Chapter 1158

It was a ruin.

A complete ruin. No other words were needed.

But the man who had appeared in a sudden flash of light barely ten seconds ago saw it a little differently.

A grave.

That was the first thought that came to him.

He could feel it the moment he looked around—no, even before he opened his eyes. Death saturated the air like thick fog at dawn. From every corner of this enormous grave, where the clouds overhead shut out every ray of light, rose the screams of countless vengeful spirits.

“……I suppose so.”

The man muttered bitterly, then kicked off the ground and shot forward.

Fwoooosh!

Perhaps it was the magical power swirling in his wake as he streaked forward like an arrow. The spirits reacted to it, stopped screaming, and began following him one by one.

“Don’t follow me. I’m not your enemy.”

Whoooom.

Beyond the howl of the wind, the man heard the spirits’ answer and nodded.

“Yeah. I’m going there.”

Whooom—

“If that’s what you really want… Fine, I’ll allow it. Having you along for a little while wouldn’t be so bad.”

If an ordinary person had seen this, they would surely have been surprised by two things.

First, the man was behaving like a lunatic.

Second, this lunatic was someone the whole world knew.

But the spirits were different. Just as the man could sense their presence and hear their voices, they could see him as he truly was.

They were different kinds of beings, certainly, but death linked them.

“I know. It’s unfair. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

The man went on as if talking to himself.

“Of course not. You did nothing wrong. It was just a misfortune, the kind that could happen to anyone.”

“You’re asking whether God or heaven really exists? Why?”

“…Your child, huh? I see. But don’t worry. A child that young would have gone to heaven. No, I’m sure of it.”

“I don’t know what God looks like. It was so long ago that my memory’s a little hazy.”

“You there. Take that back. I am a great being, far beyond the likes of you. My memory’s just a little bad, that’s all.”

“Yeah, damn it. You’re right. I don’t remember a thing. But ever since I started traveling with a strange fellow, I sometimes get déjà vu. Like I’ve been through something similar several times before.”

“I’ve given it some serious thought, and I think I must have been human once, too. An incredibly noble and admirable human, just like I am now—damn it. Everyone, quiet down. I’m trying to say something important.”

“Oh, don’t cry. I wasn’t talking to you. How old are you? Where are your parents?”

“…All right. I can’t promise anything, but if I find your parents, I’ll make sure you see them.”

The man continued forward, talking with the spirits as he went.

A young man who had only just taken his first steps into adulthood. An old man who had accepted his death and wanted to know about the afterlife. Parents who had lost a child, and a child who had lost their parents.

The scenery changed in an instant, but the spirits never stopped whispering. They were indignant and furious at the death that had struck without warning, grieving even as they trembled with fear.

And the man never once turned away from their voices.

Because he was their king.

He alone had the right and the duty to guide those who had lost everything in an instant and now wandered the Nine Springs¹—those who had become his people.

But perhaps the spirits weren’t the only ones finding comfort and peace in this strange conversation.

“Why did I come here? Hmm, excellent question. This is an epic tale that begins with the most handsome and admirable hero in the world.”

The man leaped over the ruins in his path and continued.

“The hero had many talents. He was incredibly strong and had a noble heart. But despite all that, he was surrounded by idiots and incompetents. Then one day, he learned that the biggest fool of them all was in trouble.”

But the hero knew the surest way to help the fool. It was something only he could do.

Because he was a hero.

“While the hero was deep in thought, some ignorant bastard who was crazy about booze and cigarettes told him that people see what they want to see and believe what they want to believe. So the hero decided to borrow the fool’s appearance for a while.”

It hadn’t been all that difficult. As he’d said, the hero was unbelievably talented, and his greatest ability was “absorption.”

“Actually, I didn’t know I could do that. No, the hero didn’t. But when he tried it, it worked. It wasn’t nearly as good as the Doppelganger’s own ability, though.”

Was it because of his innate ability to grow stronger by absorbing the magical power of monsters that had been destroyed? Or was it because his magical power levels had already reached the point of going berserk?

Amazingly, the hero, who wasn’t human, had gained a new power he’d never discovered before. After traveling thousands of kilometers² by way of several Warp Gates, he had made it here.

Of course, there had been some trouble along the way.

He’d threatened the mages who refused to activate the Warp Gate. Or he’d taken a selfie in his current appearance, posted it on social media, and deliberately spread the word far and wide.

But none of those little things mattered to the man.

The crowning touch of his story was still to come.

“Most of you figured it out from the start, didn’t you? Yes, that’s right. I am that hero.”

Fwoosh.

Silence fell. The man blinked, his solemn declaration still hanging in the air.

“Why is everyone so quiet? You’d think you were dead. Oh, right. You are dead.”

“What? You didn’t see it coming? That’s impossible. The foreshadowing was perfect from the start. I said I was the most handsome and excellent man in the world—damn it. Forget it. You stupid humans.”

That was when the grumbling man suddenly stopped walking.

“…I’m here already?”

He murmured and looked at the scenery, now completely transformed.

As if someone had drawn a line across the world, pitch-black earth lay only a few steps ahead, starkly different from the ground behind him.

Whooom. Whoooooom—

At the same time, the countless spirits surrounding him began to scream.

Screams filled with a terror unlike anything they had shown before.

“Don’t be so afraid. Weak spirits like you would have a hard time entering that place anyway. Not that I was planning to take you with me in the first place.”

But the man was different.

While the spirits writhed as if burned by fire, he knew he would grow stronger the closer he came to that ominous, pitch-black earth.

After all, the only thing I can fake is my appearance.

The thought faded hollowly in his mind as he drew the sword tucked at his waist.

Shing.

Its blade was clear as untainted ice.

The man silently gazed at his reflection.

Or rather, at the face of the person who was probably chasing him as fast as he could somewhere out there.

“You’re a step too late this time, you wily human bastard.”

The man—the Skeleton King—snickered. Someone reflected in the blade snickered along with him.

“Yeah, keep smiling like that. Don’t scowl with that ugly face of yours.”

He meant it.

That fool—Jin Taekyung—deserved to smile.

“Then, here I go.”

With a final farewell that would never reach him, the Skeleton King took a firm step forward.

Using the light spilling from his sword as a torch, he headed for the land of death, where magical power churned, and thought:

Sacrifice, huh? This isn’t so bad.

Even if he died, he wouldn’t regret it.

Once he met a glorious end in the form of Jin Taekyung—not the Skeleton King or the Stone-King—all of humanity would understand.

They would see how foolish they had been to believe the monster’s promise to stop the destruction and slaughter if they handed over Jin Taekyung.

And they would understand the only way to escape this catastrophe.

Fwoooosh.

The dense fog drifting over the pitch-black earth swallowed his retreating figure.

Morgoth recalled an old saying he’d heard long ago: Sometimes, a certain kind of curiosity can shorten a person’s life.

He’d first heard it while living among humans, and it had fascinated him.

Unlike humans, Dragons couldn’t live long without curiosity. Morgoth himself was a prime example.

He had always been curious.

Ever since he was no more than a Hatchling—before he’d even broken out of his egg.

Perhaps that was why Morgoth had become unlike other Dragons.

His curiosity would not rest until he had reached the highest level of whatever caught his interest.

Humans, Dwarves, Elves, and other races besides—driven solely by curiosity, he had spent ages among them, learning and giving in turn, and ruling over them as well.

No matter how often he changed his appearance or where he went, Morgoth was a born ruler.

His election as Dragon Lord before he was even a thousand years old was proof.

The pride of his race and the king of the world.

He was more complete and absolute than anyone.

At least, he would have been, if not for the one curiosity he had never been able to satisfy.

The Demon Realm.

The home of all monsters. A land of demons where poison, corpses, and death flowed instead of clear river water.

His curiosity about the unknown deepened with every passing day, until Morgoth took his first step into that forbidden realm.

Yes. That was where it all began.

But why? Even after an extraordinarily long time, the curiosity filling Morgoth’s heart had not faded.

And among his unanswered questions was one that, as the human saying went, might truly shorten his life.

Asmodeus, why did you choose me of all people?

Morgoth possessed knowledge and power beyond measure, yet he did not know why he had come to this world.

One day, a call had reached him from beyond those distant stars and the space between them, and he had answered it. That was all.

Which made it even harder to understand.

Unlike the others, he was neither devoted to serving Demon King Asmodeus nor willing to give his life for him.

Besides, how could you, when you don’t even exist in this world, have prepared a stage like this?

But Morgoth did not pursue these questions further.

No. More precisely, he had to set them aside for now.

The guest he had truly wanted to meet had just arrived at his palace.

“Come in, hero.”

Morgoth rose from his throne and welcomed his first guest with delight.