Chapter 1

Chapter 1. Destruction Came Without Warning

***

Ten minutes remained until humanity’s extinction.

No, there might not even be five minutes left.

Measuring the remaining time in units no longer meant anything.

Only the sickening stench of blood flooding into my lungs with every breath and the debris of collapsed buildings proved that this place was the bottom of hell.

"Kgh···."

I tried to raise myself, but the crushed upper half of a comrade’s body pressed heavily down on my legs.

Slippery blood had soaked the floor.

I forcibly wrung out the severed Mana Circuit in my right arm.

Blood vessels burst, and the mana surging backward through them brought agony that felt as if it were tearing my veins apart. But my fingertips only spasmed weakly, without producing so much as a single spark.

The Mana Hole near my lower abdomen had already been smashed to pieces, without even fragments remaining.

Absolute helplessness, unable to twitch even a single finger.

The body that had once stood at the apex of the 9th Circle was now nothing more than a lump of meat no longer under my control.

My vision flashed red.

Beyond it, I saw the silhouettes of people staggering.

Unfocused eyes. Mouths gaping open like beasts. They were no longer human.

-RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE···.

An overwhelming mass pressed down on the atmosphere.

Zephyros, the Evil God Dragon.

A mythic-grade phantasm-type monster and a calamity whose every stat and resistance had been judged unmeasurable (EX), was coiled upon the earth.

It was the worst reversal imaginable, happening at the very moment humanity had stood on the verge of completing the Gate raid.

My breath caught.

My heart beat abnormally, and the focus of my vision crumbled on its own.

I had to resist somehow. But I had already poured out every elemental spell I had been proud of, every arcane formula, even forbidden spells of the space type, and still failed to scratch even one of the creature’s scales.

Only the cold fact that even my final blow had been nothing more than a breeze to it stabbed through my mind.

-WHOOOOOO.

Red light flashed between its pitch-black scales.

Those were not the eyes of something looking at living beings.

They were inorganic eyes looking down at a pile of trash waiting to be cleaned away.

-BEEP BEEP BEEP!

-BEEP BEEP BEEP!

Alarm sounds erupted all at once from the terminals of the Hunters strewn around me.

[Grade 12 Mental Contamination detected.]

[Estimated radius··· 5 km.]

[Evacuate immediately.]

[Repeating. Immediately···.]

CLICK.

Together with the sound of the warning cutting off, agony crashed in as if my brain had been scooped out and rubbed with sandpaper.

"Urgh!"

Stomach acid surged up. My five senses flipped over, and the perspective of space warped.

"Aaaaaagh!!"

"Hee, heehee··· heeheehee!"

Screams and mad laughter mixed together from every direction.

When I turned my head, the comrades who had been fighting back-to-back with me moments ago were driving blades into one another’s throats.

"Kill··· kill them all···."

A paladin drooled with his eyes rolled back.

He was smashing a fellow healer’s head in with his own mace.

The man once called the "Shield of Protection" had now become the most horrifying butcher, swinging his blunt weapon.

CRUNCH!

Red fragments flew in every direction from the crushed skull.

Fresh blood smeared across the paladin’s face ran down his jawline. But there was not the slightest hesitation in his eyes.

Zephyros’s Mental Contamination.

It was not a curse that made humans lose their reason. It was a curse that forcibly formatted humanity itself.

Thanks to having raised my Mental Resistance skill to its limit, I barely managed to retain my sanity.

But could this terrible clarity, which forced me to watch my comrades being destroyed while fully conscious, truly be called a blessing?

The grandiose epithet of 9th-Circle Archmage was endlessly pathetic before the blood rolling across the ground.

That was when it happened.

SHING—

Amid the blood-reeking hellscape, an alien metallic sound tore through the air.

Cutting through the dense dust, one man rushed toward the Evil God Dragon.

Indigo sword light seemed to burn my retinas.

It was a speed far beyond the limits of physical law that a human body should have been able to surpass. Only afterimages left red trajectories in the air.

South Korea’s strongest.

Blade Guild Master and the "Sword Saint," Kang Tae-yoon.

The realm of "Ultra-Speed," reached through training that scraped him down to the bone and innate talent alone, was opening.

CRAAACK—!

The air screamed.

Each time his sword swung, a roar that made it seem as if space itself were being cut struck my eardrums.

For an instant that felt like an eternity, Tae-yoon poured over a hundred slashes into the creature’s face.

An absolute strike, stoked with his life force as fuel.

But.

My breath stopped.

There was not a single scratch on Zephyros’s scales.

When the Ultra-Speed slashes that had covered the sky stopped, the dragon spread its enormous wings as if shaking off bothersome dust.

The broken blade rolled emptily across the ground.

Amid the rough sound of air being torn apart, the dull sound of someone vomiting blood mixed in.

Blade-like winds rose between the dragon’s wings.

A storm of compressed mana.

It was not a mere gust, but a bombardment that crushed space itself.

BOOOOOOM—!

Hundreds of storm currents swept across the plaza.

The remaining elites of the Blade Guild were torn apart like paper dolls.

South Korea’s strongest fighting force was annihilated by a single flap of its wings.

***

I barely lifted my head from within the gray-white cloud of dust.

My lungs hurt as if they were about to tear.

On the blood-red ground, I saw crushed limbs. They were mine. Flesh had been torn away from my thigh, exposing the bone, and my left arm was bent at a bizarre angle.

[Skill Activated: Pain Block.]

I wrung out my remaining mana and deployed the skill.

The horrible pain was cut off as if anesthetic had been poured over it, and my body felt like someone else’s lump of meat.

A cold chill filled the place where the pain had vanished.

Dark red light was gathering inside Zephyros’s maw.

Breath. If that compressed mana bursts, everything evaporates.

I drove my elbows into the ground and crawled forward.

My cheek scraped against the dirt floor, and blood pooled inside my mouth. To keep myself from going insane, I crammed only one sentence into my head.

A few meters ahead, I saw a man collapsed with only his upper body remaining.

Kang Tae-yoon.

"Brother···."

With a trembling hand, I felt around his chest.

A red jewel hanging from a faded metal chain. The one and only fragment of a god in the entire world.

World Item [Magic Stone of Regression].

[Emergency Protocol No. 1: If the guild faces annihilation, the Magic Stone of Regression must be used on the Guild Master.]

He has to go back. If the strongest human starts over, he might be able to stop it.

I bit through the necklace chain with my teeth.

The moment I tried to press the hand holding the magic stone against his heart.

Thud.

A cooling hand seized my wrist.

"Don’t···."

Kang Tae-yoon’s unfocused eyes were aimed at me with difficulty. His bloodied lips trembled faintly.

"···Protocol No. 1. The Guild Master returns."

I ground my molars together. Blood seeped out from the torn flesh inside my mouth.

"You’re the one who has to go, brother."

I tried to spit it out like an order, but my cracked voice trembled pathetically. I tried to force the hand holding the magic stone forward, but Tae-yoon’s grip was grotesquely firm.

"I failed. This time too."

Every time Tae-yoon gasped for breath, dark red foam bubbled at the corner of his mouth.

"You’re our hope."

"Don’t be ridiculous. Without you···."

"Skill activated. [Inheritance]."

Before I could finish speaking, my vein-swollen throat locked tight.

The moment Tae-yoon’s finger touched my forehead.

FWOOOSH—!

A high fever rose as if the inside of my skull were burning.

A massive lump of information forced its way into my brain. My blood vessels swelled, and my heart thrashed as if it were about to burst.

"W-what is this···?"

Instead of answering, Tae-yoon gave me a faint smile mixed with blood.

It was the first time I had ever seen him look so unburdened.

"Magic Stone of Regression activated. Target, Kim Do-jin."

Wringing out the last of his strength, Tae-yoon forcibly activated the magic stone in my hand.

Red light burst out as if exploding. A powerful attractive force began sucking my body into the air.

"Brother!! No!"

"I’m sorry. Make sure··· you live."

With those words, Kang Tae-yoon’s head dropped.

Leaning against the collapsed debris, humanity’s strongest closed his eyes forever.

BOOM—

At the same time, the Evil God Dragon’s Breath covered the earth.

The world was erased in white.

At the moment my vision melted away, I saw my brother’s corpse evaporating into the cluster of light.

I clenched my jaw until my molars felt like they would shatter. Blood bursting from my gums flowed backward down my esophagus.

Even as my retinas burned white, I forced the silhouette of that enormous reptile into my eyes.

I’ll rip you apart and kill you.

The world stopped.

Then perfect darkness arrived.

***

"Gaaah!"

Cold air rushed in.

A familiar, terrible smell of mold. One I should not have been smelling at this moment.

I roughly gasped for breath and pushed my upper body upright.

Cold sweat poured down like rain.

What I saw before me was not a battlefield stained ash-gray.

Yellowed wallpaper. Mold flowers blooming in the corner of the ceiling. Soju bottles rolling across the floor.

Ten years ago. The tiny tiny boarding house room where I had lived.

The bone-crushing pain and my brother’s cold body temperature that I had felt only moments ago were still clinging to my fingertips. There was no way it had been an illusion.

I picked up the old smartphone lying on the floor.

When I turned on the screen, sharp light stabbed my eyes.

[December 25, 2026 07:59]

A hollow laugh escaped me.

I came back.

Back to that day when I had gotten excited because it was Christmas, been dumped by my girlfriend, and cracked open soju in the corner of my tiny boarding house room.

I looked down at my wrist.

Only the mark of the metal chain where the Magic Stone of Regression had hung remained. It seemed the regression had worked properly.

The moment 7:59 changed to 8:00.

An unfamiliar sensation flowing through my whole body tingled through my blood vessels.

A chilling tremor ran down my spine.

'It’s coming.'

The moment my life went off its rails.

DING.

A translucent blue window appeared in the air.

[You have awakened.]

Ten years ago, I had stared blankly at this window, but now I had no leisure to sink into sentiment.

"...Status Window."

[Name: Kim Do-jin]

[Level: 1]

[Traits: Tree of Sephiroth (S), Inheritance (EX)]

My gaze fixed on one point and would not move away.

"Tree of Sephiroth" was indeed the S-grade Trait that led to becoming an Archmage. But beside it sat a set of alien letters.

[Inheritance (EX)]

An EX-grade Trait beyond even the normal grade scale.

It was the skill my brother had passed to me right before the regression, when he had placed his hand on my forehead.

"Check Trait."

[Trait: Inheritance (EX)]

[- Description: Inherits all memories, experience, and martial prowess of the previous inheritor.]

[- Current Synchronization Rate: 5%]

[- Currently Activatable Inheritance: "Sword Saint"]

Kang Tae-yoon.

Everything belonging to the man who had been humanity’s strongest was inside me.

I clenched my fist tightly.

My nails dug in, and beads of blood formed on my palm.

I had to confirm the legacy my brother had left behind. If the power to cut off Zephyros’s head slept inside this.

"Skill Window."

I opened the list, expecting an array of transcendent sword arts that had split the air and torn space.

<Owned Skill List>

[Mana Sensitivity (F)] - Basic

[Swordsmanship (F)] - Inheritance

There were exactly two measly lines.

[Swordsmanship (F)]

A basic ability to handle a sword.

That couldn’t be it. The brilliant finishing moves he had shown had to be hidden in the sub-list.

I touched the [Swordsmanship] tab.

Rustle.

The sub-list opened.

— Detailed Skills —

[Strong Slash]

[Fast Slash]

"······."

A heavy silence settled over the tiny boarding house room.

Strong Slash.

Fast Slash.

I stared blankly at the blue window in the air.

For the ultimate legacy meant to stop humanity’s extinction, it was far too simple.