Chapter 1
Chapter 1
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: Necromancer of the Sword Clan
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Rumble, boom!
Lightning tore through the darkened sky, and along with torrential rain, dazzling golden spears rained down.
Kaboom kaboom kaboom!
With an earth-shattering roar, the ground where the golden spears swept through was left in utter devastation.
Collapsed buildings.
Crater after crater dotting the entire city.
And at the center of the ruined city stood a lone man, drenched by the endless downpour.
'Is this the end for me too?'
Shin Yu-hyun, clad in a black coat, gritted his teeth.
One of the beings who had led humanity down the path to destruction loomed overhead, gazing down at him.
A being with pristine white wings flapping and a halo of light like an angel—Getia.
They appeared holy.
But Shin Yu-hyun knew the truth.
How demonic they truly were.
"You're finished now, too."
Above Shin Yu-hyun's head, Barbatos, the God of the Hunt, sneered down at him.
Behind him floated countless large and small golden magic circles.
And from within those golden magic circles, enormous spears were half-emerging.
Each one was a legendary-grade spear owned by Barbatos.
"Don't think you'll die easily. I need to vent the humiliation you caused me."
Barbatos spoke with evident delight.
Until now, there was no being he had failed to hunt.
Not even transcendent powerhouses.
But Shin Yu-hyun beneath his feet was the one he had repeatedly failed to claim.
Because of that, he had been scolded by the other Getia. What kind of god couldn't even catch a lowly human no better than livestock?
It was utter humiliation.
But that ended today.
He had finally cornered Shin Yu-hyun.
"If you can, then try."
"As expected of a lowly human—foolish to the end. You humans are slaves. I'll teach you that fact crystal clear."
Barbatos let out a chilling laugh.
To Barbatos... no, to the Getia, humans were nothing more than tools and slaves.
They hunted humans for sport and reveled in murder.
Some skewered them slowly on spits to savor their dying throes, while others bathed in human blood.
They even developed artifacts for torture or modified human bodies.
They toyed with humans, inflicting pain until their minds shattered.
Terror, despair, rage.
The negative emotions pouring from suffering humans granted the Getia indescribable pleasure and served as a source of energy that made them stronger.
"Demonic bastards."
Shin Yu-hyun glared at Barbatos with eyes filled with hatred.
"Still haven't grasped the situation, have you? Even after seeing this?"
Barbatos sneered and tossed something from his subspace in front of Shin Yu-hyun.
Thud, roll roll.
"...!"
In that instant, Shin Yu-hyun's eyes widened.
The object that fell onto the rain-slicked asphalt was a woman's severed head.
"W-Why...?"
Shin Yu-hyun reached out toward her head with an incredulous expression.
Maria Testarossa, the European witch.
A beauty in her early thirties with golden hair cascading to her waist and lake-blue eyes.
An indomitable woman who never yielded to the Getia, even in the most hopeless situations.
She was Shin Yu-hyun's lover.
And in this hellish world ruled by the Getia, she was his sole emotional anchor.
That's why he had hoped, at the very least, that she would survive.
But she had already been killed by Barbatos!
"A foolish woman. If she hadn't shown up trying to save you, she wouldn't have died."
"What?"
"She proposed a deal. She offered herself in exchange for me sparing you."
Barbatos furrowed his brow as he said it.
"It was truly unpleasant. For vermin like her to dare bargain with a god like me."
"So... you killed her?"
"Yes. I should have made it as painful as possible, but in my anger, I just blew her head off. No matter—now that I have you, it's fine. I'll kill you slowly and agonizingly."
Barbatos wore a delighted grin.
Just imagining how to torture Shin Yu-hyun lifted his spirits.
"... ."
Barbatos's repulsive laughter echoed in his ears.
But Shin Yu-hyun ignored the laughing Barbatos entirely.
He simply gazed down at Maria lying cold on the ground.
Pouring rain.
In the relentless downpour, Shin Yu-hyun carefully cradled Maria's head to his chest.
Only chill seeped into him.
He could no longer feel her warmth.
In that moment, realization struck.
She was gone from this world.
"Uwaaaaaagh!"
Unable to accept the truth, Shin Yu-hyun clutched her head and let out a vengeful scream.
At the same time, he drew up the mana remaining in his body.
Immediately after, a woman's mechanical voice rang in Shin Yu-hyun's mind, and a message appeared before his eyes like augmented reality.
It was the system ability, exclusive to superhumans.
Kabooooom!
The moment his unique skill activated, a shockwave erupted centered on Shin Yu-hyun.
The pouring rain was repelled by the shockwave.
For a brief instant, a rain-free void formed.
And that wasn't all.
Soon, system messages appeared before his eyes.
Flash!
In that instant, an immense aura exploded outward from Shin Yu-hyun.
Confirming the message before him, Shin Yu-hyun gripped his longsword tightly.
'I don't know what's happening... but one second is enough.'
Zero Point Break—a skill that compressed all his mana in a single second.
In that instant, his mana surged like it was scorching his bloodstream with intense heat.
Even time itself seemed to slow; the raindrops falling from the ashen sky hung motionless.
Within that, Shin Yu-hyun unleashed his final strike toward Barbatos.
Heaven-Splitting Swordsmanship.
Secret technique, Sky-Splitting!
And the world split apart.
How much time had passed?
Shin Yu-hyun suddenly opened his eyes.
Dazzling white light stabbed at them.
He realized he was lying on a flat surface.
'Where...?'
Rising, he looked around with furrowed brows in confusion.
Just moments ago, he had been fighting Barbatos in a city reduced to ruins by the Getia.
Yet now, a blindingly bright white world stretched before him?
An endless white horizon blurred the line between sky and earth.
And in the sky with its white sun hung seven enormous moons in rainbow hues, each several times larger than Earth's moon.
'What the hell is going on?'
Shin Yu-hyun scanned his surroundings with a puzzled expression.
In that moment.
Flash! Rumble rumble rumble!
White light erupted from all directions, shaking the world.
"Urk!"
Blinding flashes and deafening tinnitus overwhelmed Shin Yu-hyun's senses.
His mind grew hazy.
Then, roars began echoing from every side.
Kraaaaaargh!
'What in the world...?'
Furrowing his face, he narrowed his eyes.
This time, an endless plain came into blurry view!
'Now where is this?'
In this dreamlike haze between reality and illusion, Shin Yu-hyun frowned.
But the real issue was elsewhere.
Glowing red eyes gleaming menacingly amid the plain.
'Magic beasts?'
The landscape was unfamiliar, but the creatures on the plain were all too familiar.
They matched the magic beasts that had ravaged Earth before the Getia appeared.
He had slaughtered countless such beasts, but the scene before him made him hesitate.
Hundreds of thousands of magic beasts undulated across the plain like waves.
Yet what truly caught Shin Yu-hyun's eye wasn't the endless plain or the horde of beasts.
'That guy...'
Amid his hazy vision, a lone man stood before the tidal wave of magic beasts.
Black flames roared behind him like a cape—an striking sight.
Fwoosh!
Soon, black flames formed in his hands and fanned out toward the beasts.
Kieeeek!
Hundreds of magic beasts before him were engulfed in black flames, crumbling to ash!
And that was just the beginning.
A massive grimoire now floated before the man.
Flip flip!
It opened wide, pages turning one by one.
Behind him, undead with blue ghostly flames in their eyes rose from the earth.
Soon, an army of hundreds of thousands of undead descended.
The man seemed to be a necromancer.
Not only that, but seven beings of a clearly superior tier guarded his side.
Hundreds of thousands of undead versus hundreds of thousands of magic beasts.
Moments later, the monsters filling the vast plain clashed.
'Incredible.'
Shin Yu-hyun stared in awe.
Roars and war cries echoed as the ground trembled.
The magic beasts were no match for the undead. Slain beasts rose again as undead, swelling their ranks the longer the battle dragged on.
Overwhelmed by the growing undead horde, the magic beasts faltered.
Shin Yu-hyun watched bitterly.
The Getia, who called themselves gods, were overwhelmingly powerful.
Humanity crumbled helplessly before the vast magic beasts they commanded.
Once the beasts swept through, the Getia's follow-up assaults sealed the deal.
In the end, humanity became slaves to the Getia.
'If only that guy had been on Earth, he could have stopped the Getia.'
With power on a whole other level from ordinary necromancers, that man could have repelled the magic beasts ravaging Earth.
Perhaps he could have driven off the Getia and prevented humanity's enslaved torment.
With that thought, Shin Yu-hyun gazed bitterly at the man and his seven companions.
Grrr.
Right then, one of the seven—a blue wolf—turned its head and looked straight at Shin Yu-hyun.
'What?'
A chill ran down Shin Yu-hyun's spine. He had thought it all a vision.
But this blue hound-like hunter was peering at him across time?
What did that even mean?
Awoooooooo!
As Shin Yu-hyun stared in shock, the blue hound let out a long howl.
At the same time, blinding golden light erupted, engulfing him.
"Urk!"
Unable to make sense of his surroundings in the piercing golden radiance, he shielded his eyes.
Amid the flashing gold, his mind reeled.
Moments later, amid the darkness of his closed eyes, golden text appeared.
With that message, Shin Yu-hyun lost consciousness.
Beep beep beep.
How much time had passed?
A familiar alarm rang in Shin Yu-hyun's ears—the smartphone tone from his high school days.
"Gasp!"
Startled awake, he bolted upright in bed.
He looked around.
"Where...?"
The place where Shin Yu-hyun came to was a room.
A nostalgic, familiar sight.
"No way... my room?"
Indeed.
This was the exact room where he had spent his childhood in the clan.
Hastily, he grabbed the smartphone blaring the alarm.
[January 15, 2022 07:10]
"2022? Ten years ago?"
Shin Yu-hyun's eyes bulged.
January 2022 was right after he turned twenty.
And that meant...
'Have I returned to the past?'
How on earth?