Chapter 531
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 531
Chapter Title: Polar Night
Behind Lilith's back, in the void darker than darkness itself, an inconceivably massive 'moon' appeared.
It was on an entirely different level from the thirteen cursed moons that had appeared before.
Its size was impossible to gauge.
It was vast enough to blanket the entire sky and then some.
It had no color.
Like it had devoured all light and shadow alike, it was simply a perfect sphere of emptiness.
As if it were a colossal eyeball.
Gazing down indifferently at the entire Abyss and every lowly creature dwelling within it.
All who beheld that moon had no choice but to fall asleep.
"Guhk..."
"S-So... sleepy..."
The hulking bodies of the giant warriors holding back the demonic tidal wave at the front lines collapsed powerlessly to the ground.
The dragons raining lightning bolts from the skies halted their wingbeats, their enormous forms plummeting to the earth like autumn leaves in the wind.
The dusky assassins hidden in the shadows slipped into eternal slumber within those same shadows.
Even the Twelve Sovereigns were no exception.
Hecate resisted until the very end, but even his iron will crumbled like a sandcastle before the overwhelming drowsiness emanating from the 'Infinite Moon'.
The heroes' desperate struggles, the demons' frenzied roars—all of it sank into silence.
The battlefield transformed into a vast graveyard in an instant.
But there was one exception.
In this colossal wave of slumber, only a single person remained awake.
Adora.
She was a being born from the depths.
One who had never dreamed to begin with.
Only then did Lilith speak for the first time.
—Do you not wish to dream?
Adora gave no reply.
She merely gazed down with empty eyes at her fallen comrades and sleeping foes.
—Look around you. They are all lost in happy dreams.
Lilith's words rang true.
Forgetting the horrors of the battlefield, an eerie peace settled over their faces.
The visages twisted in blood and agony smoothed out, faint smiles even gracing their lips.
Some dreamed of reuniting with family in their homeland, others of reclaiming lost glory, and still others of sweet moments with loved ones.
In this hellish battlefield, they had at last found respite.
Lilith spoke again.
—This is true peace.
There was no malice in her voice.
Only pity and sorrow filled it.
—This Abyss and the world beyond are brimming with suffering. From the moment of birth, they compete, fight, and steal from one another. The strong trample the weak, and the victors build their kingdoms atop the losers' corpses. This is the cruel instinct called 'life'.
Her gaze drifted into the distant past.
—I, too, once rejected that instinct. I dreamed with the Creator of a harmonious world. But look at the result. War, betrayal, endless ruin. Life cannot save itself.
Her tone grew resolute.
—Thus, I merely seek to put them all to sleep, to end this wretched strife. In an eternal dream free of further pain or sorrow, they will relive only their happiest moments forever.
Was it mercy, or the cruelest curse?
Adora could not answer.
But her heart cried out firmly.
This was not peace.
"That is false respite."
Adora spoke for the first time.
"Dreams must eventually awaken. A dream from which one cannot wake is no different from death."
—And why is death so bad?
Lilith countered.
—If life is suffering, then is not death true salvation? I grant them eternal happiness greater than death. Why do you deny it, my child?
Her gaze turned to Adora.
The fragment born from the depths.
The being most like her, who should understand her will best.
—Do you not desire eternal sleep over this painful world?
At those words, Park Chan-woo's face surfaced in Adora's memories.
The sight of him leaping into the depths to save her.
The warmth of his hand pulling her from this cold darkness.
She shook her head.
"I... wish to remain awake."
—Why?
"Because I want to see this world with him. To feel every sorrow, every pain, every joy at his side."
That was the reason for her life she had found.
Even if it ended in the ruin foretold by the Black Witch.
She would run no longer.
—Foolish child.
Lilith's voice grew icy cold.
—You, too, are ensnared by the most fleeting illusion called 'love'. Have you still not realized it brings only greater pain?
Lilith sighed deeply in disappointment.
—O depths. You are born of me. You know better than anyone how dark and grim this world is. Have you not witnessed with your own eyes how easily love, hope, all those shining things shatter and are defiled?
Her gaze swept over the sleeping battlefield.
Into their dreams.
—Recall it. Did not every curse of the Abyss flow into you? They cannot even handle the filth they create themselves. They merely pass it on, ignore it, discard it where unseen. You were the endpoint of all that ugliness.
Adora could not deny it.
For that was the truth of the world she had seen.
Over eons in the depths, she had beheld every sort of human, their ugly true faces.
—Would you protect such beings?
Lilith asked.
—Come with me, my child. I will show you true happiness. A perfect world free of pain, sorrow, betrayal. A paradise where good and evil do not exist, where all are equal and blissful. I will lead you all to that eternal dream paradise.
It was a whisper of salvation.
A temptation so sweet, it could sever the chains of endless strife and suffering.
But Adora refused.
"False happiness."
Her voice was steel-hard.
"Joy exists because of sorrow, light shines because of darkness. The equal happiness you speak of is no different from death, where nothing is felt."
—Foolish indeed.
Lilith's patience began to wear thin.
—You have been tainted by the Creator's specious hope, even after he abandoned us. Even after he turned his back on this failed world. Do you still cling to the outdated myths he left behind?
Behind her, wings formed of billions of black hands writhed and stretched toward Adora.
—Very well. If you refuse to sleep, I shall put you to rest myself.
The wave of black hands blotted out the sky, surging toward Adora like a tsunami—right then.
Kwarrrrrr rumble!
The sky tore open.
The pitch-black polar night conjured by the Infinite Moon.
A hole pierced its perfect veil of night.
And through that rift.
A single streak of blue lightning plunged down like the wrath of a god.
Before Lilith could react, it pierced straight through one of her massive black wings.
—...!
A groan of pain escaped the primordial being, Lilith, for the first time.
The billions of vengeful spirits comprising her wing screamed and scattered, a massive hole torn in her perfect darkness.
She stared in disbelief at the remnants of blue flame that had pierced her shoulder.
—...Heavenly Retribution?
It was a power so familiar, yet so utterly alien.
That such pure, potent light of creation had lingered in the Abyss during her eons of slumber...
Her hollow eyes fixed on a single being.
Beyond the torn rift in the sky.
At the boundary of Abyss and depths, the heart of all chaos.
...Park Chan-woo stood there.
One of his eyes shone with radiant starlight forged in the Creator's domain.
The other sank deeper than primordial darkness, embracing Adora's depths.
陰 and 陽. Light and darkness. Creation and destruction.
The perfect incarnation of balance, holding all contradictions within one being.
—...So it's you.
Lilith murmured softly.
—The final variable left by the Creator.
She halted her assault on Adora.
Such a trivial fragment no longer mattered.
All her consciousness, all her instincts focused on one being: Park Chan-woo.
The true adversary.
The sole threat to her eternal dream—and the one plaything to bring thrill to this boring world.
—Come.
Lilith spread her arms wide.
—I shall show you my dream as well.
Two primordial beings.
One dreaming the dream of ending all things.
The other dreaming the dream of awakening all.
Park Chan-woo descended slowly to the ground amid her mad welcome.
He surveyed his sleeping comrades, the ruined battlefield, and the colossal 'Infinite Moon' gazing down on it all.
And slowly opened his mouth.
"Now I understand."
He spoke as if he had grasped everything.
"Why the Creator abandoned you. Now I see."
—...
The languid smile faded from Lilith's face.
For the first time, an emotion flickered in her hollow eyes.
Rage.
But Park Chan-woo did not stop.
He pierced the essence of this false peace Lilith had wrought.
"You are nothing but a deluded dreamer."
He coldly rebuked the futility of her delusions.
"Making everyone happy in your dream? Forced respite, a paradise without choice. That isn't happiness to begin with."
It was merely the most arrogant form of 'domination'—imposing one's ideals on others.
A dictatorship denying the natural parts of life like pain and sorrow, enforcing only her defined 'happiness'.
A world where all dreamed the same.
Denying diversity, halting growth—a living death.
"The Creator abandoned you out of fear that your vain delusion might become reality."
Park Chan-woo's final words struck like a dagger.
"No, not abandoned. He killed you. To keep this Abyss from being swallowed by the stagnant nightmare you embody."
Silence fell.
Lilith's face hardened utterly.
Slowly, gracefully, she raised a single finger toward Park Chan-woo.
A motion laced with contempt, as if pointing at an insect.
And whispered.
A single word, more vicious and primal than any curse in the Abyss.
—...Black Heavenly Retribution.
Kwarrrrrr rumble!
From her fingertip, black lightning exploded as if ripping the night sky itself asunder.
The antithesis of the blue light of creation Park Chan-woo wielded—a light of utter destruction and annihilation, reverting all to nothingness.
Pure malice intent on incinerating him like an insect, erasing his very existence from the world.
Yet Park Chan-woo stood unmoved before that overwhelming wave of destruction.
As if it were all too familiar, he lightly gestured.
"Heavenly Retribution."
Kwaaaaaaaa!
Two Heavenly Retributions.
Lilith's 'Black Heavenly Retribution' and Park Chan-woo's 'Blue Heavenly Retribution'.
The two absolute magics, clashing in the void with opposing hues.
No cataclysmic explosion occurred as expected.
Light and darkness, creation and annihilation.
The colossal forces denied each other's existence, devouring and canceling one another in a perfect deadlock, neither yielding an inch.
A mirror match of evenly matched powers.
—...Hoh.
Pure wonder dawned in Lilith's eyes for the first time.
To withstand head-on the power infused with primordial malice.
—You have reached the pinnacle with Heavenly Retribution. You knew it was the path to its 'ultimate essence'?
To her question, Park Chan-woo merely shrugged.
"I just used it because it was easy and fast."
He meant it.
Shackled by negative levels after regression, unable to wield complex magic, Heavenly Retribution had been his only option.
He had simply dug one well for survival, only to strike an ocean.
At that utterly plain yet arrogant reply, Lilith fell silent for a moment.
Then, she burst into an eerie laugh.
—Indeed. Indeed, the variable left by the Creator.
She marveled not at his talent, but his 'fate'.
As if all flowed along a predestined path.
—Heavenly Retribution is the Creator's power.
Lilith revealed its true nature.
—The light that forged this world, the heaven's sword judging those who disrupt order. I stole his light and dyed it with my darkness, while you reached its essence through your own will. But in the end, we both dance upon his palm.
Her eyes chilled once more.
—Thus, you shall perish here by my hand. You cannot defeat me—his most perfect creation—with your crude imitation of his power.