Chapter 434
Chapter 434
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 434
Chapter Title: Racial War (73)
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Park Chan-woo poured everything he had into it.
The divinity in its dawn state blazed up from his heart.
The authority solidified by the faith of all humanity, every insight he possessed, condensed into a single spell.
"Heavenly Punishment."
Kwaaaaaaaa!
A bolt of lightning on an entirely different level from before, one that seemed capable of erasing the world itself, shot toward Sepiro.
It was a massive spear of light cleaving through the battlefield's sky.
The most powerful and purest form of destruction that Park Chan-woo could unleash.
But Sepiro simply watched the scene unfold.
He neither dodged nor blocked it.
Boredom even lingered in his eyes.
The spear of light finally reached his body.
And... nothing happened.
Sepiro merely waved his hand lightly, as if brushing away morning mist.
With that, the lightning infused with Park Chan-woo's full power vanished without a trace.
As if it had never existed in the first place.
"Is that all Heavenly Punishment amounts to?"
Disappointment seeped into Sepiro's voice.
"Well, for a mere mortal to elevate basic magic to the 12th realm is commendable. I'll give you that much praise."
His words were praise, yet they dripped with arrogance, treating his opponent like an insect.
Exactly as he had always appeared in the past.
"But what of it? Your vessel is too small. No matter how much water you pour in, it overflows. It's far too insignificant to even reach me."
Park Chan-woo didn't so much as twitch.
The expected outcome.
Sepiro in his pristine state.
The sovereign and master of magic.
Park Chan-woo opened his mouth.
"Do you remember Arcana?"
Sepiro's eyebrow twitched faintly.
He seemed to ponder for a moment, then responded with a disinterested expression.
"Who?"
He didn't even remember.
Or was he pretending not to know?
It didn't matter either way.
Park Chan-woo's voice sank low.
"The dragon who offered himself to the Lord of Evil Serpents for your sake. The dragon of hope who willingly stepped into the abyss of despair to protect your paltry honor."
Park Chan-woo emphasized the word "hope" deliberately.
The value Sepiro despised most.
The one thorn that could pierce his arrogance.
Sepiro finally reacted.
The fleeting interest vanished from his face, replaced by a sneer.
"Pfft."
A scoff.
"A dragon making a deal with some demon? If it did something that stupid, it's no longer part of the dragonkin."
Sepiro's voice was cold as ice.
"Just a pathetic lizard that fell on its own."
Park Chan-woo was momentarily at a loss for words.
Before anger or rebuttal, pure doubt filled his mind.
Did this being truly feel nothing at all?
"Are you insulting the one who sacrificed for you?"
He was furious.
Genuinely so.
To sacrifice himself for a god like that.
To mock someone who had sacrificed themselves in such a way.
"Even now, Arcana fights alone. Having lost everything, offering all he has, waiting solely for you. If you would just go to him, this fleeting war might end!"
It was a cry bordering on a scream.
A mix of faint hope toward an absolute being—as he himself had once felt—and the anguish of watching that hope trampled.
But Sepiro couldn't comprehend Park Chan-woo's desperation.
Or rather, he didn't even feel the need to.
His golden eyes held only puzzlement.
Pure bewilderment, as if hearing the incomprehensible tongue of some lowly creature.
"Waiting for me? Why?"
"...What?"
"Why wait for me? To end the war? Ridiculous."
Sepiro shook his head as if he'd heard the world's most foolish tale.
"All dragons exist for me. Their lives and deaths, glories and despairs—they all belong to me entirely. For my creations to lay down their lives for me is no sacrifice. It is their reason for being born, their purpose for existence, the greatest 'honor' they can attain."
There was no hesitation, no guilt.
It was the voice of a god stating an obvious, absolute truth.
"If that dragon truly threw itself to a demon for me, it deserves commendation. Like rewarding a loyal dog that fulfilled its duty, I might even remember its name. But that's it. Why should I stop this entertaining spectacle for one worthless lizard?"
In that moment, Park Chan-woo realized.
The Sepiro of this era was far madder than the Dragon God Sepiro he had known.
'That son of a bitch... This is a whole different level of bastard.'
The Sepiro he faced in his final life had at least operated within the bounds of common sense.
Arrogant and cruel, but his actions held some thread of logic.
Not this Sepiro before him now.
One who hadn't yet ascended to the throne of the perfect Dragon God.
In the ancient world of Sepiro long ago, only he himself existed.
All other beings were mere ornaments to make him shine or pawns for his amusement.
Sorrow, sacrifice, honor, salvation.
All the values Park Chan-woo cherished so dearly held no meaning in Sepiro's world.
He didn't lack empathy—he never even felt the need for it.
He didn't consider himself a god.
He simply was one.
A perfect, utterly selfish god who couldn't comprehend others' pain and took devotion toward him as a given.
Park Chan-woo realized that no persuasion or anger would reach him.
Dialogue was impossible.
Their values differed, but more than that, their very perception of the world was fundamentally alien.
"And the more I look at you, the stranger you seem. What exactly are you?"
For the first time, Sepiro posed a question laced with genuine curiosity.
"A mere mortal who dares elevate basic magic to the 12th realm. That's talent worthy of awe in itself, but I sense something more from you. A very unfamiliar, unpleasant divinity. Like a paradox... a newborn cradling eons of time."
His analysis was spot on.
Sepiro instinctively detected the twisted existence of Park Chan-woo, warped by regression.
"Are you the sovereign of some new race?"
Park Chan-woo quietly raised his head.
"I am the representative of humanity."
His voice was low, yet firmer than any roar echoing across the battlefield.
"And I came here to stop all this pointless death."
He stared straight into Sepiro's eyes.
"Arcana is no being for the likes of you to utter so carelessly. He is the hero of dragons who sang of hope amid despair, and his noble sacrifice cannot be diminished by your ugly logic."
Park Chan-woo took a step forward.
Around him, the dawn divinity forged from humanity's faith flickered faintly to life.
"You are no god, Sepiro. You're just a created being."
"...What?"
The smile vanished from Sepiro's face for the first time.
"You are no Dragon God. You're a mere puppet unable to escape Bahamut's shadow. Or rather, let me correct that."
A sneer curled at Park Chan-woo's lips, mirroring Sepiro's but far colder.
"You're not even a lizard. Just a pathetic doll."
It was perfect provocation.
A sharp dagger striking the deepest inferiority complex of Sepiro's that he had learned through Zero.
Kwaaaaaaaa!
In an instant, space screamed and tore around Sepiro.
His mask of arrogance shattered completely, pure rage exploding forth.
The surrounding air ignited, and above the ashen sky of the great war, a new heaven unfurled.
Twelve suns rose in the sky.
Each blazed with different colors and majesty, emanating absolute mana that crushed all laws of the Abyss.
"...You dare."
Sepiro's voice was no longer languid.
It brimmed with killing intent.
Rage filled the heavens.
"This is true 12th-realm magic. On a whole different level from your pathetic basic spell."
"...When did I..."
That was when.
Park Chan-woo lifted his head.
Was he about to despair at the sight of such overwhelming difference?
No, not a trace of despair in his eyes.
If anything, a faint smile played on his lips.
"When did I say I could only use basic magic?"
In that moment, Sepiro's brow furrowed slightly.
Where did that confidence come from?
"You are already within my dream."
"...What?"
A crack appeared in Sepiro's flawless expression for the first time.
Incomprehensible words.
A dream?
But Park Chan-woo offered no further explanation.
He merely gestured with his chin toward Sepiro's chest.
Reflexively, Sepiro looked down at his own chest.
And saw it.
In the center of his golden armor, forged from the indestructible scales of a dragon—godly armament—a hole the size of a fist had been punched through.
His heart, visible within, was already charred black and bursting apart.
"...!"
When?
When had he sustained such a wound?
His senses, his divinity—none had detected anything amiss.
Not even the slightest impact.
Yet why?
One memory flashed through his mind.
'Heavenly Punishment.'
The initial, worthless basic spell Park Chan-woo had fired.
The attack he had scoffed at and dispersed with a wave.
No. It hadn't dispersed.
It had pierced his heart precisely.
And ruptured it.
Sepiro was aghast. He couldn't understand.
Why hadn't he noticed?
How could this great Dragon God fail to perceive the moment his heart was destroyed?
That was when.
The entire landscape around him—the blood-red sky, the burning earth, even the twelve suns—began cracking like glass.
Sepiro realized.
The very instant Park Chan-woo unleashed Heavenly Punishment, he had already fallen into his spell.
Absolute magic: 'Dream'.
Park Chan-woo had induced a perfect illusion in Sepiro.
The illusion that he had blocked Heavenly Punishment. That he was still unscathed!
Kwagwagwagwang!
As the dream shattered, reality crashed down.
The twelve suns, freed from their master's control, exploded in unison, their destructive mana pouring back onto Sepiro himself.
"Kraaaagh!"
A scream of agony burst from Sepiro's lips for the first time.
His body began twisting wildly.
With his heart ruptured, the colossal mana rampaging inside him lost its path, thrashing about and tearing his flesh apart from within.
And all the races—even the dragons—watched this scene unfold.
The world of the dragonkin.
They stared at the screen of the 'Racial War' broadcast from the sky above.
"... ."
Silently. Utterly speechless.
For they had glimpsed Sepiro's thoughts without reservation for the first time.