Chapter 259
The evil spirits Chronos controlled numbered five.
Each of those five evil spirits bore a different curse.
Contamination, Decay, Disintegration, Weakening, and Corruption.
When all of those curses combined with Chronos’s Authority, [Time Acceleration], the ultimate curse, [Thanatos], would finally activate.
Not even an immortal existence could escape [Thanatos].
Because they would lose their immortality in the process of corruption.
[Thanatos] was an absolute curse that could drag even a god down to death.
‘Got you…!’
Chronos smiled in triumph.
Now that the activation condition of ‘drawing the target in’ had been fulfilled, Taebaek’s death was all but certain.
That gigantic palm was the very energy Taebaek had released.
As the black sun devoured that Divine Power, it seized Taebaek’s life and soul.
Now, if he cut apart that blood-red sun with his scythe, Taebaek would die.
At the end of endlessly accelerated time, he would crumble into dust.
Chronos raised his scythe.
‘Only one chance.’
He had to cut apart both the Spiritual and Physical Soul in a single strike.
The slightest mistake would invite a counterattack.
The time he could keep hold of Taebaek’s existence was also brief.
Taebaek likely had not expected this situation at all, which was the only reason Chronos had barely managed to seize him.
That was how monstrously vast his Spiritual and Physical Soul were, beyond imagination.
If he failed to kill Taebaek with the curse here, that being’s soul would clearly see through him to his contractor, Park Chan-woo.
If a monster on par with the Great Nine Lords set its sights on them, there would be nowhere to run in this Abyss.
Chronos steadied himself.
Then—
Swish!
With a single motion, he brought the scythe down.
The blood-red sun split in two.
The Spiritual and Physical Soul were severed.
The body and soul, having lost immortality and fallen into corruption, should have split apart and perished.
But immediately after, Chronos could not hide his shock.
“It’s… rejoining?”
The split sun began to mend itself.
The torn Spiritual and Physical Soul fused back together, and the blood-red glow surged once more.
If it returned to the form of the black sun, all opportunity would be lost.
The greatest weakness of [Thanatos] was that it was difficult to make it work twice.
…This was a first.
Chronos had used [Thanatos] three times in the past, and all three had succeeded.
And those three monsters had also been the strongest Lords who ruled the Abyss.
[Thanatos] did not work only on living beings.
It worked on anything that possessed Spiritual and Physical Soul.
And as long as something existed, it inherently possessed both Spiritual and Physical Soul.
Even a pebble lying by the roadside contained Spiritual and Physical Soul.
“…Is it sending the curse back at me?”
What happened next was even more astonishing.
The black sun began drawing in Chronos’s energy in reverse.
It was clear proof that Taebaek had subdued the five evil spirits and was now reversing [Thanatos] onto Chronos himself.
Only then did he understand.
Taebaek’s true nature.
That it belonged to the same species of error as himself.
An abnormal, irregular existence that should not exist in this world, that must never exist.
And he also understood why it was trying to devour him now.
……It intends to devour.
It intends to devour and hatch.
He could see it.
Taebaek’s true form.
The being inside that giant egg.
And the fact that it had not yet awakened.
Chronos desperately struggled against Taebaek as he thought.
‘That monster’s true target is my contractor, Park Chan-woo.’
He understood why it had targeted Park Chan-woo.
Now it was finally clear.
Taebaek was not a Godslayer.
It was an Error Devourer.
A subspecies that grew stronger by devouring those who caused errors.
But Taebaek was still inside a giant egg, in the middle of evolution.
It had not hatched yet.
It was being nourished by Immortals and Taoists so that it could complete its transformation into an even more powerful species.
He could not even begin to imagine what kind of monster would be born.
What was certain was that the moment it hatched, the order of the Abyss would change.
‘The moment the [Immortal Sphere] shattered, Taebaek instinctively sensed us. That we are beings of error.’
And it had likely sensed that devouring them would allow it to complete itself.
Especially Park Chan-woo.
Sending Taoists to lure him in had been for the sake of capturing and devouring Park Chan-woo.
A question suddenly came to mind.
‘Was the reason the Will of Magic sent us here because of Taebaek?’
Did it want them to be devoured so that Taebaek would awaken?
Or did it hope they would ascend to the Hall of all Gods and set the mountain right?
Or perhaps… had it wanted them to become aware of Taebaek’s existence, hidden in the Immortal Realm where no one knew of it?
Gwooooooo!
The black sun shook.
Chronos’s Spiritual and Physical Soul also shook.
Even though Taebaek had not yet hatched, it was displaying such overwhelming power.
‘If only I knew its origin…’
It too must have been born from an error.
If only he knew its origin, he could bind it once more with the curse, but Chronos had no time to figure out where it had come from.
What was certain was that it had been born from an error even greater than his own.
Even Chronos was a spirit born from interlocking miracles.
He could not imagine what kind of miracle could be greater than that.
And…
The same applied to Park Chan-woo.
Park Chan-woo too was one of the Great Anomalies.
The very way Taebaek, the Error Devourer, moved the moment it sensed him proved it.
Yet even Chronos, who had formed a contract with him, did not know what Park Chan-woo’s origin was.
Swaaaaaa!
“Co-contractor! Break it!”
Chronos’s existence was being devoured by the black sun.
Taebaek had begun to seize the advantage completely.
The compatibility was too poor.
Even though they belonged to the same species of error, Taebaek was the one that devoured errors.
It was, in the truest sense, a natural enemy.
That likely applied to Park Chan-woo as well.
Since Park Chan-woo was also an error of the Abyss, he would not be able to defeat Taebaek.
“I’ll create an opening. Open a [Warp] and escape while you can!”
The moment Chronos was devoured by Taebaek, the surrounding mana would stabilize.
If Park Chan-woo headed for the Land of Valhalla at that moment, he could at least preserve his life.
‘Live.’
He was the benefactor who had saved Arcana.
The human who had found him and breathed life back into his fading will.
The man who would change this cursed Abyss, this world.
That was why—
Park Chan-woo had to live.
…Even if he himself perished.
“……”
Park Chan-woo silently watched Chronos.
He watched the black sun and the eye within it staring at him.
Chronos was his greatest combat strength.
The most powerful card he could currently play.
And now that card was proving ineffective.
In a situation where he could not even escape, this was clearly the greatest crisis he had faced.
“You want me?”
Instead, Park Chan-woo took a step forward.
Taebaek’s eye inside the black sun was fixed on him.
It clearly desired him more than it desired Chronos.
But he could not simply offer himself up because it wanted him.
In the past, he might have thrown himself in first.
But this was not the kind of monster that could be solved that way.
So—
Park Chan-woo looked up at the sky and spoke.
“……God of Offerings.”
It was a name he had not called in a long time.
There was still no response.
Perhaps everything that had happened before had been nothing more than a dream.
Maybe the God of Offerings had never existed in the first place.
Park Chan-woo took out the mirror.
The mirror left behind by the [True Master of the Cradle].
Until now, he had never properly taken it out and looked at it.
He had wondered.
Why had the true Master of the Cradle suddenly left behind a mirror?
He was a noble and exalted existence.
Countless challengers had tried to reach him and failed, leaving behind nothing but afterimages.
Only Park Chan-woo—
only he had reached the true entity.
If the reward for climbing the tower had been the [Box of Endurance]…
……then this mirror had to be the reward for the first person to reach the true Master of the Cradle.
And now, for the first time, Park Chan-woo saw his own reflection in the mirror.
At the same time, he let out a bitter laugh.
“As expected.”
Because he saw it.
His own dead self.
The body of the man who had given everything to turn back time and had reached death.
The true Park Chan-woo was dead.
Then whose body was this?
Whose soul was it that was moving inside this body?
“I am the God of Offerings. Is that what you’re trying to say?”
He had offered everything.
Even his future and his soul.
He had scraped himself down to the last thing he had and offered it all to turn back time.
The being called Park Chan-woo should have vanished completely.
But—
Even so, Park Chan-woo had regressed.
…However.
This soul and body might not truly belong to Park Chan-woo.
There was a possibility that they were the God of Offerings itself.
The truth was, he had always thought about it.
That maybe it was possible.
That was why he had never properly faced the mirror until now.
But now he understood.
‘I am you, and you are me.’
The two had always been together.
From the very beginning.
What he had offered for that regression had not been only his own everything.
The God of Offerings had offered everything as well.
And so the God of Offerings had remained dormant within him.
Park Chan-woo recalled the message that appeared every time he made an offering.
《More offerings are needed to resurrect the ‘God of Offerings’.》
That he needed to offer more in order to resurrect it.
In other words—
The dead Park Chan-woo reflected in that mirror…
……was the God of Offerings.
“I will offer this mirror as a sacrifice.”
Ding!
《You offer [Park Chan-woo’s Mirror] as a sacrifice to the God of Offerings.》
《[Park Chan-woo’s Mirror] is [Exception] grade.》
《It can cause an [Exception] miracle.》
Not just out of spec, but [Exception].
Did that mean it was beyond even discussing in terms of grades?
But it was not [Exception] in the sense of being inferior.
It meant it had no relation to grades at all.
An object completely opposed to the specifications and laws of the Abyss.
In a word—
…It was an error.
Which meant it could cause a miracle on the level of an error, once.
Park Chan-woo pointed at the black sun.
He spoke to Taebaek, who was watching him from within it.
“Just let me hit that bastard once. That’s enough.”
Ding!
《More offerings are needed to resurrect the ‘God of Offerings’.》
《An [Exception] miracle occurs.》
《The [Sealed Demon God’s Grail] reacts.》
《[Dimensional Interloper Charpham] is forcibly summoned.》
《[Dimensional Interloper Charpham] is temporarily sealed within the [Sealed Demon God’s Grail].》
《In its place, the Heavenly Demon temporarily reveals itself.》
《The Heavenly Demon summoned from the [Sealed Demon God’s Grail] possesses Park Chan-woo’s body!》