Chapter 286:
Chapter 286:
Chapter 286:
Chapter 286
The thing that cut through the air was a thread of energy compressed to the limit.
The thread, blacker than darkness, sliced through anything it touched.
The ground, the sky, even the space itself.
Nothing could resist the sharp power of the black lightning, not even the hardened skin of a returnee who had undergone countless evolutions.
The returnee’s body was shattered into hundreds of pieces.
There was no pain from being cut.
In the brief moment before his flesh crumbled, the returnee Kim Myung-jun recalled his past.
He was an ordinary office worker. He had not even worked for a year and still had the mark of a rookie, but he had nothing to envy with his wonderful girlfriend and kind parents.
He never felt any lack in his life and always tried to do his best, a rather rare and sincere person.It was a cruel joke of fate that Kim Myung-jun got caught up in the vanishing on his way home from work on the day of the world integration.
When he opened his eyes for the first time after being swept away by the dimensional crack, what he saw was a primitive world of wilderness with no trace of civilization.
Kim Myung-jun, who had fallen into a world full of terrible predators that were hard to find on Earth, could not accept the reality.
But he had no choice but to realize it as he ran away from the huge beasts that targeted him.
This was all real and he was not on Earth but on a remote world.
If there was any luck for him, it was that he awakened a strange power.
Kim Myung-jun decided to survive and use his power to return to Earth from that moment on.
He started from the bottom of the ecological pyramid, killing and eating all the predators in his vicinity and evolving over and over again.
First, he conquered one area.
Then, he expanded his territory.
Then, he dominated the entire primitive forest. Kim Myung-jun felt that it was not enough yet.
He had to become stronger.
He had to survive in this world.
Until he could go back home someday.
Kim Myung-jun eventually crossed the forest and conquered the rugged wilderness and desert lands, and then headed to the sea beyond.
There were many crises and fights that almost cost him his life dozens of times.
His humanity was worn out by the constant fighting, but even considering that, it was a painful and hard process that made him shed tears.
Every time, Kim Myung-jun forced himself to hope that he could return and sought new enemies.
As he ruled over the vast ocean, his appearance changed so drastically that he could not find any trace of his past self.
How long did he live like that?
The fate that he wanted to curse seemed to apologize to him by sending him back to his original world.
He was confused when he returned as suddenly as he left, but he soon realized that he had arrived in South Korea where he used to live and rejoiced.
But what he did not know was that he was already declared dead and more than 10 years had passed since he disappeared.
Ten years was enough time to dilute the sorrow of those who lost their loved ones.
And Kim Myung-jun’s appearance was so different from his past self that no one could recognize him.
Although he somehow maintained a human form, the strange mutation that occurred when he crossed dimensions changed his appearance grotesquely.
Kim Myung-jun, who had been fighting with monsters for a long time, did not realize it, and all he received from them were screams of horror from his acquaintances.
‘Mo, monster!’
‘Get away! Someone, call the collectors!’
‘Th, this is my son? No way!’
Everyone he met widened their eyes and opened their mouths to shout. Among them were his girlfriend and parents.
Kim Myung-jun ran away in surprise at those screams and realized it.
He did not exist in the memories of his precious people anymore. He had come too far and could not go back to that time anymore.
The moment he admitted it, the emotions that he had suppressed for so long exploded.
Kim Myung-jun swallowed his sadness and hid in a place where people would not notice him.
Into the sewer where no one stepped foot and where a foul smell lingered.
It was then that Han Jin-cheong came to Kim Myung-jun.
‘Oh dear. You were hurt by the people you trusted and ran away.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Someone who can help you. How about it? Do you want to work with me?’
‘I’m a monster.’
‘Just because you look like that, you’re not a monster. The real monsters are those who don’t even know they’ve become monsters. In that sense, you are aware of yourself. Isn’t that human?’
‘Human? Me?’
‘Yes, human. Someone who can communicate with each other, that kind of human.’
Han Jin-cheong reached out his hand to Kim Myung-jun.
With an expression that did not show any disgust for him, full of disgusting and smelly tentacles.
Kim Myung-jun found a new purpose in his life at that moment.
Yes. Maybe he got this power for this man.
He could give up his life for this person.
In his fading mind, Kim Myung-jun vividly remembered the emotion of that time.
Kim Myung-jun was satisfied with buying time for Han Jin-cheong even at the last moment of his death.
His role was over here.
“…”
Yu-hyun felt a surge of joy from the returnee who was dying from the black lightning. He silently watched his last moments.
The man who was called a monster, did he die happily as a human?
Yu-hyun put aside his thoughts and tried to chase after Jincheongun, but he realized that he had already run away too far.
He took off the mask of Aporia.
At that moment, he received a call from Laplace.
[Master. We have eliminated all the enemies.]
‘Good. You did well. Come back.’
Yu-hyun finished recalling his four demons and looked at the scene he had created with awe.
‘I knew I had become stronger, but I didn’t expect it to be this much.’
The power of [Leviathan], which he fired with enhanced intensity, was truly astonishing. It left a huge scar on the mountain range.
And that was not even his full power. If he had used Leviathan with full force, he might have been able to see its trace from outside the earth.
He had closed his library, but if he had opened it and showed this as a web novel, he might have earned some decent income.
He felt regretful, but it was not a good time to reveal this. Yu-hyun quickly dismissed that idea.
‘And, the black lightning… I didn’t feel any resistance to using it.’
Yu-hyun, who possessed the ultimate body, was able to use the techniques that Seosumin taught him without any difficulty.
It was partly because of his increased intensity, but mostly because of his superb body that could execute the movements he imagined.
‘But, I felt a strange sense of incongruity. I think I did it right, but it feels like something important is missing.’
He felt the same way when he fought against the illusion of Chulapantaka in the Wonderland.
He thought it was because he lacked achievement to copy Seosumin’s Huajeomcheon, but he realized that was not the case after using the black lightning.
Something was missing. Something very fundamental.
‘I don’t know how to figure it out right now. I’ll have to ask Seosumin later.’
A lot had happened today.
Wimuhyeok sacrificed himself to destroy the tenfold world of illusion, and he met Jincheongun and learned some important information from him.
‘Logos, and the Book of Genesis.’
Something will happen when he collects all the fragments scattered in the world.
At that moment, all the questions he had accumulated so far will be answered. How he came to regress, what is the source of his power, what is the truth of this world.
And, Yu-hyun realized one more thing.
Some of the Divine Spirits know the truth of this world.
He thought of Satan, who gave him Laplace’s fragment. He showed interest in him from the first meeting and gave him many gifts, but Yu-hyun did not think it was pure goodwill.
Satan knew that Yu-hyun had a golden light and gave him Laplace’s fragment as a gift.
‘But I can’t ask him directly.’
He felt more confused.
***
“Did you see? His power.”
“Yes. It was beyond any ordinary teller.”
“That power is dangerous.”
Yu-hyun’s fight was not without witnesses. Kim Myungjun, the returnee who fought with Yu-hyun, also made a contract with Exodus afterwards.
And his fight with Yu-hyun was transmitted to Exodus tellers’ eyes.
The Exodus tellers who wore black robes, including Ubratra, felt a sense of crisis at Yu-hyun’s power.
If such a person exists on earth, Exodus’s chance of intervening in earth will be significantly reduced.
No, it was precisely that Kang Yu-hyun teller who ruined their operation that they had prepared for a long time.
“What does Pentagram say?”
“For now, they escaped with Shamat manager who might become a liability after failing their mission, and said they dealt with him properly.”
“Demialos?”
“Someone higher than him.”
“Oh, that person? Well, considering Demialos’s personality, it would be more strange if he moved.”
“…Are you sure about this? They are our allies, but they don’t look very trustworthy from their actions so far.”
“That may be true for Pentagram’s current situation.”
Exodus made some kind of deal with Pentagram. For that, Pentagram deliberately lowered the quality of earth’s web novels and planned to buy earth from Celestial Corporation when its value hit rock bottom.
But Kang Yu-hyun teller appeared and Shamat’s collusion with Great Sage Army Paradise was exposed.
Their plan was practically ruined.
They had not been exposed yet for their relationship with Pentagram, but all Exodus could do now was hold on with Unleashed as their only rotten rope.
‘And Jin cheongun, that insignificant human bastard, I don’t know what he’s thinking.’
A blue light burned like a flame of anger in Ubratra’s robe.
His subordinates felt his anger and shrank their shoulders and lowered their heads.
“Ubratra. What will you do then? Is there any way…?”
“I don’t have it yet. The situation is the worst, no matter how you look at it. But that doesn’t mean I’ve given up already.”
“…Do you have a reason to be so obsessed with this planet?”
“Because this is the core where the most massive flow of stories converges.”
“What?”
“You guys might not know, but you’ll see it when you reach a certain level. That there are places where the flow gathers in the world.”
Ubratra called it the Story Vein.
If the place where water flows is called the Water Vein, and the place where mysterious power flows is called the Dragon Vein.
Then the place where a much larger, cosmic-scale flow passes through is the Story Vein.
Ubratra claimed that Earth was that Story Vein.
“The Divine Spirits provided a huge seed here, making various myths sprout. It’s not a coincidence.”
“Hmph, but how can a world where such lowly beings live have such value?”
“The value of a story does not depend on the strength of the beings that show the spectacle. If it did, then the Story Vein would have flocked to the world where the Red Demons live, or the world where the Gieks live. You may not want to admit it, but it doesn’t change the fact that this Earth is the Story Vein.”
That was why Exodus targeted Earth.
The Celestial Corporation seemed to have not noticed that fact yet, but it was only a matter of time before they found out.
“Our goal is to bring all the stories of despair to this world. To do that, we need to take over the Story Vein first. Earth has enough value for that.”
“Then shouldn’t we make this place ours by any means? But those Pentagram bastards we trusted keep failing…”
“They are incompetent, that’s true, but they still have some use. Demialos too, but more importantly, ‘he’ who is higher than him is on our side. If we get enough help from him, we still have a chance to make up for it.”
“Then what will you do now?”
“First of all, we have to get rid of the most annoying stone.”
Ubratra’s voice sank coldly. No one doubted who he meant by the stone.
They all thought of Kang Yu-hyun, who had shown tremendous power just before.
Everything went wrong after he appeared. And as long as he existed, whatever they did would fail.
They were already annoyed by the appearance of Comedypedia, who had the opposite personality to them, so they had to make a quick decision.
“For our leader. For the king.”
“For the king.”
“For the king.”
As soon as they mentioned the king, they all bowed their heads and murmured words of praise in a devout voice.
They looked like a pious religious group.
“Bishop Ubratra. Do you have a way to remove the stone?”
“I have some idea. Of course, to achieve this, we have no choice but to rely on Pentagram, especially our best ally among them.”
It was impossible to kill him like Shamat, considering Yu-hyun’s power, but that wasn’t the only way.
For Teller who exist based on stories,
Losing their stories could be enough to kill them.