Chapter 576
Taesan unleashed all the power contained within his sword. Everything within it—Transcendent [Boundary Negation], the Bottomless Abyss, Physical Force, and even the Beast of Boundary—spread out in an arc and swept through the Usurper’s interior.
And that was not the end.
He circulated the expended power once more through the cycle. Then he wielded again all the Divine Power that had been replenished.
Craaaack!
The interior shattered. The abyss, the origin, the essence of the being known as the Usurper. All of it broke apart.
The Usurper suffered damage it could never recover from. Even the Divine Powers it had swallowed no longer obeyed its control and began trying to break free.
The Usurper did not simply endure it either. Its massive body wrapped itself around Taesan.
It tried to sweep away and crush everything that he was.
[Your Endurance has been activated.]
But even that, Taesan endured.
He poured power into his sword and drove it in deeper. To a place from which recovery was impossible, so that the Usurper could not hold out for long and would surely die.
Craaaack!
The being known as the Usurper began to collapse.
No matter how the battle ended, the conclusion for the being called the Usurper had already been decided.
And so, the Usurper made a choice.
[Become mine.]
The Usurper swallowed Taesan whole.
It wrapped around his very flesh and stained it.
No. It was not staining.
It was Usurpation.
“You.”
Taesan grimaced.
The Usurper was now trying to forcibly swallow Taesan.
It was trying to usurp his very existence and make him its own.
Taesan bared his teeth.
Taesan tightened his grip on the sword.
[You activated Spiritual Rank Usurpation.]
Instead, he usurped the Usurper.
Similar concepts collided and clashed. Each tried to usurp and plunder the other.
Boom!
That distorted shockwave swallowed the surroundings.
The Usurper’s Domain began to waver violently. Its ownership shook, having lost its master and begun wandering.
[You!]
The Usurper screamed. A shout filled with intense will struck Taesan.
[You are mine!]
An immutable conviction that Taesan would absolutely become its possession.
Its rank and power resonated and rushed at Taesan. It tried to make Taesan’s very existence part of the Usurper.
“Don’t make me laugh.”
And Taesan scoffed at such a Usurper.
Craaack!
He poured even more power into the hand gripping the sword.
The being known as the Usurper began to be usurped by Taesan.
[You are miiiiiiine!]
The Usurper did not yield. It could not yield.
Its concept and rank had already suffered an irreversible fatal wound. The numerous Divine Powers it had usurped were also slipping from its control.
If it failed to usurp Taesan, then it was over.
And of course, Taesan had no intention of being usurped.
On the contrary, he intended to plunder the being known as the Usurper.
“Give it up.”
Craaaack.
The sword drove in even deeper. Spiritual Rank Usurpation swept over the Usurper.
Their respective usurpations collided. The ranks and Divine Powers trying to devour one another coiled like snakes. They stained each other, mixed, and became one.
And the one that triumphed was Taesan’s usurpation.
From the start, the Usurper had attained its great rank by swallowing numerous Old Gods. In a pure comparison of usurpation Divine Power, it was inferior to Taesan.
Moreover, the current Usurper was not in a perfect state. Having swallowed numerous concepts and ranks, its own Divine Power had already been damaged.
Especially now, after taking great damage from Taesan’s attacks.
There was no way it could defeat Taesan in a direct clash of usurpation.
Everything the Usurper had built up.
Its very existence.
Its very self began to be slowly usurped by Taesan. Like falling dominoes, it was unstoppable.
“You.”
Taesan bared his teeth.
“Are mine.”
The words the Usurper had been saying to Taesan, the Usurper now heard in return.
And the Usurper realized it.
That it had been defeated.
[…I see.]
Rumble…
The Usurper’s power gradually faded. It no longer even tried to usurp Taesan.
[The victor is you.]
The Usurper acknowledged defeat.
Everything it possessed was being perfectly usurped by Taesan.
[I bequeath this seat of solitude to you.]
No.
Rather, the Usurper willingly handed itself over to Taesan.
The very being known as the Usurper became part of Taesan.
[Experience it yourself—being cast alone into the universe without a single kin, O being of the Boundary!]
Boom!
The Usurper exploded. Everything contained within it began to transform into Taesan’s possession.
The being known as the Usurper vanished from both the universe and beyond.
And it was complete.
The very existence known as Taesan.
[You have achieved victory against the Usurper.]
[You activated Spiritual Rank Usurpation. The proficiency of Transcendence [Broken Wish] has reached 100%.]
[You activated Spiritual Rank Usurpation. The proficiency of Transcendence [Treasure Chest] has reached 100%.]
[You activated Spiritual Rank Usurpation. You have obtained Transcendence [Shapeshifter].]
[You activated Spiritual Rank Usurpation. You have obtained Transcendence [The Aggregate of All Things Nauseating].]
[You activated Spiritual Rank Usurpation. You have obtained Transcendence [One Who Wields the Universe].]
[You activated Spiritual Rank Usurpation. You have obtained Transcendence [Lord of Control].]
[You activated Spiritual Rank Usurpation. You have obtained Transcendence [Descent].]
[You have obtained Labyrinth [Normal Mode].]
[You have obtained Labyrinth [Easy Mode].]
[You have obtained Labyrinth [Hard Mode].]
[You have obtained [Usurper].]
[Your Transcendence [Spiritual Rank Usurpation] has changed.]
System windows appeared in numbers too great to count.
And every single one of them held meaning. They were all Divine Powers close to complete concepts.
Taesan could feel it.
What he had obtained.
And what he had become.
He turned his gaze. A pitch-black space came into view.
The black Rift that had spread across Earth’s sky.
This place was the Usurper’s Domain.
But now, it was his Domain.
And not only that. Even the three distorted spaces that existed beyond the universe.
He had obtained control over those as well.
“Strange.”
A sense of omnipotence dominated Taesan.
For a moment, intoxicated by that power, Taesan shook his head.
This would not do. Power had to remain under his control. He calmly settled the seething concepts and ranks.
Before long, Taesan brought himself back under control.
Taesan emerged from the Rift and looked down at Earth.
Earth was still in the middle of battle. Countless monsters were attacking the people.
And Taesan had become the master of all those monsters.
Taesan lightly flicked his finger.
The monsters began to vanish.
“Fight!”
“Hold on!”
“For victory!”
People gritted their teeth and fought. Those whose stamina had hit its limit were pulled back, and those who had recovered in the meantime stepped forward. In that way, the front line was barely maintained.
But even that was slowly reaching its limit.
The monsters were being summoned endlessly, but there was a limit to the number of people. As stamina, Skills, and items were consumed, they were slowly being pushed back.
Boom!
At last, the front line collapsed. An S-rank monster sent Hard Mode Players flying with a bodily charge.
“Damn it!”
Lee Taeyeon flinched. But she had no room to help the people. The Apostle seized that brief opening and aimed for her neck.
Cra-cra-crack!
“Kgh!”
“Lee Taeyeon!”
“I’m fine. I am.”
Lee Taeyeon, who had barely blocked it, muttered.
She and Amelia were working together to hold back the Apostle. That alone was already an overwhelming task, and they had no spare power to devote elsewhere.
Diana and Beldenkia, Kang Jun-hyuk and Minerva were all doing their best, but there were too many S-ranks.
Rumble!
People were thrown away. The front lines began collapsing one after another.
This was the limit.
Lee Taeyeon gritted her teeth. Despair swirled in her eyes.
[Your victory.]
A sudden system window appeared.
And the monsters stopped moving. Those at the front line who had shut their eyes and awaited death slowly opened them again.
“Huh?”
Like puppets whose strings had been cut, the monsters froze completely. The people who had been charging with vicious expressions halted in confusion.
“Huh, what the…”
“What’s going on?”
While everyone stood bewildered, unable to understand what was happening,
the monsters suddenly began to vanish one by one.
S-rank monsters capable of destroying planets by themselves, even Apostles that could contend with Immortals—they all crumbled into dust and scattered as though they had never been anything at all.
Only then did the people understand what had happened.
Light filled their eyes. Lee Taeyeon smiled faintly.
“We won.”
A roar of cheers erupted a beat later.
“Waaaaaaah!”
“We won!”
Taesan had won.
They had survived.
Cheers shook the Earth.
Taesan landed on the ground. The people who spotted him immediately ran toward him.
“Taesan-nim! Taesan-nim!”
“You won!”
“Ahhhhh! I knew you’d do it!”
Their cheers and applause pounded against his ears. And familiar faces Taesan knew well approached as well.
“Taesan.”
“Lee Taeyeon.”
Lee Taeyeon approached Taesan with a smile.
“You won.”
Taesan nodded.
“You all held out well too.”
Lee Taeyeon had likely faced an Apostle.
A being of the same level as the one that had led to her death in his past life.
And against such a being, Lee Taeyeon had endured.
She too had grown stronger. In many ways.
“Not as much as what you did.”
“You really did it?”
“Taesan-ssi…”
“Hyung!”
“Hyungnim.”
Amelia, Geum Jung-geun, Kang Jun-hyuk, and Kim Hwiyeon also approached.
They had won.
That fact made them happy, but they were also stunned. It all felt unreal.
“Wait a moment.”
Taesan looked up at the sky.
There was a black Rift there.
The beginning of everything.
When that had appeared, their daily lives had been ruined.
Taesan flicked his finger.
“Close.”
Rumble.
The Domain began to obey its master’s command.
The massive circular Rift covering the sky
began making a sound like crumpling metal. Its size gradually shrank, breaking apart.
Taesan clenched his fist.
With a strange tearing sound, the Rift compressed completely. Everything within it was reclaimed into Taesan.
“Ah…”
“Whoa.”
People let out exclamations.
The sky was incredibly clear.
Not a single cloud remained after the aftermath of the battle. It was perfectly open.
A sight they had never seen before.
Only then did people truly feel it.
That it was over.
That they had won.
That, in the truest sense, everything had ended.
Unexpectedly, there was no grand festival of celebration.
People had fought too fiercely and risked too much for that. Everyone was in a state of exhausted numbness. Some sat down blankly to rest, while others quietly gathered and talked.
But they were all rejoicing.
In the fact that they had won.
In the fact that there would be no more forced returns.
In the fact that they had reclaimed Earth.
They rejoiced as much as they could.
“Hmm.”
And Taesan, for his part, was pondering.
He had defeated the Usurper. And in the process, he had obtained far too much power.
Among that power was the ability to influence other Players.
So how should he handle it?
That was the question.
But he did not ponder for long.
Because space split open.
Taesan raised his gaze.
Who it was, how much power they possessed, what kind of rank they held, and where their limits lay.
He could see it all.
“Magician.”
And not only the Magician.
“And Arilnan-nim.”
The Magician who had created the Labyrinth, and the God of Cycle, cleaved through space and appeared.