“Ro…woon…ah….”
She looked at Lee Ro-woon with tired eyes.
“Ro-woon…ah?”
Tears slowly welled up in her eyes.
“……”
Lee Ro-woon stared at her intently.
When he slapped her cheek, the world she had dreamed of had already been destroyed long ago.
Now, she was finally free from what had sustained her for so long….
“Aaaagh…”
It was as if she had awakened from a fantasy.
“Aaaaaaagh-!”
The pain and emotions she had suppressed erupted all at once.
The time she had been trapped here was at least several years.
Especially.
‘Given the nature of the Open Sect Archive, time would have flowed even slower.’
So, the time she would have experienced…
“It must have been at least 100 years.”
At Lee Ro-woon’s words, she wailed.
All sorts of pain were eroding and destroying her.
“No, no…. This is…”
She denied that it was reality.
“No, this is reality.”
Lee Ro-woon drove a wedge into her.
“Many things have changed.”
Lee Ro-woon, with his languid eyes, spoke while suppressing his vigor.
Except for his eyes and voice, Lee Ro-woon had become similar to the figure that appeared in her dream.
“Ro-woon-ah…”
“You made a choice, and this is the result.”
Lee Ro-woon said.
-Lee Sae-rom.
She was a truly precious being to him.
A friend, family, and lover.
They were also about to become a true family.
However, her role in Dank was also important.
-This operation….
-We must maintain a neutral position.
If Lee Ro-woon had a talent for the power of a player and the power to lead a group, Lee Sae-rom was simply intelligent.
She seemed to see something beyond, guessing and grasping the situation and suggesting a path forward.
The strategist of Dank.
That was her ability.
Was that why?
“……”
It wasn’t surprising to see her trapped in the Open Sect Archive, bound by chains.
Also, the fact that she was the…
‘Core of this Open Sect Archive.’
The role of connecting and processing information for these numerous players, that was her role.
A normal human would have had their head explode long ago, but she had been leading them for years… hundreds of years in her perception.
However.
‘She’s at her limit.’
She was already broken beyond repair, on the verge of destruction.
“Ro-woon-ah…”
Perhaps because she was so intelligent, she was anticipating what was about to happen.
“Reason.”
Lee Ro-woon said.
“If you were so smart, there must have been a reason.”
The reason she betrayed him.
She might have thought he had no hope.
In fact, if he hadn’t met the Three Kings’ masters, the world would not have changed yet.
Or there might have been some other reason he didn’t know about.
Lee Ro-woon placed his hand on Lee Sae-rom’s cheek.
The energy flowing through his warm touch relieved her pain, even if only a little.
“Everything is…”
Lee Sae-rom said.
“For… you…”
A parched voice.
“For you… and the world…”
Lee Ro-woon pursed his lips.
“Yeah, I thought so.”
He was sincere.
The ability she possessed, her intellect.
More than anything, the reason she was special was…
-Ro-woon-ah. I can actually see the future.
It was because she had the ability of foresight.
At first, her betrayal was painful because of that.
He thought that in the future she saw, he would have fallen so far that recovery was impossible, and that was why she had abandoned him.
But now, the thought that came to mind was.
‘She might have known from the beginning.’
That he would meet the Three Kings and return, become the master of the Galaxy and the Blood Cult.
All of that….
“Did you see it?”
She might have seen it.
“……”
She didn’t answer, so that was the answer.
“Yeah, that’s how it was.”
Lee Ro-woon removed his hand from her cheek.
As the energy that Lee Ro-woon had been protecting her with disappeared, Lee Sae-rom’s face twisted in pain again.
Lee Ro-woon.
“Still, you shouldn’t have done that.”
He said to Lee Sae-rom in his usual languid voice.
This day, this meeting, this moment.
-Everything was for you.
Even this answer.
He had considered all of these situations.
If that were the case, if all of this was for his more brilliant future….
‘Could I forgive her?’
And he also came up with an answer to that.
“You ignored my will itself.”
He couldn’t forgive her.
“Without knowing what I would go through, you sacrificed me for a mere fragment of what you saw.”
“Ro-woon…ah…”
“For me?”
No, it wasn’t.
“It must have been for you, for the world.”
She might have thought this.
That when he returned with that immense power, if it was because of her betrayal, he might have forgiven her.
But it wasn’t.
He was too burned out for that.
There were moments when he wanted to die, with only ashes left.
Lee Sae-rom had thrown herself into the gutter without any mention or time to prepare for it.
That was for him?
“Bullshit.”
It was utter bullshit.
“I denied Dank. It was too painful a past for me.”
Now, she was the last one left.
“But I decided to accept it.”
“Ro-woon…ah, forgive… me…”
“But that doesn’t mean I forgive you. It’s about acknowledging my failure and moving forward.”
He could feel it.
The connection with her was fading.
-Let’s be together, no matter what.
The promise he made with her was becoming blurry.
“It’s already too far gone.”
She was disappearing.
Her existence.
Memories of the past floated in his mind.
Dank.
His friends, colleagues, and family.
Even if the end was miserable and hellish, for Lee Ro-woon, it was….
-Ro-woon-ah!
-I believe in you.
-We’ll always be together.
They were the only memories that allowed him to endure before he turned to ashes.
However.
-Jincheon.
-Blood Demon Lord!
-You’re really….
Now, that empty hole was filled with something else.
-My name is Shin Yeo-wool.
-You are my disciple.
-Disciple. Please take care of me.
Other connections.
So now it was time to let her go.
Fssst.
Lee Sae-rom, who had lost even a sliver of hope, finally began to break.
Even if she didn’t say it, she would have been waiting for this moment so much.
The day Lee Ro-woon returned, the day they would meet again.
“…I saw it, even if only for a moment.”
Lee Sae-rom’s voice was heard.
“With the power of the Open Sect Archive, what you went through, what time you spent.”
She was now breaking.
“I’m sorry. But…”
Her face was disappearing.
“I never knew that the result I wanted would be the disappearance of ‘you’… I really didn’t know…”
Fssst.
She disappeared like a burning flame.
At that moment.
-Kuaaaaaaaak!
The cry of a monster was heard.
Crack!
* * *
The shattered dimension.
The place where Lee Ro-woon was, was the core of the Open Sect Archive.
And now, Lee Sae-rom, who had been maintaining the Open Sect Archive, was dead.
-Shinmaaaaaaaa-!
Shin-gae’s voice.
He tore through the space of the Open Sect Archive and also arrived at the core.
His appearance was stained black.
“This is…”
The meeting with Lee Sae-rom, and the memories that had passed.
There was no time to dwell on such sentiments.
“Unexpected.”
He said to Shin-gae with sincerity.
“Was the power of the Open Sect Archive this much?”
Stained Shin-gae.
But the stain was devouring Shin-gae and changing his entire being.
Crack!
Shin-gae’s shoulder was pierced, and bones protruded.
Crack!
His forehead twisted, and horns sprouted.
What was there was a being no different from a demon.
And that was….
“Did it read the chaos, even if only a part of it?”
It was an unbelievable thing.
Lee Ro-woon acknowledged it.
The Open Sect Archive had read the chaos hidden deep within him.
That became a poison and destroyed the Open Sect Archive.
“Ah, it ate a part of it, and it’s the last resistance.”
It read a part of it and imitated its power.
Shin-gae, imitating the power of chaos.
-Kuaaaaaaak!
He was writhing in pain and rampaging.
He wouldn’t see anything in his vision.
He was just flailing around with his senses, with anger, with hatred, with chaos.
But that was.
Kwaaaang!
It felt more threatening than Shin-gae had been until now.
“……”
Lee Ro-woon created some distance.
Behind him, blood spread out, forming wings.
-I am! Shin-gae!
Shin-gae shouted.
-I am a god!
He shouted that he had become a transcendent himself.
In fact, he had stepped into the realm of the divine and was about to ascend.
“Do you really think so?”
Lee Ro-woon thought that was wrong.
It was true that he had stepped into the realm.
“Do you think that’s your power?”
It was pathetic.
“No.”
From the beginning, Lee Ro-woon didn’t care about Shin-gae.
He just needed time.
He had kept Shin-gae alive as a medium to interpret the Open Sect Archive, to find a way to open its door for sure.
“If you had truly stepped into that realm, I don’t know.”
When you reach the realm of transcendence, that power is beyond imagination.
Since he was not yet a finished product, he might have struggled a bit.
However.
“That’s just an imitation.”
Shin-gae had not truly stepped into that realm.
It was not his talent, but the combination of dozens, hundreds, thousands of talents….
-Bullshit!
It was just the Open Sect Archive that had infused him with power.
Kwaaaang!
So even while imitating the power of chaos.
“Look.”
He was collapsing.
The method to defeat Shin-gae was the same from beginning to end.
-Time.
If he was just given time, he would collapse on his own.
Ironically, the Open Sect, which had the power created by accumulating time.
That time was what was destroying them.
It was the same now.
If he was just given a little time.
Fssst!
Shin-gae would rampage alone, then fall and disappear.
-Kuaaaaaa!
No matter how much he imitated and exploded the power of chaos, it was enough to not get hit by his attacks.
However.
Bang!
The hand that Lee Ro-woon extended, the blood that gushed out of it, formed a fist and blocked Shin-gae.
Faaaash-!
The blood that gushed out from below grabbed Shin-gae’s neck again and lifted him up.
“If you need someone to vent your anger on.”
Even if it was himself.
“I’m not okay either.”
Now that he had truly let go of everything from the past.
Kwaaaak!
He wanted to rampage a little.
Moreover, this place was.
“The place is perfect too.”
Another dimension where only he and Shin-gae existed.
The Open Sect Archive would struggle to keep him bound, and its immense defense would not be easily broken.
So it was the best.
He grinned.
The power he had never fully unleashed until now.
-Wh, what… is it.
He was trying to unleash it now.
-What are you-!
Shin-gae shouted even as he was being consumed by chaos.
Now, he wouldn’t feel the overwhelming amount of information that the Open Sect Archive was giving him, nor the pain of being consumed by chaos and breaking down.
-What are you-!
The tremor caused by fear.
That was the only emotion he could feel.
Fwaaaak-!
It was the second poison that would spread to the Open Sect Archive.
“What does it matter?”
Lee Ro-woon stood above Shin-gae’s head and stomped down.