Chapter 1168

It connected.

And it cut.

That was all.

The whole thing began and ended in an instant. There was nothing more to explain.

Jin Taekyung had never harbored a trace of doubt. The hellfire spearhead he drove forward without hesitation could melt and cleave through anything.

Even a Dragon’s bone and hide.

Shhk.

A hair’s breadth.

That was all the difference.

Yet that sliver of distance, shorter than a dagger, made a difference as vast and deep as the distance between heaven and earth.

The enormous claw barely grazed his Fire Dragon Armor. But the spearhead rose in a perfect arc and drove straight into the tiny wound etched into the Dragon’s foreleg.

Fwoooosh!

Blood burst forth like a waterfall.

Strangely silver, the Dragon’s blood flooded Jin Taekyung’s vision. Its vicious acidity even began to melt his exposed skin and parts of his Fire Dragon Armor.

He didn’t care.

No—he had no reason to.

Compared to everything that had happened and everything still to come, this much pain was nothing.

Grit.

Jin Taekyung clenched his teeth against the faint pain.

Planting a foot on the Dragon’s foreleg beneath him like a stepping-stone, he drove his tightly clenched fist forward with all his strength.

Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist.

BAM!

Compressed air exploded from the fist he drove forward like lightning.

The fierce heat in his knuckles swallowed the spray of blood, opening a new path beyond it.

Whoooosh!

He charged.

One man staking everything on a charge, a storm of hellfire that would melt and devour anything in its way.

CRRRUNCH!

A trail of flame cut forward like an icebreaker smashing through a glacier.

The spearhead, buried deep in the enemy’s flesh and bone, spewed lava as it climbed higher and higher.

Flames rose in the wake of Jin Taekyung’s arrowing form, so vivid and fierce that they drew the eyes of everyone still locked in battle.

Human and monster alike.

Not one of them was an exception.

Without realizing it, they lowered the blades in their hands or hid their sharp claws and fangs.

Every living thing that had survived this horrific battlefield sensed it instinctively.

That rising flame, devouring space itself, would decide all their fates.

If there were any exceptions, they were the two beings who had faced only each other from the start.

Leaving the vast battlefield and its countless watching eyes behind, the Ancient Dragon and the human raced toward their final moment, gazing at each other like figures in a myth.

Jin Taekyung.

Morgoth.

The names passed between them without a sound—not from their mouths, but through their eyes across the open air.

They heard without hearing.

And without speaking, they felt.

And he could feel the emotions in the enemy’s eyes as they drew closer like the wind, as though defying the slowing of time.

What Jin Taekyung saw now was a Dragon’s eyes filled with terrible pain and fear.

Yeah. It hurts, doesn’t it?

With a thought that would never reach Morgoth, Jin Taekyung put more strength into his charge.

He ran up the Dragon’s long, massive foreleg like a flight of stairs, toward the head towering above him like a skyscraper.

Like it hurt the people you killed with your own hands. Or the ones who lost someone precious because of you.

Jin Taekyung suddenly wished Morgoth’s pained roar—every emotion he felt, every ounce of his suffering—could reach them all.

Tens of millions had died.

Hundreds of millions had lost family, friends, and homes.

That was why Jin Taekyung couldn’t stop.

It was what fueled his will to keep moving forward.

CRRRUNCH!

Perhaps that was why his will surpassed the limits of his body.

Why the flame on his spearhead, weakening as the emptiness in his lower dantian grew, roared back to life. Why, even as the Dragon’s acidic blood melted away parts of his skin and muscle, he no longer felt the pain.

Whooooom!

The sky suddenly darkened. Gusts slammed in from both sides.

Jin Taekyung didn’t waver.

He simply swept the spearhead that had been cutting through the enemy’s body upward, toward the two wings bearing down on him with enough force to crush a mountain.

Shhhh.

The rolling flames rose at an angle.

One line, chillingly swift and savage.

In the arc of blue-black fire that suddenly appeared in the air were the Dragon’s two wings, which had ruled the vast sky and blanketed the earth for thousands of years.

Shhk!

—Kraaaaaa!

The Dragon’s body thrashed with a muffled scream. Jin Taekyung pressed down on it and dug in his toes.

Fwoosh—BAM!

Flamefire Path.

Propelled upward by an explosion worthy of its name, his figure appeared in Morgoth’s pitch-black eyes.

No—that wasn’t right.

He soared into the sky like a fire dragon that had finally reached the time of its ascension. His form wasn’t merely reflected in those eyes; it overflowed from them.

—…!

Is this what it feels like when time stops?

In that strange sensation, with every sound and movement around him gone, Morgoth watched Jin Taekyung.

He saw eyes sunk to unfathomable depths, their blue-black light unlike anything he had ever seen. He felt the countless fragments of emotion within them.

And, a step too late, he understood.

Too late.

Morgoth couldn’t tell whether reason or instinct had reached that conclusion. But one thing was certain.

In this world where everything had stopped, the spearhead slowly descending toward him was the only thing that moved. No ability he possessed could stop it or evade it.

That left him one path.

—Kraaaaaa!

His enormous jaws gaped open.

In the Ancient Dragon’s last, death-defying struggle, the immense magical power and countless teeth lurking within his maw flashed toward a single human.

And at that very moment—

Rrrrk.

Jin Taekyung gripped the spear shaft with all the strength he had left.

Muscles swelled throughout his body. Fire raced through hundreds of acupoints and spread to every limb and bone.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

His heart hammered furiously.

His lower dantian was so empty that the recovery he’d gained from leveling up might as well never have happened. His mind, pushed far beyond its limits, had been crying out with exhaustion for some time.

But he didn’t stop.

More precisely, he had no reason to.

I can see it.

In this new world painted with lines of every color, one trajectory shone brighter than all the rest.

Following the path he had read through the Mind’s Eye, Jin Taekyung poured all his strength and will into the spearhead.

Fwoosh—

As time began to move again, the flame on the spearhead wavered.

But it wasn’t a sign of danger. It was a change—and an evolution—that took place in an instant.

Shhhh.

The wavering flame gathered into one.

It came together and connected, no longer a flame but a single line, as though it had become the spearhead itself. Then, at last, it settled.

One step beyond fire’s innate savagery lay hellfire refined to the utmost degree.

It was a peak Jin Taekyung had reached through his own enlightenment. A third path no one had ever taught him.

Fire Dragon Divine Spear.

Third Form.

Fwoooosh.

Space twisted.

The spearhead, raised as though to cleave the sky, and the refined flame within it gave off a terrifying heat.

Like another sun prepared to bring forth a new sky.

Open Heaven.

A fierce shiver seized Jin Taekyung’s body and mind. With a roar that made no sound, he brought down the hellfire spearhead.

KABOOOOOM!

The blue-black sun opened a world drowned in darkness.

They heard it, but didn’t hear it.

They saw it, but didn’t see it.

Amid mountains of corpses and rivers of blood, countless living creatures watched an unbelievable sight unfold in the distance. In that moment, they all felt the same thing.

A shudder.

They shuddered.

A flash too bright to look at filled their vision. A muffled roar blocked their ears. Yet every survivor could feel it clearly.

This long and terrible battle had finally come to an end.

As the light slowly faded, what emerged beyond it proved them right.

Fwoooosh.

A fierce wind swept through, wrapping around the enormous body as it fell, silver blood spraying from it like a waterfall.

Yes. It was a fall.

And with it came the downfall of an Ancient Dragon who had lived for thousands of years.

What falls has wings. But his wings would never take flight again.

KABOOOOOM!

The earth shook. Dust billowed up and swept across the area like a desert sandstorm.

Yet tens of thousands of eyes that had witnessed it all remained fixed on the sky.

More precisely, on the one figure moving through the terrible stillness weighing down on the world.

Step.

He walked slowly through the air as though climbing down an invisible staircase.

Even from a distance, he looked utterly exhausted. But no one there dared entertain the thought, or feel anything of the sort.

With the sky—its clouds torn away without a trace—at his back, he descended toward the ground against the falling sun. His very presence inspired an overwhelming awe.

As if he were something beyond human.

Or a glimpse of someone the world would remember forever, as that person had once been.

“…Sky.”

The breathless murmur escaped someone’s lips. Watching Jin Taekyung with trembling eyes, the others remembered one important thing they had forgotten.

They had won.

They—

No. Humanity had won.

And the one who had led them was a new savior of humanity.