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nFinal Battle (6)

nSpace was torn, and the darkness that hid the Administrator fluctuated wildly because of the energy burst I fired.

nThe target was the Mana aggregation that composed the Administrator, the red wave that painted its center, and the nucleus of the mind contaminated by Mercadius and their ancestors.

nBlack fog seethed along where intangible forces passed. A faint emotion lingered in the Administrator’s eyes, looking at the scene.

nA mockery.

nPaaaht!

nThe darkness around us was a gift laid down by the successors of previous generations for the Administrator.

nIt served as a protective shield that concealed her existence from the inhabitants of the void. The characteristics that composed it differed only a little from the normal dimensions. Essentially, it was a hidden realm that existed like an island in the void.

nAfter many years of existence in it and continuing to reason, the first Spirit had reached the point of manipulating the shield as a part of herself. She used it ways, not limited to means of concealment.

nSuch as defending from the divine power fired at her.

nCurrrrrrrr!

nThe wobbling darkness made a thick wall then prevented my attack.

nThe Administrator spoke to me with a mental wave mixed of futility and contempt.

n– You are as foolish as ever and as reckless as ever, no matter how many times you repeat your life.

nShe then addressed the Adgon, who remained around.

n– Go forth. I have the successor in my hands, so there is no reason to hesitate any longer. You don’t have to worry about the Mana supply. Use all your might to punish and subdue the insolent species that went against my will. Crush them in this war, and no one will ever question the System again. Defeat them, rulers of the future Empire!

nThe moment I heard those words, sparks flew out of my eyes.

nWhat? The ones who would rule the Empire?

nThe Adgons?

nSwish!

nThe Adgon disappeared covered in darkness while I was focused on the attack on the Administrator. He must have returned to the material world through the Red Gate.

nGrit!

nI gnashed my teeth and glared at the Administrator. My past memories and present consciousness combined to make sentences.

n“The ruler of the Empire? I say again. I have never given you that authority!”

n– Why? Don’t you like how I chose them as the rulers of the Empire?

nA cold smile. Red light swirled in her eyes as she stared at me.

n– I chose the Adgons with a solid standard. They are the most faithful to the System– a very important characteristic. They will follow my instructions unconditionally even after the Empire has been established.

nThe Administrator had chosen the ruler of the Empire instead of the successor.

nShe smiled at me.

n– You… All of you, who endlessly repeated life, had added new restrictions to me every time. Thanks to your own doing, I couldn’t find you until now.

nThat was the reason why the Administrator searched so hard for the successor, why the successors failed to achieve their destiny whenever they were caught in their previous lives.

nShe didn’t want an Empire designed and ruled by the successor.

n– Ideals of the people in the future are wrong. The qualification to leave behind descendants and be a part of the future must be selectively given! I’ll do the selection myself!

nI felt as if there was no longer any point in further conversing with the Administrator overtaken by madness.

nI cut out the tentacle-like darkness extending from all around. Swinging my sword in fits of rage, the divine power and the blessings sent to me by the gods as rewards seethed all at once.

nAt that moment, the surroundings crumpled as if they were collapsing.

n“?!”

nEverything fell into pieces. The darkness that hid the Administrator broke into a thousand strands and winded me up.

nShe whispered.

n– I’ll leave your disposition to that void. If it’s them who sealed even the gods, they should be able to hold your soul as well. That way, you can no longer regress or reincarnate. You shall forever remain here!

nWhen she finished her dialogue, a powerful force shot me out.

nPaaaht

nDarkness, which went limp while stacking up the layers around the surroundings, drew a straight line. The scenery changed in a flash.

nThe Administrator had ejected me out of the black dimension wall.

nThe hidden dimension with stealth properties soon disappeared from my senses. It had completely gone invisible.

nAnd what’s in front of me was…

n“!”

nEndless crimson.

nThe eerie red color, which was shown every time a Red Gate was opened in the material world, was spread beyond the horizon. Humans outside the Gate had seen so far only a fraction of the eerie energy such a place contained.

nI was in the Void.

nBloody hue had painted everything, and the distinction of shapes became meaningless.

nThe will of the gods and the information buried in my subconscious intertwined.

n– This place, this is the collection of wills to destroy everything.

nThe moment I was exposed to the exterior of the black dimension, the “enemy” seemed to have noticed my existence.

nIn the red flash, a bubble-like figure started to emerge. The swollen lump burst and monsters rose one by one.

nThey were the inhabitants of the void, those summoned through the Red Gate and driven solely to destroy the material world’s life.

nIf there’s no one to kill, they would harden, hibernate, and activate again when a target entered its sense. It was an existence that showed a machine-like behavior rather than a normal creature.

nI had finally discovered the cause of their bizarre behavior.

n‘I see. Those monsters don’t exist as independent individuals. They have no soul either.’

nHowever, it couldn’t be classified as a colony like the god of life, ‘Rom.’

n‘Rather than saying that each of them is an independent being… They’re more like the limbs of a colossal entity. Instead of its entirety, it dispatches a part of it elsewhere to serve a special function.’

nThe presence of heads and limbs didn’t necessarily mean that they were complete creatures.

nAnd what was controlling them was…

n‘It’s this place, this space itself. The void is controlling them!’

nThe period before the material world was completed, even in the mythical era, such a world had already existed.

nThen what about before the mythical era?

nThe universe had constantly repeated birth and extinction. And if there was a will to begin and prosper everything, there existed a will to destroy and remove everything.

nAmong them, what belonged to the latter was the Void. The Void cursed the will that gave birth to it. All the waves and particles wanted to return to nothing, just as all of its energy was ultimately directed toward extinction.

nIn the process of the two wills’ fight, countless universes were repeatedly created and extinguished. The universe’s number, known as the mythological era, was unknown. Born with the mythological era, the Void also tried to lead everything to destruction, but the gods who composed the place were very powerful entities.

nThanks to that, even if the fight ended with the Void’s victory, it couldn’t execute perfect extinction. The Void, which sealed the gods in itself, fell into a deep slumber since it had exhausted its strength as well.

nThe current material world was like an extra space created because of the suspended destruction.

nKwaaaaa!

nMonsters that originally must’ve been designed to be sent to each world through the red Gate rushed in, aiming only for me.

nIn the Void, where space and time lost their purpose and rolled in a blur, their attacks had no front and back and no before and after. Nevertheless, instead of being scattered, they crowded at me like a storm.

nI gathered all my strength in the sword. As the blade extended beyond the limits of recognition, it evolved to fit the world made of twisted principles. The weapon that crossed the universe shone.

nI wielded it.

nShhh-paht!

nThe sword divided everything. Countless monsters were broken down, causing them to scatter.

nEven after cutting it once in that manner, the sword went without stopping. They weren’t bound by material concepts such as length of attack and bearing. The swing was both broad and precise. Bodies of monsters broke down and were thrown all over the realm like a spray of water.

nThe inhabitants roared.

nThe ones that were being reborn outnumbered the ones that were culled. When one disappeared, spraying blood, the red dimension wriggled behind it and inflated the abscess again. It burst, and the slain monster reappeared again, screaming and emitting a look smeared with murderous intent. It rushed in once more, and I swung at it again.

nShhh-pa-paht!

n‘I will see no end this way.’

nI decided to move instead of fighting in one place.

nBut where?

nIt wasn’t easy to set a direction in a place where the concept of space had collapsed and limped. I wished I had contributed to the god of space, but I hadn’t reached his power yet.

nHowever… that didn’t mean that there was no way.

nI shouted a god’s name.

n“Ramang-Schitre!”

nThe god of luck and fortune.

nHis blessing upon me wrapped my body. Simultaneously, space reeled around me, and the bloody hue in the Void rotated and created a gap.

nThen I started to move.

nPaht!

nBoom! Th-wack!

nTheir assault didn’t stop, but my retaliation didn’t cease either.

nNevertheless, I kept moving. Where all directions were distorted, I moved recklessly without knowing where my goal was.

nWhat would be the probability that my random movement would lead me to my destination even though I didn’t even know what it was?

nIt had a ridiculously low probability.

nBut-

nI spoke to the god.

n“You said you’d free me from the restraints of convergence in exchange for you handling the recoil. If so, then show me the way!”

nRamang-Schitre responded to me in my head… with affirmation.

nAt once, I finally found ‘direction’ through the chaotic time and space. The place where the god of luck chose the best option among all the probabilities, drew the trend, and led me to it was the direction itself.

n‘Alright!’

nMonsters who clung with all their might followed, but I moved, constantly cutting their necks and smashing their bodies.

nAfter solving the problem of space, I addressed another problem that held me back.

nThe Void gave off a determination to disturb me. Even the time had flowed in the opposite direction I was going to.

n‘It’s fast! This is… too fast!’

nI couldn’t reach my destination despite having set my direction.

nMy speed was too slow.

nOn the other hand, time for everything but my surroundings began to flow too fast. Observing from the Administrator’s perspective, the monsters and I might just look like a still image.

nI felt it intuitively.

n‘If I get to the Administrator like this, it’ll be after millions of years in objective time!’

nIf that happened, all the dimensions would have been ruined already, and the trainwreck of an Empire, which was completed by “thinning the unneeded out,” would’ve been built by then.

nHence, I decided to call on another god.

n‘Can you hear me? You’re there, right?!’

nThe dimension where the fight against the Adgons ended in a draw. The place where there was nothing in the black hole.

nI finally realized what fragment was originally hiding in that place.

nAmong the sealed fragments, only one of them had succeeded in escaping.

nIt wasn’t an incident that occurred at the current time zone. It happened far into the future. In particular, it happened when future inhabitants of the material world sent the successor of the Empire to the past.

nThey received a deity’s cooperation to transmit the successor’s soul to the primitive age and repeat the regression whenever it failed to fulfill his destiny.

nThe power granted by the god took the form of a fragment that could always be with the successor’s soul. And what happened in the future had affected all timelines due to the nature of the god.

nThere was only one reason why the black hole was empty. The fragment that escaped from there had been existing in my soul right from the beginning.

n‘God of time!’

nAt the same time as the call, the god answered.

nTo be more precise, his fragments did.

n– Are you prepared? My strength in you has grown very weak. You must already know that regression will be impossible in this life. However, if you borrow and use the strength again now, you may have limited regression even after reincarnation.

nHe was warning me that it would be harder to complete my destiny if such a thing repeated.

nBut I had already made up my mind.

n“That’s alright.”

nAfter I reached the Void, I was able to vaguely realize something.

nWouldn’t the success of my life’s destiny depend on that place after all?

nIt could be considered an important destiny even when compared to any of my previous life. The corruption of System Administrators was something that even future people didn’t expect.

nPerhaps my destiny was the first one wherein the successor had decided to set and resolve matters on his own rather than follow future instructions.

nIf so, then why was I born in the body of ‘Choi Seung-Hyun’ at such an important reincarnation cycle?

nTo something that I had never experienced in the previous cycle, to a body with a battle capacity close to ‘0’?

nThe answer came from within.

n– Because the odds were twisted in such a way that eventually all beings in the material world would be more likely to perish.

nIf it had reached a point where all intertwined possibilities had been affected, then what I would do with my current life was extremely important.

nI solidified my determination.

n“I ask of you!”

nThe god answered my prayers, and I felt something pouring from the fragment in my soul.

nAt the same time, the messed-up time began to flow again in the direction I wanted.

nI crossed the Void in the direction that luck led me at the speed that time granted. The monsters couldn’t catch up with me anymore.

nAnd even though I couldn’t see anything, I felt my body going through something transparent.

nBoosh!

nThe red world disappeared, and darkness unfolded again.

n– What?!

nThe Administrator, who was looking at the screen composed of blue Mana, turned her head in terror.

nDrawing a straight trajectory, I lifted the sword. The blade’s target location was the center of the Administrator’s body– the very locus where the red energy was wriggling!

nSwoooosh!

nWith all my might, the moment I stuck it in-

nAn indescribable scream rang out.

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