Chapter 91
Ever since the regression.
The God of Offerings had been asleep.
The system of offering tributes to gain abilities remained intact, but the god himself had become unreachable—no more conversations, no more guidance.
Honestly, it was unsettling.
One of the messages floating before his eyes:
[More tributes are required to resurrect the ‘God of Offerings.’]
That single, ominous line that appeared with every offering stabbed at Park Chan-woo’s heart.
To resurrect meant that the God of Offerings was dead.
One could not resurrect the living.
He tried to believe the god was merely sleeping, but that might not be true.
And if the God of Offerings had truly died, there was only one possible reason.
Regression!
The aftermath of reversing time likely led to the god’s erasure.
‘He’s probably just taking a break. He was always fickle, like boiling water.’
Still, Park Chan-woo shook his head in denial as he read the message.
This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.
There had been occasions in the past.
Sometimes for days, sometimes nearly a month.
The God of Offerings would vanish without a word, as if in hiding.
Yes. It was probably just one of his whims.
Or maybe he was too exhausted and needed rest.
Regression wasn’t child’s play.
To return to the past, to rewind time—that was no simple feat.
No, it was more than difficult. It was the stuff of dreams.
But more than a month had already passed, and the God of Offerings still showed no response.
With a tense expression, Park Chan-woo opened his mouth.
“You… woke up?”
He asked if the god had awakened.
If he was finally back.
None of the strange phenomena around him—his synchronization with Ajos, the guardian warrior’s rage, Lee Hyuk-soo’s shock—entered Park Chan-woo’s awareness.
He was wholly absorbed in one thing: the God of Offerings had accepted a tribute of his own accord.
His mind was entirely consumed by thoughts of the God of Offerings.
…Because.
The God of Offerings was his oldest friend.
A companion in suffering, a friend who knew him better than anyone.
To Park Chan-woo, the God of Offerings was like a single beam of light in a world of despair.
He had helped him dream.
Had shown him that hope existed.
He was the one who made him realize his aptitude for magic and even offered the trigger for his regression.
More than that.
It was largely thanks to the God of Offerings that he had survived the hellish Abyss.
‘Without the God of Offerings, my mind would’ve shattered countless times.’
No one can stay sane in the Abyss, a realm filled with countless mind-warping mechanisms.
Even someone who preferred solitude like him would’ve long gone mad without the god.
As the world neared its end, madness spread like wildfire.
Those once hailed as heroes turned into fiends.
Clerics once praised as saints became demon worshipers after forsaking their gods.
Cannibalism, corpse desecration, and inscribing bizarre patterns on one’s body to form cults became common.
Park Chan-woo understood them.
There was no hope.
No glimpse of a future.
Only soul-crushing despair remained.
The end-times world belonged to the wicked.
The demons of the Abyss and monsters of the Twelve Species treated Earth like their playground.
And humans of Earth had never once escaped last place in the Species War, cursed with endless penalties.
Without the God of Offerings, Park Chan-woo would’ve gone mad too.
To avoid madness, one needs someone—or something—to rely on.
For him, that was the God of Offerings.
That’s why, even after returning, he sometimes spoke to the god.
While drinking water, eating meals, or just before falling asleep.
But there were no replies.
Though he hoped the god would break his silence and return, reality said otherwise.
Instead, the same message endlessly flickered before his eyes, as if mocking him:
[More tributes are required to resurrect the ‘God of Offerings.’]
“Are you finally awake?”
“…Have you gone mad?”
The guardian warrior muttered as he watched Park Chan-woo speak to himself.
Yet he was more tense than ever.
He had crossed countless battlefields, faced monstrous foes, and slaughtered countless demons of the Abyss—but this power was unlike anything he’d ever seen.
A deeply ominous force.
To force Ajos into a berserk state and absorb his power at will?
But Gatekeeper Ajos was one of Valhalla’s greatest warriors.
A being of incredible might and endurance—yet even after absorbing such a being, this human was unscathed.
In other words, this human was stronger than Ajos.
“You who wields accursed power, you shall never stand before the Great Khan.”
The guardian warrior gripped his greatsword and summoned his mana.
Whooooosh!
A blue aura surged around his greatsword and his entire body.
He instinctively understood.
The threat this challenger posed.
This was the palace of Khan.
A sacred place where warriors who revere the Great Khan gather to be tested and chosen.
Only those who overcome every trial head-on may earn the chance to face the Great Khan.
But this man was no warrior.
He lacked the heart of one.
He was a destroyer who scorned the trials and broke the path forward.
Boom!
The guardian warrior stomped the ground.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Each step he took sent tremors through the temple.
With every step, the vibrations doubled.
The blue aura surrounding him spread twice as far.
A charge of fury.
A technique that crushed all who stood in the path of the guardian warrior.
With each step, his mana doubled—an attack that embodied destruction itself.
By the time the guardian warrior closed in on Park Chan-woo—
Boom! Boom! BOOOOM!
His footsteps shook the heavens like thunder tearing through the earth.
Exactly eight steps.
The amplified mana, now multiplied by 256, gathered at the tip of the greatsword in a single point.
In that fleeting moment, as his foot halted, silence fell upon the world.
The guardian warrior brought his sword down, pouring every ounce of amplified mana into the strike.
‘No one has ever survived this blow head-on!’
He was confident.
No matter how accursed the challenger’s power was, he couldn’t possibly block this explosion of focused energy.
No one could withstand such a blow directly.
Not even other guardian warriors.
There was only one way to stop the charge of fury.
You had to intercept it the moment it began.
Before the mana could amplify.
But this challenger didn’t know that.
He had allowed all eight steps—now it was time to pay for his arrogance.
Ruuumble!
BOOOOOM!
Just one swing caused a massive explosion.
Like a volcanic eruption, blue flames surged in all directions.
No living being could survive such a blow.
Shouldn’t survive.
And yet—
“…He blocked it?”
The guardian warrior’s face turned to stone.
There was no impact.
It felt like striking solid iron.
The explosion had erupted only on his side.
Meaning it had been blocked—by something akin to a shield.
The guardian warrior quickly took a step back.
He needed to confirm what had just happened in that split second.
As the smoke cleared, he narrowed his eyes at what had blocked the [Charge of Fury].
‘What is that?’
It wasn’t a shield.
It looked similar, but calling that a shield would be wrong.
It was the remnants of Ajos, now absorbed by Park Chan-woo—tiny particles clinging like dust to his skin, forming a barrier that had stopped the attack.
“…Looks like he still hasn’t woken up.”
Regardless.
Park Chan-woo shook his head in disappointment.
The God of Offerings still had not answered.
But there was hope.
He had offered Ajos as a tribute.
The God of Offerings had definitely intervened.
Such a phenomenon wouldn’t be possible otherwise.
However—
He had an idea why it happened.
‘Because Ajos spoke the name of the Sealed God.’
The Sealed God.
That was the true name of the being Park Chan-woo called the ‘God of Offerings.’
The moment Ajos uttered it, he had become a sacrifice.
‘Did Ajos see the Sealed God beyond the Zero Realm? The God of Offerings, that guy?’
…He didn’t know.
Even Park Chan-woo had never seen the God of Offerings directly.
Maybe the Sealed God was a being whose name should never be spoken.
But it couldn’t be a coincidence.
The God of Offerings had acted.
He had personally claimed Ajos as an offering.
And he had empowered Park Chan-woo.
Why?
Because he wanted him to clear this trial?
As if.
He knew the god’s personality.
That being wouldn’t cause such anomalies just to help clear a single trial.
The God of Offerings always painted on a grand scale.
He moved Park Chan-woo for far greater goals.
Always pushing him beyond his limits, beyond every wall.
If that’s the case—
‘Was it something he wanted me to experience? A world beyond Level 99?’
Was the intention to make him glimpse what lies beyond Level 99?
Park Chan-woo didn’t know.
He had fought monsters above Level 99 alongside others, but had never experienced that level himself.
He had never crossed the barrier.
The limit of the human species was Level 99.
Park Chan-woo was no different.
So even if he glimpsed that world for 30 minutes, it would mean nothing.
But—
…He had started at Level -99.
So perhaps, he might be able to surpass it.
Perhaps he could reach even further.
Break the species’ limit and shatter the wall to achieve.
Maybe the God of Offerings was trying to tell him that.
That the greatest despair—Level -99—could be turned into hope.
That he should never give up and keep striving.
Even without a response.
Even without a conversation.
‘Alright. I’ll give it a try.’
It was enough.
Communication was complete.
Park Chan-woo knew the God of Offerings well.
The God of Offerings knew Park Chan-woo just as well.
Words weren’t always necessary for conversation.
They had reached the point where they understood each other without speaking.
Grin.
Park Chan-woo smiled.
And then, he began to wield the power of the berserk Ajos.
He set foot, for the first time, into the world beyond Level 99.