46. Old Tale (16)
She had already known the ending.
She simply had not known the process that led there.
And the process, when witnessed directly, was truly miserable and horrific.
Estimated rank: 9-risk.
Classified in the world as a calamity-class being,
the very existence that, the moment it appears, requires a national-scale magical warrior corps to be deployed—
“…Once again, I fail to fulfill my promise.”
At this very moment, that existence lay defeated by a single mage, preparing for its last breath.
No, more precisely…
not a mage anymore, but one of the Dark Folk.
The whole world had turned white.
Morfran Forest, the pride of the Morf Grand Ducal House, had been burned clean away, and over it rose towering mountains of ice.
The icebergs that had grown atop the white flames were deeply unnatural, and yet in a way, they were beautiful enough to be called wondrous.
At the center of it lay the giant white fox beast, collapsed.
“You… for what purpose did you stand in my way? Will you say, falsely, that it too was for the sake of the world?”
The Thousand Demon Fox Flame Spirit forced its eyes open and asked Isaac Morf.
His pale skin had turned bluish-white.
His long hair had gone completely white.
And more than anything, the wings of ice sprouting from his back made it questionable whether he could still truly be called Grand Duke Isaac Morf.
And yet, his mind was still Isaac Morf’s.
Which was why he answered this way.
“…For my daughter.”
He squeezed his eyes shut.
Word by word.
Even speaking normally had become difficult.
A certain desire kept seeping into his mind.
A desire to freeze everything in this world.
He grabbed at his chest and hunched over.
Having faced the Thousand Demon Fox Flame Spirit, Isaac’s condition was far from normal as well.
One of his wings of ice had been completely torn apart, and the white flames burning over his body had nearly vaporized all of his dark mana.
But dark mana recovered faster than ordinary blue mana.
And when it was depleted to this extent, his instinct was to let desire run wild and absorb all the mana around him.
This is bad.
Baek Yuseol came to the conclusion that Isaac Morf had to be removed here and now.
How?
No matter how weakened Isaac Morf had become, it was impossible to face a monster like that alone.
But the magical knights were all incapable of fighting anymore.
Even Hong Si-hwa Adolevit had collapsed unconscious.
No… even if I leave him alone like this, Isaac Morf will die anyway.
There was no need to force himself to fight.
The moment dark mana as powerful as that of a 9-risk Dark Folk emerged, every nearby Magic Tower would receive an emergency alarm, and magical warriors would be ordered out immediately.
The magical warrior corps would come fully prepared to face a powerful Dark Folk, and Isaac Morf, unable to recover his strength properly, would be killed by them.
An hour at most?
No.
They’ll be here in thirty minutes.
There’s nothing more for me to do.
He had witnessed the truth here.
That was enough.
It was time to go back now.
Time to let go.
Just as he was thinking that—
[The Constellatio Project has finished loading.]
A sudden system message rang out.
“…Haha. Are you doing this on purpose?”
Why did it have to show up again at exactly this moment?
As though trying to remind him of its existence one more time.
He lifted his head and looked somewhere high in the sky, toward a place among the constellations.
“The gift you promised me before—I still haven’t received it. Is now a good time?”
[You may select three rewards, or receive one higher-grade reward.]
Back then, after completing countless episodes, he had been promised rewards, but he had kept putting it off because he didn’t know what he should choose.
“I think… now I can take something good.”
He had no idea what narrative power actually was, but considering how hard he’d been living, surely it could afford to be a little more generous now.
The countless constellations drifting across the night sky began to glitter as though responding to him.
Or perhaps they had been glittering already.
“…The Wheel of Dawn.”
[Would you like to select the reward item ‘Wheel of Dawn’?]
Baek Yuseol nodded.
And after waiting only a moment—
Flash!
A gigantic wheel suddenly appeared in the air and slowly began to turn.
For now, it was visible only in Baek Yuseol’s sight, unseen by anyone else.
…A mysterious power station capable of storing all things in this world and stockpiling them.
Its original use was this:
it continuously absorbed small amounts of ambient mana, stored them, and slowly fed them to the owner, helping them grow little by little even without any particular training.
Which was why, back when he played Aether World Online, it had been useful for little more than an “auto-growth item” or an “experience bonus item.”
But what about now, when this had become reality?
If, as its description said, it could truly store all the energy in the world,
would it not be acceptable to use it for something a little different?
“Rotation Assault Mode.”
Baek Yuseol activated one of the Wheel of Dawn’s functions.
It had a feature that normally absorbed nearby energy a little at a time, steadily and continuously, and supplied it to the owner.
But in exchange for making that function unusable for an entire month, it could instead absorb an enormous amount of energy all at once and temporarily strengthen the owner.
…Kugung!!
The moment it began to activate, the dawn-colored wheel finally revealed itself so that everyone could see it, and it started turning slowly.
It began sucking in every last trace of mana released by the Thousand Demon Fox Flame Spirit and the Dark Folk Isaac, and then scattered brilliant silver starlight.
[You have absorbed the dark mana of the Thousand Demon Fox Flame Spirit.]
[For 10 minutes, all stats increase by 〇 stars and 8〇%.]
[You have absorbed the dark mana of Dark Folk Isaac.]
[For 10 minutes, all stats increase by 〇 stars and 8〇%.]
And that was not all.
He also used the derived skill absorbed by Taeryeong Divine Art, [Breath of the Divine Beast].
[Breath of the Divine Beast, Second Form]
[Agility: enhanced by 89%]
[Duration: 1 minute]
[Divine Beast Erosion has increased.]
[The user possesses power excessive for the skill, so the effect is reduced.]
Even though Taeryeong Divine Art’s effect had already been amplified severalfold by Silver Age November’s blessing, the skill’s effect was still drastically weakened.
Still, it was enough.
More than enough to face the weakened Isaac.
“…You are Baek Seolgi.”
When Baek Yuseol generated that enormous vortex of magical power, Isaac turned around and faced him.
“Have you come… to stop me?”
“Yes.”
“The me of now… is in a very dangerous state… Even so, are you sure?”
“Didn’t I promise you?”
The one request Isaac Morf had made of him under the playful name Baek Seolgi.
“To protect Eizel.”
“…I see. So that is how it is.”
Biting his teeth hard, Isaac looked at Baek Yuseol with sorrowful eyes.
“If that is the case, then please—stop me.”
He could no longer stop himself.
His body was now thoroughly steeped in dark mana, right on the verge of going berserk.
“…Understood.”
There were no watching eyes here now, so it was safe to be bold.
He drew the Terriphon Sword and called out the mana blade.
Compared to before, it had grown far thicker and clearer, and it seemed to carry both white flame and blue ice within it.
Jiiiiing!!
No matter how good the Terriphon’s performance was, perhaps the wand was overheating from the excessive mana forced through it, because it vibrated with a sound like a scream.
Just hold together a little longer.
Wrapping the breathing pattern of Taeryeong Divine Art around his whole body, he used Blink—
and rushed Isaac Morf in a single bound, swinging his sword.
Though his base stats had grown powerful, the number of Blinks he could use was still only four at most.
So Baek Yuseol redirected part of the magical power drawn in by the Wheel of Dawn into the skill of Blink itself.
The thought had crossed his mind before.
If this world was truly reality and not a game,
then perhaps even the so-called cooldown of three seconds did not really exist.
Other mages had to expend an enormous amount of mana in order to use Blink.
But Baek Yuseol was different.
Even though he had no mana in his body, if he simply waited three seconds, he could use Blink again as much as he wanted.
Now that he thought about it, the principle was simple.
Because he had the Mana Leakage Body, he was always absorbing natural mana into himself, and the magical vacancy caused by using Blink was quickly refilled.
In that case, wasn’t the cooldown actually just the empty interval in which Baek Yuseol’s body naturally reabsorbed the mana needed to cast Blink again?
And what if—
just somehow—
he could accelerate the mana within his body insanely fast?
Wouldn’t it then be possible to shorten even Blink’s cooldown?
Normally, that would be impossible.
But now, supported by countless skills and item buffs, and even blessed by one of the Twelve Divine Moons, he possessed overwhelming power above 8-star.
[The cooldown of the skill ‘Blink’ has been adjusted to 2.4 seconds.]
Maybe—
just maybe—
he could pull off something utterly absurd that had been impossible even for “Baek Yuseol the game character.”
Kwa-ga-ga-gak!!
As Isaac extended his hand, chains of ice shot out toward Baek Yuseol, who was charging at him at terrifying speed.
Even seeing them, Baek Yuseol did not stop.
He swung the Terriphon Sword wide and cleaved through all the chains of ice, as though tricks like these could not even slow him down.
“Hup!”
Isaac clenched his fist, and the chains of ice that had spread in all directions surged toward Baek Yuseol all at once.
From the instant the battle began, Isaac had already grasped his opponent’s mobility and chosen the most efficient spell and the most efficient strategy to suppress it.
But—
[Blink]
Baek Yuseol slipped out of it with absurd ease.
Even Isaac could not help but be startled.
“Blink?!”
Never in his life had he heard of anyone controlling that spell like this.
Isaac reached toward the sky with all his strength, clenched his hand, and dragged downward as if pulling something from above.
Kugugugugu!!!
Then, breaking through the center of the clouds, a gigantic mass of ice appeared.
A spell he had tried to cast earlier in order to kill the Thousand Demon Fox Flame Spirit, but had failed to use because his dark mana had run dry.
“O frozen meteor, fall.”
A blue iceberg began to plummet toward them.
Baek Yuseol stared at it for a moment.
…That’s ridiculous.
He had assumed Isaac was weakened to around 8-Class now, and yet had the casting of a spell used earlier still remained in effect?
Crack, craaack!
But as expected, probably because his dark mana was insufficient, the iceberg began to split into several pieces in midair.
And yet, could that really be called fortunate?
The meteor of ice was now about to become a shower instead.
“Please… dodge well.”
Boom! Boom! Kwa-kwa-kwaang!!
The shower of ice came crashing down.
And Baek Yuseol ran through it.
Folding space over and over to move, he shattered ice meteors, sliced through icebergs, and at last crossed swords with Isaac Morf himself.
In life, Isaac Morf had never handled a sword even once.
And yet now, as one of the Dark Folk, for some reason he wielded a blade made of crystal.
Jjeeeong!!
As the Terriphon Sword and the crystal sword clashed, their mana collided, shattering the balance of the air and sending enormous shockwaves outward in all directions.
Every time they exchanged a blow, white flames were extinguished, new icebergs formed, and then collapsed.
Now the falling ice meteors were no longer an obstacle to Baek Yuseol.
Instead, he used them as footholds, moving in three dimensions, chasing the winged Isaac Morf through the sky.
And watching that scene—
Eizel Morf dropped to her knees and wept in utter misery.
“Ah…”
To see the two people she loved most in the world aiming their blades at each other’s throats—
it was a sight she had not wanted to see even in her worst nightmares.
And yet there was nothing she could do.
Because what was unfolding before her eyes had already happened in the past.
“Please… stop…”
Her voice, unable to reach them, scattered into the air like an echo.
It hurts.
I don’t want to see any more.
Kugung!!
A shard of iceberg pierced through Baek Yuseol’s forearm, and at last his Terriphon Sword tore away Isaac Morf’s one remaining wing.
“I don’t want to see this anymore…”
Baek Yuseol’s blade pierced through Isaac Morf’s abdomen as he crashed to the ground.
At the same time, ice spread over Baek Yuseol’s entire body, leaving him frostbitten from head to toe.
[Blue Winter December’s ble—]
Baek Yuseol forcibly tore the ice off his body, pulled out his blade, and tried to thrust it once more toward Isaac’s heart—
but Isaac caught the Terriphon blade in one hand and stopped him.
Krrrsh!!
Isaac’s hand was slowly ground apart by the Terriphon’s edge, while little by little, that cruel blue promise crept closer to his heart.
So I die here, then.
And even in that moment, Isaac was smiling.
If anything, he felt relieved—
that at least he would be able to die like this.
Without using these hands to harm the daughter sleeping so sweetly nearby.
What a blessing that was.
At the very end,
he smiled.
“…Thank you.”
Thunk!
At last, Baek Yuseol’s blade pierced straight through Isaac’s heart in a flash of blue—
“No, don’t!”
Eizel Morf screamed.
Her face was already drenched in tears, to the point that she could barely see in front of her, and yet she pounded desperately against Baek Yuseol’s chest to stop him.
“Don’t do this! Please, don’t do this! Father, Father is going to die!”
But Baek Yuseol could not hear her voice.
Kneeling on one knee, his sword buried through Isaac’s heart, he waited there for a long time.
Perhaps he needed time to accept Isaac’s death.
“Please… please…”
Baek Yuseol, who had always listened to everything she said, who had always come running for her—
why, this time, was he not listening to a single word she said?
From behind, Flame looked on with a complicated expression.
So in the end… it still comes to this.
She had thought that even Baek Yuseol would not be able to stop this incident.
But for the ending to be like this—
wasn’t it too cruel?
It hurt too much even to keep watching, and she was about to turn away—
when—
“…Huh?”
Shuk!
As the life slowly drained out of Isaac Morf’s body and he was finally on the verge of complete death, Baek Yuseol withdrew the Terriphon Sword instead of finishing him.
Dark Folk would regenerate unless their hearts were destroyed completely.
Baek Yuseol, of all people, should have known that better than anyone.
Then why would he make a decision like this?
“Isaac Morf. In the history I know… you died at the hands of Hong Si-hwa Adolevit.”
Isaac could no longer answer.
He was still alive, but in no condition to maintain consciousness.
“Ugh…”
In the distance, Hong Si-hwa Adolevit slowly pushed herself up.
As the one commanding from the farthest rear, she had suffered the least direct effect from the Thousand Demon Fox Flame Spirit.
And then…
from every direction came the mana waves of thousands upon thousands.
The magical warrior corps had detected a 9-risk Dark Folk and were converging on this place.
“History cannot be changed.”
Then, if he left history as it was—
but twisted only the truth that no one knew…
what then?
“People will remember it this way. Isaac Morf became one of the Dark Folk and went berserk, but Hong Si-hwa Adolevit stopped him.”
“…What is this?”
Only now recovering her senses, Hong Si-hwa stared blankly at Baek Yuseol’s back.
The fallen Thousand Demon Fox Flame Spirit.
Isaac.
And the unknown masked man standing alone before them.
Baek Yuseol looked at Hong Si-hwa for a moment, then reached his hand out toward Isaac.
“But in truth… you will be going on a journey. This will be a secret known only to you and me.”
Baek Yuseol activated the Wheel of Dawn once more.
This time, it began turning in reverse.
And inside that wheel—
was an enormous quantity of Isaac Morf’s mana.
He did not know where it would lead.
But one thing was certain.
The Wheel of Dawn was not an object of this world.
So if Isaac vanished into it like this…
he would drift somewhere else, in some other world even Baek Yuseol did not know.
As the Wheel of Dawn spun backward, it slowly began drawing in nearby souls.
Above Isaac Morf’s collapsed body, a pure white soul rose into the air.
“Ah…!”
At that moment—
for the briefest instant—
Isaac Morf and Eizel’s eyes met.
“Fa…ther…”
But before she could even reach out, Isaac’s soul walked toward the wheel and disappeared.
Baek Yuseol looked at his retreating figure one last time, then spoke into the air.
“Constellatio Project.”
[Speak.]
“I’m sending back the Wheel of Dawn.”
[Understood.]
[The item ‘Wheel of Dawn’ will be deleted.]
Flash!
Silver light flared for an instant.
And then the massive wheel occupying that space vanished without a trace.
With that, the matter was over.
Soon after, Baek Yuseol himself disappeared like an illusion—
and then—
Dudududududu!!
The magical warrior corps, tens of thousands strong, arrived too late and witnessed the horrifying scene.
The corpse of Dark Folk Isaac Morf.
And Hong Si-hwa Adolevit standing before it.
At that moment, the world slowly began to contract, and space started to warp.
Even amid that bizarre feeling of time rushing forward, Eizel still stared blankly into the empty air.
“Ah…”
Thud.
Sinking to the ground, Eizel laughed.
Tears were still streaming down her face, but she was laughing.
“S-So that’s it… Father didn’t die…”
This was the true history.
The truth no one had ever known.
Now that she knew it, Eizel could no longer go on crying.
Because hope had appeared, she was no longer unhappy.
She closed her eyes tightly and clasped both hands over her chest.
How was she supposed to calm this wildly trembling heart?
She still knew nothing.
Where had her father gone?
How was she supposed to find him?
But in the end—
if he had not died.
If his soul still remained.
Then someday, surely…
she would find him.
And so, from now on,
Eizel…
would not cry anymore.
