Chapter 315

“I have your back, so use that chance to—”

“Shut up!” Seong-Hwi shouted, interrupting Lodon, who was left blinking in confusion. “Your voice is distracting me!”

Seong-Hwi ignored Lodon and clenched his temples.

That motherfucking demon! he thought.

He was the fool to expect genuine help from Curiositas. He was like a remedy and a malady at the same time. He lied as if it were the truth, and told the truth as if it were lies. He fulfilled Seong-Hwi's requests, but he was the one to decide how to do so, regardless of whether it would benefit or cost Seong-Hwi. He was like a whimsical cat walking around a tightrope—the Supreme Demon God that looked down on mere mortals.

I’m closer to a Chaos than a human? The Chaos is the final evolution of all races?

Curiositas’s poison slowly spread throughout his head. Seong-Hwi took slow, deep breaths as he turned the poison into a book and stuffed it into the corner of the bookshelf that was his subconsciousness. It was his philosophy not to think about problems that he couldn’t find answers to.

Fine, I’ll accept it. What does it matter whether I’m a Chaos or a human? he thought, recalling Mother Maria’s words.

“From now on, your name is Seong-Hwi, meaning brilliant splendor. Become someone who shines as brightly as your name.”

He was Cheon Seong-Hwi. That was enough for him. He did not need anything else. All he needed to do was shine brightly. He looked forward once he was finished thinking. By then, the Underfish army had almost surrounded them like a blackout curtain.

“Oi, Lodon. Are you a mute? Why aren’t you talking?” he asked.

“You told me to shut up...” Lodon trailed off.

“Would you die if I told you to?”

“You have quite the nasty—I mean, unique personality.”

“Grab that burden.”

“Have you thought of something?” Lodon asked, carefully picking up Taumafiskur, who had passed out from the pain.

“I got advice, so I might as well try it out. But first...” Seong-Hwi trailed off as he pointed Ame-no-Habakiri at Lodon and Taumafiskur.

A blue storm emitted from the sword and started wrapping them, separating them from the outside world.

“What are you—”

Seong-Hwi interrupted, “Trust me and stay in there. I’ll be right back.”

He then turned toward the army of Underfish once he confirmed Lodon and Taumafiskur were fully covered. “I can’t show you what I’m about to do, after all.”

[Converting Destiny Force to Chaos Mana.]

A sparkling night sky dyed the eighteen Wings of Evolution. A mystical cosmos filled the darkness where serenity and chaos coexisted. The wings, alien and free from everything in this world, fluttered on Seong-Hwi’s back.

[Applying Debuff: Corruption.]

[Applying Debuff: Corruption.]

[Applying Debuff: Corruption.]

...

Akasha Messages endlessly appeared before him to warn him. Normally, he gathered the Cosmos in one place to minimise corruption or used it for a very short time. However, he let it be because he was about to try something he had never done.

If I’m closer to a Chaos, I have nothing to fear from this corruption. Rather, I will accept it! Seong-Hwi thought, spreading the Cosmos throughout his body.

The Cosmos wrapped every muscle fiber and every cell in his body, and the purest Chaos Mana finally reached the secret buried in Seong-Hwi's deepest depths.

[The ■■■ reacts to the Cosmos.]

“GAAAAAHHH!” Seong-Hwi screamed.

It felt as if someone was twisting a red-hot skewer inside his chest. Dark aura exuded from the center of his chest, and the Wings of Evolution wrapped him like a flower bud. It resembled the cocoon that the Shadow Fairy Queen had entered during her secondary transformation in the Fairy Queen’s Hideout dungeon.

[Commencing Chaos Transformation.]

[Commencing Metamorphosis.]

***

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Arthur C. Clarke

***

Seong-Hwi heard something bubbling. He felt cozy and warm.

It feels... familiar, he thought.

Everything around him was pitch black, but the soft water against his skin calmed his mind. He thought about where he was as he floated blankly.

Am I underwater? No... It’s different from the waters of Gurzes.

The water was not cold and salty. It was warm, gentle, filled with life, and all-encompassing.

Is it amniotic fluid?

He could understand this sensation if he were inside the amniotic fluid of his mother back when she still loved him. Just then, he heard the voices of a man and a woman.

“Oh! He just moved!” the woman said.

“He must be healthy,” the man said.

“Do you feel good, my baby?” The woman’s kind voice was filled with love.

Longing and an inexplicable emotion that tickled his heart surged from Seong-Hwi without restraint. Mom... is that you?

“We’re connected, see?”

“That’s a nice play on words.”[1]

“Right?”

The man sounded formal, but the love in his voice was the same as the woman’s.

Dad?Is this a lucid dream?

If that were the case, Seong-Hwi wondered whether this was a good dream or a nightmare. Just then, he heard vibrations from outside. Someone had softly patted his mother’s stomach.

“Hurry on out, Cheon ■■. We have high hopes for you.”

The man’s echoing voice vanished into the ends of his subconscious, and machine-like Akasha Messages appeared before him.

[Completing Chaos Transformation.]

[The condition for Complete Metamorphosis is unfulfilled.]

[Completing Incomplete Metamorphosis.]

***

“Hiss! An envoy of the Sēmen? Nothing special to him!” shouted Ananta, the giant red snake in her Snake Incarnation form.

“He may be an inspector and a World Ranker, but he’s still an inferior race,” replied Sagara with a smile, sweeping her long, purple hair back.

They looked under them at the millions of swarming Underfish.

“Yahaha! There won’t even be bones left of them!”

“Power is pointless... when you’re this outnumbered,” Sagara remarked.

However, unlike the mindlessly laughing Ananta, she stared warily at the robed individual behind her.

An army of this size and strength is also a threat to Patala, she thought.

“I think... It’s over. I shall mobilize the army toward the Ocean King’s Castle,” the robed individual said as they smiled with their bright yellow eyes.

The envoy of the Sēmen is dead. There’s no need to worry about the right to expel anymore, the robed individual thought.

Since Lodon was also dead, no one could stop the civil war now. Carcharocles, who lost his eldest son, would face Natantes with the intent to kill. Either they would both die in their battle, or one would die with the other severely injured.

I would prefer they both die. No... It would be better if one were left alive. That way, that individual can kill whoever is left alive and display his majesty.

The robed individual caressed the orb the size of a head that they were holding. It contained the Cosmos of the Bachtasha-rank Chaos, Dopper, which was why the robed individual could control the millions of Underfish.

“Now, all of you, head to the Ocean King’s—”

The robed individual was interrupted as they were about to command the Underfish. A wave from inside the black wall pulsed throughout the entire ocean.

[Activating Os Skill: As Ruina.]

A translucent black wave instantly pulsed through every single Underfish and even Ananta, Sagara, and the robed individual in the rear.

[You are exposed to highly concentrated Chaos Mana.]

[Applying Debuff: Corruption.]

[Applying Debuff: Corruption.]

[Applying Debuff: Corruption.]

...

Ananta and Sagara were shocked by the Chaos Mana that suddenly invaded their bodies and immediately circulated their mana.

“Hiss! What the—?!”

“Burn it off with mana! You! What is the meaning of this?! Have you betrayed us?!” Sagara shouted after burning off the Chaos Mana. She glared at the robed individual, believing it had been a surprise attack.

However, the robed individual was the most shocked among the three.

“T-this is...” they trailed off.

The head-sized orb they were holding started to crack and was destroyed. The ocean currents changed as the millions of Underfish simultaneously turned around.

“Sagara! What’s going on?!” Ananta asked.

“This bastard betrayed us!” Sagara shouted.

“I-it wasn’t me! I lost control!” the robed individual said.

“Don’t lie! Who else could control those things?!”

“I don’t know either! No one but Master Dopper could—”

The Underfish army did not give Ananta, Sagara, and the robed individual time to recover from the panic and charged at them simultaneously.

“GYEEEEEHHH!”

“KILL THEM ALL!”

“AS OUR KING COMMANDS!”

The black wall swam from the ground to surround the three individuals, resembling the Kraken stretching its countless tentacles from the abyss.

“Dammit! For now, retreat!” Sagara shouted.

“Sagara! But—”

“We don’t stand a chance with just the two of us! We have to regroup with our sisters... no, we need Master Nagaraja to—”

Another anomaly occurred while the two sisters were talking hastily. A cloud whiter than snow stretched like a fox’s tail as it split through the water, dyeing the entire area white.

“This is...” Sagara trailed off, sensing an uneasy history from the white cloud.

Dangerous! she thought, feeling her scales tremble.

The cloud was soft, but the storm-like ferocity and sharpness within warned her instincts to get out of there right now.

Although she couldn’t see anything because of the white cloud, she turned to where Ananta had been and shouted, “Ananta! Stop arguing and retreat—”

“KYAAAAAHHH!”

Ananta’s chilling shriek echoed throughout the deep sea. She writhed intensely as an unknown entity attacked her, which momentarily scattered the cloud. Sagara then saw a man with an abnormally white, double-edged sword slicing Ananta’s giant body like clay.

“Ananta!” Sagara shouted.

“Ahahaha! I’m finally getting to kill another giant snake!” the man shouted.

His appearance was bizarre. His black hair, which went past his shoulders, swayed in the water, and eighteen blade-like wings were on his back, filled with the night sky. A golden crown was shining over his head, a small, black horn was sprouting from his right temple, half of his skin was covered in iridescent, hexagonal scales, and there was no white in his right eye.

He was Seong-Hwi, who had completed his Chaos Transformation through Incomplete Metamorphosis.

[Cheon Seong-Hwi

Health: S(23+15) Strength: S(21+15)

Dexterity: S(10+15) Sense: S(12)

Magic: S(63) Chaos Mana: S(99)]

There was something different about Seong-Hwi’s stats, which had been overclocked via the Wings of Evolution and the Absolute Crown. It was his Destiny Force, which had changed to Chaos Mana, and it was at S(99).

“Hiss! You—!” Ananta shouted, her eyes widening as her hard body was being cut like straw.

No matter how many times she tried to record history in the Akashic Records, it kept being edited whenever that white sword touched her.

“I shall use this sword, pulled from the tail of a snake that summoned clouds, to slay a new snake and write history!” Seong-Hwi shouted.

[Activating Unique Skill: Symbol Embodiment.]

[Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi]

The Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi was the incomparable divine sword that had come out of Yamata-no-Orochi, the snake with eight heads and tails. It had written countless histories, becoming the most famous sword of the gods in Japanese mythology.

“Haaaaahhh!” Seong-Hwi shouted, swinging the Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi wrapped in the Cosmos, and activated a skill.

[Activating Exclusive Skill: Cloud Splitter.]

The Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi’s blade became several kilometers long like a contrail, cleaving everything in its path. It split the water, Underfish, coral reefs, rocks, and the sword even went past the water surface to slice the clouds in the sky. And of course, its path also included Ananta’s head.

“ANANTAAAAA!” Sagara screamed.

1. I won’t explain this yet. ☜