Even if humans couldn’t feel it, they grew every moment from the day they were born.
Not only did they talk, walk, run, fall, get hurt, and cry, but they also built friendships and shared love.
They would get heartbroken because of a break up, and the wound might not heal for a longer time than they thought.
All of that was growth.
“...”
Seo Jun-Ho could feel that now was the time for him to face another growth spurt in his life.
‘So this is what that half a step was supposed to mean?’
In the battle between the two beings who were only half a step away from reaching the Star Destruction Stage, the princess had lost and Seo Jun-Ho had won.
“...”
Seo Jun-Ho slowly closed his eyes.
To his surprise, there was no dramatic change in his body as he expected. Neither did he radiate some kind of sacred light, nor did he feel a tremendous amount of magic sweeping through his body.
‘I feel calm.’
He felt a pleasant languor, as if he was on a vacation at a summer resort, enjoying a cool breeze.
Just as the calm feeling of immersing his whole body and soul in a warm bath slowly began to fade away, a sparkling coldness like a fresh glass of coke struck his soul.
“...”
Awakened from his reverie by this cool and fresh feeling, Seo Jun-Ho slowly opened his eyes.
‘What was that? Did I…reach the Star Destruction Stage?’
Seo Jun-Ho was confused—there was no feeling or awareness that he had become a great being or anything like that.
“Oh.”
‘Geon-Woo-hyung got seriously injured.’
Having belatedly recalled Baek Geon-Woo’s condition, Seo Jun-Ho stepped in his direction—and before he even felt his foot touch the ground, he was already in front of his senior brother.
“Cough. Huh?”
Baek Geon-Woo, who was just thinking that Seo Jun-Ho was giving off an unusual atmosphere, had a surprised look on his face. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Seo Jun-Ho, but for an instant, the man had simply vanished.
“Hyung, are you okay?”
“When did you get here…? No, more than that…”
Baek Geon-Woo’s face was drenched in sweat due to the constant, terrible pain.
“Junior brother…no, Jun-Ho.”
A trembling voice came out of Baek Geon-Woo’s mouth as he felt death slowly approaching him. He was afraid of what would follow, but he was also sorry for Seo Jun-Ho at the same time.
‘Jun-Ho must be familiar with this kind of situation.’
Everyone knew how many companions’ death Specter had witnessed. However, no matter how hardened he was, he was human too. To let someone go, to not be able to see them ever again, and to live alone with the memories built and shared together was sad even for someone like Specter.
“I’m sorry…”
Baek Geon-Woo felt that it was bad manners for him to force Seo Jun-Ho, who had already seen their master dead, to watch him die as well.
“But you…you will brilliantly…”
‘You will be able to end this war that everyone has been fighting for.’
Baek Geon-Woo smiled wryly.
“I’m rooting for you…”
“Hyung,” Seo Jun-Ho replied in a calm voice, “why are you speaking like you’re going to die?”
Surely, his fellow student was feeling rather under the weather.
‘Not only is he bleeding excessively, but he’s also missing his pancreas, stomach, a kidney, and about half the intestines.’
That said…he was not dead just yet, was he?
“You can live, hyung.”
“I don’t think that’s how things work…”
Baek Geon-Woo smiled bitterly. Seo Jun-Ho was trying his best to console him, but Baek Geon-Woo knew his own condition better than anyone else.
“No matter how good the potion is and how competent the healer is, it would be hard for me to live.”
Above all, the pain was unimaginable. The only reason Baek Geon-Woo wasn’t screaming in pain was that he was trying his best to save his face in front of his junior.
“I’m telling you. You can live.”
Seo Jun-Ho lightly reached out his hand.
‘Freeze. Wheel of Time.’
When the two abilities were activated at the same time, Baek Geon-Woo’s body virtually stopped in time. In practical terms, that meant his hemorrhage completely ceased.
“There. You won’t be dying for a while.”
Splash!
Then he poured the potion over the wound as if it were water. The wounds began to heal so fast that the regeneration was visible to the naked eye.
“Now all you have to do is go outside and get some help from the healers at the headquarters.”
Baek Geon-Woo fell into serious agony upon looking at Seo Jun-Ho’s nonchalant expression. His face screamed, “are you even serious?!”
‘Well…It’s good to hear that I can live…I’m surely happy and grateful, but…why am I so pissed?’
***
Seo Jun-Ho immediately took Baek Geon-Woo out of the basement. As expected, the players had the upper hand in the clash outside.
“Mr. Specter!”
“First of all, please give him some treatment.”
“Pardon me? Oh, no. This wound is…”
“Hey! Send us more healers this way! We need at least three more to treat him!”
While Baek Geon-Woo was surrounded by the healers and underwent intensive treatment, Seo Jun-Ho just clenched and opened his fist in silence.
‘What is this feeling? I don’t think anything has really changed, but…’
But when he was walking toward Baek Geon-Woo earlier, he felt something different than usual.
‘It feels like the way I perceive walking itself has changed a little.’
Seo Jun-Ho felt more frustrated because he couldn’t explain what was different himself. But what was clear was that the things he had been doing normally until now, and they had felt as natural as breathing, were now somewhat unfamiliar and awkward.
‘Wait. Breathing? How did I even breathe normally?’
This thought made Seo Jun-Ho feel even more complicated.
“...Hm.”
Everything in his sight felt intrusive and uncomfortable. He wished he could ask someone who had walked on the same path ahead of him, but there was no one.
‘If there was someone like that, it would be Sung-Jun. But he didn’t say anything about something like this happening.’
In any case, he had to make things work. Thus, he focused on the way he inhaled and exhaled. After trying different ways to breathe several times, he could feel his mind calming down and his breathing becoming natural.
‘Ah, I see. It seems I can now pursue the optimal method for everything I was doing blindly until now.’
If so, Seo Jun-Ho thought he could see why Sung-Jun hadn’t bothered to explain anything about this part.
‘He probably didn’t want to enclose me in his own framework, since there might be differences in perspective here and there.’
“Hmm.”
Seo Jun-Ho looked around the surroundings.
Now that he had fixed the way he breathed, other things began to bother him.
‘Looking at things, moving my arms, walking, and holding the sword.’
He had a strong feeling that he had to learn everything from scratch. Of course, he didn’t think it would take that long.
‘That’s a relief.’
Seo Jun-Ho thought that he would helplessly lose if he had to fight someone in this state. How could he possibly fight properly when he found it awkward even to simply hold a sword?
***
The emperor rose from his throne.
‘The princess is dead.’
But this wasn’t very important news to him. After all, both the princess and the prince weren’t real blood relatives of his, but rather figures putting on a show.
“...”
There was only one important piece of news for him at the moment.
‘The number went up.’
In addition to himself, another person had reached the Star Destruction Stage on this little planet.
This fact greatly disturbed the emperor.
“Is it him?”
‘That player named Seo Jun-Ho. He is the only one. It must be him.’
After a brief moment of contemplation, the emperor made up his mind.
“I need to get going.”
If Seo Jun-Ho had just risen to the Star Destruction Stage, there was a high chance he was…confused. Like a baby bird that just opened its eyes, Seo Jun-Ho was bound to find everything strange and intrusive.
‘This is rather a good thing.’
Just as Seo Jun-Ho killed the princess and took a half step forward, the emperor himself could kill Seo Jun-Ho, who had reached the Star Destruction Stage, and move up to the next stage of Transcendence that he had wished for his entire life.
Fwoosh!
Force arose like wildfire, tearing up space in front of him. This was the first time he was going out in nearly a thousand years, except for the occasional visits he paid to the laboratory.
However, to his surprise, the widely open space was forcefully closed.
“...”
The emperor frowned and slowly turned his head.
Thud. Thud.
The heavy sound of footsteps rang throughout the emperor’s room.
“You surprise me everytime I see you.”
Helic stared at the emperor with a cold gaze.
“You never fail to piss me off every time I see you.”
“What is a God who was abandoned by us doing here…No, I guess there is no point in asking.”
The emperor figured that there was only one reason why Helic would visit him, considering that she had closed the space rift behind her.
“You’re really going to stop me?”
“You’re not intelligent enough to listen to my words, so I have no choice but to stop you by force.”
“Hah!”
The Overmind emperor laughed deridingly. The woman in front of him was God—and not just a low-level god, but the god of the sun, a being that carried both great power and great meaning even within the entire universe.
‘If I met her outside, I probably would have died in a blink of an eye without even realizing it.’
By contrast, this floor imposed a number of restrictions on them, and the one most affected by these restrictions was not the emperor, but this woman.
“You know what will happen, yet you still dare to stop me. There’s no way you don’t know what will happen.”
“Of course I know it. I know it better than anyone else.”
Helic didn’t bother to deny the emperor’s words.
She was the administrator of Frontier-23, the seventh floor.
The moment she abused her influence, not only would her authority as administrator be revoked, but she would also lose part of her divine power.
“...You’re going to stop me even though you know that?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand you.”
The emperor shook his head. It was somewhat understandable that she was willing to give up the authority, but there was no way that the woman standing in front of him didn’t know what it meant for her to lose divine power.
“Are you going to bear the risk of falling from the seat of God? Just because of a human?”
“...”
With loss of divine power came a decrease in influence, which in turn led to a decrease in the divine power used by the believers as well. If the divine power provided by a god was insufficient, the believers’ faith also naturally diminished.
If such a situation happened again, maintaining the status of deity became more and more difficult. In the worst case scenario, she could become a forgotten god, an ending feared by all divine beings.
“Huh. You seem pretty serious…”
The emperor could no longer hold back his curiosity.
‘Why is a being who doesn’t have to worry about anything unless she chooses to disappear on her own risking everything like this?’
“Why? What is your reason for doing this?”
“...Incompetent administrator,” Helic murmured. “Someone called me that.”
“Bullshit,” snapped the emperor.
‘She is giving up the position of god just because someone called her an incompetent administrator? That’s nonsense.’
“You just don’t want to answer me.”
“You’re quite stupid to ask even though you know I won’t tell you.”
‘...Of course, I’m also stupid to choose this option,’ she thought.
“If you don’t intend to talk to me, I also don’t intend to drag time either.”
The emperor clenched his teeth as he thought that Seo Jun-Ho was probably adapting to a new world like a child and establishing his own ‘world’ even as they were speaking.
“Come.”
Streams of Force flowed out of the emperor as he gazed coldly at Helic. However, the latter just dropped down the arms she had previously crossed.
“Oh, you must be under the wrong impression.”
“...What?”
“I did say that I’m going to stop you, but did you really expect me to fight against you myself? You can’t possibly think I’d stoop so low.”
“Then why are you even here?”
“I came here to watch.” Helic smirked. “I want a first-row seat so I can see your stupid face when you get your ass handed to you.”
“That’s funny. Do you really think a trivial human being can beat me?”
The emperor felt that Helic was being ridiculous.
“Just because he reached the Star Destruction Stage doesn’t mean he is on the same level as me.”
“Of course, I know that. But as I said, I, the sun god Helic, will personally help him.”
Helic lightly reached out, radiating divine power for the world to see.
The Overmind emperor frowned at the sight. It was certainly a threatening energy. However, a few moments later, his worries disappeared.
“I was expecting something great, but…you need to do better. That power is too great for a human being to endure.”
“You keep stating the obvious.”
Helic knew better than anyone else because it was her own power. This power, which was usually granted to a god’s believer, was too much for a human.
‘No matter how powerful Seo Jun-Ho is, he will be obliterated as soon as he embraces this power.’
This fact remained unchanged even though he had reached the Star Destruction Stage. Actually, anyone who could withstand the power of this light would become strong enough to surpass the Star Destruction Stage in an instant.
“But I never said I’d give this power to a human being, did I?”
“...What? Are you messing with me right now?”
“There’s one, you know?”
‘There is actually one being on this planet who can endure this power.’
Helic snapped her fingers.
“You better be prepared.”
The light shot into the sky in a blink of an eye and flew north, toward the ice castle.
Helic looked at the distant light. In a sympathetic tone, she gave the emperor one last warning.
“That kid is not as kind as I am.”
Comments