Chapter 501
Chapter 501
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 501
Chapter Title: Genesis
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It was just like Pandora's box.
The storm of chaos that shattered the world and devoured everything had finally come to a stop.
Left in the heart of the void was a single, tiny light.
It was the seed of hope born from the fragments of the shattered Easter Egg No. 0.
But a seed could only emit light.
All it did was illuminate the path through the darkness.
It wasn't enough. Not nearly enough to let hope bloom.
This faint, lonely glow was far too weak to fill that vast emptiness or heal the grievous wounds of annihilation.
"...How hollow."
Lil, who had just awakened in Park Chan-woo's arms, murmured softly as she gazed at the barren world.
Her voice carried a profound sense of emptiness.
The price he had paid to save her was far too great.
The Creator's final cradle, the primordial garden where the seeds of all possibilities had slumbered, was completely gone.
And all that sacrifice had yielded was this single speck of light.
"This light alone... can't restart anything. The void is too immense, too cold. This seed will just shine alone in the darkness before fading away."
Her pessimistic diagnosis was spot on.
For hope to grow, it needed 'soil' to nurture it.
But right now, there was nothing beneath their feet.
Park Chan-woo silently shook his head at her despairing prophecy.
"Hope doesn't fade."
Park Chan-woo reached out his hand once more.
In response to his will, five eggs radiating different lights materialized in the air.
Luck, Harmony, Honor, Patience, and Insight.
They were the other wills of the Creator that he had gathered throughout his long journey.
"However, hope can't grow on its own."
His gaze turned to the seed of hope shining lonely at his feet.
"It needs soil to take root in, nutrients to sustain its growth. It needs 'luck' to sprout, 'harmony' to blend with others, 'honor' that won't break, 'patience' to endure trials, and 'insight' to find the right path."
He gently caressed each of the five Easter Eggs orbiting around him.
"Easter Eggs. At first, I thought they were the Creator's footprints. But no. They were the most fundamental 'values' that make up this world. Reminders of the hope we must never forget."
He resolved himself willingly.
To offer all these values as sacrifices for one great beginning.
Park Chan-woo placed all the Easter Eggs around the seed.
The moment the five eggs settled into a circle around the seed of hope, the miracle began.
Wooooong!
The seed at the center began greedily devouring the light.
A crack first appeared in the 'Easter Egg of Luck', and the capricious, brilliant essence within poured into the seed.
The seed then began to grow, using the Easter Egg as nourishment.
A tiny sprout pierced through the void.
One by one, the Easter Eggs of Harmony, Honor, Patience, and Insight shattered in turn.
The primordial concepts slumbering inside flowed into the newborn sprout like rivers.
The sprout's growth was wondrous.
In an instant, its stem thickened, branches extended, and leaves budded.
Into a tree. A colossal tree.
The growth didn't stop.
The tree began extending roots and branches in every direction of this empty space, where sky and earth held no distinction.
As if creating a new universe.
It was evolving into the true World Tree that connected the Abyss.
The Easter Eggs of Luck and Harmony, Honor and Patience, and Insight dyed the entirety of the Creator's Domain in their own colors.
The leaves nourished by Luck shimmered in unpredictable rainbow hues, creating 'possibility' where all laws remained flexible and alive.
The branches that absorbed Harmony intertwined in the most perfect forms without hindrance, forging a space of 'balance' where all beings could coexist.
The trunk infused with Honor rose steadfast and majestic, unshakable even by storms of chaos, becoming the unyielding 'pillar' of the new world.
The roots that drank in the essence of Patience burrowed to the deepest voids, dropping a firm 'anchor' to ensure the world would never lose its way or drift again.
And finally, when the Easter Egg of Insight became the last nourishment.
At the highest tip of the World Tree's branches, billions of flowers bloomed simultaneously.
Each petal cradled countless stars like a galaxy, those stars endlessly cycling through creation and annihilation, singing the world's every 'principle' and 'truth'.
"...Ah."
Lil was at a loss for words.
The old garden left by the Creator that she knew was gone.
In its place, a new world was being born—infinitely more dynamic and brimming with life than before.
This wasn't restoration. Not even imitation.
It was the realm of true 'creation'.
To save her, he had shattered the world and personally sculpted a far greater one from the ruins.
She looked at Park Chan-woo.
The disciple she had staked everything on believing in.
"You... might be closer to being a Creator than Him."
Park Chan-woo shook his head at Lil's quiet murmur.
"I'm not a Creator."
He gazed up at the newly born World Tree and said,
"This tree will be a home where everyone can find their way back, no matter how lost they are."
A grand 'crossroads' and 'beacon' connecting all worlds.
Its branches reached into the Abyss's depths, its roots into Earth's soil, its petals into the rifts' chaos, linking all severed paths into one.
The place where Park Chan-woo stood was now the center of everything.
Lil's eyes widened.
All worlds unfolded before them.
The Abyss.
That endless abyss ruled by demons' greed and chaos.
As the World Tree's branches touched it, the disordered flows of mana began to stabilize.
Torn and collapsing territories drew together like magnets, forming a massive continent, and faint new life energies rose from the land.
The Rifts.
The precarious buffer zone that purified errors.
As the World Tree's petals scattered there, the frequency of emerging errors visibly decreased.
Chaotic energies were absorbed and purified by the petals, lightening Cygnus's burden as well.
The Rifts were transforming from ticking time bombs into unknown realms pregnant with new possibilities.
The Reaper Realm.
Where the wheels of reincarnation had ground to a halt.
As the World Tree's roots reached it, the river of souls grew richer.
Under Chronos's new order, lost souls now followed the roots as guides, heading to their next lives without hesitation.
And finally, the Creator's Domain.
Now to be called the 'Heart of the World Tree'.
The four realms—Abyss, Rifts, Reaper Realm, and Creator's Domain—were reborn and perfected, forming a single flawless cycle.
The severed worlds were now organically linked through the World Tree's vast neural network.
Seeing that message, both Park Chan-woo and Lil's faces filled with puzzlement.
"A grade?"
"Recognized as a complete universe...?"
The Abyss had grades?
Only now recognized as a proper universe?
What did it even mean?
Park Chan-woo had uncovered countless secrets through his regressions, and Lil was a transcendent who had lived eons.
Even they had never heard of such a concept.
The 'grade of a world'.
It sounded like the vast world they'd lived in was being evaluated under some invisible greater system.
Lil's pupils trembled.
That was the true face of the Abyss they'd lived in.
The fate of endlessly sacrificing others to avert doom.
"Transcendent Abyss..."
Lil murmured softly.
The prison where the transcendents had confined themselves was a microcosm of a B-grade world.
No more Great Rifts?
The moment he read that, Park Chan-woo's heart pounded fiercely.
Were the threats of Great Rifts and outer gods truly gone?
Did the long war with the Destroyers end so anticlimactically?
But deep down, Park Chan-woo shook his head.
It couldn't mean that.
Nothing in the world came free.
Greater power and stability always came with greater responsibilities and threats.
"..."
A new beginning meant new competition.
It was like the Racial Wars.
To avoid annihilation, to climb higher.
A brutal survival game where they trampled each other.
But the scale was incomparably vast.
Racial Wars were fought by a race's strongest warriors, and total annihilation was rare.
Defeat usually meant stagnation or enslaving some population—humiliating penalties.
Universe War was different.
The stakes were the world's very survival.
Defeat meant the universe's obliteration.
And the weight of that responsibility was incomparable.