Chapter 227: Prelude to the End
Chapter 227: Prelude to the End
The Elder was disappearing as his body slowly turned transparent. Despite what was happening, he didn’t show any fear.
‘If this is my fate….’
He was willing to accept it.
Even if there was no soul left in him, and even if it meant that he could prevent the end, he was proud that he hadn’t lived a shameful life.
Shhh!
Gradually, his body grew stiff, and once his figure began to die slowly, the Elder spoke,
“That God isn’t a transcendent being that was born out of the realization of the truth and law of the world but is rather the coalescence of the King of the Sky, the murderous intent to kill everything, a machine that surpasses the computing power of all living things, and many other complex things. It is an artificially born God.”
The information, once passed to Chun Yeowun, was instantly processed.
Murderous intent meant someone similar to Heavenly Killing Star, and the machine surpassing the computational power of living beings had to be the Demon God AI. Then who or what was the King of the Sky?
‘King of the Sky… Heaven’s king….’
Chun Yeowun’s eyes widened. He remembered that one clan used the word “Heaven.”
‘Talisha!’
If it was the king of the Heaven clan, it had to be Talisha. Why was Talisha, the head of a clan from another dimension, related to something MS Group was creating?
‘Ah!’
In Chun Yeowun’s mind, he remembered the memories he had read from one of the Heaven clan members.
[How long do I have to work on finding the 6th Talisha? Is someone who had obsessed over Arisha and disappeared really there on that small planet?]
The Heaven clan said that they were looking for the disappeared Talisha. Recalling this, the information that Chun Yeowun knew now fell into pieces, such as the wings protruding from the backs of the beings in the sector.
And…
[Cough… Cho Yushin… please… get yourself together. It is… different from… humans. Brainwashing… is crazy to try…]
In addition, the words of his descendant, Chun Mu-seong, right before he died began to make sense once Chun Yeowun discovered that Cho Yushin and Demon God AI were doing something.
All these memories were connected to the missing King of the Sky.
‘And that must be Talisha.’
What they found had to be Talisha, who was the strongest being of the Heaven clan and was said to be at the Demon King level.
Using Talisha, the MS Group was trying to create an artificial God.
The disappearing Elder said,
“The existence that’s being created through the accumulation of the worst components is nothing more than the God of the end. Obviously, I was trying to solve this, but now you are the only hope.”
Elder Jeok-mi’s eyes weirdly held trust in Chun Yeowun.
“What a useless expectation.”
Chun Yeowun wasn’t the kind to be moved by the concept of justice.
“I kept thinking: why did you, who came from another causality in space-time, appear here?”
“That…”
Chun Yeowun couldn’t speak, even though it was a simple question.
He was caught up in the spaceship accident and had fallen into this era.
‘A simple accident….’
However, Chun Yeowun drew the connections between cause and effect in his brain.
This time-axis was in a world where the Demon God had disappeared, the Demon God AI was created in the hands of his descendant Chun Mu-seong, and Cho Yushin aimed to destroy the Blade Six to be the best.
“You may have come here, but the world still runs on fate. The old man thinks that it was fate that you have appeared in this world.”
“Fate…”
“Where there is light, there is darkness, and when there is heat, there is cold, so everything opposes an opponent.”
‘Don’t resist….’
Chun Yeowun’s eyelids became heavy. The more he listened to the Elder’s words, the more he thought they made sense. It was as if fate made him take care of everything, rather than him simply falling in here.
‘Do I have to fix what happened because of me?’
It was said that if coincidences repeated, they happened because of fate.
And the end of the world was at stake.
Shhh!
Elder Jeok-mi’s body was almost entirely gone.
‘Is he confused?’
Chun Yeowun was silent, making Elder Jeok-mi think that he was suffering. The Elder assumed that this would be the primary reaction of any person if they found out that the world rested on their shoulders.
Before completely disappearing, the Elder said,
“Hahaha, please do not turn away from the karma of fate given to you. Not for this old man, but for the people you care for….”
Once he finished talking, his body began to scatter into particles. The Elder had nothing more to say.
Chun Yeowun, who wasn’t from this world, was the only hope he had, but the end would be a natural disaster caused by one being.
Even if Chun Yeowun was unfathomably strong, he was still human, and the being he would face was quite literally a God.
‘… I… I want to show that there is hope in the world, even if it isn’t visible.’
Scattering, Elder Jeok-mi looked at Chun Yeowun.
Finally speaking up, Chun Yeowun said,
“Stop spouting bullshit.”
Chun Yeowun stretched out his hand, gathering a black light where Elder Jeok-mi’s body was scattering…
Swosh!
As the unknown dark and light energies swirled, something surprising happened: the scattered particles began to gather.
‘!?’
Both of the Elder’s eyes widened from the shock of his own body particles gathering as he had already accepted his death. His body was becoming translucent because his existence was disappearing, but everything was being entangled because of the power from Chun Yeowun’s hand.
‘How can this happen?’
Elder Jeok-mi couldn’t understand it. His own body was free from causality, just like Chun Yeowun.
Shhh!
Eventually, his body returned to its original state. Unable to believe it, he stammered,
“How… this power?”
Chun Yeowun grabbed Elder Jeok-mi’s neck.
Grab!
“Kuak!”
“Me coming here was because of fate? Don’t even think about such bullshit.”
“L-let go of me—”
“The end is coming because of an artificial God? There’s only one thing blocking my path.”
There was no confusion.
Chun Yeowun hadn’t lost his reasoning and smiled. It was the first time Elder Jeok-mi saw someone with such a strong mentality after him.
‘Truly his descendant.’
Pak!
Chun Yeowun roughly threw him and said,
“We don’t have time, so you’ll pay the price for saying stuff like that later. We’ll solve this now.”
“W-what?’
Phat!
Chun Yeowun then moved at a high speed while the Elder was still in shock and confusion, as he had been fully prepared to speak the truth and die.
‘Is this..?’
The ground seemed like barren ruins, and great energy was emanating from there.
“Huh… this has to be it.”
The place where Chun Yeowun moved them was the location that had been transferred through data and was revealed by someone who was now a Ghost.
This place was where an artificial God who would cause the end of the world would be born.
Chun Yeowun began descending at an incredible speed; it seemed like he would crash into the ground. Elder Jeok-mi thought,
‘Right. This could be one of the answers. If we can solve this before the God is born, we can stop the end—’’
Bang!
Before he could even finish his thoughts, Chun Yeowun’s feet pierced the barren ground and perhaps even the base underneath it as well.
Kwaang!
At that moment, red light glowed from the cracks, and a massive explosion occurred.
‘Huh?’
Rumble!
A massive heatwave spread around them and even reached the sky. The radius seemed to be a staggering 5 kilometers and would be considered a nuclear explosion.
Paaang!
Everything in the radius was devastated and evaporated, resulting in a super hot mass of heat taking over the space and consuming all the oxygen in a 50-kilometer radius.
Rumble!
It felt like numerous shocks were happening, and the walls of every building in the five nearest cities fell. The Chinese government and every media outlet considered this the worst explosion.
When the explosion occurred, a middle-aged woman sitting in front of the detector inside the base spoke with an excited voice,
“Operation to annihilate the Demon God….”
“Is it successful, Hae?!”
A middle-aged man in the white research suit who was quietly breathing asked, to which the woman called Hae answered,
“Success, Sul (Zodiac Dog). The Demon God was caught by Detroit; he won’t be able to survive.”
“Good!”
As she confirmed their success, the man called Sul cheered. This was the news they were waiting for, as they had achieved revenge for their teacher, Cho Yushin.
“Good work, Hae. You did good.”
“All this was A’s perfect vision.”
She looked at the supercomputer that had just powered off. An hour back, before uploading, A gave an unexpected order.
“Huh, tell Yin and Shin the locations of other bases? What about the data they obtained?
“If there is an alternative, tell them to give up.”
“A! don’t tell me—”
The two Zodiacs there were shocked. Now, A was going to be the bait.
“Everything is for our cause.”
“If you are going to do that, then making them leak false information might be better. We might have to give up the two and their date—”
“Lies don’t work on Demon God.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“Judging from an analysis of his behavioral statistics, he has a perfect grasp of our information, and there is a 90% chance that he can read the memories of the dead.”
“The memories of the dead?”
Where in the world could one find such an ability?
However, the AI was always accurate. Most of their people died to avoid leaking information, but Chun Yeowun kept finding new sectors.
Thus, A’s seemingly impossible claim was relatively reasonable. They agreed on a plan to bait him using accurate information so that MS Group’s explosive device, Detroit, would be activated the moment Chun Yeowun entered.
“Hahahah! How about that! That Demon God interfered too much without a cause, and now there is no one who can touch us!”
The middle-aged man, Sul, was happy about the result of their plan. The being called Chun Yeowun was nothing more than a thorn in their eyes. Even so, he ended up making them revise 90% of their plans. Hae smiled.
“Now all that is left is to upload—”
It was then.
Chik!
The power flickered in their base, which caused a small blackout. Hae, the woman, turned on the base’s emergency power in a hurry.
However:
Papapak!
All the devices inside exploded as sparks flew everywhere, but it wasn’t just these simple explosions that happened.
Creepy!
Terrifying energy beyond her imagination began to creep into the room.
“Hae!”
She nodded in response to Sul’s shout and ran to a place that they called the end of their plans.
“This…”
The room, which housed many glass tubes, was a mess. Most of the tubes were shattered, and chunks of meat and blood filled the floor.
“No!”
Sul and Hae ran to the center of the room, wondering if the upload had failed. A huge crystal glass tube and four large glass tubes were at the center. Looking at the tubes closer, the two were shocked.
Wooong!
An aura too sacred to be called energy began to exude a sensation of absolute intimidation they had never felt before. A beautiful figure with eight golden wings on its back walked out of the huge crystal glass tube.
“Ahhh…”
“Ha…”
Both the Zodiacs exclaimed at the existence in front of them, which wasn’t something from their world. It was hard for them to even make eye contact, and they felt like they had to kneel in front of it.
Seeing the being, Hae thought,
‘It was fast.’
The original upload was shortened by 30 minutes.
A was in the middle of brainwashing the being, but the Zodiacs couldn’t figure out if it worked or not. Sul asked with a trembling voice,
“Who are you? A? Or are you Master?”
Hearing his question, even Hae looked at the being. She, too, was curious about the outcome of their project.
Although they were centered on the forebrain data of Cho Yushin and A, they know which of the two played a dominant role in the working.
‘Please…’
There was never a case where two personalities entered into one body.
Even if the experiment was repeated a thousand times, A would take over the body each time.
They hoped that now, their master Cho Yushin would take over. The purpose of the Zodiacs was to lead a new world with God.
The golden-winged being answered,
“Hae… Sul… you did well.”
“Ahhh!”
The two brightened at the familiar tone. This was undoubtedly Cho Yushin.
Thud!
“Master!”
Both knelt at the same time, looking at the golden-winged being. As if meeting their expectations, the golden-winged being reached out to Suk.
At that moment…
Shhh!
Sul’s body, which was looking at him with happiness, was scattered into dust. Hae couldn’t hide her confusion.
“M-master?”
The golden-winged being smiled at her and gently stretched out his hand, inducing a sense of fear into her.
“Good work. Come here now.”
“W-what is this? Why are you being like this, Master? What is this?”
The golden-winged being spoke to her casually,
“In recognition of your hard work, I grant you a glorious death.”
“Master!”
Shhh!
Then the being extended its hand, causing Hae’s eyes to blur as her face became bewildered and expressionless; despite her face no longer displaying anything, she was screaming inside.
‘Master! Master! What is with my body!’
The golden-winged existence said,
“There is no Cho Yushin, no A, no Talisha. I am the omnipotent God. I was born to purify the world with blood.”
Rumble!
The eight golden wings turned blood red, and tears flowed from Hae’s eyes.
‘Master! Please do not do this! Master—’
Shhh!
Her screams were unheard as she was turned to dust.
The being that called itself God reached for the four glass tubes around and shattered them.
Chachacha!
Four beings, each with six silver wings on their backs, walked out, bowing as they yelled,
“Cha (Rat) greet the Master who has become a great God.”
“Chok (Ox) greet the Master who has become a great God.”
“Yin (Tiger) greet the Master who has become a great God.”
“Myo (Rabbit) greet the Master who has become a great God.”
The silver-winged beings had the data of the zodiacs with the strongest powers.
The being called God looked at them and said,
“From now, you are the four angels of this body.”
“We are honored!”
The four angels spoke in a thrilled voice.
God raised his hand up.
Paaang!
Flashes of red light erupted, and the ceiling around them smashed as they ascended.
“My four angels, blow the trumpet of destruction that will purify the world with blood!”