Chapter 500
Chapter 500
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 500
Chapter Title: Realm of the Creator (5)
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The legacy left by the Creator was far too grand and perfect.
Under that enormous shadow, no child could ever surpass their father.
The Transcendents were trapped in their own perfection, their growth at a standstill.
All existences in the Abyss could not escape the trajectory of fate set by the Creator.
As long as this world endured without destruction, they would forever remain the children of their father.
"I will shatter this old cradle and grant you true 'freedom'."
A creative destruction, sublime in its meaning—for a new beginning.
-...Are you telling us to abandon the Creator?
Deep sorrow settled into the waves of the light form.
"As if."
Park Chan-woo shook his head.
"I'm telling you to surpass your father. You can't remain children forever, leaning on your father's legacy. It's time for us to become adults, to take responsibility for a new era ourselves."
Time to become adults.
They needed a powerful awakening to rouse their dormant potential.
For that to happen...
"I will offer this world as a sacrifice to revive Lil. And with that spark of a new beginning, I will set the stalled time of this Abyss flowing once more. That alone must be the true 'growth' the Creator desired for his children."
The light form fell silent for a long time.
Caught between the mission it had upheld across eons and the dazzling, perilous future Park Chan-woo proposed, its very existence wavered.
At last, the light form reached a decision.
-...I will not stop you.
Its waves no longer sought to restrain Park Chan-woo.
-But neither will I aid you. I will simply bear witness to the end of all this.
The Realm of the Creator was incomparably vast compared to the Abyss, its laws utterly unyielding.
No matter how fiercely a single Transcendent raged, even scratching this world was next to impossible.
Thinking it impossible anyway.
Park Chan-woo drew from his embrace a single, tiny object that appeared utterly ordinary.
It was an "egg".
An ordinary egg, the sort seen only at Easter festivals.
"Easter Egg."
Park Chan-woo murmured the name softly.
This was the trace left by the Creator—his will made manifest.
He had scattered his traces throughout the Abyss, hoping that one day a worthy successor would arise to follow in his footsteps.
And this Easter Egg was the beginning and end of all those traces.
"The Creator hid his will within the vast game known as the Abyss."
Park Chan-woo's voice echoed quietly.
"He wouldn't have wanted us to be passive beings treading a predetermined path. He hoped we would become 'players'—exploring, discovering, unearthing hidden truths on our own."
Easter Eggs were the small gifts the Creator had left for those players.
"But these gifts concealed an even greater meaning."
Park Chan-woo lifted the Easter Egg clutched in his hand.
In response to his will, the other Easter Eggs dormant in his inventory resonated and materialized.
Lucky Easter Egg (001)
Harmony Easter Egg (002)
Honor Easter Egg (003)
Patience Easter Egg (004)
Insight Easter Egg (005)
The five eggs orbited him like satellites, each radiating a different colored light.
"These are the only keys capable of shattering this prison."
Park Chan-woo explained.
"This world was forged by the Creator's will. Thus, these Easter Eggs, infused with that same will, serve as the master keys—able to bypass the world's laws and intervene directly."
But he knew.
This alone was not enough.
He had yet to gather every Easter Egg.
He didn't even know precisely how many were hidden across the Abyss.
Across countless regressions, he had found no traces beyond these five.
Yet one thing was certain.
'Here, too.'
Park Chan-woo's gaze swept across the entirety of the Realm of the Creator where he stood.
'There must be an Easter Egg here as well.'
In this place—the origin and final destination of the Creator's traces—the most vital, primordial Easter Egg simply had to exist.
Likely the final piece, the number that would unify all the fragments he had collected thus far.
He had to find that last fragment.
'But where?'
How could he locate the Creator's ultimate secret amid this boundless expanse?
In that instant, realization flashed like lightning.
'Seeds.'
He had defined this world as the "Garden of Possibilities," the "Cradle of Seeds."
Then...
'Perhaps these Easter Eggs as well.'
Park Chan-woo regarded the five eggs circling him.
Perhaps the Easter Eggs themselves were another form of "seeds" left by the Creator.
As if some unborn entity slumbered within each one.
The possibility of luck. Of harmony. Of insight.
If they embodied the purest, most primordial archetypes of every concept...
Then the final Easter Egg was surely slumbering here in this cradle of seeds, nestled among the others.
Park Chan-woo delayed no longer.
He returned once more to the vast cave housing the Cradle of Seeds, accompanied by the light form.
Weaving through billions of dormant lives, he pressed to the cave's deepest recesses.
There lay a single seed, exuding an alien darkness.
Destruction. Or chaos itself.
Not a demon, yet more malevolent than any.
He had once wondered why such a seed existed.
But now, it appeared differently in Park Chan-woo's eyes.
Not evil.
'The Seed of Chaos.'
Even the Creator, who envisioned only order and harmony, had sown one dissonant note in his perfect world.
One variable.
Perhaps he had understood.
That perfect order bred stagnation, utter harmony led inevitably to decay.
That for life to truly grow and evolve, unpredictable chaos and destructive variables were essential.
This seed was the Creator's final "Easter Egg," planted in his world.
The ultimate failsafe against a fated path to ruin.
A joker card capable of overturning everything.
Park Chan-woo slowly extended his hand toward the Seed of Chaos.
The instant his hand touched the black membrane...
Kwaaaaaa!
The seed erupted in explosive darkness, seeking to devour Park Chan-woo's very existence.
But Park Chan-woo did not flee.
Instead, he willingly poured his consciousness into the maelstrom of chaos.
He saw it.
A single "egg"—all too familiar, yet utterly alien—slumbering at chaos's deepest core.
The number was "0." The numeral signifying the genesis of all things.
The acquired Easter Egg bore no description, no additional effects.
But this was the true master key.
The archetype of every seed. The terminus of all possibilities.
The Easter Egg of beginning and end, in the literal sense.
At once, the nucleus encapsulating the very essence of this Realm of the Creator.
He hesitated no longer.
He channeled his power into the number-zero Easter Egg gripped in his hand.
Kududuk!
An utterly small, mundane sound—the egg cracking.
But with that sound, the world began heralding its doom.
Kwaaaaaa!
From the shattered eggshell poured primordial chaos, a tsunami of condensed fury.
It was a force of "erasure" transcending mere destruction.
Rivers of light were swallowed by darkness and vaporized; crystal caves disintegrated into dust; rainbow forests screamed as they reverted to nothingness.
All the beauty wrought by the Creator futilely vanished before his final chaos.
Centered on himself, he unfurled a protective barrier, shielding a lone existence amid the crashing waves of chaos.
Lil's soul, fading into oblivion.
With everything he possessed, he endured to keep her faint glow from extinguishing in this apocalyptic tempest.
Without a world, no equivalent exchange was required.
His audacious gamble was manifesting as reality.
As the colossal prison known as the Realm of the Creator crumbled, the laws imprisoned within lost their dominion.
The "Curse of Dissipation" binding Lil's soul—the "Law of Equivalent Exchange" demanded to save her—collapsed feebly before this cataclysmic ruin.
How much time passed?
When the storm of destruction, eternal as the ages, finally abated...
The world was nothing but pitch-black void.
A perfect emptiness, devoid of all.
Only Park Chan-woo remained—and the single small light cradled in his arms.
And that light began to take shape.
Scattered soul fragments reassembled; the dim flame of life reignited.
At last, a woman quietly opened her eyes within his embrace.
More complete than before, a being that radiated its own light even in utter darkness.
Transcendent Lil.
She had been resurrected.
Lil gazed blankly up at the face of the disciple holding her.
After a long silence, she murmured in a voice laced with incredulity.
"......You ruthless bastard."
To think he had truly shattered the world to save her.
Park Chan-woo chuckled at her tone, a mix of reproach and exasperation.
"Now you know."
A profound bond flowed between them, beyond words.
It was then.
At their feet, in the heart of the barren void...
A tiny light bloomed.
The shattered number-zero Easter Egg.
From its fragments, having unleashed all chaos, the final remnant emerged—the "Seed of Hope."