Chapter 499
Chapter 499
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 499
Chapter Title: Realm of the Creator (4)
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Park Chan-woo shook his head soon after.
‘Jumping to conclusions rashly is dangerous.’
Though he had transcended intelligence and could pierce through the principles of the world.
That didn't mean he knew everything.
Rather, the more he knew, the more the world filled with deeper, more complex riddles.
The information he possessed was still fragmentary and incomplete.
Rashly piecing those fragments together to draw hasty conclusions was dangerous.
There must surely be another reason he didn't yet know for the absence of the demon seed.
He decided to shelve that dangerous hypothesis in a corner of his mind for now.
Finding Lil came first.
Park Chan-woo gripped the Star Guide Staff once more.
The path of light extending from the staff's tip still pointed to one spot in this infinite space.
But something was off.
No matter how far he followed the light, he didn't feel any closer to the destination.
On the contrary, the light's end receded like a mirage, ever distant.
As if Lil were fleeing from him.
Park Chan-woo's footsteps halted.
Amalgam's final warning resurfaced in his mind.
―If you obtain something there as well, you will inevitably lose something equivalent. That is the law of that place. If you seek to save Lil, you yourself will not be saved.
Everything was equivalent exchange.
Park Chan-woo realized.
Lil knew that law all too well.
That was why she was hiding.
To stop him from making the foolish choice of sacrificing herself to save him.
Park Chan-woo's heart sank heavily.
She was still his master, ready to cast aside everything for her disciple's future.
That noble, stubborn will desperately pushed him away amid this vast space.
“......Master.”
Park Chan-woo murmured softly into the void.
“You don't need to go that far.”
His voice wouldn't reach Lil.
But he didn't stop.
This was a message to her—and a vow to himself.
“Just as you threw everything away for me, I will find a path for you.”
The way forward wasn't yet visible.
Yet he would never give up.
He was the one who always unearthed possibility from impossibility.
Park Chan-woo began walking again.
This time, he didn't chase the light blindly.
Instead, he closed his eyes and unleashed all his senses.
The power gained through transcendence.
Cognition transcending mere stats.
The world shifted into view.
River of light, crystal caves, rainbow forests.
Behind those beautiful vistas, the space's true 'blueprint' emerged.
Hundreds of millions of laws intertwined like threads.
Infinite possibilities wove as warp and weft, crafting this immense world.
And within that intricate blueprint, he spotted it.
A faint yet unmistakable 'gap'.
A space where all laws began and ended—yet belonged to none.
Likely a tiny loophole the Creator left for his own respite, or one overlooked in designing the world.
“......Found it.”
A faint smile curved Park Chan-woo's lips.
Lil hid her existence there now.
But reaching it was another challenge.
The 'gap' was visible to his sight, yet not a space on any physical coordinates.
An abyss betwixt laws, amid causes and effects.
Ordinary steps could never approach it.
Forcing entry by tearing space would mark him a foreign intruder; the world's laws would reject and expel him.
‘How to reach it.’
Park Chan-woo closed his eyes briefly, recalling every trial from the Tower of God.
In strength's test, he didn't lift the heaviest—but the most desperate, moving the world.
In stamina's ordeal, he didn't resist decay but embraced life's cycle to conquer decline.
In agility's trial, he didn't dodge fate's onslaught but became the flow, harmonizing with it.
All taught the same lesson.
Do not resist.
Accept.
He learned acquiescence over strife.
Then.
Perhaps this Realm of the Creator demanded the same.
Not forcing through its laws, but yielding to the flow.
Following the pulse of the vast world the Creator shaped.
Then the world might naturally guide him where he sought.
Park Chan-woo released all will and power.
He dropped his guard, dimming even purpose.
Just a small wanderer in this beautiful garden, surrendering to the space's innate rhythm.
The instant he let go completely.
...Ah.
From the fourth beast—the silent figure of light trailing him—a ripple of surprise emanated for the first time.
And.
Whoosh—
The figure of light enveloped Park Chan-woo gently.
Within that vast warmth, he felt tension dissolve, like a child cradled in its mother's arms.
Hwaaaaa—
Vast wings of light sprouted from Park Chan-woo's back.
Wings beautiful and sacred, mirroring the Realm of the Creator itself.
They guided him to his desire—to the small 'gap' concealing Lil.
Like a river flowing naturally to the sea.
They rode the world's most innate current toward their goal.
How much time passed.
Their path ended beneath a gigantic ancient tree on a small hill.
There lay Lil, dormant as faint light on dissipation's brink.
The figure of light set Park Chan-woo down quietly, resuming silent vigil behind him.
Lil slumbered deeply.
No—not slumber.
She was dissipating herself.
Even her existence's final light particles scattered into the vast Realm of the Creator, seeking perfect nothingness.
Lil desired neither Park Chan-woo's search nor salvation.
She meant to bequeath all to her final hope and exit this weary eternal stage quietly.
Park Chan-woo gazed silently at her, adrift in scattering light.
When first met in the Transcendent Abyss, Lil soared like the heavens.
But now before him.
......A fragile soul teetering, ready to scatter on the slightest breeze.
Now he understood.
How long she had battled alone.
Among transcendents, she was ever the heretic, the troublemaker.
Dreaming change amid stagnant perfection, cracking aged order.
Yet none acknowledged her.
Kin scoffed her folly; challenges shattered against vast indifference.
In endless solitude, she withered slowly.
Soul eroded, will nearly broken.
Then she met him.
Squeezing final strength, she stole the Tower of God—and there, by chance or fate, found Park Chan-woo: feeble yet unquenchable flame.
Thus she entrusted all.
Her lingering possibilities, her last hope.
‘I can't let her go like this.’
But Park Chan-woo could not release Lil—his master—like this.
She must witness with her own eyes the change she ignited.
She must share the finale: seeds sown sprouting into vast forest.
Park Chan-woo extended his hand quietly.
A perfect orb of five intertwined lights hovered above his palm.
The 'Nucleus of Magic Power'—all poured in by the Tower's pinnacle Lord of Magic Power, handed to him.
With this, Lil would be saved.
Freed from dissipation's curse, reborn whole transcendent.
Park Chan-woo slowly lowered the nucleus toward sleeping Lil's chest.
But.
-Salvation demands a price.
The figure of light spoke for the first time.
-What will you stake?
Park Chan-woo replied.
“My everything.”
The figure of light shook its head.
-Not enough.
“......”
-To revive her fully, even your all falls short. She has crossed time's river. No will to persist remains.
Even if feasible, Lil willed no revival.
Thus, impossible.
-Your possibilities, future, very being offered—the scales still won't tip.
Then.
“Then I stake this world.”
-...What?
Bewilderment tinged the figure of light's waves for the first time.
Park Chan-woo gestured across the vast, beautiful Realm of the Creator entire.
“This Realm of the Creator. I stake it all.”
Staking the world itself.
The figure of light posed its first query.
-...Do you grasp what that entails?
It warned ceaselessly.
-This is all's origin and final bastion. Creator's last hope. Its loss spells Abyss's true, irrecoverable end.
“No.”
Park Chan-woo denied firmly.
“This world isn't hope. It's a prison.”
His voice echoed through the void.
“A colossal chain binding you—all the Abyss—in a jail named 'the past'.”
Park Chan-woo addressed the silent figure of light—and transcendents beyond.
“You, other transcendents. Will you wait eternally for the absent landlord's return? Is safeguarding Father's garden your sole purpose?”
Realm of the Creator.
Undeniably beautiful, serene.
Yet everything stagnated.
Seeds slumbered forever; vistas immutable.
No 'future' dwelt here.
Merely a grand museum enshrining the Creator's perfect 'past' eternally.
And this world claimed Lil.
“Only shattering it lets you advance.”
Thus.
“I will destroy the ‘Realm of the Creator’.”
Park Chan-woo declared the world's demise.