Chapter 339: The Titans Who Turned Existence Into Records!

[EPITAPH TITAN]

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Rank: SSR+

Type: Origin Skill

Classification: Origin Authority

Status: Awakened

Previous Evolution:

"ANVIL TITAN — SSR"

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[DESCRIPTION]

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"The Origin Skill born from those who refused to allow existence to disappear."

Within another reality once existed an ancient Titan civilization that feared neither death nor destruction, because they believed true loss occurred only when every trace of an existence was forgotten.

They were known as—

"THE EPITAPH TITANS"

Through studying existence itself, the Epitaph Titans discovered that everything which exists leaves behind information recording what it was at a particular instant, whether it is a living being, soul, weapon, technique, structure, natural phenomenon, celestial body, or even an entire world.

They called this information a **Record**, and after countless generations of study, they eventually learned how to perceive those Records, preserve them, and restore what had once existed through their supreme Origin Method—

"FINAL RECORD"

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[ORIGIN AUTHORITY]

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■ "FINAL RECORD"

"Existence may end, but its Record does not."

Anything that exists within Luke’s effective presence can leave behind an **Origin Record**, preserving the complete state of that existence at the moment it was recorded rather than merely storing its appearance or physical condition.

Depending on the target, a Record may preserve its body, soul, memories, bloodline, energy, cultivation, abilities, injuries, equipment, techniques, structure, supernatural properties, and other information belonging to its existence at that instant.

This authority is not limited to living beings, allowing weapons, artifacts, summons, constructs, terrain, natural phenomena, celestial bodies, and eventually far greater existences to be recorded as Luke’s mastery grows.

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----

"Okay, now this one is even more absurd than the last."

Luke commented after finishing the description, because the Epitaph Titans had somehow reached into aspects such as time, fate, creation, oblivion, and several other forces before eventually developing a supreme Origin Method that allowed them to preserve the existence of almost anything.

"A supreme Origin Method really isn’t an exaggeration this time."

Luke continued walking through the palace corridor while rereading the description of **Final Record**, and the more he understood what the Authority actually did, the more ridiculous it seemed.

If someone died after being properly recorded within his presence, Luke could potentially restore that person through their Final Record, and this wasn’t some ordinary resurrection method that summoned a soul back into a recreated body or produced an imitation carrying the deceased person’s memories.

The Record preserved the existence itself at that instant, including the person’s body, soul, memories, bloodline, cultivation, abilities, and identity, meaning that if Luke possessed a valid Record and enough power to restore it, the person who had died could genuinely return according to the state preserved within that Record.

Luke remained quiet for several seconds after realizing what that actually meant.

Even his current restriction, which only allowed him to restore things that had already been destroyed or killed, didn’t make the Authority feel any less unreasonable, especially when he considered what it might become once his strength increased.

"If the Authority description is already this ridiculous, I really want to know what kind of civilization managed to create it."

With that thought, Luke dismissed the ability page and called up the next section of the System.

"Alright, let’s see what the Epitaph Titans’ lore contains."

The screen changed immediately, and a new page unfolded before him.

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[EPITAPH TITAN — LORE]

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Far beyond the realities known to Valtharion once existed a universe called **Mementh**, a realm inhabited by an ancient Titan civilization whose development followed a path unlike almost anything found in other worlds. While many civilizations pursued greater strength, immortality, divine authority, or control over natural laws, the beings who came to be known as the **Epitaph Titans** devoted themselves to a single question that eventually shaped their entire existence: if something had truly existed once, why should its destruction mean that it could never exist again?

Their search for an answer led to the discovery of an ancient Origin Method known as **Final Record**, an ability based upon the understanding that everything leaves behind information simply by existing.

A sword possessed a Record describing the material, shape, energy, enchantments, damage, and every other property composing it at a particular moment, while a living being carried an incomparably more complex Record containing the body, soul, memories, bloodline, cultivation, abilities, injuries, and countless smaller details that together formed that person’s existence.

The Epitaph Titans discovered that these Records were not merely memories.

They were blueprints of existence.

Once they learned how to perceive those Records, their civilization changed permanently, because destruction gradually stopped carrying the same finality it possessed everywhere else. If a treasured weapon shattered during battle while a valid Record remained preserved, an Epitaph Titan could reconstruct the weapon according to that Record, while a destroyed fortress, broken artifact, collapsed magical formation, or even a celestial construct could be restored in exactly the condition it possessed when recorded.

Eventually, they discovered that living beings were no exception.

If an Epitaph Titan successfully recorded someone while that person was alive and later witnessed their death, Final Record could reconstruct the deceased existence from its last valid living Record, returning the same body, soul, memories, bloodline, abilities, and identity rather than creating an imitation or placing another soul inside a recreated vessel.

To the Epitaph Titans, this was not considered necromancy or conventional resurrection, because they were not commanding the dead to return.

They were simply restoring an existence whose complete Record had never been lost.

As their mastery increased, Mementh gradually transformed around this philosophy, and ordinary monuments became increasingly uncommon because the Epitaph Titans preferred to preserve civilizations through enormous Archives containing Records rather than statues describing what had once existed. Cities recorded themselves at regular intervals, royal families maintained generations of living Records, military fleets carried independent Archives into distant wars, while important worlds maintained planetary Records capable of preserving landscapes, oceans, civilizations, and structures should catastrophe ever destroy them.

At the center of this civilization stood the greatest structure ever created by their species, an Origin Archive known as **The Great Epitaph**.

The Great Epitaph eventually expanded across a region larger than several star systems, with entire sections devoted to storing Records gathered throughout Mementh’s history. Within its depths were preserved kings who had died millions of years earlier, extinct Titan lineages, vanished species, destroyed cities, ancient weapons, fallen moons, dead stars, forgotten oceans, and civilizations whose final surviving members had chosen to entrust their existence to the Archive before disappearing from history.

Because of this, the Epitaph Titans gradually developed a relationship with history that would appear almost incomprehensible to ordinary civilizations.

For them, the past was not completely unreachable.

If the Record survived, the past could return.

The greatest practitioners of Final Record eventually advanced far beyond restoring destroyed objects or recently deceased beings, because once their understanding reached its peak, they learned how to call upon Records belonging to previous ages and temporarily replace portions of the present with what had existed before.

A battlefield ruined by centuries of war could be restored to the landscape recorded before the first battle occurred, while a planet shattered generations earlier could be reconstructed from a complete planetary Record if sufficient power was available. Dead armies could return exactly as they had existed before their deaths, including their weapons, cultivation, memories, and identities, while celestial bodies that had collapsed long ago could once again burn within the sky.

The most powerful Epitaph Titans even maintained continuous Records of themselves, updating those Records throughout their lives so that destroying their body or soul was no longer enough to guarantee death.

As long as a sufficiently complete Record remained somewhere beyond the enemy’s reach, the Titan could eventually be restored.

Among their entire civilization, however, one existence surpassed every other master of Final Record, and history eventually forgot the being’s original name because only one title remained associated with him.

**The Last Scribe.**

The Last Scribe possessed an understanding of Records so profound that he could preserve events and existences on scales that other Epitaph Titans could scarcely manage. Where lesser masters recorded individuals or cities, he recorded continents, while worlds that entered his perception could be preserved with enough detail that their civilizations, environments, and living populations could later be reconstructed together.

Eventually, even that became insufficient for him.

Near the height of Mementh’s civilization, the Last Scribe began creating the greatest Record their species had ever attempted, gathering information from every major Archive and connecting the Great Epitaph directly to the Record network spread throughout their universe.

The result became known simply as the **Final Record of Mementh**.

Within it were supposedly contained every world, star, city, Titan, civilization, Archive, and major existence belonging to their universe at the moment the Record was completed, creating the theoretical possibility that even if Mementh itself were somehow destroyed, their entire civilization could one day be restored.

For a people who had spent ages defeating the finality of destruction, it should have represented their greatest achievement.

Instead, sometime after the Record was completed, Mementh disappeared.

There was no known universal war preceding the event, no recorded explosion capable of destroying the realm, and no surviving account describing armies invading their territory.

One moment, pathways between realities still led toward Mementh.

Later, those same pathways ended in emptiness.

Nothing remained where their universe should have been.

Centuries later, fragments believed to have belonged to the Great Epitaph began appearing throughout completely unrelated realities, yet what made these discoveries disturbing was that every recovered fragment carried exactly the same final inscription, despite having been found across worlds that had never communicated with one another.

The message contained only four words:

**"DO NOT RESTORE US."**

No surviving Record explains why the Epitaph Titans left that warning, although its meaning created a terrifying contradiction surrounding their disappearance, because these were beings who had spent their entire civilization defeating death and preserving everything they considered precious.

Whatever happened inside Mementh had therefore frightened them enough that restoration itself became something they wished to prevent.

Some ancient scholars later suggested that Mementh had not actually been destroyed, but deliberately removed from the pathways connecting realities, while others believed the Epitaph Titans discovered something hidden inside their own Records that should never have been restored.

A darker possibility suggested that something entered the Great Epitaph and became part of the Final Record of Mementh, meaning restoring their civilization would also restore whatever had caused them to disappear.

No proof remains for any explanation.

The Final Record of Mementh has never been found.

The Record belonging to the Last Scribe has also never been recovered.

Yet among the scattered remnants of their civilization, one principle continues appearing again and again, representing the belief that once allowed the Epitaph Titans to challenge death itself:

**Existence may end, but its Record does not, and as long as the Record remains, what was lost may one day return.**

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"Another incredible Titan race was born, and yet this civilization also disappeared because of its obsession with recording everything."

Luke muttered after finishing the lore, while his thoughts naturally returned to the possibilities surrounding Mementh’s disappearance.

One possibility bothered him more than the others: perhaps the Epitaph Titans had truly recorded something that had already been erased from existence and was never meant to return, and if that unknown being had somehow become linked to the Final Record, then whatever force had erased it in the first place might have also erased Mementh simply because the entire civilization had become connected to that same Record.

If that theory was correct, then restoring Mementh could also restore the very existence that had caused its disappearance in the first place, which would explain why fragments of the Great Epitaph carried the warning telling anyone who found them not to restore their civilization.

"Another unsolved mystery."

Luke let out a quiet sigh as he dismissed the lore page, because every world and every universe seemed to contain histories and secrets buried so deeply that even beings standing near the peak of existence could disappear without leaving behind a complete answer.

"Whatever. I’ll find out someday if I ever reach that far."

With that thought, Luke finally looked ahead and realized that while reading through the System’s lore, he had already reached the end of the corridor.

Selene’s room was directly in front of him.

A small smile appeared on Luke’s face as he reached for the handle.

"I’m here."

His hand closed around the knob before turning it downward.

CLICK.