Chapter 440
Chapter 440
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 440
Chapter Title: Racial War (79)
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In Adora's dream.
In endless darkness, she faced her last remaining doppelganger.
A pure embodiment of curse, bearing her exact same face.
The old her would have pierced its heart without hesitation.
She would have erased her past self for the sake of growth.
But she stopped.
She no longer saw her final doppelganger as an enemy.
Adora slowly spread her arms wide.
And as the small curse charged toward her, she simply embraced it silently, warmly.
Loving herself.
For Adora, it was the hardest thing of all.
She had always been alone, always an object of fear, so she lacked faith and conviction in herself.
But she decided to change.
She resolved to transform.
In that instant, Adora transcended.
By fully accepting all the curses that had bound her—not hating or destroying them, but making them wholly part of herself.
She finally became complete.
In the fleeting moment of establishing her enlightenment.
Adora's consciousness pierced beyond the dream's boundary, reaching toward its master.
And Adora saw.
While she enjoyed this serene enlightenment, what price Park Chan-woo was paying in reality.
All his devotion in burning his own divinity to shatter Sepiro's Dragon Word, offering his divinity as sacrifice to forge a miracle.
Adora's heart ached faintly.
Along with worry came an overwhelming tenderness she couldn't contain.
'Foolish human.'
Why did he try to shoulder everything alone?
Why wouldn't he share that heavy burden, that precarious fate, with anyone?
He was so pitiable.
That strong yet fragile, great yet solitary man's back.
Adora made her resolve.
From now on, she would share that heavy load with him.
She would be his sword and shield, protecting him.
The dream world began to dye slowly with light.
Adora opened her eyes.
It was an incredibly light and peaceful morning, all curses and nightmares that had crushed her now gone.
She looked down at her hands.
No more unstable death energy leaked out.
All her power lay dormant in perfect control.
Yet the inherent death force within her was incomparably greater than before.
Her gaze slowly swept the cabin.
And she saw.
Park Chan-woo, deep in slumber atop Arcana's back.
Adora rose quietly from her seat.
At her movement, the eyes of the Dragon of Hope, Arcana, who had silently guarded Park Chan-woo's side, turned toward her.
Adora said nothing, simply walking toward Park Chan-woo.
Arcana read her intent.
The massive dragon quietly shifted its body, clearing a path for her.
Adora approached the spot beside the sleeping Park Chan-woo.
His sleeping face was remarkably innocent.
Far from any divine dignity.
Just a man, exhausted for so long, lost in deep sleep.
Adora quietly watched him, letting him rest comfortably.
At the same time, she smiled.
Unknowingly, so naturally.
A faint smile graced her lips.
It was the first time.
The first time smiling with such feelings.
This peace, this man's repose.
She wanted to protect it.
Even if it meant turning the world against her.
Crack. Crack.
Skeleton soldiers swarmed him from all sides, their chilling bone-clattering sounds echoing.
Lee Hyuk-soo fought.
He died, revived, died again.
The pain of his heart pierced, limbs torn asunder—it was all too vivid.
But more horrific was the helplessness, knowing this despair would loop eternally.
How long had he fought?
At some point, he forgot how to grip his sword.
The way to tense his fingers, the optimal angles—all technical knowledge wore away and vanished.
Only instinct remained, moving his body like flowing water, like blowing wind.
Eventually, he even forgot how to swing the sword.
He let go of conscious effort on shoulder, elbow, wrist for the mightiest slash.
In that moment, Lee Hyuk-soo became the sword.
His will the blade, his existence the sword path.
Beyond Divine Sword Union, into the realm of Super Divine Sword Union.
The world slowed.
The skeleton soldiers charging him looked like frozen paintings.
He saw.
The billions of blades reaching for him—the start and end of every trajectory.
No need to dodge or block.
He simply carved his path through the flow.
As he moved, all he brushed past crumbled to dust.
He felt there was nothing he couldn't cleave.
He had finally reached the end of the path the Prophet opened for him.
But then, his dream world linked to reality.
Beyond the shattered dream fragments, Lee Hyuk-soo saw.
The path Park Chan-woo, the Prophet, had walked alone while they trained in safe dreams.
His feats.
In the "Crown of the Weakest King" station, facing all upper races alone, sealing their powers with overwhelming might.
Not deeming the self-destructing dragons enemies, but showing mercy, opening new paths.
And in the "Shattered Truth" station, amid the great war, all the miracles he wrought.
Summoning primordial chaos to shatter Sepiro's Dragon Word, saving sacrificed dragon souls to forge new gods—mythic moments beyond imagination.
He bore it all alone.
Tucking them safely into dreams, fighting the most dangerous, hopeless battles by himself.
Ah.
Hot tears streamed from Lee Hyuk-soo's eyes.
Tears of awe and remorse for the greatness of his lord and the weight of his solitude.
'The Prophet... is our god.'
He harbored no doubt now.
If there was a god to follow.
It could only be the Prophet.
In Han Min-oh's dream.
Before him stood always his brother.
'I'm weak. Pathetically weak.'
It had been that way since childhood.
His brother Han Shin was an insurmountable wall.
Exceptional talent, overwhelming power, and those arrogant eyes looking down on him like vermin.
Han Min-oh always feared his brother.
He'd never once won, never even dreamed of surpassing him.
Under that massive shadow, he just cowered.
And now, in his dream, that shadow loomed once more.
An illusion.
But vaster and more overwhelming than any reality—his brother Han Shin's illusion.
[Still so weak, Han Min-oh.]
The illusion's voice crushed his soul.
[You'll never escape my shadow your whole life.]
Han Min-oh instinctively staggered back.
Every cell in his body recalled the bone-deep terror.
But in that moment.
Two other faces flashed through his mind.
His master Lee Hyuk-soo, who placed a sword in his hand and taught him to stand.
And the Prophet Park Chan-woo, who pulled him from despair's abyss and showed new possibilities.
They never called him weak.
'I'm... not alone.'
Strength entered Han Min-oh's trembling fist.
He no longer fled.
He faced his massive brother's illusion head-on.
[Fool. Planning to rebel?]
Black magic surged from the illusion's hand.
But Han Min-oh felt no fear.
He closed his eyes, recalling his master's teachings and the Prophet's faith.
And finally, found his own path, his own answer.
'I can't beat my brother.'
Right, he couldn't win.
'But I can surpass him.'
Han Min-oh's eyes snapped open.
Lowering his stance, instead of dodging his charging brother's attack, he took it full-body.
Counter.
But not a mere riposte.
An soul's counter—embracing all fear and inferiority that crushed him, even his own weakness, and hurling it back as one massive force.
Boom—!
The gigantic brother's illusion shattered with a scream.
Han Min-oh had finally surpassed his shadow.
The others were the same.
All faced their respective ends.
The Ten-Tailed Fox Yoo Jin-seo and Aurum.
They confronted their deepest desires.
The pleasure of seducing, dominating, destroying foes.
In that endless dream of temptation, they finally transcended another stage.
Beyond Ten-Tailed Fox to Eleven-Tailed Fox.
Reaper Johnson, Adrianne, and the Chinese Federation's secret weapon Ling-Ling.
They too broke their limits, awakening from the grueling dream.
"This... this is my power?"
Reaper Johnson clenched and unclenched his fist.
A power on another level flowed through his veins.
"Insane."
Adrianne laughed hollowly, checking her status window.
Ling-Ling was the same.
The pinnacle humans could reach.
The 99-level limit mortals were thought bound to.
In mere days, they had attained it in the dream realm.
"Hahaha! We did it! Level 99!"
"I feel overflowing with energy!"
Their excited shouts filled the cabin, but the commotion didn't last.
A chilling gaze.
Adora stared at them silently, as if telling them to quiet down.
The moment their eyes met her red pupils, the three rankers clamped their mouths shut unwittingly.
The cabin froze.
And they saw.
While they noisily celebrated, what the others had been watching.
The holy Dragon of Hope, Arcana.
And atop his back, Park Chan-woo sleeping soundly.
His struggles, his sacrifices, his solitary myth.
Only then did the three realize the cost of this power they'd gained.
In awe, they too bowed their heads quietly.
But some hadn't awakened yet.
The Conqueror Han Shin.
And the observer watching it all, Zero.
Those two remained sunk in the dream's deepest depths.
Han Shin.
He believed he had conquered all the world's knowledge, reached omniscience.
But deep in his heart lingered an unfilled anxiety.
'Am I truly the strongest?'
The moment the doubt arose, the dream world twisted.
Billions of books vanished, replaced by a single illusion before him.
Han Shin doubted his eyes.
Not Park Chan-woo, not Dragon God Sepiro.
It was his brother Han Min-oh, whom he'd trampled and dismissed as vermin his whole life.
"Why are you here?"
The illusion said nothing.
It simply gazed at him with serene, unshakable eyes—eyes he'd never seen before.
"Are you saying I fear a worm like you?"
Past memories flashed through Han Shin's mind.
Han Min-oh had always been so different from him since childhood.
Always upright, purely foolish.
Han Shin couldn't understand such a brother.
Their world was a cold jungle of survival of the fittest.
The strong took all; the weak were culled.
Yet Han Min-oh stood utterly apart from that.
So he ignored and crushed him.
Believing that purity would one day drag him to a miserable end.
But Han Min-oh's purity never faded.
'Did I fear that frail brother might one day surpass me?'
No.
That wasn't it.
Meeting the illusion—Han Min-oh's eyes, Han Shin finally realized.
He had envied that purity, that foolish brother.