Chapter 461
Chapter 461
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 461
Chapter Title: Results Announcement (3)
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An endless silence flowed.
And finally, it was the lords of the nine thrones who shattered that silence.
[You... how dare you!]
They couldn't believe it.
The nine lords' thrones vibrated with a fierce rage they had never shown, not even once, over eons of time.
The other demon gods and demons still remaining on the battlefield also began to rampage in shock, as if they couldn't comprehend what they had just heard.
"This is a lie! It's blatant system manipulation!"
"Us! The rulers of this Abyss, we come in last? We refuse to accept it!"
Their screams filled the entire Abyss.
There wasn't even a shred of room for negotiation.
No possibility of mercy or compromise existed.
Park Chan-woo had simply, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, hurled their fate to the very bottom.
For the first time, the demons felt not just the sting of defeat, but an existential crisis.
Demons in last place.
This wasn't merely a drop in ranking.
It was the denial of everything they had built—their history, their pride, their very identity as rulers of the Abyss. The beginning of a fundamental collapse.
What penalty would the system impose for this unprecedented event?
...It was beyond imagination.
If a weak race on the brink of extinction had come in last, the penalty would have been relatively straightforward.
Confiscate their remaining territory and erase a portion of their population. That would have been the end of it.
After all, there's nothing left to take from those who have nothing to lose.
But the demons were different.
They were the race that possessed the vastest territories in the Abyss, boasted the largest population, and wielded the greatest dominion.
They had even created a playground called the "Created Abyss" in other worlds, toying with the fates of other races like playthings.
The higher one falls, the greater the destructive force—exponentially so.
Everything they had built up until now would return as a massive weight to crush them.
The backlash would surely surpass all imagination.
The nine lords knew this better than anyone.
[Such a choice... will lead the entire Abyss to ruin.]
For the first time, fear crept into one lord's will.
If the entire demon race collapsed in an instant, the number of souls that would vanish would be astronomical.
The Abyss's "total soul count" would plummet back to dangerous levels once more, sending uncontrollable ripples through the barely rebuilt realm of the dead.
That was precisely the "灭亡" scenario Park Chan-woo had prevented through countless sacrifices.
A contradictory, foolish choice that negated his own achievements.
They believed Park Chan-woo could never make such a choice.
But he did. With utter composure.
[...No.]
In that moment, the consciousness of the Lord of Giant Evils realized a truth on an entirely different level.
[There's no problem.]
[What are you talking about?!]
[The reincarnation system... has begun operating again.]
That's right.
The most fatal variable.
The one fact they had failed to account for—or deliberately ignored.
The rifts had welcomed a new king, and the realm of the dead had regained its order.
Now, the frequency of great rifts caused by "errors" would drastically decrease, and the souls of the dead would no longer wander the nine heavens but find their proper paths.
The Abyss had regained its "self-purification" ability.
In other words, even if Park Chan-woo eradicated every last demon, the world would no longer collapse.
Their vacancies would be filled by new souls born through reincarnation.
The problem was...
What would happen when demon souls entered reincarnation?
Over eons, those arrogant souls that had committed every atrocity imaginable and driven other races into suffering—how would the newly born reapers handle them?
[......]
The nine lords finally realized.
This wasn't judgment.
It was the beginning of perfect "purification"—uprooted from the core.
Park Chan-woo intended to erase the demon race itself from the history of this Abyss.
To cast their arrogant souls into the most agonizing cycles of reincarnation, ensuring they could never sow the seeds of evil in this world again.
That was Park Chan-woo's conclusion.
All that remained was how the system would "execute" that judgment.
But the execution of results would occur only after all rankings were assigned.
[It's not over yet.]
A faint spark of hope flickered once more in the nine lords' thrones.
[Can Park Chan-woo really rank every single race?]
No way.
No, he couldn't.
[This might just be a bluff.]
Yes. That was the most logical, rational inference.
Park Chan-woo was currently gambling the most dangerous and cunning game against the entire Abyss.
By placing their strongest card, the "demons," on the cliff's edge at 128th place, while holding the fates of all other races in his grasp.
This wasn't judgment—it was the perfect opening move for a "deal."
[He'll never call the final rank.]
Arrogant certainty began to frost one lord's will once more.
[He'll leave that one rank open, indefinitely delay the execution, and use it as leverage to extract everything he wants from us.]
Humanity's safety, vast territories and resources, absolute status in the Abyss.
He would demand it all.
[And to ensure other races don't dare touch humanity recklessly, he'll hang this "blade of judgment" eternally over their heads.]
Dominion.
That was the most demonic form of rule.
To wield fear and hope in tandem, turning everyone into his pawns.
They began to convince themselves once more that Park Chan-woo was one of their kind.
But as if mocking all their calculations, Park Chan-woo didn't stop.
He continued announcing the rankings.
"14th place, Blood Tiger Tribe."
"15th place, Blue Claw Tribe."
They had avoided the worst fate of dead last, but being pushed outside the safe zone of 13th meant they would suffer great and small penalties.
Relief and humiliation mingled on the faces of the named tribes.
In this way, Park Chan-woo assigned all 127 rankings.
There was no whimsy or personal grudge in his selections.
Only one criterion existed: their actions in the tribal war and their "contribution to humanity."
The greatest glory to those who aided humanity first.
The harshest price to those who opposed them until the very end.
His judgment was so utterly fair—and thus, all the more cruel.
Finally, the fates of the 127 tribes remaining on the battlefield were all decided.
Only one remained.
The single tribe whose name had yet to be called.
The Dragon Tribe.
Every gaze on the battlefield turned to the dragons standing dazed amid the ashes.
As if they had forgotten how to make any expression, they simply stared at Park Chan-woo with vacant eyes.
The beings who, after the demons, had tormented humanity the most.
Yet also the paradoxical tribe that had birthed two betrayers—or pioneers—named Darkan and Ataraxia.
Where would Park Chan-woo place them?
Tension tautened once more around the nine lords' thrones.
[It's here.]
[This is the end. He won't call the Dragon Tribe's name.]
They were certain.
This was Park Chan-woo's final negotiation card.
Using the Dragon Tribe's fate as a hostage to check Dragon God Sepiro—their god and the most unpredictable variable.
The final step in a grand, cunning plan to reshape the entire Abyss to his liking by maneuvering Sepiro and striking a deal.
This would be the perfect picture of victory that human was painting.
Everyone held their breath, awaiting Park Chan-woo's next words.
He finally opened his mouth.
But the name that emerged was not the Dragon Tribe.
He called no tribe remaining on the battlefield.
Instead, his gaze lifted to the empty air.
And he designated the one being absent from this place—yet the root of all this tragedy—as the owner of the final rank.
"127th place."
Park Chan-woo's voice echoed across the entire Abyss.
"Transcendent Dragon Sepiro."
In that instant...
The entire Abyss froze.
Sepiro.
He had dared to place that name on the rankings.
To forcibly drag a transcendent being—who hadn't even participated in the tribal war, standing outside all rules—into this game as a participant, and arbitrarily decide his fate!
But... was that even possible?
Even the nine lords' thrones fell into brief chaos.
[...Impossible.]
One lord asserted.
[The tribal war is participated in by 'tribes.' A single individual can't rank. The system wouldn't allow such an error.]
His words were reasonable.
Everyone nodded, awaiting Park Chan-woo's next statement.
It was mere bravado, an insulting provocation toward Sepiro—nothing with real effect.
Everyone wondered.
Was it even possible to rank a single individual rather than a tribe?
As if scoffing at all their rational doubts, Park Chan-woo quietly corrected his declaration.
"Correction."
His voice remained calm, but its content was enough to shake the entire Abyss once more.
"127th place is 'Outer God' Sepiro."
Outer God.
At that single term, all noise in the arena ceased.
Park Chan-woo no longer regarded Sepiro as the leader of the Dragon Tribe.
A being who had absorbed outer gods from the great rift, become a world unto himself, rejected the Abyss's laws, and imposed his own order.
He had shed the framework of the "dragon" species.
Park Chan-woo declared him no different from a foreign entity—an "Outer God"—from outside the Abyss.
The moment he proclaimed it to the entire Abyss as existing and functioning as an entirely different tribe...
Surprisingly...
Wooooong—
The system began to move.
The massive gears of causality responded to Park Chan-woo's declaration, engraving a new law.
No, from the beginning...
Outer Gods had participated in the tribal war.
Sepiro had turned dragons into Outer Gods and entered them multiple times.
So, of course...
Of course it could be engraved into the rankings.
Park Chan-woo smiled.