The King of the Dead Resurrects
"Track every Ranker's movements in real time and report them to me."
"Yes, Master."
"We need to be the first to pinpoint where the King of the Dimensional Rift emerged. Killing one king will serve us better than wiping out the monsters from a handful of minor cracks."
"Understood, Master."
The warriors moved out in perfect coordination. Amid the bustle, Master rubbed at a brow that refused to smooth.
A clear is happening somewhere I don't know about.
The forces he had scattered across the world weren't limited to his warriors. Countless organizations cooperated with him. Even the American government was among them. Information from every corner of the globe poured into his eyes and ears in real time.
And yet nowhere — not a single place — was there any report of monsters emerging through a dimensional rift. The only explanation was that someone he didn't know was clearing the raid somewhere he couldn't see.
I have to find them.
He could not afford to let this chance slip. This was the perfect opportunity he had spent years honing — the chance to become the protagonist of the story.
Gracia tilted his head from the rooftop railing of Lotte World Tower in Jamsil.
"Strange."
A crack had definitely opened in the sky. On the ground, Korean soldiers and Players stood ready for an invasion. Collision was all that remained — and yet the enemy never came.
The progress is climbing fast. That means someone is clearing it.
But who?
Phantom flickered through his mind for an instant, then he dismissed it. Impossible. No matter how gifted Phantom was, he had been a Player for less than half a year. Even Phantom had limits to how strong he could become in that short a time.
I expected the Hydragon's master to appear once the invasion began.
That was why Gracia was still in Korea — to find the Player who carried the Hydragon's soul. The man had shown himself during the previous two invasions, so Gracia had been certain he would appear when the crack opened as well.
The crack had opened on schedule. The problem was that no invasion was taking place.
Swoooooosh!
Swords arrayed themselves around Gracia.
"If I poke it, something should react."
He murmured the words and fired the blades one after another into the crack.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Rumble—!
But the swords never passed through. The moment they touched the rift, they bounced back. Even bundling them together and launching them as one made no difference.
An indestructible warp. It won't vanish until the clear is finished, then.
If an assault of that magnitude left it unmoved, the warp had to carry the Indestructible option. Of course, even Indestructible could be shattered with something like the Hammer of the God of Destruction — but using that on a single warp would be a criminal waste.
The King of the Dimensional Rift has been slain.
"……What?"
For a moment, Gracia was genuinely startled. Even a man who rarely flinched at anything could not help but be shocked by this.
The King of the Dimensional Rift had simply… died. He had no idea where, or what it had been doing when it happened.
Ahram, King of the Dead is resurrecting.
Entering Phase 2.
Progress: 20.5%
"……."
……So it was a resurrection pattern.
He exhaled. If the clear had completed all at once, the feeling would have been far more dreadful. In the meantime, progress had already climbed past twenty percent.
Ahram?
Ahram. A Boss Monster that only revealed its true nature after dying once, it seemed. The name itself felt familiar.
I'm certain the gatekeeper of the first hell in the Demon Realm was named Ahram.
He had not participated in the Great Expedition, but he knew its stories in detail. For the King of the Dimensional Rift to be Ahram… had they failed to clear him properly back then?
Knight King Wilhelm pushed forward by sacrificing his soldiers. He got greedy, tried to take the Demon King without a proper clear, and ruined everything.
And now the gatekeeper of the Demon Realm was alive and trying to invade Earth. Which meant Wilhelm had never truly killed Ahram. In the end the Great Expedition had failed, and the Demon Realm and its Demon King still had their eyes on Earth.
Tch. Maybe I should have been the one to kill the Demon King after all.
Gracia's reason for skipping the Great Expedition had been simple.
……I had a star to devour.
He had been in the middle of Transcendence at the time. He had succeeded, and the power he gained was far greater for it. As he was now, he felt he could even defeat Wilhelm. He could kill the Demon King that Wilhelm had failed to kill.
If I just find the Hydragon's soul, I can complete a Unique-grade sword.
Find the Hydragon's soul, and everything would fall into place. He already possessed one Unique-grade blade; securing its twin would make him invincible. Nothing on Pangenia or on Earth would be able to stand against him — not even if Wilhelm returned from the dead.
Still. One thing refused to make sense.
Progress: 24.1%
"……Is this a bug?"
I imagined this was what it felt like to lie in a comfortable bed.
In team games, when your teammates carry the match all the way to the end, we call it "riding the bus." That was exactly what this was. Right now I was riding a high-speed bus — no, a rock-steady private jet.
GUAAAAAAAAH!
Ahram screamed. The Giant of Annihilation had torn across the battlefield and crushed him in an instant.
He died pitifully — and then Ahram resurrected.
Phase 2.
A resurrection-pattern second phase. Having absorbed the power of the black star in his hand, Ahram rose stronger than before.
—I…… am…… immortal……!
KRAAAAAANG!
The moment Ahram roared, a black shockwave erupted and shoved the Giant of Annihilation back. Ominous black flames poured from him as he raised a greatsword, and even the Star Guardians tensed.
I can't just sit here either.
This was a Main Quest, after all. Rewards would be distributed by contribution ranking. And the only Player present was me. Even with low contribution, finishing the clear here meant I would take first place by default. To earn even a scrap of contribution, I still had to put in a little work.
I looked at the swaggering Ahram and raised my hand.
Crack!
In that instant, the "Mystery" of those ominous black flames vanished.
—…………the power…… Ruin bestowed upon me…………!
Ahram reeled in panic. The black flames that had kept everything at bay disappeared, and the Giant of Annihilation went berserk once more. Every swing of its club of annihilation collapsed the terrain and flattened Ahram into the ground.
Ahram, King of the Dead has been slain.
Hybrid Fusion Ahram is resurrecting.
Entering Phase 3.
Resurrected a second time, Ahram began absorbing the Hybrids. Tens of thousands of them were sucked into his body; he restored himself and forged an enormous shield.
BOOM!
And that shield stopped even the club swung by the Giant of Annihilation.
—KRAHAHA! All of you…… sink…… into the Abyss!
The Giant of Annihilation began hammering the shield in a frenzy. The Star Guardians and the Four Pillars were likewise crushing the swamp Hybrids with overwhelming force. It was a magnificent spectacle — yet the White King simply stood with his arms folded, watching.
"Why are you just standing there, caw?"
"I promised I would only observe, nothing more."
What a piece of work. Even in a situation like this, he really intended to do nothing but watch.
The Four Pillars, by contrast, were moving hard. Ahram and the Hybrids had appeared beneath Kramdel, and they were dealing with the threat aggressively.
The White King asked, "And why aren't you intervening more actively yourself? If you stepped in, this would end far more easily."
"I said I'd only destroy Mysteries, caw."
"……So that's why you've been destroying nothing but Mysteries."
The White King barked a laugh. From the moment I shattered the First Wall, he had begun treating a certain amount of my bluffing as truth. Destroying a Unique-grade Mystery meant I was a being who could twist the rules.
"It's nearly over."
The White King watched the Giant of Annihilation and Ahram as he spoke. Absorbing the Hybrids had produced a shield of absolute defense — but against the Giant of Annihilation, it was only buying time.
—This monstrous bastard……!
As the saying goes, no tree survives ten strikes. The club came down without rest, and cracks began to spider across the shield. Watching without lifting a finger almost felt cruel.
Hybrid Fusion Ahram has been slain.
Black Star Ahram is resurrecting.
Entering Phase 4.
Already Phase 4. In that same moment, progress surged past sixty percent.
As Phase 4 began, the power of the black star started consuming Ahram in earnest.
"Mm……."
The White King let out a low hum. The instant Ahram absorbed the black star he had been holding, mana exploded from every inch of his body.
"Dangerous."
Everyone present, White King included, sensed the threat. Ahram's mana was anything but ordinary.
Without hesitation, the White King turned his back. He unsheathed his claws and tore open space; a hole ripped through the field that had become the Swamp of the Dead. A single swing of the White King's claws could cut through anything.
Moments later, all of the Four Pillars gathered around him. The only one still near Ahram was the Giant of Annihilation.
"You come with us as well."
The White King said it casually. We were family now, so we would leave together.
I looked toward the distant Star Guardians and opened my mouth.
"You're leaving the other Star Guardians and the Giant of Annihilation behind, caw?"
"There is no choice. When that thing detonates, this entire space will collapse."
Failing to escape meant danger. Even the White King felt threatened by the catastrophic explosion building on the horizon. But the Star Guardians and the Giant of Annihilation were already too far away. And if the White King was leaving, everything that failed to get clear would be annihilated.
His danger-sensing ability really is godlike.
The White King's danger detection was peerless. He moved as if he could see the future. If he was withdrawing, the destruction of the Star Guardians and the Giant of Annihilation was as good as certain.
Dramut. Andasar……
The problem was that Dramut and Andasar's head were among them. Dramut was one of the few Star Guardians well-disposed toward humans. Without that, even if I had become the master of a star, he would never have obeyed me so thoroughly. Coercion existed, yes — but Dramut had also acknowledged me, and that made it possible.
Andasar's head, too, was something I had to retrieve for Priest Andrew's sake.
"Do you intend to remain here? That does not seem wise."
"I'll stop an explosion of that level, caw."
"……You would stop a star's detonation?"
His eyes held a thin thread of disbelief, as if asking how anyone could stop the explosion of a black star. Because that blast was not something raw power alone could contain.
Believe it or not.
I slowly drew a single strand of hair from my coat.
Using Hair of the Nameless Constellation
Main Quest 5 — Obtain a Mystery. Upon clearing it, the Constellations themselves had offered a hundred rewards. From that list, I had chosen this: a single strand of hair.
The only Constellation who offered a piece of their own body.
Not a tool — a body part. Even if it was only hair, I had believed it carried special meaning. And that choice of mine had been the right one.
Golden Hoop
A seal of absolute binding
I will not tolerate this.
The Giant of Annihilation could not abide the existence that had dyed a star black. And it was not the Giant alone. Every Star Guardian present found it utterly intolerable. Even if the star was not their own, a star itself was a symbol of the Goddess. How could they stand idle while that "evil" itself stained and wielded the Goddess's symbol?
It must be annihilated.
Not even dust should remain. The Giant of Annihilation stepped forward of its own will to face Ahram. It would not leave a mere servant of Ruin free to taint and use a star.
But Ahram kept resurrecting. After three resurrections, he had absorbed even the power of the black star.
"How dare you……!"
The Giant of Annihilation poured out everything it had. But Ahram, having absorbed the black star, thought only of erasing every enemy before him.
—All of you…… die……!
Self-destruction. He meant to detonate alongside the star and erase them forever. Cataclysmic mana gathered around Ahram, drawing everything in like a black hole as it prepared to explode.
Neither the Giant of Annihilation nor the other Star Guardians had anticipated Ahram's suicide. And if he detonated together with the black star, this entire space would vanish. It was too late to flee. The suction was too strong to escape.
At this rate, nearly ten Star Guardians would die at once — and the remaining stars would be left in peril. That much was certain.
"I will not allow it!"
The Giant of Annihilation seized Ahram in its arms. With its anti-demonic power and the skills it possessed, it meant to minimize the damage of the self-destruction.
"Giant of Annihilation!"
"You mean to offer yourself as sacrifice?"
"You fool!"
The Star Guardians cried out in alarm.
ZRAAAAAAAAH!
Even then, the mana of Ahram and the black star swelled as if it would burst at any second.
It was too late.