Chapter 58

Chapter 58. That Which Should Not Exist

I raised my chin.

I looked down at the pitch-black shadow wearing Kim Jeong-seok's form.

I caught the briefest flicker in the glint of eyes behind its helmet.

"Well then."

I leveled the Great Sage's Staff at the creature.

"Think you can copy this form too?"

【......!】

The shadow faltered.

Demonic energy swirled around its body, straining to shift its shape.

The creature was desperately trying to replicate Rag's true form.

But.

BZZT—! CRACKLE—!

The shadow's figure only warped erratically; it didn't change.

It couldn't change.

The skeleton composing its flesh was nothing more than hallucinations and nightmare fragments that Mayon had created.

An Aberration's power, using human fear and memory as its medium to sculpt form.

There were limits.

It couldn't imitate the true essence of a god.

How could a mere scrap of nightmare bear the weight of a god's soul -- that overwhelming Divinity and Authority?

Even its mimicry of me, Kim Jeong-seok, had never been complete in the first place.

Its appearance was all it had managed to approximate -- the outer shell, nothing more.

It hadn't replicated the boundless potential contained within.

In the end, a hollow laugh escaped me.

"Is that all you've got?"

I sneered.

The creature had strutted out bearing the grandiose name of Incomprehensible.

A bastard child born of a System Error.

Hailed as an abyssal monster befitting 1.35 million Honor Points.

"To call you the Incomprehensible."

I adjusted my grip on the staff and spat coldly.

"You're far too feeble and pathetic."

I know the real thing.

I know the genuine 'Incomprehensible' that sits at the very peak of this damned system.

Force Majeure.

The true weight of the abyss.

To my eyes -- eyes that have faced that Incomprehensible --

There was no world in which this knockoff doppelganger, cobbled together from human nightmares, could frighten me.

"A fake is nothing but a fake."

I raised the Great Sage's Staff into the air.

The tip of the staff, wrought from Divine Wood, blazed with blinding light.

RUMMMBLE—!

The Demon Realm's earth screamed.

Two colossal Authorities opened their eyes simultaneously.

"Vanish."

The Authority surging through my left hand cleaved the atmosphere.

BOOOOOOOOM—!

Living Primordial Fire.

And the Gale of Annihilation.

The greatest destructive force at my command poured down upon a single point like carpet bombing.

***

Park Jihun couldn't believe his eyes.

His jaw had dropped and refused to close.

In the spot where Boss had been standing just moments ago.

The figure of Kim Jeong-seok -- the unassuming man in a hoodie -- had vanished without a trace.

In his place.

BOOOOM—!

Golden light erupted, driving back the Demon Realm's darkness wholesale.

Within the blinding flash, a towering frame rose -- over two meters tall.

Radiant golden armor.

A Sacred Relic staff radiating overwhelming Mana.

"B-Boss......?"

Park Jihun murmured in a trembling voice.

It was as though a being from myth and legend had manifested before his eyes.

The sheer force of it was enough to buckle his knees and plant them on the ground.

Park Jihun wasn't the only one stunned.

"Eek......!"

Mayon.

Even that Aberration's soul screamed at the insane spectacle.

The black smoke heaved with shock.

-A-as I thought! He wasn't human!

Mayon's metallic voice struck Park Hayan's and Park Jihun's eardrums.

A voice flattened prostrate, woven with fear and awe.

-A god! It's the Descent of a true god!

"......A god? Did you say god?"

Park Hayan repeated blankly.

The benefactor who had saved her. The apathetic man who sipped canned beer in a dingy basement apartment.

A god?

Mayon didn't deny it.

On the contrary, the creature began shrieking an affirmation, practically singing a hymn.

-Without a doubt! That overwhelming Divine Might! Behold -- he tears through a mortal's shell and manifests directly in his true form! That mad display of Authority! And to wield multiple Disasters in one hand so freely, without the slightest hesitation!

Mayon's grating voice swelled with rapture.

The fact that the one who had subjugated it was no mere human, but a transcendent being of unfathomable heights, seemed to bring the creature comfort.

-A Supreme Tier god! Perhaps even beyond that...... an absolute being who has traversed aeons beyond reckoning! Ah, of course! There was no way a lowly human could have known my True Name!

"That's right."

Park Hayan nodded as if entranced.

Her gaze remained fixed on the brilliant golden back hovering in the air.

"Jeong-seok was the one who...... told me Mayon's name."

Benefactor. Savior.

And now, a god.

Inside Park Hayan's chest, the weight of the existence called Kim Jeong-seok was expanding without end.

Did a god personally come to save me?

Because he pitied me?

But.

RUMMMBLE—!

With a sound like the sky splitting apart, a colossal calamity was unleashed from Kim Jeong-seok's fingertips.

Living Primordial Fire and the Gale of Annihilation.

The moment those devastating Authorities detonated.

Park Hayan's shoulders flinched violently.

"Ah......"

Her blue eyes trembled finely.

A gray storm filling her vision.

The trajectory of that ferocious wind that sliced through space and ripped everything to shreds.

'That...... is an Authority?'

Park Hayan murmured, as if asking Mayon or perhaps herself.

Her breath caught.

Fragments of a horrifying memory she'd forgotten -- tried to forget -- flickered through her mind.

The day the passenger plane was torn in two.

The merciless blade-wind that had shredded them from midair looked so terrifyingly similar.

Of course, it was different.

The storm raging before her eyes now carried flame within it, and cold.

But.

'It's similar.'

The overwhelming, languid aura pouring from Kim Jeong-seok.

That arrogant gaze, as if looking down upon the world from beneath his feet.

The silhouette of that man she'd glimpsed through the torn sky on the day the plane crashed.

It eerily overlapped with the golden god's back standing before her now.

'Was that man...... also a god?'

Park Hayan bit her lip.

If the man from that day was a god.

Then why was Jeong-seok -- her savior -- wielding an Authority so similar to his?

Why did he hold such a terrible wind in his grasp?

Confusion washed over her.

Her head spun.

But the question couldn't linger long.

BOOOOOOOOOOM—!

An explosion erupted as if to vaporize the Demon Realm's earth entirely.

Light and heat seared their retinas.

Park Jihun and Park Hayan reflexively squeezed their eyes shut.

How much time passed?

When the blast subsided and the scalding wind that pricked their skin faded away.

"......"

An impossibly deep silence blanketed the battlefield.

Park Hayan cautiously opened her eyes.

Park Jihun raised his head.

Where the dust had cleared.

The spot where the shell called the 'Incomprehensible' -- that abyssal husk -- had stood just moments ago.

"......"

"......"

......Nothing remained.

Not a speck of ash. Not a single wisp of black smoke.

***

I lowered the Great Sage's Staff.

Ragged breaths scattered into the air as mist.

"Phew."

I steadied my breathing.

The space before me.

The shell that had stolen my form and stood there moments ago -- the Incomprehensible's shape -- had been wiped clean.

But.

'It hasn't been destroyed.'

I know that.

The Living Primordial Fire and Gale of Annihilation I'd poured out had only burned and torn the creature's shell.

This isn't the real Demon Realm.

We're still trapped inside this vast labyrinth of nightmares, woven by Mayon, controlled by the Incomprehensible.

WOOOONG--!

As expected.

The air warped grotesquely, and the Pyramid's collapsed debris began to surge upward again, as if playing in reverse.

The Incomprehensible's annihilated essence was crawling back up from the ground like dark slime, wriggling and coalescing.

This labyrinth itself was essentially the creature's true nature.

Smashing one shell wouldn't end things.

I looked back.

Where my gaze settled.

A girl, face drenched in blood, arms outstretched, desperately clutching the black smoke that was trying to scatter.

Park Hayan.

And screaming in her grasp, the master of nightmares, the Dream Demon.

Mayon.

I spoke evenly.

"Park Hayan, finish the contract with Mayon. You're the only one who can dispel this nightmare."

Mayon is an Aberration.

The essential cog that constitutes this hallucinatory world.

The Incomprehensible can maintain this grand stage only because it's parasitizing Mayon's ability.

In other words, if Mayon willingly withdrew its hallucinations?

'The Incomprehensible loses its form.'

I drove the nail in.

"If you want to live, put the collar on yourself. Mayon."

A red light pulsed in Mayon's eyes.

The creature knew.

The instant that overwhelming shell rose again, the first soul to be torn apart would be its own.

Pride as a spirit and an Aberration was set aside.

-......I-I'll form the contract! I'll do it!

Mayon screamed in a shredded voice and raised the white flag.

Its scattering black smoke suddenly compressed, then shot into Park Hayan's hands like an arrow.

"Aah......!"

Park Hayan's body arched like a bow.

Pure white energy and pitch-black demonic power collided, intertwined, and whipped into a violent maelstrom.

But she wasn't pushed back.

A transcendent vessel in which the seed of the Spirit Monarch was taking root.

DING!

[Vassal 'Park Hayan' has formed a forced contract with Aberration 'Mayon'.]

[Dominion over nightmares acquired.]

"Now. Tear it down."

"Yes!"

Park Hayan swept both arms wide to either side.

A command leveraging Mayon's power in reverse.

The moment she projected her will to dismantle the hallucination.

CRACK—! SHATTER—!

A sound like glass breaking shook the Demon Realm.

The Pyramid, mid-regeneration, scattered like dust.

The red sandstorm evaporated from the air.

The double, triple layers of traps that had caged us collapsed like dominoes.

【GR, GRAAAAAAAAAGH!】

Simultaneously.

The mass of darkness that had been recongealing shrieked as if being torn asunder.

The stage was destroyed.

Mayon's Mana was severed.

The lump of errors, having lost its foundation for manifestation, began to melt, unable to maintain its form.

"It's over."

I raised the Holy Sword Abriel in my right hand.

-Unclean dregs! Return to the light!

Abriel's will resonated thunderously.

The Holy Sword's blade erupted with radiance.

WHOOOOSH—!

The screaming, scattering remnants of the Incomprehensible.

Every last one of them was drawn into Abriel's sacred edge.

Before long, all the darkness had been swept away.

"Haa, haa......"

Park Hayan collapsed to the ground and gasped for breath.

On her shoulder, a palm-sized bat-shaped shadow of black lay meekly prostrate.

Mayon.

An Aberration now fully subjugated, its collar fastened.

Park Jihun stared blankly at the shattered void, his expression dazed.

I too let out a long breath and stowed the weapons I'd been holding.

And then.

The abyss of the Demon Realm brightened radiantly, bursting with golden celebration.

DING!

[Episode 4, 'Invitation of the Abyss,' has concluded.]

[A staggering achievement!]

[You are the first -- and only -- to clear the 'Incomprehensible' difficulty.]

[The abyss of the Demon Realm bows before your might.]

Messages flooded my vision.

It was time to tally the rewards.

[Incomprehensible difficulty clear rewards granted.]

[Hidden Piece bonus applied.]

[Reward (1): 30 Fragments of the Broken Golden Rule]

'30.'

The corners of my mouth lifted on their own.

Each fragment was worth one million Nectar.

In other words, thirty million Nectar had just rolled into my Inventory.

But the real prize was something else.

[Episode 4 Hall of Fame updated!]

[1st: NONAME]

[Score: 1,999]

[Title 'Walker of the Abyss' acquired.]

1,999 points.

A number that vastly eclipsed the 1,000 points I'd earned in Episode 3.

And lastly.

DING!

The largest, most dazzling die window bloomed before my eyes.

[Overwhelming Honor Points achievement bonus!]

[Hidden Piece: Incomprehensible Die appears.]

[Rolling the die (1~9,999).]

1 to 9,999!

If the maximum number came up, I couldn't even begin to guess what grade of reward would appear.

Clatter, clatter.

Numbers spun wildly in the air.

Click.

The die stopped.

And.

The number etched in the air.

[9,999!]

[Congratulations!]

[Jackpot!]