Chapter 309

Ssssss—

With the disorienting sensation that time had been reversed, the Lord's severed body rejoined itself.

Before long, the Lord had returned to his original, featureless form.

Palantir had failed to leave so much as a mark on him, despite the 9-Star knight's slash having worked on countless Divinities.

"Who are you?"

[I am not the Lord.]

The being before him had certainly said that.

"Who are you?"

Killian asked without dismissing the Presence he was projecting.

It would be all right to use Palantir again.

Since becoming 9-Star, his stamina, Mana, and mental strength had grown explosively.

Hollyheart had granted him the power to heal himself, while the Authority of Barriers was no less formidable than that of a fully manifested Murus.

Whether the thing before him was the Lord or not.

‘I will not lose.’

Killian now had the confidence to cut down anyone who stood before him.

The issue was time.

The time needed to analyze, unravel, and cut down the thing before him.

‘Missing the appointed date and regressing is once too many.’

Cronis's blessing as the God of Time had been spent in its entirety on a single regression.

Now, he was merely a Mortal who had forged the strongest Hollyheart of all, and a 9-Star knight pursued by time.

‘I cannot win the war unless I take down both the Empire and the Monster Lord.’

He had to free Edan's soul, sealed within Adamas.

He had to trace the Anomaly's whereabouts and open the gate to the divine realm.

The act of him, a Godslayer who had changed the laws of the world, opening that gate.

That act would restore the incomplete Gods' power and make him a Transcendent.

‘The Presence I possessed as an ancient Godslayer was on the level of a mid-ranking God.’

The present, in which he lived as Killian Eurasia, was different from before.

Perhaps merely cutting down the Monster Lord or the Emperor would grant him the Presence of Transcendence and allow him to surpass the level ancient human Adamas had reached.

He organized his thoughts and calmed his heart.

[.......]

The one who wore the Lord's form while claiming not to be him waited quietly.

‘This thing is not the Lord.’

It was not a matter of whether its Presence was complete or incomplete.

It did not evoke the sensation he had felt when he faced the Lord in the past.

Nor did he feel the helplessness that had seemed to paralyze his thoughts merely from confronting him.

It was a perception only he could recognize, because he possessed powers beyond all categories: a 9-Star Mana Heart and Hollyheart.

An Existence Force that seemed to stand outside the laws to which every living being was inevitably bound.

‘What I feel from it is neither Divine Power, the power of the Gods, nor the Anomaly's Radiance.’

[Do you believe me now?]

As if it had read his thoughts, the being in the Lord's form created a long, split mouth and replied.

[Of course you would. I am something with a nature the beings of this place cannot comprehend.]

‘The beings of this place.’

That was an expression even the arrogant Gods did not use.

Something flickered through Killian's mind.

‘Could this thing be...? No, that is absurd...’

[Absurd, you say.]

‘...’

[Everything in the world begins with a small doubt.]

It spoke as though imparting a lesson to an ignorant student.

Shhh—

Two pupils appeared in its featureless face.

They looked down at Killian as if inviting him to continue.

He voiced his first and most likely assumption.

"You are an alter ego created by the Lord."

[Hmm.]

"He made contact with what lies beyond the Boundary."

Abyss.

A place even the Gods must not cross.

To overturn the laws of the world, the Lord had broken one of the rules handed down among the Gods.

"You are a variable that arose in that process."

The Anomaly's Curses held the power to bind even a God.

‘The Emperor studied the Anomaly's Curses and reached a level where he could imitate Divine Power.’

The Anomaly was a mysterious Transcendent.

The Abyss was a place where there might be any number of such beings.

Styx had said that the Lord would surely appear by the time he opened the gate.

‘Even if the corrupted Lord appeared after losing himself, it would not be strange.’

The higher Gods had said they had not seen the Lord for a very long time.

He had to ask in order to confirm it.

A being with mysterious power that rivaled the Lord's, yet denied being the Lord.

"Are you what the Lord became when he was corrupted?"

[An excellent judgment.]

The corner of its newly formed mouth curled sharply upward.

The mouth spoke the truth.

[I am an impurity.]

"..."

[I am a Divinity tainted when the Lord crossed the Boundary—the form he did not want.]

An impurity. A tainted Divinity. A form he had not wanted.

[You have half of it right, so I ought to give you a reward, Adamas.]

Had he not noticed the crack, it would not have revealed itself like this.

[Had that happened, the time you turned back would have been wasted, and you would have had to surrender everything to the ‘Lord.’]

It was delighted and pleased at once.

Despite its unfelt Existence Force, it poured forth rich emotions.

[This is a truth that could defy the laws of the world.]

Which meant.

[It is a fact that even a Transcendent cannot speak aloud.]

Two eyes and one mouth.

With an appearance somewhat strange for a complete human, it declared,

[I will show you his memories.]

The thoughts of the one who had once been the sole highest God.

And.

[What he wished to become.]

Shhh—

The body of the being that called itself the Lord's impurity blurred like smoke.

His reason reacted first.

‘It may be a mental attack.’

Its hazy body began to overlap with Killian's as though passing through him.

‘I have to react and swing my sword.’

The sword in his hand trembled.

The instant he tried to rouse his instincts.

"Humans are not toys."

An ancient memory surfaced.

The lonely struggle that had ended in his sealing, even after he reached the Presence of Transcendence.

"I am going to die anyway."

The death of a close friend who had chosen death even as Transcendence lay before him surfaced.

"Look after our descendants. You are the only one I can ask."

Time had passed, and an Eurasia descendant stood on the verge of Transcendence.

His enemy was the highest God who had led the sealing of his body.

‘It is just like before.’

Though he had accomplished so much, he was still in the palm of a God's hand.

Though he had obtained immense power, he was still worrying about the deaths around him.

Though he claimed to have lived for thousands of years, he still had not fully understood the world.

By then, the smoke had nearly fused with his body.

‘I must not react.’

No.

‘I must accept it.’

This was not fear.

‘As someone who went from Mortal to Godslayer.’

From reincarnator to regressor.

And as one who once again stood before becoming a Transcendent, his instinct told him.

‘A new opportunity.’

Not a chance to retreat at a crossroads of fate, but one to take another step forward.

‘A chance that will never come again.’

Before long, the two bodies overlapped completely.

Shhh—

[How tedious.]

With that leisurely voice.

The truth of the world flowed into Killian's mind.

***

[How tedious.]

He muttered in a low voice.

Words and sentences used to express emotion.

He did not know why such language had been entered into his mind.

He was an uncertain being.

All he knew was that countless possibilities converged within him.

How much time had passed since he was born a great being?

Thousands of years.

Perhaps tens of thousands.

[.......]

He did not know exactly because he had never counted.

Nor was he curious, because he had never felt the need to count.

One thing alone was certain: the wonder of being a God.

With a single gesture of his hand, the terrain of a mountain range changed.

With a small movement, the time and space around him were affected.

A being born with immense Presence.

He could not understand why he alone had been born as such a being.

He looked at the altered mountain range before him.

He could have leveled it into a plain, but he did not.

After spending a long time alone, he had realized something.

Living as a being with immense power was not an unalloyed joy.

The world needed more beings like him.

It needed more Divinities with whom he could converse and share the world.

He possessed countless abilities, unclassified and jumbled together.

Over a long period, he confirmed that the power of Creation also existed within him.

He imagined it.

A being whose Presence was equal to his.

[Yes. I want brothers.]

After much time had passed, he concentrated his power and invoked the power of Creation.

Fwoooosh—

[.......]

The being created in a burst of white light was not satisfactory.

Fwoooosh— Fwoooosh—

Again and again, he used his power to create life.

Fwoooosh—

After gathering more power than before, he created a life-form shaped like a lizard.

It had sharp claws and hard scales, and could fly using its wings.

Perhaps because he had lavished more care upon it than the lives he had made before, it possessed by far the largest heart of any creature he had created.

Bzzzing—

The creature's future appeared in his sight.

Before long, this small creature would grow into a being with a colossal body that strode through the skies.

[Dragon.]

The beings of the earth would call the creature before him a dragon and tremble in fear.

It would breed, take on the attributes of nature, and exhale a highly compressed breath from its mouth.

For a moment, he glimpsed countless futures in which dragons ruled the world.

[Disappointing.]

He voiced the quiet appraisal.

After hundreds of years of experiments, he realized something.

The lives he created could not possess a Presence equal to his.

They would merely become tiny creatures that lived finite lives.

He devoted no more effort to Creation.

As he had before, he walked and walked again.

Mountain ranges became plains, then seas.

Time passed, and the seas were covered in volcanic ash before becoming mountain ranges once more.

The lives he had created bred and evolved until their first forms were impossible to recall.

He did not give them names, but they gave themselves names based on their appearances and traits.

Before he knew it, the creatures had begun to call him the Lord in awe.

[How tedious.]

Drawn by instinct, the Lord walked and walked again.

Then he found it.

The Boundary of the world, one even his perfect self could not cross.

[.......]

As though to show that this place differed from everywhere he had walked before, a blizzard raged.

It was an environment in which ordinary life could never survive.

Even his eyes, which could read the future, saw nothing.

Unlike anywhere else, it was an eerie place.

[Eerie?]

It was not an impression a great being ought to have.

But one thing was certain: the Boundary before him was the first thing to stir his interest.

[A place that stirs emotion within me.]

There was no reason to turn back now.

Swish.

He stood still at the Boundary and reached out a hand.

Crackle—

[.......]

An invisible space repelled him, and sparks flew from his fingertips.

It was the first domain in this world to reject him.

He looked at his blackened hand.

A scar that seemed to warn him not to come any closer.

[Interesting.]

The hundreds of powers latent within him.

The powers he had, at some point, named Authorities awakened.

[Nothing can bar my way.]

With immense energy, the Authority of Boundary manifested.

Crackle—

Sparks flew for only a moment.

Crack!

Clad in the Authority of Boundary, he stepped into the secret space.

It was a dark space.

His two eyes, which read the future, glowed as if lighting the darkness.

He took a step.

His sense of time, governed by the Authority of Time, began to blur.

How long had he walked?

[Screeeee—]

A grotesque cry reached him.

[Screee— D-d-d-d—]

The grotesque, strange cry.

[Loooo—]

With slurred pronunciation.

[Looooord.]

At last, it formed a single word.

[Lord.]