Chapter 1174

The first thought I had when I opened my eyes was simple.

Is this a dream?

It wasn’t an unreasonable thought.

Anyone who saw that spotless white ceiling, dozens of meters¹ overhead in a room the size of a sports field, would probably have thought the same.

But a moment later, I realized it was real.

This place…

I recognized it.

Or rather, maybe not familiar exactly, but I’d definitely been here before.

I vividly remembered staying in a similar place, both in that dreamlike realm of my thoughts and in reality.

Then a voice confirmed it.

“You were sleeping soundly.”

His voice carried unmistakable exhaustion.

I turned toward it, saw a familiar face, and parted my dry lips.

“Yeah. I do tend to sleep a lot.”

I saw a faint smile appear on Team Leader Choi’s usually stern face.

From the way he looked at me, I was probably smiling, too.

For Hunters, meeting again alive meant something special.

But the smile that briefly touched Choi Minwoo’s lips, and the joy of seeing each other again, lasted only a moment.

They were alive, as they’d just said. Which meant they had to face reality.

“How long has it been?”

Jin Taekyung didn’t beat around the bush, and Choi Minwoo saw no reason to hide the truth.

“Three days. About seventy-six hours, to be exact.”

“…Three days.”

It wasn’t a long time.

For someone living an ordinary life, it was just the blink of an eye.

But Jin Taekyung knew better.

He’d known from the moment he saw Choi Minwoo, exhausted from head to toe.

No—maybe he’d known even before he lost consciousness.

“A lot happened while you were away, Mr. Jin.”

Choi Minwoo paused to catch his breath, then added, almost to himself,

“A lot. So much.”

For a while, only Choi Minwoo’s voice echoed through the vast, empty white space. When his story ended, the silence that followed lasted even longer.

Unlike Jin Taekyung’s mind, where countless scenes and voices were still swirling together.

Let me ask you one thing.

“You have my permission.”

Why?

“If you can grow even a little stronger, what comes next will be all the more entertaining.”

Jin Taekyung remembered the end of the wicked Dragon who had made the world tremble.

He remembered the vivid emotion that even the shadow of death looming right in front of him couldn’t hide.

“Fight with every last bit of strength you have. Keep surpassing yourself. Keep struggling.”

Even as his final breath faded, Morgoth hadn’t shown the slightest anger.

“So I can see it from where I am.”

It had been nothing more than a sigh.

A sigh born of regret: he hadn’t been the one chosen by God, and he wouldn’t get to experience the grand game about to begin.

The vague foreboding Jin Taekyung had felt then had become reality three days later, sweeping across the world.

He knew what was going to happen.

Judging by Morgoth’s actions, Jin Taekyung didn’t think he’d wanted this outcome from the start.

But that no longer mattered.

The Dragon Heart—Pandora’s box, filled with every kind of calamity—had opened.

Not in myth, but in reality.

The power contained in the wicked Dragon’s heart, which had pulsed for thousands of years, was incomparably greater than that of the Hatchling Michael Silbert had defeated in Paris.

It was without precedent.

Even if Choi Minwoo hadn’t told him what had happened, Jin Taekyung’s own senses would have proved it.

Beep-beep-beep.

System

—There are System messages you haven’t checked.

—The distribution and density of magical power are skyrocketing…

—Current progress of the rift…

Jin Taekyung wasn’t the only one who’d woken up after three days.

Dozens of holographic windows he hadn’t been able to check while unconscious flooded his vision like a wave, sweeping him along with them.

Among them, his eyes caught on words glowing an especially vivid red, like reefs hidden beneath a violent current.

System

—Quest success requirements have not been met.

—Main Quest, Rift and Collapse, has failed.

—A new Main Quest, The Foreordained Collapse, has been created.

—Would you like to view this Quest? Y / N

Jin Taekyung thought that final message, asking for his consent, was crueler than ever.

He had no other choice.

…View Quest.

And a little while later, Jin Taekyung finally broke the long silence.

“Team Leader Choi.”

“Yes?”

“I need you to gather everyone. Right now.”

Choi Minwoo already had a good idea who Jin Taekyung meant by “everyone.”

He knew the request included one being who was more human than most humans, too.

Maybe it was because the space was so vast, but Team Leader Choi’s absence—he’d left without asking a single question—felt like a big one.

Still, I wasn’t lonely.

I had someone to talk to.

Granted, there was the slight problem that he was in no condition to hold a conversation.

Knock, knock.

I tapped on the transparent recovery capsule as if it were a door, then gazed at the face of the man sleeping deeply inside.

Cheon Taemin.

I’d learned as soon as I regained consciousness that this was a secret space deep beneath the Pentagon.

A vast hospital room and shelter built for one person alone, inaccessible even to the President of the United States.

“Well, now there are two of us.”

My muttered words received no answer.

As always.

I kept talking anyway.

“I know what kind of person you are. Better than anyone else in the world.”

There was no longer any doubt that Cheon Taemin and the Martial God were the same person.

Or that he’d been a Player who’d used the System before I did.

But one question remained deep in my heart.

“How are you… still alive?”

It was a cruel thing to ask someone who was still breathing, but I had to ask.

The instruction manual for that beat-up old capsule, where all of this had begun, said the capsule remained permanently bound to its Player until the Player died.

Ironically, that incomprehensible error was what had given me the reckless courage to face Morgoth alone.

I thought that if I died, you might wake up.

I swallowed the words before they could leave my throat.

At the same time, I remembered something Morgoth had said.

The one chosen by God.

I didn’t doubt it anymore.

I had been chosen.

Whether I’d wanted it or not.

Some great being existed—a being humanity had never encountered, even after reaching beyond the clouds and into space. Another dimension existed, too.

And that unknown being was asking me a question.

Through the receiver called the System.

Open System window. View Quest.

Ding!

System

Quest

The Foreordained Collapse

At long last, the balance of the world has crumbled.

This is no mere coincidence.

It is the spark left behind by an invader from beyond this world, and the flame kindled by all of humanity, yourself included.

But one last chance remains.

Stave off the collapse, however little you can, and save the world.

At the same time, remember this:

Just as a mountain leaves its mark when it moves, every choice you make will affect the whole world.

Grade: None

Restriction: Jin Taekyung

Mission: ???

Reward: ???

Failure: ???

—This Quest may change drastically depending on the Player’s choices.

—Be as cautious as you can. A single choice may bring about irreversible consequences.

This was a first.

No Quest had ever warned me in words or a tone so grave.

The decision I’d already made began to waver.

Maybe—maybe my choice really would bring about the terrible consequences the System had warned me about.

But there was no time.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I delayed any longer, things would truly become irreversible. It weighed on my body and mind as surely as the hurried footsteps I could sense beyond the countless layers of magic covering this place.

Whoosh.

The spells came undone under the Grand Mage’s hand, revealing familiar faces.

Comrades I could trust with my back. Friends I’d gladly give my life for. People I could call family now.

I turned to them and spoke.

“Have any of you ever traveled between dimensions?”

The Skeleton—or rather, the Undead King—muttered uneasily.

“Uh… are you still half asleep?”

“…You little shit.”

Of course it sounded like a dream.

A nightmare, if anything.

The people—or, more precisely, several people and one monster—couldn’t bring themselves to speak even after I’d finished explaining.

The first to break the unspoken standoff was the huge Grand Mage, who’d looked dazed throughout the whole story.

“I’m serious. If you’d said something like that two or three hundred years ago, they’d have called you a witch and burned you at the stake.”

“I agree, but I’m not a woman.”

“By the time they tied you to the stake, you would’ve been. They’d just have to cut off what’s dangling down there.”

“Fair enough.”

“Actually, we don’t have to go that far back. Before the Great Cataclysm, that story would’ve landed you in a psychiatric hospital.”

“Probably.”

“But now… Yeah. This is after that damn Great Cataclysm. And I’m the Grand Mage.”

That was right.

These were the times we lived in.

It had only been three days since we’d fought to take down a Dragon the size of an aircraft carrier. After hearing my whole story, no one suggested putting me in a psychiatric hospital.

Not even the monster.

None of them doubted a word I’d said.

Even if the world were a little different, I was sure they would have believed me.

Just as Jeok Cheongang had believed in me.

And I’d had only one reason to reveal the secret I’d kept deep in my heart.

“I’m… going to leave. To put an end to all of this.”

I knew where the invader from beyond this world was.