The Foreigner on the Periphery

The prophet swam through the crossroads of countless possibilities again today.

Drifting along the currents, she opened the door with the highest probability of becoming reality. It was an instinctive choice.

Her adoptive father had once asked how she knew which to choose. Choi Seona could not answer him then, nor could she answer him now. He might as well have asked how she blinked. She never had to think about the method; she could simply do it whenever she wished.

Choi Seona blinked.

Whoosh!

The future unfolded at the speed of her blinking eyelids.

'Here again... It's dizzying.'

A world that looked like the brushstrokes of a mad painter.

The colors trapped within rough, thick lines boiled over. Forms blurred, writhing and dashing about unstably. The prophet tried to read a pattern amidst the chaos.

The colorful shapes covering earth and sky were all swarming toward a single point. Each stroke repeatedly condensed and burst apart, dizzying Choi Seona as she watched. A brilliant, violent flood of color.

Choi Seona knew what each of those strokes represented.

'Dragons.'

The first prophecy she had seen was at least kinder than this. Back then, she could distinguish the appearance of every single dragon.

But now they had been abstracted and schematized, reduced to dots, lines, stains, or streams of various colors.

The only thing she could be certain of was their absolutely massive number.

She turned her gaze.

'And the place they are swarming toward is...'

Darkness.

A vivid black without a single impurity. It was like looking at a universe where every star had vanished and the very concepts of light and heat had faded away.

'He' had become an entity connecting sky and earth, looking down upon the procession of dragons.

'It's strange. The more I revisit this prophecy, the harder it becomes to understand.'

That pitch-black darkness, or shadow, symbolized the master of the new world. Choi Seona knew his name, too.

The first time she saw the future, Ye Minjun shattered a dragon's skull and greedily devoured its brain. The dragons, having lost their reason, remained silent as dumb beasts.

After that, the future changed once. The procession of dragons remained the same, but instead of devouring them, Ye Minjun was worshipped by them. The dragons could also speak perfectly well, like 'people'.

And recently, the contents of the prophecy had changed once more.

—!

The prophet watched the ends of the colors split apart. Judging from her previous dreams, it was a scene of the dragons opening their mouths to speak into the darkness.

It sounded like the howling of beasts, but also like the pleading of humans. Choi Seona could not understand a word of it. This, too, was different from the previous visions of the future.

'What in the world are they saying?'

The darkness absorbed the diverse, colorful stains. Like buoys swept up in rapids, the droplets of color mingled and shuddered within the black vortex.

That was as far as she could see.

The prophet was thrown back into reality.

*

Snap!

She opened her eyes.

For a moment, Choi Seona doubted she was back in reality, wondering if she was still looking at the abstract painting of the future. The scenery before her was enough to justify that illusion.

"...!"

Golden light overflowed wherever her gaze landed. Motes of light constantly formed clusters, approaching and then retreating into the distance. Though there was not a breath of wind, she felt the illusion of her long hair swaying. The tiny particles scattered in nearly random trajectories. Choi Seona marveled at the indescribable sight.

Would a storm in a desert piled with fine gold dust instead of sand look like this?

She blinked blankly a few more times. As she firmly anchored her mind—which she had cast into the future—back in reality, the dream and the waking world stably inverted.

"...Ah."

Her voice was hoarse. She barely managed to calm her startled heart, belatedly remembering that the miracle before her eyes had already been going on for seven days.

'It gets more spectacular by the day...'

Choi Seona was indoors. Yet as if ignoring all physical constraints, the golden snowflakes pierced the solid walls like illusions, dancing as if caught in a gentle breeze before settling on her skin.

Swish!

That light, which passed through other obstacles without resistance, reacted differently to humans. Much like the knowledge that had become accepted theory among Earthlings over the past seven days, the fragments were absorbed the moment they touched the prophet's flesh.

Right now, she was absorbing dozens of light particles every second. It had not been this intense on Christmas Eve when the miracle first began.

'Now it's to the point where it obscures my vision.'

The people of Earth seemed to have reached a tentative consensus to compare the sparkles to snow. The main reason was that they had first appeared on December 24th.

The golden blizzard caused dizziness for some and had such a massive impact that the majority of people gave up driving, but it also left behind a definite gift.

Even though Choi Seona had just returned from deeply concentrating on a prophecy, she felt no exhaustion, headache, or dizziness. It was something unimaginable in the past.

'This scene never appeared in the prophecy. Who in the world made these snowflakes, and for what purpose?'

Her thoughts were cut short there.

"...Did you see it?"

A dismal voice.

She wasn't alone. The lighting in the room was dimmed. Someone was crouching in the shadows.

A piece of the darkness asked again.

"Was there anything... different?"

Instead of a lengthy explanation, she gave a slight shake of her head. That was enough of an answer.

The old man, who had been waiting anxiously, let out a shriek.

"Damn it!"

His eyes were hollow and sunken. Choi Seona could see the motes of light, which she absorbed so naturally, passing right through the orc without taking hold. She couldn't understand why.

"No! Today is the day... and we still don't know anything for sure...!"

Gnash!

Gripped by extreme tension, the orc ground his teeth. Choi Seona saw that her adoptive father's molars had noticeably shortened over the past few days, riddled with cracks.

The changes didn't stop there.

Despite being elderly and well past the average lifespan of his species, Choi Panseok was famous for his robust health. He was frequently cited as evidence that the short lifespan of orcs wasn't innate but due to dangerous lifestyle habits, and thus there was no need to issue them pensions early.

But now, the past healthy and imposing presence of the five-term assemblyman was nowhere to be found in his current wretched state.

Having grown unrecognizably emaciated in the meantime, the orc muttered absentmindedly.

"Punishment... I'm going to be punished... I'm sure of it... I'm... going to be punished."

The old man chewed his fingernails in anxiety. They were already so worn down that there seemed to be nothing left to bite.

"It's unfair... I definitely made a great contribution... so why isn't that being taken into account?!"

He had been perfectly fine during his stay in Jenkinson's Lair. He only started showing symptoms of a nervous breakdown from the day Minjun returned.

The master of the world seemed to have held interviews with old acquaintances, including Chairman Jenkinson and Assemblyman Park Jeongpal. Right afterward, he demanded that Jenkinson hand over the father and daughter, and the dragon had complied.

That was how Ye Minjun was reunited with the two of them.

Shiver!

Thinking back to that day, Choi Seona shivered involuntarily, even though time had passed and she had not seen Ye Minjun since. Every time she thought about it, her blood ran cold, and it felt as though the nerves all over her body were being stabbed by blades. The inside of her skull and the back of her eyes prickled, making her feel like giving up on everything entirely.

At that time, he was like...

'It felt like the scene from the prophecy was being reenacted!'

The surging darkness that threatened to swallow the whole world.

It was an incomprehensible thing. Ye Minjun hadn't visibly manifested any supernatural power. He had merely glared at Choi Panseok with freezing eyes. Yet the father and daughter were completely overwhelmed, just like the dragons in the prophecy.

He hadn't said a single word. Whatever he had heard from his interviewees, his aura suggested he wouldn't be satisfied even if he carved the old orc to pieces and chewed him up alive on the spot.

Amidst their terror, they realized it: an entity who could crush them with a single finger stood before them. An absolute being, whose sheer indifference would have been terrifying enough, was actively displaying explicit hostility.

It felt like a miracle that the two were still alive. Judging by his bloodlust, the man already had both the motive and the capability to kill them.

'Not to mention... Father took the brunt of that gaze head-on.'

She wanted to forget, but the searing memory in her mind replayed itself. The moment he met Minjun's eyes that day, her adoptive father instantly collapsed to the floor and began to vomit. At the same time, Choi Seona watched as his trousers slowly darkened.

From then until today, Choi Panseok had barely slept. He said that whenever he closed his eyes, the image of Minjun glaring at him like a demon surfaced in his mind.

"Ah...!"

Remembering that day just as vividly as she did, the orc clutched his head with both hands. He muttered like a madman.

"I'm going to be punished... I'm sure of it... The scale weighing my merits and faults... has tipped to that side!"

The orc who had once declared he would accept any outcome was nowhere to be seen. The man who had proclaimed he would sacrifice everything for his species was now crumbling miserably.

Choi Seona couldn't understand. Was human will always this fleeting? Or was this proof that Ye Minjun was a Transcendent who could effortlessly shatter a person's mind?

After that, Ye Minjun hadn't visited the father and daughter again. He only sent an alien priest once a day to check if the prophecy had changed. That fact seemed to drive Choi Panseok even crazier.

"It's unfair. It's so unfair. I saved a Dragon Lord...! To think that neglecting to stop the deaths of a few of Park Jeongpal's family members... could be considered a fault so great it eclipses that massive merit..."

"Father!"

Choi Seona clamped a hand over the orc's mouth in shock. She couldn't guarantee that Minjun didn't have ears in this room they were locked in. Slippery saliva and snot smeared across her fingers.

"It was for the orcs... It was for our sake. But Park Jeongpal... what in the world did Park Jeongpal tell him? What did he say to make him glare at me... like he wanted to tear me apart? And what about the orcs... what will happen to the orcs of Earth? I want to know. Seona... I want to know!"

The daughter gagged him. It was something she wouldn't even dare to do on a normal day, but he was so weakened that she could momentarily wrestle him down.

But it didn't last long.

"Please!"

His wet eyes darted frantically in all directions. Her adoptive father's voice leaked out through her fingers.

"Right... I couldn't have failed. I wasn't the one who killed his family. It was humans. It was the Human Rights Alliance. I just turned a blind eye. And now Park Jeongpal wants revenge. From the very beginning, he could never change the world with such a soft mindset. So... I had to make him hate everyone. I had to fill his heart with malice."

"Father, stop!"

"So that he could... tearfully beg the master of the world for revenge... But... why is the world still the same? The humans are still thriving. What on earth did Park Jeongpal say to him?"

The only way to shut him up seemed to be making him listen to her.

She spoke desperately.

"Father, today is the day. It's December 31st. The reason we lack information is largely because I've only been seeing a single scene for a while."

"...Ah?"

"Once we get past today, I'll see a different future. Because from then on, December 31st will be in the realm of the past! Seeing the past isn't a prophecy! So... we'll be able to figure out what to do going forward. We'll know the fate of Earth's orcs, too, so don't worry. Therefore..."

She yelled without realizing it.

"Therefore, please, just shut your mouth!"

"The 31st? Today is?"

The orc's eyes darted around. His flesh was so hollowed out that his cheekbones jutted sharply.

"...Are there still... a lot of them in the prophecy?"

It was an abrupt question, but Choi Seona understood.

"Yes, there were... so many dragons. They covered the sky, they covered the earth, they completely covered the sea. There were countless numbers of them."

There were fewer than a thousand dragons holding Earth Passports. But the Dragon Race she had seen in the prophecy was a number you could easily add another zero to.

Which meant...

"That many dragons... are coming to Earth. Today."

The moment Choi Seona said that—

Boom!

An intense noise, loud enough to burst their eardrums, shook the father and daughter's brains.

*

- One minute until jump! All unit members, please stand by in position.

The extraterrestrial Dragon Lord, Kairediak, was waiting for the dimensional jump. He was surrounded by his peers, all of whom had completed their combat preparations.

"Incredible."

Never before had so many dragons gathered in one place.

"It seems even more dragons have volunteered than during the war against the Ancient Race."

"Perhaps this war is even more important than that one, no?"

The dragon next to him replied. Like Kairediak, he was a Dragon Lord presiding over an entire dimension.

"I agree. We must eliminate Asif-666 this time."

Whirrr! Crackle!

A massive Magic circle manifested in the staging area, amplifying their magical energy.

The dragons had successfully restored the Jump Magic that had been lost for a long time. This was only possible because the Committee, which had been obstructing them, was gone.

Instead of sneaking in disguised on a Jump Ship this time, they planned to breach the weakened barrier and invade a certain dimension directly.

That planet was called Earth.

It had taken even less time than when the twenty-five dimensions united a while back, but there was a reason why even more dragons had joined this time.

Kairediak voiced the word that still felt awkward on his tongue.

"The Dragon Eater Tribe..."

He quickly corrected himself.

"No, was it the primordial race?"

After the allied forces of the twenty-five dimensions were miserably annihilated, the Lords across all dimensions received an unexpected transmission from Earth.

The sender was the Dragon Lord of that planet.

The letter contained shocking contents that any dragon would immediately want to deny.

"But we had no choice but to believe it. The evidence was far too clear."

Just as Jenkinson had predicted, the dimensional realms were split into two reactions.

The dragons currently preparing to jump to Earth, Kairediak included, were the ones who had decided they couldn't just leave him be.

"This story must not be leaked. Not even all the dragons need to know."

The truth wasn't important.

The tale that dragons had once been livestock could not be allowed to spread across the universe. It was an event capable of shaking the very identity of the Dragon Race.

"Fortunately, they say Asif-666 is the only one among them who has woken up."

He would never get the chance to wake the others. Today, on Earth, he would be crushed down to a molecular level so that he could never regenerate again.

Kairediak reflected with deep resolve.

"This is a battle to protect the dignity and honor of the dragons!"

If only those who deny the truth remain in this world, then it ceases to be the truth.

'First, we dispose of Asif-666, and then we secure Earth's Dragon Lord. We can't allow that dragon—who surrendered his pride and degraded himself to that bastard's slave—to keep spouting nonsense to the entire world. And if push comes to shove, every other dragon on that planet will also...'

The moment his thoughts reached that point—

Flash!

A blinding light covered his vision.

He and the vanguard had arrived above the ocean of an unfamiliar planet.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!