Chapter 290

Chapter 290
## The Revelation

Initially, he felt a wave of confusion.

The site of the Imperial competition—why had that specific place been chosen as the ‘Tower of the War God’?

“Karas,” I began, my voice steady as I broke the silence. “Was it your intention from the start to hold the contest in this location?”

Karas remained oblivious to the true nature of the Throne of Light’s manifestation. He had no inkling of what I might give up or what entity I might call forth. To him, I likely appeared to be a desperate man making a final, futile stand.

I planned to exploit that lack of awareness. First, however, I needed to understand the underlying cause of the current phenomenon within the Tower.

Karas replied with a cold, blank expression. “Am I required to provide you with an explanation?”

“There is time to kill until dusk. Tell me, what sort of agreement did you strike with Lyca?”

“…You are a peculiar individual,” Karas countered. “In that case, I will ask first. Who are you? How were you able to breach the ‘Gap’?”

He was probing for my true origin. I couldn’t exactly inform him that I was Park Hyunmyeong from the modern world.

“I am ‘Hyeon’ of Adrium.”

“Hyeon of Adrium? The competitor from the tournament?”

“Precisely. The levels gave way without warning, and I was dragged down into this abyss.”

It wasn’t a total fabrication. Of course, I was the one who had triggered the ‘Natural Catastrophe’ that demolished those floors. When I admitted my role as a contestant, Karas’s gaze shifted, becoming unreadable.

“A mere mortal falls into the Gap and is integrated into the Clan of Ash? It appears the unpredictable whims of the Primary Gods are at play once more.”

Karas glanced toward the God of Ill-Omen and the God of Calamity. However, the behavior of these two deities was uncharacteristic. They remained perfectly still, looking almost stunned—a sharp contrast to their usual arrogant chatter.

Leaning back on the Throne of Light, I gave a casual shrug. “Now, Karas. It is your turn to speak.”

Karas tilted his head slightly. Despite this being our first encounter, I was treating the War God with an unsettling level of familiarity.

“…Very well. I partnered with Lyca to draw challengers into the restored Tower of the War God.”

“Was such a move necessary?” I asked.

Even without a recruitment drive, countless fighters would have sought to conquer the Tower on their own. With its expanded floors, a more formidable Champion, and a new Tower Master, it possessed every element needed to ignite a warrior’s ambition. Why the rush to gather souls?

“Initially, it was a simple prideful desire,” Karas admitted. “I wanted the world to see the Tower I had refined—a place entirely separate from its dark past.”

He was referring to the era when he was under the influence of the Demon of Envy. His original motive was pure: a wish for people to test themselves against a sanctified version of the Tower. The construction of the shimmering gold statue of Randolph was part of that same sentiment. He wanted to showcase the Tower’s evolution and reclaim the glory of a bygone age.

At the start, his heart had been free of hidden agendas.

“Does that mean your goals have shifted?”

Indeed, as of this moment, that initial purity had curdled into something else.

The War God Karas finally spoke the truth. “The emergence of Randolph altered the trajectory of everything.”

“…Is the presence of Champion Randolph the issue?”

Karas gave a grim nod. “When Randolph was pulled to the peak of the Tower, he arrived in a state of primal fury.”

“…?”

A state of rampage? Was I responsible for that? Was it because he had been called back as a hollow vessel, stripped of his essence? As I pondered this, Karas cast a resentful look at the Primary Gods.

“Subsequently, the Randolph dwelling within the Tower began to fracture.”

He had split apart—his history, his very being, and the various ‘stories’ that defined him. Every chaotic event currently unfolding within the Tower stemmed from that rupture.

“The God of Ill-Omen orchestrated this to forge Randolph into a flawless ‘King of Ill-Omen.’ Meanwhile, it seems the ‘God of Calamity’ has bypassed me, selecting you to be the successor—the new ‘King of Ash’.”

“…What are you saying?”

I paused, trying to untangle the implications. The masterminds weren’t Karas, but the two Primary Gods standing before us. They had devised a game to pit Randolph and me against each other as the Kings of Ill-Omen and Ash, intending for only one survivor to remain. Had they been weaving this web since the moment Randolph reappeared?

Karas’s face contorted with rage as he directed his anger at the deities.

“Furthermore, those capricious gods decided to revoke my sovereignty and banish me from my own Tower! Now, of all times—just as I have reclaimed my status! They treat me exactly as they did during the era of ‘Ruin’!”

He squeezed his hand into a tight fist, knuckles white. The Primary Gods never changed. When the force of Ruin first arrived, the twin goddesses who protected humanity sacrificed their existences to save their people. But these two gods? They did nothing. They spent that apocalypse bickering with one another. Then and now, they showed no concern for whether their own followers were slaughtered.

Finally, the God of Ill-Omen and the God of Calamity spoke.

—*Karas. You mock our conflict as if it were a triviality.*

—*But do not fret. The hour of resolution has finally arrived.*

—*The ultimate rival we have yearned for has at last appeared!*

—*…This is the decree of destiny. A way to break free from the constraints of ‘Heaven’ and the threat of ‘Ruin.’*

Their plan was to elevate Randolph into the King of Ill-Omen, forcing a final confrontation between him and me. However, Karas had interfered, being summoned in Randolph’s stead.

—*Karas. You were foolish enough to consume the essence of the King of Ill-Omen intended for Randolph.*

—*It was a senseless act. You, who no longer hold the right to kingship, cannot contain the power of Randolph’s legacy.*

—*The ‘Tower of the War God’ has moved beyond your control.*

—*The new King of Ill-Omen and the King of Ash must clash. Only the battle between these two perfect opposites will determine the ultimate victor.*

Just as Randolph was about to transition into the King of Ill-Omen, Karas had intercepted and absorbed that specific power. The reason why figures like Baal, the Blade Dragon Queen, and Eternal Randolph had been isolated was specifically to facilitate this manifestation. Karas, having sniffed out the gods’ scheme, was livid.

“I rebuilt this from nothing! I fought my way back! Both the Clan of Ill-Omen and the Clan of Ash finally had a path to restoration. And now you do this…!”

—*Restoration is a moot point.*

—*You are destined to be erased by ‘Ruin’ regardless.*

—*You would only lose your Towers once more.*

—*Everything you build is fated to crumble.*

—*That day is approaching, Karas.*

—*The return of ‘Ruin.’*

—*The manifestation of ‘Ruin’!*

The two deities were paralyzed by the fear of Ruin’s return. They believed that no matter how much they rebuilt, they were heading toward extinction. Their only hope was to evolve into a singular, more perfect entity through this conflict. Only then could their race survive the coming darkness.

Karas shook his head in disgust. “You believe merging two cowards will result in a perfect being? Do you honestly believe that, you pathetic gods?”

In his eyes, they were nothing but quitters. Even when Ruin first devastated the world, they claimed the disaster was inevitable and spent their time blaming each other. Their current “solution”—having the winner consume the loser—was just another way to hide from their fear of Ruin.

They hadn’t even attempted to fight. They hadn’t sought a different path. While their subjects suffered, these two had simply decided the future on a whim.

“I would have stepped down gladly if our patron had been the Goddess,” Karas spat. “But not for you. You are not my gods!”

The twin goddesses had charged into a battle they knew they would lose. Though they perished, their courage saved Pangaea from total erasure. If they had surrendered to the “inevitability” of defeat, the world would have ended long ago. These two were of a different, lesser breed.

Thus, Karas stood in defiance. “The King of Ill-Omen and I were in agreement. We swore that once we recovered, we would no longer be puppets to your whims!”

That was the reason he had sealed off the Gap. His absorption of the King of Ill-Omen’s factor was a desperate move to sabotage the gods’ design. He refused to let the script play out as they intended.

Suddenly, Karas fixed his piercing eyes on me. “Which is why you must perish, Hyeon of Adrium.”

His voice rose to a thunderous vow. “I will reclaim my rightful place. I will force these arrogant gods to rescind their judgment!”

His wings erupted in a brilliant, blinding light. He sought to force the world back into its “correct” shape. While the Primary Gods were the architects of the chaos, I was the catalyst. My arrival had forced the gods to act. The contrast between Randolph and me had set the gears of fate in motion.

‘…The shadow is falling.’

I looked toward the horizon. The light was fading as the sun dipped below the edge of the world.

《‘Trial of Calamity (6)’ – The duel with ‘War God Karas’ begins.》

The moment of truth had arrived.

‘I understand now why the Throne of Light appeared.’

Perhaps this was Randolph’s final gift—a safeguard to prevent Karas from a path of self-destruction. The fate of a warrior who defies his own gods is usually a tragic one. This was the only way through the trials.

‘Everything was set in motion the moment I stepped into this Tower.’

From the second Randolph was placed at the summit and I began my ascent, this confrontation was inevitable.

However.

‘I refuse to be a puppet.’

I would not play the role assigned to me by the God of Ill-Omen and the God of Calamity. They had orchestrated everything so that Randolph and I would be forced into a death match, regardless of my choices. Even without my use of magic, they would have found a way to drop me into this Gap to undergo the trials of the King of Ash.

I turned my gaze toward the two cowardly deities. They were the source of all this misery.

“It is time to wrap this up,” I remarked.

“Hyeon of Adrium. Do you still cling to the hope of winning?” Karas asked.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“…You believe you can actually best me?”

“And do you honestly believe I’ll be the one to fall?”

Karas’s eyes flared at my retort. To any outside observer, the power gap was insurmountable. How could someone who hadn’t even mastered the Ash power expect to defeat the War God? He couldn’t fathom where my confidence originated.

“You are arrogant.”

“Arrogant? I’ll ask you this: if you surrender just because the odds are against you, how are you any better than those two cowards in the sky?”

“…!”

Karas flinched, his composure momentarily breaking. An impossible battle—if he gave up now because victory seemed unreachable, he would be validating the very logic of the gods he despised.

“You are still playing the fool, Karas,” I said, meeting his gaze directly.

I don’t abandon hope. No matter the scale of the disaster or the complexity of the trial, I have never turned back. As I spoke, the intensity in Karas’s eyes turned into a frantic trembling.

“You… who are you, really?”

Karas found himself compelled to ask. Something about my presence, my momentum—it was changing.

“Do you still not recognize me?”

I didn’t look like Hyeon of Adrium anymore. I radiated the aura of someone who commanded the world simply by standing in it—a man who shattered obstacles through sheer will. Someone whose pride was justified by his strength.

“I am your salvation, you foolish bird.”

—*Stupid crow. I am here to save you.*

…In that moment, I was the living image of ‘that man.’

—

“…It is absolute bedlam.”

Lyca surveyed the battlefield. Chaos was the only word for it.

‘I am truly fed up with this.’

Randolph. Every time that name came up, a headache followed. What kind of person possessed the ability to stir up this much trouble? Nothing about him was standard; every situation he touched escalated into a monumental disaster. If Lyca could go back in time, he would avoid that name entirely.

Yet, there was one silver lining.

‘…I am not under their spell.’

The overwhelming power of Despair, which normally brainwashed everyone in its path, had no effect on him. It seemed his existing connection to ‘Eternal Randolph’ provided a sort of immunity.

“He-he-he!”
“Ki-hi-hi-hi!”

The throngs of people lost to madness were shrieking, but their strength was undeniable. Fueled by the mana of Despair, they were pushing far beyond human limits.

“They don’t plan on letting us walk away,” one of the Patrons noted, observing the growing crowd.

The situation was clear: they had to fight. It was a simple matter of survival.

The air was thick with tension. This was a conflict on a scale Pangaea had never witnessed—a massive collision of multiple factions and powers. Just as the two great armies were about to throw themselves into the meat grinder—

“…?!”
“What is that…?”
“Is this some kind of joke…?”

The entire battlefield froze. Every eye, whether sane or mad, turned toward the center of the impending clash.

In a burst of blinding radiance, a figure materialized. He stood there in gleaming silver plate, a crimson cape snapping in the wind.

《‘Wilhelm’ challenges ‘Eternal Randolph.’》

The legend had finally arrived.