Chapter 469
Chapter 469
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 469
Chapter Title: Realm of the Creators
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Park Chan-woo opened his eyes in the darkness.
What surrounded him was no longer the warm coziness of the rundown villa, but the cold and vast air of the Dragon God Temple.
Valhalla.
The events from just moments ago felt like a distant, sweet dream.
But the faint sweetness of sikhye lingering on his lips and the warm fullness filling his chest proved that it all had really happened.
As soon as he set foot in Valhalla, a figure appeared silently.
“You're back.”
It was Adora, the master of Valhalla.
As always, she had been waiting silently for his return.
Yet a faint puzzlement lingered in her red eyes.
“...Today.”
Adora cautiously opened her mouth.
“You look... to be in a good mood.”
At those words, Park Chan-woo paused for a moment.
Then, almost unconsciously, he raised a hand to touch his lips.
Was he smiling?
She was right.
Without realizing it, a faint smile had formed on his face.
Since the day the Racial War ended, Adora had been worried about him deep down.
His face showed no emotion, just as always.
But she, the Lord of Death bound to him by soul, could hardly fail to sense the massive storm raging inside him.
Responsibility, guilt, and a crushing loneliness.
He alone bore both the crown of the hero who saved the world and the chains of the judge who had sealed the fates of countless races.
Adora could only watch sadly as his soul slowly wore away under that weight.
But now, peace had settled on his face for the first time in ages.
The heavy darkness pressing down on him seemed to have lifted, if only slightly.
As if reading her concern, Park Chan-woo spoke calmly.
“...I ate a warm meal.”
That single sentence made everything clear to Adora.
A faint smile, like relief itself, touched her own lips.
A warm meal.
So that had comforted Park Chan-woo.
Adora made a silent vow.
‘I need to learn to cook.’
She would prepare a ‘warm meal’ for Park Chan-woo too.
She had never tried it before, but if it was the way to ease his heart.
She would simply learn.
But that peaceful atmosphere didn't last.
Adora's expression soon darkened and hardened once more.
“...A guest... is waiting.”
Her voice sank low.
“Who?”
At Park Chan-woo's curt question, Adora's red eyes blazed with deep hatred.
She spat out the name of the one who had stolen everything from her and shackled her in a curse, as if grinding her teeth.
“The Black Witch.”
The Black Witch.
She no longer bore the hideous form of the ‘Black Evil God’.
Whether due to the penalty that had weakened her after the Racial War's end or some other reason, she had reverted to her original beautiful, bewitching appearance as a witch.
But the vicious malice and curse lurking behind that beauty had faded not one bit.
“Long time no see, usurper.”
The Black Witch spoke first, her voice dripping with mockery.
“Or should I call you the dragons' new god now? What an absurd title.”
She raked her gaze up and down Park Chan-woo, her contempt plain to see.
Instead of rising to her taunt, Park Chan-woo cut straight to the chase.
“What's your business?”
The Black Witch fell silent for a moment.
Then she posed a completely unexpected question.
“I have something to ask. Why did you rank ‘Witch’ thirteenth?”
Pure curiosity colored her voice.
Park Chan-woo saw through her intent at once.
She was testing him.
“For Adora.”
He answered without hesitation.
“Not for you.”
That firm reply made the Black Witch's eyebrow twitch ever so slightly.
She stared at Park Chan-woo for a beat.
Then, as if she understood it all, a cruel smile curled her lips.
“...Love, then.”
Her voice rang through the hall, sweet as honey, cold as venom.
“But how unfortunate. Witches melt away in love. Their fragile souls can't bear the weight of that emotion—they collapse from within. That's the witches' fate. My curse upon them.”
Her gaze drifted toward Adora, somewhere in the distance.
“Your love will never come to pass.”
As if laying down an indelible curse.
But Park Chan-woo merely smirked at her venomous prophecy.
“State your business, Black Witch. I have no time for your childish curse games.”
The Black Witch's smile froze for an instant.
She quickly schooled her features and got to her point.
“I came to uphold my promise.”
She murmured softly.
“Our bet in the ‘Racial War’. I lost, so as agreed, I'm telling you. The whereabouts of the Transcendent Lil... and where the Realm of the Creators lies.”
Park Chan-woo's eyes sharpened in an instant.
Transcendent Lil.
To save her, he needed to reach the Realm of the Creators, linked to her very origin.
Moreover, the ‘Creator's Final Beast’ was surely there too.
One was the Abyss's monster, the evil god Baal.
Another, the Rift King Cygnus.
And Chronos, who had inherited the throne of the Reaper Realm.
Park Chan-woo was certain these three were Creator's Beasts.
There were four in total.
Gathering them all would undoubtedly trigger massive change.
“Seek the Transcendent ‘Amalgam’.”
“Amalgam?”
“Yes. The Transcendent who governs ‘Balance’. The one who fine-tunes every law and causality in the Abyss—that delicate equilibrium. The Racial War's facilitators? Mere underlings of his.”
The Black Witch continued.
“The Realm of the Creators hides beyond this Abyss's laws. Only Amalgam, who grasps the principles of balance, can open the path. Enter the Transcendent Abyss yourself, meet him, convince him.”
With all the information spilled, she turned away without a backward glance.
“My promise ends here.”
Before she could leave, Park Chan-woo fired off one last question.
“Why tell me so freely?”
The Black Witch halted, glancing back over her shoulder.
Another enigmatic smile played on her lips.
“Not for you.”
With that, her form vanished into the darkness, leaving no trace.
As if she had never been there at all.
A heavy silence blanketed the spot where the Black Witch had stood.
Transcendent Amalgam.
The Racial War facilitators as his underlings.
Park Chan-woo sat on the jade throne, turning over the fresh clue in his mind.
Everything seemed to converge on a single point.
The reason the vast stage of the Racial War had bent so cunningly to the demons' whims.
A Transcendent called ‘Balance’ lurking behind it all?
‘Balance.’
Park Chan-woo pondered the hypocrisy veiled by the word.
Amalgam's balance surely wasn't coexistence of good and evil, strong and weak.
It smacked of vicious, sly ‘stagnation’—propping up the colossal Abyss system without collapse, preserving the status quo.
That's why he let the cycle crumble and turned a blind eye to demonic tyranny.
The most ‘stable’ way to sustain the Abyss as is.
‘I must meet him.’
But persuasion? Not on the table.
He'd pry open the path to the Realm of the Creators by force if needed.
To rescue his master, Transcendent Lil. To claim the last Creator's Beast and forge another divinity.
Still, Park Chan-woo paused.
‘Not right now.’
No one knew his condition better than he did.
The Racial War blessings had ended; his level plunged back to its negative baseline.
Zero's gift—the heart of Sepiro's clone—had staved off divinity collapse, but the aftershocks still gnawed at body and soul.
Storming the Transcendent Abyss like this? Reckless gamble.
Park Chan-woo rose.
He returned to the Dragon God Temple.
From the throne, he called out.
“Ataraxia, Darkan.”
Moments later, the temple's massive doors swung open. Two dragons emerged first.
The Dragon of Despair, Ataraxia. The Dragon of Sloth, Darkan.
They were now his most devoted sword and shield.
“You called for us, my lord?”
The pair knelt reverently, heads bowed.
“Summon all the other dragons.”
“Yes. Your will be done.”
Soon, the heads and elders of the other dragon tribes filed in hesitantly.
Confusion and wariness etched their faces, but none dared defy the new god's call.
From the jade throne, Park Chan-woo gazed silently down at the dragons gathered below.
This was the moment he would proclaim a new order.
Wuuuuuuuuuuung—
The entire Dragon God Temple shuddered with a primordial hum beyond compare.
No mana wave, no authority pulse.
The weight of time itself. History bearing down. An irresistible, colossal presence.
Every dragon—Ataraxia and Darkan included—snapped their heads up in shock.
Their draconic blood instinctively recognized it, boiling in terror and reverence.
At the temple entrance, in the empty void, seven colossal shadows materialized.
The eldest, mightiest. Living legends of dragonkind.
The Primordial Dragons.
And at their fore, father to all dragons.
“...Bahamut.”
The former Dragon God, Bahamut.
He shattered his silence, manifesting in the forsaken temple his successor had abandoned.
Bahamut's arrival differed utterly from Sepiro's.
No arrogance. No crushing majesty.
Just existence alone—a serene, profound weight, like an ancient mountain overwhelming all.
“...”
His eyes fixed quietly on the outsider upon the jade throne: Park Chan-woo.
No hostility. No rage in that gaze.
Park Chan-woo, throne-bound, met the former Dragon God's advent unflinchingly.
And spoke.
“Long time no see. Dragon God of the generation before last.”