Chapter 115
Chapter 115
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 115
Chapter Title: Illuminate the Dawn on This Land, Final Battle Against the 'Exalted One' (8)
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20.
The world was nothing but despair.
Nothing but tears, darkness, and sighs.
That day, everyone in Star Pleasure Garden's Seodaemun-gu thought so.
The dead.
The Hunters still fighting.
Even those who had barely survived.
It was only natural.
This world had long been devoured by nightmares. Dawn would never come to this land again.
That was when it happened.
Something like a warm touch…… caressed their faces.
The people were bewildered.
It was something so familiar.
Yet now it felt so alien, so unreal.
The color of gold.
The warmth of life.
It was true light. It was dawn. It was dawnlight.
“Ah…….”
One by one, one after another.
Those who had bowed their heads began to lift their gazes.
There was light.
As the light illuminated the entire world.
A miracle where darkness retreated, unable to prevail.
The light took the form not of a star, but of a blade—yet it was the very light they had seen since childhood.
No. It was even more dazzling than that light.
Tarhye Rondeul.
Grace.
Peace.
Truth.
Justice.
Love.
The echoes of the light crafted by the Genesis Gods who truly loved the world.
The light did not merely illuminate the world.
It shone on each person, driving out the darkness in their hearts. It caressed their wounded bodies and souls.
“……Dawn.”
In that moment, someone whispered.
“So beautiful…….”
Then someone let out a sob. Someone else embraced the person beside them and began to weep.
And so, sobs enveloped the world.
Yes.
June 28, 2045.
84 days since the world’s destruction.
On that day, in that hopeless world…… dawn broke.
21.
[Unique skill, 《Final Liberation: Berkenxia》 activated!]
《Final Liberation: Berkenxia》.
This power of dawn was not for slashing or stabbing.
It was the power to illuminate the world.
The power to embrace the world.
The ancient power of dawn that shone upon the entire world with faithful love.
Perhaps that was why.
The moment I swung the hilt.
The fiercely blazing sword energy suddenly unraveled into waves of light.
And spread across the world.
In the quiet of dawn.
The miraculous sight of the entire world being endlessly swept by waves of dawnlight.
The devastated cityscape.
The Hunters collapsed in the streets.
And.
The 'Exalted One' trying to flee into the depths of the underworld. Even the Dull Serpent, Barpakh’tika.
「KIIIIIIIIIIHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKK!」
A desperate death scream erupted fiercely.
At the force within that death scream, the waves of dawn began to surge violently.
“……Kuh!”
At the same instant, sharp agony assaulted my wrist.
Something…… caught.
What is it? The Dawn Sword is just a hilt now……?
It felt blocked by an invisible wall.
So…… I couldn’t swing the sword to the end.
And that led to a problem.
The purification spreading across Barpakh’tika’s body was slowing.
Is that it?
Is that how it is?
Is this the turning point?
Soon, the 'Exalted One' would escape the dawn and hide in the world’s darkness.
- Kim Baek-jun.
I couldn’t let that happen.
- Step on me and head to tomorrow.
Im Yong-gon’s final smile flashed before my eyes……
- I will be your stepping stone.
I absolutely couldn’t let that happen.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa──”
What burst from my body was a shout.
What burst from my soul was a prayer.
“───Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
At that moment, I prayed.
I prayed with tears streaming down.
Right now, right now.
Even if it kills me with exhaustion.
Please let me draw out all my power.
To the very last drop.
So that I can accomplish my task, the task he entrusted to me.
My entire body creaked as if it would shatter.
The moment my left shoulder blade shattered.
The moment my right kneecap shattered.
The moment I endured that heavy, dull, sharp pain.
──Chwaaaaaaaaang!
The hilt began to trace the final arc of the slash.
Dawn’s incineration, dawn’s purification.
As the serpent’s centipede-like legs writhed and were engulfed in bloodlight, an enormous plume of steam erupted.
More, more.
Just a little, just a little more.
Hold on. Endure.
Illuminate it—the dawn on this world.
Like firewood.
Burning your own body.
Don’t let Im Yong-gon’s sacrifice, who chose to ignite the dawn, go to waste.
That was when it happened.
The overwhelming despair began.
Suddenly, an indescribably intense shock overwhelmed my entire body.
Missed……?
It wasn’t just my body.
The clock tower…… the ground…… the sky…… the horizon…… the entire world began to shake.
The Dull Serpent, Barpakh’tika.
The reverberation as that serpent struck the ground.
The impact as the earth caved in, forming a massive crater.
And from that underground.
The Exalted One’s body…… chaos…… crawling this way…… toward the clock tower where I stood. The rumbling of the earth.
This can’t…… this can’t happen.
…………Kwa-gwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwa…………
At that moment, my shattered body.
My body where death had deeply embedded itself. My body clinging to the Dawn Sword’s hilt through sheer shout.
“Ah…… Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah……!”
Faced with the world’s shudder.
Faced with the storm tearing my body apart, I was collapsing.
No, surely I had collapsed.
「101st.」
At that moment.
Right then.
「You.」
「You.」
「You.」
If the formless echoes of light.
Had not come to me like dawnlight and placed a hand on my shoulder.
「You can do it.」
「You can do it.」
「You will achieve it.」
Terusia……?
How, just how? One. One. One. Again, another one.
「All of us for you.」
Each time those voices of peace resounded in my mind.
「For you.」
Each time those warm peaceful energies overlapped on the hand gripping the Dawn Sword.
「For the mission you uphold.」
That was why power overflowed from my body.
A power warm like sunlight yet cool like moonlight.
「In the holy name of Tarhye Rondeul, we pray with tears.」
I don’t know the reason.
I don’t know how it was possible.
But since I clearly saw and felt it, I know.
“………?!”
In that critical instant, I realized.
I had become one with the previous beacon keepers, transcending time.
“Power…… in my body……?”
Vitality surged through my entire frame.
My crumbling body was instantly…… restored to perfection.
Ku-gugugugu──────
It was almost simultaneous.
The moment I raised my head.
The fierce rumbling suddenly ceased.
────Kwaaaaaaaaang!
Right in front of the clock tower…… the road 30 meters ahead split open as a colossal serpent erupted upward.
Ah.
Finally.
At last, I see you clearly.
Ferocious dark-blue serpent eyes.
A tongue flicking ceaselessly.
Scales glistening grotesquely over its entire body.
The Dull Serpent, Barpakh’tika.
I waited for you.
Yes. I longed for this exact moment.
From the first day of destruction, when I fled powerlessly sobbing with Park Ji-yeon. Every time I saw people weeping sadly day and night. Every time I thought of comrades dying in vain.
“Tarhye Rondeul’s──────”
You, the enemy of this world.
This moment of hunting you.
“─────────light!”
In that exact instant.
The moment the Dawn Sword’s hilt fully traced the slash’s arc.
“Reach yoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
In midair.
My final shout clashed with the 'Exalted One’s' final roar.
「EDELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLWEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!」
It came right before my eyes.
The serpent’s maw seeking to devour me.
Its tongue to coil and corrode me, fangs glistening with deadly venom.
At that moment.
I witnessed the miracle of dawn.
Chwaaaang──!
The hideous serpent head.
A miracle where a scar of dawnlight appeared right in its center…… and from there.
Hwarrrrrrr──!
The flesh covered in scales tougher than a world.
The centipede legs that easily trampled a world’s creations.
Even the abyss-deep serpent eyes that made a world’s laws tremble.
「WAAAAA……AARRR……BBB……AAAA……AA……AAA……RR……RR……RRRRR……RR……RR……RR……R……RRR……RR……RR……RRRR……RR……R…….」
The nightmare itself.
A miracle that fiercely and completely engulfed it, burning it to ash.
──Chwararararararararang!
At some point.
The brilliance exploded radiantly, filling the world with nothing but a mysteriously quiet sound.
That sound swallowed everything.
Barpakh’tika’s evil, hideous death scream. The nightmare’s whispers that had blanketed the world. Even the sound of life lingered faintly before fading.
The world was simply silent.
Like the dawn when a sleeping world awoke, like the dawn of a bygone era.
Like the dawn when birds chirped.
Like the dawn when night insects sang.
Like the dawn crafted by the Genesis Gods, gifted every day.
“……………….”
How much time passed?
The flash gradually faded.
My vision, dyed pure white, returned to normal, and I slowly opened my eyes.
The first thing I saw then.
Was the mark of a successful hunt.
For that instant, I doubted my eyes. My breath came in gasps on its own.
“Haa…… haa…….”
Not a single black square left.
We won…… we really won……? Against the 'Exalted One'…… we……?
[Hunt Success: 'Exalted One', Dull Serpent, Barpakh’tika]
[Mythic Achievement Unlocked: Slayer of the 'Exalted One' (3 / 4)]
[The entire world bows to the Hunter who felled the 'Exalted One'!]
- All physical ability stats receive (+15) correction.
As if refuting my doubt, information windows of [Hunt Success] flooded my view.
……Shuwaaaaa……
And beyond those information windows.
I saw the dawnlight that had covered the world gradually receding.
Instead, the dawnlight gathered once more in one place.
Toward me. Toward my grasp.
Precisely, it returned to the Dawn Sword in my hand and began reforming the blade.
That was when I saw ‘it’.
Barpakh’tika’s health bar.
The massive swirls of ash drifting thickly around it.
Something shining within.
That’s…… no…… isn’t that the radiance of the Dawn Sword?
At that exact moment.
The Dawn Sword vibrated heavily.
Then ‘that something’ flashed in resonance.
……What?
It broke free from the ash vortex, flew to the Dawn Sword…… and merged with the blade.
[Secret Achievement: Fragment of Dawn (1 / 7)]
This is…… no way……?
[Dull Serpent, Barpakh’tika]
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