Chapter 115
“An… Incarnation?”
The voice was grotesque, awkward, like many merged into one.
It sounded like a man, and a woman. Like a child, and an old man.
Lee Hyuk-soo stared tensely at the man called Balzac.
Pitch-black eyes.
His face was covered in surgical scars.
Torn and stitched skin ridged unevenly across his face, and judging by the marks visible around his neck beneath his cloak, his body had been hacked apart and sewn back together.
It was repulsive enough to make his brows furrow.
And yet he didn’t bother hiding it.
“Y…ou… Incarnation?”
Thump! Thump!
Hyuk-soo’s heart pounded violently.
It was instinct’s warning—
Run.
Balzac was a monster.
Every cell in his body screamed it.
Not just powerful—something alien, a being that should not exist in this world.
‘…Is he human?’
He wore a human form, but he was not human.
Not even close.
A doppelgänger clone? No, not that either.
Something else.
A fusion.
A hybrid of ominous things forcibly combined into one.
Looking closely, parts of his skin seemed like grafts from other people, stitched unnaturally.
Part human, part not.
A grotesque patchwork of beings forced together.
‘A chimera.’
Like the creature of Greek myth, carrying multiple genetic traits in one form.
Crunch!
Hyuk-soo clenched his teeth.
His legs refused to move.
Just hearing Balzac’s voice paralyzed him.
Then—
“You… are not… an Incarnation.”
Balzac forced the words out.
Hyuk-soo wasn’t an Incarnation.
The surrounding Incarnations erupted.
“What?”
“He’s not one?”
“Ah, what a letdown.”
“Imagine if the Savior was secretly an Incarnation! That would’ve been hilarious!”
“But if he isn’t, then how did he even get in here?”
Earth 666 Abyss was only revealed to Creators.
They sent in their Incarnations as their champions.
Even if someone stumbled upon Mount Bukhan, the entry restriction would block them.
The Incarnations laughed among themselves.
“Well, whatever. Should we kill him?”
“He’s been hunting Incarnations lately anyway.”
“He’s seen our faces. We have to kill him.”
“If he hands our names and faces to the Abyss Safety Bureau, we’re screwed.”
“Oh right, the kill list.”
They were all Incarnations.
And Hyuk-soo had seen every one of their faces.
They couldn’t let him live.
If he returned alive and reported to the Bureau, or began hunting them, they could all die.
The Bureau was aware of the threat Incarnations posed.
They pretended ignorance outwardly only because they lacked manpower to act.
But the Incarnations knew.
They knew the Bureau secretly kept “Incarnation lists” and “super-Awakener lists.”
There were Incarnations within the Bureau itself, after all.
So the Incarnations called the list a kill list.
Names written there, they were sure, would one day be hunted down.
So—
“Kill him!”
“He’s not leaving alive!”
“Hunt the Savior!”
…Madmen.
Incarnation thinking was twisted.
They were all missing pieces of sanity.
Hyuk-soo had met many recently, but these here were the worst.
And their talk was shocking.
‘They have a network?’
Incarnations—communicating?
Weren’t they supposed to hide their identities at all costs?
That illusion was long gone.
Over a hundred Incarnations had gathered together on Mount Bukhan.
This wasn’t unique.
Incarnations were grouping.
Forming factions.
If their numbers kept growing, it would spiral out of control.
Crunch!
Hyuk-soo clenched his teeth harder.
Feeling returned to his body at last.
‘Shadow Asphyxiation.’
Whoosh!
Black mist poured from his blade.
A suffocating fog that killed anything it touched.
“Cough! Gahk!”
“Where’d he go!”
Hyuk-soo hid himself within it.
But his target wasn’t the rabble.
‘That one… is too dangerous.’
Balzac.
He had to die.
Left alive, he’d be a calamity.
—
It looked like a colossal beast had clawed down Mount Bukhan.
Dense trees lay felled and slashed, strewn about.
Scattered among them were body parts of slain Incarnations.
“Damn… what the hell…”
“Monster bastard. Tch!”
“Did we lose him?”
The surviving Incarnations grimaced.
Barely ten minutes of fighting—and over thirty of them were dead.
“So the Savior lives up to his name.”
“His reputation wasn’t false.”
“Argh, my fingers!”
They shook their heads.
Had the fight gone longer, most of them would be corpses.
Hyuk-soo hadn’t pressed the attack only because of one man.
“Lord Balzac! Incredible as always!”
“Handled him like a child!”
“The Champion’s seat is yours for sure!”
Their faces lit with grins again.
Balzac.
He had beaten Hyuk-soo to a pulp.
Expressionless, Balzac muttered,
“Hun…gry.”
“Ah!”
“Forgive us, Lord Balzac!”
“Quick, pile the bodies!”
“It’s feeding time!”
The Incarnations heaped corpses before him.
This was Earth, not an Abyss.
The dead left bodies behind.
A mound of them soon formed.
Flutter!
Balzac’s cloak flared—
Revealing countless tendrils.
They lashed out, clinging to the corpses.
Squirm! Squirm!
Teeth sank in, draining fluids.
Flesh shriveled black, crumbling into dust.
In half an hour, the bodies were gone.
“I need… more. More offerings.”
Balzac spoke.
To become Champion, he needed more corpses.
—
“Gahk!”
Hyuk-soo staggered down from the mountain, coughing blood.
Black stains spread on the ground.
He steadied his fading consciousness.
‘He isn’t human.’
It was impossible.
Something not human, outside the Abyss, walking the Earth.
A creature like those inside the Abyss, roaming freely.
The questions were many, but one fact was clear.
‘I can’t kill him.’
That thing was an immortal.
His regenerative power was monstrous.
Even after being cut down and suffocated by Shadow Asphyxiation, he regenerated instantly.
Worse—
‘Attacking him, I take the same damage.’
That was why Hyuk-soo had to retreat.
Like a curse, any wound inflicted was mirrored onto himself.
And while the monster regenerated instantly, Hyuk-soo’s warrior body could not withstand it.
In a straight fight, he couldn’t win.
Unless there was some overwhelming magic to erase him utterly—
And even then, there was no certainty.
‘Where did that thing come from?’
He was an Incarnation.
A monster born of a Creator’s contract.
Which meant…
That form, too, had been designed by a Creator.
…For what purpose?
Why Mount Bukhan?
He couldn’t know.
But if left alone, it could endanger the nation’s survival itself.
Incarnations were cancer.
And if such abominations were appearing, the danger needed no further proof.
As the Prophet had said—they had to be exterminated.
‘I can’t do this alone.’
Hyuk-soo drew a deep breath.
This was too large for one man.
He would need the Abyss Safety Bureau.
A mass Incarnation purge was coming.
—
《Winning streak!》
《Champion ‘Nameless Man’ reaches 16 victories!》
《Accumulated Coins: 25.》
《Defeat the Champion to claim them all!》
These past days, Park Chan-woo had added five more wins.
But he wasn’t fully pleased.
‘The number of Incarnations entering has dropped sharply.’
A shift had occurred.
Fewer and fewer Incarnations were coming into the Colosseum.
He could only guess one reason.
‘Someone’s controlling Mount Bukhan.’
Who? And why?
No individual could manage it—this meant a faction.
Ordinary Awakeners didn’t even know about the Abyss there.
So if it was being blocked, the culprits had to be Incarnations.
‘They’re forming organizations.’
The picture was clear.
Faster than expected.
In the past, Incarnations only formed factions after the Species War.
But already, in mere months, they had taken Mount Bukhan.
It was likely the Abyss he and Adora created had acted as the catalyst.
Park Chan-woo stroked his chin.
Should he inspect Mount Bukhan himself?
Vwoom!
Suddenly—
Vwoom!
Vwoom!
A flood of entrants surged into the Colosseum.
Over 150 at once.
They smirked when they saw him.
“Champion! Let’s have a match!”
“We brought you plenty of gifts!”
“Heh heh!”
They looked worse than normal Incarnations.
Likely the ones occupying Mount Bukhan, blocking others’ entry.
But then Park Chan-woo frowned.
Vwoom!
…A strange presence entered.
He turned his gaze toward the last entrant—
The one they called Balzac.
At the same moment—
Ding!
《‘Kim Jin-ryang’ challenges the Champion!》
《‘Lee Tae-woo’ challenges the Champion!》
《‘Lee Woo-jin’ challenges the Champion!》
《‘Shin Han-soo’ challenges the Champion!》
…
A flood of challenge requests.
That was the Colosseum’s system—anyone could challenge the Champion.
But all who had tried so far had died.
Incarnations valued their lives.
Few risked certain death.
Yet these 150 cared nothing for survival.
‘They’ve been brainwashed.’
Park Chan-woo fixed his eyes on Balzac.
It was him.
The one who erased their fear.
…Strange.
Human, yet not human.
And Park Chan-woo recognized it.
He scowled unconsciously.
‘A half-human, half-demon already?’
The next stage of Incarnations.
Half human, half demon.
…It seemed a powerful Creator had set their sights on the Champion’s throne.