Chapter 495
Chapter 495
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 495
Chapter Title: What Was Written
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It was the secret hidden deepest within the tower, one that could only be fully seen after gathering all five stigmata.
Amalgam's voice cracked.
Transcendents are immortal within their own domains.
That was the absolute law forming the foundation of this Transcendent Abyss.
But even that law was merely a part of the world crafted by the Creator.
The Creator's language existed above all laws.
The primordial tongue was the power to extinguish immortality.
The authority that turned eternity finite.
The sole, fatal weakness of transcendents, reverting the undying to mortals.
Before a weapon inscribed with this language, even the absolute shield of one's domain became meaningless.
It meant they could die even within their own Transcendent Abyss.
Amalgam spat out his terror.
A scream bordering on desperation.
An attitude like witnessing a sealed calamity awaken once more.
Park Chan-woo tightened his grip on his sword.
And he thought.
Why had the Creator disappeared?
Until now, he had vaguely assumed the Creator had fulfilled his role and departed, or perhaps perished for some unknown reason.
But Amalgam's reaction directly contradicted that hypothesis.
He had called the Creator's language "forbidden knowledge that should have vanished."
As if the Creator himself was a dangerous element that shouldn't exist in this world.
Why did this language have to become forbidden knowledge?
There was no way the Creator would leave behind power harmful to his own creations.
There was something else strange, too.
The Easter Egg.
And the messages hidden behind the thrones of the five masters.
The Creator had deliberately left traces of himself throughout the Abyss.
As if desperately hoping someone would find him, decipher his language again.
If it was dangerous, it should have been erased completely.
So why leave such faint trails?
In Park Chan-woo's mind, all the scattered puzzle pieces began fitting into one massive picture.
Why engrave the Creator's language—a fatal threat to transcendents—precisely in the "Tower of God," their one hope of salvation?
The power to save the transcendents and the power to threaten them coexisted in the same place.
Why?
Because he foresaw the transcendents might one day become a threat to the Abyss?
No, it wasn't that simplistic.
This wasn't for "checks and balances."
It was closer to "control."
Park Chan-woo realized it.
These transcendents were the Creator's final defensive line—and his "weapons."
The Annihilators.
The unbearable existences beyond the Great Rift.
The Creator must have foreseen that they would one day invade this Abyss.
To stand against that colossal calamity, he created his strongest creations: the transcendents.
Strength, stamina, agility, intelligence, magic power, and balance.
And countless other "transcendent" abilities.
Absolute beings who had reached the pinnacle in their respective domains.
They were the ultimate weapons to protect the Abyss in the coming war.
But they were too powerful, too arrogant.
Selfish entities trapped in their own worlds, indifferent to the outside.
To unite them into an army and make them fight the Annihilators, special measures were needed.
The Tower of God was that very measure.
The Creator promised the transcendents the carrot of "freedom."
The one who reaches the tower's summit will free you from this prison.
At the same time, he hid the whip of "death."
The Creator's language.
If the transcendents rejected their mission, became a threat to the Abyss, or foolishly sided with the Annihilators, it was the absolute blade to revert them to mortals and execute them.
Carrot and whip.
It was all an intricate system left by the Creator.
To ensure that, in his absence, his ultimate weapons wouldn't rampage freely but await the right master.
And that "right master" was the one who conquers the Tower of God, understands all these mechanisms, and proves worthy of wielding both carrot and whip.
'Is that me?'
...He wasn't sure.
It was strange to think the Creator had chosen him, with his countless failures.
But one thing was certain.
He held the hilt of the sword.
"Follow me, Amalgam."
"The 'Annihilators' will come soon. If you stay idle like this, even you won't be safe."
Amalgam scoffed.
As if it was absurd, Amalgam continued.
Sneer rose in Amalgam's eyes.
"......"
A voice filled with resentment.
But Park Chan-woo couldn't agree with his despairing view.
"The Creator laid countless contingencies throughout the Abyss to avert the future apocalypse. You were just complacent and failed to find them."
Amalgam's will blazed fiercely.
His rage was rational.
If the Creator truly wanted to protect the Abyss, why not intervene personally?
That was Amalgam's conclusion.
Resignation. And inaction.
But in his profound despair, Park Chan-woo glimpsed a ray of light.
Such deep despair meant...
In other words, lingering hope.
He was still waiting for him.
In that case.
"Amalgam. Do you know what the 'primordial language' I saw at the top of the Tower of God said?"
Amalgam's will faltered at Park Chan-woo's sudden question.
He recalled the forbidden language still gleaming threateningly on the sword in Park Chan-woo's hand.
Amalgam shook his head.
But ignoring the refusal, Park Chan-woo recited the words he had seen.
The Creator's final voice, hidden behind the veil of the five thrones at the Tower of God's summit.
"'I am fighting. So do not give up.'"
Amalgam's eyes stared blankly at Park Chan-woo.
He understood the meaning of those words, the weight they carried, in an instant.
"What do you think it means?"
Park Chan-woo asked again.
"No, you do know."
Park Chan-woo pierced Amalgam's wavering gaze as he spoke.
"The Creator is already fighting the Annihilators. He's holding them back alone. The reason this Abyss hasn't fully collapsed yet is because he's desperately buying you time from somewhere unseen."
Now he understood.
Facing Amalgam, he finally realized it.
The sole truth all the Creator's traces pointed to.
That he was fighting alone on a greater battlefield, for everyone's sake.
"The Creator wanted to hand you dreams and hope. While he holds on, he hoped you'd grow on your own, become beings who could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him and fight together someday."
The reason he left the transcendents behind.
The time he bought for them to train endlessly.
"The Creator left traces throughout the Abyss. At first, I thought he saw me as a promising seed. But now I see that's not it."
"Perhaps... all those traces were a desperate 'cry for salvation' from a single being, pleading to be saved."
"Yes. Maybe he hoped you'd find him through the traces he left, break free of the shackles he imposed, and carry on his will."
"Do you really think so?"
Their Creator.
Their father.
Weary from fighting alone on an unseen battlefield, now begging his children for help?
He didn't want to believe it.
But the Creator's language Park Chan-woo wielded, and that final message at the Tower of God's summit, were irrefutably clear evidence.
Amalgam's voice trembled like a lost child's.
"He couldn't say it."
Park Chan-woo continued.
"That he couldn't win. No father in the world directly tells his children, 'I'll lose soon.'"
"He hoped that when you grew into proper adults, you'd realize the truth of the world on your own. Until you were strong enough to bear it all, he'd shield you from every storm in the shadows, buying time. That's what he believed a father—and the Creator—should do."
Amalgam's eyes wavered.
Park Chan-woo sheathed his sword.
And then.
"It's not too late yet. So."
He extended his hand.
With a gentle smile.
"Let's go save him together. Amalgam."