Chapter 71
A blade of light cleaved through the darkness.
The three-headed dragon of darkness, Luxeria beneath it, and even the very ground at her feet—
all of it was consumed, stripped of light and shadow alike, then vanished within the rampage of radiance.
A beat later, a deafening explosion tore through the air, shattering eardrums.
I did it…
That was what I thought as the blast’s shockwave rattled the control room.
Then, time itself stopped.
No—
not my sense of time.
The world’s time.
How did I know?
Because the storm of dust and debris that had been howling through the air was now frozen in place before my eyes.
What… what’s going on?
I remember trying to lift my head.
But only my eyes could move.
「Ha… you’ve got to be kidding me.」
Into this world where the very law of cause and effect had stopped,
a girl walked in—holding an umbrella.
Her hair was silver, like Tarsio’s.
But unlike Tarsio’s hair, hers didn’t hold the glow of moonlight.
It shimmered with the light of the stars—
a dark, dangerous light, tinted with the blue of the abyss.
「You just had to go and kill the one who just made a contract with the Absolute God, huh?!
Thanks to you, damn it, we’re the ones getting all the hell for it!」
A wave of primal terror surged through me, engraving itself deep into my bones,
and despair painted my mind white.
When… when was the last time I felt this?
That breathless frenzy—
Ah. Yes. That night.
The night my mother died.
The same sinister energy that seeped from the laughing stars above that night…
「Fine. I’ll acknowledge you.」
Amidst the mist that shimmered like the stars of the cosmos,
her body cracked, twisted, and warped hideously.
「You’re the first mortal ever—
to so easily kill an Apostle bound by a contract with the Absolute God.」
The sight was too grotesque to look upon.
Countless tendrils, feelers, and petals writhed,
each one shaped from the faces of millions of the dead.
That raw, suffocating despair…
It was the same.
The same as when I faced the Lizard Lord, Neigalas.
「Through hundreds upon hundreds of deaths and killings, the revel of slaughter never ends!」
As she spoke, dark blue liquid dripped from her mouth,
melting everything it touched—
melting the world itself.
That was our first encounter.
The first meeting with those beings
who had turned this world—
no, the entire primordial world—
into a plaything for the outer cosmos.
Darker, denser than the night itself…
The first confrontation with the outer darkness—
the realm beyond the reach of human perception, beyond the laws of existence.
Echoes of Another World
True Face of the Religious Revolution (6)
‘This is…’
It was despair.
The incarnation of cosmic despair.
‘This can’t be happening.’
The Old King—appearing now, of all times?
When there’s no preparation, no existences like Cheongseong or the Iron Cross?
‘The suppressor…’
In time so agonizingly slow it felt frozen, his fingers crawled toward the pin of the suppressor.
Remember this. The moment you pull it again—
when that transcendence ends—
will be the moment you die.
Then the suppressor vanished from sight.
Instead, the control room—now a field of carnage—spun violently.
He had been hit directly by a tendril.
As he rolled across the ground, coughing up blood, Kaisen sensed that more than half his ribs had been crushed.
“Hahaha! That’s no fun at all! Is that all you’ve got? What are you doing, bastard? Put up a real fight!”
He knew he had to swing his sword.
He knew he had to pull the pin.
But in this slowed world—time so sluggish it almost stopped—
to move freely without the power of transcendence was nearly impossible.
‘Just… I just have to pull it…!’
How many direct hits had he taken?
Dizziness clouded his mind, his vision dyed deep crimson.
Tendrils, vine-like, wrapped around his body and lifted him high into the air, dragging him toward those vast, horrifying eyes.
“Heh, is this it? For a mere mortal, resisting my time slowdown is impressive, but you cutting down Neigalas? That’s got to be a lie.”
“…”
“Anyway, do you know the most painful way to die in this universe? My power— it melts everything at the conceptual level. You’ll feel your body and soul dissolve away just before death! It’s excruciating! Ha!”
Viscous fluid dripped down the tendrils…
His vision flashed yellow.
He thought he had no strength left to scream—
yet somehow, a raw, piercing shriek tore from his throat.
“…Stop.”
A blinding explosion of light.
The tendrils were severed and hurled to the ground.
But before he could fall, a floating machine—Carduel—appeared below, generating gravity to catch him.
‘He cut that thing… how…?’
Then the answer appeared—dragging itself forward.
The radiance of the True Sword Sharilion enveloped its master’s body like a cocoon.
That light… was it shielding him from the power that halted the world?
Tarcisio.
Tarcisio Yere Sharilion.
Descendant of the Ones Who Came.
But Tarcisio looked as though he was dying.
The one who’d been struck was that monster—
yet it was Tarcisio whose blood streamed from the gaps of his armor like rain.
“Hmph, so even you’ve been acting outside causality… must be his influence, huh?”
With a swing that seemed careless, countless tendrils lashed out.
A surge of white light roared forth in answer.
For a fleeting instant, the world was drowned in light—the light of courage itself.
And through it, the First Administrator Shalyuan screamed.
Tarcisio had struck true.
Yet again, it was Tarcisio who fell to his knees, who vomited chunks of blood.
“Carduel… take Kaisen… and get out of here…!”
What… what was that fool saying, looking like that?
Carduel hesitated.
But Tarcisio’s command authority was absolute; disobedience was impossible.
‘No, wait. Pull it for me. Pull this pin instead.’
He raised his left hand to Carduel.
There it was—the crimson suppressor at his wrist, the seal that bound his power.
[Command acknowledged.]
But instead, Carduel’s chains of light wrapped around Kaisen’s body and began moving toward the exit.
“Are you playing with me, bastard? You think I’ll just let you leave?!”
Dragging his battered body, Tarcisio faced the Administrator again—
and light exploded once more from his hand.
A power that could strike even divinity.
As the Administrator screamed, the recoil from using such force crashed back upon Tarcisio.
“So that’s what it was—you’ve been forcing power you shouldn’t even be able to use.”
Tarcisio’s leg twisted; his stance broke.
A single unbroken tendril shot into the opening,
and his armored body hit the ground, scattering fragments of metal and flesh.
“Carduel! Look at this! How pathetic—you serve as master someone tens of times weaker than you were in flesh! Disgraceful, isn’t it?”
As the Administrator cackled and extended tendrils toward Carduel—
From that agony and mockery,
a torrent of light burst forth again.
The tendrils vanished, vaporized in an instant, and the Administrator shrieked.
“I am Tarcisio! The name my mother gave me—to protect every bond of this land! Don’t you dare lay a single finger on Kaisen…!”
Panting.
Coughing up clots of blood.
Tarcisio rose, using his True Sword as a staff.
“Ahahaha! That’s right, Maxencia! Just like your worthless mother—no fighting talent, no use at all! Should’ve stayed hiding behind others like she did! Why step forward, huh?!”
How many times now had he blocked that thing’s attacks?
“Swallow it, Sharilion… uh… nghhhhh—ahhhhhhhh!”
The raging power unleashed by the Administrator was swallowed by Sharilion,
but at last Tarcisio reached his limit.
Sharilion clattered to the floor.
Wrapped in tendrils made of wailing spirits, Tarcisio was seized.
“No good. If you’ve changed this much, might as well scrap this world line. Even if you vanish, there’s a replacement over there. The Apostles can handle the rest. Might even make the story more entertaining.”
When the Administrator opened its maw,
the gates of hell yawned wide, reeking of decay.
Something was about to happen—
something that must never happen, something irreversible.
‘Now.’
If I do it now, I won’t be too late.
If I just pull the pin—
if I can achieve one last transcendence—
I can cut that thing down, just like Neigalas.
‘So please…’
As if mocking his plea, hundreds of the Administrator’s eyes twisted toward him.
And Tarcisio—
—was about to be swallowed whole.
Then—
Time stopped.
The very ticking of the cosmos shattered,
and even mortal ears could hear the sound of time itself breaking.
Into that halted world,
something greater than even the Old King emerged—
an absolute abyss, and an absolute radiance equal to it.
‘What…’
Impossible.
How could such overwhelming light and abyss coexist within one being?
Even the Administrator, barely holding itself upright, seemed more horrified than he was.
“T-This is… ‘time stop’…? That power… Absolute Abyss…?”
Trapped like an insect in a spider’s web,
the Administrator could only stammer.
“Y-Yothos’s power… impossible… how… how are you using it…?”
From the being of light and darkness,
a sword was forged in its hand.
Holy, majestic brilliance.
If the world had been created by light,
then that primal light condensed into a blade—this must be its form.
“The memory of the world line flows in… No—wait… you… you dare betray us…?”
Even the sacred sword forged by Cheongseong lacked such pure, living radiance.
“No—no, no, stop, Yothos! Brother Yothos! Help me! D-don’t—mi—mi——!”
That light of creation—
the very aspect of Genesis itself—
flashed coldly, piercing straight through the Administrator’s core.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”
The blade flared brighter still,
a blinding explosion that made it impossible to keep eyes open.
Unbelievable.
The presence—it was gone.
That was a god—like Neigalas!
Did it send it to another dimension?
No.
It annihilated it.
Completely.
Could that even be possible? So easily?
“This is the God-Slaying Sword, Yurvelmung. A blade forged by the creator god Yurvel, made to cut even the outer cosmos.”
As if reading his disbelief,
the being of light and abyss spoke.
“With this power, I’ve just severed Shalyuan’s divinity. His existence is erased. It’s thanks to you two that I could strike.”
He gently lowered Tarcisio’s falling body to the ground.
Even Carduel—unfrozen from time—stood motionless, like a broken machine.
“You… what are you…”
“No time to explain. With this, I’ve exhausted both chances to interfere with this world line.”
From the abyss came dread and revulsion.
From the light—serenity, awe beyond all comprehension.
How could such contradiction exist within one being?
“Remember this. This is the last chance for the World of Genesis—
the final chance to end the Abyss once and for all.”
The being of light and darkness approached him step by step.
If he could move, Kaisen would have stepped back—
but he couldn’t.
“The Lord of the Abyss, Yotathos, will appear at this world’s end.
By then, you must be fully prepared as the vessel of Yurvelmung.”
Now he could see it clearly:
the sword—Yurvelmung—was in the form of a great tachi.
Longer even than Aradamantel, its entire surface covered with fine, web-like cracks.
Was it broken?
Then why not repair it?
“When that time comes, you must use this blade to slay him—
Yothos, Yolle Yotathos. Failure will not be tolerated.”
As it passed him, every supreme sacred sword—even the True Sword Sharilion—shone and bowed before it.
As Kaisen stared blankly,
the blade turned, pointed at his chest,
and in the next instant, it drove forward—piercing the core of his soul.
“You don’t understand now,
but soon, you will.
You’ll come to know the meaning of everything I’ve said.”
Was this… death?
No.
Like a sword sliding into its sheath,
the blade of creation entered the boundary of his soul.
“Now, everything… is up to you.”
And then—
His body, no, his soul—
was engulfed in sacred flames, merging into one.
As that fusion consumed him, everything turned white and blurred.
Just before consciousness vanished completely,
he heard a soft, self-mocking whisper—
“…To think that at the end of such a miserable life,
I would be honored to meet you like this…”
