Chapter 207

Chapter 207
## Chapter 207

The Prelude to Chaos (2)

The low, distant murmur of the television hummed through the apartment, serving as mere white noise.

Smash!

A sudden tremor sent the various trinkets and items lining the tabletop crashing violently onto the floorboards.

“…Blast it! What on earth is…!”

I slammed my palms onto the wooden surface to steady myself, locking my jaw tight against the sudden onslaught.

The sitting room, which had been perfectly organized just a moment prior, was now a disaster area, but the mess was the absolute least of my concerns right now.

A chaotic, unprovoked mental assault was ripping outwards from the abyss.

Under normal circumstances, Hans’s status as the Immortal King granted him total immunity to psychological interference. However, because this eruption originated from within his own psyche rather than an external source, those passive defenses were completely useless.

‘The exact second our eyes locked… the dark void buried deep inside Hans’s soul resonated with my core self. This backlash is exponentially more volatile than the feedback I experienced when absorbing the shattered remains.’

Naturally, even with his innate psychological shields failing him, a crisis wasn’t guaranteed.

The sheer magnitude of Karma he had amassed had fortified his mental fortitude to an extraordinary degree. When pooled together with the collective cognitive reserves of his alternate incarnations, his mental processing power was nothing short of transcendent.

If he could merely clamp down on the surging void and funnel it safely back into his primary physical form, the danger would pass.

After all, the entire reason Hans could wield the volatile, perilous authority of the Immortal King without losing himself was precisely due to this loophole-like advantage.

“Not right now, damn it!”

…Assuming everything else was stable.

While his total pool of cognitive strength was vast, Hans’s current internal psychological landscape was far too fractured and defenseless to cope.

‘I can’t contain it. Not when his mental sanctum has just taken a direct hit!’

A volatile mixture of buried trauma and toxic sentiments erupted from the depths of his soul like a detonating warhead.

Every single agonizing feeling he had locked away—the crippling sorrow of his slaughtered family, his burning malice toward existence, his hatred for the perpetrator, and his utter hopelessness regarding what lay ahead…

These forces amplified tenfold, swelling rapidly as they slammed against the maximum capacity of his “Mind Hub”.

‘The barriers are going to shatter…!’

A myriad of desperate calculations flashed through his awareness in a split second.

Should he sever the connection and dismiss the avatar?

Absolutely not. That would merely kick the problem down the road.

The metaphorical explosive had already been primed inside Hans’s vessel, and the exact same catastrophic feedback loop would trigger the very instant he was brought back into existence.

Furthermore, a compromised, maddened Hans would materialize directly beside his entirely exposed primary body.

‘Worse yet, he wouldn’t have the presence of mind to suppress his spiritual pressure, broadcasting his exact coordinates to anyone listening! Barring a permanent banishment of Hans altogether, it’s a catastrophic path.’

Even with the multiple layers of defensive wards he had woven around his residence, none of them possessed the strength required to mask the immense, suffocating pressure currently radiating from Hans.

The only logical choice was to suppress this eruption directly within Auterica… specifically, within the confines of the Immortal Fortress.

‘But I cannot allow my core consciousness to become infected. That would ruin everything. I must hold the line no matter what.’

The surging void, having already breached safe thresholds, was violently fracturing the defensive perimeters of his “Mind Hub”.

He immediately froze the consciousness of every other alternate persona, redirecting the entirety of his cognitive focus exclusively toward Hans.

He desperately reinforced the cracked foundations of his psychological landscape to mitigate the lingering trauma left by Yulryeongja’s devastating assault.

He clamped down hard on his trembling “Clear Mind,” which tossed wildly like a fragile skiff caught in a category-five hurricane.

Simultaneously, he bolstered the internal security matrices of his “Mind Hub” while keeping a iron grip on his active “Persona”.

He caught flickers of foreign data bleeding through the overflowing dark current, but he lacked the spare focus to analyze any of it.

‘This is spinning out of control. I desperately need leverage… ’

Yet, even with his absolute concentration dedicated to the task, he was merely delaying the inevitable.

The peril remained absolute.

Just as he was searching the dark for any shred of salvation,

‘…Hold on, what is that?’

Deep within the roiling sea of Hans’s subconscious, his senses brushed against the mysterious sphere that Yulryeongja had discarded.

Amidst the violent tempest tearing through the rest of his mind, the artifact sat perfectly tranquil, completely untouched by the surrounding chaos.

‘An artifact meant for boosting psychological capabilities. There’s no telling if it can function during an internal crisis like this, but… any option is better than a collapse.’

In truth, this entire catastrophe had been triggered by the appearance of that very object anyway.

Pushed to the absolute brink, he was willing to gamble on any variable.

‘Oh? This might actually provide the leverage I need.’

The moment his consciousness latched onto that final lifeline, the results surpassed his wildest hopes.

It didn’t provide a miraculous, instant resolution—given that he was using it in an unintended, improvised manner—but it gave him just enough raw cognitive stability to stem the tide and plug the fracturing leaks in his mental walls.

‘I will have to systematically purge the residual void festering inside Hans at a later date. For now, my sole priority is reinforcing the structural boundaries and halting the psychic bleed. If I can just solidify this final seal…!’

What followed was a brutal, agonizing war of attrition against the darkness.

He had no metric for how many hours or days had slipped by.

To his perception, it felt as though he had been adrift in that void for centuries, though in objective reality, only a brief period could have elapsed.

“Phew—”

His physical frame felt incredibly leaden and exhausted, completely soaked through with cold sweat.

The simple return of these physical inputs meant his awareness had successfully decoupled from the crisis and returned to sanity.

‘It’s over… ’

Against all odds, he had pulled through.

He had successfully insulated his mind from the creeping corruption and erected supplementary mental bulkheads along the fringes of his awareness to guarantee the darkness remained contained.

Bzzt—

Yet, before he could even draw a relieved breath,

Thud!

A violent wave of vertigo stole the room from him, and his legs gave out entirely, sending him collapsing hard onto the cluttered floorboards.

“Ugh… ah…”

He had overextended his cognitive faculties far past their breaking point.

Though he had kept the dark corruption from bleeding back into his primary physical form, the sheer psychological toll and neurological exhaustion demanded their price.

His thoughts fractured into disconnected shards, entirely incapable of forming a linear string of logic.

A profound, heavy disorientation washed over him, leaving him drifting aimlessly within a foggy, dreamlike twilight.

《The unique skill has advanced, unlocking dormant potential… 》

Before those scattered pieces of information could even register in his fading consciousness,

The darkness claimed him entirely, and he slipped into a deep swoon.

—

A brief interval passed,

Click—

The mechanism of the front door turned softly, and a lone individual stepped across the threshold into the ruined living space.

The newcomer scanned the disarray, his gaze eventually landing on the motionless form sprawled across the floor, prompting a heavy, weary exhale.

“Ha… I certainly didn’t foresee this outcome.”

‘Hugo’, who had just entered the premises, carefully lifted the inert body of Han Seong-hyeon, transferring him gently into the sleeping quarters and resting him upon the mattress.

‘I grew so accustomed to orchestrating my operations through proxies from a position of absolute safety that I completely overlooked this vulnerability. It is basic logic that overtaxing his cognitive capacity would eventually break the transmitter.’

This marked the absolute first instance where the prime body had suffered direct physical blowback, leaving him thoroughly unsettled.

Mercifully, the damage didn’t appear fatal. A few days of uninterrupted unconsciousness would likely suffice to restore his faculties…

‘Wait, that isn’t the true crisis here!’

An icy dread gripped his spine as the actual, terrifying implications of the situation dawned on him.

‘Maintain composure. First, I must systematically analyze our current status.’

Hugo, whose own independent identity was still somewhat shallow due to his incredibly recent creation, finished restoring order to the disarrayed room before sinking into the automated chair, buried deep in analysis.

Every single human being possessed a multitude of distinct personas, varying in intensity.

These facets shifted fluidly depending on environmental pressures, geographic locations, and social circles.

The version of a person presented at a corporate office differed vastly from who they were with relatives, during personal recreation, or alongside close companions.

A citizen who acted as an absolute pillar of morality within the public square could easily behave like a tyrannical despot behind closed doors, flying into a rage over microscopic inconveniences. Conversely, a cold-blooded assassin who executed targets without a shred of remorse might transform into a profoundly doting guardian, valuing their offspring above life itself.

This was simply the organic manifestation of the intricate, multi-layered emotional spectrum inherent to all mankind, rather than a clinical psychological fracture.

‘And every single persona I have projected onto my proxies through the use of “Persona” is carved out from the foundational emotional blueprint of ‘Han Seong-hyeon’.’

Each individual proxy was merely a localized facet of Han Seong-hyeon, an outward projection of his internal landscape.

Though they appeared to operate as entirely separate entities, they were fundamentally extensions of his singular identity, and even now, while the primary vessel lay unconscious, they continued to seamlessly share a unified pool of data and memories.

The only true variance lay in their default behavioral patterns, which were governed by their assigned traits.

And Hans, the very first proxy he had ever fashioned… was the literal manifestation of every single scrap of malice and trauma Han Seong-hyeon possessed, functioning effectively as an emotional incinerator.

The agonizing grief of losing his flesh and blood, his deep-seated malice toward the world at large, his fury directed at the architect of his misery, and his total despair regarding his prospects…

Had a normal human being been forced to operate with only those specific emotional drivers, they would have disintegrated mentally. Yet, for a proxy like Hans, the dynamic was entirely different.

‘Those exact traits made him an absolute, seamless match for a master of the dead, and that concentrated negativity actually granted him superior, unyielding mastery over the ‘Immortal King’s Heart’.’

Furthermore, because he had always maintained objective, top-down oversight via the “Mind Hub” regardless of whatever individual traits the proxies exhibited, it had never posed a structural threat.

‘Until this exact moment, that is.’

That system functioned flawlessly only so long as Han Seong-hyeon, the true architect of “Avatar” and the absolute moderator of the “Mind Hub”, remained awake to steer the ship.

And furthermore, it required that Hans wasn’t actively undergoing a profound corruption by the cosmic void.

“Hahaha… Well, this is quite the situation…”

Hugo let out a strained, nervous chuckle, raking his fingers through the back of his hair before exhaling sharply.

“…We are completely compromised.”

That identical, ominous realization rippled simultaneously through the consciousness of every single active proxy across the board, save for Hans himself.

—

‘The others are fretting over absolutely nothing.’

Deep within his own domain, Hans clamped down tightly on the dark energy roiling within his chest, letting out a dark, internal sneer.

Though he had endured a grueling ordeal to prevent the darkness from bleeding back through the link, the sheer volume of psychological reserves that had been permanently diverted into Hans meant he was anything but fragile.

While this specific tribulation had undoubtedly accelerated his internal contamination by the cosmic void, such corruption was hardly a novel development, and more importantly…

‘I am the absolute sovereign of the grave, the one true monarch. I will never bow my head to any master, seen or unseen.’

Whether confronting the cosmic void itself or whatever unfathomable entity pulled the strings of the colossal entity, it changed absolutely nothing.

As that defiant thought solidified, the panicked, obsequious telepathic voice of Dwell split his consciousness.

[My glorious Monarch! Are you unharmed? I beg for your clemency! I should have bound that arrogant behemoth with far greater security. To think that even while reduced to a mere corpse, it would dare attempt to deceive your majesty!]

Hans swept his gaze across his immediate surroundings. As he suspected, virtually no objective time had passed in the physical world; the chamber remained precisely as it had been before the mental battle.

[I remain unhurt, so hold your tongue, Dwell. I require silence to process my thoughts.]

[Ah! Y-yes… At once, my sovereign. Your will be done.]

Hans paid no further heed to Dwell, who had promptly thrown himself flat against the stone floor, and redirected his attention toward the massive skull of the titan, which now sported a gaping wound directly through its brow.

The gargantuan skull was already beginning to disintegrate into dust as its internal core bled away into nothingness.

‘Hah! A grand destiny? A supreme master? Truly laughable.’

He scoffed silently at the concept.

Though he had not yet thoroughly cataloged and dissected every scrap of data he had wrested from the entity, he had extracted enough to piece together the broader reality.

It appeared that both the cosmic forces of ‘death’ and the concept of ‘madness’ were systematically engineered to be steered by an outside architect.

The titan’s final gambit had clearly been an automated countermeasure designed to forcibly wipe the Immortal King’s persona, reverting him to a blank slate that would mindlessly serve their grand design.

Had he been a conventional living entity native to this world rather than an artificial proxy, he likely would have been completely subjugated by the trap.

‘I care nothing for your identity or your origin. If you position yourself across from me, I shall eradicate you utterly. You will share the exact same fate as those vermin from the Heaven’s Turn Society.’

His overarching objective had never wavered for a single fraction of a second.

To harvest an astronomical sum of Karma utilizing the mechanics of the ‘Home Theater’, and to weaponize that power to systematically purge the Heaven’s Turn Society from the face of the Earth.

That single, driving purpose was the absolute catalyst for everything he set into motion.

‘Yet, the Heaven’s Turn Society is proving to be far more deeply entrenched than my initial calculations suggested.’

Hans’s analytical focus shifted naturally back toward his primary enemies.

The resulting deduction glared back at him with absolute clarity.

‘I must acquire a vastly superior volume of Karma.’

He desperately required a radically altered, infinitely more aggressive strategy to harvest Karma, rather than continuing with this agonizingly slow, conservative approach.

He had touched upon this realization in the past, but he entertained no illusions about his own morality; he was no savior.

The version of ‘Han Seong-hyeon’ that had been shattered so long ago was fully capable of orchestrating the slaughter of millions without experiencing a single shred of hesitation.

‘It is merely the natural progression of things. My hands are already permanently stained with the blood of countless lives.’

Regardless of how thoroughly the “Mind Hub” insulated and sanitized his emotional responses, the immutable reality remained that he had directly and indirectly snuffed out a vast multitude of souls.

Yet, despite the staggering body count trailing in his wake, he had never once been assaulted by a single pang of remorse or moral crisis.

That internal vacuum was the ultimate confirmation that his mind was already fundamentally broken.

His previous, meticulous efforts to keep collateral civilian casualties to an absolute minimum… had been nothing more than a pathetic, self-indulgent delusion calculated to preserve a comforting myth of his own lingering humanity.

‘How utterly pathetic.’

However…

At this moment, those self-imposed restrictions were permanently shattered.

‘I must optimize my productivity.’

The paradigms he had been relying on up to this point were laughably counterproductive.

The ‘Home Theater’ framework was acceptable in theory.

Orchestrating a grand, stylized war between a prophesied savior and a malicious Demon King was a solid foundation.

But could he honestly state he was content with the current pacing of the script?

‘Not in the slightest!’

What had he actually been accomplishing?

Frittering away his time maneuvering a microscopic handful of pieces across the board, deploying them in isolated, predictable trickles as if he were participating in a mundane turn-based strategy game!

Even the most cliché fictional Demon Kings, who existed solely to provide a training ground for ascending heroes by throwing disposable waves of underlings at them, didn’t employ a strategy this half-hearted and inefficient.

One only had to look at the staggering, terrifying legions he had painstakingly accumulated within the walls of the Immortal Fortress.

An infinite, ever-swelling Immortal Army, completely stagnant with absolutely no theater of war to march upon.

An absolute, unpardonable squandering of military assets!

He felt nothing but profound contempt for his previous caution.

[Dwell McCain.]

[Sire! Your loyal servant awaits your commands!]

Dwell, who had been desperately attempting to blend into the shadows to avoid drawing notice, barked out his response the very millisecond he registered the terrifying shift in his master’s spiritual pressure.

Hans looked down upon the general who remained prostrated before his throne, his voice echoing with cold authority.

[Assemble the high command.]

[By your command! I shall summon the inner circle to your side instantly!]

The moment the words left his mouth, Dwell vanished from the laboratory, moving with a frantic speed that suggested he had been praying for precisely such an order.

Left completely solitary within the confines of the research chamber, Hans watched the final remnants of the titan’s head dissolve into nothingness before slowly tilting his gaze toward the stone canopy above.

His eyes met nothing but the seamless, dark masonry that comprised the standard layout of the Immortal Fortress, yet…

He spoke aloud in a low, resonant murmur, as though addressing an audience spanning across space itself.

[I am Hannibal Strauss.]

No longer merely Hans… he was the undisputed master of the grave, the Immortal King, Hannibal Strauss.

[I shall bring the final curtain down upon this realm.]

With those words, he reached out, extending his shadow-drenched palm over the map of the continent.