Chapter 450
Chapter 450
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 450
Chapter Title: Racial War (89)
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Blood and chunks of flesh scattered across the battlefield amid screams.
Belred sneered at the sight.
“Kuhahaha! The bug dies protecting another bug!”
But Han Shin heard nothing.
He just stood there, frozen.
Dead.
His brother.
Right before his eyes.
Protecting him.
Time itself seemed to stop.
Han Shin watched the horrific moment his brother’s body exploded, right in front of him, in crystal-clear detail.
The breath reaching out toward him.
The small, pathetic back of his brother blocking it.
And that final faint smile as he turned to look at him one last time.
An indescribable emotion burst forth from deep within him, like a dammed river breaking free.
Was this grief?
Or rage?
Or all of it?
He didn’t know.
What he did know was that it was a wretched, utterly foreign feeling he’d never experienced since birth.
Shrrrr...
Han Shin’s eyes, the Death Spirit Eyes, lost their light and began to drown in pitch-black darkness.
He unleashed everything he had.
The transcendent realm awakened in his Lucid Dream.
The homunculus.
The authority seized and dominated from the Demon God Belial.
Even the possibilities of futures he hadn’t yet reached.
He detonated every ounce of his potential for that single moment.
“...!”
In that instant, Belred’s body, charging while mocking him, froze in place.
He was bewildered.
What the hell?
‘How can that bug wield this much mana?’
In a split second, Han Shin vanished from his sight.
Kwajijik!
“Kuhuk!”
Belred’s head shattered halfway from a merciless strike from behind.
He didn’t even have time to regain his senses.
The sounds of cracking bones and tearing flesh echoed across the battlefield.
Incredibly, the Mad Demon God Belred was being unilaterally overwhelmed, if only for a moment.
His regeneration struggled desperately to keep up with the pace of destruction.
Belred was baffled.
How?
How could a human grow this strong in such a short time?
Just seconds ago, the bastard had been barely hanging on.
And then he realized it.
The true nature of the black aura rising from Han Shin’s body.
It was the flame of life.
A foolish yet brilliant blaze, burning everything he had to touch the realm of the gods in a fleeting instant.
‘Ah, this guy...’
Belred finally understood.
‘He’s sacrificed it all. His life, his future, his entire existence.’
That’s how he’d managed to reach him.
But such a foolish flame couldn’t last.
It was the desperate flicker of a dying candle, consuming itself in its final moments.
It would burn out from its own power, crumbling to ashes.
‘A human touching the Demon God’s domain. Impressive.’
It proved the bastard’s potential was vast enough to rival a Demon God.
Honestly, it was astonishing.
Was this a human?
Not the worthless bugs he’d crushed his whole life, apparently.
But meeting him here was the fool’s fatal mistake.
He could probably take on an average Demon Lord.
But surpassing a Demon God’s realm? Impossible.
He’d touched it, but could never cross over.
‘Good. Perfect timing.’
A cruel smile curled on Belred’s lips.
‘I’ll cut that bud down completely right here.’
Kwaduk!
Han Shin’s arm crumpled in Belred’s grip.
The next instant, it tore clean off from the shoulder.
“Kuhk!”
But Han Shin didn’t stop.
One-armed, he swung his sword even more ferociously.
Belred didn’t dodge the blade. Instead, he offered his heart while slicing at Han Shin’s legs.
Seok.
Han Shin’s legs were severed, and his torso collapsed to the ground.
“It’s over, bug.”
Belred aimed his claws at Han Shin’s remaining eye.
But.
Peok!
Han Shin bit down on his severed arm and smashed it into Belred’s face like a weapon.
“...”
Belred was speechless for a moment.
That creature, blind in one eye, crawling with just its upper body to attack him.
Truly repulsive.
Belred suddenly felt a pure curiosity.
Why?
“Why don’t you humans ever give up?”
When the Abyss engulfed your world, you must have despaired.
Faced with an insurmountable wall, realizing your own weakness.
Why keep trying to surpass us, the laws of this Abyss?
Wouldn’t it be easier to accept it all and surrender?
The question slipped from his lips.
“Why, human?”
Han Shin’s movements paused at the words.
He looked up at Belred with his one remaining eye.
And for the first time, a faint smile touched his lips.
A smile that laid bare Han Shin’s true essence.
“I...”
His voice cracked, thick with blood.
“...can’t stand the sight of anyone standing above me.”
“...What?”
“If there’s someone stronger than me, someone looking down on me, I go insane wanting to drag them down, no matter what it takes.”
That was everything Han Shin was.
Simply his arrogance, his pride, refusing to accept defeat.
Belred was momentarily stunned by the answer.
Then he burst into mad laughter.
“Kuhahahaha! Indeed! So you humans are the same breed as us!”
Humans and demons weren’t so different.
Foolish, tenacious beings driven by massive desires, willing to burn everything to topple those above them.
Which was exactly why.
“That’s why you all must be eradicated.”
Cold killing intent flashed in Belred’s eyes.
Because they resembled them, they were unforgivable.
This Abyss had no room for more arrogant souls like theirs.
Peok!
Han Shin’s head exploded futilely in Belred’s grasp.
The foolish, brilliant flame that had burned everything finally scattered as ashes.
“...”
After slaying Han Shin, Belred finally surveyed his surroundings.
The battlefield mist was slowly lifting.
And beyond it, the landscape of victory began to emerge.
The Outer Gods had Zero and Gremory firmly pinned down.
Everything else seemed all but annihilated.
The foolish warriors of the five races who’d dared aid humanity were mostly cooling amid the ashes of the battlefield.
This was the fate of those who defied the great Nine Lords.
An arrogant smile of assured victory curved on Belred’s lips.
All that remained was...
‘The Witch of Death, Adora.’
Belred’s gaze shifted to the other side of the battlefield.
And he doubted his own eyes.
Incredibly, a mere witch was locked in an even match with the Red Knight Zepar.
“Hah.”
Zepar served the great Nine Lords just like him—a Demon God.
Different in nature from his own madness, but his ferocity and swordsmanship stood at the pinnacle even in the Abyss.
Yet Zepar was struggling against a single black witch.
The deathly authority pouring from Adora’s body was in no way inferior to a Demon God’s.
No, in terms of pure ‘death’ itself, she overwhelmed him.
Pitch-black darkness gnawed at Zepar’s blood-red aura, and before his sword could reach her, Adora’s shadow seized his ankle.
Even approaching her seemed difficult.
Of course, Adora hadn’t seized total dominance either.
Zepar’s experience and power barely countered the variables of death she unleashed.
A perfect stalemate.
But the surprise didn’t end there.
In Belred’s eyes—his vision clouded by madness—Adora’s form began to appear strangely.
Faintly, but unmistakably.
Beyond her death authority, some holy light was seeping through.
‘That’s... divinity?’
Impossible.
A mere witch—a failed black witch no less—daring to encroach on the gods’ domain?
How? Why?
Belred’s mind raced.
And he realized.
The witch had supplanted the Black Witch, aiming to become the new ‘Progenitor’ herself.
The witches were starting to follow Adora over the Black Witch.
He didn’t know the reason, but she’d performed a miracle that swayed their hearts.
A feat the Black Witch, who’d ruled them for eons, could never achieve.
This couldn’t be ignored.
A being cloaked in divinity could slay ‘Outer Gods.’
A sanctuary they, the great Nine Lords, believed only they could claim.
Yet this pathetic witch was stepping into it.
Killing Adora now would eliminate every variable in this war.
“Zepar! Get a grip! Kill that witch now!”
Belred roared, launching himself to join him.
But his body wouldn’t move.
Everything had frozen.
The battlefield’s clamor—screams, explosions—all faded into distant echoes in an instant.
Suddenly, his instincts screamed in his mind, a warning that hadn’t rung out in eons blaring madly.
‘...What is this?’
An invisible wall.
No, not a wall.
Something overwhelming crushing his body, his soul, the very stature of his existence as a Demon God.
A primordial divinity and holiness incomparable to the faint light from Adora—like the sun at creation itself.
Some transcendent being.
From afar.
From somewhere.
Was approaching.
The sleeping monster had opened its eyes.
But he couldn’t comprehend it.
He’d never sensed divinity like this during the entire Racial War.
It differed from the Twelve Progenitors’ as well.
The essence, the trajectory—completely different.
As if it were the very force of creation from the moment the Abyss stirred.
Such a being was descending upon this battlefield.
Belred turned his head.
And.
“N-No... no way...!!”