Chapter 1170

The relief of finally getting the Skeleton King back lasted only a moment.

Jin Taekyung’s eyes darkened at the words that came through the Dragon’s bloodied teeth.

“I was chosen by God?”

Morgoth gave a dry laugh at the question, spoken almost to himself.

“If you’re asking me, that’s foolish.”

“What does that—”

“Jin Taekyung, I don’t know everything about you. I can only guess. Even Asmodeus, who brought countless worlds to their knees with his immense power, would be no different. He may be omnipotent, but he is not omniscient.”

Of course.

Omniscient and omnipotent described only one being.

God.

A being nowhere to be seen, yet present everywhere.

One who knew all things and could do all things.

But Morgoth was looking not at the sky, but at Jin Taekyung.

At a human wearing the shadow of the God he had spent thousands of years searching for like a cloak.

“Ask yourself, not me. The answer is there.”

“…!”

Jin Taekyung’s eyes trembled. His body went rigid.

He gave no answer.

No—he couldn’t answer.

A shiver raced up his spine as a wave of memories swept over him without warning.

Asmodeus is dead. On the day I was born. The day of our victory.

At the heart of the enormous temple built in the desert, the Jin Taekyung of the past spoke through gritted teeth to the enemy before him.

He was erased, and we won. That’s all. That’s the truth.

The hoarse voice coming from his lips sounded strange, as if it belonged to someone else.

Watching him, the monster of the abyss—the Doppelganger—smiled.

That is also true, Jin Taekyung, chosen one. It must be all you know, and the truth as you understand it.

Chosen one.

When Jin Taekyung first heard those strange words from the Doppelganger, he had no idea he would soon hear them again from someone he never expected.

So it was you.

In the imperial palace’s grand banquet hall, covered in the rebels’ blood and corpses, the Bow Saint finally revealed her identity and spoke.

The chosen one the Martial God spoke of.

Right.

This wasn’t the first time.

The Doppelganger. The Bow Saint. The Martial God, who had left her a letter.

Even the System had called him the chosen one.

On the very day he erased the Doppelganger.

System

You are the chosen one, Master of the Ark.

Remembering that brief System message, Jin Taekyung looked at Morgoth.

More precisely, at his own reflection in the Dragon’s enormous eye.

“You’re right.”

Though exhaustion weighed on his body, his eyes shone more clearly than ever.

Jin Taekyung continued, as if whispering to himself.

“Maybe… I already knew the answer.”

He’d always wondered where this incredible power he’d acquired one day had come from, and who had given it to him.

But he’d kept denying it. Doubting it.

Why him?

Of all the billions of people in the world, why had an insignificant F-rank Hunter been chosen?

If such an omniscient and omnipotent God truly existed, why hadn’t He personally stopped the countless tragedies and disasters that had happened?

But the instant Morgoth turned the question back on him, he understood why he’d kept looking away from a truth so plain before his eyes.

“It was too much. Everything I had to carry, every moment.”

His father’s untimely death. The family he left behind. A life that could continue only by standing on someone else’s sacrifice.

The burdens took different forms, but they weighed the same.

Each one pressed down on his body and mind like a mountain.

“Maybe that’s why I came to resent God.”

“Resent Him?”

Morgoth laughed at the unexpected answer, bloody phlegm rattling in his throat.

“Interesting. You, who should be more grateful to Him than anyone?”

“I’ve lost too much for that. Things that mattered more than anything.”

“You gained things, too. They must have mattered to you.”

“Yeah. And the more they matter, the heavier they are. Now they’re almost too much to bear.”

“Do you really think so?”

“You don’t know me. You know even less about humans.”

“No. I know them well. Perhaps better than any of you.”

With that calm reply, Morgoth looked out at the world sinking into the colors of sunset.

“This place is certainly different. It’s nothing like the world where I was born and raised.”

Of course it was.

This strange world called Earth had neither three moons and a sun, nor twelve continents and nine seas.

Nor did it have great cities built and sustained entirely by magic, or vividly colored wilderness teeming with spirits.

There were no other races living across the world, each guarding its own territory.

If the disaster called the Great Cataclysm hadn’t brought such enormous changes, the contrast would have been even starker.

“But I found one exception. Even if Asmodeus had never invaded this world, that one thing would have remained the same.”

Jin Taekyung suddenly realized what Morgoth was about to say.

“Humans.”

“Yes. You humans. The weakest and most foolish beings of all the races I’ve seen and known. That was what I found so strange.”

Looking straight at Jin Taekyung, Morgoth added,

“Even in the world I left long ago, humans were always the rulers.”

“…!”

“At first, I couldn’t understand it. Your lifespans and wisdom couldn’t match the elves. You weren’t physically gifted like the dwarves, and you didn’t even have the reproductive capacity of monsters.”

And yet, humans had thrived in Morgoth’s homeland.

The civilization they built was so dazzling that no race except the Dragons could match it. The fame of their extraordinary mages and knights had crossed the seas and shaken every continent.

The race Morgoth had thought inferior in every way had seized dominion over a world.

After a longer period of study and amusement than any before it, he had finally found an answer.

“Desire. You humans are made of endless desire. That’s why you keep changing.”

He had found the answer, but he still couldn’t understand it.

Humans were that complicated.

When they were weak, they banded together as if they’d made a pact. Once their groups grew large, they split apart again and again.

Even after gaining more than enough, they continued to fight.

To capture beautiful elves and enslave them.

To plunder the dwarves’ mines, where gold and treasure lay.

To use monster parts to study Magic and make sharper, sturdier weapons.

They even fought to kill their own kind and take their land.

They didn’t fight to survive. They bled and died to gain something more.

Desire had turned to greed.

“But not all humans were like that. If some were ruled by instincts uglier than a monster’s, there were others at the opposite extreme.”

The eyes that had once glinted like obsidian had long since lost their light.

Morgoth looked at Jin Taekyung, his vision slowly fading.

“Like you.”

“…What are you trying to say?”

“You’re human, too. You have desires rooted deep in your heart, and you must have kept changing to fulfill them, whether you wanted to or not.”

“That’s—”

Jin Taekyung fell silent.

Everything Morgoth said was true.

At first, he’d simply wanted to get stronger.

He’d wanted to break free of the limits placed on him, earn more money and fame, and become a son and older brother his family could be proud of.

But by the time he realized it, everything had changed.

And he’d taken on an enormous responsibility he had never imagined—could never have imagined—just two years earlier.

Then how have I managed to bear all this until now?

This time, too, the answer was close at hand.

I changed, too. Enough to bear the responsibility as it kept getting heavier. I kept changing.

And the world called that something else. Not change.

Growth.

He had grown, and he was still growing.

A child had become a boy, a boy had become a young man—and before he knew it, a torch lighting the way for all humanity. A new savior.

That was why what Jin Taekyung held deep in his heart was the purest of desires, and at the same time, something beyond the word desire.

“Hope.”

In that moment, Morgoth could feel it.

The power and bright vitality in the word that had passed through those parched lips.

“Hope. Is that the answer you found?”

Jin Taekyung shook his head.

“That’s what I thought. But it wasn’t.”

“Then?”

“I’d just forgotten it for a while. I was so overwhelmed that struggling through one suffocating moment after another was all I could manage.”

That was exactly it.

He hadn’t found hope. He had remembered it.

A feeling he’d forgotten somewhere along the way.

Though everyone looked at him and thought of hope, Jin Taekyung himself hadn’t felt at ease for a single moment.

Because he was the torch.

He had to press forward alone at the very front, fighting the deepest darkness.

But not anymore.

Jin Taekyung hoped more fervently than ever. He wished and prayed.

That he would survive to the end alongside those who were fighting even now, shouting his name.

And that this goddamn story would, please, have a happy ending.

“Honestly, I don’t care who chose me. Even if it was all a delusion or a misunderstanding.”

Using his spear as a cane, Jin Taekyung pushed his exhausted body to its feet.

“I’ve made it this far, and I’ll see it through.”

Shing.

The spearhead flashed in the sunset, its edge as keen as ever—like its master’s unwavering will.

“One question.”

“You may ask.”

“Why?”

The question was brief, but Morgoth knew what Jin Taekyung meant.

Why had he given back the Skeleton King so readily?

Why speak and act this way toward the one who was about to end his life of thousands of years?

To Morgoth, though, the answer was obvious. Simple.

“Because if you become even a little stronger, what comes next will be more interesting.”

“What?”

Morgoth laughed aloud at Jin Taekyung’s stiff-faced reply.

There was a longing for amusement in that laugh, a longing he couldn’t give up even with death before him. And there was mockery of himself.

Yes, Asmodeus. Now I understand why you summoned me to this world.

He had realized it far too late, but this was enough.

He had seen a being who stood outside the ordained order and confirmed the existence of a human chosen by God.

And—

That thing around his neck… Yes. There’s no mistaking it.

Morgoth had caught a clear glimpse of something through the tatters of Jin Taekyung’s clothes.

He could sense it just as clearly.

A mysterious energy, neither mana nor magical power, enveloped it completely.

How fortunate. At least I could confirm a trace of that person.

As those words faded into emptiness within him, Morgoth gathered the last of his strength and opened his mouth.

“Now, shall we begin a new amusement?”

In that instant—

Shwaa!

The dazzling sunset shattered along the streak of light shooting toward the Dragon Heart.