The molten mana blade of Yi Yeonjun vibrated in the air, its white-hot edge humming with the resonance of a thousand dead souls. He stood over the collapsed form of Jin Sahyuk, his red eyes glowing with the borrowed authority of the First Devil.
"Take me," Yeonjun whispered again, his voice echoing through the hollow ribs of the obsidian castle. "Let the First Devil walk upon the soil of the Living."
But the Abyss did not answer with a blessing.
It answered with a thud.
Outside the jagged spike of the palace, the air warped. A distortion—not of the Abyss, nor of the Star Stream, but something older, a logic belonging to a King who played with the heavens—ripped through the sky.
Standing atop a floating fragment of marble was Yoo Joonghyuk.
His black coat snapped in the wind, but his attention was focused entirely on the small, glowing ring on his finger.
[The 'Ring of the Monkey King' is resonating with the 'Janitor'!]
Joonghyuk's eyebrow twitched.
He felt it.
A connection he despised.
The Monkey King's legacy—originally the Great Sage who swept the Heavenly Stables—had decided to synchronize with the "theme."
"Han Sooyoung," Joonghyuk growled, his voice a low vibration of murderous intent. "I will kill you for this."
Behind a pile of rubble, Han Sooyoung, clutching her blade, let out a hysterical cackle.
"Don't blame me, Sun Wukong! The Story recognizes a servant of the house when it sees one! Now, sweep the floor!"
Joonghyuk's face turned a shade of crimson that rivaled Baal's eyes. He clenched his fist.
[Unsealing 'Lv. 14 Ring of the Monkey King'!]
[Unleashing the Great Sage's Spirit Power: 100%!]
The ring shrieked.
A pillar of white-gold light erupted from Joonghyuk's hand, reaching up into the bruised gray sky.
In his grasp, the Ruyi Jingu Bang manifested.
But to his absolute horror, the legendary staff didn't appear as a majestic, dragon-carved weapon.
It looked like a divine, ten-meter-long mop.
The "head" of the staff was composed of white mana fibers that shimmered with the attribute of [Absolute Exorcism].
"What is that?" Yun Seung-Ah gasped, her Flower Sword lowering in confusion.
"It's... it's cleaning the air," Yoo Yeonha muttered, her glasses reflecting the divine glow.
Yoo Joonghyuk stood frozen for a heartbeat, his dignity shattering into more pieces than the castle he was about to destroy.
He could hear the Constellations both stuck in the Demon Realm Gate and in the Star Stream going wild.
[The Constellation 'Demon-like Judge of Fire' is squealing with delight!]
[The Constellation 'Abyssal Black Flame Dragon' is rolling on the floor laughing!]
[The Constellation 'Prisoner of the Golden Headband' is hiding his face in shame!]
"I am... the Supreme King," Joonghyuk whispered, his voice trembling with rage. "I am the Regressor. I am the one who—"
"CLEAN IT!" Han Sooyoung screamed.
Joonghyuk lunged.
He used the sheer, overwhelming mass of the Monkey King's power.
['Giant Body Transformation' is active!]
The divine mop-staff expanded until it blotted out the sun.
With a roar that shook the core of the Republic, Joonghyuk slammed the "weapon" down onto the obsidian castle.
It wasn't a smash.
It was a scrub.(;3)
The white mana fibers hit the black tar of the palace and erupted in a conceptual explosion of "Sanitation."
The demonic ink, the weeping shadows, the very essence of Baal's domain—it was simply erased. The obsidian melted not into slag, but into nothingness, as if a cosmic eraser had been pulled across the canvas of the world.
"FALL! YOU PIECE OF SHIT!" Joonghyuk roared, pouring every last bit of the ring's spirit power into the strike.
The Ring of the Monkey King shattered.
The Ruyi Jingu Bang vanished into a flurry of white mana petals.
And then, the world turned white.
A high-pitched ringing filled their ears.
The scent of sulfur was gone, replaced by the smell of cold dust, wet concrete, and the salt of the Yellow Sea.
Kim Suho opened his eyes and coughed.
He wasn't on the bone-paved streets of Lorenzio.
He was lying on a cracked asphalt road in the same formal suit he was in at the Christmas party. Above him, a rusted green sign hung by a single wire, swaying in the wind.
[North Hamgyong District - 12km]
"Seoul?" Suho whispered, his voice cracking.
He stood up, looking around in a daze.
This was Seoul, but it was a Seoul from a nightmare.
The skyscrapers he remembered were jagged stumps, their glass windows long shattered.
The Han River was a stagnant, dark gray ribbon.
Nature had reclaimed the city, with mutated vines and gray moss creeping over the husks of buses and cars.
"We... we're back," Yoo Yeonha said, her voice small. She was helping a dazed Fors Wall to her feet. "The 'Switch'... Joonghyuk-ssi broke the anchor. We've been pulled back to Earth."
But their homecoming was not peaceful.
A mile away, in the center of what used to be a bustling intersection, the air began to bleed.
The spatial fabric tore open, and a mass of darkness—Baal—was vomited out of the black void.
The First Devil was no longer the nebulous shadow of the palace.
Deprived of his domain, he had been forced to take a physical form to survive the transition.
He stood twenty feet tall, a monstrous amalgamation of obsidian armor, pulsating violet veins, and a hundred weeping eyes.
[< Hidden Scenario – First Devil > is reaching its final stage!]
[Clear Conditions: Defeat the 'Collector of the Worlds - Baal'!]
Baal let out a roar that shattered the remaining glass in the surrounding buildings.
"Insects! You dare to drag a God into the mud of this dying world?!"
"He's not a God," a voice rumbled.
Yoo Joonghyuk stepped forward.
He was covered in soot, his black coat torn, and his hand was bleeding where the ring had shattered.
But his eyes were twin stars of molten gold.
He pulled out a dark, obsidian-wrapped bundle—the weapon Yeonha had prepared.
He unwrapped it. It was the [Sword of the Fallen Saint], a weapon forged from the broken shards of national-grade exorcism artifacts, now infused with the lingering vapor of the Monkey King's chaos energy.
"Suho-ssi! Joonghyuk-ssi!"
A silver-haired man descended from the sky, his feet creating shockwaves in the air as he landed. Heynckes, the Steel Lord, the legendary hero from Nine Stars. Inside the Gate's World he was assigned with a role of loving grandpa. He happily accepted it, missing the final battle at Republic's Peace Conference.
He looked at the demon, his aura manifesting as a massive, translucent wall of vibrating steel.
"I have spent all of my life guarding the border between the possible and the impossible," Heynckes said, his voice as sharp as a blade. "I will not let a piece of Abyssal trash ruin my retirement."
The final engagement began.
It was a spectacle that defied the laws of any single universe.
Baal lunged, his hand transforming into a Sword of Magma.
But before the blade could touch the ground, Yoo Joonghyuk acted.
[Sequence 6: Baron of Corruption – 'Distortion'!]
Joonghyuk warped the space where the blade existed. The magma sword passed through Joonghyuk as if he were a ghost, the heat failing to register against his [Heat Resistance].
"STOP!" a simple command.
But Baal shrieked, his movement slowing.
That was no ordinary words. They were filled with immense mana and authority.
Spirit Speech of Heroes Executive. Aileen, her short height made her look very small compared to the towering figure of Joonghyuk.
Nonetheless the power her words contained was undenible.
Taking the opening, Kim Suho moved.
[Giant Story 'Sword of Wish' is beginning its storytelling!]
Suho's sword, Misteltein shone.
He moved like a line of pure sunlight, his blade carving a golden arc through Baal's armored chest. The demon's obsidian blood hissed as it hit the ground, turning the asphalt into liquid.
"Gilyoung! Yoosung! Now!" Han Sooyoung yelled from the top of a ruined bus.
Lee Gilyoung, possessed by Abaddon, pointed a finger.
From the sewer grates of Seoul, a tide of Biblical Locusts erupted, their mandibles glowing with a poisonous green light. They swarmed Baal, eating away at his conceptual defense.
Beside him, Shin Yoosung stood atop her Chimera Dragon. "Eat him!" she commanded.
The dragon breathed out a torrent of multi-colored flames—a mix of lightning, fire, and ice—that froze Baal's limbs while scorching his core.
But Baal was the First Devil.
He wouldn't go down so easily.
Baal roared.
A vortex opened in his chest.
A suction force began to pull at the heroes.
He was trying to "Collect" their stories, to devour their very existences to heal his wounds. Yun Seung-Ah's Flower Sword strikes were being pulled into the void, her mana being drained at a terrifying rate.
"Ugh! I can't... hold my form!" Seung-Ah cried out.
"Everyone get here!" A giant castle gloomed behind the heroes refusing to be pulled into Baal.
That was Gong Pildu.
Suddenly, a heavy, metallic hand landed on the ground.
[The Steel Lord's Absolute Bastion]
Heynckes stepped into the center of the vortex.
His skin turned into a dull, grey metal.
He drove his sword into the ground, and a dome of "Steel and Blood" expanded, nullifying Baal's suction force.
"Young men," Heynckes grunted, his muscles bulging under his Victorian finery. "I will provide the opening. Do not waste it!"
Heynckes roared, his mana exploding in a silver shockwave that forced Baal's hundred eyes to blink.
For one microsecond, the demon was vulnerable.
"Joonghyuk-ssi!" Suho yelled.
"I know!" Joonghyuk responded.
The two strongest heroes of the generation moved in perfect synchronization.
Yoo Joonghyuk activated all of his skills, stories, he distorted the laws and bribed Baal.
His sword was enveloped in a blue ether so dense it looked like a black hole.
He leaped into the air, his shunpo creating golden ripples in the ruined Seoul sky.
Kim Suho raised Misteltein.
The two blades met in the center of Baal's chest.
The blue ether of the Star Stream and the golden mana of the Hero's Path combined, creating a white-hot spear of pure energy that pierced through Baal's core, out his back, and into the earth.
The ground for ten miles around them groaned. The remaining demonic energy in Seoul's atmosphere was sucked into the strike, purified by the sheer narrative volume of the two protagonists.
Baal's hundred eyes widened.
His physical form began to crack, white light leaking from his veins.
"This... this world..." Baal whispered, his voice a fading echo of the Abyss. "The story... is not... over..."
With a sound like a mountain shattering, Baal exploded.
The shockwave blew away the gray clouds that had choked the sky of Seoul for months.
The violet lightning vanished.
The sulfurous smell dissipated.
[The Hidden Scenario – 'First Devil' has been completed!]
[The 'Demon Realm Gate' has been permanently sealed!]
Clear Skies
The group stood amidst the ruins of North Hamgyong.
They were bleeding, their weapons were broken, and their armor was in tatters.
But for the first time since the scenarios began, they could see the stars.
The sun began to rise over the jagged horizon of the ruined city.
The light was pale and cold, but it was human light.
The clear, blue sky of Earth had returned.
Yoo Joonghyuk sat on a piece of rubble, his breathing ragged.
He looked at his hands, then at the "mop" vapor still clinging to his sleeves.
"Joonghyuk-ah," Han Sooyoung said, walking over and leaning her mop against her shoulder like a spear. She looked at the clear sky and grinned. "You missed a spot on the left."
Joonghyuk looked at her, his hand moving slowly toward his sword hilt.
"Run, Han Sooyoung. I will give you a three-second head start."
"Worth it!" Sooyoung yelled, already sprinting toward Kim Suho and the others.
Heynckes laughed, a booming, hearty sound that echoed through the silent streets of the dead city. He looked at the younger generation—the heroes who had saved two worlds at once.
"The sky is clear," Heynckes whispered, closing his eyes. "Finally."
When those words left his mouth, sky cracked.
[Warning!]
"Aish," Heynckes groaned, "I should watch my mouth!"
[The 'Astral Barrier' has been destabilized!]
[The cumulative 'Status' of the battles has reached a critical mass!]
[The seal of Original Creator protecting Earth is fracturing!]
['Convergence' is entering its final, uncontrolled stage!]