Alext, the former deputy pope, tried once more what he had already attempted hundreds of times.
He moved his spiritual body, reaching forward to touch the transparent wall.
Then, he pushed with all his might!
Vooom!
=Ugh!=
The transparent wall repelled him with tremendous force. His spiritual body was thrown back, spinning through the air like a dead leaf caught in a whirlwind.
=Gah!=
He barely managed to halt himself in midair.
Alext looked down, instantly turning pale.
He had been thrown back at a terrible angle. Right beneath his feet, the blinding river of Divine Blood raged violently.
=If I fall completely into that... I'll never be able to return.=
He turned his head back toward the transparent wall.
It was a solid barrier that had never allowed a single priest's soul to pass.
Yet the divine beast's soul had crossed it without an ounce of resistance.
=Did he actually reach the origin?=
Would he meet the true bodies of the gods there?
Alext felt both worried and envious.
=If he never returns like this...=
What if the door leading back opened while he was still stuck here?
Alext would have no choice but to return alone. Since he couldn't pass through the barrier, there was absolutely no way for him to bring Ha Eun-seong back.
=The avatar or the Pope would know a way.=
He had just muttered that thought.
Then, a strange sight caught his eye.
=Hmm?=
At first, he thought it was just his imagination. But as he looked closer...
=No, it's not an illusion.=
A chill washed over his mind like a bucket of ice water. He stared down with a grave expression.
The raging torrent of light was close enough to touch if he just reached out.
A moment later, he muttered with absolute certainty.
=I'm sure of it. It changed.=
The river of Divine Blood flowing through this tunnel-like dimension...
Its level had definitely risen since he first arrived.
*
The Cathedral of Resurrection was engulfed in hellfire.
Explosions erupted in succession, tearing apart the building's outer walls with every blast. Rubble collapsed and crumbled amid the flames shooting up in all directions.
In the center of the chaos, a man stood.
Fwoosh!
The flames and scorching winds dared not touch Minjun. The bleeding from his dangling hands had stopped, but the skin from his fingertips to his elbows had dried out like tree bark, making them look like a mummy's.
Amid a scene resembling the roaring maw of a volcano, Minjun's face glowed with incandescent light, devoid of a single shadow. He stared straight through the blazing inferno.
There, targeted by the superheated claws and fangs of the fire, Asiph-1 stood his ground and resisted fiercely.
‘I made that body far too sturdy.’
Just moments ago, Minjun had drenched the cathedral floor with the blood pouring from his two hands.
The spell he triggered immediately afterward was Dark Magic—an art that burned blood as fuel. Imbuing the pool of blood with extreme flammability and explosive power, Minjun had set it ablaze.
A massive explosion followed.
He had no intention of killing him, of course. His objective was to temporarily incapacitate Asiph-1.
For a father disciplining his son, it was an excessively violent and overwhelmingly extreme measure.
‘Even so, I didn't expect him to hold out this well.’
Even as he stood perfectly still, Minjun constantly shifted the flow of the explosions with his magic. The firestorm surged exactly as the caster willed.
Asiph-1 desperately dodged and ran, weaving through flames that changed direction and shape dozens of times a second. His frantic evasion continued even as the cathedral was pulverized to near complete destruction—all within an ultra-high heat inferno that would have reduced any ordinary awakened being to ashes long ago.
Both Dell and Minjun had contributed to that durability.
‘The Homunculus used as his base body may be a minor copy of me, but she made it incredibly sturdy. Sturdy enough to feel the creator's sheer obsession. He wouldn't lose easily even in a bare-handed brawl with Endelion. And to top it off, I poured my own life force into it.’
Minjun could clearly see Asiph-1's burns constantly regenerating.
Still, the healing wasn't as fast as his own. Exhausted by the relentless assault, Asiph-1's movements were also beginning to slow down.
Minjun did not miss that opening.
“...!”
His eyes flared fiercely.
The raging flames fiercely tangled together to form a net. The air warped and twisted. The floor began melting like lava.
“Gah!”
Unable to endure any longer, Asiph-1 finally collapsed.
Fwoosh!
The flames wrapped around his body like a whip. They bound his wrists one by one, yanking them out to either side, then restrained his neck and ankles, pinning him vertically.
The perpendicularly intersecting lines of fire formed a cross. Suspended on this burning crucifix, Asiph-1 floated through the air and approached Minjun.
“Urgh!”
The golden ceremonial robes the Pope had been wearing were burned to rags, and his long black hair was charred in places. Wherever his skin touched the flames, it smoked, necrotizing and regenerating repeatedly.
The cross of fire holding him stopped in front of Minjun.
“Please, do not wake them.”
It was a voice forced out with difficulty.
Minjun felt a complicated mess of emotions, as the captured creation's first words were ultimately a plea not to awaken his kin.
He couldn't tell if it was rage, remorse, or simply the frustration of seeing his own alter ego rebel against him to the end.
The creator asked.
“Why didn't you use brainwashing?”
Instead of helplessly suffering like this, he could have subdued the 167 Endelions stationed in the order and used them to crush both the cathedral and Minjun flat. Using that chaos, Asiph-1 could easily have plotted an escape.
But Asiph-1 had not drawn his most powerful weapon.
The reason was simple.
“Because they are also your army, your forces.”
Minjun fell silent for a moment.
Asiph-1 had worried that if he mobilized the Endelions or the priests, the god's wrath would wind up injuring or killing them as well.
Because doing so would hinder the creator's plans.
Because of this, Minjun understood him even less.
“You say you won't sabotage my plans, yet you try to interfere with my most important, long-cherished goal?”
“You didn't see all my memories, then.”
At this point, Minjun had no reason to hide it either.
“I saw up to the scene where you sent Ha Eun-seong to that place. I saw your conviction that they must not be awakened, too.”
But Minjun was certain.
There was nothing Ha Eun-seong could do there.
Minjun couldn't imagine that ghost inflicting any real harm on his kin. The Pope had made a pointless attempt.
Meanwhile, Asiph-1 began to plead desperately.
“Do not awaken your ancient people. You have already sacrificed enough for them.”
“No matter what you say, I...”
“The primordial race has no right to punish you. Instead of punishment, the King deserves to be rewarded.”
Since Minjun didn't reply this time, Asiph-1 assumed his sincere words had left some kind of resonance.
Maybe, just maybe, he could be persuaded!
Gathering every last ounce of strength, Asiph-1 squeezed out his voice.
“You must not helplessly wait for a future where they awaken from their slumber and punish you. No, it even looks as if you are eagerly anticipating that day to come! Once you have ascended as a god reigning over all races, once you have built a system to safely protect your kin, you plan to quietly disappear from history. I absolutely refuse to accept that!”
Another somewhat long silence followed.
A glimmer of hope flared in Asiph-1's eyes, because it seemed his creator was mulling over his plea. Rather than continuing to beg, he waited for an answer in anticipation.
Then, finally.
Minjun's mouth opened again.
“You.”
And Asiph-1 received a shock akin to having his head beaten with a steel pan.
“What the hell are you babbling about? They're going to punish me after waking up from their slumber?”
“...?!”
Minjun looked as if he couldn't comprehend a single syllable of what had just been said. His face even showed unpleasant bafflement.
But that couldn't compare to the absolute absurdity Asiph-1 was feeling right at this moment.
He asked back with trembling lips,
“Father, you definitely considered yourself a sinner...”
“Yes, I am a sinner. But the only person who has the right to punish my sins is me.”
Feeling like an absolute idiot, Asiph-1 said,
“...What did you say?”
“It means that the only person who can punish a King is a King.”
At this point, Asiph-1 even felt dizzy.
“That can't be true.”
“How can it not be true? I'm talking about the very race I represent. I'm talking about their ethics and laws. I don't think there's any way I could be wrong about this subject, do you?”
Asiph-1 gasped, unable to answer easily.
“Think about it.”
Minjun furrowed his brows.
“I planned to awaken my kin, and then persuade them regarding the dragons' punishment. If I were in a position to be punished by their hands, would they ever listen to me? If that were the case, I wouldn't have even bothered worrying about the future of the dragons in the first place.”
Asiph-1 swallowed dryly.
It was indeed a valid point.
The Pope made a bizarre expression, feeling extreme confusion. Seeing this, Minjun began to feel a dark sense of foreboding beyond his initial bafflement.
“Why the hell were you even worried about that?”
“Because... that's what I knew to be true.”
“What?”
“I knew it for a fact. The King has committed too many grave errors, and his sins are far too heavy to be granted a pardon by his noble status alone. You are a king stained by immorality, treason against your own people, misrule, and error.”
Words that made Minjun's mood extremely unpleasant followed one after another. He seriously considered smacking him right across the mouth. But Asiph-1's expression was dead serious.
“The awakened primordial race will condemn the King. So, before that day comes, I intended to secretly destroy the Core behind your back and...”
“Wait a minute.”
A terrifyingly cold light flowed over Minjun's face. Seeing it, Asiph-1 felt terror for the first time.
“The Core?”
Overwhelmed by the atmosphere, Asiph-1 hesitated before answering.
“...I sent Ha Eun-seong to destroy the Core located at the origin. So that even you could never awaken them again. Then everyone will be happy. The primordial race will just continue dreaming their happy dreams like now, never opening their eyes...”
Minjun cut off the unfinished sentence.
“You tried to make it so they could never wake up again?”
Minjun pointed out the contradiction in a sharp tone. His eyes were blazing with fire.
“But what you just described isn't a method for permanently deferring their awakening.”
“...Pardon?”
“That is the method to completely annihilate every single one of them.”
Greatly shocked, Asiph-1 stopped breathing for a moment.
Annihilate the primordial race?
He swore he had never even imagined such a thing.
He had only wanted them to remain in their deep slumber like they were now... to maintain the current state.
Minjun growled with bloodshot eyes.
“Who is it?”
“...Wh-what?”
“Who told you that absolute bullshit? Before you were shattered, and even after you were revived, I never once brought up the Core. So how do you know about it?”
“I knew it from the beginning. From the beginning...”
“Think back carefully! Exactly when did you first learn it?!”
Asiph-1 delved into his own mind, examining the memories of his recently reassembled fragments one by one.
And then, he felt an even greater sense of bewilderment.
The perception that he had known it from the beginning was an illusion. He had confused his memories as a fragment with his memories as a whole entity.
“My god! It's not a memory the fragments originally possessed. The moment I was reassembled here, that information flowed in through an unknown route!”
The decision to send Ha Eun-seong to Elahu-Praga was also made right after he was reassembled here and recovered his memories.
It was not something he had planned back when he was an incomplete Frying Pan.
Minjun recalled that it had only been barely three days since his soul had been reassembled.
And it hadn't even been twenty-four hours since he had reclaimed his body.
“The very first thing you planned upon reviving was that? What was the huge rush?”
It was as if someone had specifically ordered him to do it.
The primordial race came to a conclusion.
“When you were reassembled, a memory that wasn't yours flowed in.”
And of all things, it seeped in containing an 'error that would prove fatal to Minjun.'
A thick murderous intent surged across Minjun's face.
“Someone lied to you.”
Up until this moment, Asiph-1 believed he had acted and chosen entirely according to his own free will.
He wasn't wrong. However, the basis on which he had made his decision was wrong. He had relied on false information. Just like the majority of people swept up by propaganda.
Even someone whose free will is completely intact can easily be manipulated and brainwashed.
‘What is the goal?!’
No one would gain immediate benefit from annihilating the primordial race.
Not even the Ancient Race would want a catastrophe of that magnitude. It was a future where nobody would be happy. Not a single person.
At the same time, it was the type of future Minjun wanted the least. The long ages he had endured and the sacrifices he had made would all be in vain, and the reason he existed—and would exist in the future—would disappear.
He dared to assert that, to him, it was a ruin far more miserable than death.
‘On top of that.’
Even the material for that lie was a secret that no one except the primordial race could know.
Naturally, Minjun had never breathed a word of it to anyone.
Until now, to anyone...
‘...!’
In that moment, realizing something, Minjun's face violently contorted.
*
Hehehe.
Ha Eun-seong felt as though he had heard someone's laughter.
A very cold and twisted laugh.
He screamed venomously.
=Just how much of it is real, and how much is a lie?! I can't trust you anymore!=
What exactly was it trying to achieve by doing this?
The voice had introduced itself as a fragment created when Asiph-1's soul was torn apart. However, there was absolutely no evidence to prove that fact.
Gripped by confusion and an ominous foreboding, Ha Eun-seong focused his mind toward the direction of the voice, toward his own inner self.
=...!=
Then, he felt it. A deep-rooted disgust was churning in there.
It was a clear hostility desiring someone's complete and utter ruin.
Full of tension, the ghost asked. He asked once more the very same question he had repeated several times when he first noticed the voice.
=Who are you, exactly?=
After a brief silence, the voice whispered. It sounded even more finely fragmented than before.
- For a sinner who betrayed a parent-like figure, casting them into a miserable ruin...
It added with a faint laugh.
- Wouldn't a miserable demise where they lose everything they wished for, betrayed by their own child in return, be the most fitting?
Hehehe. Hehehehe.
Within the origin of light, where countless ancient beings lay fast asleep, the sound of laughter echoed endlessly.
It carried the most intense hatred Ha Eun-seong had ever experienced in his life.
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