Chapter 390

Chapter 390
## Chapter 390: Phantom Himself

The duty of a Dragon God was straightforward.

It was to cherish the world and act as its guardian.

Perhaps that was the underlying motive for Basara, who ruled as the Seventh Lord of the demon realm through a reign of terror, to secretly assist humankind.

She did so because the Demon King possessed no love for this world.

To salvage the world from the Demon King’s impending ruin, aligning with humanity was the only viable path.

Her decision to step into the ‘Black Dome’ and shield those known as the elite of the human race likely stemmed from that same logic.

Furthermore, even the passing of her younger sibling, the Second Lord Isera, had stirred no grief within her.

After all, had she not perished while attempting to conquer Earth?

To a Dragon God, such an act was a transgression of a fundamental, unbreakable decree.

Indeed.

‘I desire to be a Dragon God.’

That aspiration had been with her from the very start.

The boredom and the hollow lack of feeling she had endured were actually nothing more than the sorrow born from her inability to ascend to that status.

“You—tell me your name.”

She inquired about Park Hyunmyeong’s identity.

Resting a palm upon his shoulder, she offered a silent plea that he might find joy in the world once more.

Only Park Hyunmyeong, with his genuine devotion to Pangenia, possessed the capacity to save the world.

Only Park Hyunmyeong, through his pure enjoyment of it, could shatter her curse and unbind the chains holding everyone else.

…However, her intent did not reach him.

It fell short.

Those gathered in this place lacked the strength to rekindle Park Hyunmyeong’s spirit.

At this moment, Park Hyunmyeong did not require the intervention of magnificent entities.

The catalyst that had allowed him to find such delight in Pangenia had never been them to begin with.

What was the true spark?

The reason his eyes used to gleam with such intensity and his face would light up with a vibrant grin.

‘I must make him remember that he is Phantom.’

The recollections of ‘Phantom,’ the persona he held when he radiated the most brilliance.

Phantom was never concerned with leaderboards or status.

He engaged with the world on his own terms, entirely consumed by the thrill of the game itself.

Hidden Pieces, secret developer nods, classified missions, and the like.

He was a person permanently lost in the search for the game’s obscured depths.

There existed only one path to return him to those days of unadulterated passion.

‘…The individuals who survived because of him.’

Among the most grueling challenges in Pangenia was the ‘survival’ questline.

It was the initial hurdle gamers faced, a trial where raw talent outweighed everything else.

Naturally, it was the aspect Phantom had found most rewarding.

For there was likely no other player who had endured as many ‘survival’ scenarios as he had.

To bring Park Hyunmyeong back to life, those who owed their continued existence to Phantom were essential.

Only they could assist Park Hyunmyeong in reclaiming his lost innocence.

But how could this be achieved?

By the terms of the contract, their recollections should have been wiped clean.

*Whoosh!*

In that instant, it happened.

The ‘Outer God’s Feather’ nestled within Park Hyunmyeong drifted upward softly, moving toward her.

Having merged her essence with the Golden Spirit, she identified the object instantly.

‘This is… the Bluebird’s Feather.’

The Bluebird.

The administrator tasked with managing the pacts made with the humans of Pangenia.

This plume possessed a secondary function beyond merely shielding its bearer.

A secret that the two deities, Park Hyunmyeong, Randolph, and even Wilhelm were unaware of.

Something even the Primal Heavenly Demon had no inkling of.

…A hidden, unrecorded attribute.

‘…The capability to nullify contracts.’

Ah.

This was the feather’s true intent.

To bring back the memories of those who had already managed to survive!

Previously, only those who reached transcendence through their own power could salvage a fraction of their past.

But with this feather, the situation shifted entirely.

Even without reaching transcendence, one could call back the memories stripped away by the contract.

…Why had the Bluebird entrusted this feather to Park Hyunmyeong?

She realized she also understood how to harness its power.

‘The sovereignty of a Dragon God is required.’

To broadcast the influence of this feather across the entire globe, the dominion of a Dragon God—which spanned the whole of the world—was vital.

But…

‘Am I truly a Dragon God?’

She was still lost in uncertainty.

She yearned to be a Dragon God, but she could not claim the title at this moment.

The other Dragon Gods would never recognize her as one of their own.

Had she not been cast out from the Dragon God Council since the day she was born?

*—You are a Dragon God, Basara. My precious daughter.*

The voice of her mother, a woman whose features she could no longer recall, drifted through her mind.

No one had ever defined her identity for her.

The Golden Spirit remained equally silent on the matter.

Yet, she felt a dawning realization.

The status of a Dragon God was not something bestowed by other Dragon Gods.

Had Park Hyunmyeong not spent his entire journey proving his own worth?

Starting from nothing, weathering endless failures—had he not reached the end regardless?

If that was the case.

“…I will be the one to define my own worthiness.”

She would be a Dragon God.

—

The Pangenia service has been terminated!

What were the implications of this?

Did it signify the end of the simulation, with everything shifting into a permanent reality?

“I can’t access the World Tree Community, the Hall of Fame, or even the Golden Rule Shop and Auction House.”

“The feed is dead. No new updates. Even the Constellations have gone dark.”

“You don’t think ‘service termination’ means every game mechanic is just vanishing, do you?”

“That’s impossible! After we’ve come this far?”

“What’s going on? Why would the service just cut off like that!”

“There wasn’t even a warning. This is a massive disaster!”

One thing was undeniable: the systems they relied on for survival and convenience were gone.

The Awakened spiraled into a state of terror.

They were completely in the dark regarding the cause.

“…Isabella.”

However, there were those who had a flickering intuition about the source of the collapse.

The Knights of the Round Table.

Most of them, currently locked in a struggle with the Transcendent of Radiance, had now sensed the passing of Park Hyunmyeong.

Seizing a brief lull, Hudson moved toward Isabella.

“…”

But Isabella gave no sign of hearing him.

Her gaze was vacant.

She looked more like a hollow shell than a living woman.

The news of Park Hyunmyeong’s death had struck her with a paralyzing force.

She was simply unable to process the truth.

Of course, a similar weight hung over everyone present.

“We have to… we have to face what’s happened.”

Hudson forced the words out.

If he gave in now, everything they had built would crumble.

The Round Table would dissolve, and his entire purpose would vanish with it.

“We still have obligations to fulfill.”

“…”

“It isn’t over yet. We are the ones who must uphold his legacy!”

Hudson declared, scanning the faces around him.

The conflict had paused due to the sheer weight of the situation, leaving them huddled in a cramped corridor.

Yet, the silence was absolute.

Vice-Commander Abelov, Serengeti, and Isaac—none of them spoke.

The veins in Hudson’s neck bulged with the effort of his frustration.

“To hell with this! All of you, look at me!!”

*Thump!*

Hudson struck the wall and then pressed his forehead against the cold stone.

“I can’t wrap my head around it either… damn it all.”

To Hudson, Park Hyunmyeong had been his guiding star.

Their first meeting at the auction house felt like it had happened only yesterday.

Because of him, Hudson had reunited with Serengeti and found the resolve to exist in the waking world.

Park Hyunmyeong was more than a leader; he was Hudson’s only true friend.

A friend, and a master worth following to the end of time.

That was why his mission could not die here.

Struck by a sudden thought, Hudson looked up, his voice gaining momentum.

“…We need to understand why his passing triggered the service shutdown.”

In this group, Hudson was the sole player.

But every person here was aware of the nature of the ‘Pangenia’ game.

They understood the stakes.

Hudson continued, thinking aloud.

“Phantom was the final gamer. When ‘Wilhelm,’ the character Phantom controlled, died, the world was altered. The invasion commenced, and the gears of fate began to turn. Phantom was forced to begin again as ‘Randolph.’”

Something about that sequence felt off to him.

“Up until now, we assumed the trigger for a gamer being summoned to Pangenia was the death of their most powerful character. But… what if we were wrong?”

“…Hudson. What are you getting at?”

Serengeti questioned him.

Hudson’s expression grew sharp as he explained.

“I always found the summoning criteria inconsistent. There were outliers. Moments where two people were brought in simultaneously.”

He recalled a story Park Hyunmyeong had shared—a secret regarding a recently cleared dungeon.

The ‘Corpse Crow Dungeon’ in Necropolis.

The two youths there had been summoned after sharing the progression of a single character.

This defied the ‘standard’ rules players had taken for granted.

Two people from one character?

That shattered the one-player-per-character law.

Perhaps the logic they had relied on was flawed from the beginning.

Hudson gave voice to the theory he had been harboring.

“…What if it isn’t the strongest character, but the death of the character that ‘represents’ the gamer that triggers the summoning to Pangenia?”

“But Phantom’s representation is Wilhelm…”

“No. Wilhelm isn’t the true symbol of Phantom.”

“Then who else could it be?”

“It’s ‘Phantom’ himself!”

Phantom, Park Hyunmyeong.

It was the man, not the avatar.

He was the one who held the unique, legendary moniker ‘Phantom’ within the world of Pangenia!

He was both the player and the definitive character.

“The abrupt termination has to be a reaction to this contradiction. There was no announcement because it wasn’t planned. The death of Phantom, not Wilhelm, was the actual end of the final ‘character.’”

“If that’s the truth…”

“Then it’s a fundamental system error that threatens the entire world’s logic.”

The foundation was built on a mistake.

It was a glitch so catastrophic that a total shutdown was the only response.

Hudson gripped his hand into a tight fist.

“An error demands a fix. This isn’t a permanent end; they’ve pulled the plug to perform emergency maintenance!”

They had frozen the world so quickly there was no time for a message.

Yes. It was a suspension, not a deletion.

The World Tree Community, the Hall of Fame, the marketplace—they were all still there, just inaccessible.

If the world was truly gone, those interfaces would have vanished.

They were still visible because the system had to be halted immediately.

“…He might still be alive in some form.”

…To buy time before Park Hyunmyeong’s death became final.

Because that was the only way to resolve the glitch.

To fix the error—that the cycle started with Phantom’s death instead of Wilhelm’s—Phantom himself had to remain in existence.

If Park Hyunmyeong died for good, the system could never be corrected.

So, they must have paused the simulation just before the final breath was drawn.

They ended the service before the timeline could proceed to the point of no return.

“…If your theory is right…”

At that moment, Isabella finally looked up.

“What is required of me?”

She was willing to sacrifice anything if it meant a chance to bring Park Hyunmyeong back.

“First, we have to win this fight.”

“And after that?”

“After that… wait, what?”

Suddenly, a roar erupted.

“Waaaah!”

“What’s happening?”

“Look! It’s… it’s a Dragon God…!”

The noise from outside grew deafening.

Sensing a massive presence, Hudson sprinted out.

Following the collective stare of the crowd, he turned his eyes toward the firmament.

“Dragon God Einhasad…?”

Einhasad, the deity players encountered at the climax of Main Quest 10, was hovering above.

With a powerful beat of his wings, he cast his aura over the breadth of Pangenia.

*—The Dragon God Council prefers neutrality, but I shall offer my aid this one time… Mutant.*

He immediately invoked his divine sovereignty.

Moments later, the essence of the Bluebird’s Feather began to drift across the world like falling snow.

Instantly.

“Huh?”

“My head… it feels like it’s exploding!”

The suppressed memories of countless inhabitants of Pangenia began to flood back.

Thousands, then tens of thousands—the dam had broken for everyone at once.

And.

“…”

“…”

“…”

A mirrored scene was unfolding within the Empire’s Church of the Four Gods.

Events were transpiring that were far more profound than anyone had dared to imagine.