Chapter 517
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 517
Chapter Title: Awakened Abyss (7)
Everything stopped.
The massive clamor of the colossal war that had shaken the entire Abyss vanished as if it had all been a lie.
The earth-shaking clash of the two primordial beings ceased, and the collapsing pitch-black Abyss froze in place, as though time itself had halted.
The great six lords who had watched the battle's aftermath in awe and terror.
Within their consciousnesses, the master of black glory muttered lowly.
Disappeared.
Right before their eyes, within the relay feed, the two massive entities locked in fierce combat vanished without a trace in an instant.
As if nothing had ever been there to begin with, only perfect nothingness remained.
The Abyss... had disappeared.
And at the same time.
Park Chan-woo... had also disappeared.
Silence.
Time passed.
The pitch-black Abyss had collapsed, but its interior remained filled with dense remnants of darkness.
The primordial light still faintly gleamed from afar, but no one dared to head toward it.
This cursed masked ball was far from over.
Their target, Park Chan-woo, was gone, and the pitch-black lord who had unleashed this Abyss had been annihilated.
Now, they were doomed to be trapped in this accursed space forever, without purpose or escape.
Despair settled like mist.
At first, no one believed he was truly dead.
Park Chan-woo was an immortal existence.
No matter the crisis, no matter the despair, he always rose again like a miracle.
But they refused to believe it.
He had merely vanished somewhere for the moment.
Soon, he would tear through this darkness and return even stronger than before—or so his comrades firmly believed.
Yet a day passed, then two.
Ten days by Abyss time, nearly thirty days.
He did not return.
The once-unshakable faith began to develop cracks.
Hope slowly turned to unease, and unease thickened into profound despair.
'...No way.'
They could no longer ignore that horrific possibility.
He had overwhelmed the Abyss with his transcendental might.
But in the end, he could not conquer that endless darkness.
He had walked into that deep quagmire of his own accord, never to emerge.
Park Chan-woo.
Humanity's savior, the dragons' new god, the Abyss's sole hope.
He had met his end through self-destruction.
As that despairing conclusion began to dominate the minds of all trapped in the darkness.
From the thrones of the six lords, long-suppressed triumphant laughter erupted.
Even they had not anticipated that Park Chan-woo would truly perish.
They had assumed he would reappear someday to cause trouble, so preparations were needed.
But to think he would so pathetically dig his own grave.
In the end, he was only human.
Snared by that pathetic, sentimental emotion called love, the foolish mortal had courted his own doom.
His legend concluded in the most human fashion imaginable.
Now, the Abyss would be theirs once more.
On the other hand.
Where Park Chan-woo's comrades had gathered.
Valhalla Square was shrouded in a silence as profound as a gravestone, laced with raw grief.
"......It's a lie."
Lee Hyuk-soo was the first to break the silence.
"The Prophet... can't die. Never."
As if affirming it to himself, he repeated the words again and again.
But his trembling voice betrayed his own wavering resolve.
A world bereft of its colossal sun, Park Chan-woo.
What were they to do now?
They had lost their path forward, their very reason to fight.
"We have to find him."
Lee Hyuk-soo clenched his sword tightly.
"We can't just sit here waiting. We have to go search for the Prophet!"
His shout drew every gaze toward him.
Someone asked from the darkness.
"How?"
But Lee Hyuk-soo refused to yield.
"......Even if there's no way, we have to go."
He roared.
"He sacrificed himself for us. How can we just stand by and watch? Even if it means death...... I have to go."
This could not be the end.
Lee Hyuk-soo moved first.
He drew his sword and hurled himself without hesitation toward the floating remnants of darkness—the 'Primordial Darkness'.
He had no plan for entry, no idea what to do inside.
Only the raw instinct to go, to save him, drove him forward.
But.
Kwaaaaaang!
"Urk!"
An invisible colossal wall.
Before he could even touch the boundary of darkness, an immense repulsive force flung him back. He vomited blood and crashed to the ground.
No matter how he struggled, the closer he approached, the further it receded—like a mirage—the darkness rejected him outright.
"Why!"
Deep down, he knew.
Their ranks simply did not match.
The Abyss was the primordial foundation of this realm.
No matter that he was hailed as the Sword King, humanity's pinnacle—he remained firmly mortal.
His rank did not even permit him to stand before the Abyss.
Lee Hyuk-soo slammed his fist into the ground, venting his rage.
Powerless.
He had believed himself stronger.
Through the racial wars and Lucid Dream, he had broken his limits, earned the right to stand at his side.
But no.
He was still a frail speck, denied even entry into that vast world.
The overwhelming disparity in rank loomed like an impassable wall.
No one could cross it.
The Abyss permitted no such thing.
Yet Lee Hyuk-soo rejected that truth.
"Out of my way!"
He rose again.
This time, no blind rush.
Instead, he regripped his sword.
The Lion King's power, the authority of shadows, every insight learned from the Prophet.
He poured it all into his blade's edge and swung at the invisible barrier.
Slash after slash after slash.
At first, not even a ripple stirred.
But he did not stop.
His sword wailed as if on the verge of shattering, his palms tore open and bled, yet he swung on like a machine.
Hundreds, thousands of strikes.
At last, a faint cracking sound echoed in the air.
But it was no hope.
Not his blade cutting the boundary—but the boundary's repulsion eroding his sword, his very being.
He abandoned the sword.
Lee Hyuk-soo threw his body at it.
Shoulder first, then back, then his entire frame ramming the unseen wall.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The dull impacts crushed the hearts of those watching.
Bones ground to powder in agony. Muscles screamed across his body, but he pressed on.
He even rammed with his head at the end.
Kwajik!
His forehead split open, crimson blood streaming down his face.
Vision blurred, consciousness fading.
Still, he did not stop.
His comrades could scarcely bear to watch that desperate frenzy.
Yet for all Lee Hyuk-soo's mad struggle, the Abyss only grew more distant.
The harder he approached, the vaster the hopeless gulf became.
Finally, Ataraxia stepped in, as if unable to watch any longer, blocking his path.
A massive dragon claw clamped down on Lee Hyuk-soo's shoulder.
"Enough, human."
Ataraxia's voice was low and grave.
His eyes held pity, mingled with the deep resignation of one sharing the same despair.
"I knew it the moment I saw it. That exalted rank disparity... is something we can never bridge."
Ataraxia wanted to save Park Chan-woo too.
His one true god. The being who had pulled him from despair.
For him, he would gladly lay down his life.
But this was no issue resolved by mere sacrifice.
Like an ant toppling the heavens.
The fundamental rank gap was an absolute wall no courage or devotion could fill.
"This... is a battle we cannot intervene in."
At his stark assessment, Lee Hyuk-soo roared like a beast.
"Shut your mouth! You... you know nothing! You have no idea what the Prophet means to me!"
But his defiance crumbled powerlessly.
"......"
Even Zero, who had rationally assessed the situation with cold logic, could only shake his head in silence before that heartrending scene.
In his calculations, any variables to turn this around converged toward zero.
All his data screamed it was futile.
It was then.
Across the Abyss, in demon territories everywhere, cheers erupted in unison, as if by prior agreement.
They had watched it all through the relay.
Park Chan-woo's annihilation.
And the pathetic, desperate flailing of his comrades.
The thrones of the six lords vibrated with gleeful laughter.
Their common enemy was gone.
They were certain their era had returned.
The demons pressed on with their festival.
While Park Chan-woo's comrades shed bloody tears in despair, the demons began reclaiming the Abyss as their domain.
Park Chan-woo's already shattered alliance.
Without its core, subjugating the weakened races one by one under fear's yoke would be simple.
The darkness was lifting, and the demons' era dawned anew.
Universal despair.
The demons' revelry.
Just as the scales of light and darkness tipped irreversibly once more.
...A miracle occurred.
Kwarrrrrrung!
All eyes turned to one spot.
The Primordial Darkness, unscathed no matter how fiercely Lee Hyuk-soo battered it.
On its flawless surface, hairline cracks like spiderwebs began to spread.
The demons' laughter ceased.
The fissures raced across the entire darkness in an instant.
And.
Shatter!
Like a colossal glass pane exploding, the pitch-black lord's perfect realm fragmented into shards.
Darkness shards scattered as luminous dust, revealing the original Valhalla landscape beyond.
In the heart of those ruins, they all beheld it.
A wondrous sight that beggared belief.
Park Chan-woo stood there.
Unmarred, the picture of utter serenity.
And cradled in his arms.
"......Adora."
Lee Hyuk-soo whispered her name in a quavering voice.
There lay the Death Witch Adora, sunk in deep slumber within Park Chan-woo's embrace.
Color had faintly returned to her pallid face, and the agony that once twisted her features was now one of perfect peace.
Park Chan-woo.
He had returned.
Having conquered the Abyss.
No—having subjugated it.
Adora had wholly devoured the Abyss.
She had become its true master.
Light and darkness had at last achieved perfect equilibrium.