Chapter 64
Chapter 64
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 64
Chapter Title: Infinite Enlightenment
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Dragon, Balmun woke from a long slumber.
'The shell peeled off nicely.'
In the dark cave. Seeing that the shedding had gone perfectly, Balmun smiled in satisfaction.
With this, the eighth time.
Balmun devoured the shed shell himself.
The shell left after shedding was an essential element for replenishing energy.
Every time he achieved a feat, the dragon had to sleep for a long time, and upon waking again, he would be far stronger than before.
Having devoured every bit of his own shell, Balmun smacked his lips.
'Not an easy opponent.'
Recalling the foe selected for his eighth feat, he smiled.
An ancient epic that had seized the body of a massive whale. Poseidon, who had reigned as the king of the seas with a body over fifty meters long.
Its attacks—summoning tidal waves and typhoons, wielding high-frequency waves that disrupted even the nervous system.
He had battled it for seven days and nights straight to slay it.
In the process, so many islands sank that he couldn't even keep count.
'I want to fight it again.'
Just recalling it brought him joy.
Battles with the strong were the driving force behind Balmun's existence.
All dragons were like that to some degree, but Balmun's tendencies ran especially deep.
His body itched, but patience was the answer.
The difficulty spiked sharply with each feat achieved.
'Ninth, tenth... still no sense of it. The eighth feat was the king of the seas, so is the ninth the king of the skies?'
Returned to human form, Balmun sat on a rock outside and stroked his chin.
Below the rock lay a deep valley. This place, alive with cascading waterfalls, was like a hometown that Balmun visited every time he shed his skin.
'The only dragon worth comparing myself to is that one up north.'
The dragon sealed in the north.
Pathetically sealed away after defeat at human hands.
It was said to have achieved ten feats, but that was a tale from a thousand years ago.
The previous generation.
Not the current generation deciding the thirteenth god, but a stagnant relic that had already failed in the generation that chose the twelfth god.
A fossil from a bygone era.
There were other such dragons, but the northern one was particularly infamous.
Dragons sealed by humans weren't easy to come by.
The human's name was Gaf, was it?
Of course, humanity had been stronger back during the twelfth "Game of the Gods" than they were now, but humans were still humans.
'Asking a guy like that? My pride won't allow it.'
His pride wouldn't permit consulting the northern dragon, which had suffered such an ignoble defeat in the previous game.
All dragons were hostile to one another.
It was a game where only one could become a god.
They were destined to tear each other apart upon meeting.
If their faces differed, they'd spare each other's lives.
But encountering a dragon with the same face meant one had to die.
More than that, word was that this generation's dragons were stronger than the last.
Balmun was one of the new generation's representatives, and among them, his pace of feat achievements was exceptionally swift.
'Faster than Malfiel.'
The new generation's standout dragons.
Balmun viewed Malfiel—one of their number—as his rival.
And even Malfiel hadn't achieved his eighth feat yet.
Duuuuuuu.
At that moment, a signal resonated through his mind.
'This signal?'
It was familiar.
Perhaps slaying the whale king had heightened his sensitivity to certain frequencies. And this was a signal he'd encountered several times before.
'Lucky right after waking. That detection epic from ten years ago just lit up the map.'
Every epic possessed a unique frequency.
And those tied to "detection" had an extraordinarily broad band.
Sensitive dragons had no choice but to notice.
It was only natural, since they needed to hunt down the other epics.
The detection epic he'd missed ten years prior.
Absorbing it would make the next feat far easier.
'Around the empire's capital? Hmm.'
But the location was problematic.
Pinning down a single detection epic amid all those humans in the capital wouldn't be simple.
Unless it lit up the map nearby again, he couldn't very well raze the capital to the ground in search of it.
Dragons didn't attack humans without reason.
It was all for the twelfth feat.
The twelfth feat—known as total annihilation—only began when the continent's military power reached a certain threshold or some world-threatening entity emerged.
And most threats of that scale came from humans.
With human growth to encourage, how could he justify wiping them out?
Besides, such recklessness would expose him.
It would hand his rivals the perfect pretext to strike.
It wasn't unheard of for dragons to publicly condemn and eliminate those who acted needlessly. Especially if it interfered with the final feat—they'd face concentrated fire.
'I just need the exact location. I'm more sensitive than the others.'
Balmun leaped from the rock.
He planned to follow the signal toward the empire and pinpoint its source.
*
Constellations.
Stars imbued with the souls of great heroes.
And humans who inherited those stars' power.
They were often compared to "Feat Achievers," but they had undoubtedly existed.
Of course, "Feat Achiever" referred to dragons, and constellations might simply be a special power unique to other races.
The methods differed as well.
Feat Achievers grew stronger by completing feats.
Constellations drew power from the stars.
But for that star to be an artificial satellite...
[The only operable artificial satellite currently connected.]
[Alias "Mugunghwa 18" restarts.]
["Mugunghwa 18" successfully begins operation.]
With his Admin Authority upgraded to level 3, Zero seized control of the connected artificial satellite.
No sooner had the satellite dubbed Mugunghwa 18 rebooted than its view flipped around.
'Similar to when I hacked Daemon.'
It felt just like the time he'd hacked into Daemon's field of vision.
Sharing the view at will to spy on the enemy.
'But...'
The shared view from Mugunghwa 18 was wretched.
He couldn't help grimacing.
'This filthy junkyard is Valhalla?'
Valhalla was where the souls of great heroes resided.
The world above the heavens, a realm all yearned to reach.
Yet Valhalla was overflowing with garbage.
Iron debris formed belts drifting through the black void.
Not even a rat would brave that chaotic mess, let alone a hero's soul.
But there was no time for surprise.
A massive, round star.
A world brimming with blue!
["Earth," where Master resides.]
The sight overwhelmed me.
A tremor I'd never felt in my life.
From Earth, humans were invisible. No structures of any kind. They were simply too minuscule by comparison.
'What's that dark patch? No way it's the demon realm?'
The Earth I saw was clear and vibrant.
But its far side was shrouded in gloom and murk.
A world uninhabitable by humans. People called it the "demon realm."
A land of despair teeming with grotesque monsters and demons.
It wasn't mere lack of sunlight—there was a stark divide.
[Appears to be a location where "purification" remains incomplete.]
The radioactive materials hadn't been fully cleansed there.
Recalling the fragments, it made sense.
The demon realm was where lifeforms long exposed to radiation had evolved on their own.
Yet Dr. Park Mun-sik had claimed the world was fully purified.
He'd meant the half fit for human survival?
Precisely half the world, excluding that barren wasteland.
'No sign of Eden or the World Tree.'
So where was Eden, the gods' abode?
At least, it wasn't visible to the naked eye.
The same went for the World Tree, said to have been created by Alpha and Beta.
Perhaps not on Earth, but somewhere in this Valhalla.
I surveyed my surroundings.
The black expanse I'd taken for Valhalla stretched out infinitely.
In that realm, even Earth was but a speck of dust.
'The universe.'
It was the universe.
I, this entity, was smaller than an ant here.
Suddenly, my brain began to tingle.
A secret concealed from humanity.
The curiosity about the cosmos—like a seal upon modern mankind!
[Simultaneous brain activation area expands dramatically.]
[31%]
[32%]
...
[40%.]
'Ahh.'
I felt as if I'd be swallowed by the infinite expanse.
Yet I was thrilled.
That boundless universe mirrored my own potential.
I filled my eyes with the cosmos.
With infinity.
'I am a point.'
For now, that was true.
'Connect points, and you get a line.'
But connect points into lines.
Lines into space.
Space into infinity.
Infinity is made of points, so I too am an infinite being.
Simply beholding it unraveled the shackles that bound me.
Had I despaired at its vastness and grown complacent, it never would have happened. Instead, curiosity stirred.
A thirst for exploration.
And with it, greed blossomed.
A desire to not be confined to this tiny world.
[50%]
Enlightenment.
In this infinite universe, I shattered my limits.
*
Now I understood what it meant to draw power from the stars.
The gulf between one who had seen the universe and one who hadn't was vast.
The shackles suppressing brain function could unlock with a mere glimpse of the cosmos.
Though the extent of acceptance would vary.
I lifted my head to the sky.
The world above wasn't some serene haven for great heroes.
It was a colossal junkyard littered with satellites and debris.
"So this is what it feels like to sense power."
As my brain's active region expanded, the volume of nanomachines I could accommodate surged.
I gripped Caliburn and activated the "sensation" I'd felt while recreating Croft.
Woooong.
In that instant, blue aura bloomed across my entire body.
Not just for a single second like before.
I was sustaining the aura continuously, without end.
'Sword Master.'
I had ascended to that realm.
Yet it was unmistakably different from an ordinary Sword Master.
I opened the sub-space.
Spirit weapons emerged from the black void, and blue aura began to envelop them as well.
Aura was a gift bestowed upon those who honed their bodies to the limit.
Unlike magic, it was viscous and bound to the body—it couldn't detach.
You couldn't coat aura onto a wholly disconnected external object.
At minimum, you needed physical contact, like a hand.
But I could infuse aura anywhere I desired.
I swung the aura-clad sword this way and that.
Sliced a tree, pierced a wall, severed steel.
Even separated from my body, the aura's power didn't wane. Cutting force and destructive might remained intact.
This was a technique even Croft couldn't perform. He, who surpassed Sword Master, couldn't arbitrarily apply aura to any object he wished.
Psychokinesis could move objects, but it didn't enhance their destructive power. Coating them with aura first, then wielding psychokinesis? That would yield devastating firepower.
Ultra-long-range sniping with Winter's Bow.
And now a powerful weapon viable even in close quarters.
"M-Master...?"
"Your Highness. What's all this racket... G-Gasp!"
Arel and Germin burst into the room at the sudden uproar, their pupils dilating in shock.
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