Ch-136
—
**Clear!**
Had I not come to Faisalmarâ
Had I simply left things as they wereâ
Isabella would have died.
Her plan had been to let the Blood-Marrow King descend into her own body, sever all warps, and then sink into the Abyss.
âWhyâŠ.â
Tearing through space and stepping outside, I saw Isabellaâs trembling eyes.
âWhy on earthâŠ!â
A gaze that could not comprehend it.
A struggle to understand why I would ever do such a thing.
But the reason was simple.
Because I donât want you to die.
Even if the first version of Isabella had been nothing more than a character I abandoned mid-playthrough, the Isabella standing before me now was my steadfast comrade.
A fellow warrior I could trust to guard my back.
My friendâ
Someone who fell into this harsh world with me, breathed alongside me, and pushed forward with me.
So Isabellaâ
I donât want you to die.
âI have nowhere to return to anyway. No one who would welcome me⊠not even a home to stay in. Isnât that right, Lord Randolph?â
It seemed Isabella, in transcending herself, had recalled even her deepest roots.
Even what happened in the Dersian Imperial Family.
Even the memories of being abandoned there.
Which was why she never tried to return.
âIn the end, ours is nothing more than a âcontractualâ relationship. Why would you âsacrificeâ yourself in my place? WhyâŠ?â
âŠBecause we are only bound by a contract.
One year of service.
After that, I promised to help her find her Origin and grant her freedom.
A contractor and the contractedâ
No more than a paid relationship.
It could never become anything beyond that.
I could never reveal my true identity to her.
The moment I did, everything would collapse into ruinâa bomb that might explode at any time.
Though I see her as a comrade, a companion, a friend, this âconnectionâ is in truth something shoddy, held together by lies.
*Even if everything is a lie.*
It doesnât matter.
Call these feelings guilt or pity if you want.
Whether intentionally or not, Isabella lost her life because of me.
I cannot allow her to lose the rest of her life as well.
I cannot leave her to end herself in despair.
âAhâŠ.â
Isabellaâs dazed expression.
As if she even considered this her own mistake.
SoâI did not answer.
I still had to eliminate the final contamination source and bring the Blood-Marrow King down into my body.
To be honest, even I wasnât certain.
No matter how many miracles had kept me alive until now, whenever it came to choices I made myself, even my hidden traits failed to activate properly.
Even so, I simply moved forward.
At that momentâ
**ăâHe Who Devours His Own Tailâă**
**ăOne of the activation conditions for âBrand of Ouroborosâ has been satisfied.ă**
**ăA âSacred Circleâ born of âSelf-Sacrificeâ is engraved onto the body.ă**
**ăâOuroborosâ Poisonâ fills the âSacred Circleâ.ă**
**ăThe brand âOuroboros â The Poisoned Grailâ has been completed.ă**
**ăHealth increases by 10.ă**
**ăNatural regeneration increases by 1,000%.ă**
**ăYou will not stop until you have devoured your entire body. You will not fall until you die. âIndomitableâ effect added.ă**
—
—
*âŠShe should have completed all preparations.*
Beyond the dimensional gate, the Blood-Marrow Kingâheading toward the core of contaminationâfrowned.
The preparations were perfect.
There was no way his daughter could have made a mistake.
The daughter who pursued perfection, who tolerated not even the slightest error.
And yet something was wrong.
Especially the state of the contamination source.
*Why is it still not fully taken over?*
When only the final contamination source remains, its mind and flesh should be completely dominated.
Then it would take on the Blood-Marrow Kingâs form, and he would claim that shell as his own.
Only after surpassing the limits of all existence would the true beginning occur.
But he could not begin.
*Neither the mind nor the bodyânothing has been dominated.*
âŠNothing had progressed at all.
The final contamination source was merely drifting around its surface.
The Blood-Marrow King soon realized why.
*There are walls surrounding its mind and body.*
Massive walls, like fortress ramparts, were blocking the contamination.
Hah.
Even he found this absurd.
He believed that even gods could be contaminated.
What was this creature, that it had resisted until the very end?
*Fine then. I will break it.*
Walls can always be broken.
No matter how sturdy, a siege weapon will reduce them to rubble.
And a siege weaponâ
was exactly what the Blood-Marrow King *was*.
Now that his existence had crossed through the dimensional gate, no wall, no matter how impregnable, could withstand him.
And this wall would be broken from *inside*, not outside.
A far simpler task.
*Crush.*
**Rumbleâ!**
—
—
Sitting down, eyes closed, I clenched my teeth.
Sweat beaded, then poured down like rain.
By the time my whole body was drenched and blood seeped from between my clenched teeth and fistsâ
**ăâGiantâs Resistanceâ has been pierced by the Blood-Marrow King.ă**
The Giantâs Resistance that had been blocking the contamination was finally breached.
*Crackâ!*
The pain doubled instantly.
My legs felt as if they had been severed.
Had my health and regeneration not soared due to Ouroborosâ brand, I would have blacked out on the spot.
*Squirmâ! Squirmâ!*
The skin around my legs rose and writhed.
A sign that mind and flesh were being contaminated, eroded.
**ăâBeast Lordâ has been pierced by the Blood-Marrow King.ă**
It felt like my nose had been forcibly ripped away.
But my body reconstructed itself through all the hidden traits layered within me.
Just because âGiantâs Resistanceâ was broken didnât mean everything else would fall.
There were still twelve hidden traits left for him to pierce through.
*What a monsterâŠ*
I couldnât deny it.
To think something could force its way through hidden traits with brute strengthâŠ
If such a thing emerged into the world, the mere thought was horrifying.
**ăâGolden Graceâ has been pierced by the Blood-Marrow King.ă**
My body lurched.
I couldnât maintain balance.
I placed a hand on the floor, forcing myself not to collapse.
**ăâAll-Masterâ has been pierced by the Blood-Marrow King.ă**
Pain surged through my legs, then sensations vanished altogether.
I probably wouldnât be able to stand.
Never had my hidden traits been assaulted this brutally.
**ăâMutantâ has been pierced by the Blood-Marrow King.ă**
My vision disappeared.
Damn it.
Already five.
Blood tears streamed down, and I felt as though my eyes would be torn out.
But that was only the beginning.
ăVoidă, ăWeapon Masteră, ăGreat Sageă, ăAll-Masterăâ
One after another, nine hidden traits collapsed in an instant.
What kind of creature was this?
Only now did I fully understand why Isabella had desperately tried to drown this thing in the Abyss.
Why the world-devouring serpent, the named being Jormungandr, had called the Blood-Marrow King the âstrongest existence.â
My body was already on the brink of collapse.
My mind floated hazily, as if drugged.
**ăâIndomitableâ activates!ă**
**ăAll pain disappears.ă**
**ăEndurance increases by 500%.ă**
In that instant, vitality returned to my body.
Like drinking a mouthful of water after collapsing in a desert.
It didnât quench all thirstâ
but it was enough.
Enough to fight this monster again.
*Crackâ!*
I gritted my teeth once more.
—
—
*Ten. Only four left now.*
The Blood-Marrow King looked back.
Ten walls he had shattered.
Each one was a sort of âtruth,â yet insufficient to stop him.
*Four remain. And these four are different from the earlier ones.*
Each wall had a different name.
Since he had just broken âDexterity,â four remained.
*Heaven(Celestial). High Druid of the Great Nature. Heart of the Eternal Monarch. Eternal Randolph.*
The Blood-Marrow King stroked his chin.
What were these?
He had never seen them before.
Truths and names that did not exist in his world.
He could vaguely understand the previous ten walls, but these four were entirely foreign.
*The walls I broke were all Origins.*
Origins.
Foundations, beginnings.
Anything that becomes a standard deserves to be called a âtruth.â
Thus the ten walls were truths that had existed since ancient times.
*Each wall I broke was a different Originâprimitive keys that different primordial beings had awakened.*
He understood.
These traits were names left behind by someone who had reached something.
Keys forged in order to reach somewhere.
*A place so unreachable that even these truths failed to touch it⊠What destination were they aiming for?*
Was there a utopia they dreamed of?
What was certain was this:
Beings capable of forging such truths had all failed to reach a certain place.
The earlier ten were those.
But the four remaining wallsâ
were all ânewly written truths.â
Truths unknown to the Blood-Marrow King.
Truths beyond his understanding.
Cosmic in scale.
For one who had mastered every secret of the universe to be so ignorantâit was shocking.
*Is this creature truly a god?*
And never had he seen a being carry so many truths within a single body.
Normally, a body would rupture long before containing this much.
No human could endure such a burden.
Unless one possessed divine class or near-divine strength.
*I am the Seeker of Truths. There is no secret I cannot uncover.*
Fascinating.
This human bodyâ
These fourteen truths it heldâ
And especially the last four.
The Blood-Marrow King stroked his chin again.
Then he chose one of the four remaining walls.
*Heaven(Celestial).*
A wall leading toward the headâ
If he broke and conquered this one, the rest would be easier.
He placed his hand upon the wall named Heaven.
And thenâ
*âŠHm?*
Above the wall, before him, a gigantic eye and mouth emerged.
The eye stared directly at the Blood-Marrow King.
The mouthâ
*Heeheeâ!*
Smiled, amused.
—
—
Indomitable had activated; pain vanished.
My mind grew still, and a will to never yield filled me.
Though Dexterity had fallen, not all my hidden traits had collapsed.
Four remained.
And those four hidden traits were fundamentally different from the ten that had already broken.
*It stopped.*
The Blood-Marrow Kingâs rampage ceased.
The Blood-Marrow King, who had been tearing through the walls like a runaway locomotiveâ
Came to a halt the moment he touched one of the four remaining traits.
What is he doing?
As I tilted my head in genuine confusionâ
*Brrrrâ!*
A sudden shiver ran through my entire body, and the uncomfortable, thorn-swallowing sensation that had been twisting inside my stomach began to settle.
And thenâ
*Grrrlpâ!*
âŠIt was digested.
That wasnât all.
**ăHidden Trait âKing of the Blood-Demonsâ has been added.ă**
**ăA new Talent blossoms.ă**
**ăA ânoticeâ regarding the new Talent has been registered.ă**
**ăAll players may now use SP to raise the related Talent.ă**
**ăâTower of the Riftâ emerges.ă**
**ăWithin the Tower of the Rift, SP and Fragments of the Golden Scale can be obtained. In addition, level restrictions may be lifted depending on the floor reached.ă**
**ăTwo new notices have been registered.ă**
âŠâŠ
**ăâMain Quest 8 â Purify the Cityâs Contamination Sourcesâ has been cleared!ă**
**ăCalculating score.ă**
*He who has completed an unprecedented myth*
ââŠA new Talent?â
âThe Tower of the Rift?â
