The moment Yeon-woo’s Breath fell from the sky to the ground, the sizzling heat forced all the players to stop fighting and turned to look at him.

“No!”

“Block him!”

The Elohim players chased after it too late. The Breath was already sweeping through the Elder Assembly. The Elders had all kinds of barriers protecting them, and the Elders frantically activated blessings and skills once they sensed the danger. But these were little more than crumbling sandcastles in the face of the Breath mixed with the Throne of Death’s holiness.

The power exuded by the Stone of Sin, the stones of Superbia and Gula, was already too powerful for Yeon-woo to rein in. The explosion didn’t stop there. Rumble. Krrrrr.

The sparks caused consecutive blasts, and the lightning that rose from them connected to each other, tearing up anything that was left behind. Tornadoes of fire blazed multiple times, shaking up the Elder Assembly’s building and everything around it.

The players could barely protect themselves from the aftershocks, staring in disbelief. Dark clouds stretched up to the sky and bubbling magma flowed like a river among the burnt rocks. It was already difficult to approach, much less survive. It was hell.

A building whose history spanned thousands of years collapsed anticlimactically.

“No…way.”

Everyone was shocked, and there was still a heavy silence when Yeon-woo descended. Swish. Yeon-woo’s face was expressionless as if there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. As he flew down, he pulled out the Ruyi Bang pieces. Click. They gathered as one and turned into a staff, combining with Vigrid.

“Heaven Wing!”

“I’ll kill you!”

The Elders who had barely managed to survive all looked at him with fiery eyes among the hellish ruins. Half of them had been exposed to the Breath. It crushed their limbs or burned half of their bodies, but none of them seemed to care. There was only one thought on their minds: to kill the culprit behind all this, Yeon-woo!

“Gods, ancestors! Please watch over our pitiful selves!” At that shout, the Divine Factors sealed in their bodies began to awaken. Whoosh!

The Factors trembled turbulently, and their genetic information and quality transformed at their very foundation. Their human forms collapsed, their muscles twisting. Each one took on the form of a unique monster.

One turned into a winged lion, another into a griffin, and still another transformed into a long, limbless creature—a leviathan. These were monsters that had gone extinct in the Tower, and they could only be found in old legends or folklore. They were also semi-divine.

〈Forceful release of holy power〉

To join the Elder Assembly, you had to have an abundant amount of divine blood and Divine Factors. Each of them had some holy power, but it was normally unthinkable to use it.

Holy power was a divine strength that was meant for immortals, not mortals. If used wrongly, the balance of the body could be ruined. You could lose your identity and possibly become a different being, so the Elders didn’t use their holy powers and only passed them down to their descendants.

They believed if holy power accumulated generation by generation, it would bloom into a legend, their clan’s longtime mission. Due to this, the power of each family of Elohim was determined by how much holy power they possessed. The great families, called the Protogenoi tribe, were held in high regard because they had so much holy power.

However, what value did families, holy power, and mission have? If the Elohim fell, there was no point in hoping for the future, and so the Elders put their survival first and used the powers of their families without regard for preserving their positions.

〈Ancient Species Restoration〉

Their wills hardened after the breakthroughs gained from the Elohim’s mission to restore the ancient species. The Elders stimulated the Divine Factors stored in their genes and forced out their divinity so that they would reawaken as ancient species. Krrrr.

『This is…the power of our ancestors…!』

Their plans were still incomplete, so they couldn’t stay in those forms too long, but the powers they gained at that moment greatly enhanced their strength.

Whoosh. The intense energies that burst out of the emerging holy power of the semi-divinities and monsters whirled in Peals of the Great. Players went pale as the pressure in the atmosphere shot up to an uncomfortable amount.

『With this, that unbeliever will be destroyed!』

The Elders believed this was sufficient to deal with Yeon-woo. No matter how strong he was, he was only strong for a mortal. Since he hadn’t gone through exuviation or gained transcendence or divinity, he could never surpass them.

It wasn’t a matter of who was stronger; it was a matter of innate limitations. Regardless how strong they were, bugs could never surpass humans. They were sure of their victory.

『We shall teach you the price of invading our holy land!』

『We will be praised by the gods for offering you as sacrifice!』

They ran towards him without any hesitation, teeth bared. The sight of a hundred semi-divinities running together was a frightening sight. However, they had no idea of the battlefields Yeon-woo had fought on during his year-long absence.

In Tartarus, Yeon-woo had endured life-or-death battles with countless divinities, and he had even killed gods. Before he clashed with them, Yeon-woo revealed his full power. “Underworld Domain Declaration.”

[A new quality is being added to the designated territory ‘Binah.’]

[Underworld has been set.]

[The Throne of Death is being released.]

『What in the world!』

『Impossible! How does a human have the Throne of Death? It’s only allowed to superior gods and demons…!』

The Elders grew dizzy as they sensed an overwhelming strength that surpassed their combined power. The Throne of Death! Even gods found it difficult to exert powers over life and souls. For a mortal to do so was unbelievable. What was more, 666 gods and demons were cruelly smiling down at them behind Yeon-woo.

It was too late. The Outer Space they thought would protect them forever was already designated as Yeon-woo’s territory and was filling with the air of death. Yeon-woo sent holiness and the Stone of Sin’s power to the tip of the Ruyi Bang, mixing it with Mugong, magic, skills, graces, and blessings before pointing it at them. It was an attack he discovered after sparring with his teacher, the Martial King.

[Flawless Strike]

“Sweep them away, Ruyi.” Rumble.

* * *

“Sixty.” The Martial King had said this to Yeon-woo after they finished sparring in the village. Yeon-woo immediately understood what he meant. It was a score. He would only get 100 when he managed to catch up to the Martial King.

Yeon-woo had smiled hollowly, thinking he still had a long way to go. Then, he grew curious about something. The Martial King had had three disciples. Two had been excommunicated from the tribe, but it didn’t change the fact that they had received the Martial King’s instruction. The Sword God, who was thought dead, was actually still alive as Faceless. Yeon-woo had never fought with Nocturn, but it was clear that he was a hidden master. If he revealed his true strength, Nocturn was possibly the strongest among them.

Yeon-woo was curious about the Martial King’s assessment of the other two, who had the same passion as he did to catch up to the Martial King. “Can I ask what score you gave the other two?”

The chatty Martial King pressed his lips together for the first time. Then, he spoke with a grin, “Fifty-five and eighty.”

His words were seared in Yeon-woo’s mind because it seemed like he was implying that Yeon-woo still had a lot to learn. From that moment, Yeon-woo did everything he could to improve Flawless Strike, practicing Time Difference any chance he could get. He succeeded in achieving a satisfactory outcome, and it wasn’t simply because of what the Martial King said. He also sensed and hoped that this would help him open a new path.

He had surpassed the Sword God with the incomplete Flawless Strike. If he completed it, he could reach Nocturn’s level or even beyond. ‘Another path will open.’

He’d believed that he couldn’t go past the arhat level, but if he continued to grow, he would be able to find a new path. Yeon-woo believed Flawless Strike was a chance to improve and perhaps even reach the goal the One-horned tribe had long been aiming for. Yin Sword! It was the sword that had never shown itself to the world, unlike Edora’s Yang Sword.

Krrrr. The Ruyi Bang and Vigrid tore through space violently, ripping it apart. One-third of the Elders who’d been running at him collapsed to the ground, spurting blood.

『Kyak!』

『It didn’t even make contact…but how?』

『He divided space with his will? It’s impossible unless one’s reached the peak of martial arts…!』

Those who didn’t die had burns all over their bodies from the heat of the Aura. Yeon-woo landed on the ground, holding his spear. “Next.” He directed his Draconic Eyes and Fiery Golden Eyes at the Elders.

The Elders found themselves frozen, unable to say anything. They remembered what it felt like to be overwhelmed by the Summer Queen Ismenios when she’d visited the Elder Assembly in the past. The air and authority that only transcendental species possessed whirled around Yeon-woo. They were stunned speechless. To the Elders, divinity was a wall that was impossible to climb. They had many talents because of their divine blood, but it was also the reason they couldn’t escape the limits of their status. They realized that they would never surpass Yeon-woo.

His Throne of Death and trait already made him close to being a transcendental species. The power of the Demonic Divine Draconic Body tightened around their chests.

“No one?” Yeon-woo lifted the corners of his mouth. “If no one’s up for it, I’ll go first.” Boom! Yeon-woo kicked off the ground into the sky.

In that instant, space opened, revealing one of Jeong-woo’s homunculi, which blocked his path.

“Too late.”

By the time Bayluk arrived, half of the Elders were already dead, but the Elders still seemed to be relieved. However, Yeon-woo was expecting the homunculi to appear, so he had no hesitation to get rid of it.

He was disgusted at Bayluk for tossing these puppets at him without showing himself. He’d have to get rid of the Elders first before chasing after him. No matter where he ran, Yeon-woo would follow him to the ends of hell. He retracted the Ruyi Bang and hurled it. Boom.

〈Vortex〉

The homunculi were all destroyed by the explosion of the whirlpool of power. “There you are.” Yeon-woo managed to discover a fading connection to a homunculus with his Fiery Golden Eyes. He quickly calculated the coordinates with Laputa’s Uballa system and swung Ruyi Bang in that direction. Crack.

He crushed space, which revealed a research lab with countless glass tubes containing incomplete prototypes of the ancient species that the Elders had transformed into: Giants, griffins, leviathans. However, he was riveted by only one thing: clones that looked like Jeong-woo. They were probably failed prototypes, but the sight was enough to fan his anger.

“So you came all the way here. How rash. I’m still not finished with the improvements.” Bayluk stood at the end of a hallway. His face was flushed with annoyance, but he still had a twisted smile.

Thump. Thump.

Did he awaken the power of the Crawling Chaos? A mysterious, sinister strength was squirming inside him, and it seemed like his body had already been partially taken over by it. It was similar to how Laputa had been taken over by the Crawling Chaos. Yeon-woo could tell that he was in the middle of something.

The moment he stepped inside to kill Bayluk, he felt a familiar gaze—one that he never wanted to feel again.

“How was your meeting with your old lover? Although it seems she’s not happy about it.”

[Mother Earth is watching you.]

Vieira Dune’s will was present.