At first, I thought I’d misheard.

Revive what?

“Why that look? Did you change your mind now that we’re here?”

After a quick deep breath, I slid behind Kang Ilhun and spoke.

“Mr. Kang Ilhun.”

“Yes.”

“You know what kind of existence Yoo Joonghyuk is, right?”

Kang Ilhun turned to me with a puzzled tilt of his head, like he didn’t get what I was trying to ask.

“Is there anyone who doesn’t know Yoo Joonghyuk?”

“You know Yoo Joonghyuk is a regressor, right?”

“Of course I do.”

Yeah. In the latter scenarios, everyone would know at least that much. Good. That meant we could talk.

“Then you also know how completely incompatible Yoo Joonghyuk is with the word ‘revival.’”

In this insane <Star Stream>, the concept of “revival” definitely existed.

For example, Kim Dokja used his attribute to revive successfully over and over, and Nirvana also combined the power of their sponsor constellation and a myth to use a similar ability called “reincarnation.” Shin Yoosung, who didn’t have a revival attribute in the 41st round, was once reborn as a goblin under Kim Dokja’s design.

Looking at those cases, in this world, if you could preserve the “soul” somehow, then the possibility of revival existed.

But Yoo Joonghyuk was the exception.

“That bastard already regressed. Did you forget?”

It wasn’t like Kim Dokja or Shin Yoosung.

Even if Yoo Joonghyuk died, his soul didn’t go to the “Underworld.” His soul belonged to the ‘Oldest Dream.’

In other words, Yoo Joonghyuk’s soul was already not in “this worldline.”

And yet Kang Ilhun looked like none of that mattered to him.

“So?”

“…Huh?”

“Did the Blood Demon hit you in the head wrong or something? Reviving Yoo Joonghyuk was your plan, wasn’t it?”

I sighed inwardly.

My plan?

Cheon Inho—what the hell was he thinking, living through the 40th round?

“Betrayer of the stars.”

A faint killing intent seeped into Kang Ilhun’s voice as he called me.

“I, Lee Dansu, Gyeong Sein, Ye Hyeonwoo… we all came this far trusting only you.”

“…What?”

“At this point, you’re not getting cold feet, are you? Not you of all people?”

So much information came crashing down at once that I couldn’t make sense of any of it.

Kang Ilhun, fine. But why were Lee Dansu, Gyeong Sein, and Ye Hyeonwoo’s names coming up?

To sort through what I’d just learned, I studied the man in front of me more carefully.

[The character ‘Kang Ilhun’ shows you deep favorability.]

Kang Ilhun. No doubt about it.

This man was the incarnation body of the ‘Killer King.’ An extra villain from Chungmuro Station—Kang Ilhun, the ‘Rumor Expert.’

But there was one strange thing.

Kang Ilhun had a straight scar across his neck. Like someone had stitched his head and torso back together, the skin was a subtly different shade there.

When I looked closer, even his hands had a faint bluish tint.

[The target is currently in an ‘undead’ state.]

Oh my god. No way.

Kang Ilhun’s gaze burned oddly as he looked at me.

“To learn the secret of this world, to smash the final scenario, I even offered up my soul. I came this far trusting only you. And now you—”

His voice flowed like it couldn’t be stopped.

Just as I was thinking that maybe he was better at [Incitement] than I was, a shout burst out from between the cover ahead.

“Hand over Yoo Joonghyuk’s head!”

The Blood Demon’s group, having recovered their momentum, was charging toward us.

“Head! Head! Head! Head!”

Dozens of incarnations screaming “head” in unison as they ran at us was, honestly, a spectacle. If Yoo Joonghyuk’s head hadn’t been dangling from my waist, I might’ve even clapped.

I quickly ducked behind Kang Ilhun and said,

“Do something about it.”

While Kang Ilhun stared at me like I was unbelievable, the Blood Demon roared when he spotted us.

“Kang Ilhun? Cheon Inho, you bastard! So it was true—you revived the Ten Evils! How dare you use the body of my blood undead to revive those Ten Evils punks—”

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Before I could process it, the Blood Demon’s underlings loosed arrows.

Demonic undead arrows infused with powerful force.

The moment I thought we were dead for sure, Kang Ilhun stepped in front of me.

Pshk, psh-shk.

In an instant, more than ten arrows pierced straight through Kang Ilhun’s body.

I shouted in shock.

“What are you doing!”

“Are you worrying about me right now?”

“I’m sorry, but you just became an arrow skewer. It’d be weird not to worry.”

Kang Ilhun stared at me like I was some bizarre creature, then added,

“More importantly, we should run now.”

“There’s nowhere to run. Where are we supposed to go?”

“What are you talking about? Did you really forget the whole operation?”

At the same time as Kang Ilhun spoke, a portal opened behind us.

“Go. I’ll buy time.”

“Let’s go together.”

“Stop talking and get into that portal—ugh!”

I hoisted Kang Ilhun onto my back and charged straight into the portal.

“You’re not going anywhere, you bastards!”

The Blood Demon’s elongated hand barely managed to clamp down on the back of Kang Ilhun’s neck.

Startled, I reflexively grabbed Kang Ilhun’s head and yanked with all my strength.

“Kraaaaah!”

For a moment, a scream rang out—impossible to tell whether it was the Blood Demon’s or Kang Ilhun’s. Then came a sound like something tearing.

I was already tumbling inside the portal. It felt like my insides flipped once, and then I saw the portal’s mouth twisting shut.

The transfer had completed.

In my hand was Kang Ilhun’s severed head.

Kang Ilhun’s head said,

“Please attach me again.”

After those words, Kang Ilhun’s head closed its eyes.

A sudden, crushing fatigue washed over me.

I could see a few people running toward me in the distance. Was it a hallucination? I could see Uncle Dansu’s face, and Gyeong Sein’s face, and Ye Hyeonwoo’s face.

I waved at them, happy to see them.

[Warning. Your incarnation body has reached its limit.]

My consciousness went out.

*

As murmuring voices seeped in, my awareness slowly returned. The first thing I heard was a man’s voice.

“That—back then—he waved at us, right?”

“Yeah. He did.”

“What do you think?”

“Hm.”

“Did he finally lose it?”

“He might’ve hit his head.”

“No, it’s definitely a scheme. He’s laying groundwork in advance so he doesn’t have to keep his promise to us.”

“All that over one wave. You’re overreacting, Gyeong Sein.”

When I snapped my eyes open, I saw three people flinch and step back.

I stared blankly at their faces.

At first, I thought I might be dreaming.

Because they were all faces I knew.

Lee Dansu.

Gyeong Sein.

And even Ye Hyeonwoo.

The first to react was Gyeong Sein.

“You’re awake, Cheon Inho.”

The moment I saw Gyeong Sein’s eyes—aside from his tone—I knew.

He wasn’t the ‘Judge Huiwon’ Gyeong Sein I knew.

“What a pathetic sight. Even the Kang Ilhun we saved ended up like that.”

Lee Dansu and Ye Hyeonwoo each added a line.

“Don’t be too hard on him. Whatever else, he did go all the way to <Olympus>.”

“Still, we recovered Yoo Joonghyuk’s head safely.”

I stared at the three of them for a while before speaking.

“Uh, excuse me.”

Was it my tone? Or the way my atmosphere had changed?

Ye Hyeonwoo asked with an uneasy expression.

“What are you up to, Cheon Inho?”

“Sorry?”

“Don’t tell me you developed a new [Incitement] method.”

“No, it’s not that.”

I was trying to figure out how to explain this situation when I noticed Kang Ilhun’s head placed on the table beside us.

Come to think of it, Kang Ilhun had asked if I’d been hit in the head.

I decided to take his advice.

“I hit my head a bit. So I don’t remember very well.”

“Hit your head? You?”

All three of them wore aghast expressions, like that was impossible.

With an even more serious look, Ye Hyeonwoo asked,

“Did the Blood Demon get you?”

“No, not that.”

“Then was it Poseidon?”

When I nodded, the three exchanged looks, then seemed to accept it.

“Yeah, if you took a hit to the head from that bastard’s trident, you might not be in your right mind.”

“I want an explanation of the situation. What was I doing to end up like this, and why is Yoo Joonghyuk’s head here? And who are you—”

“You forgot even the basics?”

“They’re memories that’ll come back anyway, but to save time, please just give me a simple explanation.”

They still looked like they suspected I was acting. But maybe they realized that, acting or not, communication was impossible like this. In the end, Ye Hyeonwoo opened his mouth.

“Fine. I’ll explain it once, so listen carefully.”

For about ten minutes after that, I listened to the current situation of the 40th round’s scenario.

I chewed over the information again and again as I listened to Ye Hyeonwoo. Then I slowly spoke.

“So… the only humans left are me and the Blood Demon’s gang, and you’re the ‘Ten Evils’ I revived. Is that right?”

I’d roughly expected it, but it was still shocking.

“That’s right.”

“How did I revive you?”

“You used [Summon the Dead].”

[Summon the Dead].

To think Cheon Inho of the 40th round had that horrifying skill.

I also knew [Summon the Dead] well. This skill was originally used by Yoo Joonghyuk of the 1208th round after he changed classes into the ‘Lord of Death.’

A skill that borrowed souls from the Underworld by contracting with a giant nebula.

Depending on how you used it, it was powerful enough to collect ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) formidable incarnations from past lives as immortals and form a one-man army.

They, too, seemed to have been revived by taking borrowed souls and planting them into blood undead bodies.

“But that skill isn’t something you can use that easily.”

[Summon the Dead] came with some pretty strict conditions.

One was that you had to have the dead person’s “head.” And the other was—

“[Summon the Dead] can only be used when you have a special contract with the afterlife. You can’t just call any soul and implant it into a body.”

No matter how corrupted the giant nebulas had become, there was no way trash like Cheon Inho could sign a contract with a giant nebula and the Underworld.

“Did you forget there isn’t an Underworld in this world?”

I looked at him with a stupid expression and asked back,

“What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t you destroy <Underworld> by driving the nebulas against each other?”

My mouth fell open.

Ye Hyeonwoo looked at me like I was pathetic and added,

“In the world as it is now, an ‘afterlife’ doesn’t exist.”

Ye Hyeonwoo walked up to me—step, step—and held out a tablet he pulled from his clothes.

“Thanks to you, the world ended up like this.”

On the tablet, CCTV footage from nearby played.

Countless evil spirits roaming over dead earth. From specters in the 8th grade species, to knight ghosts in the 5th grade species. The entire Korean Peninsula had become a paradise for evil-spirit species.

So this was what a world without an afterlife looked like.

What the hell had Cheon Inho wanted to do in this world, going as far as that?

“Why did I revive you?”

“Because you couldn’t clear the ‘final scenario’ on your own.”

At Ye Hyeonwoo’s words, a memory surfaced.

「“Ten Evils. Help me. I need your help.”」

Ten Evils.

So I hadn’t misheard. The people in front of me were the ‘Ten Evils’ of the ‘40th round.’

「Evil Kang Ilhun.」

「Fifth Evil Ye Hyeonwoo.」

「Eighth Evil Lee Dansu.」

「Ninth Evil Gyeong Sein.」

And.

「First Evil Cheon Inho.」

It was strange that those small-time villains had survived well enough to become the Ten Evils, and Cheon Inho making the decision to clear the final scenario by reviving even these people was bizarre.

I scrolled through the log messages to check what the final scenario even was.

In the main story, the 99th scenario was ‘Ark Destruction.’ Here, it was…

+

<Main Scenario #99 – Predetermined Epilogue>

Category: Main

Difficulty: ???

Clear Condition: Destroy the Ark guarded by the constellations within the time limit and reach the ‘Final Wall.’

Time Limit: 30 days

Reward: Final Wall

Failure: Destruction of the worldline.

+

I read the main scenario text again and again. Then I cursed under my breath.

Damn it.

[To clear this ‘time stratum,’ you must complete the ‘final scenario.’]

Destroy the Ark guarded by the constellations and reach the Final Wall?

Easy to say. Seriously, this was the 40th round’s final scenario?

This worldline didn’t have <Kim Dokja Company> or Yoo Joonghyuk.

Clinging to even a shred of hope, I asked again.

“Are there any constellations on the incarnations’ side? Like Uriel, or the Great Sage Equal to Heaven.”

“What a stupid thing to say. What constellation would ever be on the incarnations’ side?”

“And the ones who at least used to be on humanity’s side all died during the last ‘Final Dragon,’ didn’t they?”

Oh my god.

It was an utterly hopeless situation.

Ye Hyeonwoo said,

“But since you took down Poseidon and brought back ‘Yoo Joonghyuk’s head,’ we’ll have a chance too.”

Again with Yoo Joonghyuk’s head.

With a sigh, I shook my head.

“Yoo Joonghyuk’s head won’t help at all.”

“What nonsense? Didn’t you say that if we could just revive the Tyrant King—”

“Revival itself is impossible.”

I didn’t know whether I should tell them the truth.

These extras who could finally dream of the end of the world. Incarnations who, in the main story, never got any real page time.

Could I really tell them that Yoo Joonghyuk’s soul wasn’t here, that we couldn’t get the Tyrant King’s help, that this world’s destruction was already decided?

「And in that moment, a tiny spark popped inside Cheon Inho’s head.」

Wait.

「Is there really no way to bring Yoo Joonghyuk back?」

I stared at Yoo Joonghyuk’s head, sitting neatly on the table, then hurriedly looked up into empty air.

Like there was someone invisible up there.

Startled by what I did, Ye Hyeonwoo tensed and asked,

“What is it? An attack?”

“Do you have a body you can connect to Yoo Joonghyuk’s head right now?”

“There’s a body, but didn’t you just say revival is impossible?”

Right. If my thinking was correct, Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t be revived even if we used [Summon the Dead]. Yoo Joonghyuk’s soul in the 40th round had already left this worldline.

But.

「What if, in this ‘time stratum’ right now, there’s ‘one more’ Yoo Joonghyuk soul?」

I thought of the ‘40th round time stratum’ monitor that had gone completely dark.

What if that black screen didn’t mean Yoo Joonghyuk’s failure or death?

“[Summon the Dead]. Start it right now.”

So what if the Yoo Joonghyuk of the ‘41st round’ still hadn’t found a proper ‘vessel’ to possess?