Chapter 548

At this point, apostles were nothing. They couldn’t make Taesan feel a thing.

KRA-KRA-KRAK!

Monsters that had closed the distance charged at Taesan, bursting their power as they tried to trample him.

KRA-KRAK!

Taesan didn’t block them, and he didn’t counterattack either.

He simply stood still.

And that was enough.

Everything that reached Taesan was trampled and killed by Boundary Negation. One monster rushed him like a full-body tackle—and was erased on the spot.

KUUUWOONG!

A pitch-black bomb exploded right in front of Taesan. Boundary Negation devoured it as if it had been waiting, crushed it, and instead made it into its own power.

“So it gained a trait like this too.”

[Self] was an authority that was consumed. The only way to refill it was to recover slowly over time.

But Boundary Negation instead devoured the opponent’s power and swelled even larger.

“Not bad.”

Muttering softly, Taesan gathered Boundary. The wavering remnants swept the surroundings, and that alone tore apart dozens of monsters.

Uuuuuwoong.

The condensed Boundary slowly lost its color. Then it took on a formless shape. The value of everything it touched began to be erased.

The charging monsters faltered.

[That is…….]

[The great one’s.]

They couldn’t finish.

Taesan swung worthlessness. An invisible, powerless, formless wave swept the front.

The monsters fled in panic, but worthlessness calmly caught up and swallowed them.

Without sound, without rumor, without any trace of a wave, hundreds of monsters vanished all at once.

One monster that barely escaped the aftershock screamed with negation.

[Why! Why does a thing like that have the great one’s authority!]

“Because I stole it. [Worthlessness] is still worthlessness.”

He was running an experiment.

Taesan gathered Boundary and activated an authority. The authority of the monster that walks time. Time Interference activated.

Kiiiiing!

Time Interference’s effect was to intervene in the world’s time.

But the phenomenon that appeared was completely different.

The axis shook.

That was the only way to describe it.

The axis of the domain itself shook, and was severed.

[Kaaaah!]

The charging monsters reached a certain point, and in that instant they were all cut apart and twisted.

“Ho.”

The authority of the monster that walks time was manifesting here as severance.

It severed a certain area outright, cutting everything that crossed over.

It was closer to space itself turning into a blade.

“Is it because there’s no concept of time? This is interesting.”

This place wasn’t the universe.

Concepts of the universe—time and space, gravity, fire and wind—did not exist here. So Time Interference’s authority was being realized in an entirely different way.

‘No. Is this the monster that walks time’s true authority?’

This severance couldn’t be properly realized in the universe, so it transformed into the concept of time interference.

That seemed like the right way to think about it.

“Hm.”

It was usable.

Sever a domain up to a fixed distance, and cut everything that reached it.

It was like creating a huge wall.

“Seems useful.”

Honestly, Time Interference had been the most ambiguous authority he possessed. Even if he pressured someone by intervening in time, an opponent at the level of a Transcender could respond as much as they wanted.

And since he couldn’t use authorities simultaneously, Time Interference had to compete with authorities like worthlessness and compression, yet it didn’t have enough value.

But if this was how it manifested, the story changed. It had plenty of value, both offensively and defensively.

The issue was whether this authority could be used in the universe at all.

Even the monster that walks time likely couldn’t do that, which was why it handled it as Time Interference.

But Taesan might be able to.

That was for later. For now, he had work to finish.

“Keep coming.”

The monsters didn’t stop. Even as they vanished, they continued charging at Taesan.

Taesan welcomed them with a smile.

Crack.

He trampled and shattered them. Monsters that could defile the universe were torn apart with light movements.

There were apostles among them, but nothing changed.

To him now, S-rank monsters and apostles weren’t all that different.

And so, about half the monsters were erased. The monsters that had charged so fervently began to hesitate one by one.

The reason they hadn’t stopped even in the face of overwhelming power was because Taesan was an existence from beyond.

Old gods were immutable, and their power had no bottom. But beings from the other side lost power the more they used it, and needed time to recover it.

They believed that even weaklings like themselves could charge in, wear him down, and catch him.

And this was their domain.

Just existing here, a being from beyond was supposed to consume tremendous power.

That was what they believed.

But it wasn’t true.

Taesan wasn’t consuming anything.

If anything, Boundary Negation wrapped around him was swallowing the monsters and growing even larger.

The monsters began to back away one by one.

“About time.”

In the process of facing Rakiratas, Taesan had unified soul, body, and rank, and became able to do many things he couldn’t before. He had successfully tested most of them now.

That left only the final experiment.

Taesan tightened his grip on Bardray.

[You have activated Addition.]

[You have activated Multiplication.]

Physical force condensed. A mighty authority tried to reveal itself in the world.

But slowly, that power began to fade.

This wasn’t the universe.

It was the domain of the Old gods. Since the concept of physical force didn’t exist, he couldn’t properly handle the authority of physical force.

So.

Boundary wrapped around the condensed physical force.

Two different authorities fused, forming something new.

[Ah.]

The monsters that had been inching away faltered without realizing it.

An alien, twisted power was gathering into Taesan’s sword.

At their level, they couldn’t understand it. They couldn’t accept it.

No—even those who had reached a realm would not be able to accept it.

But one thing was certain.

That was not a concept they could accept.

Something beyond, like the great ones themselves.

“Go.”

Taesan swung his sword.

Gray physical force crashed down on the monsters. The Old gods’ domain itself trembled.

—

“Good.”

Taesan smiled in satisfaction.

When Multiplication was activated originally, that physical force left an indelible scar on the world.

This time, a scar remained as well.

But there was something different from before.

The scar remained across the entire range where the physical force had spread.

In a space vast enough to cover an entire planet and more, gray physical force left marks that couldn’t be erased.

Now he could swing Multiplication with Boundary mixed into it.

If he handled it properly, he could even pierce through Rakiratas’s full power. It was a satisfying result.

“It’s cleaned up.”

Taesan raised his gaze.

Where the wide-spread scars remained, there was nothing.

The monsters that had been stationed across more than ten planets, waiting for a chance to invade the universe, had all been erased.

And that wasn’t all.

A large portion of the black the monsters carried was absorbed into Taesan.

‘Is it because it became Soul Rank Usurpation?’

When it was Soul Rank Ascension, if the difference in rank was beyond a certain point, he couldn’t steal their power even after defeating them.

But after evolving into Soul Rank Usurpation, it seemed he could usurp to some extent even when there was a gap in rank.

“Good.”

The amount of black he gained was meaningful even to Taesan at his current level.

Taesan was satisfied.

He had wiped out the entire vanguard gathered for the war.

But the Old gods showed no particular movement.

“They really can’t spare any attention.”

He’d expected at least a shard to come, but it seemed the Transcenders were holding well. Thanks to that, he dealt with the ones at the outpost without issue.

Old gods might be immutable and not consume power, but they wouldn’t be able to pull out this much manpower all at once.

More than anything, these weren’t mindless existences like monsters, but fragments of Old gods with intact intelligence.

And Taesan erased them all so they couldn’t be reclaimed by the Old gods.

This could be a meaningful blow even to the Old gods.

‘I like it.’

He hadn’t intended to go this far, but he also had no intention of letting an opportunity slip.

Now it was time to return to the main point.

Taesan kicked off. His body wrapped in gray crossed the pitch-black space at high speed.

He knew the location.

There were no monsters to stop him.

More precisely, they couldn’t exist. The strong ones who had been waiting for war were all erased by Taesan. The Old gods couldn’t move either, so Taesan leisurely went where he wanted.

And Taesan arrived.

In an empty space filled with nothing but darkness.

Taesan stopped moving.

[Here?]

“Yeah.”

[There’s nothing here.]

There was only black. Nothing else. It didn’t look like the Usurper’s treasure chest would be here.

[…No.]

But Akasha denied it.

Her voice was trembling.

[It’s here. Arilnan-nim’s rank.]

[But I don’t see anything.]

Taesan silently groped at empty air. At that, Bardray and Akasha shut their mouths.

Like he was searching for an invisible wall, Taesan’s hand moved little by little.

And.

Something caught on Taesan’s hand.

It was an invisible door.

A tiny door that even Taesan now couldn’t properly detect—one that even a Transcender or an Old god couldn’t perceive.

This door was the entrance to the treasure chest.

But it was sealed extremely tightly.

It was stronger than any seal Taesan had ever seen. Even if he handled Boundary, it wasn’t something he could easily destroy.

After touching the door for a moment, Taesan gathered Boundary in his hand. But he didn’t destroy it.

The seal began to be dyed gray. The device meant to protect the door had its role changed by gray.

Kugugugung…….

The door opened.

And a narrow passage appeared—barely large enough for a single person to enter.

Taesan went inside.

And what he saw was a vast space whose end even Taesan couldn’t see.

A broken domain, so ruined he couldn’t make out its form or determine what essence it held.

Taesan remembered seeing this place.

In a dream.

Just like when he’d seen it in the dream, countless powers and concepts were visible throughout the domain.

Step.

Taesan walked forward. Before him, he saw something enormously twisted.

Taesan placed his hand on it.

‘…Big.’

It was immense.

Now it was twisted and ruined beyond recognition, but originally it possessed a rank so vast that even Taesan wouldn’t have been able to see it easily.

Taesan knew what this was.

This was a Transcender’s rank.

A concept that pierced through the entire universe—usurped by the Usurper, defiled, and thrown here like trash.

And it wasn’t just one.

There were multiple such vast concepts. And if he counted the smaller ones, there were too many to even tally.

It was like a treasure vault filled with things more precious than anything in the universe.

This was the Usurper’s treasure chest.

Somewhere in here was Arilnan’s concept.

The problem was how to find it. Even Taesan couldn’t see the end of the domain. It was absurdly vast.

Defiled and contaminated, he couldn’t find a concept’s essence without spending a fair amount of time.

And there was one more problem.

This was a treasure vault.

And a vault has something that guards the treasure.

Something appeared before Taesan.

Its form wasn’t human.

But it wasn’t a monster either.

It wasn’t quite of this world, and it wasn’t quite of beyond.

It was something straddling the middle.

It looked at Taesan.

Taesan frowned.

“I heard you were at the boundary.”

[…A thief has come in.]

A low voice rang out.

[But you’re also a welcome guest.]

The system window calmly pronounced it.

[The Usurper has appeared.]