Resignation
From the very beginning until now, I have saved nothing.
No—in truth, I was always the one being protected.
When I froze in terror, legs refusing to move, my parents threw themselves before the monsters, sacrificed so their young child might live. When I sank into helplessness and tried to surrender my life, my friends laid their bodies on the line to shield me, ending up crippled. And when I swung my blade in blind vengeance, careless of my own flesh, my comrades plunged into hell alongside me, silently watching my back until every last one of them fell.
Having swung my sword while blind to everything around me, consumed solely by my own emotions, I found myself standing alone. There was no one left by my side.
With no reason left to live, I hurled myself onto the front lines to die. Advancing toward death, my blade never halted. Having awakened my talent late in life and carved a bloody path across the battlefield, before I knew it, people began clamoring, hailing me as humanity’s final hope.
I tried to live up to their expectations. I wasn't entirely sure why. Perhaps I viewed it as the final chance at atonement granted to me. Or perhaps, deep down, I still sought a reason to live—one I thought I had long since discarded.
Yet it was all in vain. Earth, where the Mystery had opened less than three centuries ago, was never prepared to withstand the invasion from beyond the rifts. The disparity in sheer power was despairingly vast, and the crushing weight was far more than I could ever bear alone.
Was it because death drew near? Memories of the past, which I had fought so hard to bury, clawed their way back into my mind. Though they were memories steeped in nothing but regret and lingering attachments whenever recalled... now, they stirred nothing more than the faint, detached sorrow of watching a tragic movie.
Lost in reverie for so long, I failed to notice the monsters closing in until they had already completely surrounded me. My body had pushed past its physical limits long ago, dulling all my senses, but the blatant bloodlust converging solely upon me pierced through the numbness.
Sensing that I had finally reached the frayed end of my life, I had no reason to hesitate any longer. In my current state, facing thousands—tens of thousands—of monsters was impossible. The only measure left to me was to wring out every last drop of life force and trigger the self-destruct mechanism built into my Ether Armor.
Beneath a sky stained with spreading crimson, the horde of monsters surged like a black tide, howling without end. I drew ragged breaths and stared straight ahead. The center—only in that deepest, most despairing core would my death carry any meaning.
“Let's end this... here.”
With that brief whisper, the power gathered at the tips of my toes surged in an explosive burst. The moment my body catapulted forward, the blackened earth behind me cracked with a violent sonic boom. The instant I plunged into the dark tide of monsters, lightning arced across my body and the blade in my grip, cloaking me in blinding blue thunder.
Flash—!
As brilliant azure brilliance detonated, dozens of lightning bolts and slash waves swept the monsters away in an instant.
K-BOOOOOM!
Deafening thunder ripped through the air immediately after, its shockwave shattering whatever beasts remained into pieces. Fluids—whether blood or bodily secretions—splattered in every direction. The stench of burning flesh choked the air as the monsters disintegrated into drifting ash.
Having obliterated the monsters in the immediate vicinity in a single blow, I let out a ragged gasp. Yet there was no time to rest. For although a hollow had opened within the black tide for a heartbeat, another swarm of monsters rushed in almost instantly to fill the void.
Engulfed within that endless black tide, I swung my sword in a trance. My arms felt heavy enough to tear from their sockets, and my legs had already gone numb, but...
“Not yet...!!”
Without slowing, I pressed forward toward the very heart of the tide. Monstrous claws shredded my skin and fangs gouged into my bones, yet I paid them no mind. Pain was a sensation I had carved out of my existence long ago. Only forward. Just one more step. I simply kept advancing toward the center. Only the center. To take even one more monster down with me, I had to throw myself into the abyss of that black ocean.
Before I could advance much further, however, an unimaginable behemoth blocked my path. Dozens of eyes gleamed simultaneously across its mountain-like mass, glaring down at me. The air distorted from its mere breathing. A suffocating pressure crashed over my body, sending an involuntary tremor through my muscles.
Confronted by the monster's overwhelming majesty, I had no choice but to resign myself.
So this is where it ends...
Without delay, I gathered every scrap of mana remaining in my body and drove it into my heart. My heart seized as if consumed by flames; blood surged in reverse, turning my vision upside down. At the same time, the detonation indicator on my Ether Armor flashed, its pulses accelerating with frantic speed. The ambient mana scattered across the area was sucked into the self-destruct mechanism like a swirling vortex. The explosive force mounted with every passing second, subjecting me to the agonizing sensation of my entire body being crushed to powder.
With only seconds left until detonation... what filled my eyes were the monsters desperately lunging forward to snuff out my dying breath, caring nothing for their own survival. Those madness-glazed eyes overlapped with a reflection of my past self.
In the end, the life I lived was no different from the monsters I hated so fiercely... Though entertaining such thoughts now is utterly pointless.
Hand in hand with my resignation, a searing heat engulfed my flesh, and an azure flash swallowed the world whole. Within that blinding flash, I felt—if only for a fleeting instant—true peace.
December 31, 2143. Cha Sihyeok, the final Master Savior of mankind. Thus, his life came to an end.
Or so it should have.
Not long had passed since the end of World War III. Cities lay in ruins, and the economy teetered on the brink of collapse. Billions had perished, and the survivors scraped by just to endure each day. It was when the entire globe had been reduced to such extreme exhaustion that the invasion from beyond the rifts began.
Humanity mobilized every conventional weapons system at its disposal to resist, but amid the postwar chaos, nations failed to unite, crumbling before the enemy’s overwhelming numbers and sheer might. In the end, after suffering casualties exceeding half the global population, mankind lost the very foundations of its civilization.
When humanity's extinction was imminent, Earth’s Prime God revealed itself, opening the Mystery to mankind. The Mystery was divine authority capable of defying the providence of the world. Earth’s Prime God shared that authority with humanity, granting them the power to fight against the invasion from beyond the rifts.
That manifestation took form in the children born after the opening of the Mystery. Humanity called them the New Humanity. Though falling short of true Mystery, the New Humanity wielded mana—a supernatural energy capable of interfering with worldly providence to a certain degree—allowing them to surpass the biological limitations of living organisms. The New Humanity who wielded mana could perceive the Mystery, and a rare few among them had directly encountered the Prime God at the threshold of life and death.
And in my youth, I had met the Prime God exactly once. At age six, while playing in a mountain stream, I had been swept away by the current and nearly drowned; in that moment, I vaguely recalled sensing the Prime God's presence.
I've forgotten most memories of my childhood, but that one was far too vivid to ever slip away.
Yet never did I imagine I would stand in that divine presence once more.
Ah... so warm.
My consciousness sank slowly into the deep abyss. The thread-thin flow of thought gently unraveled, and the memories that once shackled me faded one by one. Pain, sorrow, regret... perhaps even love itself. Like mist scattering on the wind, slowly and without resistance, everything dissolved.
Who was I?
I could not even recall my name. Yet even that no longer mattered. As the boundaries of the self crumbled away, I entrusted my soul to something warm. The embrace of the Prime God was boundless and deep.
And yet—within that embrace, I felt a faint, delicate tremor. At first, I thought it was an illusion. Yet it was... an undeniable pulse. A tremor transmitted from her fingertips. It did not belong to me; it was hers.
“...I am sorry.”
The whisper pierced my chest.
“It seems... I will make you hurt all over again.”
Her fingertips gently caressed my cheek. Neither warm nor cold, her touch carried a strange, subtle vibration. Pity, compassion, hesitation, and a love she could ultimately never conceal—all those emotions flowed silently into me. The wounds I had kept hidden seemed to resonate quietly beneath her gentle touch.
“You may resent me, or even hate me. You do not have to forgive me.”
Those words were not an apology. Nor were they an excuse, or an evasion. It was the voice of someone who had already accepted their punishment.
I could tell just how much she resembled me. Her words were laced with guilt, duty, and self-sacrifice—and beneath them lay an overwhelming love she could never fully express aloud.
“Because even bearing all of that, I can still love you.”
With those words, my deeply slumbering consciousness slowly began to stir. And then came the final words of her voice, the breath trailing off the end desperate and trembling.
“So please, I beg of you. Save this wor—l... d... ?&$#*!”
Before her final words could reach me, my consciousness was dragged into another dimension. As if time were running in reverse, memories and sensations tangled and churned violently. Passing through an indiscernible chasm between light and darkness, the shattered fragments of my memory snapped back into place one by one. My blurred sense of self regained its shape, and Sihyeok's consciousness finally began to awaken beneath the cold surface of the water.
Soon after, the body responded. Pain crushed his lungs, and the sheer desperation of being unable to breathe triggered raw survival instinct. Sihyeok reflexively thrashed his arms and legs, churning through the water. Though his consciousness remained hazy, a single instinct rang loud and clear.
I must live.
Tearing through the murky water, he reached toward the growing brightness of the surface. And then—gasping violently for air, his face finally broke above the surface.
With a rush of cold air, his revived heart pounded wildly. Struggling to steady his swaying body, Sihyeok groped along the water's edge with soaking wet arms. Crawling over slippery mud and jagged pebbles, he barely dragged himself onto dry land. There, panting heavily, he collapsed onto his back.
Thus, Sihyeok returned.
Back to the world where he had failed to save a single soul.