Chapter 441
Chapter 441
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 441
Chapter Title: Racial War (80)
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Memories from his childhood swirled like a storm.
The eldest son of the Han Yeon Group.
The top spot. The first place. It was all mine by right.
Being number one.
It was a chain that had strangled him from the moment he was born.
Countless expectations poured down on Han Shin.
His father's expectations, the family's expectations, and the expectations of everyone propping up the vast empire that was Han Yeon Group.
In the midst of those expectations, Han Shin had to win.
Always, no matter the situation. No matter who the opponent was, no matter what means he had to use, he had to achieve victory without fail.
And merely winning wasn't enough.
Mercy is just an excuse for the defeated.
He had to crush them utterly.
Break their very will, so they would never even dream of challenging him again.
Not a single step back, not a moment's mercy was allowed.
That was the only way to survive that Han Shin had ever learned.
And so, he erased his emotions, hid his weaknesses, and became a monster pursuing nothing but strength.
Han Shin accepted all of it as entirely natural.
He had never once doubted or rejected that fate of having to win and crush others.
He had never felt the need to.
How can they not understand something so simple?
He had always been overwhelmingly superior to everyone else.
The world was nothing but an easy playground for Han Shin.
Everyone seemed inferior to him.
A book he read once, he memorized perfectly, down to the illustrations on the pages and not a single word wrong.
No matter how complex or difficult the subject, he could grasp its essence in a single night and teach it to others.
His learning speed far exceeded human limits.
And his talents didn't end there.
When he picked up a sword, he became a sword genius; when he took up a bow, he turned into a master archer.
The world was simple to Han Shin.
There was himself, and then everyone else who was inferior.
That was how Han Shin saw the world, and he believed it was only natural for the strong to dominate the weak.
To such a Han Shin, his younger brother Han Min-oh seemed utterly pathetic and worthless.
Slow, clumsy, and foolishly kind beyond comprehension.
How pitiful. To think that's my brother.
What he understood in a minute, his brother couldn't grasp even after a week.
The victories he took for granted, his brother feared and avoided.
At first, it was just disappointment that such a guy was his brother.
The only indelible stain on his perfect life as the eldest son of Han Yeon Group.
A blemish that tarnishes the Han Yeon name, one that must be erased.
So he treated him even more harshly.
It disgusted him. That useless purity.
Weakness is a sin.
In his world, weakness itself was a crime.
The fact that he had to face that frailty every day, right at his side, was an unbearable humiliation to Han Shin.
Time passed.
And finally, the Abyss descended.
The world filled with screams and despair, but Han Shin felt only ecstasy.
Finally! An era where I can prove myself has arrived!
It was the moment his righteousness was validated.
The world began to operate exactly as he had lived.
The powerless were mercilessly trampled, and only the strong and cunning survived to claim everything.
Han Shin was the perfect predator in this new world.
Demons and Creators reached out to him, recognizing his voracious talents.
The Moon's Lord Aheta made him his sharpest blade, dreaming together of dominating the night Abyss.
The Demon King of Flames coveted his infinite potential, and even the Demon God Belial acknowledged his vessel, willingly granting him a portion of his power.
Everything flowed as he desired.
Contracts with mighty beings, the overwhelming power in his hands, and the countless avatars following him.
He had no doubt that his way, his beliefs, were the only answers in this hellish world.
Look, Han Min-oh. This is the real world. Your soft, foolish purity gets crushed in an instant in a place like this.
Clearly, he had been right.
But there was one exception.
The Archmage, Park Chan-woo.
That incomprehensible existence surpassed him time and again.
Mocking his perfect calculations, shattering his arrogant convictions, always standing one step ahead, looking down on him.
It was impossible.
He was the chosen one, the being who fit the Abyss's laws most perfectly.
Why did that deceitful mage always trip him up?
The defeat to the mysterious mage in the "Second Night."
In the "Fourth Night" casino, those arrogant eyes that read every game and mocked him.
And now, in this Racial War, performing miracles that defied all common sense.
Han Shin couldn't understand.
Was he the one who was wrong?
He, who possessed strength, talent, and ambition.
The doubts and rage filling his mind led him, in his dream, to face the apparition of his brother Han Min-oh once more.
And he realized it.
The source of that unpleasant sensation he felt from Park Chan-woo.
It was the same kind as what he had felt from his brother his entire life.
Something he couldn't understand, something he couldn't have, something that made him want to destroy it even more—a different kind of "righteousness," akin to that purity.
Han Shin couldn't accept it.
That his way was wrong.
That the foolish purity of his brother, which he had despised and crushed his whole life, might actually be right.
I reject you all.
Madness gleamed in Han Shin's eyes.
Admitting he was wrong would mean denying everything about himself.
Every moment he had struggled as the eldest son of Han Yeon Group to survive.
Every emotion he had discarded to become strong.
Was he supposed to admit all that was the delusion of a fool?
Don't make me laugh.
Even if he never woke from this dream, he would not abandon his way.
Strength was the only truth, and his path would become the law of the Abyss.
Han Shin saw no more apparitions.
His Demon Eye and Death Spirit Eye began devouring the dream world itself.
The illusions, the library, all the mechanisms testing him screamed and disintegrated before his arrogant will.
Instead of gaining enlightenment, he destroyed enlightenment itself.
Han Shin finally awakened his true self.
He transcended.
Even his remaining Demon Eye transformed into a Death Spirit Eye, gazing into the abyss of death.
Fwaaah-!
The world began to look different.
The mana flows he could only sense before now appeared vividly, like nerves across his body—a vast network connecting everything in the Abyss.
He pierced the underside of the laws, the fundamental structure of the world.
He saw it.
The contract binding his soul with Demon God Belial. The flow of that power.
Han Shin reached out into the void.
And he seized with his will the massive flow that had been "granting" him power.
He dominated it.
He was no longer a mere contractor borrowing the Demon God's power.
He became its new master.
Yes. This, too, is another correct answer.
If there was a path to growth through purity and understanding, there was also a path to the pinnacle through domination and conquest.
Han Shin had proven his way was not wrong.
Just as that vicious ecstasy and arrogance filled his entire body...
...Wait.
Han Shin realized.
Could this also be part of your scheme?
That all of this was ultimately Park Chan-woo's arrangement.
This lucid dream was a stage with no predetermined answers from the start.
Park Chan-woo hadn't forced any path.
He had merely set the stage for each to confront their deepest selves and find their own answers to transcend.
Even his grand rebellion and conquest was just one "possibility" unfolding in the palm of his hand.
"...Don't make me laugh."
A being who could accommodate and arrange everything.
No such thing could exist!
Han Shin couldn't accept that his grand rebellion and conquest was merely one "possibility" in his palm.
But as he opened his eyes and Park Chan-woo's miracles unfolded before him like a panorama...
...What is this?
Han Shin was speechless.
While he had fought his limits in the dream, Park Chan-woo had been battling gods in reality.
He had toppled Dragon God Sepiro, revived the dead dragon Arcana as a new god, and even annihilated the outer god disaster of the Abyss.
All of it was vividly visible through Han Shin's newly awakened Death Spirit Eyes.
Thanks to fully awakening the Death Spirit Eyes, Han Shin could see.
What others could never see—the underside of the world.
In his eyes, the sleeping Park Chan-woo began to appear entirely different.
Not the form of a mere human.
From his body, countless slender threads of light extended like a neural network.
They stretched beyond this cabin, across the entire Eternal Train, to the "Final Battlefield" scenario outside the window, and toward the very origin of the Abyss itself.
A sensation as if connected to the entire Abyss.
Brrrr!
Han Shin trembled.
He knew what it meant.
Beyond mere connection to the Abyss, far away, from the planet "Earth" they had left behind, countless golden threads flowed in.
It was humanity's faith.
The desperate prayers of billions poured into Park Chan-woo like a massive river.
At the sight, Han Shin almost felt as if Park Chan-woo himself had become a colossal "Wish."
But what was truly shocking...
Was that all those connections, while a source of power for Park Chan-woo, were also horrific "chains" binding his soul.
The gratitude and expectations of the Forgotten Gods.
Arcana's noble sacrifice and promise.
And the desperate faith of billions of humans.
All of it weighed on that single existence, Park Chan-woo, as an unbearable burden.
Han Shin realized.
Park Chan-woo was...
Simply enduring desperately, bearing everything so he wouldn't break.
A sandcastle teetering on the brink.
Was that strength?
He had thought unyielding steel-like solidity was true strength.
Yet...
For the first time, he witnessed a new kind of "strength."
Toward Park Chan-woo, sleeping at the front of the cabin under everyone's gaze...
...Damn it.
Han Shin had no choice but to accept his true defeat.
No.
From the beginning...
I can't even be your enemy, can I?