Chapter 46

Chapter 46
## Chapter 46: The Warden of the Stagnant Marsh

Above all else, regardless of the terrors looming at my back, weren’t these the absolute peak existences of this world’s history? Just being in their proximity was enough to make my heart hammer with a sense of grandeur.

The White King and the Colossus of Ruin, in particular, were the genuine articles.

‘The Colossus of Ruin is present as well. This makes the odds more than favorable.’

In the past, the Colossus of Ruin had served as the sentry for Wilhelm’s ultimate star.

Because of that history, I was intimately familiar with him.

He also happened to be the celestial protector I shared the worst rapport with.

Unlike the even-tempered Dramat, if I had tried to act overly familiar with him, he would have crushed my skull without a moment’s thought.

However, in terms of raw power, he stood unrivaled among the star guardians.

If I could successfully manipulate his strength, I would hold the ultimate trump card.

‘The two most powerful assets are currently in my grasp.’

It was time for a change in perspective.

Looking at the situation from any angle, I couldn’t afford to let this chance slip by.

Failing to utilize them would be sheer idiocy.

After all, I was the only soul who truly understood the contents of that phenomenon.

“What is his intention?”

“First he draws near, and now he retreats?”

“It appears that shattering a Unique-grade enigma is a feat beyond his capabilities.”

The star guardians began to murmur amongst themselves.

Precisely as they observed, I was taking measured steps backward.

If I lingered aimlessly in front of the mystery, those living nightmares would tear me apart in an instant.

Once I had established a safe pocket of space, I deliberately lifted my right hand.

‘A gesture isn’t strictly necessary, but a bit of theatricality won’t hurt.’

To nullify the mystery, a mere focused gaze was sufficient.

However, by incorporating the hand movement, I intended to carve a lasting memory into the minds of these behemoths.

Furthermore, should they turn against me later, this established motion might grant me a fraction of a second’s advantage.

I fixed my eyes steadily on the veiled enigma.

‘Fade away.’

‘What could he be planning?’

Dramat shifted restlessly, his anxiety growing.

Randolph had been standing motionless before the mystery for an agonizingly long duration.

“A total loss of time.”

“We ought to depart immediately.”

“The notion of a lowly Carrion Crow dismantling a Unique-tier mystery was a fantasy from the start.”

The celestial guardians shook their heads in collective dismissal.

They insisted on ending this futile exercise at once.

At that same moment, their judgmental gazes landed on Dramat.

He was the one who had vouched for and escorted the Carrion Crow here.

He was the youngest and least potent mythic-tier serpent among the gathered elite.

“You must refine your intuition, scion of Jörmungandr.”

“A valiant effort, but ultimately…”

The guardians shot Dramat “I told you so” glances, clicking their tongues in disappointment.

The very thought of allowing a cursed entity like a Carrion Crow near a hallowed star was preposterous.

Dramat’s earlier certainty was now viewed as nothing more than hollow arrogance.

“Is he retreating now?”

“Tsk. It seems he has surrendered.”

The conclusion was now unavoidable.

That Carrion Crow lacked the strength to breach a Unique-grade mystery.

While the ability to destroy any mystery was admittedly impressive, if he couldn’t handle every tier, there was no reason to hold him in high regard—or fear him.

‘It was simply too heavy a burden for him.’

The White King gave a subtle shrug as he watched Randolph move back.

It wasn’t a shock—the Unique grade was an absolute threshold. The term “Unique” signified the very source and benchmark of reality.

To destroy it was to warp the fundamental laws of existence.

Even if a being had conquered every floor of the Mythic Spire, the tower did not hand out the authority to rewrite the rules of the world.

‘Was my intuition wrong?’

For a brief window, the White King had felt a genuine sensation.

His own inherent mystery had seemed to recoil in fear of that Carrion Crow.

The White King’s mystery was also of the Unique tier. Comprised of a multitude of mysteries merged solely into his being, there was virtually no entity that could claim superiority over him as a mystery.

He was the personification of existence and sovereign power.

Had it all been a trick of the mind?

Were the claims made by that Carrion Crow nothing but fabrications?

It was in that precise second that everything shifted.

“Hm?”

While everyone was caught between doubt, hope, and letdown, the Carrion Crow extended his hand.

And in that same heartbeat.

*Crack—!*

A fracture began to spiderweb across the Unique-grade mystery.

“…!!!”

“A breach in the mystery…!”

As the fissure tore through the enigma, it detonated into shards, the veil dissolving instantly.

It occurred in the blink of an eye.

Every witness was paralyzed by sheer disbelief.

He had actually succeeded in shattering it.

A Unique-grade mystery had been undone!

The impact was magnified tenfold because they had already written him off.

But as the mystery evaporated, the horrors revealed within were even more chilling.

“What manner of creatures are those?”

“Void specters?”

“No. They are the thralls of ‘Ruin.'”

“They were the ones tainting the celestial star!”

The star guardians recognized the entities inside the mystery immediately.

The very Ruin that had transformed Pangeniar into a living purgatory.

Its servants had been lurking within the mystery all along.

“That gate is the ‘Void Breach’ that Ruin utilized during the continental conquest.”

“It mirrors the descriptions in the ‘Great Cataclysm.'”

“…We must annihilate them all.”

Furthermore, a massive gateway manifested before them.

They identified it instantly as a Void Breach.

It was a perfect match for the accounts written in the Great Cataclysm.

[‘The Primary Barrier’ has been demolished.]

[‘Void Breach’ has been initiated.]

[The surrounding terrain is shifting into the ‘Stagnant Marsh’ environment.]

The local area began to warp and expand at a violent pace.

The depths of Cramdel were linked to the Stagnant Marsh in an instant.

Anyone in the vicinity was inevitably caught in the transition.

—You are an uninvited trespasser.

The monarch of the Void Breach leveled a finger at me and spoke.

Clad in obsidian armor and a matching helm.

A titan mounted upon a colossal steed draped in black steel plates!

Yet, for some reason, that silhouette was hauntingly familiar.

‘The sovereign of the first purgatory, the gate warden Ahram.’

This was madness.

The eight circles of hell that sliced through the demonic realm.

This was undeniably Ahram, the specter monarch and the sentinel who oversaw the first hell, the Stagnant Marsh.

There were eight distinct hells in the demon world, each one foul enough to earn its title.

Half of the legion in the great crusade had perished within the Stagnant Marsh alone.

‘I am certain I ended his life, though.’

I had personally slain Ahram.

And yet, the man I had put down was standing before me.

His subordinates were very much active as well.

—Kni…ght… King!

Ahram’s focus was locked exclusively onto me.

The star guardians and even the White King didn’t seem to exist in his perception.

He knew who I was.

He saw the man who had been the Knight King, Wilhelm.

The very being that had taken his life.

‘He has grown more powerful through the star.’

He actually felt more formidable than in our previous encounter.

Ahram hoisted a star that had been corrupted into a deep black.

*Raaaaaaaagh!*

In that moment, the specters boiled over, coalescing into a titanic sphere of souls.

It was a repulsive fusion of countless remains and ghosts.

And in the center of that mass, I saw another face I knew.

‘…Why the hell is Andasar’s visage in there?’

I had been wondering where he had vanished to.

Andasar’s face was now the heart of a biological nightmare.

His hair had bleached white and his features were twisted into something demonic, but it was unquestionably him.

What a grotesque assembly.

Simultaneously, individuals across the entire globe turned their eyes toward the heavens.

“What… is that thing…?”

“Another realm?”

“Why… why is it appearing in the clouds…?”

The image of the Pangeniar continent was being cast across the sky.

It looked as though the two worlds were on a collision course.

“Is that the alternate dimension people talk about?”

“Ah…! I read about this on the ‘Interworld Portal’!”

“Does this mean the full-scale conquest is beginning?”

Terror gripped the populace as they watched, shivering.

Monsters from the other side had already staged two prior incursions.

The structures leveled by those monsters and the human lives lost numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

If not for the Dimensional Sentinels, the death toll would have been astronomical.

Following those events, the ‘Interworld Portal’ had provided a grim forecast of what was to come.

The previous attacks were merely the vanguard of the other side.

[‘When the Void Breach opens, the true Great Invasion commences.’]

…Master.

The man let out a cold smirk, observing the unfolding chaos from the peak of a high-rise.

Standing beside him were thirty elite combatants.

《Pangeniar disintegration rate has hit 10%.》

《’Major Quest: Slay the Void Breach Monarch’ has been triggered.》

《Failure to execute the Void Breach Monarch within 30 days will result in all Breaches opening, summoning ‘Ruin.’》

《Pangeniar and Earth will then face total integration.》

《Reward: Allocated based on contribution standings.》

《Failure: ‘Ruin’ manifests upon Earth.》

The initial Void Breach had been forced open, signaling the start of the massive onslaught.

But he had been prepared for this.

‘I have been anticipating this exact moment.’

Master and a multitude of other high-ranking players had been waiting for this day with bated breath.

Once this storm passed, the social order would be rewritten.

It would become a world governed by the players.

Master had spent three years of meticulous preparation for this turning point.

He had worked methodically from the darkness.

‘Execute the Void Breach Monarch and eclipse Gracia.’

Gracia.

The man recognized as the undisputed apex of humanity.

But Master was set on leapfrogging him by seizing this specific chance.

No matter how skilled Gracia was, he couldn’t have amassed a private army like the one Master commanded.

And conquering Void Breaches was fundamentally a war of factions.

Gracia might be the most powerful individual, but he couldn’t be everywhere at once during a global crisis.

Master had dedicated three years to building his organization and securing his foundations.

He couldn’t afford a defeat here.

However, Master’s confident smirk slowly began to falter.

“…Why isn’t anything coming out?”

The Void Breaches had clearly manifested.

They were appearing all over the planet simultaneously.

But regardless of how long he waited, nothing crossed over.

And that wasn’t the only anomaly.

《’Void Breach Monarch’ subjugation is currently active.》

《Status: 1.3%》

《Status: 2.5%》

《Status: 7.8%》

“…What is the meaning of this?”

The riches of the constellations.

The portals were open, the quest was live, and they were bracing for the ‘conquest.’

Yet all that was visible in the sky was the ghostly image of Pangeniar and the black ‘Void Breaches’ dotting the horizon.

The gates were wide open, but even after a long wait, not a single creature had emerged.

Nevertheless, the progress metric continued to climb on its own.

“…Is the situation identical elsewhere?”

“Yes, Master. Every report confirms the breaches are open globally, but there are no invading forces to be found.”

The warriors surrounding him were in constant contact with various points around the world.

The verdict was unanimous: ‘No invasion.’

“Then who is handling the subjugation?”

Master’s brow furrowed in confusion.

If there was no invasion to fight, there shouldn’t be any progress being made.

Logically, no one should be able to conquer it.

《Status: 11.3%》

…But the progress bar was surging upward.

The first lessons players learned upon their awakening were the nature of the status window and the disintegration rate.

It was ingrained in their minds that the first major breach would strike Earth once the rate hit 10%.

It was a milestone of extreme danger.

Everyone knew it would be a grueling battle.

That’s why they had spent years training and planning.

‘Five Void Breaches are visible just from here.’

Five within his line of sight alone.

The total count across the globe would likely be in the tens of thousands.

If monsters flooded out of every one of those rifts, there would be hundreds of thousands of them.

There should be real-time devastation, widespread panic, and a world on the brink of explosion.

Players were supposed to descend using the Fragments of the Broken Golden Rule, proving their dominance to the public before eventually claiming the head of the Void Breach Monarch.

“What is Gracia’s status?”

“Reports say he is still stationed in Korea.”

Gracia was still in Korea.

But why?

What could possibly be important enough to keep him anchored to that small piece of land?

If he had seen the signs of the breaches, he should have been halfway back to America by now.

‘He could reach America in less than a day.’

The Blade Saint, Gracia. A man who could command thousands of blades at once.

Every single one of them was a masterpiece. Flying sabers and reality-warping edges were common in his arsenal.

Yet, with the breaches wide open, he remained in Korea.

A small territory like that couldn’t possibly have more than a couple of rifts.

‘Does he have a different objective?’

When the progress bar jumped, Gracia was the first person Master suspected.

Perhaps he was hunting the rift monsters solo.

But if he was stuck in Korea, then conquering the breaches wasn’t his primary concern.

It implied that something far more significant to him was located in Korea.

What could it possibly be?