of order.
Like the outer god with the archangel's form that had withstood the assault of the 'Great Nine Lords' before.
Perhaps a species signaling that the era was undergoing rapid upheaval.
A new type of powerhouse.
The prelude to a strength not defined by mere martial prowess, but an entirely different caliber.
Yet even accounting for all those variables, it still didn't add up.
Leading divine beasts and forging Sepiro.
Not to mention a new Dragon God?
The observers' confusion showed no signs of abating.
The term 'Irregular' felt woefully inadequate to explain the sheer magnitude of the phenomenon.
Park Chan-woo had become the storm itself.
All twelve species now had their eyes on him.
For the first time, leisure vanished from Sepiro's face.
His gaze, which had until moments ago been observing the pivotal Abyss event of the 'Outer God's Completion', was now entirely fixed on a single human from the 'Earth Sector'.
His golden pupils brimmed with bewilderment, cold fury, and an unfamiliar prickling wariness he'd never felt before.
'Human... Is that thing truly human?'
The system had named him 'human', but the phenomena Park Chan-woo displayed mocked every definition of the 'human' species that Sepiro knew.
Not content with subjugating divine beasts and forcing the ancient dragon Ataraxia to kneel, he had now 'created' a being identical to himself.
Using his own 'heart', no less.
"Stole my heart... and forged another me with it?"
The Archmage.
The bastard had stolen two of his hearts.
This one was forged from the 'first heart'.
Yet he still couldn't comprehend it.
Not even with his ability to deconstruct all phenomena.
How, and when, had it been stolen?
It was the heart that governed most of his authorities.
He had never let his guard down for an instant.
Nor was he so sloppy as to allow it to be plundered helplessly.
Unless the Archmage had wielded ultimate magic surpassing even him, it was impossible.
A perfect void, as if it had never existed—or as if another dimension's laws had intervened.
This was the epitome of 'error'.
But the 'second heart' was the one he had offered to 'Death' to confront the super outer god in the great rift.
That heart offered to Death had flowed to the Archmage.
In other words, the 'Archmage' was a being who commanded a Death burdensome even to him, who had delved into ultimate magic, and who possessed the stature to make the king of divine beasts submit.
'Incomprehensible.'
He had no choice but to admit it.
That existence was incomprehensibility incarnate.
He had certainly been aware of the entity called the 'Archmage'.
But he'd dismissed him as merely a cunning petty thief.
A strange anomaly that evaded full grasp, nothing more.
'So that's how he managed to hide so flawlessly all this time.'
It wasn't that he hadn't properly searched for him—it was that he hadn't bothered to.
Even if he had, with power and stature like this concealed, he wouldn't have been easily snared in Sepiro's surveillance net.
Like a colossal dragon oblivious to a tiny insect crawling at its feet.
But if that insect was a mythical being harboring poison to pierce the dragon's heart, the story changed.
Sepiro's face twisted.
It wasn't mere underestimation.
It was a catastrophe born of his own arrogance.
The 'Archmage' was none other than Park Chan-woo before his eyes, now grown into a colossal being even Sepiro couldn't handle lightly—taunting him by ripping out his heart right in his face.
'...I should have killed him before entering the rift.'
He hadn't even imagined the bastard would enter the rift and subjugate the rift's king.
There had been ample chances to eliminate all these variables.
Opportunities to kill him as effortlessly as breathing.
Yet Sepiro, who acted on whims of curiosity, had kicked them all away himself.
Even when the Archmage declared himself Dragon God in the Dragon God Temple and commanded dragons, Sepiro felt not true rage, but a spark of amusement at the audacity and cunning.
So he 'spared him' and gave him a chance.
A bet on who would emerge first from their respective rifts: his great rift or the Archmage's rift.
And the result was this catastrophe unfolding before him.
That word 'bet' now parched his tongue and froze his heart.
What had once been an amusing diversion—a product of arrogant confidence in his overwhelming power and status—had become an irredeemable blunder shackling his ankles.
And worse.
'Every time I take notice of him, he keeps raising the stakes.'
Every spectacle Park Chan-woo displayed was beyond even Sepiro's belief.
Archmage Park Chan-woo was multiplying the pot exponentially.
He had climbed right up to Sepiro's chin.
As proof.
"...He even restored Ataraxia's soul, which the Grail of the Apocalypse had consumed."
Ataraxia was under complete domination.
Yet the Archmage's presence had temporarily undone the grail's control.
In that instant, Ataraxia had wagered everything to break free from the grail.
And the outcome was pledging unwavering loyalty to Archmage Park Chan-woo as a dragon who had reclaimed her free will, not a dragon of despair.
Sepiro replayed the scene with trembling eyes.
And realized.
He had gotten the buttons wrong from the very start.
The opponent in that 'bet' he'd tossed out in playful interest was a typhoon poised to upend the entire Abyss and devour everything he had.
"I acknowledge it."
Sepiro finally acknowledged Park Chan-woo—the Archmage.
It wasn't resignation or surrender.
Rather, it meant confronting his fatal misjudgment head-on, along with the current situation it had wrought, and at last properly gauging the opponent's stature.
The thick veil of arrogance lifted.
And everything became crystal clear.
Park Chan-woo.
That human cloaked in radiant divinity.
Not some mere glitch.
"That you are the 'Archmage' who holds the potential to threaten me."
A true Archmage.
And it was the first time.
That Sepiro had ever regarded someone with such wariness and acknowledgment.