Chapter 412
Chapter 412
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 412
Chapter Title: Racial War (51)
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The Station of the Forgotten Gods was vanishing.
The dissolution of a station was an unprecedented event.
Even throughout the long history of the Racial War, nothing like this had ever happened.
No records, no memories, held any instance of such a disappearance.
Yet now...
"...What am I seeing right now?"
Urkan realized he was standing at the heart of a myth.
The Station of the Forgotten Gods dissolved into particles of light.
Those particles were forging themselves into a single human's armor.
For the first time since the history of the Racial War began, he was witnessing a miracle that rewrote the laws themselves.
His chest swelled with overwhelming emotion.
The first time he met him at the Tower of the Gods, it had been 'fear' of an incomprehensible power.
The second time, kneeling before his shadow at the entrance to this station, it had been 'awe' toward an unstoppable sovereign.
But now, in this moment...
The feeling surging through Urkan and the Dusk Tribe warriors transcended all that—pure, unadulterated 'ecstasy'.
They realized how foolish they had been, and at the same time, how wise.
Aiming their blades at such a great being had been the arrogance of mortals, while being the first to kneel before him and pledge themselves as his shadows had been the ultimate wisdom for their tribe's fate.
While the other races still failed to comprehend the miracle and floundered in confusion, only the Dusk Tribe watched the birth of this myth from the closest vantage point.
"...We have been chosen."
The murmur slipped from Urkan's lips unbidden, and the warriors beside him nodded gravely.
Especially the newly born god, Chronos.
Chronos was the God of Shadows—and at the same time, the God of Death.
The Dusk Tribe instinctively understood.
The essence of shadows and souls was one and the same.
The proof cast only by the presence of a being.
The trace that fades when life ends.
They had lived their entire lives alongside shadows, yet they had never deeply grasped that the essence of shadows connected to souls.
But now, through the new god forged by Park Chan-woo, they beheld a great truth akin to the origin of their very tribe.
And so, Chronos was not merely the 'God of Shadows' to the Dusk Tribe.
He was the 'God of Dusk'—the 'God of Souls'.
Perhaps the ultimate form the Dusk Tribe was destined to reach was exactly that.
Chronos embodied the truth they pursued.
Tap—
A small sound shattered the sacred silence of the purified temple.
It was Park Chan-woo lightly tapping the 'Vase of Souls' held by the newly born god, Chronos.
That was the signal.
Having completed all the rituals, Park Chan-woo turned away without a hint of reluctance.
He began walking back down the corridor of the spirit temple—a path now filled only with sanctity, no longer cursed.
There was no hesitation, no sentimentality in his steps.
He strode out as if it were all perfectly natural.
Behind him followed the colossal form of Chronos, the God of Death, in silent attendance.
His first steps after being born as a god.
A shadow no longer hidden, now boldly revealing itself.
Thus, Chronos's immense shadow reverently cloaked Park Chan-woo's back.
Urkan and the Dusk Tribe warriors, who had watched the scene in bated breath, hesitated for a moment.
But soon, Urkan steeled his resolve and quietly stepped forward.
The other warriors followed him without a sound.
As if the station itself guided Park Chan-woo, the path he walked glowed with golden divinity.
The purified marble responded to his footsteps with radiant light, and the grand pillars seemed to bow in worship.
In the sacred silence, only the steady rhythm of Park Chan-woo's footfalls echoed through the entire station.
While Park Chan-woo inscribed a new myth in the temple's deepest sanctum, another myth crushed the other races at the station's entrance.
Grrrrr...
The evil god Baal. The embodiment of destruction and gluttony, summoned by Park Chan-woo's unleashed power.
The elite warriors of the upper races who had descended into the station now faced him in dazed standoff, overwhelmed by his presence.
A Giant Tribe elite's massive axe, swung with all its might, screamed off Baal's skin with a clang! and rebounded harmlessly. The Heavenly Tribe sage's sealing spells scattered powerlessly before his ominous divinity.
They were trapped in the worst stalemate—unable to win, yet unable to retreat.
Then...
Whoosh...
The oppressive aura that had crushed space lifted as if it were all a lie.
The colossal evil god Baal vanished like a mirage, dissolving into smoke without warning.
The warriors, braced for a desperate fight to the death, couldn't hide their profound sense of emptiness.
"...What? Did it retreat on its own?"
"No, this is... the summon was released. The main body recalled it!"
"Did that inhuman monster self-destruct or something?"
"We can't let it monopolize the tickets!"
It was in that moment of their confusion.
Rumble—!
The earth shook, and the heavens quaked.
The 'Station of the Forgotten Gods' where they stood began to collapse.
But this was no mere collapse.
Fragments steeped in curse shattered into particles—not pitch-black despair, but dazzling orbs of light.
The boundary of dimensions crumbled in a beautiful, horrifying spectacle.
"It's insane! The station... the station itself is vanishing!"
"We have to get back to the train! If we're caught in that dimensional collapse, we'll cease to exist too!"
The warriors cried out in horror and hurled themselves toward the Eternal Train en masse.
All the upper-race elites, even the Twelve Tribes—no exceptions.
Being ensnared in that dissolution would turn them into eternal wanderers of the dimensions.
Desperately returning to the train, they beheld...
"...?"
"What is that path?"
Amid the crumbling ruins of despair, a single path—the only one not collapsing.
And...
"Impossible."
"Is the station... worshiping him?"
"What the...?"
...A lone man walking that brilliant golden path, forged by the station itself in its final act of reverence.
Park Chan-woo.
Behind him followed the God of Death in solemn pursuit.
And within that god's shadow, Dusk Tribe warriors escorted him without a single misstep.
All the upper-race warriors who had descended into the station realized the truth.
The evil god Baal they had faced was merely a decoy to buy time—a pawn on the chessboard.
It wasn't just about claiming all the tickets.
While they tussled with that paltry bait outside...
...That human had ventured to the station's depths, saved the gods, birthed a new one—an unimaginable feat.
And now, he claimed all that glory as his own and walked out.
They had never been fighting on the same board from the start.
As if to prove that absolute gap once more, system windows appeared before every upper-race warrior desperately fleeing toward the train.
The system message was brief.
But its contents weighed heavier than any myth.
The warriors halted, staring blankly at the system window floating in empty space.
The emotions in their eyes were profoundly complex.
"Ha... haha..."
A Giant Tribe warrior let out a hollow laugh.
The station's annihilation, the gods' salvation—a truth they witnessed yet couldn't believe—had been stamped as 'fact' by the Abyss system itself.
It was so absurd he had to laugh.
"A mere human... has become the arbiter of history."
Deep emotion laced the Heavenly Tribe sage's voice.
They could no longer confine Park Chan-woo within the framework of the 'human' race.
He was already a independent 'phenomenon', far beyond tribal limits.
They turned back, gazing at Park Chan-woo's retreating figure boarding the train.
If moments ago it had been anger and rivalry toward an incomprehensible powerhouse, now only fundamental doubt remained.
'Is that really a human?'
Yet the system had clearly called him 'human'.
But the humans they knew weren't that overwhelming.
Weaklings who couldn't even handle Ataraxia, whimpering in futility.
Perhaps...
That human...
'The ultimate form a human can reach...'
Like the Twelve Sovereigns.
'A transcendent being.'
No.
The Heavenly Tribe sage immediately corrected himself.
The word 'transcendent' was far too inadequate for that existence.
Transcendents were the pinnacle of their kind, those who surpassed limits through accumulated power and wisdom over eons—like Dragon God Sepiro of the Dragon Tribe.
But that human, Park Chan-woo...
He wasn't the end.
He was a new 'beginning' itself.
The most fitting—and ominous—word flashed through the Heavenly Tribe sage's mind.
'...Archetype.'
The origin of an evolved species.
Not merely showing the limits of human potential, but defining the very concept of a new 'human'—the original.
The emergence of one powerful individual versus the birth of a powerful new race were dimensions apart.
The former was a blockable threat.
The latter was an unstoppable shift of eras, the harbinger of mass extinction.
For the strongest race could annihilate all others.
It was akin to speciation.
If that existence, Park Chan-woo, was the evolved 'archetype' humanity would follow...
If...
More second, third new humans emerged, modeled after that 'archetype'?
If humanity arose that saved gods, forged new ones, and claimed even the Abyss's laws as their own?
'Humans... are dangerous.'
In the worst case...
...All races could be eradicated, leaving only humans in the Abyss.
At that moment, on Earth.
In cities and squares worldwide, billions held their breath, watching the skies and the Racial War.
Young and old, men and women—humanity sighed in unison.
When the Eternal Train arrived at the 'Station of the Forgotten Gods', the other upper races dispatched their warriors with pomp and pride.
But humanity sent only one enigmatic 10th warrior.
"That's insane!"
"Who the hell is crazy enough to do that alone...? Why didn't Player Lee Hyuk-soo stop him?"
The train's interior wasn't broadcast.
All visible from the sky was the scene after arriving at the station and the warriors disembarking.
Anxiety and despair blanketed the entire planet.
On the stage where humanity's fate hung in the balance, it seemed like incomprehensible suicide.
But their anxiety soon turned to silence.
When Park Chan-woo summoned a colossal evil god to block the other races descending from the station.
When he ignored all curses and calmly entered the temple.
And finally...
"...?"
"...Ah."
When he lit a massive star in the sky, called the names of forgotten gods, and performed the miracle of their salvation.
The whole world held its breath.
Everyone doubted their own eyes.
Then, as the 'Station of the Forgotten Gods' annihilated...
And while other warriors scrambled back to the train, Park Chan-woo leisurely returned, treading the golden-lit ground.
"Waaaaaaaaah!"
At the end of the long silence, all of humanity erupted in cheers.
It was a fervor that shook the Earth itself.