Chapter 63

Chapter 63. True Name

The sky closed.

Adun's phantom vanished from sight.

The colossal aura that had been crushing the Demon Realm, and the red sandstorm along with it, subsided completely.

But Park Hayan and Park Jihun couldn't move.

They couldn't even make a sound.

Their gazes were locked on a single point.

Kim Jeong-seok.

The divine majesty he'd displayed moments ago -- clad in dazzling golden armor, tearing the Demon Realm asunder -- had long since faded.

But in their eyes, that brilliant yet ferocious Divine Might still lingered like an afterimage.

'......What on earth is he?'

Park Hayan swallowed dryly.

She'd known he was a remarkable savior.

He'd healed her legs, opened the path of a spirit arts user, and told her the True Name of her nightmare.

But she'd never imagined it went this far.

It transcended imagination by an unfathomable margin.

He'd transformed into a god and unleashed colossal calamities.

He'd annihilated the abyssal monster, the 'Incomprehensible,' in a single blow.

He'd even brought an 'Astral Sovereign' -- a being that supposedly governed the laws of the universe -- to its knees.

He'd wagered against that absolute existence, found a name tag in its treasure vault, and bent its will until it broke.

She'd witnessed every last scene with her own two eyes.

None of it felt real.

It was as though she'd been hurled into the middle of a myth.

Park Jihun felt the same.

He'd nearly dropped the longsword in his hand.

His grip had no strength left in it.

He'd been proud -- having embraced the Sword Saint's soul, he'd believed himself stronger than anyone. But in this moment, he felt infinitely small.

'Insane.'

The man was truly insane.

His father, Chairman Park, had said it. Boss was someone who would become a dragon.

Wrong.

His father had been deeply mistaken.

Not a dragon.

That man was a predator that devours dragons.

A god.

Perhaps something even beyond that.

Park Jihun blankly recalled his Status Window.

Episode 4, Hall of Fame.

His name was planted firmly in 4th place.

3rd was Park Hayan.

The scores were close to 900 points.

Honestly, he hadn't done much.

All he'd managed was cutting down a handful of trash mobs in the Incomprehensible difficulty.

And yet he'd been ranked among the very top.

He'd crushed every Awakened across the entire world beneath him.

The rewards that came with it defied imagination.

Ancient Grade equipment.

With this alone, unifying the underworld was only a matter of time.

It was like strapping on wings.

But he couldn't simply rejoice.

Because every last bit of this was thanks to Kim Jeong-seok.

He'd merely scavenged from the wreckage of a hell that the man had single-handedly demolished.

'I should say thank you.'

But words of gratitude wouldn't come out.

Even opening his mouth felt like an act of irreverence.

That overwhelming display had clamped both of their throats shut.

The silence stretched on.

Kim Jeong-seok slowly turned around.

His expression was indifferent.

Tap. Tap.

Kim Jeong-seok walked over.

He lightly clapped the frozen Park Jihun and Park Hayan on their shoulders.

"Standing around gaping at nothing?"

A dry voice.

"......Ah."

"B-Boss......"

Only then did oxygen flood back into their lungs.

Park Hayan flinched and hastily bowed her head.

Park Jihun snapped upright like a fresh recruit standing at attention.

Kim Jeong-seok glanced at their stiff faces and clicked his tongue briefly.

Then he lowered his gaze.

At Park Hayan's feet.

A palm-sized shadow lay pressed flat against the ground.

It was Mayon, the pre-Common Era devil, the Aberration.

The instant Kim Jeong-seok's eyes fell on it, Mayon's body trembled like aspen leaves.

"Mayon."

-EEK! Y-yes! Whatever you command!

Mayon shrieked in its grating metallic voice.

This was a creature that had been seared by Archangel Abriel's holy power and had witnessed Kim Jeong-seok's true form erase the Incomprehensible with its own eyes.

Not a speck of defiance remained.

"Serve her well."

Kim Jeong-seok jerked his chin toward Park Hayan.

"The day you harbor other thoughts or get above yourself."

His eyes sank to a chilling depth.

"That's the day I erase your soul without leaving a single scrap behind."

-Understood! I shall never, ever betray you! O great one! I will serve this girl -- no, my master -- with my very life!

Mayon nodded frantically, practically convulsing, miming the act of slamming its shadow-head against the ground as it swore its oath with desperate fervor.

Park Hayan watched, feeling a tangle of emotions.

The being of terror that had tried to trap her in an eternal nightmare.

That horrifying devil was now trembling like a pitiful animal.

All because of the man before her eyes.

"It's done."

Kim Jeong-seok manipulated the system window floating in the air.

Clear of the Incomprehensible difficulty.

At his gesture, the abyss of the Demon Realm collapsed inward, and the dimensional gate was closing.

The mission was complete.

"Let's go back."

Park Hayan and Park Jihun nodded simultaneously.

There was no room for objection.

Even if he'd told them to walk into the bottom of hell, they'd have followed without a word.

WOOOONG--!

A dimensional distortion appeared in the air.

The light of return, heading toward Earth, began to envelop them.

Kim Jeong-seok stepped into the light without looking back.

And then.

Chasing the immense retreating back of the man who had upended their lives entirely, Park Hayan and Park Jihun quietly threw themselves into the swirling light.

***

Episode 4 concluded in full.

The system messages faded, and several days passed.

Fortunately, the worst-case scenario was averted.

The nightmare of demons pouring into the real world and turning cities into seas of fire didn't come to pass.

The top-tier Awakened from every nation who'd entered on Hell difficulty had managed to do their part and cleared the Demon Realm.

The Hall of Fame rankings hadn't shifted significantly either.

I still held the overwhelming 1st place, with Yamamoto settled in 2nd below me.

But.

Earth was in an uproar.

Absolute pandemonium.

Breaking news flooded every channel, day after day.

-The existence of an alien dimension called the 'Demon Realm' has been confirmed!

-We don't know when they might invade again. The government must adopt an immediate defensive posture!

People were gripped with fear and on high alert.

Every earthquake, every tsunami, every monster emergence that had occurred until now.

They firmly believed all of it was caused by the Demon Realm and its demons.

"Tch."

I turned off the news with a click of my tongue.

A false truth.

The demons were nothing more than pitiful chess pieces set upon the gods' game board.

The true masterminds who designed and relished this hellscape were the gods, seated on invisible thrones above the sky.

But I couldn't step forward and set the record straight.

Even if I screamed that this was all the gods' machinations, no one would believe me.

I'd only be branded a lunatic spreading fear, a heretic -- and cast out.

'Time will sort it out.'

The day people's perception shifts will come.

The day the Tower of God fully reveals its colossal true form to the real world.

Ten months from now.

That's when the real Great Cataclysm begins.

As if to prove that every disaster so far was merely a trailer, uncontrollably ferocious calamities will rain down.

I clenched my fist tight.

I had a plan in place.

The moment the Tower's gates open, I launch the conquest without hesitation.

Inside the Tower, I'll thoroughly deceive the gods using Rag's body in Asgard.

Outside the Tower, in my capacity as Kim Jeong-seok, I'll sever the gods' heads and punish them.

To do that, I needed to grow stronger faster than ever.

Three days later.

Knock, knock.

Someone came to the house.

"Boss, it's me."

It was Park Jihun.

When I opened the door, he entered the room with a taut expression.

In his hand was a small orb-shaped artifact.

"Satoshi sent this."

Satoshi.

The spy that the Black Tiger Guild had planted inside Japan's Hero Guild.

The man I'd ordered to monitor Yamamoto's every move, greased with a hefty sum.

"Good work."

I took the recording orb from Park Jihun.

I channeled a trace of Mana through my fingertips.

WOOOONG.

The orb vibrated, and a translucent holographic image materialized in the air.

It was a first-person recording captured from Satoshi's perspective.

The backdrop on screen was a battlefield drenched in blood.

Episode 4, the 'Perfect Hell' difficulty Demon Realm.

-KRAAAAAAGH!

Desperate screams rang out in the footage.

Elite members of the Hero Guild were being torn apart by high-ranking demons, utterly helpless.

A scene straight from the depths of hell.

But my eyes were fixed on a single point.

The one man cutting through the middle of that carnage.

Battle Emperor Yamamoto.

SLASH--! CLANG--!

Every time his katana flashed, demons' heads dropped.

His swordsmanship was worthy of a comrade from my previous life.

Clean, efficient, devastating arcs.

But what startled me wasn't his swordwork.

"......Boss, can you see that?"

Park Jihun swallowed hard and pointed at the screen.

The aura enveloping Yamamoto's body.

It wasn't Mana.

A thick, crimson Fighting Spirit, burning like blood.

'A divine blessing.'

No question.

Traces of drawing on his true body's Divinity.

Fragments of a transcendent Authority that a human body could never produce.

The footage that followed drove the nail into my conviction.

As the fighting intensified and Yamamoto gasped for breath, he pulled a small glass vial from his breast.

A liquid shimmering with golden light.

He drank it without hesitation.

'Nectar.'

The drink of the gods.

A miraculous elixir that forcibly pushes an Avatar beyond its limits.

And he was gulping it down like water.

Bzzt.

The holographic image crackled and ended.

"Boss, this bastard...... he's a real monster. He ain't human."

Park Jihun shook his head.

I didn't answer.

I dropped the recording orb on the table with a thunk.

There was no room left for denial.

Even the faintest hope had been shattered to pieces.

Battle Emperor Yamamoto.

He was.

'A god's Avatar.'

......Damn it all.

Judging by the purity of that crimson blessing and that Nectar, he was on a completely different level from some middling lesser god.

At minimum, he was a Supreme Tier god, on the same level as Heimdal.

"......"

Bitterness filled my mouth.

The taste wouldn't fade no matter how many times I swallowed.

The comrade who'd guarded my back in my previous life.

The brother-in-arms who'd bled alongside me until the very end, swearing to save humanity.

He'd actually been the shell of a god, laughing at us like insects while savoring the Game.

It felt like taking a sledgehammer to the back of the head.

Kim Insu, then Choi Taemin, and now Yamamoto.

Where did the lies begin and where did they end? Who had ever been real?

"Boss? You all right? Your color's......"

When Park Jihun asked cautiously, I closed my eyes.

I cooled the boiling betrayal and killing intent to ice.

"I'm fine."

If anything, this was a good thing.

Now I could cull the fakes.

The Final Five from the past.

Among them, I'd confirmed that Spirit Monarch Park Hayan and Great Sage Flunum were not gods themselves.

Yamamoto was now confirmed as an Avatar.

That left one.

'Sword Emperor Aritolt.'

Please. Let you, at least, not be an Avatar.

I hoped and hoped again.

My only...

-I believe in you, Kim Jeong-seok.

......friend.