Chapter 448
Chapter 448
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 448
Chapter Title: Interspecies War (87)
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Han Shin and Han Min-oh plummeted into the heart of the Pandemonium Realm.
It was atop ruins shaped like a shattered dome, resembling an ancient observatory.
"……."
"……."
An awkward silence hung between them.
For the first time since birth, the two brothers stood alone on the battlefield.
But before they could dwell on the discomfort, new presences began to emerge around them.
Figures draped in mystical robes embroidered with stars like the night sky.
They were Star Clan warriors.
"Humans."
The sage leading the Star Clan spoke in a voice devoid of emotion.
His gaze pierced beyond the brothers, toward the karma binding their existence, and the colossal variable lurking even further—Park Chan-woo.
"We are those who heed the whispers of the stars and follow their prophecies."
The sage continued.
His voice was dry and serene, like the turning of pages in a millennia-old tome.
"Yet ever since your leader, Park Chan-woo, appeared, the stars have fallen silent."
The eyes of the other Star Clan warriors gleamed coldly.
"Our prophecies lose their way in his presence. He exists beyond our foresight, outside the reach of our wisdom. He is a perilously dangerous variable, shaking the very causal laws of this Abyss."
The sage referenced the miracles Park Chan-woo had wrought.
"Reclaiming the name of a forgotten god, resurrecting a dead dragon to forge a new star (deity)—such feats are akin to forcibly defying and shattering the stellar currents that have flowed along fate's predetermined path for eons."
To the Star Clan, this was the gravest sin.
"Thus, you humans—and your leader Park Chan-woo—must be erased from this Abyss. To restore the world's balance and the silence of the stars."
It was a declaration of war.
In that instant, Han Shin stepped forward, blocking Han Min-oh.
"Stay back, Han Min-oh."
He intended to face them all alone.
But Han Min-oh did not retreat.
Instead, he stood shoulder to shoulder with his brother.
"...I'll fight with you, brother."
Han Shin let out a disbelieving chuckle.
"You? Fight alongside me? These aren't foes you can handle."
"I won't get in your way."
"……."
Seeing the resolve in Han Min-oh's eyes, Han Shin clicked his tongue.
"Fine. Then keep up, if you can."
In that moment.
Whoosh!
Han Shin vanished from Han Min-oh's sight.
No, he hadn't vanished.
He was simply too fast for the eyes to follow.
'This... is brother's true power.'
Han Shin might well be the strongest warrior forged through Lucid Dream.
The Star Clan warriors summoned starlight, unleashing a barrage in all directions.
Flash!
Han Shin dodged the pouring starlight blasts with dance-like grace.
There was no waste in his movements.
Before their attacks even began, he was already shifting to the sole safe zone they couldn't reach.
And his sword always thrust toward the enemy's most vital points via the most efficient path.
"Impossible...! How can he read our movements...!"
"Is he prophesying?!"
Prophecy, they called it.
'I see it all.'
Both eyes wide open—his Death Spirit Eyes.
To him, the world appeared as a vast web of trajectories.
Mana flows, causal paths, the incoming Star Clan starlight magic, and even their next moves.
All of it was laid bare, like a perfectly composed score.
It was foresight on par with true future sight.
A battle of whose prophecy reigned supreme.
Could their stars predict even Han Shin's movements?
'Brother truly is strong.'
No matter how much he'd grown, that realm felt impossibly distant.
A heaven beyond the heavens, too lofty to chase.
But.
'I'm no longer the man I used to be!'
Han Min-oh had grown strong as well.
When the Star Clan sage abandoned targeting Han Shin and turned toward the weaker link—Han Min-oh.
Han Min-oh did not retreat.
He faced the massive stellar breath head-on, without evasion.
And with everything he had, he unleashed a counter.
Embracing all the fear and inferiority that had crushed him, even his own frailty, and hurling it back as one immense force—a counter of the soul.
Boom!
The stellar breath couldn't withstand it, reversing course to engulf the Star Clan's ranks instead.
Han Shin witnessed the scene clearly through his Death Spirit Eyes.
'Not bad.'
He had to acknowledge the counter, at least.
The Star Clan warriors' levels exceeded 140.
Even with the first-time participant blessing of the Interspecies War, Han Min-oh hovered around 130.
At triple digits, a 10-level gap was absolute.
Yet he'd returned their stellar breath intact—and stronger.
'You've grown, Han Min-oh.'
He was no longer the frail boy of old.
Even so—
'You're not ready to keep up with me.'
Before his brother, Han Shin began to unveil the true realm of martial prowess he had attained.
At Adora's feet lay seven little witches identical to her.
Just as in Lucid Dream, she had accepted all of herself and subdued the final curses that bound her.
Adora gazed down at her fallen 'sisters' with cold eyes.
The little witches asked in trembling voices.
"...Sister. Why are you leaving us?"
"Why... hurt the Black Witch? We waited for you...!"
The curse rattled her mind, burrowing into her heart.
But Adora no longer wavered.
"...I have something to protect now."
Her voice was firm.
"A fool who tries to shoulder everything alone. A human I must support by his side."
The witches' eyes shook violently.
"...No way, love?"
"Witches... can't love."
"Witches die if they love."
"So come back to us, sister. Please...!"
The witches' pleas.
Sincere.
They truly feared their big sister Adora dying to the curse of love.
But gazing at their pitiful forms, Adora smiled serenely for the first time.
"The death you speak of is the life I've found."
She spread her arms wide.
And gently drew the seven sisters reaching for her one last time into her shadow's embrace.
Thump.
Adora heard her heartbeat.
The moment she embraced the last sister, a vivid pulse of life echoed from the darkness.
Within her arms holding the seven, black flames began to flicker.
The authority of death—her origin, her everything.
Yet the flames were neither scorching nor violent.
Like a campfire in the cold, they were warm and gentle.
The little witches did not scream.
They merely stared blankly at the black flames enveloping them, surprised.
It didn't hurt. Death. Pain.
Instead, it was a strange, heart-swelling sensation they'd never felt before.
"...Sister."
One witch asked from within the flames.
"Is this... love?"
Her voice held pure curiosity, not fear.
"Hot, sad, yet... strangely aching and tender."
"The Black Witch said love is the most horrific curse that devours the heart...!"
"Her words are absolute...!"
"Why does it feel like this?"
But this sensation was no curse.
Adora looked into the seven pairs of red eyes gazing up at her and shed tears.
"Yes. This is love."
Her voice echoed softly through the black flames.
"And I love you all too."
Sincere.
These children were like her.
In the past, under the Black Witch's curse, she'd believed hating and destroying herself was the only path.
Meeting Park Chan-woo, through him, Adora chose to love herself at last.
Even her curses, as part of her entirety.
So of course, there was no reason not to love these children too.
They were fragments of her darkest, most painful past.
And with those words.
"...You love us?"
"Us?"
"We've... never heard those words before."
The witches' empty eyes filled with awe and confusion for the first time in their lives, trembling.
Light sparked in vacant gazes.
Warmth bloomed amid encroaching death.
The words "I love you."
Truly the first time.
The most distant word for a witch.
And then.
Drip.
A transparent tear trailed down one little witch's cheek.
A warm, unfamiliar sensation she'd never known.
"...Is this, a tear?"
The child touched her cheek innocently.
The others too.
Jewel-like tears fell in unison from their red eyes.
"We... shouldn't cry. The Black Witch said crying is for the weak...!"
"But... it's so warm...!"
"Weird. It won't stop."
The children were bewildered.
At last, they asked Adora—the source of this mysterious warmth enveloping them.
"Sister. Can we... be loved too?"
"We're curses, but is that okay?"
The children asked purely.
If their existence could be worthy of love.
To that heartbreaking question, Adora couldn't speak, only nodding slowly yet more firmly than any words.
"...It's okay."
At her quiet words, torrents of tears poured from their eyes.
They cried for the first time.
Loved for the first time.
Love was no curse.
"...Thank you, sister."
The seven voices whispered as one.
With those final words, the seven witches dissolved into handfuls of light.
Adora remained in her embracing pose for a long while.
"Ahh...!"
Hot tears streamed endlessly down her cheeks too.
Why are we witches born as curses?
Denied love, forbidden from loving, even approaching others taboo.
...Yes. I know.
That the 'Black Witch' meddles in every witch's fate.
One way to end a witch's despair, the chain of curses.
Kill the Black Witch.
So...
"With my own hands, I will...!"
End the witches' curse.
End the fate.