Chapter 527
Tap.
Taesan stepped into the Labyrinth. The Magician was waiting for him.
“You worked hard. You cleared the quest splendidly.”
That meant he had to be given a reward worthy of it.
But the Magician’s face looked full of worries.
“What should I give you…”
At this point, most rewards didn’t mean much. Taesan had become far too strong. He had gone beyond the system’s bounds and reached a new domain.
There weren’t many rewards that would mean anything to him.
More than anything, the achievement he’d accomplished this time was killing one of the Old gods.
It wasn’t a proper one, but still—Old gods were Old gods. He needed to be given a fitting reward, yet even the Magician couldn’t easily calculate what kind of reward was fitting for bringing down one of the Old gods.
After agonizing over it, the Magician made a decision.
“I don’t think you need simple equipment anymore. So let’s keep it simple.”
The Magician flicked his finger. The system’s authority covered Taesan.
[You have obtained the special passive skill [Defense-to-Attack Power Conversion].]
[Special passive skill: Defense-to-Attack Power Conversion]
[Your Defense is converted into Attack Power.]
A very simple description.
That made it easy to understand. Taesan let out a small exclamation.
“A permanent version of Conversion.”
“Similar.”
Conversion that could move Attack Power and Defense values—now it had become a special passive skill.
“Defense doesn’t mean anything to you anymore, anyway, right?”
Taesan nodded. Attack Power mattered because he had obtained Physical Force Conversion.
But Defense didn’t. Defense had no value whatsoever.
If Defense could matter against an opponent, then that opponent couldn’t be Taesan’s match. It meant they couldn’t escape the system’s concept in the first place. At that level, they couldn’t even scratch Immutable Self.
The enemies Taesan faced now were all at least at the level of a fragment of the Old gods.
Defense was meaningless. Turning it all into Attack Power carried no loss at all.
Taesan’s current Defense was around 15,000.
His Attack Power suddenly rose by about 50%. For Taesan, who had Multiplication, it was a change with far greater value than most skills or equipment.
“Still, this makes Conversion meaningless, so I’ll change Conversion into something else.”
[The special activation skill [Conversion] has evolved. Cooldown has been reset.]
[Special activation skill: Conversion]
[Mana Consumption: 100]
[You can tune Attack Power by up to 10%. This skill can only be used once per week, and immediately after the attack, the value returns to normal.]
[Condition: Upper Swordsmanship [Ability Sword]]
[If you tune Attack Power with Conversion and attack with a sword, an additional 10% value is applied.]
“The additional value got lower.”
“Can’t help it because of balance. Still, that’s satisfying enough, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
With Addition, Blade of Fighting Spirit, and Multiplication, it wasn’t a simple 20%.
By simple calculation, his Attack Power was 15,000 normally. When he went all out, it increased by 25,000.
If he used Multiplication at full power once again, the destructive power would be incomparable to when he brought down the Gatekeeper.
“How far can that ridiculous power really go?”
Even the Magician couldn’t predict that Physical Force. It had already strayed far beyond the designer’s own domain.
But the Magician found it overwhelmingly fun.
“Show me. Show me how far you can go by using and ruling my concept.”
The Magician murmured. Multiplication was the reason he created the Labyrinth. It was proof of that.
The reward processing was finished.
Now it was time to resolve the question.
“What happened?”
Why did Bright die?
And how did the Old gods know?
They had aimed for Taesan consuming the Boundary Line. It was a tactic that would’ve been impossible unless they had predicted Bright’s death from the start.
The Magician gave a bitter smile.
“Explaining it in words is less convenient than showing you directly. Follow me.”
The Magician grabbed at the air. Space opened, and the Magician and Taesan stepped inside.
It was a vast universe.
An empty place where no stars or meteorites could be seen.
And in the middle of it, there was a gigantic golden wall.
“…This is.”
Taesan was overwhelmed in an instant.
A wall made of perfect Divinity.
Not as a metaphor—truly like the sun.
‘Can I break through it?’
Could he compress the Boundary Line he had and turn it into a blade to pierce it?
The answer came immediately. It was possible.
But the moment he tried to pierce it, the Divinity would recoil and swallow him whole.
Even if he wrapped his body in the Boundary Line, a mass of Divinity on that scale was not something he could endure. Before long, he would meet death.
And that wasn’t the end of it.
Around the golden wall, multiple layers of concepts were wrapped.
The protection of concepts spread at full power by a Transcender who contemplated a single concept.
Not one or two, but more than ten.
It meant at least more than ten Concept God had joined forces to create this golden wall.
“Now I see why even if the true body of the Old gods came down, it couldn’t break through.”
This was the safest place in the world—at least against the Old gods.
Taesan looked around the wall.
“Is there no one here besides us?”
“There’s no reason to defend a castle with no one to protect.”
The Magician flew forward. Taesan followed behind.
As they moved along the wall, Taesan could see it.
A section of the wall had been brutally destroyed.
Taesan brushed the destroyed wall with his hand.
He didn’t feel the aura of the Old gods. In the traces of destruction, he felt this world’s concept.
“Come in.”
The Magician went in through there.
Inside the golden wall, there was a residence prepared for a single existence.
And inside that residence lay a corpse.
A goddess’s corpse.
From deep within its chest, an alien pitch-blackness was flowing out.
No vitality, no concept. Complete death.
It was different from Levinenov. Even if Taesan recovered that pitch-blackness with the Boundary Line, it wouldn’t come back to life.
“The Old gods can’t break through the golden wall. Even if the true body comes down, you’d need at least three. But a filthy traitor interfered. Thanks to that, it could break through the golden wall and kill the goddess.”
“You said it was a god I know.”
A Transcender who could join hands with the Old gods and kill God of Purification – Bright.
There was only one in Taesan’s mind. The Magician confirmed it.
“Essence.”
The God of Fall—Essence.
The Transcender who used Diana and Beldenkia, tried to treat Amelia Aerin as his toy, and directly clashed with Taesan.
“So it was him.”
There had been several gods hostile to Taesan. But it didn’t feel like any of them would shake the universe itself by joining hands with the Old gods.
Even the God of Death – Dersha had tried to kill Taesan, but that had been because it would disrupt the balance of the universe.
But the God of Fall was different.
He was twisted. A god whose distortion was obvious even when he was mortal.
“It was a wrong concept from the start.”
The Magician spoke with a creased face.
“He didn’t obtain his divine name as a complete fall. He wanted to throw countless things—this world itself, even himself—off a cliff. He reached that place through feelings and actions like that. But… no matter how twisted he was, I thought he’d at least keep the minimum line.”
But he didn’t.
The God of Fall crossed that line.
“I don’t know since when, but he made up his mind.”
“Made up his mind?”
“If he only meant to betray this world and kill Bright, he couldn’t do it alone.”
He could break through the golden wall, but he couldn’t kill Bright.
Bright was also a Transcender. For the master of one concept to kill the master of another concept was impossible unless there was an overwhelming difference in power.
So the God of Fall joined hands with the Old gods.
“Preparing long enough to make a deal with the Old gods without us noticing means… he’s been preparing for quite a long time. At the very least, he must’ve started preparing decades ago.”
The Magician shook his head.
“I don’t know, but at least he won’t survive.”
A calm but cold voice rang out. There was a cool, killing intent in his eyes.
“I’ll find him and tear him apart. No matter what kind of Transcender he is, if he betrays the world, someone needs to show him exactly what that makes him.”
“Then I won’t have to meet him again?”
Multiple Transcender were moving directly. It seemed like Taesan would never have to meet the God of Fall again.
But the Magician couldn’t answer for sure.
“I don’t know.”
The Magician looked at Taesan with an ambiguous gaze.
“That bastard is definitely watching you.”
The God of Fall was hostile to Taesan.
“And the Old gods are aiming for you, too. I don’t know what’ll happen, but… I’ll make sure it doesn’t become a problem.”
Taesan nodded.
“Then we’re mostly done with what you wanted to show and explain.”
The Magician clapped his hands. Space opened, and a passage leading to the Labyrinth opened.
“I’ve got things to do. The rift on Earth can’t be dealt with for now, but at least there won’t be any problems. You sealed it by bringing down the Gatekeeper. We’ll need to clean it up later… but we don’t need to right now. Go down for now. When it gets sorted out later, I’ll tell you again.”
“Before that, there’s something I want to ask.”
Taesan looked at the Magician. Perhaps he read something in that gaze, because the Magician quietly smiled.
“Don’t worry. What you’re curious about, you’ll be able to learn it on the next floor.”
“Then. See you next time.”
The Magician leapt through space. Left alone, Taesan stared in that direction for a moment before returning to the Labyrinth.
He went down the stairs.
A system window announcing the start of the 95th floor appeared.
[95th Floor quest start.]
[See your essence.]
[Reward: One stable Essence.]
[Secret Reward: ???]
*
*
A Transcender flashed through Taesan’s mind. Taesan opened the door to the 95th floor.
Inside the 95th floor, there was a single door.
Creeeak.
He opened the door.
And Taesan arrived in a new world.
It was a world, yet no longer a world.
Everything had been corroded by the flow of time. With one exception, no life existed at all.
When Taesan placed his hand on the ground, the floor collapsed in that instant. Everything turned to dust and began to scatter.
“This is a first, too.”
It wasn’t a world that died due to the Old gods’ contamination.
It was a world where everything had purely corroded under the flow of time and become dust. It barely maintained the shape of a planet, but if someone lightly tapped it, it would scatter into the remnants of space.
“The time it takes for an entire planet to turn to dust. It’s been a long time.”
Taesan moved.
In this dead world where nothing could be felt, he could sense a single existence.
Taesan launched himself. In an instant, he crossed half the planet and arrived at his destination.
“…Hoh. So this is who it was.”
There, an old man was standing.
Taesan spoke evenly.
“It’s been a while.”
“It hasn’t been that long.”
The old man grinned.
[You have encountered God of Essence—Essential.]