Chapter 498
Chapter 498
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 498
Chapter Title: Realm of the Creator (3)
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Name:Guide of the Transcended Star
⚡ Level:1
🏷️ Grade:Abyss
📍 Equip Slot:Staff (One-Handed Weapons)
⚔ Attack Power:8,000
🛡️ Durability:Indestructible
Unique Options:
(1) Magic Power +200
(2) All magic transcends to 'Legendary Magic'
(3) Magic Penetration +50%
Unlocked Latent Abilities:
(1) HP +50
(2) Attack Power +600
(3) Attack Power +400
"...Abyss grade."
It was a grade he'd never seen before.
A grade bearing the very name of this world.
Normal, Rare, Unique, Epic, Ancient, Legendary, Eternal, and Zero.
Those were the grades that had existed up until now.
Sometimes items without grades appeared, or ones with something like Demigod, but "Abyss grade" was entirely new.
"Transcendence of grades. The primordial name, and the next stage."
It must mean preparations were complete to extend into the next world.
And just like the staff's name.
Wuuuuuung.
The gem embedded at the staff's tip began pulsing like a living heart, emitting intense light.
That light stretched straight toward a single point in this infinite space, like the North Star guiding a lost traveler.
Park Chan-woo sensed it instinctively.
Lil was at the place that light indicated.
This staff was Lil's legacy.
It was deeply bound to her existence by karma.
Park Chan-woo hesitated no longer.
"Sorry. But I have to go."
He stepped past the figure of light, onto the path illuminated by the staff.
The figure of light no longer blocked him.
On the contrary.
Srrrruk...
Its massive body of light contracted, shrinking to a form small enough to follow behind Park Chan-woo.
The figure of light began trailing silently after him.
Park Chan-woo looked around.
As he walked the path of light pointed by the "Star's Guide," the scenery filling his eyes changed moment by moment.
But amid all those changes, one thing remained constant.
It was beautiful.
At times, he passed through caves sparkling with billions of crystals. At others, he walked above an endless emerald sea.
He flew beneath skies eternally dyed in sunset glow, strolled through vast forests blooming with rainbow flowers.
There was no discord here. No conflict.
Everything simply existed in perfect harmony.
No competition, no struggle for survival.
No law of the jungle where the strong trampled the weak.
A pure hymn of life resounded, where predator and prey held no meaning.
The complete opposite of the Abyss.
So different from the vicious chaos he'd endured—and that was still unfolding elsewhere even now.
"Perhaps."
Park Chan-woo suddenly thought.
"This might be the world the Creator truly desired."
Coexistence and harmony, not competition and strife.
But why had the Abyss he shaped twisted into something so different?
"...This place isn't complete."
Park Chan-woo stopped and turned back.
As if reading his doubt, the figure of light sent a ripple.
Only then did he realize.
This was the world of "possibilities."
A garden of seeds.
All the beautiful landscapes here were mere prototypes—sketches of the countless paintings the Creator wished to draw on the vast canvas of the Abyss.
He had sought to contain all these possibilities in one world: the Abyss.
A living world where peace and chaos, order and freedom, light and darkness coexisted, complemented each other, and through their dynamic interplay, life endlessly grew and evolved.
But.
"The Destroyer."
The colossal "error" that had twisted the Creator's perfect design.
Perhaps the Abyss the Creator desired was like this realm of the Creator, where everything harmonized beautifully.
Park Chan-woo gazed at the figure of light again.
It clearly couldn't speak.
It only resonated, seemingly lacking the will or ability to convey specific information.
So pure and transparent, like the soul of a newborn child.
Its sole purpose seemed to be silently following to ensure Park Chan-woo didn't lose his way in this infinite labyrinth.
"You're the guardian of this cradle and its seeds."
Park Chan-woo finally glimpsed the essence of this space.
It wasn't merely a display of prototypes.
This place was like another world.
A kind of ark, or final bastion.
Even if the Abyss fell completely to the Destroyer and vanished, the Creator had left seeds here for a new beginning.
So that another Abyss could arise from the ruins, starting anew.
So new life could sprout from this cradle.
He had arranged everything to ensure the Abyss could never fully perish before departing.
It was a hope so stubborn it bordered on obsession.
But the deeper he grasped its meaning, the more another question coiled in his mind.
This world was truly the beginning and the end.
Designed so that even after the end, it could begin again.
Then where did it all truly originate—the most primordial start?
How had the Creator made this cradle?
And why was the Destroyer so intent on annihilating the Abyss?
Every story has a beginning.
This endless war between Creator and Destroyer must have had some cause.
In Park Chan-woo's mind, all the information began converging into a massive hypothesis.
The Creator had left the Abyss because the Destroyer sought its destruction.
The Destroyer lay beyond the Great Rift, strictly speaking, an entity unrelated to this Abyss.
Like a god from an entirely different world.
Thus, this was a grand war between lords of separate worlds.
Perhaps the reason for that war could be found here, in this primordial space.
Park Chan-woo turned again, surveying the vast realm of the Creator.
The Star's Guide staff trembled faintly, signaling something else remained unseen in this space.
"Let's look around a bit more."
He sent a ripple to the fourth beast, conveying his will.
The figure of light clung close, as if nodding silently.
If everything here was "seeds," then he could grasp their origins too.
They crossed rivers of light, crested hills of time.
How long had they walked?
A massive cave entrance appeared before them.
Unlike the radiant scenery outside, the cave interior lay shrouded in darkness.
Park Chan-woo entered cautiously.
Upon reaching the depths, he couldn't help but freeze.
Countless tiny lights adorned the cave walls in infinite profusion.
Each light was an "egg."
Within transparent membranes slept seeds of life yet unborn.
Some resembled human fetuses, others were covered in scales like dragon hatchlings, some looked like saplings of giant trees.
Their forms varied wildly.
"......Seeds of species."
Park Chan-woo murmured softly.
Here slumbered embryonic prototypes of every race in the Abyss.
He walked slowly among the cradle of lives.
And he knew.
"All species originated here."
This Abyss was a place designed from start to finish.
Not a chaotic world born by chance, but a grand planned city crafted under the Creator's meticulous intent and design.
But that realization birthed a new question.
Didn't the Abyss expand infinitely?
The system endlessly discovered new worlds, dragging their races onto the stage of the "Racial Wars."
If every Abyss race began in this cradle, where did those new races come from?
Was this also part of the Creator's design?
Had he built an automated system allowing the world to expand and birth new life even in his absence?
That thought sparked a blasphemous hypothesis.
"......No."
His eyes shook violently.
If so.
Then all these species, this world itself, weren't created by him.
Not truly "created" by the Creator.
They were taken from somewhere existing.
Copied.
From somewhere.
Perhaps from the Destroyer's world.
Beyond the Great Rift.
The countless new worlds and races incorporated into the Abyss might not be the Creator's fresh creations, but things "stolen" from the Destroyer's realm.
If that were true.
The Creator was a cunning "plagiarist" and "thief."
Park Chan-woo's mind grew ice-cold.
Come to think of it, why did the great Nine Lords and other demons call themselves "creators"?
Where did that phrasing originate?
Perhaps the Creator himself had claimed that title.
Not a true Creator birthing existence from nothingness, but a Maker combining and twisting existing things into novelties.
That subtle nuance might hold a truth massive enough to upend the Abyss's entire history.
If this hypothesis held, the Destroyer's rage took on new meaning.
His actions weren't mere filial rebellion or twisted perfectionism.
They could be righteous "retribution" and "vengeance" against the thief who stole his world and people.
Then whose side held justice in this endless war?
Who was good, who evil?
"......"
Park Chan-woo was bewildered.
And there was something else strange.
When he returned to the cradle where the seeds of species slept, he spotted the crucial clue he'd missed.
"None."
His eyes scanned among billions of transparent membranes, but nowhere could he find it.
There were no "demon seeds" here.
Something that should have been present was absent.
Seeds of every race in the Abyss, from the Twelve Lords to all others, gathered here.
Yet demons, the Abyss's most iconic race, were missing.
No matter how hard he searched.
Why?
A single conclusion flashed in Park Chan-woo's mind, explaining all the contradictions at once.
The absence of seeds in the cradle meant they didn't originate as "seeds."
They weren't "residents" of this planned city called the Abyss, but the "administrators" who designed and managed it from the start.
Thus.
Perhaps the Creator.
"......Was a demon."?