Chapter 269:

Chapter 269:

As Yu-hyun walked past Choi Do-yoon and headed to the hall alone, his steps became unstable as he reached his limit.

He stumbled and collapsed on the spot after a few steps.

“Yu-hyun!”

“Yu-hyun!”

His companions rushed to support him from behind.

They didn’t notice from his back, but Yu-hyun’s condition was not good.

“What, what’s going on? Why...”

“Did you suppress the power of the fruit?”

Yu-hyun nodded at Kwon Jia’s sharp words.

Yu-hyun had consumed the power of the fruit that contained the Divine Spirit’s power, and he had completely overcome his nightmare. But he didn’t clear the Mental Realm.

Because he didn’t want to.

“Why?”

“Because the story is not over yet.”

He deliberately didn’t want this realm to end.

He wanted to escape as soon as possible, but he still had a story to show them.

“I still have a story to show you.”

“A story you want to show us? Do you mean the story after that?”

“Yes. It won’t take long.”

As soon as Yu-hyun finished speaking, the scenery around him collapsed like ink.

New things rose up in the place where it collapsed.

The black ink that was wriggling soon changed into a new form.

Seo Sumin had a similar experience.

It was exactly like when the world changed to suit her in the Mental Realm that shaped her nightmare.

Soon, the four of them saw Yu-hyun from the past, who was sitting in a corner and wailing.

“This is...”

“This is my real past. The me from before, I didn’t kill Seoha with my own hands because of my existence...”

The real Yu-hyun had already killed her with his own hands in the past.

Everyone remembered the fact that they had forgotten and closed their mouths.

What they had just seen was, after all, just a story made from memory in the Mental Realm.

The real Yu-hyun was not saved by anyone.

In that silence.

Only Yu-hyun continued to tell the truth to his people.

“The power of the fruit was so great that it could even raise a human like me to the position of a star.”

White letters began to swirl around Yu-hyun’s body, who was sitting on the floor.

It soon wrapped around his body in a circle.

It was the moment when a human transcended his level and became a Divine Spirit.

“But then something is strange.”

Kwon Jia compared the present Yu-hyun and the past Yu-hyun and felt a contradiction.

Yu-hyun eventually died in the end. He said he died as a human.

But what they were seeing now was the process of Yu-hyun becoming a Divine Spirit, wasn’t it?

How did this happen? Everyone asked Yu-hyun.

Yu-hyun answered.

“There is such a moment.”

He calmly told them what he had experienced.

“There is a point in the story where you immerse yourself in it, where you unknowingly fall into it. A point where everything loses its light and color and becomes blurry.”

Yu-hyun recalled what he had seen and experienced in the past.

When a human transcended his level, when he saw something invisible beyond all perception.

“The flesh loses its trace and disappears there. Only the story remains around me. If I go further from there, all stories disappear beyond time and space, and I am left alone.”

And what he saw was

A pure white realm that stretched endlessly without anything visible.

It was a huge piece of paper whose size could not be measured, without any letters written on it.

A moment that an ordinary human would never encounter in his life.

“I call it the horizon of stories.”

“The horizon of... stories.”

“When we reach there, a voice will ask us one question right there.”

[Who are you]

The core question that pierces through everything and reaches the essence of existence.

That was the most important question in the mixed realm.

“If I say I’m a Divine Spirit there, I would have gotten a chance to go up to the position of a star.”

Yu-hyun looked at himself trapped in a white sphere.

It should have soared high into the sky, but it was shaking.

There was a crack like a spider web on its pure surface.

Like a bird breaking out of an egg.

Everyone looked at that scene blankly.

“What do you think I answered there?”

“Impossible...”

“Human.”

And then, the white letters that surrounded Yu-hyun shattered and disappeared.

“Why, why did you? You had the chance, why did you...”

Kwon Jia muttered in a dismayed voice, unable to understand Yu-hyun’s choice.

What was left in this horrible world that made this man choose reality?

Why did he stay as a suffering human?

“Because I was human.”

Humans are weak.

They have no power and they can turn selfish in extreme situations.

They are chaos itself, not belonging to any personality.

That’s what humans were.

Yu-hyun didn’t answer right away.

He didn’t know what would be waiting at the end of this ordeal.

He didn’t even know if this small and frail child could endure this 99th ordeal.

“Yeah.”

But Yu-hyun nodded his head.

“I think so too.”

“Right? Me too. Mom and dad told me. Before I was born, the world was a really beautiful and peaceful place. If I had to go somewhere, I’d like to go there.”

His voice was full of hope, something that Yu-hyun was familiar with.

“I want to meet new people there, and make new friends. I want to go to the place where my mom and dad used to live.”

“Yeah. You’ll definitely be able to go there.”

After meeting Joon-su, Yu-hyun talked with other people as well.

Some were wary of him and hostile to him, and some were somewhat friendly with him.

Some doubted him, and some tried to take advantage of him.

As he met various people, Yu-hyun felt some emotion sprouting in his heart.

And when everything was ready.

The 99th ordeal began.

Kwaaaaaa!!

A huge black vortex swept over the center of the ruins, and from inside it came out one by one beings with immense presence.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

The rider on the white horse, the White Horseman of Conquest.

The rider on the red horse, the Red Horseman of War.

The rider on the black horse, the Black Horseman of Famine.

Choi Do-yoon and the survivors fought against them and barely defeated them with great damage.

But the last enemy that appeared was stronger than any enemy they had ever fought before.

The last horseman of the apocalypse.

The rider on the pale horse, the Pale Horseman of Death.

This being that symbolized death itself was the herald of the end of this realm.

Spreading black mist and wielding a strange weapon that was neither a scythe nor a spear, he slowly appeared on his horse like a monster that could not be seen in any ordeal.

Just standing still made the surrounding space decay and black energy swirl around him.

“I’ll take care of him.”

And on the side of the survivors, there was a fearsome human who matched that monstrous being.

Choi Do-yoon grabbed his sword and rushed towards the Horseman of Death.

“All troops, support Do-yoon!”

At Goo Seo-yoon’s shout, the huge red tanks behind her spewed fire from their barrels.

Thousands of bullets fell from the sky, tearing it apart.

The Horseman of Death looked at them and lightly swung his spear from left to right.

Puff puff puff!

In an instant, all the shells exploded in mid-air, not to mention countless black thorns sprouted from under the tanks far away and pierced them through.

“Run away!”

“Ahh! Save me!”

The survivors couldn’t even join the fight and ran away.

The fight between those who surpassed their limits was like a natural disaster in its aftermath.

As Choi Do-yoon’s sword clashed with the Knight of the Apocalypse’s spear, the ground cracked and the terrain changed.

An earthquake occurred, and black lightning fell from the sky in countless numbers.

People who were caught up in it died.

Even if they ran away, no matter how far they were, the aftermath hit them as if it exploded right in front of them.

Yu-hyun, who couldn’t participate in the battle, helped evacuate the people.

“Everyone, calm down and retreat! If you get swept away here, it’s all over! If we survive, this miserable ordeal will end!”

He rescued people who were trapped under the debris, and guided people who panicked to a far place from the battlefield.

That was all he could do.

But the Tellers didn’t just watch that scene.

[Oh no, you can’t run away. The people who participated in this ordeal cannot leave this city.]

A barrier appeared in an instant, blocking the way of the people who tried to escape.

Yu-hyun clenched his teeth at that sight.

Again. They were trying to plunge this side into despair again.

‘This fight will take at least a few more days to end.’

Choi Do-yoon was somehow pushing back, but his opponent was not easy. He was gaining a slight advantage, but he lacked a decisive blow.

If this natural disaster-like fight continued for a few days, there would be hardly any survivors left.

“Damn it! Someone please save us!”

“Let us out!”

Yu-hyun spotted a small boy among the crowd that flocked to the barrier that blocked the entrance.

It was Seo Jun-su, a child born in the apocalypse.

He was also afraid of the cataclysm that was happening in the distance and somehow wanted to live, so he came here.

‘I am.......’

Yu-hyun looked back and forth between the people who were screaming for help and Choi Do-yoon who was fighting in the distance.

And then, he remembered Seoha’s face, who smiled at him and asked him to promise.

Crack.

Yu-hyun gripped his sword tightly.

“Huh?”

Seo Jun-su, who was late to run away and didn’t know what to do among the refugees, found a familiar figure.

“Yu-hyun hyung?”

No, was it a mistake?

He couldn’t find the man he thought he saw just now.

Seo Jun-su unknowingly looked towards where the fight was taking place.

He couldn’t see what was going on there because of the people blocking his view.

But for some reason, he felt that someone was running towards that place.