Chapter 833

Dazed.

A weightless sensation, as though gravity had ceased to exist, filled Jin Taekyung’s body.

Jin Taekyung opened his eyes amid that alien sensation and stared blankly at the unfamiliar sight spread out before him, beyond a field of vision full of static like a broken television screen.

Where am I?

A look around gave him the answer.

Stalactites hung from the ceiling. The floor was wet, the air damp.

He hadn’t recognized it at once because it was impossibly vast, but he was in a cave.

And in that cave, marked here and there by human hands, tens of thousands of people had gathered.

“Ooh. Ooooooh…”

“Inshallah!”¹

Their cries reached him faintly, like echoes.

Someone in a long robe called out, and people sank to their knees in a wave that passed through the crowd like falling dominoes.

An old man with a hunched back, a man and woman clutching each other’s hands, children whose eyes had been shining with innocence—none remained standing.

No. They were all there was: ordinary people of the sort you could see anywhere in the Middle East.

Only one group stood out among them: figures in robes covered with unfamiliar patterns.

Swish.

The hem of a long robe brushed the floor. An old man with snowy hair showing beneath a loosely wrapped turban spread his arms wide.

“O Messenger of God! O God’s hammer, come to set this defiled world right!”

At his cry, Jin Taekyung noticed something stranger than anything else in that unfamiliar scene.

That’s…

It was darkness. And fire.

Countless Magic Gems were piled almost to the ceiling, enough to fill half the enormous cavern. They fed the flames like kindling.

Darkness so dense it seemed impossible to have missed until now rippled like fire. An unprecedented power writhed within it, ready to burst forth at any moment.

Fwoooooosh.

Rapture filled the old mage’s eyes as he watched. Though his body shook, he raised the staff in his hand and cried out once more. Light poured from it.

“At last, descend upon us!”

At that moment—

Crack.

The space beyond the tightly sealed darkness opened its jaws, like a child forcing its own way out of the womb.

The black flames thrashed like a writhing dragon and swallowed countless Magic Gems. Pure, unrefined magical power coursed along the Magic Formation carved into the ground and flowed into the flames.

On and on. Until the Magic Gems had poured out all their energy and crumbled to ash.

Crackle.

The mountain of Magic Gems began to break apart. It collapsed.

Jin Taekyung watched in shock as those masses of magical power, their purpose served, lost their strength and scattered.

He watched the enormous bomb he’d been searching for with such desperation ignite—the seed of calamity that had slipped away somewhere, hidden from the world’s eyes for decades.

And at last, calamity in full bloom stepped through the crack in space.

Step.

A snow-white bare foot touched the ground. Two legs and two arms, no different from a human’s. Yet the red gleam in the man’s eyes marked him as unlike anyone else.

Haaah.

The black-haired man wore not a thread of clothing. He breathed slowly.

Like a sailor home after a long voyage. Or a predator before a tempting meal.

His eyes, so recently gleaming red, had turned pitch-black. Through them, he took in this new world, seeing and sensing everything around him.

The faint sunlight filtering through the ceiling.

The damp air. The tens of thousands of people pressed flat against the wet floor as though worshiping a god.

And finally, the old mage staggering toward him.

“Ah… Ahhh…”

The mage, Ahomed, stared at the man with tears streaming down his face.

Skin so translucent the veins showed through. A face of unbelievable beauty. And an immense power surging within him.

There could be no doubt.

The man before him was God’s messenger, a being who could truly be called a divine man.

“O Prophet, are you watching? At last, your prophecy has come true—!”

The instant Ahomed opened his arms toward the man—

Slice.

His trembling voice cut off. The old mage’s body collapsed like a rotten log.

Thump. Thud.

His arms and legs, torn apart. His upper and lower body, severed.

And last of all, his head slid diagonally off his torso and hit the ground.

It rolled like a ball of thread until it reached the man’s feet. He looked down at the dead mage’s face.

“You did well.”

That was all.

The darkness writhing around the man drew in the corpse, now cut into dozens of pieces. It swallowed, broke down, melted, and digested them.

Crunch.

The horrible sound of bone and flesh being crushed rang through the silent cavern.

“……!”

The tens of thousands who had seen it happen froze.

So did the mages who had been celebrating their success moments ago. And so did the one man watching it all through a dreamlike haze.

That’s him.

Jin Taekyung knew it instinctively.

The strange man standing alone before them was something that should not exist in this world.

A demon who had crossed through that slowly closing crack in space from a world of death cursed by God.

Rustle.

The darkness, having devoured the corpse without leaving a drop of blood, coiled around the man from head to toe. It became fine black silk, clothing him, then settled across his shoulders as a cloak.

No. At the same time, it rose behind him like enormous wings.

Flash!

Jin Taekyung saw it.

The darkness spread without end. It blotted out the sunlight leaking through the ceiling and cast death over the heads of people frozen like statues.

The living and the dead.

A storm of magical power that swallowed them all.

The cavern shattered. Terrible screams rose. The nightmare surrounding Jin Taekyung broke apart, and he woke.

CRUUUUNCH!

Hah.

I opened my eyes and let out the breath I’d been holding.

An unfamiliar ceiling came into view. Somewhere, hooves clopped, and my body rocked gently to their rhythm.

“Ah.”

I blinked with a low groan. One deep breath steadied me, drawing hot, humid air into my lungs.

This is…

I didn’t need to look around to know.

I was lying in a carriage. I recognized Nanman’s heat and humidity, though I hadn’t felt them in a couple of months.

Of course, given the difference in how time passed between here and the modern world, it had probably been only a few shichen,² not two months.

That last System notification wasn’t a dream.

Relief hit me so suddenly that all the strength went out of me.

In my final moments in the modern world, my mental strength had been drained so completely I couldn’t even attempt Login.

If the System hadn’t helped, even by force, I would’ve stayed collapsed for days without knowing what was happening… No, wait.

System update?

Those words stood out amid my jumbled memories.

If all the System notifications I’d heard were true, then something had changed—something that had never happened before.

I sat up in a hurry and gave the command in my mind.

Open Status Window.

Nothing happened, just as I’d half feared.

However hard I stared at the empty air, no translucent window appeared. Nor did I hear the clear chime that should have accompanied the command.

“…Shit.”

The curse slipped out before I could stop it. I was rattled, but I had a fair idea why the System had suddenly stopped working.

System update.

Maybe I can’t use it until the update’s done?

I’d always preferred using my body to sitting at a computer, even as a kid. But anyone with a smartphone knew what an update was.

What threw me was that I’d never imagined the System would have one.

I guess it’s a program too. It makes sense that it could update.

What kind of lunatic made a thing like this, let alone updated it? Still, it had happened.

Then again, maybe an update was nothing special. The System already connected two worlds and let me level up like I was in a game.

Besides…

After what happened.

I remembered the unbelievable things the System had told me right after I erased the Doppelganger.

And I understood all over again that the vast, terrible calamity I’d failed to stop had begun.

Clench.

My hand tightened without me realizing it. My fist had gone white and trembled. At the same time, the scene from the nightmare flashed before my eyes.

The truth was, I still didn’t know what I’d seen.

Had the System secretly shown me something real through a dream? Had my confused subconscious made it all up?

Or was it some kind of prophetic dream?

I wanted it to have been nothing more than a nightmare. Instinct told me otherwise.

That wasn’t… just a nightmare.

I’d seen it clearly, even through the static. I remembered.

The crack in space opened, if only briefly, using countless Magic Gems and a Magic Formation as its medium. And the man wreathed in a monstrous amount of magical power, slaughtering tens of thousands of fanatics who could offer no resistance.

No—the demon who, for some reason, looked human.

No way.

A name came to mind. I forced it away.

I still didn’t know what he was. But judging by the Doppelganger’s attitude when we spoke and the way events had unfolded, that man wasn’t Asmodeus.

Even if—if he really was a Demon King…

I have enough time.

I could shut myself away and train as I had on Mount Jiuhua. A little over a year could pass for me in Murim while only a few days went by in the modern world.

As long as the System existed, time was on my side.

Dark Heaven might not be, though.

I got up and looked around the carriage.

Was sleeping in carriages the latest fad at the Nanman Beast Palace? Even allowing for exaggeration, the interior was about as roomy as the private wing of a large inn. And I was alone.

Quiet is nice, but where did everyone go?

None of the familiar faces who should have been nearby were there.

The people from the Fire Dragon Pavilion. Hyuk Mujin, who should’ve been sitting beside me as my guard and nodding off. And Jeok Cheongang, whose jaw had dropped when I told him about the modern world and he mistook it for the realm of immortals.

Where the hell did they… Hm?

I was wandering around the carriage to loosen up when a familiar voice reached my ears.

“The Earth Mother Goddess has already scrapped the Central Plains. So who does the Central Plains martial world revolve around now? Our Captain. That’s right, the Blazing Flame Divine Dragon of the great Jin Family of Taiyuan.”

“Ooh. Ooooooh.”

What the hell was he talking about?

I listened past the surrounding murmur to the voice carrying over it.

“And who is it that believes in and follows that Blazing Flame Divine Dragon? It’s me. Want to know why? Because I’ve got my place at the Captain’s side locked down! I’m his most trusted subordinate—that’s why my place is secure.”

“A firm grip? How so?”

“Captain, don’t move! Blazing Flame Divine Dragon, mess with me and you’re dead! That’s how close I am to our Captain. Incredibly close.”

“Ohhh.”

“Who’s the Earth Mother Goddess’s son? The Blazing Flame Divine Dragon! And who’s got a tight hold on the Blazing Flame Divine Dragon?”

Just as his speech reached its climax, I stuck my head out the window.

“Listening to all that has me curious. Who is it?”

Hyuk Mujin laughed heartily and turned.

Then his eyes met mine, and he went stiff.

“Me! Hyuk Mu—uh, fuck.”

“Fuck?”

“Ah.”

“Ah?”

Come here, you bastard.