WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 201: 18th-Floor Hidden (6)
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Using Radiant Incarnation, I crossed thousands of kilometers in an instant and reached the capital.
The enormous imperial palace rose grandly from the center of the city.
I went inside.
Blood was already splashed everywhere.
There were bodies of the Empire’s cyborg soldiers, and... people who appeared to be members of the revolutionary forces.
I was still searching the palace with Radiant Incarnation active when I spotted someone surrounded by War Machines, fighting desperately for his life.
It was Kagan.
Shhhhhhh!
I used the Demon King’s power to destroy all the War Machines at once.
Kagan staggered back against the corridor wall and sank to the floor.
There was a huge hole in his chest. It was already too late.
I deactivated Radiant Incarnation and approached him.
Struggling to breathe, Kagan looked up at me, the life fading from his eyes.
“Mr. Kim... Seo-hyeon...”
He didn’t ask why I’d come or bother with anything like that.
He simply handed me a terminal and spoke.
“Beneath the imperial palace... Stop the device from activating... You have to stop the Emperor...”
“I understand.”
“The Third Prince... He’s the commander of the revolutionary forces. By now, he must have gone underground alone. Please... help him...”
The Third Prince? A member of the imperial family was leading the revolutionary forces?
I thought I understood how they’d obtained information about the palace’s interior and launched such a sudden attack.
With those final words, Kagan closed his eyes.
I approached Patriot, who lay nearby.
She was still breathing. One arm was gone, and her parts looked badly damaged, but...
Soon, Patriot regained consciousness. She looked up at my face and muttered,
“Kim Seo-hyeon...?”
She pushed herself up and looked around.
I recognized the faces of the bodies scattered around us.
They were the members I’d spent time with at the base, however briefly.
Patriot spotted Kagan’s body and stared blankly at him.
A single tear ran down her face.
Ruuumble...
It happened then.
The entire palace shook, and I sensed an enormous power.
I looked down at the floor.
As Kagan had said, something was happening underground.
“Uuugh...!”
Patriot tried to stand, only to collapse again. Sparks flew from several places on her blood-soaked body.
I helped her up, but she shook her head.
“...Leave me. Go on ahead, Kim Seo-hyeon.”
“If you came to help us... go and stop the Emperor. Please.”
I nodded.
The terminal Kagan had given me showed a map of the palace and marked my destination, but I didn’t need it.
‘Demon King.’
I handed my body back to the Demon King.
Then I headed straight toward the source of the power, smashing a path through everything in the way.
We destroyed every cyborg soldier and War Machine blocking our path. It took only an instant to reach our destination.
Craaaash!
Deep beneath the imperial palace.
After breaking through layer after layer of flooring, I looked at the scene before me.
A huge machine stood in the middle of a chamber surrounded entirely by gray metal.
It was shaped like a hollow cone with its tip cut off. Inside it, a translucent sphere that appeared to be its core was fixed in place.
Within that core were objects that looked like old antiques: a dagger, a brazier, a flute...
“...!”
I couldn’t help being surprised.
I could sense faint divinity from them.
They were the divine artifacts I’d been searching so hard for.
Were those Ram’s relics?
I turned my attention to the man standing right beside the device.
‘...The Emperor.’
I knew immediately who he was.
The wreckage of War Machines lay all around, suggesting that a fierce battle had already taken place.
There was another man there besides the Emperor.
Both his arms had been torn off, and War Machines were holding his battered body.
That must be the Third Prince, the commander of the revolutionary forces. Had they already defeated him?
“Dispose of him.”
Even at my sudden appearance, the Emperor simply gave the War Machines an indifferent order.
Were these his personal guards?
Dozens of War Machines wore armor in a mixture of black and white.
I could tell they were on a completely different level from the others.
Of course, that only amounted to the difference between a slightly stronger ant and a weaker one.
Vwoooooom!!
The War Machines unleashed a concentrated barrage of dark red homing beams.
They were made of energy compressed so tightly that they were even more powerful than Destruction Beam.
At the same time, the Demon King unleashed his magic.
A bitter cold froze even the beams and pushed them back.
Then the cold burst outward in sharp spikes like a sea urchin’s, piercing every War Machine. They froze solid and collapsed.
Only then did emotion appear in the Emperor’s eyes.
Confusion.
Intending to subdue the Emperor too, the Demon King released another wave of cold.
This time, however, an energy barrier surrounding the device blocked it.
‘Huh.’
It could even withstand the Demon King’s magic. Impressive.
The Demon King furrowed his brow and struck with an even stronger spell.
Cracks slowly spread across the barrier as it began to break.
Even then, the Emperor continued operating the device.
And then it happened.
Flash!
The barrier shattered, and at the same moment, the device’s core released a brilliant light.
Just as a brief look of relief crossed the Emperor’s face, I used my divinity to stop time around the device.
The machine stopped completely.
Even the power rippling around it like a heat haze froze in place.
“...!”
The Emperor turned toward me, his eyes wide with shock.
“What... have you done?!”
I kindly answered him.
“I stopped the device.”
I looked again at the relics inside the core.
I’d found what I wanted.
But questions remained.
What exactly was the Emperor trying to do with this thing? Why was he even using divinity?
Just then, the Third Prince shouted urgently.
“You must destroy the device completely...! If it activates, most Runexians will die!”
I asked the Emperor,
“Why? What are you trying to do with this device?”
Surely the slaughter itself wasn’t his goal.
The Third Prince cried out again.
“Your Majesty! Father! You cared for your subjects more than anyone! Why would you do something so terrible? What cause could possibly justify this...?!”
The Emperor merely watched his son cry out in anguish, an empty expression on his face.
Then someone else appeared at the ruined entrance.
“...Kim Seo-hyeon!”
It was Patriot.
She had barely managed to drag her broken body all the way here.
She looked around, unable to understand the situation. Then she spotted the Emperor and glared at him with murder in her eyes.
“...The original sin of the people is ignorance.”
The Emperor spoke.
“But I have never sought anyone’s understanding. Nor have I resented you for standing in my way. Such is a ruler’s fate.”
He looked straight at me.
“You are not a Runexian.”
“...”
“Who are you? Why have you appeared at this moment to ruin everything? Why...?!”
His eyes clearly showed bitterness and grief.
I frowned and asked again.
“Tell me your goal. What do you want to achieve so badly that you’d kill most of the people in this world?”
The Emperor let out a thin breath.
“I saw this world’s future.”
“...The future?”
“Before long, everything will fall apart. Something is coming. It will destroy all of Runexis.”
For a moment, I felt a chill in my chest.
How... did he know that?
The Emperor was clearly talking about the Tower.
Just as he’d said, it was a fact that the Tower would appear in this world’s future.
Had he really seen the future? How?
“...That’s hard to believe. How did you see the future?”
As I asked, I looked back at the frozen device.
If he’d built something like this, the Emperor clearly understood the existence of divinity.
For something as incredible as seeing the future to be possible, it would naturally have to involve...
“Until a few decades ago, I knew nothing either.”
The Emperor began his story.
“It started when I happened to discover that the ancient god Ram’s relics contained something unknown. It was not astral energy... I could not even call it energy, but something was certainly there.
“After studying it, I concluded that it was the power of a god, beyond the understanding of a mere mortal. The ancient god Ram was not simply a fictional myth. An actual transcendent being had once existed.”
...He’d somehow recognized the existence of divinity through the divine artifacts?
That was impressive for someone who wasn’t a god. No matter how advanced a civilization or its technology became, this was an entirely different matter.
“I was certain, but it remained a theory I could not physically prove. I still had no way to sense the god’s power directly, so I continued my private research for many years. Eventually, I discovered a possible way to resonate with the power within the relics, and I attempted it myself.
“That was the moment I clearly recognized the god’s power. It was also the moment I learned this world’s fate.”
“...That divine power showed you the future?”
“Yes. I saw it. It lasted only an instant, but I clearly sensed it. In the near future, an unavoidable disaster would strike this world.”
“What was that disaster?”
“I do not know. I could not see that much.”
It seemed he didn’t know exactly what the Tower was.
I suspected that his incomplete glimpse of the future had something to do with the abilities of the god called Ram.
“But I did realize one thing. This divine power was our only means of resisting that incomprehensible disaster.”
“...”
“As the myth says, all of us Runexians were born from Ram. Though we have lost our transcendence, each of us is no different from a part of that god.”
The Emperor looked at the device.
“This device will gather that scattered power into one again. When it activates, ninety percent of the world’s population will die, and the divinity will be amplified accordingly. That is the minimum sacrifice required.”
...So the tiny amount of divinity in the relics would serve as a seed to start the process.
The Third Prince, who had been listening blankly, spoke.
“What... does any of that mean, Father...? I cannot understand.”
Patriot was also staring at the Emperor in a daze.
Gods, the end of the world... They might have thought he’d gone completely mad.
But I, at least, knew.
Everything he’d said was true.
Without answering his son, the Emperor let out a hollow laugh and met my eyes.
“...Ironically, you alone seem to believe my story. Why?”
I asked him,
“Killing ninety percent of humanity to prevent its destruction... Do you really think that’s the right choice?”
“If I do not, everyone will die. This world has no time left. What other choice is there?”
“So... you intend to absorb the god’s power through this device and become a god yourself?”
The Emperor shook his head.
“I do not know who will absorb it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It is only a theory. Not just anyone can contain a god’s power. There are those born with a special vessel. Once the device gathers the power in one place, it will naturally be drawn to that chosen being. It is a gamble with no guarantee of success, but...”
...The Emperor even knew about the existence of the Vessel of Divinity.
I also understood something else.
He hadn’t excluded himself from the ninety percent who would be sacrificed at random.
He had resorted to this extreme method to turn whoever possessed a suitable vessel into a god.
But...
“Don’t... give me that bullshit...”
Patriot clenched her teeth with a crunch and staggered toward the device.
“You crazy old bastard. How many people have suffered because of your delusions... all this time?!”
I stepped into her path.
Patriot looked at me in confusion.
“Kim Seo-hyeon...?”
I let out a deep sigh.
Then I released the time stop on the device.
Whoooosh...
Power began rippling from it again.
I told the Emperor,
“Do as you wish.”
“...What?”
Patriot looked deeply shocked.
“Wh-what are you saying...? You... Ugh.”
With a light tap to the back of her neck, I knocked her unconscious.
I looked at the device, then addressed the Emperor again.
“Finish activating it. I won’t stop you.”
The Emperor stared blankly at me before asking in disbelief,
“You... understand me?”
I did. To some extent.
But not in the way he thought.
Already expecting what would happen next... I watched him reach toward the device.
The Third Prince seemed to shake off his confusion and shouted,
“No...!”
A brilliant flash burst from the device.
Flash!
It activated.
Threads of light began connecting to its core...
I could tell that each thread represented a Runexian’s life.
One of them was connected to the Third Prince.
“Aaaaargh...”
His body shriveled in an instant, beginning to turn into something like a mummy.
The Emperor watched.
His eyes trembled, and then he closed them.
Countless threads connected to the device like a tangled mass of yarn, and the light pouring from its core grew stronger and stronger.
...The device seemed to be working.
The divinity, which had truly been no more than a speck, was growing.
And...
The device never took the Emperor’s life.
Instead, the amplified divinity began flowing from the core into him.
“...!”
The Emperor opened his eyes again and let out a roar as he began absorbing the divinity.
I’d expected this after hearing his story.
Because...
The chosen being who could contain divinity.
That was him.
From the moment I first saw the Emperor, I’d recognized that he had been born with a Vessel of Divinity.
That was probably why he’d been able to resonate with the power inside Ram’s relics.
Of course, becoming a god required faith as well as a vessel. The Emperor didn’t seem to have known that much...
But he fulfilled that condition too.
He had once been a benevolent ruler admired by everyone, and for the past few decades, he had reigned as a terrible tyrant.
For better or worse, countless people clearly regarded him with awe, and ten percent of the Runexians still remained.
Of course, his divinity was nowhere near enough to make him a complete god...
But through a combination of chance and necessity, the Emperor crossed the boundary of mortality.
I looked at the Emperor, who had become a god.
He was staring down at his hands with distant eyes.
“I... succeeded.”
Just as I had when I first awakened, the Emperor seemed to savor the thrill for a while.
But then...
His expression slowly stiffened.
He frantically looked around at empty space like someone who had lost his mind, then muttered in despair.
“Th-this... No... This cannot be...”
...It was exactly the same as with the Fighting Demon God.
Having gained divinity, the Emperor would have realized that this world was already inside the Tower.
Even after sacrificing ninety percent of humanity to awaken as a god, he had ultimately lost to the Tower.
“Ah... Aaaaaah...!”
With all his memories restored, the Emperor crumpled.
After screaming miserably for a long time, he turned toward me and shouted,
“You... You knew everything from the beginning...! You!”
“Yes.”
I told him the truth he now understood.
“I’m a Nightmare Climber from another world.”
“...”
“Unfortunately, this world has already met its end. I’m sorry.”
“Aaaaaaargh! No! Noooo...!”
The Emperor tore at his hair and gasped like a madman.
“Not yet... It is not over yet!”
His eyes flashed red through his disheveled hair.
“Give me your divinity. If I absorb more...! I have not lost yet!”
He desperately reached out.
A torrent of divinity surged toward me.
I drew the God-Slaying Sword and swung it, filling it with my own divinity.
I wasn’t at full strength, since I was constantly spending divinity to resist being forced out of the Tower...
But the Emperor’s divinity was lower in quality than that of the Fighting Demon God, and he didn’t have much of it either. I was the one with the overwhelming advantage.
My divinity wiped out all the power he’d unleashed.
I stopped time.
Then, within that frozen time, I absorbed all the Emperor’s divinity.
When I let time flow again, he fell to his knees with a thud.
“Wh-what have you done? My power...”
He looked utterly lost, then burst into crazed laughter.
“Heh, hehehe... I sacrificed them all... What... was any of it for...?”
...I had achieved everything I’d set out to do.
The reason I’d let the Emperor activate the device instead of stopping him was to absorb all that divinity myself.
After all, this world had already ended.
It was nothing more than a shell replaying the past.
Even so, I couldn’t help feeling weighed down.
Whatever else was true, I had willingly allowed countless people to die.
“...Ugh.”
Just then, Patriot opened her eyes.
She looked around, glanced at the now-dark device, then spotted the Third Prince’s dried-up corpse.
“...Commander.”
Then she looked at the Emperor, who had lost his mind, before finally staring blankly at me.
“Wh-what happened... Kim Seo-hyeon...?”
“...”
“I’m asking what happened... Did the device activate...? Did it?”
I nodded.
“You... Why would you...?”
Her eyes lost focus.
“The commander, my older brother, our comrades... What did they all die for...? If this was how it would end anyway...”
I told her,
“I’m sorry.”
“...”
“These words probably mean nothing to you, and you probably can’t understand... But I promise I’ll put an end to all of it.”
I would defeat the Tower and put an end to all these tragedies.
Deep in my heart, I could only make that promise to myself once again.
Like a doll that had lost all will, Patriot no longer reacted at all.
I finally withdrew the divinity I’d been using to prevent my exit.
...The scene before me changed to the Reward Room.
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