Chapter 174: The First Golden Age (3)

‘How dare you, how dare you!’

Hwan Yul was furious.

The Eight-Fanged Great Serpent, known as Yamata-no-Orochi in the eastern island country, had been her first summon—a statement of her confidence.

By controlling such an unfamiliar monster, she added a bit of that classic sorcerer’s bravado: “This is what I’m capable of!”

However—

‘I’ll kill you. I’ll absolutely kill you!’

From the moment her first summoned beast was cleaved in a single strike, Hwan Yul abandoned all rational thought.

Her plan to threaten Jin Yeomyung and obtain the key to the Holy Spirit Heaven?

Gone.

Her plan to later join forces with Jeok Rua and seize control of the Hidden Shadow So Clan?

Also forgotten.

All she wanted now was to return the humiliation with pain.

Crack!

“Grrk!”

At that moment, a mental stabilization spell she’d set as a precaution activated.

Aware of her tendency to lose reason easily during battle, she had wisely taken preventive measures in advance.

Simultaneously, a warning from a former user of the Mirror of Karma surfaced in her mind.

—

“If you have not reached the Realm of Origin Spirit, do not fight for more than two hours in the Mirror of Karma’s world. Any longer, and the Mirror of Karma will devour the caster instead.”

—

In truth, Hwan Yul and even the sorcerers of the Heavenly Illusion Clan never took this warning seriously.

If the Mirror of Karma’s abilities were truly legendary, then aside from the Heavenly Demon or Grand Heavenly Lord, there shouldn’t be any human capable of lasting a full shichen.

But—

Hwan Yul’s instincts told her that the man before her could easily endure that full duration.

“…Impossible.”

Yet her immense pride refused to acknowledge this instinctive warning.

“Absolutely not. Do you think someone who denies his own fate could possibly bring down my cause of building a world only for cultivators?!”

“You still don’t get it.”

“What’s wrong with a world where you trample on the weak to rise up?!”

I lightly tapped the flat of my blade against my shoulder and shook my head.

“In such a world, don’t you realize you too could become the bug?”

The gates opened.

Beasts from another realm emerged.

The Awakened appeared.

People gained powers once confined to fantasy novels.

In the beginning, the Awakened devoted themselves to humanity.

But as time passed, and the battlefronts became deadlocked, they began to change.

They divided themselves into ranks, treated those beneath them like vermin.

And when the mad god fully descended into the world… those who once looked down on others ended up in the same position as those they had scorned.

“Sometimes you need to put yourself in others’ shoes. What if those above you are all people like you?”

“If it is for a world that reaches higher, then even that must be endured!”

“…You’re really impossible to talk to.”

I clicked my tongue quietly.

When the divide in ideology ran this deep, reconciliation became a far-fetched dream.

Typically, one side had to be utterly destroyed for things to reach a conclusion—which made things even more troublesome.

At that moment, Hwan Yul glared at me like I was some naive child.

“You’re not the only one who thinks we can’t see eye to eye. Brat.”

“…Brat?”

Had I truly been Jin Yeomyung, I wouldn’t have reacted much to that.

“Brat, huh…”

But right now, I wasn’t Jin Yeomyung.

“To call someone who’s lived through the end of the world a brat…”

…Chill.

For a fleeting moment, Hwan Yul flinched as she met my mocking gaze.

Perhaps unwilling to admit even a second of hesitation, she screamed as if possessed.

“Taotie! Kill him!”

Clack-clack-clack!

The black beast, Taotie, summoned through the dimensional rift, opened its massive jaws.

Boom-boom-boom-boom!

A straight beam of black light tore through space as it shot toward me.

And that wasn’t the end of it.

—

Forbidden Spell: Illusory Radiant Sacred Formation

—

Hwan Yul didn’t stop at summoning a beast. Determined to finish me, she began using her spells in earnest.

I responded in kind—fully unleashing the divine artifact from my previous life.

‘It’s such a peculiar divine artifact… let’s hope it works well.’

Uncertain, I recited the incantation of release.

“■■■■ ■■■. Release the divine artifact.”

As soon as the incantation was uttered, the greatsword in my hand returned to its true form, glowing pure white.

Flaaare!

Staring at the blade that now radiated streams of light, I muttered in distaste.

“A holy sword of vengeance drawn this easily?”

Though shaped like a sword, it was no mere blade.

A weapon that could cleave through dimensions, slay the undying, and desecrate the divine.

By rank alone, it was on par—if not superior—to the mirror that created this very dimension.

‘You usually need permission from that goddess of light to draw this sword… I didn’t think it would really come out.’

Which meant—I could likely use the other divine artifacts without restriction as well.

Those brilliant weapons bestowed without reservation by the other gods to stop the mad one.

“First things first, let’s beat this son of a bitch in front of me.”

Grrrk!

The black beam had missed, and Taotie had already closed the distance, preparing to devour me.

Though smaller than the previous Imoogi, the beast was about the size of a single peak from the Ten Thousand Mountains.

Its maw alone could swallow an entire palace hall in an instant.

‘One second too slow, and it’s straight into that belly!’

Crack!

Gripping the sword in reverse, I shattered Hwan Yul’s forbidden spell—which had been corrupting the very ground beneath me.

“Gyaaaargh!”

Hwan Yul’s spell was the pinnacle of dark sorcery, one that typically required dozens of first-rate sorcerers to execute.

A cursed technique so fearsome it had once unofficially devoured even Shaolin’s One Hundred and Eight Arhats Formation.

In the human world, it had been designated a forbidden art.

But here—it was merely a human spell.

Cough! Hack-hack!

Whether it was due to the backlash from the shattered spell or not, Hwan Yul continued coughing up blood and phlegm.

Seeing bloody tears flowing from her eyes, it was clear the rebound had been intense.

“If only you’d focused solely on controlling your summons, you could have avoided most of the damage…”

In short, all that effort had been a waste—just a drain on her brain’s computing power.

“Ki… kill him! Kill him now!”

Taotie, who had briefly hesitated, responded to Hwan Yul’s hatred and charged at me again.

But—

Kegyekek!

The moment the holy sword’s massive sword qi brushed against Taotie’s forehead, the beast instantly began vaporizing like solid carbon dioxide exposed to heat.

“Th-this can’t be happening!”

“Right, I told you—it’s a difference in imagination.”

Those monsters, after all, were incomplete manifestations born from oral legends and recorded texts.

Even if their appearances resembled the legends, their power was inherently limited by Hwan Yul’s ignorance.

“You can’t recreate something you’ve never truly experienced.”

Imagination, in the end, is a realm of both talent and experience.

Sure, if we were talking age, I’d have to combine all three of my lives just to match her.

But in terms of experiential density? Hwan Yul would need to go through three lifetimes just to stand on equal ground with me.

“This can’t be… Something like this should never happen!”

At some point, Hwan Yul had recovered both her physical and spiritual injuries.

But there was something even this realm’s power couldn’t heal.

And that was mental fortitude.

“Qiongqi! Hundun! Taowu! All of you, come forth and annihilate my enemy!”

Hwan Yul summoned the remaining three of the Four Fiends at once.

Qiongqi, a winged tiger-like beast.

Hundun, lacking the seven facial orifices that make up basic life.

And unlike Hundun, Taowu—whose head oddly resembled that of a human.

But they weren’t alone.

Hwan Yul began summoning all manner of bizarre, never-before-seen monsters, pushing the battle into an overwhelming war of numbers.

‘Hah… what a spectacle.’

It was practically a monster encyclopedia—countless fantastical beasts filling the space with gaping maws.

And yet—

To me, the overwhelmingly horrifying sight felt no more threatening than a frightened child picking up random rocks and throwing them.

“It really… reminds me of those days.”

Back then, too, I cut through monsters of immense size and made my way toward the mad god.

The difference now was—I didn’t feel the slightest hint of despair.

Probably because I knew that these beings weren’t real gods, but mere fakes created by a mortal.

“Well then… shall we finish this!?”

With a wide grin, I activated all the remaining divine artifacts and kicked off the ground.

About four hours had passed since the battle began.

Normally, monsters that die in this space gradually have their bodies disappear.

But the corpses were piling faster than they could vanish, and chaos had overtaken everything around me.

I sat on the corpse of the largest monster nearby and looked up at the sky.

“Are you not going to summon any more?”

“Gkkk! Gaaah!”

At the end of my gaze, Hwan Yul was clutching her head in agony.

She wasn’t bleeding anymore.

But the tears and drool pouring down her face made it clear—she was no longer in her right mind.

‘Her balance of mind, body, and spirit has completely collapsed.’

For those who transcend their limits, battle ultimately boils down to this.

A war of willpower.

Hwan Yul had indeed reached the current peak that a modern-day sorcerer could attain.

But that didn’t mean she had transcended her limits.

No matter how many times one repairs their body or replenishes their strength, the mental energy gradually worn down by spells and summoning doesn’t recover.

‘Looks like this space is starting to break down too.’

Hwan Yul’s strategy of summoning countless ancient monsters was, without doubt, devastating.

Had I been dragged here as simply Jin Yeomyung, I probably would’ve been helpless.

But there was something both she and I overlooked: the full extent of this transcendental divine artifact—the Mirror of Karma—was still unknown to us.

Whoosh!

Before I knew it, the spatial realm known as the Thoughtform Realm vanished, and Hwan Yul and I returned to reality.

“This… this isn’t… the end…”

“No, it is.”

I slowly approached the fallen Hwan Yul.

She still had energy left, but her mental stamina had depleted to the point that she couldn’t even recite another incantation.

“If you had tried to maintain that realm any longer, you would’ve self-destructed just standing there.”

Of course, if she miraculously triggered a breakthrough and reached the ‘next stage,’ the situation might have reversed…

‘But that’s not possible.’

If it were, she wouldn’t have ended up in this state to begin with.

“It’s not over yet!”

Suddenly, Hwan Yul lifted her head and shouted into the distance.

“Take over after me!”

“…?!”

“Yes, I shall.”

As that reply echoed, the mirror I’d seen before rose behind Hwan Yul.

Then it shot off toward the direction the voice had come from.

And I instantly understood what was happening.

‘…Transfer of ownership!’

The Mirror of Karma’s authority had not ended yet.

If my guess was correct, that mirror had a limited number of uses.

The three grooves on its handle likely represented those remaining uses.

However—

‘As long as the mirror’s light doesn’t extinguish, its power persists!’

Having transferred ownership to someone else, Hwan Yul lost consciousness and collapsed like a bug.

But I had no time to worry about her.

The person who had inherited the Mirror of Karma’s rights—

“…Lord of Slaughter.”

Lord of Slaughter Jeok Rua had appeared with a chilling smile.

“To think you could defeat a Great Grandmaster wielding the Mirror of Karma… I can’t begin to fathom the limits of your capabilities.”

“…You intend to continue this?”

With the end of the Thoughtform Realm, I had reverted back to being the original Jin Yeomyung.

The overwhelming willpower and divine artifacts that had carved through the monsters were no longer at my disposal.

‘This is bad.’

After getting caught up in the thrill and rampaging like a maniac, my mental fatigue was nearly at its peak.

Even if I borrowed the Second Heavenly Demon’s power, I stood no chance in a drawn-out battle against Jeok Rua, who was practically at the level of an Ultimate Grandmaster.

Not to mention—he likely brought multiple Demonic Soul Soldiers with him.

‘Should I run…?’

As I seriously considered fleeing—

“The Scales of Karma, reveal yourself.”

“…Hm?”

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