There was an observer no one else was aware of.
Ahmuge.
A being from another timeline.
She noticed the assassin’s presence one step slower than Sungchul.
‘Kaz. What are you thinking, challenging him like this? You have no hope of victory.’
She recalled Kaz witnessing the true extent of Sungchul’s might and losing all hope of vengeance.
Did he finally snap?
Ahmuge awaited for the battle to unfold with questions and doubts in her mind.
As she expected, Sungchul seemed unsurprised. The only difference was that he frowned slightly.
‘Is he the assassin back then?’
Events that occurred in the Magic Academy Air Fruit passed by his mind like a movie reel.
Terrible death of his comrade and the following revenge.
Sungchul remembered the man’s expression as he mercilessly tortured and ripped apart his enemies without remorse.
He had a completely different expression, mindset, and circumstance.
“I have come to kill you.”
Assassin Kaz Almeira declared. Fal Garaz appeared in Sungchul’s hands.
“It’s impossible with your strength. Dissapear.”
Sungchul typically killed any assassins without question the moment he noticed them. But this enemy called himself an assassin but revealed himself to make a direct confrontation.
He was willing to give him just one chance.
But the enemy did not look like he was going to back off. He took out something from his vest.
A scroll of unholy aura.
Sungchul instantly realized what it was and charged forward at his enemy.
But there was no one where he had arrived. Sungchul’s eyes grew wider slightly in surprise.
‘He’s slightly faster than me.’
Kaz Almeira was already on the opposite side of the garden. It was no magic. It was something else.
The scroll was already burning away in black flames which began to spread across Almeira’s body.
The last thing Sungchul saw on Kaz Almeira’s face before the flames enveloped him completely was his bone chilling smile.
‘It’s fine even if it’s just once. Let me stab just once.’
Kaz Almeria’s consciousness dissipated quickly. And at the same time, he became aware of a fate worse than death, the complete annihilation of his being.
But even so, he was willing to accept such an end.
One by one, he saw his family members that were killed by Sungchul’s hands. His sister, his mother, father each came to mind and dissapeared.
Crack
Kaz Almeira gritted his teeth from within the black flames.
‘This is the path that I wanted.’
A voice suddenly reverberated in his consciousness. It was an unworldly voice, unholy in every measure.
[Your desire for vengeance lets me taste the thrill of life once more.]
[I shall lend you my strength, mortal. For I am the fastest being aside from gods.]
Powerful energy filled Kaz’s body the moment the voice was done speaking. Unimaginable and limitless power.
‘Is… is this the strength of god…? One that rivals the power Sungchul carries…?’
He was able to tell that the time given to him was not even 10 seconds.
In his one arm that held a dagger, the unholy energies of the profane being from another world flowed out.
Kaz Almeira’s body vanished.
Sungchul recognized once again that this was not due to magic.
It was due to absolutely superior speed. Speed god did not permit humans to have.
In that instant, Sungchul sensed a lump of vengeance and hate approach him as it was burning away in flames.
It was fast but it wasn’t something he couldn’t dodge. In the worst case scenario, he might damage a bit of his clothes.
Sungchul made his assessment and began to dash out of the way before Kaz’s blade even came close.
‘Mmm…?’
Sungchul felt a bad premonition. Something was very wrong.
He did not make the mistake of underestimating his opponent. It was simply that the speed the enemy had was far too greater than what Sungchul had anticipated.
‘Damn it.’
By the time he arrived at this conclusion, the dagger enveloped in black flames came stabbing towards his heart.
His life was in peril.
Sungchul suddenly rotated his body to one side. This was not a conscious decision. It was instinctual movement born out of many years of combat experience. His body instinctively moved to sacrifice skin and bone to spare the heart.
With this, he could at least avoid a lethal blow.
The only thing left to do was to retaliate.
But it was then that Sungchul realized what he was doing and felt terrified.
‘Bertelgia…!’
Stab!
The blade of the revenge seeker pierced Sungchul’s body. But it was not the pain that terrified him, but the sensation that it hit something thick before it pierced through it and stabbed him.
The blade had punctured all the way through Bertelgia before it was imbedded in his skin.
At the moment he was stabbed, a line of text appeared as if it was preordained.
[You have met an enemy that could end your life for the first time.]
‘What is this now?’
Sungchul’s eyes grew wide in shock. But there was no time for him to be stunned as another line of text took over his sight.
[Another power is granted to you.]
[New power “Transcendental Senses” has been added to Blessing – Vow]
The moment the letters disappeared, Sungchul realized that his body was able to move as he willed. So, he immediately turned to look at the Assassin.
The name of the man consumed by the black flames became visible to him.
[Mortal Kaz Almeira]
And after that, even the name of the Lesser God who gave him power.
[Fastest Immortal Brutalus]
[Fisherman of Kireh, Unemployed, Lucky One]
All of this took place in a single instant.
Meanwhile, the blade reached all the way to where the cross impaled heart was, but was as far as it got.
[Blessing ‘Bloodline of Berzerkers” activated]
Sungchul does not die easily. Though there was very little opportunities, each time he approaches death he becomes stronger.
The Bloodline of the Berserker that only activates when he is facing mortal danger strengthened Sungchul’s body ever so slightly.
“…”
Sungchul’s powerful hands grabbed a hold of the assassin’s head.
The dagger that had stabbed Sungchul with overwhelming speed was stopped just before the heart and remained there.
This was not due to luck. Once all the cards were laid bare, Sungchul instantly created that ever so slight but impossible gap to overcome.
“Gr… Grrrr…”
A bestial growling could be leaking out from a figure that could no longer be recognized as that of a human being. The body that was already halfway consumed by the flames was in the middle of being completely annihilated without even leaving ashes behind.
He was neither alive or dead.
He was now something that will be forever lost to oblivion.
Sungchul heard a familiar voice in his ears.
[Heh heh… Stabbed. I did it…!]
It was Kaz Almeira’s voice. Godlike power flowed into Sungchul’s hand.
Crunch!
Almeira’s skull in his hands were crushed like a watermelon.
[Everyone look! I stabbed him! That mon…ster…]
Kaz Almeira’s voice could no longer be heard and his body was utterly consumed by fire, leaving no trace.
Complete annihilation of being.
[Soul Contract ‘Soul Harvester’ activated]
[Absorbing life energy of the slain.]
Clang.
The dagger fell to the ground and the assassin was gone.
The hole the dagger had pierced was spewing blood like a fountain but it didn’t register with Sungchul whatsoever.
All of his attention was focused on Bertelgia that was in his vest.
He brought Bertelgia out of his pocket with trembling hands.
There was a clear hole cut all the way through Bertelgia.
Sungchul’s eyes trembled like an earthquake.
“Bertelgia…”
Sungchul held her with both of his hands and looked at her with a devastated look.
His face that had always been best described as emotionless was now completely clouded by the shadow of unconcealable fear.
At his feet, the blood spewing forth from his chest was creating a large crimson pool of blood.
“Bertelgia…!”
Sungchul called out to Bertelgia once more as he rapidly turned pale.
Bertelgia did not move in the slightest.
As if to prove that she, like any book, was not a living thing.
“…”
The area around Sungchul began to darken. There was nothing between the spring sun and he, but his surroundings were turning into night.
Meanwhile, someone from another era was watching this unfold.
‘T…That’s…?!’
Ahmuge’s eyes trembled.
Sungchul, surrounded by darkness, began to transform.
It was black hatred.
The flames that consumed Kaz Almeira paled in comparison to the dark light coming from his body. It was as dark as the time before creation.
It spilled out of the injury in his chest and began to take over his body. Ahmuge witnessed this and muttered to herself in sheer terror.
“Black Giant of Extinction…!”
It was Sungchul’s appearance as she knew and feared. The Black Giant that destroys all, just like his official title.
Ahmuge drew her sword.
‘T…There’s no chance but now…!’
But she couldn’t move. The fear carved deep into her being down to her soul did not permit her to go.
The memories of her comrades who faced their wretched fate and died miserably right before her eyes was tying her down.
Clang
The blade fell to the ground.
Ahmuge already lost any will to fight, curled up on the ground with both of her hands covering her ears.
There was nothing else she could do. Nothing could stop Sungchul’s transformation from progressing.
Sungchul was nearly entirely consumed by the darkness when a miracle occurred.
“Ugh…”
And that began from the smallest of movement.
Bertelgia made a noise. She shook and uprighted herself with difficulty.
The moment he heard her voice, Sungchul’s darkening eyes opened in an instant.
“Bertelgia?”
He asked again while wrapped in darkness.
“Why are you calling me? Ugh… what was that earlier? What’s going on?”
Bertelgia answered. In the same tone as usual.
The darkness that had nearly covered his entire body was sucked back into the wound in his chest.
The darkness went away and red blood resumed spilling forth from his chest.
“Bertelgia, are you ok?”
Sungchul asked after he returned back to normal.
“No, not really. There’s no way I can be fine after having a hole punched all the way through me, is there?”
Bertelgia that now had a hole through her jumped up and out of Sungchul’s hands in surprise and approached his injury.
“W… What? It looks like the one who’s not okay is you! You’re bleeding from your chest!”
Bertelgia shouted out in surprise but that was irrelevant for now.
Sungchul made a brilliant smile he had never shown before and hugged Bertelgia tightly.
“B… Blood! You’re getting blood on me! Do something about your injury first!”
It was then that Sungchul extracted a leaf of the World Tree from his Soul Storage to rub on his wounds.
“What has happened! I felt an ominous energy!”
Marakia had come running after the fact with several maids, who had become his adherents at some point, in tow but once again this was irrelevant at the moment.
The event that nearly ended the world was over with but a single witness. To the rest of the world, all this event would amount to is a rousing tale of how the Enemy of the World was badly injured by an assassin.
However, there was one other person in the world aside from Ahmuge who had detected Sungchul’s transformation.
Crack.
A crystal ball broke.
The Face of the Witch of the Haunted Forest, Adelwight, had never shown so much fear before in all of history.
“T…can’t…”
The thing she detected was nothing like a mere Calamity that happened on a regular basis. Even the miasma of death approaching from the east was dismissed by her as uninteresting. What drove her to sheer terror was but a wave. A disturbance that announced the possibility of the destruction of all things, from the world of mortals to even the worlds of the Transcendents.
Adelwight had heard this toll in the middle of her meditation. The legitimate sound of God announcing the true end of the world.
But what she could know about this was very limited. Only great beings of other worlds could fully understand the significance of what had happened.
The World of the Transcendents.
The immortals converse.
[I have heard the voice of the dead god.]
[Something that mustn’t happen has happened at last.]
[We have felt the remains of the Evil Gods.]
[But that’s a matter of less importance.]
[Is it that human from last time?]
[It seems he really was the tool of God after all.]
[Neither human nor God.]
[There is nothing more unpleasant than beings in the boundary of things. Those are the vanguard of Calamity that will consume all.]
The immortals voiced their thoughts and came to one simple conclusion.
[He must die.]
[Before all things in the world revert back to nothingness.]
Thank you!
WOIIIIIIIII WOIIIII WAGWAN in this novel