Chapter 405
Chapter 405
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 405
Chapter Title: Interracial War (44)
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Lee Hyuk-soo's consciousness awoke atop an endless expanse of black earth.
The sky above held both a crimson sun and a blue moon, casting an eerie glow. The ground was littered with parched bones and shattered weapons.
"Where... is this?"
As Lee Hyuk-soo looked around in confusion, a cold voice came from behind him.
"Get a grip, Lee Hyuk-soo. This is your first training opponent."
He turned to see Zero standing there.
And in the direction his gesture pointed—beyond the horizon—a massive dust cloud was rising.
Hundreds of thousands of skeleton soldiers, at the very least, charged toward him with glowing red eyes.
"Cut them all down. Not a single one left standing."
"But my sword...!"
Lee Hyuk-soo fumbled at his waist, but nothing was there.
"If you don't have a sword, make one."
Zero spoke with icy detachment.
"Your will, your mana, your flesh and bones. Turn it all into a blade. This is your first step toward becoming a true sword."
With those words, Zero vanished.
Left alone, Lee Hyuk-soo faced the overwhelming skeleton horde.
He couldn't betray Park Chan-woo's sacrifice and faith.
Lee Hyuk-soo straightened his arm like a blade, gathered his mana to form a faint sword aura, and charged at the skeletons.
The moment his sword aura clashed with the first skeleton soldier, Lee Hyuk-soo was stunned.
It was as hard as steel.
No—harder.
The skeleton repelled his sword aura and thrust a rusted blade deep into his shoulder.
'Each one of these skeleton soldiers is on my level.'
Lee Hyuk-soo realized.
Every single skeleton soldier possessed the same level and stats as his current self.
He had to face an army of hundreds of thousands of equals—bare-handed.
'Impossible.'
There was no way to win.
This was a battlefield where victory wasn't even a premise—an impossibility from the start.
Lee Hyuk-soo died, died, and died again.
His heart pierced by a skeleton's sword, his body burned by magic, crushed under dozens, hundreds of bones.
The pain of death was vividly real, and at the end of each one, he opened his eyes again on the same black earth.
After hundreds of deaths, a faint message window appeared before him.
It was a temptation like the devil's whisper.
A sweet option to end this endless torment and despair.
His finger hovered in the air, hesitating.
But in that moment, one face flashed through his mind.
The one who had thrown everything away to create this miracle.
Park Chan-woo.
'He believed in me.'
He had sacrificed himself to help them grow.
Compared to his will—chewing through infinite solitude and pressing on solely for victory—dying a few times was nothing.
Lee Hyuk-soo gritted his teeth.
Bloody tears streamed down.
The pain he endured was nothing compared to the sacrifice he had borne.
"...I won't give up. Never."
Lee Hyuk-soo roared as he rose again.
He smashed the message window with his fist and charged at the skeleton horde once more.
Han Shin stood in the center of a vast library.
Shelves reaching to the ceiling held books containing all the world's knowledge and information.
Ancient magic, forgotten history, the lineage of gods—even tomes on the fundamental laws of the Abyss.
It was truly an ocean of knowledge.
"Read every book here. Don't skip a single letter."
Zero's voice echoed throughout the library.
"Your Mystic Eyes and Death Eyes pierce all, but you lack the ability to process and comprehend that information. Make all this knowledge your own and reach true 'omniscience'."
Han Shin scoffed.
"How long do you expect that to take?"
"You have plenty of time. A hundred years here is less than a day in reality."
Han Shin was speechless.
He grumbled but pulled a book from the nearest shelf.
'The Origin of Ancient Dragon Words?'
The moment he turned the first page, the letters glowed and were sucked into his eyes.
"Gah!"
His brain throbbed as if it would burst.
New knowledge was forcibly injected.
It wasn't mere information absorption.
The primordial moment dragon words were born.
The emotions and will of the ancient dragon that first uttered them.
All of it invaded Han Shin's mind.
Unable to bear the overwhelming knowledge vibrating his brain in an instant, Han Shin screamed and tried to throw the book away.
But it clung to his hand like a magnet, and the flood of knowledge didn't stop.
His Mystic Eyes and Death Eyes went berserk, sucking in not just the book's info but the entire library indiscriminately.
'Stop...! I said stop!'
Regardless of Han Shin's will, his eyes saw and absorbed everything.
He eavesdropped on ancient mages' debates from thousands of years ago, witnessed gods' wars from tens of thousands of years past.
Forbidden knowledge that shouldn't exist, truths of chaos that shouldn't be understood.
All mixed in his head, shaking his very self.
Han Shin was going mad.
He was forgetting who he was, why he was here.
He felt he'd become a slave to knowledge, wandering this library forever.
Right then.
Amid the storm of chaos, a single light grasped his mind.
It was Zero's voice.
-Piece together the scattered information and draw your own map.
That voice showed Han Shin a new path.
Not a jumble of disorderly knowledge, but finding the hidden order and laws within.
'Why should I listen to you?'
A spark of defiance.
It was Han Shin's unbreakable pride.
He clenched his teeth and controlled his rampaging eyes.
He didn't need a map.
He no longer got swept away by knowledge.
Instead, he swam upstream against its flow, delving into its source.
He wouldn't learn knowledge and magic—he'd make them submit to him.
He would dominate them.
Han Shin's eyes emitted red and blue light simultaneously, piercing the entire library.
Wherever his gaze touched, books floated into the air and orbited him.
He no longer read the books.
The books offered themselves to him completely.
He became the king of knowledge, claiming the entire library as his domain.
Thousands, tens of thousands of books moved at his will, building a new system of knowledge.
Han Shin was no longer knowledge's slave.
He was its new master.
A new world began to appear in his eyes.
Points connecting into lines, lines forming planes—a vast universe of knowledge.
At its center, he opened new 'eyes' that pierced all.
It was the moment he took another step toward true 'omniscience'.
'I am omniscient and omnipotent.'
Han Shin smiled faintly.
At the same time.
"Hm...?"
Another massive library appeared.
One containing knowledge on an entirely different scale from what he had dominated before.
Adora faced her clones—seven young witches—in an endless darkness.
They had the same face as her, but their eyes were empty.
They were living curse dolls filled only with pure malice and destructive urges.
"Kill them. Absorb them."
Zero's voice was just as cold to her.
"They were born from your curse. They are parts of you—and your weaknesses. Make them yours, gather your scattered power into one. This is the ritual to be reborn as a true Outer God."
By Zero's calculations, Adora was the strongest in the group but also the most unstable.
Her power stemmed from Outer God fragments, rooted in chaos and destruction.
Left as is, she would surely be consumed by her own power and rampage someday.
A more certain method was needed.
A brutal, reliable trial to let Adora fully control her power and be reborn as the true 'Lord of Death'.
The young witches smiled innocently at Adora as they charged.
Deadly death curses rose from their hands.
Adora bit her lip and aimed 'death' at these beings who were once part of her.
When she pierced the first witch's heart, Adora felt as if her own heart was pierced too.
The witch's body turned to black ash and was absorbed into Adora.
Adora's power grew ever so slightly stronger.
But the price was immense.
She felt every memory and emotion from the witch's brief life in its final moments.
The first light of the world it sensed upon birth, its pure love for its creator.
All of it burrowed into her mind.
"...Ah."
Adora collapsed.
She realized what she had done.
They weren't mere curse dolls.
They were living beings with the same emotions as her.
But Zero's voice was merciless.
"Rise, Adora. Six more remain."
Adora shook her head.
"I can't... I can't do it..."
"Then die. Let them devour you, lose everything, and fade away."
At that instant, the remaining six witches lunged at her in unison.
No more innocence.
Only the greed of starving beasts.
Adora resisted desperately.
But she couldn't fight.
She couldn't bring herself to strike away those small hands reaching for her.
Her body was torn apart, her soul nibbled away bit by bit.
Hundreds, thousands of deaths.
She endlessly repeated the agony of being devoured by her clones.
Her mind wore down, her self grew faint.
'When will this end? This pain?'
The moment she nearly gave up everything.
One face rose in her mind.
Always arrogant and selfish, yet warmer than anyone.
Park Chan-woo.
'He... believed in me.'
Light returned to Adora's eyes.
Adora hesitated no longer.
She couldn't break her promise to him because of her weakness.
She had to grow stronger.
Even more.
Body, mind, soul.
Adora no longer dodged her clones' attacks.
She took their curses full-on with her body.
In that pain, she began to probe the essence of death.
Torn flesh regenerated into denser darkness, wounded soul embraced deeper abysses.
Through death, she paradoxically ignited the will to live.
"I am Adora. Creator of death, Lord of death."
Adora murmured.
Looking at her charging clones, she felt no more fear or guilt.
They were her past—parts she had to surpass.
She slowly reached out, gently caressing the cheek of the nearest clone.
Then pulled its small body into her embrace.
"...Come back now."
With a soft whisper, the clone dissolved into particles of light and merged with her.
There was no pain.
Only the fulfilling peace of becoming whole.
Thus, Adora embraced her past one by one, finding her true self.
Her gaze deepened, her presence grew vast.
The chains of being a 'witch' that had tormented her faded—slowly, but surely.
Park Chan-woo looked around.
The cabin, viewed from the throne of dreams, was quiet.
Lee Hyuk-soo, Han Shin, Adora, and all the other survivors.
They were fighting their own battles in their trials.
Their souls screamed, but their wills burned fiercer than ever.
Park Chan-woo smiled in satisfaction.
The plan was proceeding smoothly.
His own existence faded, but in exchange, humanity's hope shone brighter.
That was when it happened.
Kreeeeek—
The Eternal Train began slowing with a heavy rumble.
Through the window, a new landscape emerged.
A gray sky, cracked earth, a forest of tombstones stretching to the horizon. A desolate, hopeless scene where all life seemed dead.
Gigantic statues had their heads severed or eroded beyond recognition; temples lay in ruins, skeletal frames exposed.
"Gods of races that perished and crumbled. How amusing."
Zero chuckled dryly.
Ignoring Zero's cold analysis, Park Chan-woo stood.
"Hm? Weren't we skipping the other stops?"
"That was for everyone."
Park Chan-woo said quietly.
"To let them focus on training without worry, they needed to believe there were no external threats."
Awareness of threats would shatter the dream.
Kreeeek—thud.
The train came to a full stop, and the doors opened.
"Can you handle it alone?"
Park Chan-woo shrugged at Zero's question.
Handle it alone?
"This place is my ultimate training ground—and hunting ground."
He had to go alone.
To awe them with overwhelming divinity and freeze them in place.
To show them what a true 'god' was.