Chapter 56

[Translator - Hestia][Proofreader - Kaya]

Chapter 56

Both Baekya and Choi Gimin had a slight discrepancy between their public image and their true selves.

Baekya was famous for closing countless Rank 1 Gates, but his greatest achievements were all within the Tower.

Choi Gimin was infamous for his countless misdeeds, but at the same time, he was also a savior who drastically reduced the mortality rate of those injured inside Gates.

Baekya was known for his high-powered skills that incinerated opponents without lifting a finger, but in reality, he was also proficient in close combat and chaotic battles.

Choi Gimin was famous for his various crowd control abilities based on his magic eyes, such as petrification and mind control, but in truth, he enjoyed the boxing-based fighting style he had learned for a long time before Awakening even more.

At this point, their physical abilities were almost equal.

Choi Gimin's stats, as displayed numerically in the status window, were higher.

But when Baekya received the buffs from his numerous titles and traits, they became evenly matched.

Therefore, Choi Gimin anticipated a fierce melee.

'Cheong Siyeol, Ryu Haneul, even Lee Eunwoo... This bastard had two guys willing to fight in his place and rear support, all while he just used skills. In the past, I couldn't win because our stats were too different, but now...'

Thinking that, 10 seconds later.

Choi Gimin muttered.

"...Forget it."

Baekya was just then raising the dagger in his left hand, breathing heavily.

The snow-white Eternal Cold Steel Dagger emitted a heat haze, distorting the surrounding space.

"I'm screwed. Keuk, keuk!"

He was currently lying on the floor with Baekya's foot on his chest.

Their physical abilities were almost equal.

But their skills were on a different level.

As soon as the duel started, Baekya swung his sword downwards, baiting an evasion.

Choi Gimin dodged lightly to the right and closed the distance.

He planned to aim a punch at Baekya's jaw while he was preoccupied with the incoming dagger attack.

However, Baekya spun to the left and swung the dagger in a wide arc.

His fist landed weakly on Baekya's back, and at the same time, the Eternal Cold Steel Dagger struck his temple.

It was perfect timing.

Just as he was about to shout "Wait!", he felt a sensation of his head being pierced.

Thud!

Choi Gimin collapsed onto the marble floor.

'Shit?'

As he struggled to open his eyes and regain his senses, Baekya was already standing on his chest.

Baekya looked down at him with a smile.

"Gimin, Gimin. Just because I get my memories wiped every time I leave the Tower doesn't mean I forget the skills I learned in there."

"Wow. Shit... I'm no match for this."

"I have a few questions for you. Will you answer them? I'd like to start by getting the contact information of your dealer in Busan."

It was that look, the one everyone loved but he hated.

Choi Gimin bared his teeth and shouted.

"Fuck off!"

He glared and used his magic eyes.

The green halo above his head throbbed violently.

【Mind Control】

Fwoosh—!

A blinding yellow-green light burst from his eyes.

Baekya didn't even flinch this time either.

His eyes, framed by the sun-like halo, were unwavering, like a god gazing down upon the world.

The space between him and Choi Gimin distorted, and a borderless mirror formed.

Tssss!

Choi Gimin's light was supposed to be reflected back at him harmlessly by the mirror.

But then something unexpected happened.

Instead of being reflected 180 degrees, the light that hit the mirror rotated 90 degrees and spread sideways.

The yellow-green light spread sideways and touched Baekya's leg.

Instantly, Baekya's vision distorted as if twisting.

'Huh?'

The temple pillars swayed like rubber.

* * *

Baekya regained consciousness.

He was standing in darkness.

The warehouse was nowhere to be seen.

He had felt a similar sensation recently.

It was like when he entered the nightmare created by the Mirror Prince.

"Constellation."

He called out to his Constellation first.

Regardless of whether he could receive help or not, he needed to be able to communicate with someone to avoid being consumed by anxiety.

【"I'm here."】

【Your Constellation 'Sunny' answers your call.】

A response came.

At the same time, the red halo above his head hummed loudly, as if asserting its presence, and emitted red light in all directions.

"Do you have any idea what's going on? I don't think I would have succumbed to his mind control so easily."

【"I agree. After all, I'm also in charge of the mental aspects..."】

【Your Constellation 'Sunny' looks around to see what's happening.】

【"I understand."】

【They smile triumphantly.】

"You understand?"

【"This guy's Constellation isn't that weak either. Just as I gave you the power of Law of Light, this guy also received a power close to a divine ability."】

"He did seem close to his Constellation."

【"If you are 'Deletion,' then this guy is 'Pause.' That's why the reflection was temporarily stopped."】

"So I'm trapped in some kind of dimensional gap?"

【"It's not that powerful. You're just caught up in it. He tried to mess with your mind, got hit by the reflection, and now you're messing with his mind instead."】

Baekya shook his head.

He didn't really want to see inside this guy's head.

【"Normally, the observer should be able to interfere, but it seems that part is 'paused' because of his power. It'll be released automatically when the regeneration is complete. Until then, just enjoy the show."】

"This will be an unpleasant experience."

【"Not as unpleasant as having all your terrible memories exposed. Try to find a weakness or something."】

The Constellation fell silent after speaking.

At the same time, a video, like a movie screen, started playing in front of Baekya's eyes.

It was a video narrated by Choi Gimin himself.

"It was a decent life."

The video showed a family of four.

Father, mother, Choi Gimin, and his younger sibling.

Choi Gimin didn't have dreadlocks then, nor was he wearing a Versace shirt.

His father had a good job, his mother was a housewife, and Choi Gimin and his sibling were model students.

In the midst of these harmonious days.

They were victims of real estate fraud.

It was a large-scale rental fraud case that caused a stir in South Korea.

'So where's our money?'

'What do you mean you can't return it?!'

'Bring out the landlord! Just bring him out!'

They lost their entire fortune overnight and were on the verge of being homeless.

'You're saying there's nothing we can do?'

'Why does our house belong to those people?'

The law wasn't on their side.

The stern and powerful laws of the world weren't on his side.

They had to move.

It was a village of villas with tangled electrical wires on the utility poles.

His mother and father fought often.

His father started drinking, and his mother cried often.

His sibling started hanging out with a bad crowd.

One day, the class president approached him and said—

'Hey. Is this your sibling?'

The picture of his sibling on the smartphone was horrifying.

'I thought I should tell you.'

They weren't just hanging out.

At that time, Choi Gimin did nothing.

And late one night, when the leader of that group left the PC cafe and was heading home, he struck him in the back of the head with a baseball bat.

Thwack!

It was an act he committed, prepared to go to jail.

But nothing happened.

'Huh?'

In that area, countless gangs of Korean, Southeast Asian, Chinese, and North Korean descent engaged in daily knife fights.

There was no administrative power to spare for a high school brawl.

At that moment, Choi Gimin thought.

'It's nothing.'

The laws of the world, which had seemed so solemn, were nothing special.

Being kind and hardworking didn't guarantee success, and being evil and lazy didn't guarantee punishment.

The absolute laws of the world that he and everyone else implicitly believed in didn't even exist.

From then on, Choi Gimin grew his hair long.

'You… You bastard... We agreed not to cross into each other's territory!'

'Idiot! You believed that?!'

He stole, threatened, and destroyed.

As Choi Gimin lived his life mocking laws and ridiculing rules.

【The Aitel System is activated.】

【Server: South Korea, Population: 51,285,153】

An absolute law that transcended even the laws of physics arrived.

System windows appeared before people's eyes, white towers soared in the capitals of each country, and monsters poured out from holes in the sky.

'A guy who couldn't even awaken.'

It was a mere F-rank porter who had turned Choi Gimin, who ruled like a king in his territory, into a half-wit.

Choi Gimin, trampled and stuffed into a back alley dumpster, thought.

'I'll kill him.'

He wanted to break this law too.

This law, too, only seemed great now; in the end, it would be nothing special.

He pulled himself together.

He waited for the porter to collapse in a drunken stupor.

He relentlessly targeted his eyes and other vital points.

When the porter's convulsions finally stopped—

He burst into laughter, even as he gasped for breath.

That day, he heard the voice of a Constellation.

【"You. You're interesting."】

【The Constellation 'Hundred Eyes' is watching you.】

Awakened individuals were typically born through periodic tutorials.

Even Hong Baekya met his Constellation during the tutorial.

Choi Gimin Awakened without going through a tutorial.

'I am the one who mocks the rules, I am the one who transcends the rules!'

He was immersed in the illusion that he was free from everything.

Now, nothing could bind him, deceive him, render him powerless, and trick him into losing everything!

Nothing.

That's what he thought until he met Baekya.

'Baekya. The President of the Awakened Association.'

He was the very embodiment of the absolute law that Choi Gimin mocked.

In an era where the laws of the Aitel system clashed with societal laws, he established a new law and became the new era itself.

They clashed, sometimes in sparring, sometimes politically.

But Baekya never once tried to kill him.

'Don't rely on skills, utilize them.'

'In battles between Awakened, having a weapon doesn't always give you an advantage.'

'Try focusing your scales in one area.'

It was as if even Choi Gimin was just a chess piece living within the rules Baekya had set.

His defiance, his laziness, his atrocities all seemed to be within Baekya's calculations.

Just like the sun, he looked down on everyone from a place higher than the clouds and the sky, as a benefactor of all things.

Then one day.

On a day that was neither particularly special nor particularly clear.

Baekya fell, just as abruptly as he had appeared in his life.

'This world shall burn beneath my feet!'

He was still as aloof as the sun, and his Law of Light became even stronger than before.

He 'deleted' everything and absorbed the remnants, growing endlessly powerful.

Choi Gimin thought.

'Is that what's right? What I do is evil, but when you do it, it's the system?'

As expected, he hated Baekya.

Baekya was the system itself, which had never been on his side.

Like all the systems that surrounded him, it had to be shattered or rendered meaningless.

So he risked his life, helped Cheong Siyeol and Na Jeongwon reach the 99th floor, and turned back time to kill Baekya.

Watching the light fade from his eyes, he thought.

'I was right.'

As expected, there was no such thing as absolute and solemn laws of the world.

Those who believed in such things were all fools under some strange hypnosis, and living as he did, as he pleased, was the right way to live.

But. But. But... resurrection?

Resurrection?

An eternal system?

'That's nonsense.'

He couldn't accept it even in death.

Choi Gimin gritted his teeth. Searᴄh the Novёlƒire.n(e)t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

That's where the long flashback ended.

* * *

"Keok!"

"Ugh!"

Baekya and Choi Gimin opened their eyes simultaneously.

They were in the midst of a fierce battle inside the temple created within the mirror world.

Choi Gimin was lying on the floor, and Baekya was standing on his chest, dagger raised.

Ryu Haneul, hiding behind a pillar, was unsure whether to jump in or not.

Choi Gimin struggled furiously.

"You see that, you bastard?!"

His handsome face contorted in rage.

"Then die!"

He grabbed Baekya's foot with both hands and tried to twist his ankle.

Baekya pulled one of Choi Gimin's hands towards him and then plunged the blazing hot dagger downwards.

Thud!

The Eternal Cold Steel Dagger pierced through his palm and deeply into the marble floor.

"Shit! Shit! Shiiiiit!"

Choi Gimin screamed and swung his other hand.

Baekya lifted his foot from his chest and stepped on the flailing arm to immobilize it.

He recalled the Law of Light used by his future self that he had seen in Choi Gimin's memories.

'He used it in much shorter bursts. It was closer to erasing than completely burning. How does he use it? Does he increase the output significantly and then... just let it disappear on its own?'

Although he would never follow the same path as his future self, it seemed there were techniques he could learn.

'Let's practice.'

Baekya concluded his observation.

He had intended to ask about the black market, but he ended up seeing someone else's memories.

He knew it was wise to just consider it as something he stepped on and move on.

He was “that” Hong Baekya.

Countless people looked at him with countless expectations or resentments.

A savior to some, a teacher to others, a potential threat to yet others...

He was used to receiving various gazes.

But he never thought there would be someone who saw him as an absolute system.

'I wish I were like that too.'

Baekya felt dizzy as he recalled those times.

Awakened criminals running rampant, control laws born from victim mentality, politicians who couldn't get their act together...

'Every day was truly chaotic.'

It was a time he had stumbled and staggered through.

Baekya knew there was no point in saying this.

But he looked Choi Gimin straight in the eyes and spoke.

"You seem to like laws? Let me tell you one. It worked before the Aitel era and it still works now."

"...."

"Mindlessly rebelling doesn't help change the laws, and there's no connection between changing and breaking them."

"...What do you know?"

"I won't comment on your life before Awakening. But you had a chance to change everything. You were chosen too."

"Hong Baekya!"

"Tell me the location and password for the Busan black market."

Because I need to upgrade my artifacts.

He didn't bother saying the last part.

Choi Gimin's expression was filled with a mix of emotions.

His eyes, distorted with anger and humiliation, trembled.

Then, he let out a sigh-like utterance.

[Translator - Hestia

[Proofreader - Kaya]