Chapter 497
Chapter 497
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 497
Chapter Title: Realm of the Creator (2)
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That day, when she handed over the Tower of the Gods and the half of the Star Guide staff to Park Chan-woo.
Lil realized that her mission was complete.
Afterward, she began to fade away.
No, to be precise, she was in the midst of fading.
Her existence's boundaries were growing faint.
The body and soul that once made her were scattering like morning mist under sunlight.
Transparent particles of light slowly dispersing.
The Realm of the Creator.
The primordial cradle where all transcendent beings were born, and the final destination where their journeys ended.
Lil now floated in the center of that serene, vast space.
Her soul would soon vanish into nothingness.
Lil was content with that.
'This... has been a pretty good life.'
She thought.
She had done her best in a meaningless eternal life.
The other transcendent beings couldn't understand her.
Those arrogant kin, who had reached the pinnacle in their respective domains, were trapped in their perfect worlds, merely amusing themselves through eternity.
Change was unnecessary to them, and the chaos of the outside world was just a backdrop to prove their loftiness.
Among them, Lil's actions were always treated as those of a troublemaker.
Why show interest in the world of mortals?
Why recklessly steal the Tower of the Gods, breaking the Creator's taboo?
Why gamble everything on an unnamed human, exhausting her own existence in the process?
They always mocked and pointed fingers.
But Lil didn't see it that way.
Their eternity wasn't living; it was merely standing still.
A myth stuffed and preserved, locked in a prison called perfection, unable to move forward.
Lil rejected that stagnant eternity.
In her own way, she tried to set the gears of this halted world in motion again.
That was the final mission she had given herself.
And then she met Park Chan-woo.
A will that never broke, even under the curse of minus level.
An indomitable soul that rose again after losing everything.
In his eyes, Lil saw it.
The dazzling light of "possibility" that they had lost—or never even had.
Just passing on her will, her final hope, to him was enough.
'Please... let that child see the end of the path I couldn't.'
That was Lil's final wish.
Now everything was over.
All that remained was to quietly accept her dissolution.
But.
'......Cold.'
In that fleeting moment as her consciousness dimmed, Lil was enveloped by a sensation she'd never felt before in her life.
A piercing chill.
This place was a pure conceptual space, devoid of any temperature or sensation.
Yet from the deepest core of her soul, a vicious cold was rising.
It wasn't physical cold.
It was a primordial loneliness that burrowed into the depths of her soul.
'...I'm alone.'
In the end, I am.
Vanishing alone like this, in this empty space with no one around.
Until now, she had no regrets about her choices.
But as the final moment approached, the loneliness she had ignored for eons crashed over her like a massive wave.
Disappearing didn't scare her.
But being forgotten did.
The terror that even the fact of her existence might be erased from the universe, leaving no trace in anyone's memory.
Unknowingly, she whispered softly into the void.
"Creator."
Her cracked voice echoed in the empty space.
"Our father. Where on earth have you gone?"
She didn't believe the Creator had abandoned them.
Like Amalgam, the other transcendent beings resented him, claiming he had grown weary of their perfection and left, abandoning them.
But Lil was different.
She remembered the sadness in the Creator's eyes from her childhood.
The endless love as he looked upon them, mingled with deep anguish, as if he couldn't protect them from something.
He was not the kind to abandon his children.
Surely, he had left alone to fight some greater threat.
A distant, horrific danger that might ensnare even them.
And he had left traces throughout the Abyss, hoping they would grow and find his path someday.
'We... failed to live up to your expectations, Father.'
We were too arrogant, too weak, too immature to grasp your profound will.
In the end, this world has stopped, and the shadow of ruin looms.
It was at that exact moment, as her existence dwindled to its final handful of light.
Whoosh.
A ripple of a kind never before seen stirred in the serene Realm of the Creator.
An alien warmth.
A rough yet incredibly warm wave of life force, forcibly breaking through the firmly sealed walls of the space.
[......!]
The fading lantern of Lil's consciousness flickered with its last strength.
'An intruder?'
No, that couldn't be.
This was an absolute sanctuary no transcendent being could enter without permission.
Even if one did, she would know.
All transcendent beings had unique signatures, and Lil remembered them all.
But this wave felt utterly foreign.
Foreign, and yet.
'......Familiar.'
Like that moment long ago, when she had staked everything to plant a seed of hope.
Lil gathered all her remaining strength and directed her senses toward the source of the alien warmth.
And she saw.
Beyond the gate of light she and Amalgam had left open, a being from the unknown world was stepping in.
Five colors of radiant light flowed from his body.
The stigmata of the five masters of the Tower of the Gods resonated in perfect harmony within his existence.
'...You did it.'
The final hope she had left.
The final gamble she had made.
That child had.
Park Chan-woo had.
Truly walked the near-impossible path she had shown him.
He had... conquered the Tower of the Gods.
The moment she realized that, the vicious cold gnawing at her soul vanished like a lie.
In its place, a new kind of "will" began to fill the void.
The dying embers of her life flickered back to life, faintly.
Dissolution was not yet.
There was still work to do.
But that overwhelming emotion and ecstasy soon turned into deeper, colder despair.
Park Chan-woo shouldn't come here.
Absolutely not.
She was joyful.
Immeasurably proud and gratified.
But at the same time, anxious.
Because the law of this realm she had tried to ignore had surfaced.
This was the beginning and the end.
The primordial cradle and final destination.
Everything moved under the absolute balance of "equivalent exchange."
To declare a new beginning, one must offer one's own end.
In other words, to fully save the fading Lil.
Park Chan-woo would have to "end" himself.
Sacrifice everything he had achieved, all future possibilities, his very existence itself—only then would the scales of balance tip, granting her a new "life."
'This child... would do it.'
Lil was certain.
Park Chan-woo wouldn't hesitate.
If it was the only way to save his master, he would walk that path willingly.
Just as she had.
He would choose to sacrifice himself to save her, without a moment's doubt.
Because she knew that.
'No.'
It couldn't be.
Her life was a candle flickering out anyway.
She had lived a meaningless eternity for eons, and finding the flame named Park Chan-woo to burn her final moments was satisfaction enough.
But that child was different.
His possibilities were infinite.
The only being who could restart the halted time of the Abyss and open a new era against the fate of ruin.
She couldn't let such a great sprout of possibility be crushed because of her.
Her worthless life couldn't become the final stop on his journey.
Thus, Lil resolved.
'I must hide.'
So Park Chan-woo couldn't find her.
Hide her existence in the deepest part of the Realm of the Creator, where no one could discover it.
She, his master, couldn't trample his infinite potential.
Park Chan-woo took his first step into the Realm of the Creator beyond the gate of light.
Before his eyes unfolded a primordial landscape indescribable by any mortal tongue.
Hundreds of millions of stars were born and extinguished, infinite colors of light flowed like rivers, and all laws lay quietly like untouched blank pages.
It was beautiful.
But at the same time, so vast and empty.
He couldn't gauge direction.
There were no signposts, no paths.
Finding a destination in this infinite space felt more hopeless than finding a needle in a desert.
Shoooo!
A massive form of light appeared before him, blocking the way.
Its shape wasn't fixed.
One moment it resembled a giant beast, the next a humanoid silhouette.
Most striking were the hundreds, thousands of wings extending from its luminous body.
Each wing held a different landscape and law, like independent worlds.
An awe-inspiring, overwhelming presence.
But Park Chan-woo felt no hostility or threat from it.
Quite the opposite.
An incredibly pure, clear goodness—the first of its kind he had ever sensed.
The moment Park Chan-woo saw the form of light, he understood everything.
"......You're the fourth one."
His voice echoed through the quiet space.
The monster of the Abyss, the Ferocious God Baal.
The King of Rifts, Cygnus.
The new king of the Reaper Realm, Chronos.
The four beasts left by the Creator.
They were like "qualifications" proving the Creator's world.
The greatest creations symbolizing the four primordial forces of the world.
The being standing before him now was the final puzzle piece.
Park Chan-woo asked softly.
"What is your name?"
But the form of light didn't answer.
It simply stood there silently, blocking his path.
Park Chan-woo faced the massive being for a moment.
And soon realized the true meaning of its action.
'It's not blocking me.'
It wasn't a threat or obstruction.
It was closer to protection.
This place was an infinite labyrinth where lost souls who entered would drift eternally until dissolving.
The being of light knew he would lose his way in this maze, so it stood to prevent him from going further.
Like an adult silently shielding a child at the edge of a dangerous cliff with their body.
A faint smile rose to Park Chan-woo's lips.
"You're... truly kind."
No ferocity like Baal's, no peril like Cygnus's, no loneliness like Chronos's.
Only pure benevolence.
Park Chan-woo guessed this fourth beast most resembled the Creator's essential nature.
However.
"Sorry, but could you step aside?"
Park Chan-woo's voice was firm.
"I...... have a place I must go, no matter what."
The form of light still didn't move.
It showed no intention of clearing the path.
In that case.
Park Chan-woo readjusted his grip on the staff in his hand.
'Staff of the Luminous Constellation.'
The Zero-grade relic born from merging Dragon God Sepiro's half of the "Star Guide" and his own "World Tree Staff."
But.
Park Chan-woo realized the staff in his hand had changed from before.
The moment he entered the Realm of the Creator, the staff had regained its true form.
The crude shape, carved from World Tree branches, was gone.
In his hand was a crystalline staff, translucent and sparkling as if forged from all the stars in the night sky.
And the staff's name had changed as well.
'Star Guide.'
With the staff fully merged, it was finally complete.