A neatly preserved head. The moment I saw her clean face, treated with [Preservation], a sigh slipped out.

"Here you were, Ms. Kim Anna."

Originally, I didn’t really like the person called Anna Croft. Maybe it was because I, too, was one of Kim Dokja’s fragments, or maybe it was because, while writing the main story, I never really grew attached to her. Either way, she was Yoo Joonghyuk’s enemy.

But as this “side story” went on, I started to see her a little differently.

"Did you just say 'side story'?"

What am I thinking?

Anyway, the point is that I don’t hate Anna Croft that much anymore.

"Kim Anna?"

Yoo Joonghyuk’s expression hardened as he questioned it, and I answered with a smile.

"Ah, I’m late telling you. Besides you and me, there’s someone else who entered this 'time rift.'"

"Don’t tell me..."

"So, about that, I think we need to use [Summon the Dead]. If we wait any longer, this friend might really turn into some kind of catastrophe-class horror somewhere."

"Are you out of your mind? You brought that woman into the Horror Zone?"

As expected, Yoo Joonghyuk pushed back.

It made sense. He’d been stabbed in the back by Anna, tortured, dragged around as a slave—anyway, he’d been put through all sorts of vicious things.

But you know.

These days, I sometimes think this.

If he went through all that at the hands of someone like Kim Anna... then wasn’t it really that Yoo Joonghyuk was too naive, or too stupid?

"Are you sure you’re in your right mind? Is this really the time for us to be picky? You haven’t forgotten who our enemy is, have you?"

"......"

"We’re already taking help from the Ten Evils—what’s going to change if we bring one backstabbing prophet onto our side?"

A faint flicker of bewilderment passed through Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes.

"Anyway, even in the 41st round, if we want to see the end, we have to join hands with Anna."

"......"

"We need her help. With her, we can scout the road ahead even without a map of the inside of the Ark."

If we could use the prophet’s [Past Sight] and [Future Sight], the difficulty of the coming scenarios would become twice as easy. Of course, even if it got twice as easy, it would only raise the clear probability from 1% to 2%, but still, that was something.

Yoo Joonghyuk glared at me for a moment, then swept his gaze around the area with fierce eyes.

"So you’re saying that woman’s soul is somewhere around here."

"I think so."

Ms. Kim Anna wasn’t a fool, either. If she could use [Future Sight], there was a good chance she was postponing possession using some special method, like Yoo Joonghyuk.

"Are you going to take the prophet’s head with you?"

Logically, that was the right call.

To use [Summon the Dead], we needed thirty minutes, and the Blood Demon would wake up in about ten. And he’d come to this warehouse to turn me into a corpse soldier.

Even so, I insisted.

"No. We have to revive her here. If we hurry a little, we can do it within twenty minutes."

"The Blood Demon will be here soon. Even if we leave right now with the head, we’ll be late."

"Actually, we’re already late."

"What?"

I pointed at the entrance to the warehouse.

Since when had it been like that? The trap that Lee Hansu had disabled was reactivating, pouring out a bright light. And it was in a far stronger form than before.

A startled Lee Hansu let out a low groan.

"My god. It’s a Qimen Formation."

Qimen Formation. In the main story, it was a secret art used by the greatest sorcerer of Joseon. The Blood Demon must have laid down a fairly old-fashioned trap to guard the warehouse, since he was a martial artist.

"From the start, it was strange that the warehouse opened this easily."

"Damn it, don’t tell me."

"Did you think the Blood Demon would just hand over his treasures without a fuss?"

Even if the Blood Demon had lived all this time to atone to his younger sister, the history he lived was a history of evil.

To meet his younger sister again, he committed countless murders, piled up wrongdoing, and repeated plunder.

There was no way he would hand over the items he’d scraped together with desperate obsession, just because he’d been persuaded with words.

After studying the formation closely, Yoo Joonghyuk spoke.

"We can break through by force. But it’ll take twenty to thirty minutes to open. The formation’s rank is pretty high."

Then one of the Ten Evils stood up.

"If we all strike together, won’t we break it faster?"

"Everyone join in. We have to break it and get out right now."

"In a sealed space, even 'disappearing' is impossible—"

Watching the Ten Evils tremble with anxiety, I said in a cheerful voice.

"What are you all talking about? This is actually better. Until that opens, it means we’re safer. Everyone relax here and let’s start [Summon the Dead]. Mr. Ye Hyeonwoo, could you take out the prophet’s head over there?"

The Ten Evils turned to look at me like I was insane. Then their gazes swung in unison toward Yoo Joonghyuk. They looked like they were expecting him to swing his spear and cut my head off right then. When Yoo Joonghyuk actually gripped the shaft of the Yellow Heaven Moon Halberd, the Sage of the Horizon even swallowed hard.

But Yoo Joonghyuk simply planted the spear on the floor, folded his legs, and sat down.

"Revive Anna Croft."

A sigh came out of the Ten Evils.

In the warehouse, now even more silent, Yoo Joonghyuk’s voice rumbled and echoed.

"I won’t dispel the Qimen Formation. It’s better to conserve strength and deal with the ones who come down once the door opens."

With even Yoo Joonghyuk acting like that, the Ten Evils’ momentum faltered.

Right. It was the Tyrant King’s decision—who would dare refuse?

Ye Hyeonwoo, reluctantly, leaped into the air and came down holding Anna’s head.

"If we all die here, it’s because of you."

"Aren’t you all dead people anyway, except me?"

I took Anna’s head.

The head had been preserved so well it was almost shocking—well enough that there would be no problem performing [Summon the Dead] immediately.

"Hm, a body to connect it to... there is one?"

It seemed the Blood Demon also knew Anna Croft’s value; her flesh, too, had been preserved intact.

Maybe he’d been planning to turn me into a corpse soldier and use [Summon the Dead] on Anna.

"All right, it’s time to get up, Ms. Kim Anna."

A little later, a faint light rose from the full body of Anna Croft, her neck and torso connected.

Watching that scene, Yoo Joonghyuk muttered.

"Why do you call the prophet by that name?"

"Isn’t it friendly and nice?"

"It’s better to keep your distance from a prophet."

"Is that a lesson you learned through regression?"

"......"

"It looks like you believe people don’t change."

Yoo Joonghyuk’s core values were all formed in his “early regressions.” Principles about who to accept as a companion, and who must never be brought in.

In fact, even through more than a thousand regressions in Ways of Survival, Yoo Joonghyuk’s core circle of companions barely changed.

"But if you’re sure nothing ever changes, then your regression won’t mean anything, either."

Yoo Joonghyuk frowned.

"If you have time to talk nonsense, it’d be better to shave even one minute off the summoning time."

"Yes, sir. Fifteen minutes left."

"What are you going to do after the prophet wakes up?"

"Obviously, we escape together."

"By then, we’ll already be surrounded by the Blood Demon’s underlings. No matter how good the prophet’s abilities are, it’ll be hard to find a way out of a sealed room. That bastard’s [Future Sight] is a skill that works far better in open spaces."

I was a little surprised that Yoo Joonghyuk could say something that precise. Wasn’t he the one who got played by Ms. Kim Anna because he was an idiot?

Then maybe Yoo Joonghyuk really was just naive.

"You’re right. But the Blood Demon won’t make it down here on time. By now, Seoul Station will have turned into a battlefield."

The moment my words fell, a thud echoed through the air. A roar that rang out from above and below at the same time.

Kang Ilhun sprang up from his seat.

"This is..."

Right before coming here, Kang Ilhun, on my order, had spread a single “rumor.”

"Sophist of Evil... you expected this?"

Another thud shook the air. Something tearing, and a chilling sound of flesh being ripped, followed.

One by one, the Ten Evils rose and gripped their weapons.

A cold, ominous current seeped in from beyond the iron door.

Everyone here could feel it. A powerful, vast pressure that could be felt even through the Qimen Formation.

Clenching the shaft of the Yellow Heaven Moon Halberd, Yoo Joonghyuk growled.

"The Constellations are here."

The Blood Demon, waking from sleep, touched his face. His cheeks were wet. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d felt like this.

"Cheon-a."

Thirty minutes was short. A dream in an instant. A dream with its ending already decided. In that dream, instead of existing as the Blood Demon, he became Yeom Baekho of his childhood.

Yeom Baekho carrying out the first scenario. Yeom Baekho agonizing over whether to leave his younger sister behind.

Cheon Inho’s dumplings made him reenact that moment of “choice” once again.

"I’m sorry."

This time, he wanted to show he could make a different choice. Even if all of this was an illusion, he wanted to prove that he was a human being who could choose differently.

He wanted to say that the Ten Evils weren’t Ten Evils from the beginning. That Cheon Inho was wrong.

But what he actually said in the dream was, just as Cheon Inho expected, nothing more than a trite apology.

"I’m really sorry."

It was a story whose ending had already been set. No matter how he screamed, it was useless. The items he’d desperately gathered, the skills he’d trained—none of it worked in the dream. Inside it, he was nothing but a powerless child. A boy who had to kill his younger sister to survive.

"Aaaaargh!"

And so he repeated the tragedy once more.

In the predetermined ending, his younger sister looked up at him.

"Brother."

Was that really his younger sister’s voice?

Now, he couldn’t even remember her voice.

Wasn’t this a meticulous illusion that I created? Wasn’t this a vile self-hypnosis, a base delusion of his own, fallen into the Sophist of Evil’s sophistry?

"My dream... you make it come true for me instead."

That was the end of the dream.

Just as Cheon Inho said, he wasn’t forgiven, and maybe he would never be forgiven.

And all that remained for him was the cloying sweetness of dumplings lingering at the tip of his nose.

"You damn bastard."

The Blood Demon slowly rose. The promised thirty minutes had passed. Now it [N O V E L I G H T] was time to go kill that bastard.

But then—

Rumble.

There were intruders who attacked his Seoul Station.

Beyond the collapsed ceiling appeared a dazzling banquet of multicolored pressure.

[Constellation, 'Spokesperson of Justice and Wisdom' descends to the ground!]

A presence so overwhelming that the mere appearance message forced the corpse soldiers to their knees.

One of the Twelve Constellations of <Olympus>.

Athena, successor of Zeus, was there.

And that wasn’t all.

[Constellation, 'Omnipotent Sun' descends to the ground!]

[Constellation, 'Pure Moonlight Hunter' descends to the ground!]

[Constellation, 'God of Wine and Ecstasy' descends to the ground!]

Apollo, Artemis, and even Dionysus. Four of the Twelve Constellations of <Olympus> had descended.

With a voice heavy enough that no living creature could dare open its mouth, Athena spoke.

[We heard the regressor’s head is here.]

Grinding his teeth, the Blood Demon replied.

"Where did you hear such nonsense?"

He could roughly tell how the situation was unfolding. That damn Sophist had plotted something again.

[It didn’t seem like nonsense. We can clearly detect the Tyrant King’s aura here.]

"......"

[You haven’t forgotten your contract with us, have you?]

A brilliant radiance spread from Athena’s entire body. The light of justice that punishes all evildoers.

The Blood Demon’s expression darkened.

[Open the warehouse.]

With four of the Twelve Constellations here, even if it weren’t the Blood Demon but the leader of the Martial Alliance, he would have to open the door.

But instead of opening it, the Blood Demon stared up at the hole in the ceiling.

"Khah... hahahahah...!"

And he laughed madly.

Before Athena could even open her mouth, the Blood Demon asked in a voice soaked in insanity.

"Contract? You mean the contract where I collect the scraps you leave behind after you eat? Sure. If that kind of thing counts as a contract, then it’s a contract."

[.......]

"The ones who broke the contract first were you. Have you forgotten your promise not to enter my 'underground'?"

[This is an exceptional—]

"Exception. Then this time, I’ll treat you as an 'exception,' too."

[Foolish evildoer. If you keep wagging your tongue carelessly—]

A sinister current began to surge from the Blood Demon’s entire body.

He knew the power of myth-grade Constellations well. But he, too, hadn’t reached the “final scenario” on sheer luck alone.

"You damn Constellations."

Normally, he wouldn’t do this.

He knew this was a clever trap dug by that cursed Sophist of Evil.

Even so, he couldn’t suppress the emotion surging up inside him.

Maybe this recklessness was because he had met his dead younger sister.

"My younger sister’s dream was to become the Supreme One Beyond the World."

Having inherited that dream, what had he become now?

In the Blood Demon’s gaze as he slowly opened his eyes, a deep, pitch-black darkness gathered.

"Do you know why the world calls me the 'King of the Underground City'?"

Though he had never faced a massive nebula directly, the Blood Demon had still been building power to confront Constellations. By dismantling dying stars and studying them, he arrived at a single understanding.

That, under the night sky, you cannot defeat Constellations.

Understanding became his story.

[Giant Myth, 'Darkness That Eats Starlight' begins its story.]

Darkness spilled out from the Blood Demon like ink and, in an instant, filled the entire area. In the swelling darkness, the pressure the Constellations had been emitting began to rapidly weaken. A startled Athena shouted.

[What—]

And then, a little later.

The corpse soldiers who had bowed their heads before the stars began to rise, one by one, opening pale yellow eyes. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of eyes, in the dark, stared up at the stars.

"At the very least, in this underground city, the most dignified existence is—"

Beings thrown into scenarios as playthings of the stars, dying miserably. The ones who hated the stars more than anyone—dead who had returned beyond death.

At their head, the king of the dead, holding his sword, smiled and said.

"It isn’t the stars."