Chapter 410
Chapter 410
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 410
Chapter Title: Racial War (49)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Chronos felt a strange unfamiliarity with the sensation of each of his bones being rebuilt by warm divine power.
Just moments ago, he had been resting at the edge of an abyss-like void, deep and cold as the bottomless pit.
When he had thrown everything away to resurrect Park Chan-woo, becoming the Holy Grail himself and fading into oblivion—that was the destination he was meant to reach.
It was a space of perfect nothingness.
The shadows of the Reapers that had bound him were not beings driven by malice or will.
The Reapers were merely components of the vast Abyss system.
Cold, impartial, a flawless order devoid of even a shred of emotion.
Chronos had felt profound satisfaction in becoming part of that system, remaining in eternal stasis.
It was the perfect, fitting end for one born from shadow and returning to shadow.
But then...
Warmth invaded. Life. Will.
It violated his peace.
Forcibly.
Regardless of his own wishes, a violent light shattered the void's order and dragged him back to reality.
He had returned.
No, beyond returning—he had been reborn.
The last divine power of the forgotten gods had served as the seed, and the incomprehensible earth called Park Chan-woo had bloomed him into a 'god'.
'Why.'
Chronos's empty thoughts filled with questions.
That miraculous power, the final wish of the dead gods—why use it merely for him?
The most illogical, inefficient, incomprehensible choice.
'He made me... a god.'
Chronos sensed the authority swirling within him.
A divine rank wholly his own, complete and perfect beyond comparison to his past self.
The sublime sacrifice of the forgotten gods had been poured into him, forging a being of a new dimension.
In that moment, Chronos vaguely grasped the essence of the being named Park Chan-woo.
That human had always escaped his understanding and calculations.
Embodying all manner of contradictions and paradoxes, he had always walked the path that seemed most impossible.
And the driving force of that path was neither power nor wisdom.
It was that incomprehensible choice.
A fiercely illogical humanity that recoiled not even from self-sacrifice.
That was the true power moving that man.
Chronos slowly tested his newly acquired body.
'Ah.'
His body trembled.
Each joint of the freshly forged physique, and the soul dwelling within, quivered finely.
Not from fear or cold.
It was a shiver from the first complete 'sense of existence' he had ever felt in his life.
Chronos was a shadow.
From the beginning, he had never been a complete being.
An impurity born from the overflowing authority of the great Reapers who oversaw the Abyss's order—like dregs.
An error parasitizing the gaps in the laws.
That was what he was.
Thus, Chronos had always been forced to hide.
Revealing his existence meant being classified as an 'error' by the system and erased.
But now...
'No longer...'
Chronos slowly raised his head.
'Do I need to hide.'
Park Chan-woo's wish.
The forgotten gods' sacrifice.
It wasn't mere resurrection.
It was a miracle that defied the Abyss system, turning his 'error' existence into the 'correct' answer.
The shadow that had hidden in the crevices of the laws had been reborn as a complete 'god' who could now proudly reveal itself.
Park Chan-woo had...
Purified the error.
At the same time, Chronos's appearance began to change.
The faint, flickering outline of the shadow from before gained a clear, tangible form.
His body, which had risen like black mist, swelled enormously, swallowing the shadow of the temple looming over the sky.
Bones grew, flesh attached, forging a colossal physique capable of bearing divinity.
The ragged black robe transformed into majestic vestments that seemed to embody the abyss of night itself.
That form didn't suit the epithet 'God of Shadows'.
It was far removed from secretive, silent shadow.
It was the absolute 'Reaper' itself, welcoming all lives at their end.
Startled momentarily by his own appearance, Chronos soon realized why.
His divine rank had been forged from the sublime light of the forgotten gods' sacrifice.
He was a paradoxical being born not from darkness, but from the extinction of the brightest light.
Thus...
He took the form of a Reaper overseeing beginnings and ends.
Above all, what Chronos now held was not a 'scythe'.
The symbol of authority forged alongside his new divine rank took a more primordial form.
"...Soul Jar."
Chronos murmured softly, gazing at the antique jar in his hand.
A relic containing the lights of countless souls like a Milky Way, glowing faintly.
The moment he recognized it, a door to memories sealed for eons swung open.
The 'Soul Jar' originally belonged to the 'Reaper of Souls'.
The supreme being who reaped all souls of the Abyss and oversaw the cycle of reincarnation—far above other Reapers in rank.
Only then did Chronos realize.
'I was a shadow born from the Reaper of Souls.'
Who he was.
Where he had been born.
He was not merely an error spawned from the dregs of such Reapers.
Chronos was the shadow cast by that great 'Reaper of Souls'—a part that had gained will,
The greatest error of all.
That was why he had been lonely, why he had to hide.
Just as the shadow of the brightest light is the darkest...
The shadow of the greatest being was the most dangerous error.
Chronos quietly raised his new authority, the 'Soul Jar'.
He bowed his head toward the gods who had birthed him, now fading faintly as their power waned.
"I shall contain your souls. Rest here, noble gods."
Not a command, but a courteous invitation.
A proposal to grant eternal rest to those freed from the curse of oblivion yet lost their place in the world.
[God of Shadows. You will remember us, won't you?]
Chronos nodded.
The reason he was the 'God of Shadows' was not merely to exist as darkness behind someone or the void untouched by light.
Shadows are memories.
Just as shadows arise because of light, they remain as traces because some being or event once existed.
Shadows are the final and most honest record of all existences in the world.
To remember.
To preserve eternally as an immortal record.
The Goddess of Wisdom, Sophia, who read that meaning, smiled.
Her form scattered first like a handful of stardust, gently drawn into the jar.
The moment her soul found rest within, the vicious grudges and curses of sorrow that had crushed the entire temple began to fade.
A faint divine light seeped from the rotting library of wisdom.
Next was the God of Storms, Barak.
[My end isn't stormy clamor, but quiet rest. Not bad at all.]
A hearty final word.
Barak's soul shot toward the jar as a streak of pure lightning.
Upon touching it, the ashen clouds of curse blanketing the temple ceiling dispersed, revealing the original grand dome.
Hundreds of gods followed in turn, willingly entrusting their souls to the jar.
Each time a god who once ruled the earth entered, the curse-ridden marble floor regained its white gleam, cracks sealing shut.
When a war god slumbered, shattered weapons strewn about turned to dust and vanished.
As each divine soul found peace, the 'Shrine of the Forgotten Gods' transformed from a furnace of horrific curses into a sublime mausoleum honoring their feats.
The Soul Jar was a grand library, an eternal repository recording and embracing the history of all that vanished.
The forgotten gods feared nothing.
Even if their flesh and faith faded, their names and tales would be eternally remembered within the God of Shadows.
That was true salvation—the eternal rest they had desired.
When the last god's soul was contained, all curses filling the shrine were perfectly purified.
Only sacred silence remained.
At the same time...
In front of Park Chan-woo.