Chapter 163

Chapter 163
## Chapter: 163
Chapter Title: Infinite Inventory

The turning point had arrived.

Bolts of etheric lightning spiraled violently outside the matrimony suite.

Rumble!

“The Hydragon has surfaced!”

“That isn’t a typical specimen!”

“To arms! Defend the perimeter!”

The guards stationed on the exterior fell into a frantic state of disarray.

There was no logical explanation for a Hydragon to manifest in such a location.

If a reason existed, it was solely because Randolph had called it forth.

“Get everyone out!”

“The structural integrity is failing!”

Hudson turned his gaze toward Randolph.

Through the wreckage and the dust, Randolph had already closed the gap between them.

“Disconnect now.”

“But, My Lord Randolph…!”

“I will be alright. The territory of Korea remains untouched for now.”

The flames of war had not yet reached Korea.

Saltwater gathered in the corners of Hudson’s eyes.

“Argh…! I am in your debt!”

【Duration remaining for ‘Guardian Wall (7Lv)’: 1 second】

【Failure to disconnect within 1 second will result in permanent death.】

【‘Hudson’ has successfully ‘logged out’.】

Korea.

The civilian population had flooded the boulevards in a mass exodus.

The earth beneath their feet had begun to shudder with the violence of a sudden tectonic shift.

“What is happening…?”

The cries of those who had fled their homes were instantly silenced by a sight in the heavens.

High above the skyline.

A ‘meteor’ was screaming through the atmosphere.

“Look to the coast…!”

The horror was multifaceted.

The oceans surrounding the peninsula on three fronts began to boil, giving rise to gargantuan walls of water that threatened to erase the shoreline.

It was an untelegraphed cataclysm of nature.

Even the veteran players were paralyzed by the magnitude of this unannounced raid.

“How are we supposed to intercept that?”

“Where is the demonic legion?”

“Is the rumor true? Is the ‘Golden Rule Mage’ the one laying waste to Korea?”

“Could that entity drifting in the clouds actually be…?”

However, no demonic horde was visible.

In their stead, a lone figure gripping a staff of pure gold hovered weightlessly in the sky.

With a mere flick of the man’s wrist, the descent of the meteors quickened, and the towering tsunamis grew even more predatory.

Whoosh!

Crash!

Boom! Kwaboom!

But before the celestial rocks could impact the soil, a multitude of blades erupted into the air, detonating the threats mid-flight.

“Gracia!”

“It’s the Sword Saint, Gracia!”

“What business does Gracia have in Korea?”

Gracia, having recently returned to the physical world, was now locked in a stalemate with the Golden Rule Mage.

The sheer volume of the bombardment, however, was the primary concern.

‘The diameter of the strike zone is too immense.’

Gracia’s brow furrowed in concentration.

Even manifesting a thousand blades wasn’t sufficient to cover the breadth of the assault.

The tidal surges were far too expansive for a single man to hold at bay.

Inevitably, several meteors bypassed Gracia’s defensive perimeter, hurtling toward the populated centers, while the tsunamis loomed over the coastal metropolises.

“No…!”

The impending disaster promised nothing less than a total wipeout of life.

Just as the people squeezed their eyes shut, bracing for the inevitable impact—

“What…?”

“How?”

The promised destruction never landed.

A colossal ‘barrier’ had materialized out of thin air, forming an impenetrable shield against both the falling stones and the rushing seas.

Observing the sudden manifestation of the titanic shield, the ‘Golden Rule Mage’ tilted his head in mild curiosity.

“What is the source of this massive ‘Guardian Wall’?”

Infinite Inventory

“…I am resigning from the ‘Hero Association’.”

Following the demise of the Master, Gracia had made his stance clear within the halls of the Hero Association.

The Hero Association—the prestigious collective that traced its lineage back to the legendary ‘Eight Heroes’. He was severing his ties with them.

“…Gracia. Are you truly prepared to forfeit every advantage and rank you have secured?”

“I am, Lucifer. You may take it all back.”

Lucifer.

The shadow sovereign of the organization.

The mastermind who had birthed the Hero Association and pulled the puppet strings from the darkness, using the Master as a public figurehead!

As Lucifer spoke with heavy gravity, Gracia gave a firm nod.

He was prepared to walk away from everything.

‘I never took part in the Great Expedition. My presence here was a lie from the very beginning.’

It had been a foundational error.

How could he, a man who had never truly traded blows with the high demons or joined the march into the abyss, claim the title of a hero who subdued the underworld?

Even a common stray would mock such a claim.

Yet, he had allowed the deception to persist for years.

Subconsciously, he couldn’t bring himself to discard the luxuries the lie provided.

It was nothing but avarice.

In his silence, he had become a willing participant in the grand fabrication.

“You recall the ‘oath’, I trust?”

“Sever it.”

Gracia offered his right limb.

To walk away from the Hero Association, a physical sacrifice was mandatory.

Given the power he had accumulated, he could offer the limb without hesitation.

However.

“I intend to go public with the truth. I will tell the world that only ‘Wilhelm’ truly commanded the Great Expedition.”

“…And what do you expect to achieve by doing that?”

Lucifer’s expression darkened.

Spilling such secrets offered Gracia no tangible reward.

He would lose his arm and be met with nothing but public scorn for his years of living a fraudulent life.

“Honor.”

“You would sacrifice everything for something as brittle as your personal honor?”

“Precisely.”

Gracia didn’t deny it.

This path was taken purely for the sake of his own self-worth.

To him, his integrity was worth more than any status.

‘If I cannot be honest with myself, I will never break through my current ceiling.’

He finally understood the stagnation of his power.

It was his lack of dignity. His lack of true honor.

Gracia craved respect, yet he held onto a legacy of shame.

That contradiction acted as a shackle on his potential.

It was the fundamental reason the stars refused to grant him their favor.

“A pity.”

Lucifer gave a mocking grin.

…An enigma to the very end.

Gracia remained equally in the dark regarding Lucifer’s ultimate endgame.

It was at that moment.

Lucifer reached into his robes and slowly retrieved an object.

“I won’t bar your exit. I won’t even take your arm. But it truly is a shame. I was looking forward to distributing ‘this’ among the ranks.”

……What he held was the mangled remains of a being.

The recognition was instantaneous.

That… was not the remains of a minor deity, but the ‘corpse of a god’.

……A unique ‘star’.

Golden Rule Mage Union.

By swearing fealty to Isera and accelerating the rate of world-rot, he had finally gained entry to Earth.

“So this is the realm of the transgressors.”

Ah. Even the very air in this wretched place felt like the domain of the guilty.

A desolate waste masquerading as a world filled with mana.

It crawled with the sinners he intended to punish personally.

How should he begin their deconstruction?

Riiiip!

With a sharp motion of Union’s hand, a spatial rift for items tore open.

“Inventory, ‘Golden Meteor Staff’.”

The gilded relic stored within his limitless space slid into Union’s hand.

“‘Storm that Parts the Seas’.”

Next, a disposable catalyst.

He hurled a rune shaped like a lightning bolt toward the horizon, triggering a monumental surge of water.

“Skill ‘Meteor’, Inventory ‘Mana Recovery Elixir 100%’.”

Upon activating the ability, the sky began to rain fire with frantic intensity.

He then retrieved a sapphire-colored phial from his storage, drained it in one gulp, and leveled his staff once more.

“Skill ‘Meteor’, Inventory ‘Mana Recovery Elixir 100%’.”

“Skill ‘Meteor’, Inventory ‘Mana Recovery Elixir 100%’.”

He was the Golden Rule Mage.

Ever since his physical form was seized and his autonomy stripped, he had learned to mimic every feat the ‘transgressors’ once performed.

And his power didn’t stop there.

‘The storage system possessed a fundamental flaw.’

In the ages past.

All the transgressors possessed inventories.

Infinite storage spaces to house equipment and deploy it instantly.

But it had a vulnerability in its code.

That was the reason modern players were never granted the gift of infinite storage.

But Union was different.

‘I am the master of all inventories.’

He could tap into and utilize every single item from every inventory that had ever existed in that era.

He was a wandering vault of legendary relics.

This level of firepower should have been enough to erase this piece of land from the map instantly.

Whoosh!

Boom!

Suddenly, a flurry of swords zipped through the air, shattering the meteors into dust.

“……Well now. A Sword Saint.”

He recognized the technique immediately.

That was the ‘Thousand Swords’ art, the hallmark of the Sword Saint.

It seemed a successor to that specific lineage had surfaced in this era as well.

It was a class with notoriously difficult requirements, and this practitioner seemed competent enough.

“Inventory, All Breaker.”

Regardless, they were no match for him.

Not for the Golden Rule Mage, who commanded the ‘infinite inventory’.

The Sword Saint was a respectable class, but it wasn’t a ‘true hidden class’.

Moments later, a pair of grotesquely oversized shears manifested from his storage.

Snip!

As the blades of the shears met, the floating swords were snapped in half en masse.

An 8th-grade artifact designed to sunder any weapon of the 6th-grade or lower: All Breaker.

Unless a weapon was heavily reinforced with high-level sword aura, it was destined to be crushed.

The vast majority of the blades summoned for ‘Thousand Swords’ were of the 6th-grade or lower.

The Sword Saint standing below appeared visibly shaken by the destruction of his arsenal.

“Sinner who carries the mantle of the Sword Saint. Is that the extent of your prowess?”

Union felt a surge of predatory joy.

Tormenting these sinners and dragging them into the abyss was his purpose.

He would reduce this world to cinders.

Ultimately, the Sword Saint was unable to intercept the final, overwhelming barrage of meteors.

Kwarung!

the next wave of celestial fire was poised to turn the earth into a molten graveyard.

However, as the Golden Rule Mage watched the massive barrier rise, he tilted his head in confusion.

“What is the source of this massive ‘Guardian Wall’?”

The cerulean shield had neutralized both the meteors and the tsunamis.

This was undeniably a Guardian Wall.

A divine prerogative granted by the goddess.

But this specific iteration was far too wide and far too durable.

“Inventory, Sage’s Eye.”

A miniature ocular construct drifted into the air before him.

Soon, the data gathered by the ‘Sage’s Eye’ manifested in his vision.

【Advanced Guardian Wall】

Indeed.

The designation was self-explanatory.

It was a field that nullified all incoming damage below a specific threshold.

But Guardian Walls didn’t typically evolve just by gaining levels.

This one had transitioned into a higher state of being, capable of mitigating wide-range environmental destruction.

It was a variation and a scale he had never encountered before.

Furthermore, it signified that Union’s current output was below the defensive threshold of this specific wall.

“Inventory, Stored Experience Potions.”

That was of little consequence.

He possessed a massive reserve of stored experience.

Potions that held the essence of his original power level.

He had temporarily throttled his own level to maintain the equilibrium required to travel between dimensions.

Strictly speaking, he wasn’t authorized to cross over.

Crossing at his peak level might have caused the dimensional balance to eject him.

Gulp! Gulp!

As he consumed the fluids in rapid succession, a string of ‘Level Up’ notifications flashed across his eyes.

“Inventory, Bow that Pierces the Ultimate Annihilation Barrier.”

Now then. Would this suffice?

A bow imbued with the extreme properties of Ultimate Annihilation.

A weapon that dealt damage as if it were one level higher specifically against defensive barriers.

He drew the string and let fly.

Kwarururung!

“……Still?”

This was unexpected.

The shot should have carried the weight of an attack two levels higher than its base, yet the barrier remained unshaken.

Just what level had this Guardian Wall reached?

Was it even mathematically possible to augment it to such a degree?

“……You are proving to be quite the curiosity.”

It appeared a significant sinner was lurking beneath the shield.

Casting a glance behind him, he saw the Sword Saint lunging forward with a blade of concentrated light.

“Inventory, Absolute Shield.”

Kwang!

The Sword Saint’s strike was deflected harmlessly by the Absolute Shield.

Turning his back on his attacker, Union focused all his attention on this anomalous Guardian Wall, intent on dismantling it.

‘I am curious to see which class the architect of this wall has claimed.’