Chapter 525
“Oooooh……”
“Ah……”
People knelt and prayed. Their faith and Divinity flowed toward Taesan.
Even the weak could feel it. The enemy that had appeared was incomparably more powerful and alien than anything they had faced before.
A monster that could shake the world itself if it wished.
“Taesan, Your Highness……”
They offered prayers to their god.
“What will happen?”
The Magician watched Greenland with an ambiguous expression.
‘I wish I could help.’
But he couldn’t.
All the Magician could do was keep Earth from collapsing. He grumbled under his breath.
“It’s been a while since I’ve felt this helpless.”
“M-Magician…”
A trembling voice called out. The Magician glanced over.
Diana and Beldenkia stood there, awkwardly lowering their posture, faces helpless.
The Magician was the great Transcender who created the Labyrinth. To the two adventurers, he felt like a being even greater than other Transcenders. Looking at them, the Magician muttered.
“Mortals sacrificed to that bastard’s tricks.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s unfortunate. But… since we can clean up afterward, maybe it isn’t so bad.”
“What do you mean…?”
“It’s not something you need to worry about. But it won’t be a bad story for you.”
The Magician looked beyond the barrier again.
“First, we need to win before anything else. Let’s watch.”
If Taesan lost, it wouldn’t end with Greenland. It could affect the entire universe.
‘Can he win?’
The Magician narrowed his eyes.
Taesan was undoubtedly strong. He possessed the Irregular called the Boundary Line that no one else had. And now he had [Multiplication], a skill that reached the limit of the System.
He was a monster.
Against an equal opponent, he would never lose.
But the problem was that the opponent was superior to Taesan.
Even degraded and near the bottom, it was still an Ancient God. That status and alien nature did not disappear. The Magician couldn’t help but lean toward defeat.
“I can only believe.”
He was about to continue watching while grumbling—
The Magician’s face wavered.
“Huh?”
He watched Taesan and the Gatekeeper.
And his pupils widened.
“Wait.”
The Magician raised his hand sharply. Dozens of layers of barriers formed at once. Still uneasy, he spread his palm wider.
KIIIIING!
A System Barrier roughly wrapped around Greenland.
People were bewildered by the movement, as if he were sealing something.
“Magician?”
Diana, not understanding, asked—but the Magician didn’t answer.
To be exact, he didn’t even have time to.
“…What is that?”
Astonishment filled the Magician’s face.
—
A huge Physical Force gathered within Taesan’s sword.
[Ah.]
Bardray groaned. The condensed Physical Force made his senses twist.
Taesan swung his sword as it was.
Space shattered.
The timeline collapsed and warped.
Physical Force carved scars into the universe.
And then it reached the orbs guarding the Gatekeeper.
Crackle.
The orbs shattered.
Orbs that even the Boundary Line couldn’t break, orbs that had destroyed [Great Collapse [Chaos]]—the moment they touched the sword, they began to break like glass. Taesan poured more strength into his blade.
Crackle!
Dozens of orbs shattered at once. The barrier collapsed in an instant.
Nothing remained along the sword’s path.
Physical Force destroyed everything—destroyed concepts—and kept moving forward.
No metaphor could capture it. It was something else entirely, bearing the name Physical Force.
The Gatekeeper gathered strength. All of it—without holding anything back.
Hundreds of orbs began to merge into one. The spatial axis couldn’t withstand the extreme compression and started to collapse.
KIIIIING!
And only one small, distorted orb remained in the world.
The Gatekeeper swung its hand. The orb containing its full power collided with the sword.
Clang!
Only then did the sword stop.
The sword and the orb collided. The Gatekeeper poured more force into its arm. The orb spun violently, trying to shove the sword away.
Squeak.
But the sword didn’t move.
Slowly, steadily, it pushed the orb back.
Crack!
Cracks spread as the orb was forced back. The Gatekeeper, flustered, gathered even more strength.
Crackle!
Nothing changed.
Taesan bared his teeth.
“Try and stop it if you can.”
His full power—no exaggeration.
The highest attack power he could currently produce.
The damage exceeded 400 billion.
A Physical Force a hundred times greater than when he had defeated an Apostle—far beyond what an Ancient God would have anticipated.
With this, even an Ancient God would suffer meaningful damage. Taesan was sure of it.
Crackle!
The sword didn’t stop. It continued to spread cracks through the orb, carving irreversible scars into the world.
The Ancient God’s full power.
Taesan’s full power.
Clang.
The winner was Taesan.
The orb shattered. The power inside exploded, shaking everything. Greenland was no longer there. The [Black] that burst out hammered against the barrier.
Crack!
Dozens of barrier layers the Magician had formed cracked and shattered at once.
“Damn it!”
The Magician waved his hand frantically. The System Barrier sealed everything tighter, denser, without a gap.
And the Physical Force that erupted slammed into the System Barrier.
Woooooong!
The barrier trembled. For a moment, the Magician felt the burden—there was that much power in the impact.
Woo-oong……
At last, the Physical Force subsided. The power was spent, and silence began to return.
Crack.
Then cracks appeared in the System Barrier. The Magician chuckled.
“Thinking about it, it’s obvious.”
[Multiplication] squared damage.
And Taesan had multiple skills that raised attack power and increased damage.
Yet even the Magician—a Transcender, the creator of the Labyrinth—hadn’t seriously considered this outcome.
Because from a Transcender’s perspective, it was impossible.
“It’s closer to a concept than Physical Force.”
The Magician muttered as the world-tearing force finally settled.
“Hoo.”
Taesan exhaled.
His entire body tingled. He hadn’t taken damage—it was his own skill—but the aftermath remained.
Taesan turned his gaze.
Space and time themselves were warped along the sword’s trajectory.
The immense Physical Force had left scars on the universe.
“Awesome.”
[……Ugh.]
Bardray shuddered. Feeling that Physical Force directly, he understood.
[Is this even possible under the laws of the universe?]
It was incomprehensible power—something he couldn’t accept as a normal concept.
[Even if it’s an Ancient God… can it survive after taking that?]
“I think it can.”
In the shattered earth, something material yet not material slowly revealed itself.
[It’s alive?]
Bardray was shocked, but Taesan accepted it calmly.
An Ancient God was a being beyond. He hadn’t expected it to die to Physical Force alone.
But the damage was real.
It was broken.
Its human form had warped, like a statue melted and ruined. The oppressive alien presence that had poured from it had dropped sharply.
Taesan’s strike had dealt a heavy blow.
Not near death—but close.
‘I’m sure.’
With the Physical Force he could now produce, he could inflict fatal wounds even on an Ancient God.
The Gatekeeper raised a trembling hand. Black flowed out.
KIIIIING!
Orbs began to form again.
But their number and quality were clearly lower than before. Only five appeared.
KIIIIING!
Golden light wrapped around Taesan. His body recovered.
‘If there’s a problem… it’s that I don’t have much left either.’
He had poured everything into that last attack. Divinity wasn’t consumed—it was infinite—but he could no longer draw out Black.
‘But.’
The opponent wasn’t in perfect condition either. Like this, he could still win.
Taesan drove strength into his feet.
Kwang!
He rushed the Gatekeeper.
The Gatekeeper moved the orbs to drive him back.
[You have activated a continuous attack.]
Crack!
Taesan swung.
It was an attack containing only Divinity, not the Boundary Line—but the orbs were weakened too. Even if it burdened him, he could deflect them.
Clang!
He didn’t stop.
He kept advancing—tilting his head, lowering his stance, swinging to knock attacks aside.
And Taesan arrived in front of the Gatekeeper again.
“We meet again.”
This time was different. Both had shown their full power.
But unlike the Gatekeeper, Taesan still had cards left.
The Gatekeeper waved its hand. The five orbs spun and shot toward Taesan.
Taesan raised his sword.
[You have activated the Ring of Distorted Regret. The cooldown of Multiplication has been reset.]
[You have activated Addition.]
[You have activated Multiplication.]
A Physical Force in the four-billion range manifested through the sword.
Kwang!
Power exploded. The orbs were scattered, and the Gatekeeper rolled along the ground.
But it rose immediately. It endured the four billion damage, swung its arm, and the orbs shot back toward Taesan.
Taesan didn’t dodge.
[You have taken 3$%$! damage.]
[Your Endurance has been activated. Ignores all damage taken for 1 second.]
Taesan raised his sword.
Crack.
The blade sank deep into the Gatekeeper’s chest.
He detonated Divinity. Light like the sun dyed the world. The Gatekeeper’s body began to burn.
But it didn’t die.
Taesan tightened his grip.
Divinity alone couldn’t kill an Ancient God.
Only the Boundary Line could.
But he had consumed all Black.
So he forced it out.
[You have activated Forced Attainment.]
Smear.
There was no more Black within Taesan’s inner self. After scraping the bottom, what remained was less than a Fragment.
But Black rose anyway.
Something within him that was not his—forced up.
For a moment, Black covered the area.
Crack!
It turned gray as it spread over the Gatekeeper.
And the world was dyed gray.